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If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell + +Author: James Lowell + +Release Date: August 28, 2004 [eBook #13310] +[Most recently updated: August 25, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Gene Smethers and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES LOWELL *** + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: The text contains non-English words using +diacritical marks not contained in the standard ASCII character set. +Characters accented by those marks, and the corresponding text +representations are as follows (where x represents the character being +accented). All diacritical marks in this text are above the character +being accented: + + breve (u-shaped symbol): [)x] + + + + +THE COMPLETE POETICAL +WORKS OF +JAMES RUSSELL +LOWELL + + +Cabinet Edition + + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY +THE RIVERSIDE PRESS, CAMBRIDGE + +M DCCCC II + + + +PUBLISHERS' NOTE + +Mr. Lowell, the year before he died, edited a definitive edition of his +works, known as the Riverside edition. Subsequently, his literary +executor, Mr. C.E. Norton, issued a final posthumous collection, and the +Cambridge edition followed, including all the poems in the Riverside +edition, and the poems edited by Mr. Norton. The present Cabinet edition +contains all the poems in the Cambridge edition. It is made from new +plates, and for the convenience of the student the longer poems have +their lines numbered, and indexes of titles and first lines are added. + +_Autumn, 1899_. + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + +EARLIER POEMS. + +THRENODIA +THE SIRENS +IRENÉ +SERENADE +WITH A PRESSED FLOWER +THE BEGGAR +MY LOVE +SUMMER STORM +LOVE +TO PERDITA, SINGING +THE MOON +REMEMBERED MUSIC +SONG. TO M.L. +ALLEGRA +THE FOUNTAIN +ODE +THE FATHERLAND +THE FORLORN +MIDNIGHT +A PRAYER +THE HERITAGE +THE ROSE: A BALLAD +SONG, 'VIOLET! SWEET VIOLET!' +ROSALINE +A REQUIEM +A PARABLE +SONG, 'O MOONLIGHT DEEP AND TENDER' + +SONNETS. + I. TO A.C.L. + II. 'WHAT WERE I, LOVE, IF I WERE STRIPPED OF THEE?' + III. 'I WOULD NOT HAVE THIS PERFECT LOVE OF OURS' + IV. 'FOR THIS TRUE NOBLENESS I SEEK IN VAIN' + V. TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS + VI. 'GREAT TRUTHS ARE PORTIONS OF THE SOUL OF MAN' + VII. 'I ASK NOT FOR THOSE THOUGHTS, THAT SUDDEN LEAP' + VIII. TO M.W., ON HER BIRTHDAY + IX. 'MY LOVE, I HAVE NO FEAR THAT THOU SHOULDST DIE' + X. 'I CANNOT THINK THAT THOU SHOULDST PASS AWAY' + XI. 'THERE NEVER YET WAS FLOWER FAIR IN VAIN' + XII. SUB PONDERE CRESCIT + XIII. 'BELOVED, IN THE NOISY CITY HERE' + XIV. ON READING WORDSWORTH'S SONNETS IN DEFENCE OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT + XV. THE SAME CONTINUED. + XVI. THE SAME CONTINUED. + XVII. THE SAME CONTINUED. + XVIII. THE SAME CONTINUED. + XIX. THE SAME CONCLUDED. + XX. TO M.O.S. + XXI. 'OUR LOVE IS NOT A FADING, EARTHLY FLOWER' + XXII. IN ABSENCE + XXIII. WENDELL PHILLIPS + XXIV. THE STREET + XXV. 'I GRIEVE NOT THAT RIPE KNOWLEDGE TAKES AWAY' + XXVI. TO J.R. GIDDINGS + XXVII. 'I THOUGHT OUR LOVE AT FULL, BUT I DID ERR' + L'ENVOI + +MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. + + A LEGEND OF BRITTANY + PROMETHEUS + THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS + THE TOKEN + AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR + RHOECUS + THE FALCON + TRIAL + A GLANCE BEHIMD THE CURTAIN + A CHIPPEWA LEGEND + STANZAS ON FREEDOM + COLUMBUS + AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT HAMBURG + THE SOWER + HUNGER AND COLD + THE LANDLORD + TO A PINE-TREE + SI DESCENDERO IN INFERNUM, ADES + TO THE PAST + TO THE FUTURE + HEBE + THE SEARCH + THE PRESENT CRISIS + AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE + THE GROWTH OF THE LEGEND + A CONTRAST + EXTREME UNCTION + THE OAK + AMBROSE + ABOVE AND BELOW + THE CAPTIVE + THE BIRCH-TREE + AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH + ON THE CAPTURE OF FUGITIVE SLAVES NEAR WASHINGTON + TO THE DANDELION + THE GHOST-SEER + STUDIES FOR TWO HEADS + ON A PORTRAIT OF DANTE BY GIOTTO + ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND'S CHILD + EURYDICE + SHE CAME AND WENT + THE CHANGELING + THE PIONEER + LONGING + ODE TO FRANCE. February, 1848 + ANTI-APIS + A PARABLE + ODE WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COCHITUATE + WATER INTO THE CITY OF BOSTON + LINES SUGGESTED BY THE GRAVES OF TWO ENGLISH SOLDIERS ON CONCORD + BATTLE-GROUND + TO---- + FREEDOM + BIBLIOLATRES + BEAVER BROOK + +MEMORIAL VERSES. + + KOSSUTH + TO LAMARTINE. 1848 + TO JOHN GORHAM PALFREY + TO W.L. GARRISON + ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES TURNER TORREY + ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. CHANNING + TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD + +THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL +LETTER FROM BOSTON. December, 1846 +A FABLE FOR CRITICS +THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT +FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM +AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE +THE BIGLOW PAPERS. + + FIRST SERIES. + + NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS + NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE + INTRODUCTION + NO. I. A LETTER FROM MR. EZEKIEL BIGLOW OF JAALAM TO THE HON. + JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM + NO. II. A LETTER FROM MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE HON. J.T. + BUCKINGHAM + NO. III. WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS + NO. IV. REMARKS OF INCREASE D. O'PHACE, ESQ. + NO. V. THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT + NO. VI. THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED + NO. VII. A LETTER FROM A CANDIDATE IN THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER + TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS PROPOSED BY Mr. HOSEA BIGLOW + NO. VIII. A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ. + NO. IX. A THIRD LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ. + + SECOND SERIES. + + THE COURTIN' + NO. I. BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN ESQ., TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW + NO. II. MASON AND SLIDELL: A YANKEE IDYLL + JONATHAN TO JOHN + NO. III. BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW + NO. IV. A MESSAGE OF JEFF DAVIS IN SECRET SESSION + NO. V. SPEECH OF HONOURABLE PRESERVED DOE IN SECRET CAUCUS + NO. VI. SUNTHIN' IN THE PASTORAL LINE + NO. VII. LATEST VIEWS OF MR. BIGLOW + NO. VIII. KETTELOPOTOMACHIA + NO. IX. SOME MEMORIALS OF THE LATE REVEREND H. WILBUR + NO. X. MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + NO. XI. MR. HOSEA BIGLOW'S SPEECH IN MARCH MEETING + +UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS. + + TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON + UNDER THE WILLOWS + DARA + THE FIRST SNOW-FALL + THE SINGING LEAVES + SEAWEED + THE FINDING OF THE LYRE + NEW-YEAR'S EVE, 1850 + FOR AN AUTOGRAPH + AL FRESCO + MASACCIO + WITHOUT AND WITHIN + GODMINSTER CHIMES + THE PARTING OF THE WAYS + ALADDIN + AN INVITATION. TO JOHN FRANCIS HEATH + THE NOMADES + SELF-STUDY + PICTURES FROM APPLEDORE + THE WIND-HARP + AUF WIEDERSEHEN + PALINODE + AFTER THE BURIAL + THE DEAD HOUSE + A MOOD + THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND + MAHMOOD THE IMAGE-BREAKER + INVITA MINERVA + THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH + YUSSOUF + THE DARKENED MIND + WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID + ALL-SAINTS + A WINTER-EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE + FANCY'S CASUISTRY + TO MR. JOHN BARTLETT + ODE TO HAPPINESS + VILLA FRANCA. 1859 + THE MINER + GOLD EGG: A DREAM-FANTASY + A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND + AN EMBER PICTURE + TO H.W.L. + THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY + IN THE TWILIGHT + THE FOOT-PATH + +POEMS OF THE WAR. + + THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD + TWO SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF BLONDEL + MEMORIAE POSITUM + ON BOARD THE '76 + ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION + L'ENVOI: TO THE MUSE + THE CATHEDRAL + THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. + ONE READ AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIGHT AT + CONCORD BRIDGE + UNDER THE OLD ELM + AN ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876 + +HEARTSEASE AND RUE. + + I. FRIENDSHIP. + + AGASSIZ + TO HOLMES, ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY + IN A COPY OF OMAR KHAYYÁM + ON RECEIVING A COPY OF MR. AUSTIN DOBSON'S 'OLD WORLD IDYLLS' + TO C.F. BRADFORD + BANKSIDE + JOSEPH WINLOCK + SONNET, TO FANNY ALEXANDER + JEFFRIES WYMAN + TO A FRIEND + WITH AN ARMCHAIR + E.G. DE R. + BON VOYAGE + TO WHITTIER, ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY + ON AN AUTUMN SKETCH OF H.G. WILD + TO MISS D.T. + WITH A COPY OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETTE + ON PLANTING A TREE AT INVERARAY + AN EPISTLE TO GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS + + II. SENTIMENT. + + ENDYMION + THE BLACK PREACHER + ARCADIA REDIVIVA + THE NEST + A YOUTHFUL EXPERIMENT IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS + BIRTHDAY VERSES + ESTRANGEMENT + PHŒBE + DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE + THE RECALL + ABSENCE + MONNA LISA + THE OPTIMIST + ON BURNING SOME OLD LETTERS + THE PROTEST + THE PETITION + FACT OR FANCY? + AGRO-DOLCE + THE BROKEN TRYST + CASA SIN ALMA + A CHRISTMAS CAROL + MY PORTRAIT GALLERY + PAOLO TO FRANCESCA + SONNET, SCOTTISH BORDER + SONNET, ON BEING ASKED FOR AN AUTOGRAPH IN VENICE + THE DANCING BEAR + THE MAPLE + NIGHTWATCHES + DEATH OF QUEEN MERCEDES + PRISON OF CERVANTES + TO A LADY PLAYING ON THE CITHERN + THE EYE'S TREASURY + PESSIMOPTIMISM + THE BRAKES + A FOREBODING + + III. FANCY + + UNDER THE OCTOBER MAPLES + LOVE'S CLOCK + ELEANOR MAKES MACAROONS + TELEPATHY + SCHERZO + 'FRANCISCUS DE VERULAMIO SIC COGITAVIT' + AUSPEX + THE PREGNANT COMMENT + THE LESSON + SCIENCE AND POETRY + A NEW YEAR'S GREETING + THE DISCOVERY + WITH A SEASHELL + THE SECRET + + IV. HUMOR AND SATIRE. + + FITZ ADAM'S STORY + THE ORIGIN OF DIDACTIC POETRY + THE FLYING DUTCHMAN + CREDIDIMUS JOVEM REGNARE + TEMPORA MUTANTUR + IN THE HALF-WAY HOUSE + AT THE BURNS CENTENNIAL + IN AN ALBUM + AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER, 1866 + A PARABLE + + V. EPIGRAMS. + + SAYINGS + INSCRIPTIONS + A MISCONCEPTION + THE BOSS + SUN-WORSHIP + CHANGED PERSPECTIVE + WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES LOST IN A WAGER + SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY + INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT + +LAST POEMS. + + HOW I CONSULTED THE ORACLE OF THE GOLDFISHES + TURNER'S OLD TÉMÉRAIRE + ST. MICHAEL THE WEIGHER + A VALENTINE + AN APRIL BIRTHDAY--AT SEA + LOVE AND THOUGHT + THE NOBLER LOVER + ON HEARING A SONATA OF BEETHOVEN'S PLAYED IN THE NEXT ROOM + VERSES, INTENDED TO GO WITH A POSSET DISH + ON A BUST OF GENERAL GRANT + +APPENDIX. + + I. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND SERIES OF BIGLOW PAPERS + II. GLOSSARY TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS + III. INDEX TO BIGLOW PAPERS + +INDEX OF FIRST LINES + +INDEX OF TITLES + + + +EARLIER POEMS + +THRENODIA + + Gone, gone from us! and shall we see +Those sibyl-leaves of destiny, +Those calm eyes, nevermore? +Those deep, dark eyes so warm and bright, +Wherein the fortunes of the man +Lay slumbering in prophetic light, +In characters a child might scan? +So bright, and gone forth utterly! +Oh stern word--Nevermore! + + The stars of those two gentle eyes 10 +Will shine no more on earth; +Quenched are the hopes that had their birth, +As we watched them slowly rise, +Stars of a mother's fate; +And she would read them o'er and o'er, +Pondering, as she sate, +Over their dear astrology, +Which she had conned and conned before, +Deeming she needs must read aright 19 +What was writ so passing bright. +And yet, alas! she knew not why. +Her voice would falter in its song, +And tears would slide from out her eye, +Silent, as they were doing wrong. +Oh stern word--Nevermore! + + The tongue that scarce had learned to claim +An entrance to a mother's heart +By that dear talisman, a mother's name, +Sleeps all forgetful of its art! +I loved to see the infant soul 30 +(How mighty in the weakness +Of its untutored meekness!) +Peep timidly from out its nest, +His lips, the while, +Fluttering with half-fledged words, +Or hushing to a smile +That more than words expressed, +When his glad mother on him stole +And snatched him to her breast! +Oh, thoughts were brooding in those eyes, 40 +That would have soared like strong-winged birds +Far, far into the skies, +Gladding the earth with song, +And gushing harmonies, +Had he but tarried with us long! +Oh stern word--Nevermore! + + How peacefully they rest, +Crossfolded there +Upon his little breast, +Those small, white hands that ne'er were still before, 50 +But ever sported with his mother's hair, +Or the plain cross that on her breast she wore! +Her heart no more will beat +To feel the touch of that soft palm, +That ever seemed a new surprise +Sending glad thoughts up to her eyes +To bless him with their holy calm,-- +Sweet thoughts! they made her eyes as sweet. +How quiet are the hands +That wove those pleasant bands! +But that they do not rise and sink 61 +With his calm breathing, I should think +That he were dropped asleep. +Alas! too deep, too deep +Is this his slumber! +Time scarce can number +The years ere he shall wake again. +Oh, may we see his eyelids open then! +Oh stern word--Nevermore! + + As the airy gossamere, 70 +Floating in the sunlight clear, +Where'er it toucheth clingeth tightly, +Bound glossy leal or stump unsightly, +So from his spirit wandered out +Tendrils spreading all about, +Knitting all things to its thrall +With a perfect love of all: +Oh stern word--Nevermore! + + He did but float a little way +Adown the stream of time, 80 +With dreamy eyes watching the ripples play, +Or hearkening their fairy chime; +His slender sail +Ne'er felt the gale; +He did but float a little way, +And, putting to the shore +While yet 't was early day, +Went calmly on his way, +To dwell with us no more! +No jarring did he feel, 90 +No grating on his shallop's keel; +A strip of silver sand +Mingled the waters with the land +Where he was seen no more: +Oh stern word--Nevermore! + + Full short his journey was; no dust +Of earth unto his sandals clave; +The weary weight that old men must, +He bore not to the grave. +He seemed a cherub who had lost his way 100 +And wandered hither, so his stay +With us was short, and 't was most meet +That he should be no delver in earth's clod, +Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet +To stand before his God: +Oh blest word--Evermore! + + + +THE SIRENS + + The sea is lonely, the sea is dreary, +The sea is restless and uneasy; +Thou seekest quiet, thou art weary, +Wandering thou knowest not whither;-- +Our little isle is green and breezy, +Come and rest thee! Oh come hither, +Come to this peaceful home of ours, + Where evermore +The low west-wind creeps panting up the shore 9 +To be at rest among the flowers; +Full of rest, the green moss lifts, + As the dark waves of the sea +Draw in and out of rocky rifts, + Calling solemnly to thee +With voices deep and hollow,-- + 'To the shore + Follow! Oh, follow! + To be at rest forevermore! + Forevermore!' + +Look how the gray old Ocean 20 +From the depth of his heart rejoices, +Heaving with a gentle motion, +When he hears our restful voices; +List how he sings in an undertone, +Chiming with our melody; +And all sweet sounds of earth and air +Melt into one low voice alone, +That murmurs over the weary sea, +And seems to sing from everywhere,-- +'Here mayst thou harbor peacefully, 30 +Here mayst thou rest from the aching oar; + Turn thy curved prow ashore, +And in our green isle rest forevermore! + Forevermore!' +And Echo half wakes in the wooded hill, + And, to her heart so calm and deep, + Murmurs over in her sleep, +Doubtfully pausing and murmuring still, + 'Evermore!' + Thus, on Life's weary sea, 40 + Heareth the marinere + Voices sweet, from far and near, + Ever singing low and clear, + Ever singing longingly. + + Is it not better here to be, +Than to be toiling late and soon? +In the dreary night to see +Nothing but the blood-red moon +Go up and down into the sea; +Or, in the loneliness of day, 50 + To see the still seals only +Solemnly lift their faces gray, + Making it yet more lonely? +Is it not better than to hear +Only the sliding of the wave +Beneath the plank, and feel so near +A cold and lonely grave, +A restless grave, where thou shalt lie +Even in death unquietly? +Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark, 60 + Lean over the side and see +The leaden eye of the sidelong shark + Upturnèd patiently, + Ever waiting there for thee: +Look down and see those shapeless forms, + Which ever keep their dreamless sleep + Far down within the gloomy deep, +And only stir themselves in storms, +Rising like islands from beneath, +And snorting through the angry spray, 70 +As the frail vessel perisheth +In the whirls of their unwieldy play; + Look down! Look down! +Upon the seaweed, slimy and dark, +That waves its arms so lank and brown, + Beckoning for thee! +Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark + Into the cold depth of the sea! + Look down! Look down! + Thus, on Life's lonely sea, 80 + Heareth the marinere + Voices sad, from far and near, + Ever singing full of fear, + Ever singing drearfully. + + Here all is pleasant as a dream; +The wind scarce shaketh down the dew, +The green grass floweth like a stream + Into the ocean's blue; + Listen! Oh, listen! +Here is a gush of many streams, + A song of many birds, 91 +And every wish and longing seems +Lulled to a numbered flow of words,-- + Listen! Oh, listen! +Here ever hum the golden bees +Underneath full-blossomed trees, +At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned;-- +So smooth the sand, the yellow sand, +That thy keel will not grate as it touches the land; +All around with a slumberous sound, 100 +The singing waves slide up the strand, +And there, where the smooth, wet pebbles be, +The waters gurgle longingly, +As If they fain would seek the shore, +To be at rest from the ceaseless roar, +To be at rest forevermore,-- + Forevermore. + Thus, on Life's gloomy sea, + Heareth the marinere + Voices sweet, from far and near, 110 + Ever singing in his ear, + 'Here is rest and peace for thee!' + + + +IRENÉ + + Hers is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear; +Calmly beneath her earnest face it lies, +Free without boldness, meek without a fear, +Quicker to look than speak its sympathies; +Far down into her large and patient eyes +I gaze, deep-drinking of the infinite, +As, in the mid-watch of a clear, still night, +I look into the fathomless blue skies. + + So circled lives she with Love's holy light, +That from the shade of self she walketh free; 10 +The garden of her soul still keepeth she +An Eden where the snake did never enter; +She hath a natural, wise sincerity, +A simple truthfulness, and these have lent her +A dignity as moveless as the centre; +So that no influence of our earth can stir +Her steadfast courage, nor can take away +The holy peacefulness, which night and day, +Unto her queenly soul doth minister. + + Most gentle is she; her large charity 20 +(An all unwitting, childlike gift in her) +Not freer is to give than meek to bear; +And, though herself not unacquaint with care, +Hath in her heart wide room for all that be,-- +Her heart that hath no secrets of its own, +But open is as eglantine full blown. +Cloudless forever is her brow serene, +Speaking calm hope and trust within her, whence +Welleth a noiseless spring of patience, +That keepeth all her life so fresh, so green 30 +And full of holiness, that every look, +The greatness of her woman's soul revealing, +Unto me bringeth blessing, and a feeling +As when I read in God's own holy book. + + A graciousness in giving that doth make +The small'st gift greatest, and a sense most meek +Of worthiness, that doth not fear to take +From others, but which always fears to speak +Its thanks in utterance, for the giver's sake;-- +The deep religion of a thankful heart, 40 +Which rests instinctively in Heaven's clear law +With a full peace, that never can depart +From its own steadfastness;--a holy awe +For holy things,--not those which men call holy, +But such as are revealèd to the eyes +Of a true woman's soul bent down and lowly +Before the face of daily mysteries;-- +A love that blossoms soon, but ripens slowly +To the full goldenness of fruitful prime, +Enduring with a firmness that defies 50 +All shallow tricks of circumstance and time, +By a sure insight knowing where to cling, +And where it clingeth never withering;-- +These are Irené's dowry, which no fate +Can shake from their serene, deep-builded state. + + In-seeing sympathy is hers, which chasteneth +No less than loveth, scorning to be bound +With fear of blame, and yet which ever hasteneth +To pour the balm of kind looks on the wound, +If they be wounds which such sweet teaching makes, 60 +Giving itself a pang for others' sakes; +No want of faith, that chills with sidelong eye, +Hath she; no jealousy, no Levite pride +That passeth by upon the other side; +For in her soul there never dwelt a lie. +Right from the hand of God her spirit came +Unstained, and she hath ne'er forgotten whence +It came, nor wandered far from thence, +But laboreth to keep her still the same, +Near to her place of birth, that she may not 70 +Soil her white raiment with an earthly spot. + + Yet sets she not her soul so steadily +Above, that she forgets her ties to earth, +But her whole thought would almost seem to be +How to make glad one lowly human hearth; +For with a gentle courage she doth strive +In thought and word and feeling so to live +As to make earth next heaven; and her heart +Herein doth show its most exceeding worth, +That, bearing in our frailty her just part, 80 +She hath not shrunk from evils of this life, +But hath gone calmly forth into the strife, +And all its sins and sorrows hath withstood +With lofty strength of patient womanhood: +For this I love her great soul more than all, +That, being bound, like us, with earthly thrall, +She walks so bright and heaven-like therein,-- +Too wise, too meek, too womanly, to sin. + + Like a lone star through riven storm-clouds seen +By sailors, tempest-tost upon the sea, 90 +Telling of rest and peaceful heavens nigh, +Unto my soul her star-like soul hath been, +Her sight as full of hope and calm to me;-- +For she unto herself hath builded high +A home serene, wherein to lay her head, +Earth's noblest thing, a Woman perfected. + + + +SERENADE + +From the close-shut windows gleams no spark, +The night is chilly, the night is dark, +The poplars shiver, the pine-trees moan, +My hair by the autumn breeze is blown, +Under thy window I sing alone, +Alone, alone, ah woe! alone! + +The darkness is pressing coldly around, +The windows shake with a lonely sound, +The stars are hid and the night is drear, +The heart of silence throbs in thine ear, +In thy chamber thou sittest alone, +Alone, alone, ah woe! alone! + +The world is happy, the world is wide. +Kind hearts are beating on every side; +Ah, why should we lie so coldly curled +Alone in the shell of this great world? +Why should we any more be alone? +Alone, alone, ah woe! alone! + +Oh, 'tis a bitter and dreary word, +The saddest by man's ear ever heard! +We each are young, we each have a heart, +Why stand we ever coldly apart? +Must we forever, then, be alone? +Alone, alone, ah woe! alone! + + + +WITH A PRESSED FLOWER + +This little blossom from afar +Hath come from other lands to thine; +For, once, its white and drooping star +Could see its shadow in the Rhine. + +Perchance some fair-haired German maid +Hath plucked one from the selfsame stalk, +And numbered over, half afraid, +Its petals in her evening walk. + +'He loves me, loves me not,' she cries; +'He loves me more than earth or heaven!' +And then glad tears have filled her eyes +To find the number was uneven. + +And thou must count its petals well, +Because it is a gift from me; +And the last one of all shall tell +Something I've often told to thee. + +But here at home, where we were born, +Thou wilt find blossoms just as true, +Down-bending every summer morn, +With freshness of New England dew. + +For Nature, ever kind to love, +Hath granted them the same sweet tongue, +Whether with German skies above, +Or here our granite rocks among. + + + +THE BEGGAR + +A beggar through the world am I, +From place to place I wander by. +Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me, +For Christ's sweet sake and charity! + +A little of thy steadfastness, +Bounded with leafy gracefulness, +Old oak, give me, +That the world's blasts may round me blow, +And I yield gently to and fro, +While my stout-hearted trunk below +And firm-set roots unshaken be. + +Some of thy stern, unyielding might, +Enduring still through day and night +Rude tempest-shock and withering blight, +That I may keep at bay +The changeful April sky of chance +And the strong tide of circumstance,-- +Give me, old granite gray. + +Some of thy pensiveness serene, +Some of thy never-dying green, +Put in this scrip of mine, +That griefs may fall like snowflakes light, +And deck me in a robe of white, +Ready to be an angel bright, +O sweetly mournful pine. + +A little of thy merriment, +Of thy sparkling, light content, +Give me, my cheerful brook, +That I may still be full of glee +And gladsomeness, where'er I be, +Though fickle fate hath prisoned me +In some neglected nook. + +Ye have been very kind and good +To me, since I've been in the wood; +Ye have gone nigh to fill my heart; +But good-by, kind friends, every one, +I've far to go ere set of sun; +Of all good things I would have part, +The day was high ere I could start, +And so my journey's scarce begun. + +Heaven help me! how could I forget +To beg of thee, dear violet! +Some of thy modesty, +That blossoms here as well, unseen, +As if before the world thou'dst been, +Oh, give, to strengthen me. + + + +MY LOVE + +Not as all other women are +Is she that to my soul is dear; +Her glorious fancies come from far, +Beneath the silver evening-star, +And yet her heart is ever near. + +Great feelings hath she of her own, +Which lesser souls may never know; +God giveth them to her alone, +And sweet they are as any tone +Wherewith the wind may choose to blow. + +Yet in herself she dwelleth not. +Although no home were half so fair; +No simplest duty is forgot, +Life hath no dim and lowly spot +That doth not in her sunshine share. + +She doeth little kindnesses, +Which most leave undone, or despise: +For naught that sets one heart at ease, +And giveth happiness or peace, +Is low-esteemèd in her eyes. + +She hath no scorn of common things, +And, though she seem of other birth, +Round us her heart intwines and clings, +And patiently she folds her wings +To tread the humble paths of earth. + +Blessing she is: God made her so, +And deeds of week-day holiness +Fall from her noiseless as the snow, +Nor hath she ever chanced to know +That aught were easier than to bless. + +She is most fair, and thereunto +Her life doth rightly harmonize; +Feeling or thought that was not true +Ne'er made less beautiful the blue +Unclouded heaven of her eyes. + +She is a woman: one in whom +The spring-time of her childish years +Hath never lost its fresh perfume, +Though knowing well that life hath room +For many blights and many tears. + +I love her with a love as still +As a broad river's peaceful might, +Which, by high tower and lowly mill, +Seems following its own wayward will, +And yet doth ever flow aright. + +And, on its full, deep breast serene, +Like quiet isles my duties lie; +It flows around them and between, +And makes them fresh and fair and green, +Sweet homes wherein to live and die. + + + +SUMMER STORM + + Untremulous in the river clear, +Toward the sky's image, hangs the imaged bridge; + So still the air that I can hear +The slender clarion of the unseen midge; + Out of the stillness, with a gathering creep, +Like rising wind in leaves, which now decreases, +Now lulls, now swells, and all the while increases, + The huddling trample of a drove of sheep +Tilts the loose planks, and then as gradually ceases + In dust on the other side; life's emblem deep, 10 +A confused noise between two silences, +Finding at last in dust precarious peace. +On the wide marsh the purple-blossomed grasses + Soak up the sunshine; sleeps the brimming tide, +Save when the wedge-shaped wake in silence passes + Of some slow water-rat, whose sinuous glide +Wavers the sedge's emerald shade from side to side; + +But up the west, like a rock-shivered surge, + Climbs a great cloud edged with sun-whitened spray; +Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o'er its verge, 20 + And falling still it seems, and yet it climbs alway. + + Suddenly all the sky is hid + As with the shutting of a lid, +One by one great drops are falling + Doubtful and slow, +Down the pane they are crookedly crawling, + And the wind breathes low; +Slowly the circles widen on the river, + Widen and mingle, one and all; +Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver, 30 + Struck by an icy rain-drop's fall. + +Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter, + The wind is gathering in the west; +The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter, + Then droop to a fitful rest; +Up from the stream with sluggish flap + Struggles the gull and floats away; +Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap,-- + We shall not see the sun go down to-day: +Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh, 40 + And tramples the grass with terrified feet, +The startled river turns leaden and harsh, + You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat. + + Look! look! that livid flash! +And instantly follows the rattling thunder, +As if some cloud-crag, split asunder, + Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash, +On the Earth, which crouches in silence under; + And now a solid gray wall of rain +Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile; 50 + For a breath's space I see the blue wood again, +And ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, + That seemed but now a league aloof, + Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof; +Against the windows the storm comes dashing, +Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, + The blue lightning flashes, + The rapid hail clashes, + The white waves are tumbling, + And, in one baffled roar, 60 + Like the toothless sea mumbling + A rock-bristled shore, + The thunder is rumbling + And crashing and crumbling,-- +Will silence return nevermore? + + Hush! Still as death, + The tempest holds his breath + As from a sudden will; +The rain stops short, but from the eaves +You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves, 70 + All is so bodingly still; + Again, now, now, again +Plashes the rain in heavy gouts, + The crinkled lightning + Seems ever brightening, + And loud and long + Again the thunder shouts + His battle-song,-- + One quivering flash, + One wildering crash, 80 + Followed by silence dead and dull, + + As if the cloud, let go, + Leapt bodily below +To whelm the earth in one mad overthrow. + And then a total lull. + + Gone, gone, so soon! + No more my half-dazed fancy there, + Can shape a giant In the air, + No more I see his streaming hair, + The writhing portent of his form;-- 90 + The pale and quiet moon + Makes her calm forehead bare, + And the last fragments of the storm, +Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, +Silent and few, are drifting over me. + + + +LOVE + +True Love is but a humble, low-born thing, +And hath its food served up in earthen ware; +It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, +Through the everydayness of this workday world, +Baring its tender feet to every flint, +Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray +From Beauty's law of plainness and content; +A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile +Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home; +Which, when our autumn cometh, as it must, +And life in the chill wind shivers bare and leafless, +Shall still be blest with Indian-summer youth +In bleak November, and, with thankful heart, +Smile on its ample stores of garnered fruit, +As full of sunshine to our aged eyes +As when it nursed the blossoms of our spring. +Such is true Love, which steals into the heart +With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn +That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark, +And hath its will through blissful gentleness, +Not like a rocket, which, with passionate glare, +Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night +Painfully quivering on the dazèd eyes; +A love that gives and takes, that seeth faults, +Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle points, +But loving-kindly ever looks them down +With the o'ercoming faith that still forgives; +A love that shall be new and fresh each hour, +As is the sunset's golden mystery, +Or the sweet coming of the evening-star, +Alike, and yet most unlike, every day, +And seeming ever best and fairest _now_; +A love that doth not kneel for what it seeks, +But faces Truth and Beauty as their peer, +Showing its worthiness of noble thoughts +By a clear sense of inward nobleness; +A love that in its object findeth not +All grace and beauty, and enough to sate +Its thirst of blessing, but, in all of good +Found there, sees but the Heaven-implanted types +Of good and beauty in the soul of man, +And traces, in the simplest heart that beats, +A family-likeness to its chosen one, +That claims of it the rights of brotherhood. +For love is blind but with the fleshly eye, +That so its inner sight may be more clear; +And outward shows of beauty only so +Are needful at the first, as is a hand +To guide and to uphold an infant's steps: +Fine natures need them not: their earnest look +Pierces the body's mask of thin disguise, +And beauty ever is to them revealed, +Behind the unshapeliest, meanest lump of clay, +With arms outstretched and eager face ablaze, +Yearning to be but understood and loved. + + + +TO PERDITA, SINGING + +Thy voice is like a fountain, + Leaping up in clear moonshine; +Silver, silver, ever mounting, + Ever sinking, + Without thinking, + To that brimful heart of thine. +Every sad and happy feeling, +Thou hast had in bygone years, +Through thy lips comes stealing, stealing, + Clear and low; 10 +All thy smiles and all thy tears + In thy voice awaken, + And sweetness, wove of joy and woe, + From their teaching it hath taken: +Feeling and music move together, +Like a swan and shadow ever +Floating on a sky-blue river +In a day of cloudless weather. + +It hath caught a touch of sadness, + Yet it is not sad; 20 +It hath tones of clearest gladness, + Yet it is not glad; +A dim, sweet twilight voice it is + Where to-day's accustomed blue +Is over-grayed with memories, + With starry feelings quivered through. + + Thy voice is like a fountain +Leaping up in sunshine bright, + And I never weary counting +Its clear droppings, lone and single, 30 +Or when in one full gush they mingle, + Shooting in melodious light. + + Thine is music such as yields + Feelings of old brooks and fields, + And, around this pent-up room, + Sheds a woodland, free perfume; + Oh, thus forever sing to me! + Oh, thus forever! +The green, bright grass of childhood bring to me, 39 + Flowing like an emerald river, + And the bright blue skies above! + Oh, sing them back, as fresh as ever, + Into the bosom of my love,-- + The sunshine and the merriment, + The unsought, evergreen content, + Of that never cold time, + The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went + Through and through the old time! + Peace sits within thine eyes, + With white hands crossed in joyful rest, 50 +While, through thy lips and face, arise +The melodies from out thy breast; + She sits and sings, + With folded wings + And white arms crost, + 'Weep not for bygone things, + They are not lost: +The beauty which the summer time +O'er thine opening spirit shed, +The forest oracles sublime 60 +That filled thy soul with joyous dread, +The scent of every smallest flower +That made thy heart sweet for an hour, +Yea, every holy influence, +Flowing to thee, thou knewest not whence, +In thine eyes to-day is seen, +Fresh as it hath ever been; +Promptings of Nature, beckonings sweet, +Whatever led thy childish feet, +Still will linger unawares 70 +The guiders of thy silver hairs; +Every look and every word +Which thou givest forth to-day, +Tell of the singing of the bird +Whose music stilled thy boyish play.' + +Thy voice is like a fountain, +Twinkling up in sharp starlight, +When the moon behind the mountain +Dims the low East with faintest white, + Ever darkling, 80 + Ever sparkling, + We know not if 'tis dark or bright; +But, when the great moon hath rolled round, + And, sudden-slow, its solemn power +Grows from behind its black, clear-edgèd bound, + No spot of dark the fountain keepeth, + But, swift as opening eyelids, leapeth + Into a waving silver flower. + + + +THE MOON + + My soul was like the sea. + Before the moon was made, +Moaning in vague immensity, + Of its own strength afraid, + Unresful and unstaid. +Through every rift it foamed in vain, + About its earthly prison, +Seeking some unknown thing in pain, +And sinking restless back again, + For yet no moon had risen: +Its only voice a vast dumb moan, + Of utterless anguish speaking, +It lay unhopefully alone, + And lived but in an aimless seeking. + +So was my soul; but when 'twas full + Of unrest to o'erloading, +A voice of something beautiful + Whispered a dim foreboding, +And yet so soft, so sweet, so low, +It had not more of joy than woe; + +And, as the sea doth oft lie still, + Making its waters meet, +As if by an unconscious will, + For the moon's silver feet, +So lay my soul within mine eyes +When thou, its guardian moon, didst rise. + +And now, howe'er its waves above + May toss and seem uneaseful, +One strong, eternal law of Love, + With guidance sure and peaceful, +As calm and natural as breath, +Moves its great deeps through life and death. + + + +REMEMBERED MUSIC + +A FRAGMENT + +Thick-rushing, like an ocean vast + Of bisons the far prairie shaking, +The notes crowd heavily and fast +As surfs, one plunging while the last + Draws seaward from its foamy breaking. + +Or in low murmurs they began, + Rising and rising momently, +As o'er a harp Æolian +A fitful breeze, until they ran + Up to a sudden ecstasy. + +And then, like minute-drops of rain + Ringing in water silvery, +They lingering dropped and dropped again, +Till it was almost like a pain + To listen when the next would be. + + + +SONG + +TO M.L. + +A lily thou wast when I saw thee first, + A lily-bud not opened quite, + That hourly grew more pure and white, +By morning, and noontide, and evening nursed: + In all of nature thou hadst thy share; + Thou wast waited on + By the wind and sun; + The rain and the dew for thee took care; + It seemed thou never couldst be more fair. + +A lily thou wast when I saw thee first, + A lily-bud; but oh, how strange, + How full of wonder was the change, +When, ripe with all sweetness, thy full bloom burst! + How did the tears to my glad eyes start, + When the woman-flower + Reached its blossoming hour, +And I saw the warm deeps of thy golden heart! + +Glad death may pluck thee, but never before + The gold dust of thy bloom divine + Hath dropped from thy heart into mine, +To quicken its faint germs of heavenly lore; +For no breeze comes nigh thee but carries away + Some impulses bright + Of fragrance and light, +Which fall upon souls that are lone and astray, +To plant fruitful hopes of the flower of day. + + + +ALLEGRA + +I would more natures were like thine, + That never casts a glance before, +Thou Hebe, who thy heart's bright wine + So lavishly to all dost pour, +That we who drink forget to pine, + And can but dream of bliss in store. + +Thou canst not see a shade in life; + With sunward instinct thou dost rise, +And, leaving clouds below at strife, + Gazest undazzled at the skies, +With all their blazing splendors rife, + A songful lark with eagle's eyes. + +Thou wast some foundling whom the Hours + Nursed, laughing, with the milk of Mirth; +Some influence more gay than ours + Hath ruled thy nature from its birth, +As if thy natal stars were flowers + That shook their seeds round thee on earth. + +And thou, to lull thine infant rest, + Wast cradled like an Indian child; +All pleasant winds from south and west + With lullabies thine ears beguiled, +Rocking thee in thine oriole's nest, + Till Nature looked at thee and smiled. + +Thine every fancy seems to borrow + A sunlight from thy childish years, +Making a golden cloud of sorrow, + A hope-lit rainbow out of tears,-- +Thy heart is certain of to-morrow, + Though 'yond to-day it never peers. + +I would more natures were like thine, + So innocently wild and free, +Whose sad thoughts, even, leap and shine, + Like sunny wavelets in the sea, +Making us mindless of the brine, + In gazing on the brilliancy. + + + +THE FOUNTAIN + +Into the sunshine, + Full of the light, +Leaping and flashing + From morn till night; + +Into the moonlight, + Whiter than snow, +Waving so flower-like + When the winds blow; + +Into the starlight + Rushing in spray, +Happy at midnight, + Happy by day; + +Ever in motion, + Blithesome and cheery, +Still climbing heavenward, + Never aweary; + +Glad of all weathers, + Still seeming best, +Upward or downward. + Motion thy rest; + +Full of a nature + Nothing can tame, +Changed every moment, + Ever the same; + +Ceaseless aspiring, + Ceaseless content, +Darkness or sunshine + Thy element; + +Glorious fountain. + Let my heart be +Fresh, changeful, constant, + Upward, like thee! + + + +ODE + +I + +In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder, + The Poet's song with blood-warm truth was rife; +He saw the mysteries which circle under + The outward shell and skin of daily life. +Nothing to him were fleeting time and fashion, + His soul was led by the eternal law; +There was in him no hope of fame, no passion, + But with calm, godlike eyes he only saw. +He did not sigh o'er heroes dead and buried, + Chief-mourner at the Golden Age's hearse, 10 +Nor deem that souls whom Charon grim had ferried + Alone were fitting themes of epic verse: +He could believe the promise of to-morrow, + And feel the wondrous meaning of to-day; +He had a deeper faith in holy sorrow + Than the world's seeming loss could take away. +To know the heart of all things was his duty, + All things did sing to him to make him wise, +And, with a sorrowful and conquering beauty, + The soul of all looked grandly from his eyes. 20 +He gazed on all within him and without him, + He watched the flowing of Time's steady tide, +And shapes of glory floated all about him + And whispered to him, and he prophesied. +Than all men he more fearless was and freer, + And all his brethren cried with one accord,-- +'Behold the holy man! Behold the Seer! + Him who hath spoken with the unseen Lord!' +He to his heart with large embrace had taken + The universal sorrow of mankind, 30 +And, from that root, a shelter never shaken, + The tree of wisdom grew with sturdy rind. +He could interpret well the wondrous voices + Which to the calm and silent spirit come; +He knew that the One Soul no more rejoices + In the star's anthem than the insect's hum. +He in his heart was ever meek and humble. + And yet with kingly pomp his numbers ran, +As he foresaw how all things false should crumble + Before the free, uplifted soul of man; 40 +And, when he was made full to overflowing + With all the loveliness of heaven and earth, +Out rushed his song, like molten iron glowing, + To show God sitting by the humblest hearth. +With calmest courage he was ever ready + To teach that action was the truth of thought, +And, with strong arm and purpose firm and steady, + An anchor for the drifting world he wrought. +So did he make the meanest man partaker + Of all his brother-gods unto him gave; 50 +All souls did reverence him and name him Maker, + And when he died heaped temples on his grave. +And still his deathless words of light are swimming + Serene throughout the great deep infinite +Of human soul, unwaning and undimming, + To cheer and guide the mariner at night. + + +II + +But now the Poet is an empty rhymer + Who lies with idle elbow on the grass, +And fits his singing, like a cunning timer, + To all men's prides and fancies as they pass. 60 +Not his the song, which, in its metre holy, + Chimes with the music of the eternal stars, +Humbling the tyrant, lifting up the lowly, + And sending sun through the soul's prison-bars. +Maker no more,--oh no! unmaker rather, + For he unmakes who doth not all put forth +The power given freely by our loving Father + To show the body's dross, the spirit's worth. +Awake! great spirit of the ages olden! + Shiver the mists that hide thy starry lyre, 70 +And let man's soul be yet again beholden + To thee for wings to soar to her desire. +Oh, prophesy no more to-morrow's splendor, + Be no more shamefaced to speak out for Truth, +Lay on her altar all the gushings tender, + The hope, the fire, the loving faith of youth! +Oh, prophesy no more the Maker's coming, + Say not his onward footsteps thou canst hear +In the dim void, like to the awful humming + Of the great wings of some new-lighted sphere! 80 +Oh, prophesy no more, but be the Poet! + This longing was but granted unto thee +That, when all beauty thou couldst feel and know it, + That beauty in its highest thou shouldst be. +O thou who moanest tost with sealike longings, + Who dimly hearest voices call on thee, +Whose soul is overfilled with mighty throngings + Of love, and fear, and glorious agony. +Thou of the toil-strung hands and iron sinews + And soul by Mother Earth with freedom fed, 90 +In whom the hero-spirit yet continues, + The old free nature is not chained or dead, +Arouse! let thy soul break in music-thunder, + Let loose the ocean that is in thee pent, +Pour forth thy hope, thy fear, thy love, thy wonder, + And tell the age what all its signs have meant. +Where'er thy wildered crowd of brethren jostles, + Where'er there lingers but a shadow of wrong, +There still is need of martyrs and apostles, + There still are texts for never-dying song: 100 +From age to age man's still aspiring spirit + Finds wider scope and sees with clearer eyes, +And thou in larger measure dost inherit + What made thy great forerunners free and wise. +Sit thou enthronèd where the Poet's mountain + Above the thunder lifts its silent peak, +And roll thy songs down like a gathering fountain, + They all may drink and find the rest they seek. +Sing! there shall silence grow in earth and heaven, + A silence of deep awe and wondering; 110 +For, listening gladly, bend the angels, even, + To hear a mortal like an angel sing. + + +III + +Among the toil-worn poor my soul is seeking + For who shall bring the Maker's name to light, +To be the voice of that almighty speaking + Which every age demands to do it right. +Proprieties our silken bards environ; + He who would be the tongue of this wide land +Must string his harp with chords of sturdy iron + And strike it with a toil-imbrownèd hand; 120 +One who hath dwelt with Nature well attended, + Who hath learnt wisdom from her mystic books, +Whose soul with all her countless lives hath blended, + So that all beauty awes us in his looks: +Who not with body's waste his soul hath pampered, + Who as the clear northwestern wind is free, +Who walks with Form's observances unhampered, + And follows the One Will obediently; +Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy summit, + Control a lovely prospect every way; 130 +Who doth not sound God's sea with earthly plummet, + And find a bottom still of worthless clay; +Who heeds not how the lower gusts are working, + Knowing that one sure wind blows on above, +And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurking, + One God-built shrine of reverence and love; +Who sees all stars that wheel their shining marches + Around the centre fixed of Destiny, +Where the encircling soul serene o'erarches + The moving globe of being like a sky; 140 +Who feels that God and Heaven's great deeps are nearer + Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh, +Who doth not hold his soul's own freedom dearer + Than that of all his brethren, low or high; +Who to the Right can feel himself the truer + For being gently patient with the wrong, +Who sees a brother in the evildoer, + And finds in Love the heart's-blood of his song;-- +This, this is he for whom the world is waiting + To sing the beatings of its mighty heart, 150 +Too long hath it been patient with the grating + Of scrannel-pipes, and heard it misnamed Art. +To him the smiling soul of man shall listen, + Laying awhile its crown of thorns aside, +And once again in every eye shall glisten + The glory of a nature satisfied. +His verse shall have a great commanding motion, + Heaving and swelling with a melody +Learnt of the sky, the river, and the ocean, + And all the pure, majestic things that be. 160 +Awake, then, thou! we pine for thy great presence + To make us feel the soul once more sublime, +We are of far too infinite an essence + To rest contented with the lies of Time. +Speak out! and lo! a hush of deepest wonder + Shall sink o'er all this many-voicèd scene, +As when a sudden burst of rattling thunder + Shatters the blueness of a sky serene. + + + +THE FATHERLAND + +Where is the true man's fatherland? + Is it where he by chance is born? + Doth not the yearning spirit scorn +In such scant borders to be spanned? +Oh yes! his fatherland must be +As the blue heaven wide and free! + +Is it alone where freedom is, + Where God is God and man is man? + Doth he not claim a broader span +For the soul's love of home than this? +Oh yes! his fatherland must be +As the blue heaven wide and free! + +Where'er a human heart doth wear + Joy's myrtle-wreath or sorrow's gyves, + Where'er a human spirit strives +After a life more true and fair, +There is the true man's birthplace grand, +His is a world-wide fatherland! + +Where'er a single slave doth pine, + Where'er one man may help another,-- + Thank God for such a birthright, brother,-- +That spot of earth is thine and mine! +There is the true man's birthplace grand, +His is a world-wide fatherland! + + + +THE FORLORN + +The night is dark, the stinging sleet, + Swept by the bitter gusts of air, +Drives whistling down the lonely street, + And glazes on the pavement bare. + +The street-lamps flare and struggle dim + Through the gray sleet-clouds as they pass, +Or, governed by a boisterous whim, + Drop down and rustle on the glass. + +One poor, heart-broken, outcast girl + Faces the east-wind's searching flaws, +And, as about her heart they whirl, + Her tattered cloak more tightly draws. + +The flat brick walls look cold and bleak, + Her bare feet to the sidewalk freeze; +Yet dares she not a shelter seek, + Though faint with hunger and disease. + +The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare, + And, piercing through her garments thin, +Beats on her shrunken breast, and there + Makes colder the cold heart within. + +She lingers where a ruddy glow + Streams outward through an open shutter, +Adding more bitterness to woe, + More loneliness to desertion utter. + +One half the cold she had not felt + Until she saw this gush of light +Spread warmly forth, and seem to melt + Its slow way through the deadening night. + +She hears a woman's voice within, + Singing sweet words her childhood knew, +And years of misery and sin + Furl off, and leave her heaven blue. + +Her freezing heart, like one who sinks + Outwearied in the drifting snow. +Drowses to deadly sleep and thinks + No longer of its hopeless woe; + +Old fields, and clear blue summer days, + Old meadows, green with grass, and trees +That shimmer through the trembling haze + And whiten in the western breeze. + +Old faces, all the friendly past + Rises within her heart again, +And sunshine from her childhood cast + Makes summer of the icy rain. + +Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow, + From man's humanity apart, +She hears old footsteps wandering slow + Through the lone chambers of the heart. + +Outside the porch before the door, + Her cheek upon the cold, hard stone, +She lies, no longer foul and poor, + No longer dreary and alone. + +Next morning something heavily + Against the opening door did weigh, +And there, from sin and sorrow free, + A woman on the threshold lay. + +A smile upon the wan lips told + That she had found a calm release, +And that, from out the want and cold, + The song had borne her soul in peace. + +For, whom the heart of man shuts out, + Sometimes the heart of God takes in, +And fences them all round about + With silence mid the world's loud din; + +And one of his great charities + Is Music, and it doth not scorn +To close the lids upon the eyes + Of the polluted and forlorn; + +Far was she from her childhood's home, + Farther in guilt had wandered thence, +Yet thither it had bid her come + To die in maiden innocence. + + + +MIDNIGHT + +The moon shines white and silent + On the mist, which, like a tide +Of some enchanted ocean, + O'er the wide marsh doth glide, +Spreading its ghost-like billows + Silently far and wide. + +A vague and starry magic + Makes all things mysteries, +And lures the earth's dumb spirit + Up to the longing skies: +I seem to hear dim whispers, + And tremulous replies. + +The fireflies o'er the meadow + In pulses come and go; +The elm-trees' heavy shadow + Weighs on the grass below; +And faintly from the distance + The dreaming cock doth crow. + +All things look strange and mystic, + The very bushes swell +And take wild shapes and motions, + As if beneath a spell; +They seem not the same lilacs + From childhood known so well. + +The snow of deepest silence + O'er everything doth fall, +So beautiful and quiet, + And yet so like a pall; +As if all life were ended, + And rest were come to all. + +O wild and wondrous midnight, + There is a might in thee +To make the charmèd body + Almost like spirit be, +And give it some faint glimpses + Of immortality! + + + +A PRAYER + +God! do not let my loved one die, + But rather wait until the time +That I am grown in purity + Enough to enter thy pure clime, +Then take me, I will gladly go, +So that my love remain below! + +Oh, let her stay! She is by birth + What I through death must learn to be; +We need her more on our poor earth + Than thou canst need in heaven with thee: +She hath her wings already, I +Must burst this earth-shell ere I fly. + +Then, God, take me! We shall be near, + More near than ever, each to each: +Her angel ears will find more clear + My heavenly than my earthly speech; +And still, as I draw nigh to thee, +Her soul and mine shall closer be. + + + +THE HERITAGE + +The rich man's son inherits lands, + And piles of brick and stone, and gold, +And he inherits soft white hands, + And tender flesh that fears the cold, + Nor dares to wear a garment old; +A heritage, it seems to me, +One scarce would wish to hold in fee. + +The rich man's son inherits cares; + The bank may break, the factory burn, +A breath may burst his bubble shares, + And soft white hands could hardly earn + A living that would serve his turn; +A heritage, it seems to me, +One scarce would wish to hold in fee. + +The rich man's son inherits wants, + His stomach craves for dainty fare; +With sated heart, he hears the pants + Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare, + And wearies in his easy-chair; +A heritage, it seems to me, +One scarce would wish to hold in fee. + +What doth the poor man's son inherit? + Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, +A hardy frame, a hardier spirit; + King of two hands, he does his part + In every useful toil and art; +A heritage, it seems to me, +A king might wish to hold in fee. + +What doth the poor man's son inherit? + Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things, +A rank adjudged by toil-won merit, + Content that from employment springs, + A heart that in his labor sings; +A heritage, it seems to me, +A king might wish to hold in fee. + +What doth the poor man's son inherit? + A patience learned of being poor, +Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it, + A fellow-feeling that is sure + To make the outcast bless his door; +A heritage, it seems to me, +A king might wish to hold in fee. + +O rich man's son! there is a toil + That with all others level stands: +Large charity doth never soil, + But only whiten, soft white hands: + This is the best crop from thy lands, +A heritage, it seems to me, +Worth being rich to hold in fee. + +O poor man's son! scorn not thy state; + There is worse weariness than thine, +In merely being rich and great; + Toil only gives the soul to shine, + And make rest fragrant and benign; +A heritage, it seems to me, +Worth being poor to hold in fee. + +Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, + Are equal in the earth at last; +Both, children of the same dear God, + Prove title to your heirship vast + By record of a well-filled past; +A heritage, it seems to me, +Well worth a life to hold in fee. + + + +THE ROSE: A BALLAD + + +I + +In his tower sat the poet + Gazing on the roaring sea, +'Take this rose,' he sighed, 'and throw it + Where there's none that loveth me. +On the rock the billow bursteth + And sinks back into the seas, +But in vain my spirit thirsteth + So to burst and be at ease. +Take, O sea! the tender blossom + That hath lain against my breast; +On thy black and angry bosom + It will find a surer rest. +Life is vain, and love is hollow, + Ugly death stands there behind, +Hate and scorn and hunger follow + Him that toileth for his kind.' +Forth into the night he hurled it, + And with bitter smile did mark +How the surly tempest whirled it + Swift into the hungry dark. +Foam and spray drive back to leeward, + And the gale, with dreary moan, +Drifts the helpless blossom seaward, + Through the breakers all alone. + + +II + +Stands a maiden, on the morrow, + Musing by the wave-beat strand, +Half in hope and half in sorrow, + Tracing words upon the sand: +'Shall I ever then behold him + Who hath been my life so long, +Ever to this sick heart told him, + Be the spirit of his song? +Touch not, sea, the blessed letters + I have traced upon thy shore, +Spare his name whose spirit fetters + Mine with love forevermore!' +Swells the tide and overflows it, + But, with omen pure and meet, +Brings a little rose, and throws it + Humbly at the maiden's feet. +Full of bliss she takes the token, + And, upon her snowy breast, +Soothes the ruffled petals broken + With the ocean's fierce unrest. +'Love is thine, O heart! and surely + Peace shall also be thine own, +For the heart that trusteth purely + Never long can pine alone.' + + +III + +In his tower sits the poet, + Blisses new and strange to him +Fill his heart and overflow it + With a wonder sweet and dim. +Up the beach the ocean slideth + With a whisper of delight, +And the moon in silence glideth + Through the peaceful blue of night. +Rippling o'er the poet's shoulder + Flows a maiden's golden hair, +Maiden lips, with love grown bolder, + Kiss his moon-lit forehead bare. +'Life is joy, and love is power, + Death all fetters doth unbind, +Strength and wisdom only flower + When we toil for all our kind. +Hope is truth,--the future giveth + More than present takes away, +And the soul forever liveth + Nearer God from day to day.' +Not a word the maiden uttered, + Fullest hearts are slow to speak, +But a withered rose-leaf fluttered + Down upon the poet's cheek. + + + +SONG + + Violet! sweet violet! + Thine eyes are full of tears; + Are they wet + Even yet +With the thought of other years? +Or with gladness are they full, +For the night so beautiful, +And longing for those far-off spheres? + + Loved one of my youth thou wast, + Of my merry youth, + And I see, + Tearfully, +All the fair and sunny past, +All its openness and truth, +Ever fresh and green in thee +As the moss is in the sea. + + Thy little heart, that hath with love + Grown colored like the sky above, + On which thou lookest ever,-- + Can it know + All the woe +Of hope for what returneth never, +All the sorrow and the longing +To these hearts of ours belonging? + + Out on it! no foolish pining + For the sky + Dims thine eye, +Or for the stars so calmly shining; +Like thee let this soul of mine +Take hue from that wherefor I long, +Self-stayed and high, serene and strong, +Not satisfied with hoping--but divine. + + Violet! dear violet! + Thy blue eyes are only wet +With joy and love of Him who sent thee, +And for the fulfilling sense +Of that glad obedience +Which made thee all that Nature meant thee! + + + +ROSALINE + +Thou look'dst on me all yesternight, +Thine eyes were blue, thy hair was bright +As when we murmured our troth-plight +Beneath the thick stars, Rosaline! +Thy hair was braided on thy head, +As on the day we two were wed, +Mine eyes scarce knew if thou wert dead, +But my shrunk heart knew, Rosaline! + +The death-watch ticked behind the wall, +The blackness rustled like a pall, 10 +The moaning wind did rise and fall +Among the bleak pines, Rosaline! +My heart beat thickly in mine ears: +The lids may shut out fleshly fears, +But still the spirit sees and hears. +Its eyes are lidless, Rosaline! + +A wildness rushing suddenly, +A knowing some ill shape is nigh, +A wish for death, a fear to die, +Is not this vengeance, Rosaline? 20 +A loneliness that is not lone, +A love quite withered up and gone, +A strong soul ousted from its throne, +What wouldst thou further, Rosaline? + +'Tis drear such moonless nights as these, +Strange sounds are out upon the breeze, +And the leaves shiver in the trees, +And then thou comest, Rosaline! +I seem to hear the mourners go, +With long black garments trailing slow, 30 +And plumes anodding to and fro, +As once I heard them, Rosaline! + +Thy shroud is all of snowy white, +And, in the middle of the night, +Thou standest moveless and upright, +Gazing upon me, Rosaline! +There is no sorrow in thine eyes, +But evermore that meek surprise,-- +O God! thy gentle spirit tries +To deem me guiltless, Rosaline! 40 + +Above thy grave the robin sings, +And swarms of bright and happy things +Flit all about with sunlit wings, +But I am cheerless, Rosaline! +The violets in the hillock toss, +The gravestone is o'ergrown with moss; +For nature feels not any loss, +But I am cheerless, Rosaline! + +I did not know when thou wast dead; +A blackbird whistling overhead 50 +Thrilled through my brain; I would have fled, +But dared not leave thee, Rosaline! +The sun rolled down, and very soon, +Like a great fire, the awful moon +Rose, stained with blood, and then a swoon +Crept chilly o'er me, Rosaline! + +The stars came out; and, one by one, +Each angel from his silver throne +Looked down and saw what I had done: +I dared not hide me, Rosaline! 60 +I crouched; I feared thy corpse would cry +Against me to God's silent sky, +I thought I saw the blue lips try +To utter something, Rosaline! + +I waited with a maddened grin +To hear that voice all icy thin +Slide forth and tell my deadly sin +To hell and heaven, Rosaline! +But no voice came, and then it seemed, +That, if the very corpse had screamed, 70 +The sound like sunshine glad had streamed +Through that dark stillness, Rosaline! + +And then, amid the silent night, +I screamed with horrible delight, +And in my brain an awful light +Did seem to crackle, Rosaline! +It is my curse! sweet memories fall +From me like snow, and only all +Of that one night, like cold worms, crawl +My doomed heart over, Rosaline! 80 + +Why wilt thou haunt me with thine eyes, +Wherein such blessed memories, +Such pitying forgiveness lies, +Than hate more bitter, Rosaline! +Woe's me! I know that love so high +As thine, true soul, could never die, +And with mean clay in churchyard lie,-- +Would it might be so, Rosaline! + + + +A REQUIEM + +Ay, pale and silent maiden, + Cold as thou liest there, +Thine was the sunniest nature + That ever drew the air; +The wildest and most wayward, + And yet so gently kind, +Thou seemedst but to body + A breath of summer wind. + +Into the eternal shadow + That girds our life around, +Into the infinite silence + Wherewith Death's shore is bound, +Thou hast gone forth, beloved! + And I were mean to weep, +That thou hast left Life's shallows + And dost possess the Deep. + +Thou liest low and silent, + Thy heart is cold and still. +Thine eyes are shut forever, + And Death hath had his will; +He loved and would have taken; + I loved and would have kept. +We strove,--and he was stronger, + And I have never wept. + +Let him possess thy body, + Thy soul is still with me, +More sunny and more gladsome + Than it was wont to be: +Thy body was a fetter + That bound me to the flesh, +Thank God that it is broken, + And now I live afresh! + +Now I can see thee clearly; + The dusky cloud of clay, +That hid thy starry spirit, + Is rent and blown away: +To earth I give thy body, + Thy spirit to the sky, +I saw its bright wings growing, + And knew that thou must fly. + +Now I can love thee truly, + For nothing comes between +The senses and the spirit, + The seen and the unseen; +Lifts the eternal shadow, + The silence bursts apart, +And the soul's boundless future + Is present in my heart. + + + +A PARABLE + +Worn and footsore was the Prophet, + When he gained the holy hill; +'God has left the earth,' he murmured, +'Here his presence lingers still. + +'God of all the olden prophets, + Wilt thou speak with men no more? +Have I not as truly served thee + As thy chosen ones of yore? + +'Hear me, guider of my fathers, + Lo! a humble heart is mine; +By thy mercy I beseech thee + Grant thy servant but a sign!' + +Bowing then his head, he listened + For an answer to his prayer; +No loud burst of thunder followed, + Not a murmur stirred the air: + +But the tuft of moss before him + Opened while he waited yet, +And, from out the rock's hard bosom, + Sprang a tender violet. + +'God! I thank thee,' said the Prophet; + 'Hard of heart and blind was I, +Looking to the holy mountain + For the gift of prophecy. + +'Still thou speakest with thy children + Freely as in eld sublime; +Humbleness, and love, and patience, + Still give empire over time. + +'Had I trusted in my nature, + And had faith in lowly things, +Thou thyself wouldst then have sought me. + And set free my spirit's wings. + +'But I looked for signs and wonders, + That o'er men should give me sway; +Thirsting to be more than mortal, + I was even less than clay. + +'Ere I entered on my journey, + As I girt my loins to start, +Ran to me my little daughter, + The beloved of my heart; + +'In her hand she held a flower, + Like to this as like may be, +Which, beside my very threshold, + She had plucked and brought to me.' + + + +SONG + +O moonlight deep and tender, + A year and more agone, +Your mist of golden splendor + Round my betrothal shone! + +O elm-leaves dark and dewy, + The very same ye seem, +The low wind trembles through ye, + Ye murmur in my dream! + +O river, dim with distance, + Flow thus forever by, +A part of my existence + Within your heart doth lie! + +O stars, ye saw our meeting, + Two beings and one soul, +Two hearts so madly beating + To mingle and be whole! + +O happy night, deliver + Her kisses back to me, +Or keep them all, and give her + A blisslul dream of me! + + + + +SONNETS + + +I + +TO A.C.L. + +Through suffering and sorrow thou hast passed +To show us what a woman true may be: +They have not taken sympathy from thee, +Nor made thee any other than thou wast, +Save as some tree, which, in a sudden blast, +Sheddeth those blossoms, that are weakly grown, +Upon the air, but keepeth every one +Whose strength gives warrant of good fruit at last: +So thou hast shed some blooms of gayety, +But never one of steadfast cheerfulness; +Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity +Robbed thee of any faith in happiness, +But rather cleared thine inner eyes to see +How many simple ways there are to bless. + + +II + +What were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee, +If thine eyes shut me out whereby I live. +Thou, who unto my calmer soul dost give +Knowledge, and Truth, and holy Mystery, +Wherein Truth mainly lies for those who see +Beyond the earthly and the fugitive, +Who in the grandeur of the soul believe, +And only in the Infinite are free? +Without thee I were naked, bleak, and bare +As yon dead cedar on the sea-cliff's brow; +And Nature's teachings, which come to me now, +Common and beautiful as light and air, +Would be as fruitless as a stream which still +Slips through the wheel of some old ruined mill. + + +III + +I would not have this perfect love of ours +Grow from a single root, a single stem, +Bearing no goodly fruit, but only flowers +That idly hide life's iron diadem: +It should grow alway like that Eastern tree +Whose limbs take root and spread forth constantly; +That love for one, from which there doth not spring +Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing. +Not in another world, as poets prate, +Dwell we apart above the tide of things, +High floating o'er earth's clouds on faery wings; +But our pure love doth ever elevate +Into a holy bond of brotherhood +All earthly things, making them pure and good. + + +IV + +'For this true nobleness I seek in vain, +In woman and in man I find it not; +I almost weary of my earthly lot, +My life-springs are dried up with burning pain.' +Thou find'st it not? I pray thee look again, +Look _inward_ through the depths of thine own soul. +How is it with thee? Art thou sound and whole? +Doth narrow search show thee no earthly stain? +BE NOBLE! and the nobleness that lies +In other men, sleeping, but never dead, +Will rise in majesty to meet thine own; +Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes, +Then will pure light around thy path be shed, +And thou wilt nevermore be sad and lone. + + +V + +TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS + +Great soul, thou sittest with me in my room, +Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes, +On whose full orbs, with kindly lustre, lies +The twilight warmth of ruddy ember-gloom: +Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sudden bloom +Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries, +Wrestling with the young poet's agonies, +Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain doom: +Yes! the few words which, like great thunder-drops, +Thy large heart down to earth shook doubtfully, +Thrilled by the inward lightning of its might, +Serene and pure, like gushing joy of light, +Shall track the eternal chords of Destiny, +After the moon-led pulse of ocean stops. + + +VI + +Great Truths are portions of the soul of man; +Great souls are portions of Eternity; +Each drop of blood that e'er through true heart ran +With lofty message, ran for thee and me; +For God's law, since the starry song began, +Hath been, and still forevermore must be, +That every deed which shall outlast Time's span +Must spur the soul to be erect and free; +Slave is no word of deathless lineage sprung; +Too many noble souls have thought and died, +Too many mighty poets lived and sung, +And our good Saxon, from lips purified +With martyr-fire, throughout the world hath rung +Too long to have God's holy cause denied. + + +VII + +I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leap +From being's sea, like the isle-seeming Kraken, +With whose great rise the ocean all is shaken +And a heart-tremble quivers through the deep; +Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep, +Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise, +Which, by the toil of gathering energies, +Their upward way into clear sunshine keep, +Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences, +Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green +Into a pleasant island in the seas, +Where, mid fall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen, +And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour, +Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear power. + + +VIII + +TO M.W., ON HER BIRTHDAY + +Maiden, when such a soul as thine is born, +The morning-stars their ancient music make, +And, joyful, once again their song awake, +Long silent now with melancholy scorn; +And thou, not mindless of so blest a morn, +By no least deed its harmony shalt break, +But shalt to that high chime thy footsteps take, +Through life's most darksome passes unforlorn; +Therefore from thy pure faith thou shalt not fall, +Therefore shalt thou be ever fair and free, +And in thine every motion musical +As summer air, majestic as the sea, +A mystery to those who creep and crawl +Through Time, and part it from Eternity. + + +IX + +My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die; +Albeit I ask no fairer life than this, +Whose numbering-clock is still thy gentle kiss, +While Time and Peace with hands enlockèd fly; +Yet care I not where in Eternity +We live and love, well knowing that there is +No backward step for those who feel the bliss +Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings high: +Love hath so purified my being's core, +Meseems I scarcely should be startled even, +To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before; +Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was given, +Which each calm day doth strengthen more and more, +That they who love are but one step from Heaven. + + +X + +I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away, +Whose life to mine is an eternal law, +A piece of nature that can have no flaw, +A new and certain sunrise every day: +But, if thou art to be another ray +About the Sun of Life, and art to live +Free from what part of thee was fugitive, +The debt of Love I will more fully pay, +Not downcast with the thought of thee so high, +But rather raised to be a nobler man, +And more divine in my humanity, +As knowing that the waiting eyes which scan +My life are lighted by a purer being, +And ask high, calm-browed deeds, with it agreeing. + + +XI + +There never yet was flower fair in vain, +Let classic poets rhyme it as they will; +The seasons toil that it may blow again, +And summer's heart doth feel its every ill; +Nor is a true soul ever born for naught; +Wherever any such hath lived and died, +There hath been something for true freedom wrought, +Some bulwark levelled on the evil side: +Toil on, then, Greatness! thou art in the right, +However narrow souls may call thee wrong; +Be as thou wouldst be in thine own clear sight, +And so thou shalt be in the world's erelong; +For worldlings cannot, struggle as they may, +From man's great soul one great thought hide away. + + +XII + +SUB PONDERE CRESCIT + +The hope of Truth grows stronger, day by day; +I hear the soul of Man around me waking, +Like a great sea, its frozen fetters breaking, +And flinging up to heaven its sunlit spray, +Tossing huge continents in scornful play, +And crushing them, with din of grinding thunder, +That makes old emptinesses stare in wonder; +The memory of a glory passed away +Lingers in every heart, as, in the shell, +Resounds the bygone freedom of the sea, +And every hour new signs of promise tell, +That the great soul shall once again be free, +For high, and yet more high, the murmurs swell +Of inward strife for truth and liberty. + + +XIII + +Beloved, in the noisy city here, +The thought of thee can make all turmoil cease; +Around my spirit, folds thy spirit clear +Its still, soft arms, and circles it with peace; +There is no room for any doubt or fear +In souls so overfilled with love's increase, +There is no memory of the bygone year +But growth in heart's and spirit's perfect ease: +How hath our love, half nebulous at first, +Rounded itself into a full-orbed sun! +How have our lives and wills (as haply erst +They were, ere this forgetfulness begun) +Through all their earthly distances outburst, +And melted, like two rays of light in one! + + +XIV + +ON READING WORDSWORTH'S SONNETS IN DEFENCE OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT + +As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth, +With the majestic beating of his heart, +The mighty tides, whereof its rightful part +Each sea-wide bay and little weed receiveth. +So, through his soul who earnestly believeth, +Life from the universal Heart doth flow, +Whereby some conquest of the eternal Woe, +By instinct of God's nature, he achieveth; +A fuller pulse of this all-powerful beauty +Into the poet's gulf-like heart doth tide, +And he more keenly feels the glorious duty +Of serving Truth, despised and crucified,-- +Happy, unknowing sect or creed, to rest, +And feel God flow forever through his breast. + + +XV + +THE SAME CONTINUED + +Once hardly in a cycle blossometh +A flower-like soul ripe with the seeds of song, +A spirit foreordained to cope with wrong, +Whose divine thoughts are natural as breath, +Who the old Darkness thickly scattereth +With starry words, that shoot prevailing light +Into the deeps, and wither, with the blight +Of serene Truth, the coward heart of Death: +Woe, if such spirit thwart its errand high, +And mock with lies the longing soul of man! +Yet one age longer must true Culture lie, +Soothing her bitter fetters as she can, +Until new messages of love out-start +At the next beating of the infinite Heart. + + +XVI + +THE SAME CONTINUED + +The love of all things springs from love of one; +Wider the soul's horizon hourly grows, +And over it with fuller glory flows +The sky-like spirit of God; a hope begun +In doubt and darkness 'neath a fairer sun +Cometh to fruitage, if it be of Truth: +And to the law of meekness, faith, and ruth, +By inward sympathy, shall all be won: +This thou shouldst know, who, from the painted feature +Of shifting Fashion, couldst thy brethren turn +Unto the love of ever-youthful Nature, +And of a beauty fadeless and eterne; +And always 'tis the saddest sight to see +An old man faithless in Humanity. + + +XVII + +THE SAME CONTINUED + +A poet cannot strive for despotism; +His harp falls shattered; for it still must be +The instinct of great spirits to be free, +And the sworn foes of cunning barbarism: +He who has deepest searched the wide abysm +Of that life-giving Soul which men call fate, +Knows that to put more faith in lies and hate +Than truth and love is the true atheism: +Upward the soul forever turns her eyes: +The next hour always shames the hour before; +One beauty, at its highest, prophesies +That by whose side it shall seem mean and poor; +No Godlike thing knows aught of less and less, +But widens to the boundless Perfectness. + + +XVIII + +THE SAME CONTINUED + +Therefore think not the Past is wise alone, +For Yesterday knows nothing of the Best, +And thou shalt love it only as the nest +Whence glory-wingèd things to Heaven have flown: +To the great Soul only are all things known; +Present and future are to her as past, +While she in glorious madness doth forecast +That perfect bud, which seems a flower full-blown +To each new Prophet, and yet always opes +Fuller and fuller with each day and hour, +Heartening the soul with odor of fresh hopes, +And longings high, and gushings of wide power, +Yet never is or shall be fully blown +Save in the forethought of the Eternal One. + + +XIX + +THE SAME CONCLUDED + +Far 'yond this narrow parapet of Time, +With eyes uplift, the poet's soul should look +Into the Endless Promise, nor should brook +One prying doubt to shake his faith sublime; +To him the earth is ever in her prime +And dewiness of morning; he can see +Good lying hid, from all eternity, +Within the teeming womb of sin and crime; +His soul should not be cramped by any bar, +His nobleness should be so Godlike high, +That his least deed is perfect as a star, +His common look majestic as the sky, +And all o'erflooded with a light from far, +Undimmed by clouds of weak mortality. + + +XX + +TO M.O.S. + +Mary, since first I knew thee, to this hour, +My love hath deepened, with my wiser sense +Of what in Woman is to reverence; +Thy clear heart, fresh as e'er was forest-flower, +Still opens more to me its beauteous dower;-- +But let praise hush,--Love asks no evidence +To prove itself well-placed: we know not whence +It gleans the straws that thatch its humble bower: +We can but say we found it in the heart, +Spring of all sweetest thoughts, arch foe of blame, +Sower of flowers in the dusty mart, +Pure vestal of the poet's holy flame,-- +This is enough, and we have done our part +If we but keep it spotless as it came. + + +XXI + +Our love is not a fading, earthly flower: +Its wingèd seed dropped down from Paradise, +And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower, +Doth momently to fresher beauty rise: +To us the leafless autumn is not bare, +Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green. +Our summer hearts make summer's fulness, where +No leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen: +For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie, +Love,--whose forgetfulness is beauty's death, +Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I +Into the infinite freedom openeth, +And makes the body's dark and narrow grate +The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's own palace-gate. + + +XXII + +IN ABSENCE + +These rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear, +Did I not know that, in the early spring, +When wild March winds upon their errands sing, +Thou wouldst return, bursting on this still air, +Like those same winds, when, startled from their lair, +They hunt up violets, and free swift brooks +From icy cares, even as thy clear looks +Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break all care; +When drops with welcome rain the April day, +My flowers shall find their April in thine eyes, +Save there the rain in dreamy clouds doth stay, +As loath to fall out of those happy skies; +Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to May, +That comes with steady sun when April dies. + + +XXIII + +WENDELL PHILLIPS + +He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide +The din of tattle and of slaughter rose; +He saw God stand upon the weaker side, +That sank in seeming loss before its foes: +Many there were who made great haste and sold +Unto the cunning enemy their swords, +He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold, +And, underneath their soft and flowery words, +Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he went +And humbly joined him to the weaker part, +Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content +So he could he the nearer to God's heart, +And feel its solemn pulses sending blood +Through all the widespread veins of endless good. + + +XXIV + +THE STREET + +They pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds, +Dim ghosts of men, that hover to and fro, +Hugging their bodies round them like thin shrouds +Wherein their souls were buried long ago: +They trampled on their youth, and faith, and love, +They cast their hope of human kind away, +With Heaven's clear messages they madly strove, +And conquered,--and their spirits turned to clay: +Lo! how they wander round the world, their grave, +Whose ever-gaping maw by such is fed, +Gibbering at living men, and idly rave, +'We only truly live, but ye are dead.' +Alas! poor fools, the anointed eye may trace +A dead soul's epitaph in every face! + + +XXV + +I grieve not that ripe Knowledge takes away +The charm that Nature to my childhood wore, +For, with that insight, cometh, day by day, +A greater bliss than wonder was before; +The real doth not clip the poet's wings,-- +To win the secret of a weed's plain heart +Reveals some clue to spiritual things, +And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art: +Flowers are not flowers unto the poet's eyes, +Their beauty thrills him by an inward sense; +He knows that outward seemings are but lies, +Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, whence +The soul that looks within for truth may guess +The presence of some wondrous heavenliness. + + +XXVI + +TO J.R. GIDDINGS + +Giddings, far rougher names than thine have grown +Smoother than honey on the lips of men; +And thou shalt aye be honorably known, +As one who bravely used his tongue and pen. +As best befits a freeman,--even for those +To whom our Law's unblushing front denies +A right to plead against the lifelong woes +Which are the Negro's glimpse of Freedom's skies: +Fear nothing, and hope all things, as the Right +Alone may do securely; every hour +The thrones of Ignorance and ancient Night +Lose somewhat of their long-usurpèd power, +And Freedom's lightest word can make them shiver +With a base dread that clings to them forever. + + +XXVII + +I thought our love at full, but I did err; +Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes; I could not see +That sorrow in our happy world must be +Love's deepest spokesman and interpreter; +But, as a mother feels her child first stir +Under her heart, so felt I instantly +Deep in my soul another bond to thee +Thrill with that life we saw depart from her; +O mother of our angel child! twice dear! +Death knits as well as parts, and still, I wis, +Her tender radiance shall infold us here, +Even as the light, borne up by inward bliss, +Threads the void glooms of space without a fear, +To print on farthest stars her pitying kiss. + + + +L'ENVOI + +Whether my heart hath wiser grown or not, +In these three years, since I to thee inscribed, +Mine own betrothed, the firstlings of my muse.-- +Poor windfalls of unripe experience, +Young buds plucked hastily by childish hands +Not patient to await more full-blown flowers,-- +At least it hath seen more of life and men, +And pondered more, and grown a shade more sad; +Yet with no loss of hope or settled trust +In the benignness of that Providence 10 +Which shapes from out our elements awry +The grace and order that we wonder at, +The mystic harmony of right and wrong, +Both working out his wisdom and our good: +A trust, Beloved, chiefly learned of thee, +Who hast that gift of patient tenderness, +The instinctive wisdom of a woman's heart. + +They tell us that our land was made for song, +With its huge rivers and sky-piercing peaks, +Its sealike lakes and mighty cataracts, 20 +Its forests vast and hoar, and prairies wide, +And mounds that tell of wondrous tribes extinct. +But Poesy springs not from rocks and woods; +Her womb and cradle are the human heart, +And she can find a nobler theme for song +In the most loathsome man that blasts the sight +Than in the broad expanse of sea and shore +Between the frozen deserts of the poles. +All nations have their message from on high, +Each the messiah of some central thought, 30 +For the fulfilment and delight of Man: +One has to teach that labor is divine; +Another Freedom; and another Mind; +And all, that God is open-eyed and just, +The happy centre and calm heart of all. + +Are, then, our woods, our mountains, and our streams, +Needful to teach our poets how to sing? +O maiden rare, far other thoughts were ours, +When we have sat by ocean's foaming marge, +And watched the waves leap roaring on the rocks, 40 +Than young Leander and his Hero had, +Gazing from Sestos to the other shore. +The moon looks down and ocean worships her, +Stars rise and set, and seasons come and go +Even as they did in Homer's elder time, +But we behold them not with Grecian eyes: +Then they were types of beauty and of strength, +But now of freedom, unconflned and pure, +Subject alone to Order's higher law. +What cares the Russian serf or Southern slave 50 +Though we should speak as man spake never yet +Of gleaming Hudson's broad magnificence, +Or green Niagara's never-ending roar? +Our country hath a gospel of her own +To preach and practise before all the world,-- +The freedom and divinity of man, +The glorious claims of human brotherhood,-- +Which to pay nobly, as a freeman should, +Gains the sole wealth that will not fly away,-- +And the soul's fealty to none but God. 60 +These are realities, which make the shows +Of outward Nature, be they ne'er so grand, +Seem small, and worthless, and contemptible. +These are the mountain-summits for our bards, +Which stretch far upward into heaven itself, +And give such widespread and exulting view +Of hope, and faith, and onward destiny, +That shrunk Parnassus to a molehill dwindles. +Our new Atlantis, like a morning-star, +Silvers the mirk face of slow-yielding Night, 70 +The herald of a fuller truth than yet +Hath gleamed upon the upraised face of Man +Since the earth glittered in her stainless prime,-- +Of a more glorious sunrise than of old +Drew wondrous melodies from Memnon huge, +Yea, draws them still, though now he sit waist-deep +In the ingulfing flood of whirling sand, +And look across the wastes of endless gray, +Sole wreck, where once his hundred-gated Thebes +Pained with her mighty hum the calm, blue heaven: 80 +Shall the dull stone pay grateful orisons, +And we till noonday bar the splendor out, +Lest it reproach and chide our sluggard hearts, +Warm-nestled in the down of Prejudice, +And be content, though clad with angel-wings, +Close-clipped, to hop about from perch to perch, +In paltry cages of dead men's dead thoughts? +Oh, rather, like the skylark, soar and sing, +And let our gushing songs befit the dawn +And sunrise, and the yet unshaken dew 90 +Brimming the chalice of each full-blown hope, +Whose blithe front turns to greet the growing day! +Never had poets such high call before, +Never can poets hope for higher one, +And, if they be but faithful to their trust, +Earth will remember them with love and joy, +And oh, far better, God will not forget. +For he who settles Freedom's principles +Writes the death-warrant of all tyranny; +Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart, 100 +And his mere word makes despots tremble more +Than ever Brutus with his dagger could. +Wait for no hints from waterfalls or woods, +Nor dream that tales of red men, brute and fierce, +Repay the finding of this Western World, +Or needed half the globe to give them birth: +Spirit supreme of Freedom! not for this +Did great Columbus tame his eagle soul +To jostle with the daws that perch in courts; +Not for this, friendless, on an unknown sea, 110 +Coping with mad waves and more mutinous spirits, +Battled he with the dreadful ache at heart +Which tempts, with devilish subtleties of doubt, +The hermit, of that loneliest solitude, +The silent desert of a great New Thought; +Though loud Niagara were to-day struck dumb, +Yet would this cataract of boiling life +Rush plunging on and on to endless deeps, +And utter thunder till the world shall cease,-- +A thunder worthy of the poet's song, 120 +And which alone can fill it with true life. +The high evangel to our country granted +Could make apostles, yea, with tongues of fire, +Of hearts half-darkened back again to clay! +'Tis the soul only that is national, +And he who pays true loyalty to that +Alone can claim the wreath of patriotism. + + Beloved! if I wander far and oft +From that which I believe, and feel, and know, +Thou wilt forgive, not with a sorrowing heart, 130 +But with a strengthened hope of better things; +Knowing that I, though often blind and false +To those I love, and oh, more false than all +Unto myself, have been most true to thee, +And that whoso in one thing hath been true +Can be as true in all. Therefore thy hope +May yet not prove unfruitful, and thy love +Meet, day by day, with less unworthy thanks, +Whether, as now, we journey hand in hand, +Or, parted in the body, yet are one 140 +In spirit and the love of holy things. + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS POEMS + + +A LEGEND OF BRITTANY + +PART FIRST + + +I + +Fair as a summer dream was Margaret, + Such dream as in a poet's soul might start, +Musing of old loves while the moon doth set: + Her hair was not more sunny than her heart, +Though like a natural golden coronet + It circled her dear head with careless art, +Mocking the sunshine, that would fain have lent +To its frank grace a richer ornament. + + +II + +His loved one's eyes could poet ever speak, + So kind, so dewy, and so deep were hers,-- 10 +But, while he strives, the choicest phrase, too weak, + Their glad reflection in his spirit blurs; +As one may see a dream dissolve and break + Out of his grasp when he to tell it stirs, +Like that sad Dryad doomed no more to bless +The mortal who revealed her loveliness. + + +III + +She dwelt forever in a region bright, + Peopled with living fancies of her own, +Where naught could come but visions of delight, + Far, far aloof from earth's eternal moan: 20 +A summer cloud thrilled through with rosy light, + Floating beneath the blue sky all alone, +Her spirit wandered by itself, and won +A golden edge from some unsetting sun. + + +IV + +The heart grows richer that its lot is poor, + God blesses want with larger sympathies, +Love enters gladliest at the humble door, + And makes the cot a palace with his eyes; +So Margaret's heart a softer beauty wore, + And grew in gentleness and patience wise, 30 +For she was but a simple herdsman's child, +A lily chance-sown in the rugged wild. + + +V + +There was no beauty of the wood or field + But she its fragrant bosom-secret knew, +Nor any but to her would freely yield + Some grace that in her soul took root and grew; +Nature to her shone as but now revealed, + All rosy-fresh with innocent morning dew, +And looked into her heart with dim, sweet eyes +That left it full of sylvan memories. 40 + + +VI + +Oh, what a face was hers to brighten light, + And give back sunshine with an added glow, +To wile each moment with a fresh delight, + And part of memory's best contentment grow! +Oh, how her voice, as with an inmate's right, + Into the strangest heart would welcome go, +And make it sweet, and ready to become +Of white and gracious thoughts the chosen home! + + +VII + +None looked upon her but he straightway thought + Of all the greenest depths of country cheer, 50 +And into each one's heart was freshly brought + What was to him the sweetest time of year, +So was her every look and motion fraught + With out-of-door delights and forest lere; +Not the first violet on a woodland lea +Seemed a more visible gift of Spring than she. + + +VIII + +Is love learned only out of poets' books? + Is there not somewhat in the dropping flood, +And in the nunneries of silent nooks, + And in the murmured longing of the wood, 60 +That could make Margaret dream of lovelorn looks, + And stir a thrilling mystery in her blood +More trembly secret than Aurora's tear +Shed in the bosom of an eglatere? + + +IX + +Full many a sweet forewarning hath the mind, + Full many a whispering of vague desire, +Ere comes the nature destined to unbind + Its virgin zone, and all its deeps inspire,-- 70 +Low stirrings in the leaves, before the wind + Wake all the green strings of the forest lyre, +Faint heatings in the calyx, ere the rose +Its warm voluptuous breast doth all unclose. + + +X + +Long in its dim recesses pines the spirit, + Wildered and dark, despairingly alone; +Though many a shape of beauty wander near it, + And many a wild and half-remembered tone +Tremble from the divine abyss to cheer it, + Yet still it knows that there is only one +Before whom it can kneel and tribute bring. +At once a happy vassal and a king. 80 + + +XI + +To feel a want, yet scarce know what it is, + To seek one nature that is always new, +Whose glance is warmer than another's kiss, + Whom we can bare our inmost beauty to, +Nor feel deserted afterwards,--for this + But with our destined co-mate we can do,-- +Such longing instinct fills the mighty scope +Of the young soul with one mysterious hope. + + +XII + +So Margaret's heart grew brimming with the lore + Of love's enticing secrets; and although 90 +She had found none to cast it down before, + Yet oft to Fancy's chapel she would go +To pay her vows--and count the rosary o'er + Of her love's promised graces:--haply so +Miranda's hope had pictured Ferdinand +Long ere the gaunt wave tossed him on the strand. + + +XIII + +A new-made star that swims the lonely gloom, + Unwedded yet and longing for the sun, +Whose beams, the bride-gifts of the lavish groom, + Blithely to crown the virgin planet run, 100 +Her being was, watching to see the bloom + Of love's fresh sunrise roofing one by one +Its clouds with gold, a triumph-arch to be +For him who came to hold her heart in fee. + + +XIV + +Not far from Margaret's cottage dwelt a knight + Of the proud Templars, a sworn celibate, +Whose heart in secret fed upon the light + And dew of her ripe beauty, through the grate +Of his close vow catching what gleams he might + Of the free heaven, and cursing all too late 110 +The cruel faith whose black walls hemmed him in +And turned life's crowning bliss to deadly sin. + + +XV + +For he had met her in the wood by chance, + And, having drunk her beauty's wildering spell, +His heart shook like the pennon of a lance + That quivers in a breeze's sudden swell, +And thenceforth, in a close-infolded trance, + From mistily golden deep to deep he fell; +Till earth did waver and fade far away +Beneath the hope in whose warm arms he lay. 120 + + +XVI + +A dark, proud man he was, whose half-blown youth + Had shed its blossoms even in opening, +Leaving a few that with more winning ruth + Trembling around grave manhood's stem might cling, +More sad than cheery, making, in good sooth, + Like the fringed gentian, a late autumn spring: +A twilight nature, braided light and gloom, +A youth half-smiling by an open tomb. + + +XVII + +Fair as an angel, who yet inly wore + A wrinkled heart foreboding his near fall; 130 +Who saw him alway wished to know him more, + As if he were some fate's defiant thrall +And nursed a dreaded secret at his core; + Little he loved, but power the most of all, +And that he seemed to scorn, as one who knew +By what foul paths men choose to crawl thereto. + + +XVIII + +He had been noble, but some great deceit + Had turned his better instinct to a vice: +He strove to think the world was all a cheat, + That power and fame were cheap at any price, 140 +That the sure way of being shortly great + Was even to play life's game with loaded dice, +Since he had tried the honest play and found +That vice and virtue differed but in sound. + + +XIX + +Yet Margaret's sight redeemed him for a space + From his own thraldom; man could never be +A hypocrite when first such maiden grace + Smiled in upon his heart; the agony +Of wearing all day long a lying face + Fell lightly from him, and, a moment free, 150 +Erect with wakened faith his spirit stood +And scorned the weakness of his demon-mood. + + +XX + +Like a sweet wind-harp to him was her thought, + Which would not let the common air come near, +Till from its dim enchantment it had caught + A musical tenderness that brimmed his ear +With sweetness more ethereal than aught + Save silver-dropping snatches that whilere +Rained down from some sad angel's faithful harp +To cool her fallen lover's anguish sharp. 160 + + +XXI + +Deep in the forest was a little dell + High overarchèd with the leafy sweep +Of a broad oak, through whose gnarled roots there fell + A slender rill that sung itself to sleep, +Where its continuous toil had scooped a well + To please the fairy folk; breathlessly deep +The stillness was, save when the dreaming brook +From its small urn a drizzly murmur shook. + + +XXII + +The wooded hills sloped upward all around + With gradual rise, and made an even rim, 170 +So that it seemed a mighty casque unbound + From some huge Titan's brow to lighten him, +Ages ago, and left upon the ground. + Where the slow soil had mossed it to the brim, +Till after countless centuries it grew +Into this dell, the haunt of noontide dew. + + +XXIII + +Dim vistas, sprinkled o'er with sun-flecked green, + Wound through the thickset trunks on every side, +And, toward the west, in fancy might be seen + A Gothic window in its blazing pride, 180 +When the low sun, two arching elms between, + Lit up the leaves beyond, which, autumn-dyed +With lavish hues, would into splendor start, +Shaming the labored panes of richest art. + + +XXIV + +Here, leaning once against the old oak's trunk, + Mordred, for such was the young Templar's name, +Saw Margaret come; unseen, the falcon shrunk + From the meek dove; sharp thrills of tingling flame +Made him forget that he was vowed a monk, + And all the outworks of his pride o'ercame: 190 +Flooded he seemed with bright delicious pain, +As if a star had burst within his brain. + + +XXV + +Such power hath beauty and frank innocence: + A flower bloomed forth, that sunshine glad to bless, +Even from his love's long leafless stem; the sense + Of exile from Hope's happy realm grew less, +And thoughts of childish peace, he knew not whence, + Thronged round his heart with many an old caress, +Melting the frost there into pearly dew +That mirrored back his nature's morning-blue. 200 + + +XXVI + +She turned and saw him, but she felt no dread, + Her purity, like adamantine mail. +Did so encircle her; and yet her head + She drooped, and made her golden hair her veil, +Through which a glow of rosiest lustre spread, + Then faded, and anon she stood all pale, +As snow o'er which a blush of northern light +Suddenly reddens, and as soon grows white. + + +XXVII + +She thought of Tristrem and of Lancilot, + Of all her dreams, and of kind fairies' might, 210 +And how that dell was deemed a haunted spot, + Until there grew a mist before her sight. +And where the present was she half forgot, + Borne backward through the realms of old delight,-- +Then, starting up awake, she would have gone, +Yet almost wished it might not be alone. + + +XXVIII + +How they went home together through the wood, + And how all life seemed focussed into one +Thought-dazzling spot that set ablaze the blood, + What need to tell? Fit language there is none 220 +For the heart's deepest things. Who ever wooed + As in his boyish hope he would have done? +For, when the soul is fullest, the hushed tongue +Voicelessly trembles like a lute unstrung. + + +XXIX + +But all things carry the heart's messages + And know it not, nor doth the heart well know, +But Nature hath her will; even as the bees, + Blithe go-betweens, fly singing to and fro +With the fruit-quickening pollen;--hard if these + Found not some all unthought-of way to show 230 +Their secret each to each; and so they did, +And one heart's flower-dust into the other slid. + + +XXX + +Young hearts are free; the selfish world it is + That turns them miserly and cold as stone, +And makes them clutch their fingers on the bliss + Which but in giving truly is their own;-- +She had no dreams of barter, asked not his, + But gave hers freely as she would have thrown +A rose to him, or as that rose gives forth +Its generous fragrance, thoughtless of its worth. 240 + + +XXXI + +Her summer nature felt a need to bless, + And a like longing to be blest again; +So, from her sky-like spirit, gentleness + Dropt ever like a sunlit fall of rain, +And his beneath drank in the bright caress + As thirstily as would a parched plain, +That long hath watched the showers of sloping gray +For ever, ever, falling far away. + + +XXXII + +How should she dream of ill? the heart filled quite + With sunshine, like the shepherd's-clock at noon, 250 +Closes its leaves around its warm delight; + Whate'er in life is harsh or out of tune +Is all shut out, no boding shade of blight + Can pierce the opiate ether of its swoon: +Love is but blind as thoughtful justice is, +But naught can be so wanton-blind as bliss. + + +XXXIII + +All beauty and all life he was to her; + She questioned not his love, she only knew +That she loved him, and not a pulse could stir + In her whole frame but quivered through and through 260 +With this glad thought, and was a minister + To do him fealty and service true, +Like golden ripples hasting to the land +To wreck their freight of sunshine on the strand. + + +XXXIV + +O dewy dawn of love! that are + Hung high, like the cliff-swallow's perilous nest, +Most like to fall when fullest, and that jar + With every heavier billow! O unrest +Than balmiest deeps of quiet sweeter far! + How did ye triumph now in Margaret's breast, 270 +Making it readier to shrink and start +Than quivering gold of the pond-lily's heart! + + +XXXV + +Here let us pause: oh, would the soul might ever + Achieve its immortality in youth, +When nothing yet hath damped its high endeavor + After the starry energy of truth! +Here let us pause, and for a moment sever + This gleam of sunshine from the sad unruth +That sometime comes to all, for it is good +To lengthen to the last a sunny mood. 280 + + + +PART SECOND + + +I + +As one who, from the sunshine and the green, + Enters the solid darkness of a cave, +Nor knows what precipice or pit unseen + May yawn before him with its sudden grave, +And, with hushed breath, doth often forward lean, + Dreaming he hears the plashing of a wave +Dimly below, or feels a damper air +From out some dreary chasm, he knows not where; + + +II + +So, from the sunshine and the green of love, + We enter on our story's darker part; 290 +And, though the horror of it well may move + An impulse of repugnance in the heart, +Yet let us think, that, as there's naught above + The all-embracing atmosphere of Art, +So also there is naught that falls below +Her generous reach, though grimed with guilt and woe. + + +III + +Her fittest triumph is to show that good + Lurks in the heart of evil evermore, +That love, though scorned, and outcast, and withstood, + Can without end forgive, and yet have store; 300 +God's love and man's are of the selfsame blood, + And He can see that always at the door +Of foulest hearts the angel-nature yet +Knocks to return and cancel all its debt. + + +IV + +It ever is weak falsehood's destiny + That her thick mask turns crystal to let through +The unsuspicious eyes of honesty; + But Margaret's heart was too sincere and true +Aught but plain truth and faithfulness to see, + And Mordred's for a time a little grew 310 +To be like hers, won by the mild reproof +Of those kind eyes that kept all doubt aloof. + + +V + +Full oft they met, as dawn and twilight meet + In northern climes; she full of growing day +As he of darkness, which before her feet + Shrank gradual, and faded quite away, +Soon to return; for power had made love sweet + To him, and when his will had gained full sway, +The taste began to pall; for never power +Can sate the hungry soul beyond an hour. 320 + + +VI + +He fell as doth the tempter ever fall, + Even in the gaining of his loathsome end; +God doth not work as man works, but makes all + The crooked paths of ill to goodness tend; +Let Him judge Margaret! If to be the thrall + Of love, and faith too generous to defend +Its very life from him she loved, be sin, +What hope of grace may the seducer win? + + +VII + +Grim-hearted world, that look'st with Levite eyes + On those poor fallen by too much faith in man, 330 +She that upon thy freezing threshold lies, + Starved to more sinning by thy savage ban, +Seeking that refuge because foulest vice + More godlike than thy virtue is, whose span +Shuts out the wretched only, is more free +To enter heaven than thou shalt ever be! + + +VIII + +Thou wilt not let her wash thy dainty feet + With such salt things as tears, or with rude hair +Dry them, soft Pharisee, that sit'st at meat + With him who made her such, and speak'st him fair. 340 +Leaving God's wandering lamb the while to bleat + Unheeded, shivering in the pitiless air: +Thou hast made prisoned virtue show more wan +And haggard than a vice to look upon. + + +IX + +Now many months flew by, and weary grew + To Margaret the sight of happy things; +Blight fell on all her flowers, instead of dew; + Shut round her heart were now the joyous wings +Wherewith it wont to soar; yet not untrue, + Though tempted much, her woman's nature clings 350 +To its first pure belief, and with sad eyes +Looks backward o'er the gate of Paradise. + + +X + +And so, though altered Mordred came less oft, + And winter frowned where spring had laughed before +In his strange eyes, yet half her sadness doffed, + And in her silent patience loved him more: +Sorrow had made her soft heart yet more soft, + And a new life within her own she bore +Which made her tenderer, as she felt it move +Beneath her breast, a refuge for her love. 360 + + +XI + +This babe, she thought, would surely bring him back, + And be a bond forever them between; +Before its eyes the sullen tempest-rack + Would fade, and leave the face of heaven serene; +And love's return doth more than fill the lack, + Which in his absence withered the heart's green: +And yet a dim foreboding still would flit +Between her and her hope to darken it. + + +XII + +She could not figure forth a happy fate, + Even for this life from heaven so newly come; 370 +The earth must needs be doubly desolate + To him scarce parted from a fairer home: +Such boding heavier on her bosom sate + One night, as, standing in the twilight gloam, +She strained her eyes beyond that dizzy verge +At whose foot faintly breaks the future's surge. + + +XIII + +Poor little spirit! naught but shame and woe + Nurse the sick heart whose life-blood nurses thine: +Yet not those only; love hath triumphed so, + As for thy sake makes sorrow more divine: 380 +And yet, though thou be pure, the world is foe + To purity, if born in such a shrine; +And, having trampled it for struggling thence, +Smiles to itself, and calls it Providence. + + +XIV + +As thus she mused, a shadow seemed to rise + From out her thought, and turn to dreariness +All blissful hopes and sunny memories, + And the quick blood would curdle up and press +About her heart, which seemed to shut its eyes + And hush itself, as who with shuddering guess 390 +Harks through the gloom and dreads e'en now to feel +Through his hot breast the icy slide of steel. + + +XV + +But, at that heart-beat, while in dread she was, + In the low wind the honeysuckles gleam, +A dewy thrill flits through the heavy grass, + And, looking forth, she saw, as in a dream, +Within the wood the moonlight's shadowy mass: + Night's starry heart yearning to hers doth seem, +And the deep sky, full-hearted with the moon, +Folds round her all the happiness of June. 400 + + +XVI + +What fear could face a heaven and earth like this? + What silveriest cloud could hang 'neath such a sky? +A tide of wondrous and unwonted bliss + Rolls back through all her pulses suddenly, +As if some seraph, who had learned to kiss + From the fair daughters of the world gone by, +Had wedded so his fallen light with hers, +Such sweet, strange joy through soul and body stirs. + + +XVII + +Now seek we Mordred; he who did not fear + The crime, yet fears the latent consequence: 410 +If it should reach a brother Templar's ear, + It haply might be made a good pretence +To cheat him of the hope he held most dear; + For he had spared no thought's or deed's expense, +That by and by might help his wish to clip +Its darling bride,--the high grandmastership. + + +XVIII + +The apathy, ere a crime resolved is done, + Is scarce less dreadful than remorse for crime; +By no allurement can the soul be won + From brooding o'er the weary creep of time: 420 +Mordred stole forth into the happy sun, + Striving to hum a scrap of Breton rhyme, +But the sky struck him speechless, and he tried +In vain to summon up his callous pride. + + +XIX + +In the courtyard a fountain leaped alway, + A Triton blowing jewels through his shell +Into the sunshine; Mordred turned away, + Weary because the stone face did not tell +Of weariness, nor could he bear to-day, + Heartsick, to hear the patient sink and swell 430 +Of winds among the leaves, or golden bees +Drowsily humming in the orange-trees. + + +XX + +All happy sights and sounds now came to him + Like a reproach: he wandered far and wide, +Following the lead of his unquiet whim, + But still there went a something at his side +That made the cool breeze hot, the sunshine dim; + It would not flee, it could not be defied, +He could not see it, but he felt it there, +By the damp chill that crept among his hair. 440 + + +XXI + +Day wore at last; the evening-star arose, + And throbbing in the sky grew red and set; +Then with a guilty, wavering step he goes + To the hid nook where they so oft had met +In happier season, for his heart well knows + That he is sure to find poor Margaret +Watching and waiting there with love-lorn breast +Around her young dream's rudely scattered nest. + + +XXII + +Why follow here that grim old chronicle + Which counts the dagger-strokes and drops of blood? 450 +Enough that Margaret by his mad steel fell, + Unmoved by murder from her trusting mood, +Smiling on him as Heaven smiles on Hell, + With a sad love, remembering when he stood +Not fallen yet, the unsealer of her heart, +Of all her holy dreams the holiest part. + + +XXIII + +His crime complete, scarce knowing what he did, + (So goes the tale,) beneath the altar there +In the high church the stiffening corpse he hid, + And then, to 'scape that suffocating air, 460 +Like a scared ghoul out of the porch he slid; + But his strained eyes saw blood-spots everywhere, +And ghastly faces thrust themselves between +His soul and hopes of peace with blasting mien. + + +XXIV + +His heart went out within him like a spark + Dropt in the sea; wherever he made bold +To turn his eyes, he saw, all stiff and stark, + Pale Margaret lying dead; the lavish gold +Of her loose hair seemed in the cloudy dark + To spread a glory, and a thousand-fold 470 +More strangely pale and beautiful she grew: +Her silence stabbed his conscience through and through. + + +XXV + +Or visions of past days,--a mother's eyes + That smiled down on the fair boy at her knee, +Whose happy upturned face to hers replies.-- + He saw sometimes: or Margaret mournfully +Gazed on him full of doubt, as one who tries + To crush belief that does love injury; +Then she would wring her hands, but soon again +Love's patience glimmered out through cloudy pain. 480 + + +XXVI + +Meanwhile he dared, not go and steal away + The silent, dead-cold witness of his sin; +He had not feared the life, but that dull clay, + Those open eyes that showed the death within, +Would surely stare him mad; yet all the day + A dreadful impulse, whence his will could win +No refuge, made him linger in the aisle, +Freezing with his wan look each greeting smile. + + +XXVII + +Now, on the second day there was to be + A festival in church: from far and near 490 +Came flocking in the sunburnt peasantry, + And knights and dames with stately antique cheer, +Blazing with pomp, as if all faerie + Had emptied her quaint halls, or, as it were, +The illuminated marge of some old book, +While we were gazing, life and motion took. + + +XXVIII + +When all were entered, and the roving eyes + Of all were stayed, some upon faces bright, +Some on the priests, some on the traceries + That decked the slumber of a marble knight, 500 +And all the rustlings over that arise + From recognizing tokens of delight, +When friendly glances meet,--then silent ease +Spread o'er the multitude by slow degrees. + + +XXIX + +Then swelled the organ: up through choir and nave + The music trembled with an inward thrill +Of bliss at its own grandeur; wave on wave + Its flood of mellow thunder rose, until +The hushed air shivered with the throb it gave, + Then, poising for a moment, it stood still, 510 +And sank and rose again, to burst in spray +That wandered into silence far away. + + +XXX + +Like to a mighty heart the music seemed, + That yearns with melodies it cannot speak, +Until, in grand despair of what it dreamed, + In the agony of effort it doth break, +Yet triumphs breaking; on it rushed and streamed + And wantoned in its might, as when a lake, +Long pent among the mountains, bursts its walls +And in one crowding gash leaps forth and falls. 520 + + +XXXI + +Deeper and deeper shudders shook the air, + As the huge bass kept gathering heavily, +Like thunder when it rouses in its lair, + And with its hoarse growl shakes the low-hung sky, +It grew up like a darkness everywhere, + Filling the vast cathedral;--suddenly, +From the dense mass a boy's clear treble broke +Like lightning, and the full-toned choir awoke. + + +XXXII + +Through gorgeous windows shone the sun aslant, + Brimming the church with gold and purple mist, 530 +Meet atmosphere to bosom that rich chant. + Where fifty voices in one strand did twist +Their varicolored tones, and left no want + To the delighted soul, which sank abyssed +In the warm music cloud, while, far below, +The organ heaved its surges to and fro. + + +XXXIII + +As if a lark should suddenly drop dead + While the blue air yet trembled with its song, +So snapped at once that music's golden thread, + Struck by a nameless fear that leapt along 540 +From heart to heart, and like a shadow spread + With instantaneous shiver through the throng, +So that some glanced behind, as half aware +A hideous shape of dread were standing there. + + +XXXIV + +As when a crowd of pale men gather round, + Watching an eddy in the leaden deep, +From which they deem the body of one drowned + Will be cast forth, from face to face doth creep +An eager dread that holds all tongues fast bound + Until the horror, with a ghastly leap, 550 +Starts up, its dead blue arms stretched aimlessly, +Heaved with the swinging of the careless sea,-- + + +XXXV + +So in the faces of all these there grew, + As by one impulse, a dark, freezing awe, +Which with a fearful fascination drew + All eyes toward the altar; damp and raw +The air grew suddenly, and no man knew + Whether perchance his silent neighbor saw +The dreadful thing which all were sure would rise +To scare the strained lids wider from their eyes. 560 + + +XXXVI + +The incense trembled as it upward sent + Its slow, uncertain thread of wandering blue, +As't were the only living element + In all the church, so deep the stillness grew; +It seemed one might have heard it, as it went, + Give out an audible rustle, curling through +The midnight silence of that awestruck air, +More hushed than death, though so much life was there. + + +XXXVII + +Nothing they saw, but a low voice was heard + Threading the ominous silence of that fear, 570 +Gentle and terrorless as if a bird, + Wakened by some volcano's glare, should cheer +The murk air with his song; yet every word + In the cathedral's farthest arch seemed near, +As if it spoke to every one apart, +Like the clear voice of conscience in each heart. + + +XXXVIII + +'O Rest, to weary hearts thou art most dear! + O Silence, after life's bewildering din, +Thou art most welcome, whether in the sear + Days of our age thou comest, or we win 580 +Thy poppy-wreath in youth! then wherefore here + Linger I yet, once free to enter in +At that wished gate which gentle Death doth ope, +Into the boundless realm of strength and hope? + + +XXXIX + +'Think not in death my love could ever cease; + If thou wast false, more need there is for me +Still to be true; that slumber were not peace, + If't were unvisited with dreams of thee: +And thou hadst never heard such words as these, + Save that in heaven I must forever be 590 +Most comfortless and wretched, seeing this +Our unbaptized babe shut out from bliss. + + +XL + +'This little spirit with imploring eyes + Wanders alone the dreary wild of space; +The shadow of his pain forever lies + Upon my soul in this new dwelling-place; +His loneliness makes me in Paradise + More lonely, and, unless I see his face, +Even here for grief could I lie down and die, 599 +Save for my curse of immortality. + + +XLI + +'World after world he sees around him swim + Crowded with happy souls, that take no heed +Of the sad eyes that from the night's faint rim + Gaze sick with longing on them as they speed +With golden gates, that only shut on him; + And shapes sometimes from hell's abysses freed +Flap darkly by him, with enormous sweep +Of wings that roughen wide the pitchy deep. + + +XLII + +'I am a mother,--spirits do not shake + This much of earth from them,--and I must pine 610 +Till I can feel his little hands, and take + His weary head upon this heart of mine; +And, might it be, full gladly for his sake + Would I this solitude of bliss resign +And be shut out of heaven to dwell with him +Forever in that silence drear and dim. + + +XLIII + +'I strove to hush my soul, and would not speak + At first, for thy dear sake; a woman's love +Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak, + And by its weakness overcomes; I strove 620 +To smother bitter thoughts with patience meek, + But still in the abyss my soul would rove, +Seeking my child, and drove me here to claim +The rite that gives him peace in Christ's dear name. + + +XLIV + +'I sit and weep while blessed spirits sing; + I can but long and pine the while they praise, +And, leaning o'er the wall of heaven, I fling + My voice to where I deem my infant strays, +Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to bring + Her nestlings back beneath her wings' embrace; 630 +But still he answers not, and I but know +That heaven and earth are both alike in woe.' + + +XLV + +Then the pale priests, with ceremony due, + Baptized the child within its dreadful tomb +Beneath that mother's heart, whose instinct true + Star-like had battled down the triple gloom +Of sorrow, love, and death: young maidens, too. + Strewed the pale corpse with many a milkwhite bloom, +And parted the bright hair, and on the breast +Crossed the unconscious hands in sign of rest. 640 + + +XLVI + +Some said, that, when the priest had sprinkled o'er + The consecrated drops, they seemed to hear +A sigh, as of some heart from travail sore + Released, and then two voices singing clear, +_Misereatur Deus_, more and more + Fading far upward, and their ghastly fear +Fell from them with that sound, as bodies fall +From souls upspringing to celestial hall. + + + +PROMETHEUS + + One after one the stars have risen and set, +Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on my chain: +The Bear, that prowled all night about the fold +Of the North-star, hath shrunk into his den. +Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the Dawn, +Whose blushing smile floods all the Orient; +And now bright Lucifer grows less and less, +Into the heaven's blue quiet deep-withdrawn. +Sunless and starless all, the desert sky +Arches above me, empty as this heart 10 +For ages hath been empty of all joy, +Except to brood upon its silent hope, +As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now. +All night have I heard voices: deeper yet +The deep low breathing of the silence grew, +While all about, muffled in awe, there stood +Shadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart, +But, when I turned to front them, far along +Only a shudder through the midnight ran, +And the dense stillness walled me closer round. 20 +But still I heard them wander up and down +That solitude, and flappings of dusk wings +Did mingle with them, whether of those hags +Let slip upon me once from Hades deep, +Or of yet direr torments, if such be, +I could but guess; and then toward me came +A shape as of a woman: very pale +It was, and calm; its cold eyes did not move, +And mine moved not, but only stared on them. +Their fixed awe went through my brain like ice; 30 +A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my heart, +And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fog +Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt: +And then, methought, I heard a freezing sigh, +A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lips +Stiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thought +Some doom was close upon me, and I looked +And saw the red moon through the heavy mist, +Just setting, and it seemed as it were falling, +Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead 40 +And palsy-struck it looked. Then all sounds merged +Into the rising surges of the pines, +Which, leagues below me, clothing the gaunt loins +Of ancient Caucasus with hairy strength, +Sent up a murmur in the morning wind, +Sad as the wail that from the populous earth +All day and night to high Olympus soars. +Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove! + + Thy hated name is tossed once more in scorn +From off my lips, for I will tell thy doom. 50 +And are these tears? Nay, do not triumph, Jove! +They are wrung from me but by the agonies +Of prophecy, like those sparse drops which fall +From clouds in travail of the lightning, when +The great wave of the storm high-curled and black +Rolls steadily onward to its thunderous break. +Why art thou made a god of, thou poor type +Of anger, and revenge, and cunning force? +True Power was never born of brutish Strength, +Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy dugs 60 +Of that old she-wolf. Are thy thunderbolts, +That quell the darkness for a space, so strong +As the prevailing patience of meek Light, +Who, with the invincible tenderness of peace, +Wins it to be a portion of herself? +Why art thou made a god of, thou, who hast +The never-sleeping terror at thy heart, +That birthright of all tyrants, worse to bear +Than this thy ravening bird on which I smile? +Thou swear'st to free me, if I will unfold 70 +What kind of doom it is whose omen flits +Across thy heart, as o'er a troop of doves +The fearful shadow of the kite. What need +To know that truth whose knowledge cannot save? +Evil its errand hath, as well as Good; +When thine is finished, thou art known no more: +There is a higher purity than thou, +And higher purity is greater strength; +Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy heart +Trembles behind the thick wall of thy might. 80 +Let man but hope, and thou art straightway chilled +With thought of that drear silence and deep night +Which, like a dream, shall swallow thee and thine: +Let man but will, and thou art god no more, +More capable of ruin than the gold +And ivory that image thee on earth. +He who hurled down the monstrous Titan-brood +Blinded with lightnings, with rough thunders stunned, +Is weaker than a simple human thought. +My slender voice can shake thee, as the breeze, 90 +That seems but apt to stir a maiden's hair, +Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole; +For I am still Prometheus, and foreknow +In my wise heart the end and doom of all. + + Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grown +By years of solitude,--that holds apart +The past and future, giving the soul room +To search into itself,--and long commune +With this eternal silence;--more a god, +In my long-suffering and strength to meet 100 +With equal front the direst shafts of fate, +Than thou in thy faint-hearted despotism, +Girt with thy baby-toys of force and wrath. +Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought down +The light to man, which thou, in selfish fear, +Hadst to thy self usurped,--his by sole right, +For Man hath right to all save Tyranny,-- +And which shall free him yet from thy frail throne. +Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, +Begotten by the slaves they trample on, 110 +Who, could they win a glimmer of the light, +And see that Tyranny is always weakness, +Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease, +Would laugh away in scorn the sand-wove chain +Which their own blindness feigned for adamant. +Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the Right +To the firm centre lays its moveless base. +The tyrant trembles, if the air but stir +The innocent ringlets of a child's free hair, +And crouches, when the thought of some great spirit, 120 +With world-wide murmur, like a rising gale. +Over men's hearts, as over standing corn, +Rushes, and bends them to its own strong will. +So shall some thought of mine yet circle earth, +And puff away thy crumbling altars, Jove! + + And, wouldst thou know of my supreme revenge, +Poor tyrant, even now dethroned in heart, +Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are, +Listen! and tell me if this bitter peak, +This never-glutted vulture, and these chains 130 +Shrink not before it; for it shall befit +A sorrow-taught, unconquered Titan-heart. +Men, when their death is on them, seem to stand +On a precipitous crag that overhangs +The abyss of doom, and in that depth to see, +As in a glass, the features dim and vast +Of things to come, the shadows, as it seems, +Of what have been. Death ever fronts the wise; +Not fearfully, but with clear promises +Of larger life, on whose broad vans upborne, 140 +Their outlook widens, and they see beyond +The horizon of the Present and the Past, +Even to the very source and end of things. +Such am I now: immortal woe hath made +My heart a seer, and my soul a judge +Between the substance and the shadow of Truth. +The sure supremeness of the Beautiful, +By all the martyrdoms made doubly sure +Of such as I am, this is my revenge, +Which of my wrongs builds a triumphal arch, 150 +Through which I see a sceptre and a throne. +The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills, +Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee; +The songs of maidens pressing with white feet +The vintage on thine altars poured no more; +The murmurous bliss of lovers underneath +Dim grapevine bowers whose rosy bunches press +Not half so closely their warm cheeks, unpaled +By thoughts of thy brute lust; the hive-like hum +Of peaceful commonwealths, where sunburnt Toil 160 +Reaps for itself the rich earth made its own +By its own labor, lightened with glad hymns +To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts +Would cope with as a spark with the vast sea,-- +Even the spirit of free love and peace, +Duty's sure recompense through life and death,-- +These are such harvests as all master-spirits +Reap, haply not on earth, but reap no less +Because the sheaves are bound by hands not theirs; +These are the bloodless daggers wherewithal 170 +They stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge: +For their best part of life on earth is when, +Long after death, prisoned and pent no more, +Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, have become +Part of the necessary air men breathe: +When, like the moon, herself behind a cloud, +They shed down light before us on life's sea, +That cheers us to steer onward still in hope. +Earth with her twining memories ivies o'er +Their holy sepulchres; the chainless sea, 180 +In tempest or wide calm, repeats their thoughts; +The lightning and the thunder, all free things, +Have legends of them for the ears of men. +All other glories are as falling stars, +But universal Nature watches theirs: +Such strength is won by love of humankind. + + Not that I feel that hunger after fame, +Which souls of a half-greatness are beset with; +But that the memory of noble deeds +Cries shame upon the idle and the vile, 190 +And keeps the heart of Man forever up +To the heroic level of old time. +To be forgot at first is little pain +To a heart conscious of such high intent +As must be deathless on the lips of men; +But, having been a name, to sink and be +A something which the world can do without, +Which, having been or not, would never change +The lightest pulse of fate,--this is indeed +A cup of bitterness the worst to taste, 200 +And this thy heart shall empty to the dregs. +Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus, +And memory thy vulture; thou wilt find +Oblivion far lonelier than this peak. +Behold thy destiny! Thou think'st it much +That I should brave thee, miserable god! +But I have braved a mightier than thou, +Even the sharp tempting of this soaring heart, +Which might have made me, scarcely less than thou, +A god among my brethren weak and blind, 210 +Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thing +To be down-trodden into darkness soon. +But now I am above thee, for thou art +The bungling workmanship of fear, the block +That awes the swart Barbarian; but I +Am what myself have made,--a nature wise +With finding in itself the types of all, +With watching from the dim verge of the time +What things to be are visible in the gleams +Thrown forward on them from the luminous past, 220 +Wise with the history of its own frail heart, +With reverence and with sorrow, and with love, +Broad as the world, for freedom and for man. + + Thou and all strength shall crumble, except Love, +By whom, and for whose glory, ye shall cease: +And, when thou'rt but a weary moaning heard +From out the pitiless gloom of Chaos, I +Shall be a power and a memory, +A name to fright all tyrants with, a light +Unsetting as the pole-star, a great voice 230 +Heard in the breathless pauses of the fight +By truth and freedom ever waged with wrong, +Clear as a silver trumpet, to awake +Far echoes that from age to age live on +In kindred spirits, giving them a sense +Of boundless power from boundless suffering wrung: +And many a glazing eye shall smile to see +The memory of my triumph (for to meet +Wrong with endurance, and to overcome +The present with a heart that looks beyond, 240 +Are triumph), like a prophet eagle, perch +Upon the sacred banner of the Right. +Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, +And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, +Leaving it richer for the growth of truth; +But Good, once put in action or in thought, +Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed down +The ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak god, +Shalt fade and be forgotten! but this soul, +Fresh-living still in the serene abyss, 250 +In every heaving shall partake, that grows +From heart to heart among the sons of men,-- +As the ominous hum before the earthquake runs +Far through the Ægean from roused isle to isle,-- +Foreboding wreck to palaces and shrines, +And mighty rents in many a cavernous error +That darkens the free light to man:--This heart, +Unscarred by thy grim vulture, as the truth +Grows but more lovely 'neath the beaks and claws +Of Harpies blind that fain would soil it, shall 260 +In all the throbbing exultations, share +That wait on freedom's triumphs, and in all +The glorious agonies of martyr-spirits, +Sharp lightning-throes to split the jagged clouds +That veil the future, snowing them the end, +Pain's thorny crown for constancy and truth, +Girding the temples like a wreath of stars. +This is a thought, that, like the fabled laurel, +Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy dread bolts +Fall on me like the silent flakes of snow 270 +On the hoar brows of aged Caucasus: +But, oh, thought far more blissful, they can rend +This cloud of flesh, and make my soul a star! + + Unleash thy crouching thunders now, O Jove! +Free this high heart, which, a poor captive long, +Doth knock to be let forth, this heart which still, +In its invincible manhood, overtops +Thy puny godship, as this mountain doth +The pines that moss its roots. Oh, even now, +While from my peak of suffering I look down, 280 +Beholding with a far-spread gush of hope +The sunrise of that Beauty, in whose face, +Shone all around with love, no man shall look +But straightway like a god he be uplift +Unto the throne long empty for his sake, +And clearly oft foreshadowed in brave dreams +By his free inward nature, which nor thou, +Nor any anarch after thee, can bind +From working its great doom,--now, now set free +This essence, not to die, but to become 290 +Part of that awful Presence which doth haunt +The palaces of tyrants, to scare off, +With its grim eyes and fearful whisperings +And hideous sense of utter loneliness, +All hope of safety, all desire of peace, +All but the loathed forefeeling of blank death,-- +Part of that spirit which doth ever brood +In patient calm on the unpilfered nest +Of man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledged +To sail with darkening shadow o'er the world, 300 +Filling with dread such souls as dare not trust +In the unfailing energy of Good, +Until they swoop, and their pale quarry make +Of some o'erbloated wrong,--that spirit which +Scatters great hopes in the seed-field of man, +Like acorns among grain, to grow and be +A roof for freedom in all coming time! + + But no, this cannot be; for ages yet, +In solitude unbroken, shall I hear +The angry Caspian to the Euxine shout, 310 +And Euxine answer with a muffled roar, +On either side storming the giant walls +Of Caucasus with leagues of climbing foam +(Less, from my height, than flakes of downy snow), +That draw back baffled but to hurl again, +Snatched up in wrath and horrible turmoil, +Mountain on mountain, as the Titans erst, +My brethren, scaling the high seat of Jove, +Heaved Pelion upon Ossa's shoulders broad +In vain emprise. The moon will come and go 320 +With her monotonous vicissitude; +Once beautiful, when I was free to walk +Among my fellows, and to interchange +The influence benign of loving eyes, +But now by aged use grows wearisome;-- +False thought! most false! for how could I endure +These crawling centuries of lonely woe +Unshamed by weak complaining, but for thee, +Loneliest, save me, of all created things, +Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter, 330 +With thy pale smile of sad benignity? + + Year after year will pass away and seem +To me, in mine eternal agony, +But as the shadows of dumb summer clouds, +Which I have watched so often darkening o'er +The vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide at first, +But, with still swiftness, lessening on and on +Till cloud and shadow meet and mingle where +The gray horizon fades into the sky, +Far, far to northward. Yes, for ages yet 340 +Must I lie here upon my altar huge, +A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be, +As it hath been, his portion; endless doom, +While the immortal with the mortal linked +Dreams of its wings and pines for what it dreams, +With upward yearn unceasing. Better so: +For wisdom is stern sorrow's patient child, +And empire over self, and all the deep +Strong charities that make men seem like gods; +And love, that makes them be gods, from her breasts 350 +Sucks in the milk that makes mankind one blood. +Good never comes unmixed, or so it seems, +Having two faces, as some images +Are carved, of foolish gods; one face is ill; +But one heart lies beneath, and that is good, +As are all hearts, when we explore their depths. +Therefore, great heart, bear up; thou art but type +Of what all lofty spirits endure, that fain +Would win men back to strength and peace through love: +Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heart 360 +Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelong +With vulture beak; yet the high soul is left; +And faith, which is but hope grown wise, and love +And patience which at last shall overcome. + + + +THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS + +There came a youth upon the earth, + Some thousand years ago, +Whose slender hands were nothing worth, +Whether to plough, or reap, or sow. + +Upon an empty tortoise-shell + He stretched some chords, and drew +Music that made men's bosoms swell +Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew. + +Then King Admetus, one who had + Pure taste by right divine, +Decreed his singing not too bad +To hear between the cups of wine: + +And so, well pleased with being soothed + Into a sweet half-sleep, +Three times his kingly beard he smoothed, +And made him viceroy o'er his sheep. + +His words were simple words enough, + And yet he used them so, +That what in other mouths was rough +In his seemed musical and low. + +Men called him but a shiftless youth, + In whom no good they saw; +And yet, unwittingly, in truth, +They made his careless words their law. + +They knew not how he learned at all, + For idly, hour by hour, +He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, +Or mused upon a common flower. + +It seemed the loveliness of things + Did teach him all their use, +For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, +He found a healing power profuse. + +Men granted that his speech was wise, + But, when a glance they caught +Of his slim grace and woman's eyes, +They laughed, and called him good-for-naught. + +Yet after he was dead and gone, + And e'en his memory dim, +Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, +More full of love, because of him. + +And day by day more holy grew + Each spot where he had trod, +Till after-poets only knew +Their first-born brother as a god. + + + +THE TOKEN + +It is a mere wild rosebud, + Quite sallow now, and dry, +Yet there's something wondrous in it, + Some gleams of days gone by, +Dear sights and sounds that are to me +The very moons of memory, +And stir my heart's blood far below +Its short-lived waves of joy and woe. + +Lips must fade and roses wither, + All sweet times be o'er; +They only smile, and, murmuring 'Thither!' + Stay with us no more: +And yet ofttimes a look or smile, +Forgotten in a kiss's while, +Years after from the dark will start, +And flash across the trembling heart. + +Thou hast given me many roses, + But never one, like this, +O'erfloods both sense and spirit + With such a deep, wild bliss; +We must have instincts that glean up +Sparse drops of this life in the cup, +Whose taste shall give us all that we +Can prove of immortality. + +Earth's stablest things are shadows, + And, in the life to come. +Haply some chance-saved trifle + May tell of this old home: +As now sometimes we seem to find, +In a dark crevice of the mind, +Some relic, which, long pondered o'er, +Hints faintly at a life before. + + + +AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR + + He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough + Pressed round to hear the praise of one +Whose heart was made of manly, simple stuff, + As homespun as their own. + + And, when he read, they forward leaned, + Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears, +His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned + From humble smiles and tears. + + Slowly there grew a tender awe, + Sun-like, o'er faces brown and hard, +As if in him who read they felt and saw + Some presence of the bard. + + It was a sight for sin and wrong + And slavish tyranny to see, +A sight to make our faith more pure and strong + In high humanity. + + I thought, these men will carry hence + Promptings their former life above, +And something of a finer reverence + For beauty, truth, and love. + + God scatters love on every side + Freely among his children all, +And always hearts are lying open wide, + Wherein some grains may fall. + + There is no wind but soweth seeds + Of a more true and open life, +Which burst, unlooked for, into high-souled deeds, + With wayside beauty rife. + + We find within these souls of ours + Some wild germs of a higher birth, +Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers + Whose fragrance fills the earth. + + Within the hearts of all men lie + These promises of wider bliss, +Which blossom into hopes that cannot die, + In sunny hours like this. + + All that hath been majestical + In life or death, since time began, +Is native in the simple heart of all, + The angel heart of man. + + And thus, among the untaught poor, + Great deeds and feelings find a home, +That cast in shadow all the golden lore + Of classic Greece and Rome. + + O mighty brother-soul of man, + Where'er thou art, in low or high, +Thy skyey arches with exulting span + O'er-roof infinity! + + All thoughts that mould the age begin + Deep down within the primitive soul, +And from the many slowly upward win + To one who grasps the whole: + + In his wide brain the feeling deep + That struggled on the many's tongue +Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leap + O'er the weak thrones of wrong. + + All thought begins in feeling,--wide + In the great mass its base is hid, +And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified, + A moveless pyramid. + + Nor is he far astray, who deems + That every hope, which rises and grows broad +In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams + From the great heart of God. + + God wills, man hopes: in common souls + Hope is but vague and undefined, +Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls + A blessing to his kind. + + Never did Poesy appear + So full of heaven to me, as when +I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear + To the lives of coarsest men. + + It may be glorious to write + Thoughts that shall glad the two or three +High souls, like those far stars that come in sight + Once in a century;-- + + But better far it is to speak + One simple word, which now and then +Shall waken their free nature in the weak + And friendless sons of men; + + To write some earnest verse or line, + Which, seeking not the praise of art, +Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine + In the untutored heart. + + He who doth this, in verse or prose, + May be forgotten in his day, +But surely shall be crowned at last with those + Who live and speak for aye. + + + +RHOECUS + +God sends his teachers unto every age, +To every clime, and every race of men, +With revelations fitted to their growth +And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth +Into the selfish rule of one sole race: +Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed +The life of man, and given it to grasp +The master-key of knowledge, reverence, +Infolds some germs of goodness and of right; +Else never had the eager soul, which loathes 10 +The slothful down of pampered ignorance, +Found in it even a moment's fitful rest. + + There is an instinct in the human heart +Which makes that all the fables it hath coined, +To justify the reign of its belief +And strengthen it by beauty's right divine, +Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift, +Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful hands, +Points surely to the hidden springs of truth. +For, as in nature naught is made in vain, 20 +But all things have within their hull of use +A wisdom and a meaning which may speak +Of spiritual secrets to the ear +Of spirit; so, in whatsoe'er the heart +Hath fashioned for a solace to itself, +To make its inspirations suit its creed, +And from the niggard hands of falsehood wring +Its needful food of truth, there ever is +A sympathy with Nature, which reveals, +Not less than her own works, pure gleams of light 30 +And earnest parables of inward lore. +Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece, +As full of gracious youth, and beauty still +As the immortal freshness of that grace +Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze. + + A youth named Rhoecus, wandering in the wood, +Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall, +And, feeling pity of so fair a tree, +He propped its gray trunk with admiring care, +And with a thoughtless footstep loitered on. 40 +But, as he turned, he heard a voice behind +That murmured 'Rhoecus!' 'Twas as if the leaves, +Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it, +And, while he paused bewildered, yet again +It murmured 'Rhoecus!' softer than a breeze. +He started and beheld with dizzy eyes +What seemed the substance of a happy dream +Stand there before him, spreading a warm glow +Within the green glooms of the shadowy oak. +It seemed a woman's shape, yet far too fair 50 +To be a woman, and with eyes too meek +For any that were wont to mate with gods. +All naked like a goddess stood she there, +And like a goddess all too beautiful +To feel the guilt-born earthliness of shame. +'Rhoecus, I am the Dryad of this tree,' +Thus she began, dropping her low-toned words +Serene, and full, and clear, as drops of dew, +'And with it I am doomed to live and die; +The rain and sunshine are my caterers, 60 +Nor have I other bliss than simple life; +Now ask me what thou wilt, that I can give, +And with a thankful joy it shall be thine.' + + Then Rhoecus, with a flutter at the heart, +Yet by the prompting of such beauty bold, +Answered: 'What is there that can satisfy +The endless craving of the soul but love? +Give me thy love, or but the hope of that +Which must be evermore my nature's goal.' +After a little pause she said again, +But with a glimpse of sadness in her tone, 71 +'I give it, Rhoecus, though a perilous gift; +An hour before the sunset meet me here.' +And straightway there was nothing he could see +But the green glooms beneath the shadowy oak, +And not a sound came to his straining ears +But the low trickling rustle of the leaves, +And far away upon an emerald slope +The falter of an idle shepherd's pipe. + + Now, in those days of simpleness and faith, 80 +Men did not think that happy things were dreams +Because they overstepped the narrow bourn +Of likelihood, but reverently deemed +Nothing too wondrous or too beautiful +To be the guerdon of a daring heart. +So Rhoecus made no doubt that he was blest, +And all along unto the city's gate +Earth seemed to spring beneath him as he walked, +The clear, broad sky looked bluer than its wont, +And he could scarce believe he had not wings, 90 +Such sunshine seemed to glitter through his veins +Instead of blood, so light he felt and strange. + + Young Rhoecus had a faithful heart enough, +But one that in the present dwelt too much, +And, taking with blithe welcome whatsoe'er +Chance gave of joy, was wholly bound in that, +Like the contented peasant of a vale, +Deemed it the world, and never looked beyond. +So, haply meeting in the afternoon +Some comrades who were playing at the dice, 100 +He joined them, and forgot all else beside. + + The dice were rattling at the merriest, +And Rhoecus, who had met but sorry luck, +Just laughed in triumph at a happy throw, +When through the room there hummed a yellow bee +That buzzed about his ear with down-dropped legs +As if to light. And Rhoecus laughed and said, +Feeling how red and flushed he was with loss, +'By Venus! does he take me for a rose?' +And brushed him off with rough, impatient hand. 110 +But still the bee came back, and thrice again +Rhoecus did beat him off with growing wrath. +Then through the window flew the wounded bee, +And Rhoecus, tracking him with angry eyes, +Saw a sharp mountain-peak of Thessaly +Against the red disk of the setting sun,-- +And instantly the blood sank from his heart, +As if its very walls had caved away. +Without a word he turned, and, rushing forth, +Ran madly through the city and the gate, 120 +And o'er the plain, which now the wood's long shade, +By the low sun thrown forward broad and dim, +Darkened wellnigh unto the city's wall. + + Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree, +And, listening fearfully, he heard once more +The low voice murmur 'Rhoecus!' close at hand: +Whereat he looked around him, but could see +Naught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak. +Then sighed the voice, 'O Rhoecus! nevermore +Shalt thou behold me or by day or night, 130 +Me, who would fain have blessed thee with a love +More ripe and bounteous than ever yet +Filled up with nectar any mortal heart: +But thou didst scorn my humble messenger, +And sent'st him back to me with bruised wings, +We spirits only show to gentle eyes, +We ever ask an undivided love, +And he who scorns the least of Nature's works +Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from all. +Farewell! for thou canst never see me more.' 140 + + Then Rhoecus beat his breast, and groaned aloud, +And cried, 'Be pitiful! forgive me yet +This once, and I shall never need it more!' +'Alas!' the voice returned, 'tis thou art blind, +Not I unmerciful; I can forgive, +But have no skill to heal thy spirit's eyes; +Only the soul hath power o'er itself.' +With that again there murmured 'Nevermore!' +And Rhoecus after heard no other sound, +Except the rattling of the oak's crisp leaves, 150 +Like the long surf upon a distant shore, +Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and down. +The night had gathered round him: o'er the plain +The city sparkled with its thousand lights, +And sounds of revel fell upon his ear +Harshly and like a curse; above, the sky, +With all its bright sublimity of stars, +Deepened, and on his forehead smote the breeze: +Beauty was all around him and delight, +But from that eve he was alone on earth. 160 + + + +THE FALCON + +I know a falcon swift and peerless + As e'er was cradled In the pine; +No bird had ever eye so fearless, + Or wing so strong as this of mine. + +The winds not better love to pilot + A cloud with molten gold o'er run, +Than him, a little burning islet, + A star above the coming sun. + +For with a lark's heart he doth tower, + By a glorious upward instinct drawn; +No bee nestles deeper in the flower + Than he in the bursting rose of dawn. + +No harmless dove, no bird that singeth, + Shudders to see him overhead; +The rush of his fierce swooping bringeth + To innocent hearts no thrill of dread. + +Let fraud and wrong and baseness shiver, + For still between them and the sky +The falcon Truth hangs poised forever + And marks them with his vengeful eye. + + + +TRIAL + + +I + +Whether the idle prisoner through his grate +Watches the waving of the grass-tuft small, +Which, having colonized its rift i' th' wall, +Accepts God's dole of good or evil fate, +And from the sky's just helmet draws its lot +Daily of shower or sunshine, cold or hot;-- +Whether the closer captive of a creed, +Cooped up from birth to grind out endless chaff, +Sees through his treadmill-bars the noonday laugh, +And feels in vain, his crumpled pinions breed;-- +Whether the Georgian slave look up and mark, +With bellying sails puffed full, the tall cloud-bark +Sink northward slowly,--thou alone seem'st good, +Fair only thou, O Freedom, whose desire +Can light in muddiest souls quick seeds of fire, +And strain life's chords to the old heroic mood. + + +II + +Yet are there other gifts more fair than thine, +Nor can I count him happiest who has never +Been forced with his own hand his chains to sever, +And for himself find out the way divine; +He never knew the aspirer's glorious pains, +He never earned the struggle's priceless gains. +Oh, block by block, with sore and sharp endeavor, +Lifelong we build these human natures up +Into a temple fit for Freedom's shrine, +And, Trial ever consecrates the cup +Wherefrom we pour her sacrificial wine. + + + +A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN + +We see but half the causes of our deeds, +Seeking them wholly in the outer life, +And heedless of the encircling spirit-world, +Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us +All germs of pure and world-wide purposes. +From one stage of our being to the next +We pass unconscious o'er a slender bridge, +The momentary work of unseen hands, +Which crumbles down behind us; looking back, +We see the other shore, the gulf between, 10 +And, marvelling how we won to where we stand, +Content ourselves to call the builder Chance. +We trace the wisdom to the apple's fall, +Not to the birth-throes of a mighty Truth +Which, for long ages in blank Chaos dumb, +Yet yearned to be incarnate, and had found +At last a spirit meet to be the womb +From which it might be born to bless mankind,-- +Not to the soul of Newton, ripe with all +The hoarded thoughtfulness of earnest years, 20 +And waiting but one ray of sunlight more +To blossom fully. + + But whence came that ray? +We call our sorrows Destiny, but ought +Rather to name our high successes so. +Only the instincts of great souls are Fate, +And have predestined sway: all other things, +Except by leave of us, could never be. +For Destiny is but the breath of God +Still moving in us, the last fragment left +Of our unfallen nature, waking oft 30 +Within our thought, to beckon us beyond +The narrow circle of the seen and known, +And always tending to a noble end, +As all things must that overrule the soul, +And for a space unseat the helmsman, Will. +The fate of England and of freedom once +Seemed wavering in the heart of one plain man: +One step of his, and the great dial-hand, +That marks the destined progress of the world +In the eternal round from wisdom on 40 +To higher wisdom, had been made to pause +A hundred years. That step he did not take,-- +He knew not why, nor we, but only God,-- +And lived to make his simple oaken chair +More terrible and soberly august, +More full of majesty than any throne, +Before or after, of a British king. + + Upon the pier stood two stern-visaged men, +Looking to where a little craft lay moored, +Swayed by the lazy current of the Thames, 50 +Which weltered by in muddy listlessness. +Grave men they were, and battlings of fierce thought +Had trampled out all softness from their brows, +And ploughed rough furrows there before their time, +For other crop than such as home-bred Peace +Sows broadcast in the willing soil of Youth. +Care, not of self, but for the common-weal, +Had robbed their eyes of youth, and left instead +A look of patient power and iron will, +And something fiercer, too, that gave broad hint 60 +Of the plain weapons girded at their sides. +The younger had an aspect of command,-- +Not such as trickles down, a slender stream, +In the shrunk channel of a great descent, +But such as lies entowered in heart and head, +And an arm prompt to do the 'hests of both. +His was a brow where gold were out of place, +And yet it seemed right worthy of a crown +(Though he despised such), were it only made +Of iron, or some serviceable stuff +That would have matched his brownly rugged face 71 +The elder, although such he hardly seemed +(Care makes so little of some five short years), +Had a clear, honest face, whose rough-hewn strength +Was mildened by the scholar's wiser heart +To sober courage, such as best befits +The unsullied temper of a well-taught mind, +Yet so remained that one could plainly guess +The hushed volcano smouldering underneath. +He spoke: the other, hearing, kept his gaze 80 +Still fixed, as on some problem in the sky. + + 'O CROMWELL we are fallen on evil times! +There was a day when England had a wide room +For honest men as well as foolish kings: +But now the uneasy stomach of the time +Turns squeamish at them both. Therefore let us +Seek out that savage clime, where men as yet +Are free: there sleeps the vessel on the tide, +Her languid canvas drooping for the wind; +Give us but that, and what need we to fear 90 +This Order of the Council? The free waves +Will not say No to please a wayward king, +Nor will the winds turn traitors at his beck: +All things are fitly cared for, and the Lord +Will watch us kindly o'er the exodus +Of us his servants now, as in old time. +We have no cloud or fire, and haply we +May not pass dry-shod through the ocean-stream; +But, saved or lost, all things are in His hand.' +So spake he, and meantime the other stood 100 +With wide gray eyes still reading the blank air. +As if upon the sky's blue wall he saw +Some mystic sentence, written by a hand, +Such as of old made pale the Assyrian king, +Girt with his satraps in the blazing feast. + + 'HAMPDEN! a moment since, my purpose was +To fly with thee,--for I will call it flight, +Nor flatter it with any smoother name,-- +But something in me bids me not to go; +And I am one, thou knowest, who, unmoved 110 +By what the weak deem omens, yet give heed +And reverence due to whatsoe'er my soul +Whispers of warning to the inner ear. +Moreover, as I know that God brings round +His purposes in ways undreamed by us, +And makes the wicked but his instruments +To hasten their own swift and sudden fall, +I see the beauty of his providence +In the King's order: blind, he will not let +His doom part from him, but must bid it stay 120 +As 't were a cricket, whose enlivening chirp +He loved to hear beneath his very hearth. +Why should we fly? Nay, why not rather stay +And rear again our Zion's crumbled walls, +Not, as of old the walls of Thebes were built, +By minstrel twanging, but, if need should be, +With the more potent music of our swords? +Think'st thou that score of men beyond the sea +Claim more God's care than all of England here? +No; when He moves his arm, it is to aid 130 +Whole peoples, heedless if a few be crushed, +As some are ever, when the destiny +Of man takes one stride onward nearer home. +Believe me, 'tis the mass of men He loves; +And, where there is most sorrow and most want, +Where the high heart of man is trodden down +The most, 'tis not because He hides his face +From them in wrath, as purblind teachers prate: +Not so: there most is He, for there is He +Most needed. Men who seek for Fate abroad 140 +Are not so near his heart as they who dare +Frankly to face her where she faces them, +On their own threshold, where their souls are strong +To grapple with and throw her; as I once, +Being yet a boy, did cast this puny king, +Who now has grown so dotard as to deem +That he can wrestle with an angry realm, +And throw the brawned Antæus of men's rights. +No, Hampden! they have half-way conquered Fate +Who go half-way to meet her,--as will I. 150 +Freedom hath yet a work for me to do; +So speaks that inward voice which never yet +Spake falsely, when it urged the spirit on +To noble emprise for country and mankind. +And, for success, I ask no more than this,-- +To bear unflinching witness to the truth. +All true whole men succeed; for what is worth +Success's name, unless it be the thought, +The inward surety, to have carried out +A noble purpose to a noble end, 160 +Although it be the gallows or the block? +'Tis only Falsehood that doth ever need +These outward shows of gain to bolster her. +Be it we prove the weaker with our swords; +Truth only needs to be for once spoke out, +And there's such music in her, such strange rhythm, +As makes men's memories her joyous slaves, +And clings around the soul, as the sky clings +Round the mute earth, forever beautiful, +And, if o'erclouded, only to burst forth 170 +More all-embracingly divine and clear: +Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like +A star new-born, that drops into its place, +And which, once circling in its placid round, +Not all the tumult of the earth can shake. + + 'What should we do in that small colony +Of pinched fanatics, who would rather choose +Freedom to clip an inch more from their hair, +Than the great chance of setting England free? +Not there, amid the stormy wilderness, 180 +Should we learn wisdom; or if learned, what room +To put it into act,--else worse than naught? +We learn our souls more, tossing for an hour +Upon this huge and ever-vexed sea +Of human thought, where kingdoms go to wreck +Like fragile bubbles yonder in the stream, +Than in a cycle of New England sloth, +Broke only by a petty Indian war, +Or quarrel for a letter more or less +In some hard word, which, spelt in either way, 190 +Not their most learned clerks can understand. +New times demand new measures and new men; +The world advances, and in time outgrows +The laws that in our fathers' day were best; +And, doubtless, after us, some purer scheme +Will be shaped out by wiser men than we, +Made wiser by the steady growth of truth. +We cannot hale Utopia on by force; +But better, almost, be at work in sin, +Than in a brute inaction browse and sleep. 200 +No man is born into the world whose work +Is not born with him; there is always work, +And tools to work withal, for those who will; +And blessed are the horny hands of toil! +The busy world stoves angrily aside +The man who stands with arms akimbo set, +Until occasion tells him what to do; +And he who waits to have his task marked out +Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. +Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds; 210 +Season and Government, like two broad seas, +Yearn for each other with outstretched arms +Across this narrow isthmus of the throne, +And roll their white surf higher every day. +One age moves onward, and the next builds up +Cities and gorgeous palaces, where stood +The rude log-huts of those who tamed the wild, +Rearing from out the forests they had felled +The goodly framework of a fairer state; +The builder's trowel and the settler's axe 220 +Are seldom wielded by the selfsame hand; +Ours is the harder task, yet not the less +Shall we receive the blessing for our toil +From the choice spirits of the aftertime. +My soul is not a palace of the past, +Where outworn creeds, like Rome's gray senate, quake, +Hearing afar the Vandal's trumpet hoarse, +That shakes old systems with a thunder-fit. +That time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change; +Then let it come: I have no dread of what 230 +Is called for by the instinct of mankind; +Nor think I that God's world will fall apart +Because we tear a parchment more or less. +Truth Is eternal, but her effluence, +With endless change, is fitted to the hour; +Her mirror is turned forward to reflect +The promise of the future, not the past. +He who would win the name of truly great +Must understand his own age and the next, +And make the present ready to fulfil 240 +Its prophecy, and with the future merge +Gently and peacefully, as wave with wave. +The future works out great men's purposes; +The present is enough, for common souls, +Who, never looking forward, are indeed +Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age +Are petrified forever; better those +Who lead the blind old giant by the hand +From out the pathless desert where he gropes, +And set him onward in his darksome way, 250 +I do not fear to follow out the truth, +Albeit along the precipice's edge. +Let us speak plain: there is more force in names +Than most men dream of; and a lie may keep +Its throne a whole age longer, if it skulk +Behind the shield of some fair-seeming name. +Let us call tyrants _tyrants_, and maintain +That only freedom comes by grace of God, +And all that comes not by his grace must fail; +For men in earnest have no time to waste 260 +In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth. + + 'I will have one more grapple with the man +Charles Stuart: whom the boy o'ercame, +The man stands not in awe of. I, perchance, +Am one raised up by the Almighty arm +To witness some great truth to all the world. +Souls destined to o'erleap the vulgar lot, +And mould the world unto the scheme of God, +Have a fore-consciousness of their high doom, +As men are known to shiver at the heart 270 +When the cold shadow of some coming ill +Creeps slowly o'er their spirits unawares. +Hath Good less power of prophecy than Ill? +How else could men whom God hath called to sway +Earth's rudder, and to steer the bark of Truth, +Beating against the tempest tow'rd her port, +Bear all the mean and buzzing grievances, +The petty martyrdoms, wherewith Sin strives +To weary out the tethered hope of Faith? +The sneers, the unrecognizing look of friends, 280 +Who worship the dead corpse of old king Custom, +Where it doth lie In state within the Church, +Striving to cover up the mighty ocean +With a man's palm, and making even the truth +Lie for them, holding up the glass reversed, +To make the hope of man seem farther off? +My God! when I read o'er the bitter lives +Of men whose eager heart's were quite too great +To beat beneath the cramped mode of the day, +And see them mocked at by the world they love, 290 +Haggling with prejudice for pennyworths +Of that reform which their hard toil will make +The common birthright of the age to come,-- +When I see this, spite of my faith in God, +I marvel how their hearts bear up so long; +Nor could they but for this same prophecy, +This inward feeling of the glorious end. + + 'Deem me not fond; but in my warmer youth, +Ere my heart's bloom was soiled and brushed away, +I had great dreams of mighty things to come; 300 +Of conquest, whether by the sword or pen +I knew not; but some Conquest I would have, +Or else swift death: now wiser grown in years, +I find youth's dreams are but the flutterings +Of those strong wings whereon the soul shall soar +In after time to win a starry throne; +And so I cherish them, for they were lots, +Which I, a boy, cast in the helm of Fate. +Now will I draw them, since a man's right hand, +A right hand guided by an earnest soul, 310 +With a true instinct, takes the golden prize +From out a thousand blanks. What men call luck +Is the prerogative of valiant souls, +The fealty life pays its rightful kings. +The helm is shaking now, and I will stay +To pluck my lot forth; it were sin to flee!' + + So they two turned together; one to die, +Fighting for freedom on the bloody field; +The other, far more happy, to become +A name earth wears forever next her heart; 320 +One of the few that have a right to rank +With the true Makers: for his spirit wrought +Order from Chaos; proved that right divine +Dwelt only in the excellence of truth; +And far within old Darkness' hostile lines +Advanced and pitched the shining tents of Light. +Nor shall the grateful Muse forget to tell, +That--not the least among his many claims +To deathless honor--he was MILTON'S friend, +A man not second among those who lived 330 +To show us that the poet's lyre demands +An arm of tougher sinew than the sword. + + + +A CHIPPEWA LEGEND + +[Greek: algeina men moi kaalegein estin tade, algos de sigan.] +AESCHYLUS, _Prom. Vinct._ 197, 198. + +For the leading incidents in this tale I am indebted to the very +valuable _Algic Researches_ of Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq. J.R.L. + +The old Chief, feeling now wellnigh his end, +Called his two eldest children to his side, +And gave them, in few words, his parting charge! +'My son and daughter, me ye see no more; +The happy hunting-grounds await me, green +With change of spring and summer through the year: +But, for remembrance, after I am gone, +Be kind to little Sheemah for my sake: +Weakling he is and young, and knows not yet +To set the trap, or draw the seasoned bow; 10 +Therefore of both your loves he hath more need, +And he, who needeth love, to love hath right; +It is not like our furs and stores of corn, +Whereto we claim sole title by our toil, +But the Great Spirit plants it in our hearts, +And waters it, and gives it sun, to be +The common stock and heritage of all: +Therefore be kind to Sheemah, that yourselves +May not be left deserted in your need.' + + Alone, beside a lake, their wigwam stood, 20 +Far from the other dwellings of their tribe: +And, after many moons, the loneliness +Wearied the elder brother, and he said, +'Why should I dwell here far from men, shut out +From the free, natural joys that fit my age? +Lo, I am tall and strong, well skilled to hunt, +Patient of toil and hunger, and not yet +Have seen the danger which I dared not look +Full in the face; what hinders me to be +A mighty Brave and Chief among my kin?' 30 +So, taking up his arrows and his bow, +As if to hunt, he journeyed swiftly on, +Until he gained the wigwams of his tribe, +Where, choosing out a bride, he soon forgot, +In all the fret and bustle of new life, +The little Sheemah and his father's charge. + + Now when the sister found her brother gone, +And that, for many days, he came not back, +She wept for Sheemah more than for herself; +For Love bides longest in a woman's heart, 40 +And flutters many times before he flies, +And then doth perch so nearly, that a word +May lure him back to his accustomed nest; +And Duty lingers even when Love is gone, +Oft looking out in hope of his return; +And, after Duty hath been driven forth, +Then Selfishness creeps in the last of all, +Warming her lean hands at the lonely hearth, +And crouching o'er the embers, to shut out +Whatever paltry warmth and light are left, 50 +With avaricious greed, from all beside. +So, for long months, the sister hunted wide, +And cared for little Sheemah tenderly; +But, daily more and more, the loneliness +Grew wearisome, and to herself she sighed, +'Am I not fair? at least the glassy pool, +That hath no cause to flatter, tells me so; +But, oh, how flat and meaningless the tale, +Unless it tremble on a lover's tongue! +Beauty hath no true glass, except it be 60 +In the sweet privacy of loving eyes.' +Thus deemed she idly, and forgot the lore +Which she had learned of nature and the woods, +That beauty's chief reward is to itself, +And that Love's mirror holds no image long +Save of the inward fairness, blurred and lost +Unless kept clear and white by Duty's care. +So she went forth and sought the haunts of men, +And, being wedded, in her household cares, +Soon, like the elder brother, quite forgot 70 +The little Sheemah and her father's charge. + + But Sheemah, left alone within the lodge, +Waited and waited, with a shrinking heart, +Thinking each rustle was his sister's step, +Till hope grew less and less, and then went out, +And every sound was changed from hope to fear. +Few sounds there were:--the dropping of a nut, +The squirrel's chirrup, and the jay's harsh scream, +Autumn's sad remnants of blithe Summer's cheer, +Heard at long intervals, seemed but to make 80 +The dreadful void of silence silenter. +Soon what small store his sister left was gone, +And, through the Autumn, he made shift to live +On roots and berries, gathered in much fear +Of wolves, whose ghastly howl he heard ofttimes, +Hollow and hungry, at the dead of night. +But Winter came at last, and, when the snow, +Thick-heaped for gleaming leagues o'er hill and plain, +Spread its unbroken silence over all, +Made bold by hunger, he was fain to glean 90 +(More sick at heart than Ruth, and all alone) +After the harvest of the merciless wolf, +Grim Boaz, who, sharp-ribbed and gaunt, yet feared +A thing more wild and starving than himself; +Till, by degrees, the wolf and he grew friends, +And shared together all the winter through. + + Late in the Spring, when all the ice was gone, +The elder brother, fishing in the lake, +Upon whose edge his father's wigwam stood, +Heard a low moaning noise upon the shore: 100 +Half like a child it seemed, half like a wolf, +And straightway there was something in his heart +That said, 'It is thy brother Sheemah's voice.' +So, paddling swiftly to the bank, he saw, +Within a little thicket close at hand, +A child that seemed fast clinging to a wolf, +From the neck downward, gray with shaggy hair, +That still crept on and upward as he looked. +The face was turned away, but well he knew +That it was Sheemah's, even his brother's face. 110 +Then with his trembling hands he hid his eyes, +And bowed his head, so that he might not see +The first look of his brother's eyes, and cried, +'O Sheemah! O my brother, speak to me! +Dost thou not know me, that I am thy brother? +Come to me, little Sheemah, thou shall dwell +With me henceforth, and know no care or want!' +Sheemah was silent for a space, as if +'T were hard to summon up a human voice, +And, when he spake, the voice was as a wolf's: 120 +'I know thee not, nor art thou what thou say'st; +I have none other brethren than the wolves, +And, till thy heart be changed from what it is, +Thou art not worthy to be called their kin.' +Then groaned the other, with a choking tongue, +'Alas! my heart is changed right bitterly; +'Tis shrunk and parched within me even now!' +And, looking upward fearfully, he saw +Only a wolf that shrank away, and ran, +Ugly and fierce, to hide among the woods. 130 + + + +STANZAS ON FREEDOM + +Men! whose boast it is that ye +Come of fathers brave and free, +If there breathe on earth a slave, +Are ye truly free and brave? +If ye do not feel the chain, +When it works a brother's pain, +Are ye not base slaves indeed, +Slaves unworthy to be freed? + +Women! who shall one day bear +Sons to breathe New England air, +If ye hear, without a blush, +Deeds to make the roused blood rush +Like red lava through your veins, +For your sisters now in chains,-- +Answer! are ye fit to be +Mothers of the brave and free? + +Is true Freedom but to break +Fetters for our own dear sake, +And, with leathern hearts, forget +That we owe mankind a debt? +No! true freedom is to share +All the chains our brothers wear +And, with heart and hand, to be +Earnest to make others free! + +They are slaves who fear to speak +For the fallen and the weak; +They are slaves who will not choose +Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, +Rather than in silence shrink +From the truth they needs must think; +They are slaves who dare not be +In the right with two or three. + + + +COLUMBUS + +The cordage creaks and rattles in the wind, +With whims of sudden hush; the reeling sea +Now thumps like solid rock beneath the stern, +Now leaps with clumsy wrath, strikes short, and, falling +Crumbled to whispery foam, slips rustling down +The broad backs of the waves, which jostle and crowd +To fling themselves upon that unknown shore. +Their used familiar since the dawn of time, +Whither this foredoomed life is guided on +To sway on triumph's hushed, aspiring poise 10 +One glittering moment, then to break fulfilled. + +How lonely is the sea's perpetual swing, +The melancholy wash of endless waves, +The sigh of some grim monster undescried, +Fear-painted on the canvas of the dark, +Shifting on his uneasy pillow of brine! +Yet, night brings more companions than the day +To this drear waste; new constellations burn, +And fairer stars, with whose calm height my soul +Finds nearer sympathy than with my herd 20 +Of earthen souls, whose vision's scanty ring +Makes me its prisoner to beat my wings +Against the cold bars of their unbelief, +Knowing in vain my own free heaven beyond. +O God! this world, so crammed with eager life, +That comes and goes and wanders back to silence +Like the idle wind, which yet man's shaping mind +Can make his drudge to swell the longing sails +Of highest endeavor,--this mad, unthrift world, +Which, every hour, throws life enough away 30 +To make her deserts kind and hospitable, +Lets her great destinies be waved aside +By smooth, lip-reverent, formal infidels, +Who weigh the God they not believe with gold, +And find no spot in Judas, save that he, +Driving a duller bargain than he ought, +Saddled his guild with too cheap precedent. +O Faith! if thou art strong, thine opposite +Is mighty also, and the dull fool's sneer +Hath ofttimes shot chill palsy through the arm 40 +Just lifted to achieve its crowning deed, +And made the firm-based heart, that would have quailed +The rack or fagot, shudder like a leaf +Wrinkled with frost, and loose upon its stem, +The wicked and the weak, by some dark law, +Have a strange power to shut and rivet down +Their own horizon round us, to unwing +Our heaven-aspiring visions, and to blur +With surly clouds the Future's gleaming peaks, +Far seen across the brine of thankless years. 50 +If the chosen soul could never be alone +In deep mid-silence, open-doored to God, +No greatness ever had been dreamed or done; +Among dull hearts a prophet never grew; +The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude. + +The old world is effete; there man with man +Jostles, and, in the brawl for means to live, +Life is trod underfoot,--Life, the one block +Of marble that's vouchsafed wherefrom to carve +Our great thoughts, white and godlike, to shine down 60 +The future, Life, the irredeemable block, +Which one o'er-hasty chisel-dint oft mars, +Scanting our room to cut the features out +Of our full hope, so forcing us to crown +With a mean head the perfect limbs, or leave +The god's face glowing o'er a satyr's trunk, +Failure's brief epitaph. + + Yes, Europe's world +Reels on to judgment; there the common need, +Losing God's sacred use, to be a bond +'Twixt Me and Thee, sets each one scowlingly 70 +O'er his own selfish hoard at bay; no state, +Knit strongly with eternal fibres up +Of all men's separate and united weals, +Self-poised and sole as stars, yet one as light, +Holds up a shape of large Humanity +To which by natural instinct every man +Pays loyalty exulting, by which all +Mould their own lives, and feel their pulses filled +With the red, fiery blood of the general life, +Making them mighty in peace, as now in war 80 +They are, even in the flush of victory, weak, +Conquering that manhood which should them subdue. +And what gift bring I to this untried world? +Shall the same tragedy be played anew, +And the same lurid curtain drop at last +On one dread desolation, one fierce crash +Of that recoil which on its makers God +Lets Ignorance and Sin and Hunger make, +Early or late? Or shall that commonwealth +Whose potent unity and concentric force 90 +Can draw these scattered joints and parts of men +Into a whole ideal man once more, +Which sucks not from its limbs the life away, +But sends it flood-tide and creates itself +Over again in every citizen, +Be there built up? For me, I have no choice; +I might turn back to other destinies, +For one sincere key opes all Fortune's doors; +But whoso answers not God's earliest call +Forfeits or dulls that faculty supreme 100 +Of lying open to his genius +Which makes the wise heart certain of its ends. + +Here am I; for what end God knows, not I; +Westward still points the inexorable soul: +Here am I, with no friend but the sad sea, +The beating heart of this great enterprise, +Which, without me, would stiffen in swift death; +This have I mused on, since mine eye could first +Among the stars distinguish and with joy +Rest on that God-fed Pharos of the north, 110 +On some blue promontory of heaven lighted +That juts far out into the upper sea; +To this one hope my heart hath clung for years, +As would a foundling to the talisman +Hung round his neck by hands he knew not whose; +A poor, vile thing and dross to all beside, +Yet he therein can feel a virtue left +By the sad pressure of a mother's hand, +And unto him it still is tremulous +With palpitating haste and wet with tears, 120 +The key to him of hope and humanness, +The coarse shell of life's pearl, Expectancy. +This hope hath been to me for love and fame, +Hath made me wholly lonely on the earth, +Building me up as in a thick-ribbed tower, +Wherewith enwalled my watching spirit burned, +Conquering its little island from the Dark, +Sole as a scholar's lamp, and heard men's steps, +In the far hurry of the outward world, +Pass dimly forth and back, sounds heard in dream, 130 +As Ganymede by the eagle was snatched up +From the gross sod to be Jove's cup-bearer, +So was I lifted by my great design: +And who hath trod Olympus, from his eye +Fades not that broader outlook of the gods; +His life's low valleys overbrow earth's clouds, +And that Olympian spectre of the past +Looms towering up in sovereign memory, +Beckoning his soul from meaner heights of doom. +Had but the shadow of the Thunderer's bird, 140 +Flashing athwart my spirit, made of me +A swift-betraying vision's Ganymede, +Yet to have greatly dreamed precludes low ends; +Great days have ever such a morning-red, +On such a base great futures are built up, +And aspiration, though not put in act, +Comes back to ask its plighted troth again, +Still watches round its grave the unlaid ghost +Of a dead virtue, and makes other hopes, +Save that implacable one, seem thin and bleak 150 +As shadows of bare trees upon the snow, +Bound freezing there by the unpitying moon. + +While other youths perplexed their mandolins, +Praying that Thetis would her fingers twine +In the loose glories of her lover's hair, +And wile another kiss to keep back day, +I, stretched beneath the many-centuried shade +Of some writhed oak, the wood's Laocoön, +Did of my hope a dryad mistress make, +Whom I would woo to meet me privily, 160 +Or underneath the stars, or when the moon +Flecked all the forest floor with scattered pearls. +O days whose memory tames to fawning down +The surly fell of Ocean's bristled neck! + +I know not when this hope enthralled me first, +But from my boyhood up I loved to hear +The tall pine-forests of the Apennine +Murmur their hoary legends of the sea, +Which hearing, I in vision clear beheld +The sudden dark of tropic night shut down 170 +O'er the huge whisper of great watery wastes, +The while a pair of herons trailingly +Flapped inland, where some league-wide river hurled +The yellow spoil of unconjectured realms +Far through a gulf's green silence, never scarred, +By any but the Northwind's hurrying keels. +And not the pines alone; all sights and sounds +To my world-seeking heart paid fealty, +And catered for it as the Cretan bees +Brought honey to the baby Jupiter, +Who in his soft hand crushed a violet, 181 +Godlike foremusing the rough thunder's gripe; +Then did I entertain the poet's song, +My great Idea's guest, and, passing o'er +That iron bridge the Tuscan built to hell, +I heard Ulysses tell of mountain-chains +Whose adamantine links, his manacles, +The western main shook growling, and still gnawed. +I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale. +Of happy Atlantis, and heard Björne's keel 190 +Crunch the gray pebbles of the Vinland shore: +I listened, musing, to the prophecy +Of Nero's tutor-victim; lo, the birds +Sing darkling, conscious of the climbing dawn. +And I believed the poets; it is they +Who utter wisdom from the central deep, +And, listening to the inner flow of things, +Speak to the age out of eternity. + +Ah me! old hermits sought for solitude +In caves and desert places of the earth, 200 +Where their own heart-beat was the only stir +Of living thing that comforted the year; +But the bald pillar-top of Simeon, +In midnight's blankest waste, were populous, +Matched with the isolation drear and deep +Of him who pines among the swarm of men, +At once a new thought's king and prisoner, +Feeling the truer life within his life, +The fountain of his spirit's prophecy, +Sinking away and wasting, drop by drop, 210 +In the ungrateful sands of sceptic ears. +He in the palace-aisles of untrod woods +Doth walk a king; for him the pent-up cell +Widens beyond the circles of the stars, +And all the sceptred spirits of the past +Come thronging in to greet him as their peer; +But in the market-place's glare and throng +He sits apart, an exile, and his brow +Aches with the mocking memory of its crown. + +Yet to the spirit select there is no choice; 220 +He cannot say, This will I do, or that, +For the cheap means putting Heaven's ends in pawn, +And bartering his bleak rocks, the freehold stern +Of destiny's first-born, for smoother fields +That yield no crop of self-denying will; +A hand is stretched to him from out the dark, +Which grasping without question, he is led +Where there is work that he must do for God. +The trial still is the strength's complement, +And the uncertain, dizzy path that scales 230 +The sheer heights of supremest purposes +Is steeper to the angel than the child. +Chances have laws as fixed as planets have, +And disappointment's dry and bitter root, +Envy's harsh berries, and the choking pool +Of the world's scorn, are the right mother-milk +To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind, +And break a pathway to those unknown realms +That in the earth's broad shadow lie enthralled; 239 +Endurance is the crowning quality, +And patience all the passion of great hearts; +These are their stay, and when the leaden world +Sets its hard face against their fateful thought, +And brute strength, like the Gaulish conqueror, +Clangs his huge glaive down in the other scale, +The inspired soul but flings his patience in, +And slowly that outweighs the ponderous globe,-- +One faith against a whole earth's unbelief, +One soul against the flesh of all mankind. + +Thus ever seems it when my soul can hear 250 +The voice that errs not; then my triumph gleams, +O'er the blank ocean beckoning, and all night +My heart flies on before me as I sail; +Far on I see my lifelong enterprise. +That rose like Ganges mid the freezing snows +Of a world's solitude, sweep broadening down, +And, gathering to itself a thousand streams, +Grow sacred ere it mingle with the sea; +I see the ungated wall of chaos old, +With blocks Cyclopean hewn of solid night, 260 +Fade like a wreath of unreturning mist +Before the irreversible feet of light;-- +And lo, with what clear omen in the east +On day's gray threshold stands the eager dawn, +Like young Leander rosy from the sea +Glowing at Hero's lattice! + + One day more +These muttering shoalbrains leave the helm to me: +God, let me not in their dull ooze be stranded: +Let not this one frail bark, to hollow which +I have dug out the pith and sinewy heart 270 +Of my aspiring life's fair trunk, be so +Cast up to warp and blacken in the sun, +Just as the opposing wind 'gins whistle off +His cheek-swollen pack, and from the leaning mast +Fortune's full sail strains forward! + + One poor day!-- +Remember whose and not how short it is! +It is God's day, it is Columbus's. +A lavish day! One day, with life and heart, +Is more than time enough to find a world. + + + +AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT HAMBURG + +The tower of old Saint Nicholas soared upward to the skies, +Like some huge piece of Nature's make, the growth of centuries; +You could not deem its crowding spires a work of human art, +They seemed to struggle lightward from a sturdy living heart. + +Not Nature's self more freely speaks in crystal or in oak, +Than, through the pious builder's hand, in that gray pile she spoke; +And as from acorn springs the oak, so, freely and alone, +Sprang from his heart this hymn to God, sung in obedient stone. + +It seemed a wondrous freak of chance, so perfect, yet so rough, +A whim of Nature crystallized slowly in granite tough; +The thick spires yearned towards the sky in quaint harmonious lines, +And in broad sunlight basked and slept, like a grove of blasted pines. + +Never did rock or stream or tree lay claim with better right +To all the adorning sympathies of shadow and of light; +And, in that forest petrified, as forester there dwells +Stout Herman, the old sacristan, sole lord of all its bells. + +Surge leaping after surge, the fire roared onward red as blood, +Till half of Hamburg lay engulfed beneath the eddying flood; +For miles away the fiery spray poured down its deadly rain, +And back and forth the billows sucked, and paused, and burst again. + +From square to square with tiger leaps panted the lustful fire, +The air to leeward shuddered with the gasps of its desire; +And church and palace, which even now stood whelmed but to the knee. +Lift their black roofs like breakers lone amid the whirling sea. + +Up in his tower old Herman sat and watched with quiet look; +His soul had trusted God too long to be at last forsook; +He could not fear, for surely God a pathway would unfold +Through this red sea for faithful hearts, as once He did of old. + +But scarcely can he cross himself, or on his good saint call, +Before the sacrilegious flood o'erleaped the churchyard wall; +And, ere a _pater_ half was said, mid smoke and crackling glare, +His island tower scarce juts its head above the wide despair. + +Upon the peril's desperate peak his heart stood up sublime; +His first thought was for God above, his next was for his chime; +'Sing now and make your voices heard in hymns of praise,' cried he, +'As did the Israelites of old, safe walking through the sea! + +'Through this red sea our God hath made the pathway safe to shore; +Our promised land stands full in sight; shout now as ne'er before! +And as the tower came crashing down, the bells, in clear accord, +Pealed forth the grand old German hymn,--'All good souls, praise the + Lord!' + + + +THE SOWER + +I saw a Sower walking slow + Across the earth, from east to west; +His hair was white as mountain snow, + His head drooped forward on his breast. + +With shrivelled hands he flung his seed, + Nor ever turned to look behind; +Of sight or sound he took no heed; + It seemed, he was both deaf and blind. + +His dim face showed no soul beneath, + Yet in my heart I felt a stir, +As if I looked upon the sheath, + That once had held Excalibur. + +I heard, as still the seed he cast, + How, crooning to himself, he sung. +'I sow again the holy Past, + The happy days when I was young. + +'Then all was wheat without a tare, + Then all was righteous, fair, and true; +And I am he whose thoughtful care + Shall plant the Old World in the New. + +'The fruitful germs I scatter free, + With busy hand, while all men sleep; +In Europe now, from sea to sea, + The nations bless me as they reap.' + +Then I looked back along his path. + And heard the clash of steel on steel, +Where man faced man, in deadly wrath, + While clanged the tocsin's hurrying peal. + +The sky with burning towns flared red, + Nearer the noise of fighting rolled. +And brothers' blood, by brothers shed, + Crept curdling over pavements cold. + +Then marked I how each germ of truth + Which through the dotard's fingers ran +Was mated with a dragon's tooth + Whence there sprang up an armèd man. + +I shouted, but he could not hear; + Made signs, but these he could not see; +And still, without a doubt or fear, + Broadcast he scattered anarchy. + +Long to my straining ears the blast + Brought faintly back the words he sung: +'I sow again the holy Past, + The happy days when I was young.' + + + +HUNGER AND COLD + +Sisters two, all praise to you, +With your faces pinched and blue; +To the poor man you've been true + From of old: +You can speak the keenest word, +You are sure of being heard, +From the point you're never stirred, + Hunger and Cold! + +Let sleek statesmen temporize; +Palsied are their shifts and lies +When they meet your bloodshot eyes, + Grim and bold; +Policy you set at naught, +In their traps you'll not be caught, +You're too honest to be bought, + Hunger and Cold! + +Bolt and bar the palace door; +While the mass of men are poor, +Naked truth grows more and more + Uncontrolled; +You had never yet, I guess, +Any praise for bashfulness, +You can visit sans court-dress, + Hunger and Cold! + +While the music fell and rose, +And the dance reeled to its close, +Where her round of costly woes + Fashion strolled, +I beheld with shuddering fear +Wolves' eyes through the windows peer; +Little dream they you are near, + Hunger and Cold! + +When the toiler's heart you clutch, +Conscience is not valued much, +He recks not a bloody smutch + On his gold: +Everything to you defers, +You are potent reasoners, +At your whisper Treason stirs, + Hunger and Cold! + +Rude comparisons you draw, +Words refuse to sate your maw, +Your gaunt limbs the cobweb law + Cannot hold: +You're not clogged with foolish pride, +But can seize a right denied: +Somehow God is on your side, + Hunger and Cold! + +You respect no hoary wrong +More for having triumphed long; +Its past victims, haggard throng, + From the mould +You unbury: swords and spears +Weaker are than poor men's tears, +Weaker than your silent years, + Hunger and Cold! + +Let them guard both hall and bower; +Through the window you will glower, +Patient till your reckoning hour + Shall be tolled; +Cheeks are pale, but hands are red, +Guiltless blood may chance be shed, +But ye must and will be fed, + Hunger and Cold! + +God has plans man must not spoil, +Some were made to starve and toil, +Some to share the wine and oil, + We are told: +Devil's theories are these, +Stifling hope and love and peace, +Framed your hideous lusts to please, + Hunger and Cold! + +Scatter ashes on thy head, +Tears of burning sorrow shed, +Earth! and be by Pity led + To Love's fold; +Ere they block the very door +With lean corpses of the poor, +And will hush for naught but gore, + Hunger and Cold! + + + +THE LANDLORD + +What boot your houses and your lands? + In spite of close-drawn deed and fence, +Like water, twixt your cheated hands, +They slip into the graveyard's sands, + And mock your ownership's pretence. + +How shall you speak to urge your right, + Choked with that soil for which you lust? +The bit of clay, for whose delight +You grasp, is mortgaged, too; Death might + Foreclose this very day in dust. + +Fence as you please, this plain poor man, + Whose only fields are in his wit, +Who shapes the world, as best he can, +According to God's higher plan, + Owns you, and fences as is fit. + +Though yours the rents, his incomes wax + By right of eminent domain; +From factory tall to woodman's axe, +All things on earth must pay their tax, + To feed his hungry heart and brain. + +He takes you from your easy-chair, + And what he plans that you must do; +You sleep in down, eat dainty fare,-- +He mounts his crazy garret-stair + And starves, the landlord over you. + +Feeding the clods your idlesse drains, + You make more green six feet of soil; +His fruitful word, like suns and rains, +Partakes the seasons' bounteous pains, + And toils to lighten human toil. + +Your lands, with force or cunning got, + Shrink to the measure of the grave; +But Death himself abridges not +The tenures of almighty thought, + The titles of the wise and brave. + + + +TO A PINE-TREE + +Far up on Katahdin thou towerest, + Purple-blue with the distance and vast; +Like a cloud o'er the lowlands thou lowerest, + That hangs poised on a lull in the blast, + To its fall leaning awful. + +In the storm, like a prophet o'er-maddened, + Thou singest and tossest thy branches; +Thy heart with the terror is gladdened, + Thou forebodest the dread avalanches, + When whole mountains swoop valeward. + +In the calm thou o'erstretchest the valleys + With thine arms, as if blessings imploring, +Like an old king led forth from his palace, + When his people to battle are pouring + From the city beneath him. + +To the lumberer asleep 'neath thy glooming + Thou dost sing of wild billows in motion, +Till he longs to be swung mid their booming + In the tents of the Arabs of ocean, + Whose finned isles are their cattle. + +For the gale snatches thee for his lyre, + With mad hand crashing melody frantic, +While he pours forth his mighty desire + To leap down on the eager Atlantic, + Whose arms stretch to his playmate. + +The wild storm makes his lair in thy branches, + Swooping thence on the continent under; +Like a lion, crouched close on his haunches, + There awaiteth his leap the fierce thunder, + Growling low with impatience. + +Spite of winter, thou keep'st thy green glory, + Lusty father of Titans past number! +The snow-flakes alone make thee hoary, + Nestling close to thy branches in slumber, + And thee mantling with silence. + +Thou alone know'st the splendor of winter, + Mid thy snow-silvered, hushed precipices, +Hearing crags of green ice groan and splinter, + And then plunge down the muffled abysses + In the quiet of midnight. + +Thou alone know'st the glory of summer + Gazing down on thy broad seas of forest, +On thy subjects that send a proud murmur + Up to thee, to their sachem, who towerest + From thy bleak throne to heaven. + + + +SI DESCENDERO IN INFERNUM, ADES + +O wandering dim on the extremest edge + Of God's bright providence, whose spirits sigh +Drearily in you, like the winter sedge + That shivers o'er the dead pool stiff and dry, + A thin, sad voice, when the bold wind roars by + From the clear North of Duty,-- +Still by cracked arch and broken shaft I trace +That here was once a shrine and holy place + Of the supernal Beauty, + A child's play-altar reared of stones and moss, + With wilted flowers for offering laid across, +Mute recognition of the all-ruling Grace. + +How far are ye from the innocent, from those + Whose hearts are as a little lane serene, +Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with unbroke snows, + Or in the summer blithe with lamb-cropped green, + Save the one track, where naught more rude is seen + Than the plump wain at even +Bringing home four months' sunshine bound in sheaves! +How far are ye from those! yet who believes + That ye can shut out heaven? + Your souls partake its influence, not in vain + Nor all unconscious, as that silent lane +Its drift of noiseless apple-blooms receives. + +Looking within myself, I note how thin + A plank of station, chance, or prosperous fate, +Doth fence me from the clutching waves of sin; + In my own heart I find the worst man's mate, + And see not dimly the smooth-hingèd gate + That opes to those abysses +Where ye grope darkly,--ye who never knew +On your young hearts love's consecrating dew, + Or felt a mother's kisses, + Or home's restraining tendrils round you curled; + Ah, side by side with heart's-ease in this world +The fatal nightshade grows and bitter rue! + +One band ye cannot break,--the force that clips + And grasps your circles to the central light; +Yours is the prodigal comet's long ellipse, + Self-exiled to the farthest verge of night; + Yet strives with you no less that inward might + No sin hath e'er imbruted; +The god in you the creed-dimmed eye eludes; +The Law brooks not to have its solitudes + By bigot feet polluted; + Yet they who watch your God-compelled return + May see your happy perihelion burn +Where the calm sun his unfledged planets broods. + + + +TO THE PAST + +Wondrous and awful are thy silent halls, + O kingdom of the past! +There lie the bygone ages in their palls, + Guarded by shadows vast; + There all is hushed and breathless, +Save when some image of old error falls + Earth worshipped once as deathless. + +There sits drear Egypt, mid beleaguering sands, + Half woman and half beast, +The burnt-out torch within her mouldering hands 10 + That once lit all the East; + A dotard bleared and hoary, +There Asser crouches o'er the blackened brands + Of Asia's long-quenched glory. + +Still as a city buried 'neath the sea + Thy courts and temples stand; +Idle as forms on wind-waved tapestry + Of saints and heroes grand, + Thy phantasms grope and shiver, +Or watch the loose shores crumbling silently 20 + Into Time's gnawing river. + +Titanic shapes with faces blank and dun, + Of their old godhead lorn, +Gaze on the embers of the sunken sun, + Which they misdeem for morn; + And yet the eternal sorrow +In their unmonarched eyes says day is done + Without the hope of morrow. + +O realm of silence and of swart eclipse, + The shapes that haunt thy gloom 30 +Make signs to us and move their withered lips + Across the gulf of doom; + Yet all their sound and motion +Bring no more freight to us than wraiths of ships + On the mirage's ocean. + +And if sometimes a moaning wandereth + From out thy desolate halls, +If some grim shadow of thy living death + Across our sunshine falls + And scares the world to error, 40 +The eternal life sends forth melodious breath + To chase the misty terror. + +Thy mighty clamors, wars, and world-noised deeds + Are silent now in dust, +Gone like a tremble of the huddling reeds + Beneath some sudden gust; + Thy forms and creeds have vanished, +Tossed out to wither like unsightly weeds + From the world's garden banished. + +Whatever of true life there was in thee 50 + Leaps in our age's veins; +Wield still thy bent and wrinkled empery, + And shake thine idle chains;-- + To thee thy dross is clinging, +For us thy martyrs die, thy prophets see, + Thy poets still are singing. + +Here, mid the bleak waves of our strife and care, + Float the green Fortunate Isles +Where all thy hero-spirits dwell, and share + Our martyrdoms and toils; 60 + The present moves attended +With all of brave and excellent and fair + That made the old time splendid. + + + +TO THE FUTURE + +O Land of Promise! from what Pisgah's height + Can I behold thy stretch of peaceful bowers, +Thy golden harvests flowing out of sight, + Thy nestled homes and sun-illumined towers? + Gazing upon the sunset's high-heaped gold, +Its crags of opal and of chrysolite, + Its deeps on deeps of glory, that unfold + Still brightening abysses, + And blazing precipices, +Whence but a scanty leap it seems to heaven, 10 + Sometimes a glimpse is given +Of thy more gorgeous realm, thy more unstinted blisses. + +O Land of Quiet! to thy shore the surf + Of the perturbèd Present rolls and sleeps; +Our storms breathe soft as June upon thy turf + And lure out blossoms; to thy bosom leaps, +As to a mother's, the o'erwearied heart, +Hearing far off and dim the toiling mart, + The hurrying feet, the curses without number, + And, circled with the glow Elysian 20 + Of thine exulting vision, +Out of its very cares wooes charms for peace and slumber. + +To thee the earth lifts up her fettered hands + And cries for vengeance; with a pitying smile +Thou blessest her, and she forgets her bands, + And her old woe-worn face a little while +Grows young and noble; unto thee the Oppressor + Looks, and is dumb with awe; + The eternal law, +Which makes the crime its own blindfold redresser, 30 +Shadows his heart with perilous foreboding, + And he can see the grim-eyed Doom + From out the trembling gloom +Its silent-footed steeds towards his palace goading. + +What promises hast thou for Poets' eyes, + A-weary of the turmoil and the wrong! +To all their hopes what overjoyed replies! + What undreamed ecstasies for blissful song! +Thy happy plains no war-trump's brawling clangor + Disturbs, and fools the poor to hate the poor; 40 +The humble glares not on the high with anger; + Love leaves no grudge at less, no greed for more; +In vain strives Self the godlike sense to smother; + From the soul's deeps + It throbs and leaps; +The noble 'neath foul rags beholds his long-lost brother. + +To thee the Martyr looketh, and his fires + Unlock their fangs and leave his spirit free; +To thee the Poet mid his toil aspires, + And grief and hunger climb about his knee, 50 +Welcome as children; thou upholdest + The lone Inventor by his demon haunted; +The Prophet cries to thee when hearts are coldest, + And gazing o'er the midnight's bleak abyss, + Sees the drowsed soul awaken at thy kiss, +And stretch its happy arms and leap up disenchanted. + +Thou bringest vengeance, but so loving-kindly + The guilty thinks it pity; taught by thee, +Fierce tyrants drop the scourges wherewith blindly + Their own souls they were scarring; conquerors see 60 +With horror in their hands the accursed spear + That tore the meek One's side on Calvary, +And from their trophies shrink with ghastly fear; + Thou, too, art the Forgiver, + The beauty of man's soul to man revealing; + The arrows from thy quiver +Pierce Error's guilty heart, but only pierce for healing. + +Oh, whither, whither, glory-wingèd dreams, + From out Life's, sweat and turmoil would ye bear me? +Shut, gates of Fancy, on your golden gleams,-- 70 + This agony of hopeless contrast spare me! +Fade, cheating glow, and leave me to my night! + He is a coward, who would borrow + A charm against the present sorrow +From the vague Future's promise of delight: + As life's alarums nearer roll, + The ancestral buckler calls, + Self-clanging from the walls + In the high temple of the soul; +Where are most sorrows, there the poet's sphere is, 80 + To feed the soul with patience, + To heal its desolations +With words of unshorn truth, with love that never wearies. + + + +HEBE + + I saw the twinkle of white feet, +I saw the flush of robes descending; + Before her ran an influence fleet, +That bowed my heart like barley bending. + + As, in bare fields, the searching bees +Pilot to blooms beyond our finding, + It led me on, by sweet degrees +Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding. + + Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates; +With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me; + The long-sought Secret's golden gates +On musical hinges swung before me. + + I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp +Thrilling with godhood; like a lover + I sprang the proffered life to clasp;-- +The beaker fell; the luck was over. + + The Earth has drunk the vintage up; +What boots it patch the goblet's splinters? + Can Summer fill the icy cup, +Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's? + + O spendthrift haste! await the Gods; +The nectar crowns the lips of Patience; + Haste scatters on unthankful sods +The immortal gift in vain libations. + + Coy Hebe flies from those that woo, +And shuns the hands would seize upon her; + Follow thy life, and she will sue +To pour for thee the cup of honor. + + + +THE SEARCH + + I went to seek for Christ, + And Nature seemed so fair +That first the woods and fields my youth enticed, + And I was sure to find him there: + The temple I forsook, + And to the solitude +Allegiance paid; but winter came and shook + The crown and purple from my wood; +His snows, like desert sands, with scornful drift, + Besieged the columned aisle and palace-gate; +My Thebes, cut deep with many a solemn rift, + But epitaphed her own sepulchered state: +Then I remembered whom I went to seek, +And blessed blunt Winter for his counsel bleak. + + Back to the world I turned, + For Christ, I said, is King; +So the cramped alley and the hut I spurned, + As far beneath his sojourning: + Mid power and wealth I sought, + But found no trace of him, +And all the costly offerings I had brought + With sudden rust and mould grew dim: +I found his tomb, indeed, where, by their laws, + All must on stated days themselves imprison, +Mocking with bread a dead creed's grinning jaws, + Witless how long the life had thence arisen; +Due sacrifice to this they set apart, +Prizing it more than Christ's own living heart. + + So from my feet the dust + Of the proud World I shook; +Then came dear Love and shared with me his crust. + And half my sorrow's burden took. + After the World's soft bed, + Its rich and dainty fare, +Like down seemed Love's coarse pillow to my head, + His cheap food seemed as manna rare; +Fresh-trodden prints of bare and bleeding feet, + Turned to the heedless city whence I came, +Hard by I saw, and springs of worship sweet + Gushed from my cleft heart smitten by the same; +Love looked me in the face and spake no words, +But straight I knew those footprints were the Lord's. + + I followed where they led, + And in a hovel rude, +With naught to fence the weather from his head, + The King I sought for meekly stood; + A naked, hungry child + Clung round his gracious knee, +And a poor hunted slave looked up and smiled + To bless the smile that set him free: +New miracles I saw his presence do,-- + No more I knew the hovel bare and poor, +The gathered chips into a woodpile grew, + The broken morsel swelled to goodly store; +I knelt and wept: my Christ no more I seek, +His throne is with the outcast and the weak. + + + +THE PRESENT CRISIS + +When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast +Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, +And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb +To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime +Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time. + +Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe, +When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro; +At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, +Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart, +And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's + heart. 10 + +So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill, +Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill, +And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God +In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod, +Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod. + +For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, +Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong; +Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame +Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;-- +In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. 20 + +Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, +In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; +Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, +Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, +And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. + +Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, +Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land? +Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is strong, +And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng +Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. 30 + +Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see, +That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion's sea; +Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry +Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff + must fly; +Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by. + +Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record +One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word; +Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,-- +Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, +Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. 40 + +We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great. +Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate, +But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din. +List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,-- +'They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin.' + +Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood, +Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earth with + blood, +Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day, +Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey;-- +Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play? 50 + +Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, +Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just; +Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, +Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, +And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. + +Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes,--they were souls that stood alone, +While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, +Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline +To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, +By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design. 60 + +By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track, +Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back, +And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned +One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned +Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned. + +For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands, +On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; +Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, +While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return +To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn. 70 + +'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves +Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves, +Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;-- +Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time? +Turn those tracks toward Past or Future that make Plymouth Rock sublime? + +They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, +Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's; +But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free. +Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee 70 +The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea. + +They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires, +Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires; +Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay, +From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away +To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day? + +New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; +They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; +Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, +Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, +Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key. 90 + + + +AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE + + + What visionary tints the year puts on, + When falling leaves falter through motionless air + Or humbly cling and shiver to be gone! + How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, + As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills + The bowl between me and those distant hills, +And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair! + + No more the landscape holds its wealth apart, + Making me poorer in my poverty, + But mingles with my senses and my heart; 10 + My own projected spirit seems to me + In her own reverie the world to steep; + 'Tis she that waves to sympathetic sleep, +Moving, as she is moved, each field and hill and tree. + + How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees, + Clasped by the faint horizon's languid arms, + Each into each, the hazy distances! + The softened season all the landscape charms; + Those hills, my native village that embay, + In waves of dreamier purple roll away, 20 +And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms. + + Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee + Close at my side; far distant sound the leaves; + The fields seem fields of dream, where Memory + Wanders like gleaning Ruth; and as the sheaves + Of wheat and barley wavered in the eye + Of Boaz as the maiden's glow went by, +So tremble and seem remote all things the sense receives. + + The cock's shrill trump that tells of scattered corn, + Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates, 30 + Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne, + Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits; + Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails; + Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails, +With watchful, measuring eye, and for his quarry waits. + + The sobered robin, hunger-silent now. + Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer; + The chipmunk, on the shingly shag-bark's bough + Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear, + Then drops his nut, and, cheeping, with a bound 40 + Whisks to his winding fastness underground; +The clouds like swans drift down the streaming atmosphere. + + O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar shadows + Drowse on the crisp, gray moss; the ploughman's call + Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh-furrowed meadows; + The single crow a single caw lets fall; + And all around me every bush and tree + Says Autumn's here, and Winter soon will be, +Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all. + + The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees, 50 + Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, + And hints at her foregone gentilities + With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves; + The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, + Glares red as blood across the sinking sun, +As one who proudlier to a falling fortune cleaves. + + He looks a sachem, in red blanket wrapt, + Who, mid some council of the sad-garbed whites, + Erect and stern, in his own memories lapt, + With distant eye broods over other sights, 60 + Sees the hushed wood the city's flare replace, + The wounded turf heal o'er the railway's trace, +And roams the savage Past of his undwindled rights. + + The red-oak, softer-grained, yields all for lost, + And, with his crumpled foliage stiff and dry, + After the first betrayal of the frost, + Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky; + The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid gold, + To the faint Summer, beggared now and old, +Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath her favoring eye. 70 + + The ash her purple drops forgivingly + And sadly, breaking not the general hush; + The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea, + Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush; + All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting blaze + Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy days, +Ere the rain fall, the cautious farmer burns his brush. + + O'er yon low wall, which guards one unkempt zone, + Where vines and weeds and scrub-oaks intertwine + Safe from the plough, whose rough, discordant stone 80 + Is massed to one soft gray by lichens fine, + The tangled blackberry, crossed and recrossed, weaves + A prickly network of ensanguined leaves; +Hard by, with coral beads, the prim black-alders shine. + + Pillaring with flame this crumbling boundary, + Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the ploughboy's foot, + Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye, + Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot, + The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires, + Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires; 90 +In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak stands mute. + + Below, the Charles, a stripe of nether sky, + Now hid by rounded apple-trees between, + Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying by, + Now flickering golden through a woodland screen, + Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond, + A silver circle like an inland pond-- +Slips seaward silently through marshes purple and green. + + Dear marshes! vain to him the gift of sight + Who cannot in their various incomes share, 100 + From every season drawn, of shade and light, + Who sees in them but levels brown and bare; + Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free + On them its largess of variety, +For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders rare. + + In Spring they lie one broad expanse of green, + O'er which the light winds run with glimmering feet: + Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen, + There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet; + And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd, 110 + As if the silent shadow of a cloud +Hung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet. + + All round, upon the river's slippery edge, + Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide, + Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling sedge; + Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide, + Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the sun, + And the stiff banks in eddies melt and run +Of dimpling light, and with the current seem to glide. + + In Summer 'tis a blithesome sight to see, 120 + As, step by step, with measured swing, they pass, + The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee, + Their sharp scythes panting through the wiry grass; + Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in a ring, + Their nooning take, while one begins to sing +A stave that droops and dies 'neath the close sky of brass. + + Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink, + Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops + Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink. + And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, 130 + A decorous bird of business, who provides + For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, +And looks from right to left, a farmer mid his crops. + + Another change subdues them in the Fall, + But saddens not; they still show merrier tints, + Though sober russet seems to cover all; + When the first sunshine through their dew-drops glints, + Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across, + Redeems with rarer hues the season's loss, +As Dawn's feet there had touched and left their rosy prints. 140 + + Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest, + Lean o'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill, + While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west, + Glow opposite;--the marshes drink their fill + And swoon with purple veins, then slowly fade + Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade, +Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simonds' darkening hill. + + Later, and yet ere Winter wholly shuts, + Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates, + And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, 150 + While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, + Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire, + And until bedtime plays with his desire, +Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;-- + + Then, every morn, the river's banks shine bright + With smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail, + By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night, + 'Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail, + Giving a pretty emblem of the day + When guiltier arms in light shall melt away, 160 +And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war's cramping mail. + + And now those waterfalls the ebbing river + Twice every day creates on either side + Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they shiver + In grass-arched channels to the sun denied; + High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow, + The silvered flats gleam frostily below, +Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide. + + But crowned in turn by vying seasons three, + Their winter halo hath a fuller ring; 170 + This glory seems to rest immovably,-- + The others were too fleet and vanishing; + When the hid tide is at its highest flow. + O'er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow +With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything. + + The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind, + As pale as formal candles lit by day; + Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind; + The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play, + Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee, 180 + White crests as of some just enchanted sea, +Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised midway. + + But when the eastern blow, with rain aslant, + From mid-sea's prairies green and rolling plains + Drives in his wallowing herds of billows gaunt, + And the roused Charles remembers in his veins + Old Ocean's blood and snaps his gyves of frost, + That tyrannous silence on the shores is tost +In dreary wreck, and crumbling desolation reigns. + + Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like device, 190 + With leaden pools between or gullies bare, + The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stonehenge of ice; + No life, no sound, to break the grim despair, + Save sullen plunge, as through the sedges stiff + Down crackles riverward some thaw-sapped cliff, +Or when the close-wedged fields of ice crunch here and there. + + But let me turn from fancy-pictured scenes + To that whose pastoral calm before me lies: + Here nothing harsh or rugged intervenes; + The early evening with her misty dyes 200 + Smooths off the ravelled edges of the nigh, + Relieves the distant with her cooler sky, +And tones the landscape down, and soothes the wearied eyes. + + There gleams my native village, dear to me, + Though higher change's waves each day are seen, + Whelming fields famed in boyhood's history, + Sanding with houses the diminished green; + There, in red brick, which softening time defies, + Stand square and stiff the Muses' factories:-- +How with my life knit up is every well-known scene! 210 + + Flow on, dear river! not alone you flow + To outward sight, and through your marshes wind; + Fed from the mystic springs of long-ago, + Your twin flows silent through my world of mind: + Grow dim, dear marshes, in the evening's gray! + Before my inner sight ye stretch away, +And will forever, though these fleshly eyes grow blind. + + Beyond the hillock's house-bespotted swell, + Where Gothic chapels house the horse and chaise, + Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell, 220 + Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer and praise, + Where dust and mud the equal year divide, + There gentle Allston lived, and wrought, and died, +Transfiguring street and shop with his illumined gaze. + + _Virgilium vidi tantum_,--I have seen + But as a boy, who looks alike on all, + That misty hair, that fine Undine-like mien, + Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest call;-- + Ah, dear old homestead! count it to thy fame + That thither many times the Painter came;-- 230 +One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree and tall. + + Swiftly the present fades in memory's glow,-- + Our only sure possession is the past; + The village blacksmith died a month ago, + And dim to me the forge's roaring blast; + Soon fire-new mediævals we shall see + Oust the black smithy from its chestnut-tree, +And that hewn down, perhaps, the beehive green and vast. + + How many times, prouder than king on throne, + Loosed from the village school-dame's A's and B's, 240 + Panting have I the creaky bellows blown, + And watched the pent volcano's red increase, + Then paused to see the ponderous sledge, brought down + By that hard arm voluminous and brown, +From the white iron swarm its golden vanishing bees. + + Dear native town! whose choking elms each year + With eddying dust before their time turn gray, + Pining for rain,--to me thy dust is dear; + It glorifies the eve of summer day, + And when the westering sun half sunken burns, 250 + The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns, +The westward horseman rides through clouds of gold away. + + So palpable, I've seen those unshorn few, + The six old willows at the causey's end + (Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew), + Through this dry mist their checkering shadows send, + Striped, here and there, with many a long-drawn thread, + Where streamed through leafy chinks the trembling red, +Past which, in one bright trail, the hangbird's flashes blend. + + Yes, dearer far thy dust than all that e'er, 260 + Beneath the awarded crown of victory, + Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer; + Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments three, + Yet _collegisse juvat_, I am glad + That here what colleging was mine I had,-- +It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee! + + Nearer art thou than simply native earth, + My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie; + A closer claim thy soil may well put forth, + Something of kindred more than sympathy; 270 + For in thy bounds I reverently laid away + That blinding anguish of forsaken clay, +That title I seemed to have in earth and sea and sky, + + That portion of my life more choice to me + (Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole) + Than all the imperfect residue can be;-- + The Artist saw his statue of the soul + Was perfect; so, with one regretful stroke, + The earthen model into fragments broke, +And without her the impoverished seasons roll. 280 + + + +THE GROWTH OF THE LEGEND + +A FRAGMENT + +A legend that grew in the forest's hush +Slowly as tear-drops gather and gush, +When a word some poet chanced to say +Ages ago, in his careless way, +Brings our youth back to us out of its shroud +Clearly as under yon thunder-cloud +I see that white sea-gull. It grew and grew, +From the pine-trees gathering a sombre hue, +Till it seems a mere murmur out of the vast +Norwegian forests of the past; 10 +And it grew itself like a true Northern pine, +First a little slender line, +Like a mermaid's green eyelash, and then anon +A stem that a tower might rest upon, +Standing spear-straight in the waist-deep moss, +Its bony roots clutching around and across, +As if they would tear up earth's heart in their grasp +Ere the storm should uproot them or make them unclasp; +Its cloudy boughs singing, as suiteth the pine, +To snow-bearded sea-kings old songs of the brine, 20 +Till they straightened and let their staves fall to the floor, +Hearing waves moan again on the perilous shore +Of Vinland, perhaps, while their prow groped its way +'Twixt the frothed gnashing tusks of some ship-crunching bay. + +So, pine-like, the legend grew, strong-limbed and tall, +As the Gypsy child grows that eats crusts in the hall; +It sucked the whole strength of the earth and the sky, +Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, all brought it supply; +'Twas a natural growth, and stood fearlessly there, +True part of the landscape as sea, land, and air; 30 +For it grew in good times, ere the fashion it was +To force these wild births of the woods under glass, +And so, if 'tis told as it should be told, +Though 'twere sung under Venice's moonlight of gold, +You would hear the old voice of its mother, the pine, +Murmur sealike and northern through every line, +And the verses should grow, self-sustained and free, +Round the vibrating stem of the melody, +Like the lithe moonlit limbs of the parent tree. + +Yes, the pine is the mother of legends; what food 40 +For their grim roots is left when the thousand-yeared wood, +The dim-aisled cathedral, whose tall arches spring +Light, sinewy, graceful, firm-set as the wing +From Michael's white shoulder, is hewn and defaced +By iconoclast axes in desperate waste, +And its wrecks seek the ocean it prophesied long, +Cassandra-like, crooning its mystical song? +Then the legends go with them,--even yet on the sea +A wild virtue is left in the touch of the tree, +And the sailor's night-watches are thrilled to the core 50 +With the lineal offspring of Odin and Thor. + +Yes, wherever the pine-wood has never let in, +Since the day of creation, the light and the din +Of manifold life, but has safely conveyed +From the midnight primeval its armful of shade, +And has kept the weird Past with its child-faith alive +Mid the hum and the stir of To-day's busy hive. +There the legend takes root in the age-gathered gloom, +And its murmurous boughs for their sagas find room. + +Where Aroostook, far-heard, seems to sob as he goes 60 +Groping down to the sea 'neath his mountainous snows; +Where the lake's frore Sahara of never-tracked white, +When the crack shoots across it, complains to the night +With a long, lonely moan, that leagues northward is lost, +As the ice shrinks away from the tread of the frost; +Where the lumberers sit by the log-fires that throw +Their own threatening shadows far round o'er the snow, +When the wolf howls aloof, and the wavering glare +Flashes out from the blackness the eyes of the bear, +When the wood's huge recesses, half-lighted, supply 70 +A canvas where Fancy her mad brush may try, +Blotting in giant Horrors that venture not down +Through the right-angled streets of the brisk, whitewashed town, +But skulk in the depths of the measureless wood +Mid the Dark's creeping whispers that curdle the blood, +When the eye, glanced in dread o'er the shoulder, may dream, +Ere it shrinks to the camp-fire's companioning gleam, +That it saw the fierce ghost of the Red Man crouch back +To the shroud of the tree-trunk's invincible black; +There the old shapes crowd thick round the pine-shadowed camp, 80 +Which shun the keen gleam of the scholarly lamp, +And the seed of the legend finds true Norland ground, +While the border-tale's told and the canteen flits round. + + + +A CONTRAST + +Thy love thou sendest oft to me, + And still as oft I thrust it back; +Thy messengers I could not see + In those who everything did lack, + The poor, the outcast and the black. + +Pride held his hand before mine eyes, + The world with flattery stuffed mine ears; +I looked to see a monarch's guise, + Nor dreamed thy love would knock for years, + Poor, naked, fettered, full of tears. + +Yet, when I sent my love to thee, + Thou with a smile didst take it in, +And entertain'dst it royally, + Though grimed with earth, with hunger thin, + And leprous with the taint of sin. + +Now every day thy love I meet, + As o'er the earth it wanders wide, +With weary step and bleeding feet, + Still knocking at the heart of pride + And offering grace, though still denied. + + + +EXTREME UNCTION + +Go! leave me, Priest; my soul would be + Alone with the consoler, Death; +Far sadder eyes than thine will see + This crumbling clay yield up its breath; +These shrivelled hands have deeper stains + Than holy oil can cleanse away, +Hands that have plucked the world's coarse gains + As erst they plucked the flowers of May. + +Call, if thou canst, to these gray eyes + Some faith from youth's traditions wrung; 10 +This fruitless husk which dustward dries + Hath been a heart once, hath been young; +On this bowed head the awful Past + Once laid its consecrating hands; +The Future in its purpose vast + Paused, waiting my supreme commands. + +But look! whose shadows block the door? + Who are those two that stand aloof? +See! on my hands this freshening gore + Writes o'er again its crimson proof! 20 +My looked-for death-bed guests are met; + There my dead Youth doth wring its hands, +And there, with eyes that goad me yet, + The ghost of my Ideal stands! + +God bends from out the deep and says, + 'I gave thee the great gift of life; +Wast thou not called in many ways? + Are not my earth and heaven at strife? +I gave thee of my seed to sow, + Bringest thou me my hundredfold?' 30 +Can I look up with face aglow, + And answer, 'Father, here is gold'? + +I have been innocent; God knows + When first this wasted life began, +Not grape with grape more kindly grows, + Than I with every brother-man: +Now here I gasp; what lose my kind, + When this fast ebbing breath shall part? +What bands of love and service bind + This being to a brother heart? 40 + +Christ still was wandering o'er the earth + Without a place to lay his head; +He found free welcome at my hearth, + He shared my cup and broke my bread: +Now, when I hear those steps sublime, + That bring the other world to this, +My snake-turned nature, sunk in slime, + Starts sideway with defiant hiss. + +Upon the hour when I was born, + God said, 'Another man shall be,' 50 +And the great Maker did not scorn + Out of himself to fashion me: +He sunned me with his ripening looks, + And Heaven's rich instincts in me grew, +As effortless as woodland nooks + Send violets up and paint them blue. + +Yes, I who now, with angry tears, + Am exiled back to brutish clod, +Have borne unqueached for fourscore years + A spark of the eternal God; 60 +And to what end? How yield I back + The trust for such high uses given? +Heaven's light hath but revealed a track + Whereby to crawl away from heaven. + +Men think it is an awful sight + To see a soul just set adrift +On that drear voyage from whose night + The ominous shadows never lift; +But 'tis more awful to behold + A helpless infant newly born, 70 +Whose little hands unconscious hold + The keys of darkness and of morn. + +Mine held them once; I flung away + Those keys that might have open set +The golden sluices of the day, + But clutch the keys of darkness yet; +I hear the reapers singing go + Into God's harvest; I, that might +With them have chosen, here below + Grope shuddering at the gates of night. 80 + +O glorious Youth, that once wast mine! + O high Ideal! all in vain +Ye enter at this ruined shrine + Whence worship ne'er shall rise again; +The bat and owl inhabit here, + The snake nests in the altar-stone, +The sacred vessels moulder near, + The image of the God is gone. + + + +THE OAK + +What gnarlèd stretch, what depth of shade, is his! + There needs no crown to mark the forest's king; +How in his leaves outshines full summer's bliss! + Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their tribute bring, +Which he with such benignant royalty + Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent; +All nature seems his vassal proud to be, + And cunning only for his ornament. + +How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows, + An unquelled exile from the summer's throne, +Whose plain, uncinctured front more kingly shows, + Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are flown. +His boughs make music of the winter air, + Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front +Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art repair + The dints and furrows of time's envious brunt. + +How doth his patient strength the rude March wind + Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze, +And win the soil that fain would be unkind, + To swell his revenues with proud increase! +He is the gem; and all the landscape wide + (So doth his grandeur isolate the sense) +Seems but the setting, worthless all beside, + An empty socket, were he fallen thence. + +So, from oft converse with life's wintry gales, + Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots +The inspiring earth; how otherwise avails + The leaf-creating sap that sunward shoots? +So every year that falls with noiseless flake + Should fill old scars up on the stormward side, +And make hoar age revered for age's sake, + Not for traditions of youth's leafy pride. + +So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate, + True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth, +So between earth and heaven stand simply great, + That these shall seem but their attendants both; +For nature's forces with obedient zeal + Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will; +As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel, + And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still. + +Lord! all thy works are lessons; each contains + Some emblem of man's all-containing soul; +Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious pains, + Delving within thy grace an eyeless mole? +Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove, + Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, +Speak but a word through me, nor let thy love + Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing. + + + +AMBROSE + +Never, surely, was holier man +Than Ambrose, since the world began; +With diet spare and raiment thin +He shielded himself from the father of sin; +With bed of iron and scourgings oft, +His heart to God's hand as wax made soft. + +Through earnest prayer and watchings long +He sought to know 'tween right and wrong, +Much wrestling with the blessed Word +To make it yield the sense of the Lord, 10 +That he might build a storm-proof creed +To fold the flock in at their need. + +At last he builded a perfect faith, +Fenced round about with _The Lord thus saith_; +To himself he fitted the doorway's size, +Meted the light to the need of his eyes, +And knew, by a sure and inward sign, +That the work of his fingers was divine. + +Then Ambrose said, 'All those shall die +The eternal death who believe not as I;' 20 +And some were boiled, some burned in fire, +Some sawn in twain, that his heart's desire, +For the good of men's souls might be satisfied +By the drawing of all to the righteous side. + +One day, as Ambrose was seeking the truth +In his lonely walk, he saw a youth +Resting himself in the shade of a tree; +It had never been granted him to see +So shining a face, and the good man thought +'Twere pity he should not believe as he ought. 30 + +So he set himself by the young man's side, +And the state of his soul with questions tried; +But the heart of the stranger was hardened indeed, +Nor received the stamp of the one true creed; +And the spirit of Ambrose waxed sore to find +Such features the porch of so narrow a mind. + +'As each beholds in cloud and fire +The shape that answers his own desire, +So each,' said the youth, 'in the Law shall find +The figure and fashion of his mind; 40 +And to each in his mercy hath God allowed +His several pillar of fire and cloud.' + +The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal +And holy wrath for the young man's weal: +'Believest thou then, most wretched youth,' +Cried he, 'a dividual essence in Truth? +I fear me thy heart is too cramped with sin +To take the Lord in his glory in.' + +Now there bubbled beside them where they stood +A fountain of waters sweet and good: 50 +The youth to the streamlet's brink drew near +Saying, 'Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here!' +Six vases of crystal then he took, +And set them along the edge of the brook. + +'As into these vessels the water I pour, +There shall one hold less, another more, +And the water unchanged, in every case, +Shall put on the figure of the vase; +O thou, who wouldst unity make through strife, +Canst thou fit this sign to the Water of Life?' 60 + +When Ambrose looked up, he stood alone, +The youth and the stream and the vases were gone; +But he knew, by a sense of humbled grace, +He had talked with an angel face to face, +And felt his heart change inwardly, +As he fell on his knees beneath the tree. + + + +ABOVE AND BELOW + + +I + +O dwellers in the valley-land, + Who in deep twilight grope and cower, +Till the slow mountain's dial-hand + Shorten to noon's triumphal hour, +While ye sit idle, do ye think + The Lord's great work sits idle too? +That light dare not o'erleap the brink + Of morn, because 'tis dark with you? + +Though yet your valleys skulk in night, + In God's ripe fields the day is cried, +And reapers, with their sickles bright, + Troop, singing, down the mountain-side: +Come up, and feel what health there is + In the frank Dawn's delighted eyes, +As, bending with a pitying kiss, + The night-shed tears of Earth she dries! + +The Lord wants reapers: oh, mount up, + Before night comes, and says, 'Too late!' +Stay not for taking scrip or cup, + The Master hungers while ye wait; +'Tis from these heights alone your eyes + The advancing spears of day can see, +That o'er the eastern hill-tops rise, + To break your long captivity. + + +II + +Lone watcher on the mountain-height, + It is right precious to behold +The first long surf of climbing light + Flood all the thirsty east with gold; +But we, who in the shadow sit, + Know also when the day is nigh, +Seeing thy shining forehead lit + With his inspiring prophecy. + +Thou hast thine office; we have ours; + God lacks not early service here, +But what are thine eleventh hours + He counts with us for morning cheer; +Our day, for Him, is long enough, + And when He giveth work to do, +The bruisèd reed is amply tough + To pierce the shield of error, through. + +But not the less do thou aspire + Light's earlier messages to preach; +Keep back no syllable of fire, + Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech. +Yet God deems not thine aeried sight + More worthy than our twilight dim; +For meek Obedience, too, is Light, + And following that is finding Him. + + + +THE CAPTIVE + +It was past the hour of trysting, + But she lingered for him still; +Like a child, the eager streamlet + Leaped and laughed adown the hill, +Happy to be free at twilight + From its toiling at the mill. + +Then the great moon on a sudden + Ominous, and red as blood, +Startling as a new creation, + O'er the eastern hilltop stood, +Casting deep and deeper shadows + Through the mystery of the wood. + +Dread closed fast and vague about her, + And her thoughts turned fearfully +To her heart, if there some shelter + From the silence there might be, +Like bare cedars leaning inland + From the blighting of the sea. + +Yet he came not, and the stillness + Dampened round her like a tomb; +She could feel cold eyes of spirits + Looking on her through the gloom, +She could hear the groping footsteps + Of some blind, gigantic doom. + +Suddenly the silence wavered + Like a light mist in the wind, +For a voice broke gently through it, + Felt like sunshine by the blind, +And the dread, like mist in sunshine, + Furled serenely from her mind. + +'Once my love, my love forever, + Flesh or spirit, still the same, +If I failed at time of trysting, + Deem then not my faith to blame; +I, alas, was made a captive, + As from Holy Land I came. + +'On a green spot in the desert, + Gleaming like an emerald star, +Where a palm-tree, in lone silence, + Yearning for its mate afar, +Droops above a silver runnel, + Slender as a scimitar, + +'There thou'lt find the humble postern + To the castle of my foe; +If thy love burn clear and faithful, + Strike the gateway, green and low, +Ask to enter, and the warder + Surely will not say thee no.' + +Slept again the aspen silence, + But her loneliness was o'er; +Bound her soul a motherly patience + Clasped its arms forevermore; +From her heart ebbed back the sorrow, + Leaving smooth the golden shore. + +Donned she now the pilgrim scallop, + Took the pilgrim staff in hand; +Like a cloud-shade flitting eastward, + Wandered she o'er sea and land; +And her footsteps in the desert + Fell like cool rain on the sand. + +Soon, beneath the palm-tree's shadow, + Knelt she at the postern low; +And thereat she knocked full gently, + Fearing much the warder's no; +All her heart stood still and listened, + As the door swung backward slow. + +There she saw no surly warder + With an eye like bolt and bar; +Through her soul a sense of music + Throbbed, and, like a guardian Lar, +On the threshold stood an angel, + Bright and silent as a star. + +Fairest seemed he of God's seraphs, + And her spirit, lily-wise, +Opened when he turned upon her + The deep welcome of his eyes, +Sending upward to that sunlight + All its dew for sacrifice. + +Then she heard a voice come onward + Singing with a rapture new, +As Eve heard the songs in Eden, + Dropping earthward with the dew; +Well she knew the happy singer, + Well the happy song she knew. + +Forward leaped she o'er the threshold, + Eager as a glancing surf; +Fell from her the spirit's languor, + Fell from her the body's scurf; +'Neath the palm next day some Arabs + Found a corpse upon the turf. + + + +THE BIRCH-TREE + +Rippling through thy branches goes the sunshine, +Among thy leaves that palpitate forever; +Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had prisoned, +The soul once of some tremulous inland river, +Quivering to tell her woe, but, ah! dumb, dumb forever! + +While all the forest, witched with slumberous moonshine, +Holds up its leaves in happy, happy stillness, +Waiting the dew, with breath and pulse suspended, +I hear afar thy whispering, gleamy islands, +And track thee wakeful still amid the wide-hung silence. + +On the brink of some wood-nestled lakelet, +Thy foliage, like the tresses of a Dryad, +Dripping round thy slim white stem, whose shadow +Slopes quivering down the water's dusky quiet, +Thou shrink'st as on her bath's edge would some startled Naiad. + +Thou art the go-between of rustic lovers; +Thy white bark has their secrets in its keeping; +Reuben writes here the happy name of Patience, +And thy lithe boughs hang murmuring and weeping +Above her, as she steals the mystery from thy keeping. + +Thou art to me like my beloved maiden, +So frankly coy, so full of trembly confidences; +Thy shadow scarce seems shade, thy pattering leaflets +Sprinkle their gathered sunshine o'er my senses, +And Nature gives me all her summer confidences. + +Whether my heart with hope or sorrow tremble, +Thou sympathizest still; wild and unquiet, +I fling me down; thy ripple, like a river, +Flows valleyward, where calmness is, and by it +My heart is floated down into the land of quiet. + + + +AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH + +I sat one evening in my room, + In that sweet hour of twilight +When blended thoughts, half light, half gloom, + Throng through the spirit's skylight; +The flames by fits curled round the bars, + Or up the chimney crinkled, +While embers dropped like falling stars, + And in the ashes tinkled. + +I sat, and mused; the fire burned low, + And, o'er my senses stealing, 10 +Crept something of the ruddy glow + That bloomed on wall and ceiling; +My pictures (they are very few, + The heads of ancient wise men) +Smoothed down their knotted fronts, and grew + As rosy as excisemen. + +My antique high-backed Spanish chair + Felt thrills through wood and leather, +That had been strangers since whilere, + Mid Andaluslan heather, 20 +The oak that built its sturdy frame + His happy arms stretched over +The ox whose fortunate hide became + The bottom's polished cover. + +It came out in that famous bark, + That brought our sires intrepid, +Capacious as another ark + For furniture decrepit; +For, as that saved of bird and beast + A pair for propagation, 30 +So has the seed of these increased + And furnished half the nation. + +Kings sit, they say, in slippery seats; + But those slant precipices +Of ice the northern voyager meets + Less slippery are than this is; +To cling therein would pass the wit + Of royal man or woman, +And whatsoe'er can stay in it + Is more or less than human. 40 + +I offer to all bores this perch, + Dear well-intentioned people +With heads as void as week-day church, + Tongues longer than the steeple; +To folks with missions, whose gaunt eyes + See golden ages rising,-- +Salt of the earth! in what queer Guys + Thou'rt fond of crystallizing! + +My wonder, then, was not unmixed + With merciful suggestion, 50 +When, as my roving eyes grew fixed + Upon the chair in question, +I saw its trembling arms enclose + A figure grim and rusty, +Whose doublet plain and plainer hose + Were something worn and dusty. + +Now even such men as Nature forms + Merely to fill the street with, +Once turned to ghosts by hungry worms, 59 + Are serious things to meet with; +Your penitent spirits are no jokes, + And, though I'm not averse to +A quiet shade, even they are folks + One cares not to speak first to. + +Who knows, thought I, but he has come, + By Charon kindly ferried, +To tell me of a mighty sum + Behind my wainscot buried? +There is a buccaneerish air + About that garb outlandish-- 70 +Just then the ghost drew up his chair + And said, 'My name is Standish. + +'I come from Plymouth, deadly bored + With toasts, and songs, and speeches, +As long and flat as my old sword, + As threadbare as my breeches: +_They_ understand us Pilgrims! they, + Smooth men with rosy faces. +Strength's knots and gnarls all pared away, + And varnish in their places! 80 + +'We had some toughness in our grain, + The eye to rightly see us is +Not just the one that lights the brain + Of drawing-room Tyrtæuses: +_They_ talk about their Pilgrim blood, + Their birthright high and holy! +A mountain-stream that ends in mud + Methinks is melancholy. + +'He had stiff knees, the Puritan, + That were not good at bending; +The homespun dignity of man 91 + He thought was worth defending; +He did not, with his pinchbeck ore, + His country's shame forgotten, +Gild Freedom's coffin o'er and o'er, + When all within was rotten. + +'These loud ancestral boasts of yours, + How can they else than vex us? +Where were your dinner orators + When slavery grasped at Texas? 100 +Dumb on his knees was every one + That now is bold as Cæsar; +Mere pegs to hang an office on + Such stalwart men as these are.' + +'Good sir,' I said, 'you seem much stirred; + The sacred compromises'-- +'Now God confound the dastard word! + My gall thereat arises: +Northward it hath this sense alone + That you, your conscience blinding, 110 +Shall bow your fool's nose to the stone, + When slavery feels like grinding. + +''Tis shame to see such painted sticks + In Vane's and Winthrop's places, +To see your spirit of Seventy-Six + Drag humbly in the traces, +With slavery's lash upon her back, + And herds, of office-holders +To shout applause, as, with a crack, 119 + It peels her patient shoulders. + +'_We_ forefathers to such a rout!-- + No, by my faith in God's word!' +Half rose the ghost, and half drew out + The ghost of his old broadsword, +Then thrust it slowly back again, + And said, with reverent gesture, +'No, Freedom, no! blood should not stain + The hem of thy white vesture. + +'I feel the soul in me draw near + The mount of prophesying; 130 +In this bleak wilderness I hear + A John the Baptist crying; +Far in the east I see upleap + The streaks of first forewarning, +And they who sowed the light shall reap + The golden sheaves of morning. + +'Child of our travail and our woe, + Light in our day of sorrow, +Through my rapt spirit I foreknow + The glory of thy morrow; 140 +I hear great steps, that through the shade + Draw nigher still and nigher, +And voices call like that which bade + The prophet come up higher.' + +I looked, no form mine eyes could find, + I heard the red cock crowing, +And through my window-chinks the wind + A dismal tune was blowing; +Thought I, My neighbor Buckingham + Hath somewhat in him gritty, 150 +Some Pilgrim-stuff that hates all sham, + And he will print my ditty. + + + +ON THE CAPTURE OF FUGITIVE SLAVES NEAR WASHINGTON + + +Look on who will in apathy, and stifle they who can, +The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man truly man; +Let those whose hearts are dungeoned up with interest or with ease +Consent to hear with quiet pulse of loathsome deeds like these! + +I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy breast +Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk that will not let me rest; +And if my words seem treason to the dullard and the tame, +'Tis but my Bay-State dialect,--our fathers spake the same! + +Shame on the costly mockery of piling stone on stone +To those who won our liberty, the heroes dead and gone, +While we look coldly on and see law-shielded ruffians slay +The men who fain would win their own, the heroes of to-day! + +Are we pledged to craven silence? Oh, fling it to the wind, +The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind, +That makes us cringe and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest, +While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot in the breast! + +Though we break our fathers' promise, we have nobler duties first; +The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed; +Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod, +Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God! + +We owe allegiance to the State; but deeper, truer, more, +To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit's core; +Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so, but then +Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men. + +He's true to God who's true to man; wherever wrong is done, +To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding sun, +That wrong is also done to us; and they are slaves most base, +Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race. + +God works for all. Ye cannot hem the hope of being free +With parallels of latitude, with mountain-range or sea. +Put golden padlocks on Truth's lips, be callous as ye will, +From soul to soul, o'er all the world, leaps one electric thrill. + +Chain down your slaves with ignorance, ye cannot keep apart, +With all your craft of tyranny, the human heart from heart: +When first the Pilgrims landed on the Bay State's iron shore, +The word went forth that slavery should one day be no more. + +Out from the land of bondage 'tis decreed our slaves shall go, +And signs to us are offered, as erst to Pharaoh; +If we are blind, their exodus, like Israel's of yore, +Through a Red Sea is doomed to be, whose surges are of gore. + +'Tis ours to save our brethren, with peace and love to win +Their darkened hearts from error, ere they harden it to sin; +But if before his duty man with listless spirit stands, +Erelong the Great Avenger takes the work from out his hands. + + + +TO THE DANDELION + + Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, +Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, + First pledge of blithesome May, +Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold, + High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they +An Eldorado in the grass have found, + Which not the rich earth's ample round + May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me + Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. + + Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow +Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, + Nor wrinkled the lean brow +Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; + 'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now +To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, + Though most hearts never understand + To take it at God's value, but pass by + The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. + + Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; +To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; + The eyes thou givest me +Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: + Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee +Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment + In the white lily's breezy tent, + His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first + From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. + + Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, +Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, + Where, as the breezes pass, +The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, + Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, +Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue + That from the distance sparkle through + Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, + Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. + + My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; +The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, + Who, from the dark old tree +Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, + And I, secure in childish piety, +Listened as if I heard an angel sing + With news from heaven, which he could bring + Fresh every day to my untainted ears + When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. + + How like a prodigal doth nature seem, +When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! + Thou teachest me to deem +More sacredly of every human heart, + Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam +Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, + Did we but pay the love we owe, + And with a child's undoubting wisdom look + On all these living pages of God's book. + + + +THE GHOST-SEER + +Ye who, passing graves by night, +Glance not to the left or right, +Lest a spirit should arise, +Cold and white, to freeze your eyes, +Some weak phantom, which your doubt +Shapes upon the dark without +From the dark within, a guess +At the spirit's deathlessness, +Which ye entertain with fear +In your self-built dungeon here, 10 +Where ye sell your God-given lives +Just for gold to buy you gyves,-- +Ye without a shudder meet +In the city's noonday street, +Spirits sadder and more dread +Than from out the clay have fled, +Buried, beyond hope of light, +In the body's haunted night! +See ye not that woman pale? +There are bloodhounds on her trail! 20 +Bloodhounds two, all gaunt and lean, +(For the soul their scent is keen,) +Want and Sin, and Sin is last. +They have followed far and fast; +Want gave tongue, and, at her howl, +Sin awakened with a growl. +Ah, poor girl! she had a right +To a blessing from the light; +Title-deeds to sky and earth +God gave to her at her birth; 30 +But, before they were enjoyed, +Poverty had made them void, +And had drunk the sunshine up +From all nature's ample cup, +Leaving her a first-born's share +In the dregs of darkness there. +Often, on the sidewalk bleak, +Hungry, all alone, and weak, +She has seen, in night and storm, +Rooms o'erflow with firelight warm, 40 +Which, outside the window-glass, +Doubled all the cold, alas! +Till each ray that on her fell +Stabbed her like an icicle, +And she almost loved the wail +Of the bloodhounds on her trail. +Till the floor becomes her bier, +She shall feel their pantings near, +Close upon her very heels, +Spite of all the din of wheels; 50 +Shivering on her pallet poor, +She shall hear them at the door +Whine and scratch to be let in, +Sister bloodhounds, Want and Sin! + +Hark! that rustle of a dress, +Stiff with lavish costliness! +Here comes one whose cheek would flush +But to have her garment brush +'Gainst the girl whose fingers thin +Wove the weary broidery in, 60 +Bending backward from her toil, +Lest her tears the silk might soil, +And, in midnights chill and murk, +Stitched her life into the work, +Shaping from her bitter thought +Heart's-ease and forget-me-not, +Satirizing her despair +With the emblems woven there. +Little doth the wearer heed +Of the heart-break in the brede; 70 +A hyena by her side +Skulks, down-looking,--it is Pride. +He digs for her in the earth, +Where lie all her claims of birth, +With his foul paws rooting o'er +Some long-buried ancestor, +Who perhaps a statue won +By the ill deeds he had done, +By the innocent blood he shed, +By the desolation spread 80 +Over happy villages, +Blotting out the smile of peace. +There walks Judas, he who sold +Yesterday his Lord for gold, +Sold God's presence in his heart +For a proud step in the mart; +He hath dealt in flesh and blood: +At the bank his name is good; +At the bank, and only there, +'Tis a marketable ware. 90 +In his eyes that stealthy gleam +Was not learned of sky or stream, +But it has the cold, hard glint +Of new dollars from the mint. +Open now your spirit's eyes, +Look through that poor clay disguise +Which has thickened, day by day, +Till it keeps all light at bay, +And his soul in pitchy gloom +Gropes about its narrow tomb, 100 +From whose dank and slimy walls +Drop by drop the horror falls. +Look! a serpent lank and cold +Hugs his spirit fold on fold; +From his heart, all day and night, +It doth suck God's blessed light. +Drink it will, and drink it must, +Till the cup holds naught but dust; +All day long he hears it hiss, +Writhing in its fiendish bliss; 110 +All night long he sees its eyes +Flicker with foul ecstasies, +As the spirit ebbs away +Into the absorbing clay. +Who is he that skulks, afraid +Of the trust he has betrayed, +Shuddering if perchance a gleam +Of old nobleness should stream +Through the pent, unwholesome room, +Where his shrunk soul cowers in gloom, 120 +Spirit sad beyond the rest +By more Instinct for the best? +'Tis a poet who was sent +For a bad world's punishment, +By compelling it to see +Golden glimpses of To Be, +By compelling it to hear +Songs that prove the angels near; +Who was sent to be the tongue +Of the weak and spirit-wrung, 130 +Whence the fiery-winged Despair +In men's shrinking eyes might flare. +'Tis our hope doth fashion us +To base use or glorious: +He who might have been a lark +Of Truth's morning, from the dark +Raining down melodious hope +Of a freer, broader scope, +Aspirations, prophecies, +Of the spirit's full sunrise, 140 +Chose to be a bird of night, +That, with eyes refusing light, +Hooted from some hollow tree +Of the world's idolatry. +'Tis his punishment to hear +Sweep of eager pinions near, +And his own vain wings to feel +Drooping downward to his heel, +All their grace and import lost, +Burdening his weary ghost: 150 +Ever walking by his side +He must see his angel guide, +Who at intervals doth turn +Looks on him so sadly stern, +With such ever-new surprise +Of hushed anguish in her eyes, +That it seems the light of day +From around him shrinks away, +Or drops blunted from the wall +Built around him by his fall. 160 +Then the mountains, whose white peaks +Catch the morning's earliest streaks, +He must see, where prophets sit, +Turning east their faces lit, +Whence, with footsteps beautiful, +To the earth, yet dim and dull, +They the gladsome tidings bring +Of the sunlight's hastening: +Never can these hills of bliss 169 +Be o'erclimbed by feet like his! +But enough! Oh, do not dare +From the next the veil to tear, +Woven of station, trade, or dress, +More obscene than nakedness, +Wherewith plausible culture drapes +Fallen Nature's myriad shapes! +Let us rather love to mark +How the unextingnished spark +Still gleams through the thin disguise 179 +Of our customs, pomps, and lies, +And, not seldom blown to flame, +Vindicates its ancient claim. + + + +STUDIES FOR TWO HEADS + + +I + +Some sort of heart I know is hers,-- + I chanced to feel her pulse one night; +A brain she has that never errs, + And yet is never nobly right; +It does not leap to great results, + But, in some corner out of sight + Suspects a spot of latent blight, + And, o'er the impatient infinite, +She hargains, haggles, and consults. + +Her eye,--it seems a chemic test + And drops upon you like an acid; 11 +It bites you with unconscious zest, + So clear and bright, so coldly placid; +It holds you quietly aloof, + It holds,--and yet it does not win you; +It merely puts you to the proof + And sorts what qualities are in you: +It smiles, but never brings you nearer, + It lights,--her nature draws not nigh; +'Tis but that yours is growing clearer 20 + To her assays;--yes, try and try, + You'll get no deeper than her eye. + +There, you are classified: she's gone + Far, far away into herself; +Each with its Latin label on, +Your poor components, one by one, + Are laid upon their proper shelf +In her compact and ordered mind, +And what of you is left behind +Is no more to her than the wind; +In that clear brain, which, day and night, 31 + No movement of the heart e'er jostles, +Her friends are ranged on left and right,-- +Here, silex, hornblende, sienite; + There, animal remains and fossils. + +And yet, O subtile analyst, + That canst each property detect +Of mood or grain, that canst untwist + Each tangled skein of intellect, +And with thy scalpel eyes lay bare 40 +Each mental nerve more fine than air,-- + O brain exact, that in thy scales +Canst weigh the sun and never err, + For once thy patient science fails, + One problem still defies thy art;-- +Thou never canst compute for her +The distance and diameter + Of any simple human heart. + + +II + +Hear him but speak, and you will feel + The shadows of the Portico 50 +Over your tranquil spirit steal, + To modulate all joy and woe + To one subdued, subduing glow; +Above our squabbling business-hours, +Like Phidian Jove's, his beauty lowers, +His nature satirizes ours; + A form and front of Attic grace, + He shames the higgling market-place, +And dwarfs our more mechanic powers. + +What throbbing verse can fitly render 60 +That face so pure, so trembling-tender? + Sensation glimmers through its rest, +It speaks unmanacled by words, + As full of motion as a nest +That palpitates with unfledged birds; + 'Tis likest to Bethesda's stream, +Forewarned through all its thrilling springs, + White with the angel's coming gleam, +And rippled with his fanning wings. + +Hear him unfold his plots and plans, 70 +And larger destinies seem man's; +You conjure from his glowing face +The omen of a fairer race; +With one grand trope he boldly spans + The gulf wherein so many fall, + 'Twixt possible and actual; +His first swift word, talaria-shod, +Exuberant with conscious God, +Out of the choir of planets blots +The present earth with all its spots. 80 + +Himself unshaken as the sky, +His words, like whirlwinds, spin on high + Systems and creeds pellmell together; +'Tis strange as to a deaf man's eye, +While trees uprooted splinter by, + The dumb turmoil of stormy weather; + Less of iconoclast than shaper, +His spirit, safe behind the reach +Of the tornado of his speech, + Burns calmly as a glowworm's taper. 90 + +So great in speech, but, ah! in act + So overrun with vermin troubles, +The coarse, sharp-cornered, ugly fact + Of life collapses all his bubbles: +Had he but lived in Plato's day, + He might, unless my fancy errs, +Have shared that golden voice's sway + O'er barefooted philosophers. +Our nipping climate hardly suits +The ripening of ideal fruits: 100 +His theories vanquish us all summer, +But winter makes him dumb and dumber; +To see him mid life's needful things + Is something painfully bewildering; +He seems an angel with clipt wings + Tied to a mortal wife and children, +And by a brother seraph taken +In the act of eating eggs and bacon. +Like a clear fountain, his desire + Exults and leaps toward the light, 110 +In every drop it says 'Aspire!' + Striving for more ideal height; +And as the fountain, falling thence, + Crawls baffled through the common gutter, +So, from his speech's eminence, +He shrinks into the present tense, + Unkinged by foolish bread and butter. + +Yet smile not, worldling, for in deeds + Not all of life that's brave and wise is; +He strews an ampler future's seeds, 120 + 'Tis your fault if no harvest rises; +Smooth back the sneer; for is it naught + That all he is and has is Beauty's? +By soul the soul's gains must be wrought, +The Actual claims our coarser thought, + The Ideal hath its higher duties. + + + +ON A PORTRAIT OF DANTE BY GIOTTO + +Can this be thou who, lean and pale, + With such immitigable eye +Didst look upon those writhing souls in bale, + And note each vengeance, and pass by +Unmoved, save when thy heart by chance +Cast backward one forbidden glance, + And saw Francesca, with child's glee, + Subdue and mount thy wild-horse knee +And with proud hands control its fiery prance? + +With half-drooped lids, and smooth, round brow, + And eye remote, that inly sees +Fair Beatrice's spirit wandering now + In some sea-lulled Hesperides, +Thou movest through the jarring street, +Secluded from the noise of feet + By her gift-blossom in thy hand, + Thy branch of palm from Holy Land;-- +No trace is here of ruin's fiery sleet. + +Yet there is something round thy lips + That prophesies the coming doom, +The soft, gray herald-shadow ere the eclipse + Notches the perfect disk with gloom; +A something that would banish thee, +And thine untamed pursuer be, + From men and their unworthy fates, + Though Florence had not shut her gates, +And Grief had loosed her clutch and let thee free. + +Ah! he who follows fearlessly + The beckonings of a poet-heart +Shall wander, and without the world's decree, + A banished man in field and mart; +Harder than Florence' walls the bar +Which with deaf sternness holds him far + From home and friends, till death's release, + And makes his only prayer for peace, +Like thine, scarred veteran of a lifelong war! + + + +ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND'S CHILD + +Death never came so nigh to me before, +Nor showed me his mild face: oft had I mused +Of calm and peace and safe forgetfulness, +Of folded hands, closed eyes, and heart at rest, +And slumber sound beneath a flowery turf, +Of faults forgotten, and an inner place +Kept sacred for us in the heart of friends; +But these were idle fancies, satisfied +With the mere husk of this great mystery, +And dwelling in the outward shows of things. 10 +Heaven is not mounted to on wings of dreams, +Nor doth the unthankful happiness of youth +Aim thitherward, but floats from bloom to bloom, +With earth's warm patch of sunshine well content: +'Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up, +Whose golden rounds are our calamities, +Whereon our firm feet planting, nearer God +The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes unsealed. + +True is it that Death's face seems stern and cold, +When he is sent to summon those we love, 20 +But all God's angels come to us disguised; +Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death, +One after other lift their frowning masks, +And we behold the seraph's face beneath, +All radiant with the glory and the calm +Of having looked upon the front of God. +With every anguish of our earthly part +The spirit's sight grows clearer; this was meant +When Jesus touched the blind man's lids with clay. +Life is the jailer, Death the angel sent 30 +To draw the unwilling bolts and set us free. +He flings not ope the ivory gate of Rest,-- +Only the fallen spirit knocks at that,-- +But to benigner regions beckons us, +To destinies of more rewarded toil. +In the hushed chamber, sitting by the dead, +It grates on us to hear the flood of life +Whirl rustling onward, senseless of our loss. +The bee hums on; around the blossomed vine +Whirs the light humming-bird; the cricket chirps; 40 +The locust's shrill alarum stings the ear; +Hard by, the cock shouts lustily; from farm to farm, +His cheery brothers, telling of the sun, +Answer, till far away the joyance dies: +We never knew before how God had filled +The summer air with happy living sounds; +All round us seems an overplus of life, +And yet the one dear heart lies cold and still. +It is most strange, when the great miracle +Hath for our sakes been done, when we have had 50 +Our inwardest experience of God, +When with his presence still the room expands, +And is awed after him, that naught is changed, +That Nature's face looks unacknowledging, +And the mad world still dances heedless on +After its butterflies, and gives no sign. +'Tis hard at first to see it all aright: +In vain Faith blows her trump to summon back +Her scattered troop: yet, through the clouded glass +Of our own bitter tears, we learn to look 60 +Undazzled on the kindness of God's face; +Earth is too dark, and Heaven alone shines through. + +It is no little thing, when a fresh soul +And a fresh heart, with their unmeasured scope +For good, not gravitating earthward yet, +But circling in diviner periods, +Are sent into the world,--no little thing, +When this unbounded possibility +Into the outer silence is withdrawn. +Ah, in this world, where every guiding thread 70 +Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, +The visionary hand of Might-have-been +Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim! + +How changed, dear friend, are thy part and thy child's! +He bends above _thy_ cradle now, or holds +His warning finger out to be thy guide; +Thou art the nursling now; he watches thee +Slow learning, one by one, the secret things +Which are to him used sights of every day; +He smiles to see thy wondering glances con 80 +The grass and pebbles of the spirit-world, +To thee miraculous; and he will teach +Thy knees their due observances of prayer. +Children are God's apostles, day by day +Sent forth to preach of love, and hope, and peace; +Nor hath thy babe his mission left undone. +To me, at least, his going hence hath given +Serener thoughts and nearer to the skies, +And opened a new fountain in my heart +For thee, my friend, and all: and oh, if Death 90 +More near approaches meditates, and clasps +Even now some dearer, more reluctant hand, +God, strengthen thou my faith, that I may see +That 'tis thine angel, who, with loving haste, +Unto the service of the inner shrine, +Doth waken thy beloved with a kiss. + + + +EURYDICE + +Heaven's cup held down to me I drain, +The sunshine mounts and spurs my brain; +Bathing in grass, with thirsty eye +I suck the last drop of the sky; +With each hot sense I draw to the lees +The quickening out-door influences, +And empty to each radiant comer +A supernaculum of summer: +Not, Bacchus, all thy grosser juice +Could bring enchantment so profuse, 10 +Though for its press each grape-bunch had +The white feet of an Oread. +Through our coarse art gleam, now and then, +The features of angelic men: +'Neath the lewd Satyr's veiling paint +Glows forth the Sibyl, Muse, or Saint; +The dauber's botch no more obscures +The mighty master's portraitures. +And who can say what luckier beam +The hidden glory shall redeem, 20 +For what chance clod the soul may wait +To stumble on its nobler fate, +Or why, to his unwarned abode, +Still by surprises comes the God? +Some moment, nailed on sorrow's cross, +May meditate a whole youth's loss, +Some windfall joy, we know not whence, +Redeem a lifetime's rash expense, +And, suddenly wise, the soul may mark, 29 +Stripped of their simulated dark, +Mountains of gold that pierce the sky, +Girdling its valleyed poverty. + +I feel ye, childhood's hopes, return, +With olden heats my pulses burn,-- +Mine be the self-forgetting sweep, +The torrent impulse swift and wild, +Wherewith Taghkanic's rockborn child +Dares gloriously the dangerous leap. +And, in his sky-descended mood, +Transmutes each drop of sluggish blood, 40 +By touch of bravery's simple wand, +To amethyst and diamond, +Proving himself no bastard slip, +But the true granite-cradled one, +Nursed with the rock's primeval drip, +The cloud-embracing mountain's son! + +Prayer breathed in vain I no wish's sway +Rebuilds the vanished yesterday; +For plated wares of Sheffield stamp +We gave the old Aladdin's lamp; +'Tis we are changed; ah, whither went 51 +That undesigned abandonment, +That wise, unquestioning content, +Which could erect its microcosm +Out of a weed's neglected blossom, +Could call up Arthur and his peers +By a low moss's clump of spears, +Or, in its shingle trireme launched, +Where Charles in some green inlet-branched, +Could venture for the golden fleece 60 +And dragon-watched Hesperides, +Or, from its ripple-shattered fate, +Ulysses' chances re-create? +When, heralding life's every phase, +There glowed a goddess-veiling haze, +A plenteous, forewarning grace, +Like that more tender dawn that flies +Before the full moon's ample rise? +Methinks thy parting glory shines +Through yonder grove of singing pines; 70 +At that elm-vista's end I trace +Dimly thy sad leave-taking face, +Eurydice! Eurydice! +The tremulous leaves repeat to me +Eurydice! Eurydice! +No gloomier Orcus swallows thee +Than the unclouded sunset's glow; +Thine is at least Elysian woe; +Thou hast Good's natural decay, +And fadest like a star away 80 +Into an atmosphere whose shine +With fuller day o'ermasters thine, +Entering defeat as 't were a shrine; +For us,--we turn life's diary o'er +To find but one word,--Nevermore. + + + +SHE CAME AND WENT + +As a twig trembles, which a bird + Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent, +So is my memory thrilled and stirred;-- + I only know she came and went. + +As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven, + The blue dome's measureless content,-- +So my soul held, that moment's heaven;-- + I only know she came and went. + +As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps + The orchards full of bloom and scent, +So clove her May my wintry sleeps;-- + I only know she came and went. + +An angel stood and met my gaze, + Through the low doorway of my tent; +The tent is struck, the vision stays;-- + I only know she came and went + +Oh, when the room grows slowly dim, + And life's last oil is nearly spent, +One gush of light these eyes will brim, + Only to think she came and went. + + + +THE CHANGELING + +I had a little daughter, + And she was given to me +To lead me gently backward + To the Heavenly Father's knee, +That I, by the force of nature. + Might in some dim wise divine +The depth of his infinite patience + To this wayward soul of mine. + +I know not how others saw her, + But to me she was wholly fair, +And the light of the heaven she came from + Still lingered and gleamed in her hair; +For it was as wavy and golden, + And as many changes took, +As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples + On the yellow bed of a brook. + +To what can I liken her smiling + Upon me, her kneeling lover, +How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids, + And dimpled her wholly over, +Till her outstretched hands smiled also, + And I almost seemed to see +The very heart of her mother + Sending sun through her veins to me! + +She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth, + And it hardly seemed a day, +When a troop of wandering angels + Stole my little daughter away; +Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari + But loosed the hampering strings, +And when they had opened her cage-door. + My little bird used her wings. + +But they left in her stead a changeling + A little angel child, +That seems like her bud in full blossom, + And smiles as she never smiled: +When I wake in the morning, I see it + Where she always used to lie, +And I feel as weak as a violet + Alone 'neath the awful sky. + +As weak, yet as trustful also; + For the whole year long I see +All the wonders of faithful Nature + Still worked for the love of me; +Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, + Rain falls, suns rise and set, +Earth whirls, and all but to prosper + A poor little violet. + +This child is not mine as the first was, + I cannot sing it to rest, +I cannot lift it up fatherly + And bliss it upon my breast: +Yet it lies in my little one's cradle + And sits in my little one's chair, +And the light of the heaven she's gone to + Transfigures its golden hair. + + + +THE PIONEER + + What man would live coffined with brick and stone, + Imprisoned from the healing touch of air, + And cramped with selfish landmarks everywhere, +When all before him stretches, furrowless and lone, + The unmapped prairie none can fence or own? + + What man would read and read the self-same faces, + And, like the marbles which the windmill grinds, + Rub smooth forever with the same smooth minds, +This year retracing last year's, every year's, dull traces, + When there are woods and unpenfolded spaces? + + What man o'er one old thought would pore and pore, + Shut like a book between its covers thin + For every fool to leave his dog's ears in, +When solitude is his, and God forevermore, + Just for the opening of a paltry door? + + What man would watch life's oozy element + Creep Letheward forever, when he might + Down some great river drift beyond men's sight, +To where the undethroned forest's royal tent + Broods with its hush o'er half a continent? + + What man with men would push and altercate, + Piecing out crooked means to crooked ends, + When he can have the skies and woods for friends, +Snatch back the rudder of his undismantled fate, + And in himself be ruler, church, and state? + + Cast leaves and feathers rot in last year's nest, + The wingèd brood, flown thence, new dwellings plan; + The serf of his own Past is not a man; +To change and change is life, to move and never rest;-- + Not what we are, but what we hope, is best. + + The wild, free woods make no man halt or blind; + Cities rob men of eyes and hands and feet, + Patching one whole of many incomplete; +The general preys upon the individual mind, + And each alone is helpless as the wind. + + Each man is some man's servant; every soul + Is by some other's presence quite discrowned; + Each owes the next through all the imperfect round, +Yet not with mutual help; each man is his own goal, + And the whole earth must stop to pay him toll. + + Here, life the undiminished man demands; + New faculties stretch out to meet new wants; + What Nature asks, that Nature also grants; +Here man is lord, not drudge, of eyes and feet and hands, + And to his life is knit with hourly bands. + + Come out, then, from the old thoughts and old ways, + Before you harden to a crystal cold + Which the new life can shatter, but not mould; +Freedom for you still waits, still looking backward, stays, + But widens still the irretrievable space. + + + + +LONGING + +Of all the myriad moods of mind + That through the soul come thronging, +Which one was e'er so dear, so kind, + So beautiful as Longing? +The thing we long for, that we are + For one transcendent moment, +Before the Present poor and bare + Can make its sneering comment. + +Still, through our paltry stir and strife, + Glows down the wished ideal, +And Longing moulds in clay what Life + Carves in the marble Real; +To let the new life in, we know, + Desire must ope the portal; +Perhaps the longing to be so + Helps make the soul immortal. + +Longing is God's fresh heavenward will. + With our poor earthward striving; +We quench it that we may be still + Content with merely living; +But, would we learn that heart's full scope + Which we are hourly wronging, +Our lives must climb from hope to hope + And realize our longing. + +Ah! let us hope that to our praise + Good God not only reckons +The moments when we tread his ways, + But when the spirit beckons,-- +That some slight good is also wrought + Beyond self-satisfaction, +When we are simply good in thought, + Howe'er we fail in action. + + + +ODE TO FRANCE + +FEBRUARY, 1848 + + +I + +As, flake by flake, the beetling avalanches + Build up their imminent crags of noiseless snow, +Till some chance thrill the loosened ruin launches + In unwarned havoc on the roofs below, +So grew and gathered through the silent years + The madness of a People, wrong by wrong. +There seemed no strength in the dumb toiler's tears, + No strength in suffering; but the Past was strong: +The brute despair of trampled centuries + Leaped up with one hoarse yell and snapped its bands, 10 + Groped for its right with horny, callous hands, +And stared around for God with bloodshot eyes. + What wonder if those palms were all too hard +For nice distinctions,--if that mænad throng-- + They whose thick atmosphere no bard +Had shivered with the lightning of his song, + Brutes with the memories and desires of men, + Whose chronicles were writ with iron pen, + In the crooked shoulder and the forehead low, + Set wrong to balance wrong, 20 + And physicked woe with woe? + + +II + +They did as they were taught; not theirs the blame, +If men who scattered firebrands reaped the flame: + They trampled Peace beneath their savage feet, + And by her golden tresses drew + Mercy along the pavement of the street. +O Freedom! Freedom! is thy morning-dew + So gory red? Alas, thy light had ne'er + Shone in upon the chaos of their lair! +They reared to thee such symbol as they knew, 30 + And worshipped it with flame and blood, + A Vengeance, axe in hand, that stood +Holding a tyrant's head up by the clotted hair. + + +III + +What wrongs the Oppressor suffered, these we know; + These have found piteous voice in song and prose; +But for the Oppressed, their darkness and their woe, + Their grinding centuries,--what Muse had those? +Though hall and palace had nor eyes nor ears, + Hardening a people's heart to senseless stone, +Thou knewest them, O Earth, that drank their tears, 40 + O Heaven, that heard their inarticulate moan! +They noted down their fetters, link by link; +Coarse was the hand that scrawled, and red the ink; + Rude was their score, as suits unlettered men, +Notched with a headsman's axe upon a block: +What marvel if, when came the avenging shock, + 'Twas Atë, not Urania, held the pen? + + +IV + +With eye averted, and an anguished frown, + Loathingly glides the Muse through scenes of strife, +Where, like the heart of Vengeance up and down, 50 + Throbs in its framework the blood-muffled knife; +Slow are the steps of Freedom, but her feet + Turn never backward: hers no bloody glare; +Her light is calm, and innocent, and sweet, + And where it enters there is no despair: +Not first on palace and cathedral spire +Quivers and gleams that unconsuming fire; + While these stand black against her morning skies, +The peasant sees it leap from peak to peak + Along his hills; the craftsman's burning eyes 60 +Own with cool tears its influence mother-meek; + It lights the poet's heart up like a star; + Ah! while the tyrant deemed it still afar, +And twined with golden threads his futile snare. + That swift, convicting glow all round him ran; +'Twas close beside him there, +Sunrise whose Memnon is the soul of man. + + +V + +O Broker-King, is this thy wisdom's fruit? + A dynasty plucked out as 't were a weed + Grown rankly in a night, that leaves no seed! 70 +Could eighteen years strike down no deeper root? + But now thy vulture eye was turned on Spain; +A shout from Paris, and thy crown falls off, + Thy race has ceased to reign, +And thou become a fugitive and scoff: +Slippery the feet that mount by stairs of gold, +And weakest of all fences one of steel; + Go and keep school again like him of old, +The Syracusan tyrant;--thou mayst feel +Royal amid a birch-swayed commonweal! 80 + + +VI + +Not long can he be ruler who allows + His time to run before him; thou wast naught +Soon as the strip of gold about thy brows + Was no more emblem of the People's thought: +Vain were thy bayonets against the foe + Thou hadst to cope with; thou didst wage +War not with Frenchmen merely;--no, + Thy strife was with the Spirit of the Age, +The invisible Spirit whose first breath divine 89 + Scattered thy frail endeavor, +And, like poor last year's leaves, whirled thee and thine + Into the Dark forever! + + +VII + + Is here no triumph? Nay, what though +The yellow blood of Trade meanwhile should pour + Along its arteries a shrunken flow, +And the idle canvas droop around the shore? + These do not make a state, + Nor keep it great; + I think God made + The earth for man, not trade; 100 +And where each humblest human creature +Can stand, no more suspicious or afraid, +Erect and kingly in his right of nature, +To heaven and earth knit with harmonious ties,-- + Where I behold the exultation + Of manhood glowing in those eyes + That had been dark for ages, + Or only lit with bestial loves and rages, + There I behold a Nation: + The France which lies 110 + Between the Pyrenees and Rhine + Is the least part of France; +I see her rather in the soul whose shine +Burns through the craftsman's grimy countenance, + In the new energy divine + Of Toil's enfranchised glance. + + +VIII + + And if it be a dream, + If the great Future be the little Past + 'Neath a new mask, which drops and shows at last + The same weird, mocking face to balk and blast, 120 +Yet, Muse, a gladder measure suits the theme, + And the Tyrtæan harp + Loves notes more resolute and sharp, +Throbbing, as throbs the bosom, hot and fast: + Such visions are of morning, + Theirs is no vague forewarning, +The dreams which nations dream come true. + And shape the world anew; + If this be a sleep, 129 + Make it long, make it deep, +O Father, who-sendest the harvests men reap! + While Labor so sleepeth, + His sorrow is gone, + No longer he weepeth, + But smileth and steepeth + His thoughts in the dawn; + He heareth Hope yonder + Rain, lark-like, her fancies, + His dreaming hands wander + Mid heart's-ease and pansies; 140 + ''Tis a dream! 'Tis a vision!' + Shrieks Mammon aghast; + 'The day's broad derision + Will chase it at last; + Ye are mad, ye have taken + A slumbering kraken + For firm land of the Past!' + Ah! if he awaken, + God shield us all then, 149 + If this dream rudely shaken + Shall cheat him again! + + +IX + + Since first I heard our Northwind blow, + Since first I saw Atlantic throw + On our grim rocks his thunderous snow, + I loved thee, Freedom; as a boy +The rattle of thy shield at Marathon + Did with a Grecian joy + Through all my pulses run; +But I have learned to love thee now +Without the helm upon thy gleaming brow, 160 + A maiden mild and undefiled +Like her who bore the world's redeeming child; + And surely never did thine altars glance + With purer fires than now in France; + While, in their clear white flashes, + Wrong's shadow, backward cast, + Waves cowering o'er the ashes + Of the dead, blaspheming Past, + O'er the shapes of fallen giants, + His own unburied brood, 170 + Whose dead hands clench defiance + At the overpowering Good: +And down the happy future runs a flood + Of prophesying light; +It shows an Earth no longer stained with blood, +Blossom and fruit where now we see the bud + Of Brotherhood and Right. + + + +ANTI-APIS + +Praisest Law, friend? We, too, love it much as they that love it best; +'Tis the deep, august foundation, whereon Peace and Justice rest; +On the rock primeval, hidden in the Past its bases be, +Block by block the endeavoring Ages built it up to what we see. + +But dig down: the Old unbury; thou shalt find on every stone +That each Age hath carved the symbol of what god to them was known, +Ugly shapes and brutish sometimes, but the fairest that they knew; +If their sight were dim and earthward, yet their hope and aim were true. + +Surely as the unconscious needle feels the far-off loadstar draw, +So strives every gracious nature to at-one itself with law; 10 +And the elder Saints and Sages laid their pious framework right +By a theocratic instinct covered from the people's sight. + +As their gods were, so their laws were; Thor the strong could reave and + steal, +So through many a peaceful inlet tore the Norseman's eager keel; +But a new law came when Christ came, and not blameless, as before, +Can we, paying him our lip-tithes, give our lives and faiths to Thor. + +Law is holy: ay, but what law? Is there nothing more divine +Than the patched-up broils of Congress, venal, full of meat and wine? +Is there, say you, nothing higher? Naught, God save us! that transcends +Laws of cotton texture, wove by vulgar men for vulgar ends? 20 + +Did Jehovah ask their counsel, or submit to them a plan, +Ere He filled with loves, hopes, longings, this aspiring heart of man? +For their edict does the soul wait, ere it swing round to the pole +Of the true, the free, the God-willed, all that makes it be a soul? + +Law is holy; but not your law, ye who keep the tablets whole +While ye dash the Law to pieces, shatter it in life and soul; +Bearing up the Ark is lightsome, golden Apis hid within, +While we Levites share the offerings, richer by the people's sin. + +Give to Cæsar what is Cæsar's? yes, but tell me, if you can, +Is this superscription Cæsar's here upon our brother man? 30 +Is not here some other's image, dark and sullied though it be, +In this fellow-soul that worships, struggles Godward even as we? + +It was not to such a future that the Mayflower's prow was turned, +Not to such a faith the martyrs clung, exulting as they burned; +Not by such laws are men fashioned, earnest, simple, valiant, great +In the household virtues whereon rests the unconquerable state. + +Ah! there is a higher gospel, overhead the God-roof springs, +And each glad, obedient planet like a golden shuttle sings +Through the web which Time is weaving in his never-resting loom, +Weaving seasons many-colored, bringing prophecy to doom. 40 + +Think you Truth a farthing rushlight, to be pinched out when you will +With your deft official fingers, and your politicians' skill? +Is your God a wooden fetish, to be hidden out of sight +That his block eyes may not see you do the thing that is not right? + +But the Destinies think not so; to their judgment-chamber lone +Comes no noise of popular clamor, there Fame's trumpet is not blown; +Your majorities they reck not; that you grant, but then you say +That you differ with them somewhat,--which is stronger, you or they? + +Patient are they as the insects that build islands in the deep; +They hurl not the bolted thunder, but their silent way they keep; 50 +Where they have been that we know; where empires towered that were + not just; +Lo! the skulking wild fox scratches in a little heap of dust. + + + +A PARABLE + +Said Christ our Lord, 'I will go and see +How the men, my brethren, believe in me.' +He passed not again through the gate of birth, +But made himself known to the children of earth. + +Then said the chief priests, and rulers, and kings, +'Behold, now, the Giver of all good things; +Go to, let us welcome with pomp and state +Him who alone is mighty and great.' + +With carpets of gold the ground they spread +Wherever the Son of Man should tread, +And in palace-chambers lofty and rare +They lodged him, and served him with kingly fare. + +Great organs surged through arches dim +Their jubilant floods in praise of him; +And in church, and palace, and judgment-hall, +He saw his own image high over all. + +But still, wherever his steps they led, +The Lord in sorrow bent down his head, +And from under the heavy foundation-stones, +The son of Mary heard bitter groans. + +And in church, and palace, and judgment-hall, +He marked great fissures that rent the wall, +And opened wider and yet more wide +As the living foundation heaved and sighed. + +'Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, +On the bodies and souls of living men? +And think ye that building shall endure, +Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor? + +'With gates of silver and bars of gold +Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father's fold; +I have heard the dropping of their tears +In heaven these eighteen hundred years.' + +'O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, +We build but as our fathers built; +Behold thine images, how they stand, +Sovereign and sole, through all our land. + +'Our task is hard,--with sword and flame +To hold thine earth forever the same, +And with sharp crooks of steel to keep +Still, as thou leftest them, thy sheep.' + +Then Christ sought out an artisan, +A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, +And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin +Pushed from her faintly want and sin. + +These set he in the midst of them, +And as they drew back their garment-hem, +For fear of defilement, 'Lo, here,' said he, +'The images ye have made of me!' + + + +ODE + +WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COCHITUATE +WATER INTO THE CITY OF BOSTON + +My name is Water: I have sped + Through strange, dark ways, untried before, +By pure desire of friendship led, + Cochituate's ambassador; +He sends four royal gifts by me: +Long life, health, peace, and purity. + +I'm Ceres' cup-bearer; I pour, + For flowers and fruits and all their kin, +Her crystal vintage, from of yore + Stored in old Earth's selectest bin, +Flora's Falernian ripe, since God +The wine-press of the deluge trod. + +In that far isle whence, iron-willed, + The New World's sires their bark unmoored, +The fairies' acorn-cups I filled + Upon the toadstool's silver board, +And, 'neath Herne's oak, for Shakespeare's sight, +Strewed moss and grass with diamonds bright. + +No fairies in the Mayflower came, + And, lightsome as I sparkle here, +For Mother Bay State, busy dame, + I've toiled and drudged this many a year, +Throbbed in her engines' iron veins, +Twirled myriad spindles for her gains. + +I, too, can weave: the warp I set + Through which the sun his shuttle throws, +And, bright as Noah saw it, yet + For you the arching rainbow glows, +A sight in Paradise denied +To unfallen Adam and his bride. + +When Winter held me in his grip, + You seized and sent me o'er the wave, +Ungrateful! in a prison-ship; + But I forgive, not long a slave, +For, soon as summer south-winds blew, +Homeward I fled, disguised as dew. + +For countless services I'm fit, + Of use, of pleasure, and of gain, +But lightly from all bonds I flit, + Nor lose my mirth, nor feel a stain; +From mill and wash-tub I escape, +And take in heaven my proper shape. + +So, free myself, to-day, elate + I come from far o'er hill and mead, +And here, Cochituate's envoy, wait + To be your blithesome Ganymede, +And brim your cups with nectar true +That never will make slaves of you. + + + +LINES + +SUGGESTED BY THE GRAVES OF TWO ENGLISH SOLDIERS ON CONCORD BATTLE-GROUND + +The same good blood that now refills +The dotard Orient's shrunken veins, +The same whose vigor westward thrills, +Bursting Nevada's silver chains, +Poured here upon the April grass, +Freckled with red the herbage new; +On reeled the battle's trampling mass, +Back to the ash the bluebird flew. + +Poured here in vain;--that sturdy blood +Was meant to make the earth more green, +But in a higher, gentler mood +Than broke this April noon serene; +Two graves are here: to mark the place, +At head and foot, an unhewn stone, +O'er which the herald lichens trace +The blazon of Oblivion. + +These men were brave enough, and true +To the hired soldier's bull-dog creed; +What brought them here they never knew, +They fought as suits the English breed: +They came three thousand miles, and died, +To keep the Past upon its throne: +Unheard, beyond the ocean tide, +Their English mother made her moan. + +The turf that covers them no thrill +Sends up to fire the heart and brain; +No stronger purpose nerves the will, +No hope renews its youth again: +From farm to farm the Concord glides, +And trails my fancy with its flow; +O'erhead the balanced hen-hawk slides, +Twinned in the river's heaven below. + +But go, whose Bay State bosom stirs, +Proud of thy birth and neighbor's right, +Where sleep the heroic villagers +Borne red and stiff from Concord fight; +Thought Reuben, snatching down his gun, +Or Seth, as ebbed the life away, +What earthquake rifts would shoot and run +World-wide from that short April fray? + +What then? With heart and hand they wrought, +According to their village light; +'Twas for the Future that they fought, +Their rustic faith in what was right. +Upon earth's tragic stage they burst +Unsummoned, in the humble sock; +Theirs the fifth act; the curtain first +Rose long ago on Charles's block. + +Their graves have voices; if they threw +Dice charged with fates beyond their ken, +Yet to their instincts they were true, +And had the genius to be men. +Fine privilege of Freedom's host, +Of humblest soldiers for the Right!-- +Age after age ye hold your post, +Your graves send courage forth, and might. + + + +TO---- + +We, too, have autumns, when our leaves + Drop loosely through the dampened air, +When all our good seems bound in sheaves, + And we stand reaped and bare. + +Our seasons have no fixed returns, + Without our will they come and go; +At noon our sudden summer burns, + Ere sunset all is snow. + +But each day brings less summer cheer, + Crimps more our ineffectual spring, +And something earlier every year + Our singing birds take wing. + +As less the olden glow abides, + And less the chillier heart aspires, +With drift-wood beached in past spring-tides + We light our sullen fires. + +By the pinched rushlight's starving beam + We cower and strain our wasted sight, +To stitch youth's shroud up, seam by seam, + In the long arctic night. + +It was not so--we once were young + When Spring, to womanly Summer turning, +Her dew-drops on each grass-blade strung, + In the red sunrise burning. + +We trusted then, aspired, believed + That earth could be remade to-morrow; +Ah, why be ever undeceived? + Why give up faith for sorrow? + +O thou, whose days are yet all spring, + Faith, blighted one, is past retrieving; +Experience is a dumb, dead thing; + The victory's in believing. + + + +FREEDOM + +Are we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be +That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest +Their spirit to our plains, and thou, blue sea, +Who on our rocks thy wreaths of freedom flingest, +As on an altar,--can it be that ye +Have wasted inspiration on dead ears, +Dulled with the too familiar clank of chains? +The people's heart is like a harp for years +Hung where some petrifying torrent rains +Its slow-incrusting spray: the stiffened chords 10 +Faint and more faint make answer to the tears +That drip upon them: idle are all words: +Only a golden plectrum wakes the tone +Deep buried 'neath that ever-thickening stone. + +We are not free: doth Freedom, then, consist +In musing with our faces toward the Past, +While petty cares and crawling interests twist +Their spider-threads about us, which at last +Grow strong as iron chains, to cramp and bind +In formal narrowness heart, soul and mind? 20 +Freedom is re-created year by year, +In hearts wide open on the Godward side, +In souls calm-cadenced as the whirling sphere, +In minds that sway the future like a tide. +He broadest creeds can hold her, and no codes; +She chooses men for her august abodes, +Building them fair and fronting to the dawn; +Yet, when we seek her, we but find a few +Light footprints, leading mornward through the dew: +Before the day had risen, she was gone. 30 + +And we must follow: swiftly runs she on, +And, if our steps should slacken in despair, +Half turns her face, half smiles through golden hair, +Forever yielding, never wholly won: +That is not love which pauses in the race +Two close-linked names on fleeting sand to trace; +Freedom gained yesterday is no more ours; +Men gather but dry seeds of last year's flowers; +Still there's a charm uugranted, still a grace, +Still rosy Hope, the free, the unattained, 40 +Makes us Possession's languid hand let fall; +'Tis but a fragment of ourselves is gained, +The Future brings us more, but never all. + +And, as the finder of some unknown realm, +Mounting a summit whence he thinks to see +On either side of him the imprisoning sea, +Beholds, above the clouds that overwhelm +The valley-land, peak after snowy peak +Stretch out of sight, each like a silver helm +Beneath its plume of smoke, sublime and bleak, 50 +And what he thought an island finds to be +A continent to him first oped,--so we +Can from our height of Freedom look along +A boundless future, ours if we be strong; +Or if we shrink, better remount our ships +And, fleeing God's express design, trace back +The hero-freighted Mayflower's prophet-track +To Europe entering her blood-red eclipse. + + * * * * * + +Therefore of Europe now I will not doubt, +For the broad foreheads surely win the day, 60 +And brains, not crowns or soul-gelt armies, weigh +In Fortune's scales: such dust she brushes out. +Most gracious are the conquests of the Word, +Gradual and silent as a flower's increase, +And the best guide from old to new is Peace-- +Yet, Freedom, than canst sanctify the sword! + +Bravely to do whate'er the time demands, +Whether with pen or sword, and not to flinch, +This is the task that fits heroic hands; +So are Truth's boundaries widened inch by inch. 70 + +I do not love the Peace which tyrants make; +The calm she breeds let the sword's lightning break! +It is the tyrants who have beaten out +Ploughshares and pruning-hooks to spears and swords, +And shall I pause and moralize and doubt? +Whose veins run water let him mete his words! +Each fetter sundered is the whole world's gain! +And rather than humanity remain +A pearl beneath the feet of Austrian swine, +Welcome to me whatever breaks a chain. 80 +_That_ surely is of God, and all divine! + + + +BIBLIOLATRES + +Bowing thyself in dust before a Book, +And thinking the great God is thine alone, +O rash iconoclast, thou wilt not brook +What gods the heathen carves in wood and stone, +As if the Shepherd who from the outer cold +Leads all his shivering lambs to one sure fold +Were careful for the fashion of his crook. + +There is no broken reed so poor and base, +No rush, the bending tilt of swamp-fly blue, +But He therewith the ravening wolf can chase, +And guide his flock to springs and pastures new; +Through ways unloosed for, and through many lands, +Far from the rich folds built with human hands, +The gracious footprints of his love I trace. + +And what art thou, own brother of the clod, +That from his hand the crook wouldst snatch away +And shake instead thy dry and sapless rod, +To scare the sheep out of the wholesome day? +Yea, what art thou, blind, unconverted Jew, +That with thy idol-volume's covers two +Wouldst make a jail to coop the living God? + +Thou hear'st not well the mountain organ-tone +By prophet ears from Hor and Sinai caught, +Thinking the cisterns of those Hebrew brains +Drew dry the springs of the All-knower's thought, +Nor shall thy lips be touched with living fire, +Who blow'st old altar-coals with sole desire +To weld anew the spirit's broken chains. + +God is not dumb, that He should speak no more; +If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness +And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor; +There towers the Mountain of the Voice no less, +Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends, +Intent on manna still and mortal ends, +Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore. + +Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, +And not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone; +Each age, each kindred, adds a verse to it, +Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan. +While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud, +While thunder's surges burst on cliffs and cloud, +Still at the prophets' feet the nations sit. + + + +BEAVER BROOK + +Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill, + And, minuting the long day's loss, +The cedar's shadow, slow and still, + Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss. + +Warm noon brims full the valley's cup, + The aspen's leaves are scarce astir; +Only the little mill sends up + Its busy, never-ceasing burr. + +Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems + The road along the mill-pond's brink, +From 'neath the arching barberry-stems, + My footstep scares the shy chewink. + +Beneath a bony buttonwood + The mill's red door lets forth the din; +The whitened miller, dust-imbued, + Flits past the square of dark within. + +No mountain torrent's strength is here; + Sweet Beaver, child of forest still, +Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, + And gently waits the miller's will. + +Swift slips Undine along the race + Unheard, and then, with flashing bound, +Floods the dull wheel with light and grace, + And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round. + +The miller dreams not at what cost + The quivering millstones hum and whirl, +Nor how for every turn are tost + Armfuls of diamond and of pearl. + +But Summer cleared my happier eyes + With drops of some celestial juice, +To see how Beauty underlies + Forevermore each form of use. + +And more; methought I saw that flood, + Which now so dull and darkling steals, +Thick, here and there, with human blood, + To turn the world's laborious wheels. + +No more than doth the miller there, + Shut in our several cells, do we +Know with what waste of beauty rare + Moves every day's machinery. + +Surely the wiser time shall come + When this fine overplus of might, +No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, + Shall leap to music and to light. + +In that new childhood of the Earth + Life of itself shall dance and play, +Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth, + And labor meet delight halfway. + + + + +MEMORIAL VERSES + + + +KOSSUTH + +A race of nobles may die out, + A royal line may leave no heir; +Wise Nature sets no guards about + Her pewter plate and wooden ware. + +But they fail not, the kinglier breed, + Who starry diadems attain; +To dungeon, axe, and stake succeed + Heirs of the old heroic strain. + +The zeal of Nature never cools, + Nor is she thwarted of her ends; +When gapped and dulled her cheaper tools, + Then she a saint and prophet spends. + +Land of the Magyars! though it be + The tyrant may relink his chain, +Already thine the victory, + As the just Future measures gain. + +Thou hast succeeded, thou hast won + The deathly travail's amplest worth; +A nation's duty thou hast done, + Giving a hero to our earth. + +And he, let come what will of woe + Hath saved the land he strove to save; +No Cossack hordes, no traitor's blow, + Can quench the voice shall haunt his grave. + +'I Kossuth am: O Future, thou + That clear'st the just and blott'st the vile, +O'er this small dust in reverence bow, + Remembering what I was erewhile. + +'I was the chosen trump wherethrough + Our God sent forth awakening breath; +Came chains? Came death? The strain He blew + Sounds on, outliving chains and death.' + + + +TO LAMARTINE + +1848 + +I did not praise thee when the crowd, + 'Witched with the moment's inspiration, +Vexed thy still ether with hosannas loud, + And stamped their dusty adoration; + I but looked upward with the rest, +And, when they shouted Greatest, whispered Best. + +They raised thee not, but rose to thee, + Their fickle wreaths about thee flinging; +So on some marble Phoebus the swol'n sea + Might leave his worthless seaweed clinging, + But pious hands, with reverent care, +Make the pure limbs once more sublimely bare. + +Now thou'rt thy plain, grand self again, + Thou art secure from panegyric, +Thou who gav'st politics an epic strain, + And actedst Freedom's noblest lyric; + This side the Blessed Isles, no tree +Grows green enough to make a wreath for thee. + +Nor can blame cling to thee; the snow + From swinish footprints takes no staining, +But, leaving the gross soils of earth below, + Its spirit mounts, the skies regaining, + And unresentful falls again, +To beautify the world with dews and rain. + +The highest duty to mere man vouchsafed + Was laid on thee,--out of wild chaos, +When the roused popular ocean foamed and chafed + And vulture War from his Imaus + Snuffed blood, to summon homely Peace, +And show that only order is release. + +To carve thy fullest thought, what though + Time was not granted? Aye in history, +Like that Dawn's face which baffled Angelo + Left shapeless, grander for its mystery, + Thy great Design shall stand, and day +Flood its blind front from Orients far away. + +Who says thy day is o'er? Control, + My heart, that bitter first emotion; +While men shall reverence the steadfast soul, + The heart in silent self-devotion + Breaking, the mild, heroic mien, +Thou'lt need no prop of marble, Lamartine. + +If France reject thee, 'tis not thine, + But her own, exile that she utters; +Ideal France, the deathless, the divine, + Will be where thy white pennon flutters, + As once the nobler Athens went +With Aristides into banishment. + +No fitting metewand hath To-day + For measuring spirits of thy stature; +Only the Future can reach up to lay + The laurel on that lofty nature, + Bard, who with some diviner art +Hast touched the bard's true lyre, a nation's heart. + +Swept by thy hand, the gladdened chords, + Crashed now in discords fierce by others, +Gave forth one note beyond all skill of words, + And chimed together, We are brothers. + O poem unsurpassed! it ran +All round the world, unlocking man to man. + +France is too poor to pay alone + The service of that ample spirit; +Paltry seem low dictatorship and throne, + Weighed with thy self-renouncing merit; + They had to thee been rust and loss; +Thy aim was higher,--thou hast climbed a Cross! + + + +TO JOHN GORHAM PALFREY + + There are who triumph in a losing cause, +Who can put on defeat, as 'twere a wreath +Unwithering in the adverse popular breath, + Safe from the blasting demagogue's applause; +'Tis they who stand for Freedom and God's laws. + +And so stands Palfrey now, as Marvell stood, +Loyal to Truth dethroned, nor could be wooed + To trust the playful tiger's velvet paws: +And if the second Charles brought in decay + Of ancient virtue, if it well might wring +Souls that had broadened 'neath a nobler day, + To see a losel, marketable king +Fearfully watering with his realm's best blood + Cromwell's quenched bolts, that erst had cracked and flamed, +Scaring, through all their depths of courtier mud, + Europe's crowned bloodsuckers,--how more ashamed +Ought we to be, who see Corruption's flood + Still rise o'er last year's mark, to mine away + Our brazen idol's feet of treacherous clay! + +O utter degradation! Freedom turned + Slavery's vile bawd, to cozen and betray + To the old lecher's clutch a maiden prey, +If so a loathsome pander's fee be earned! + And we are silent,--we who daily tread +A soil sublime, at least, with heroes' graves!-- + Beckon no more, shades of the noble dead! +Be dumb, ye heaven-touched lips of winds and waves! + Or hope to rouse some Coptic dullard, hid +Ages ago, wrapt stiffly, fold on fold, +With cerements close, to wither in the cold, + Forever hushed, and sunless pyramid! + + Beauty and Truth, and all that these contain, +Drop not like ripened fruit about our feet; + We climb to them through years of sweat and pain; + Without long struggle, none did e'er attain +The downward look from Quiet's blissful seat: + Though present loss may be the hero's part, + Yet none can rob him of the victor heart +Whereby the broad-realmed future is subdued, + And Wrong, which now insults from triumph's car, + Sending her vulture hope to raven far, +Is made unwilling tributary of Good. + +O Mother State, how quenched thy Sinai fires! + Is there none left of thy stanch Mayflower breed? +No spark among the ashes of thy sires, + Of Virtue's altar-flame the kindling seed? +Are these thy great men, these that cringe and creep, + And writhe through slimy ways to place and power?-- +How long, O Lord, before thy wrath shall reap + Our frail-stemmed summer prosperings in their flower? +Oh for one hour of that undaunted stock +That went with Vane and Sidney to the block! + +Oh for a whiff of Naseby, that would sweep, + With its stern Puritan besom, all this chaff + From the Lord's threshing-floor! Yet more than half +The victory is attained, when one or two, + Through the fool's laughter and the traitor's scorn, + Beside thy sepulchre can bide the morn, +Crucified Truth, when thou shalt rise anew. + + + +TO W.L. GARRISON + +'Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the city officers that +they had ferreted out the paper and its editor; that his office was an +obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters +a few very insignificant persons of all colors.'--_Letter of H.G. +Otis_. + +In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, + Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young man; +The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean; + Yet there the freedom of a race began. + +Help came but slowly; surely no man yet + Put lever to the heavy world with less: +What need of help? He knew how types were set, + He had a dauntless spirit, and a press. + +Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, + The compact nucleus, round which systems grow; +Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith, + And whirls impregnate with the central glow. + +O Truth! O Freedom! how are ye still born + In the rude stable, in the manger nurst! +What humble hands unbar those gates of morn + Through which the splendors of the New Day burst! + +What! shall one monk, scarce known beyond his cell, + Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and scorn her frown? +Brave Luther answered YES; that thunder's swell + Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown. + +Whatever can be known of earth we know, + Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells curled; +No! said one man in Genoa, and that No + Out of the darkness summoned this New World. + +Who is it will not dare himself to trust? + Who is it hath not strength to stand alone? +Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward MUST? + He and his works, like sand, from earth are blown. + +Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here! + See one straightforward conscience put in pawn +To win a world; see the obedient sphere + By bravery's simple gravitation drawn! + +Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, + And by the Present's lips repeated still, +In our own single manhood to be bold, + Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will? + +We stride the river daily at its spring, + Nor, in our childless thoughtlessness, foresee +What myriad vassal streams shall tribute bring, + How like an equal it shall greet the sea. + +O small beginnings, ye are great and strong, + Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain! +Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong, + Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain. + + + +ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES TURNER TORREY + +Woe worth the hour when it is crime + To plead the poor dumb bondman's cause, +When all that makes the heart sublime, +The glorious throbs that conquer time, + Are traitors to our cruel laws! + +He strove among God's suffering poor + One gleam of brotherhood to send; +The dungeon oped its hungry door +To give the truth one martyr more, + Then shut,--and here behold the end! + +O Mother State! when this was done, + No pitying throe thy bosom gave; +Silent thou saw'st the death-shroud spun, +And now thou givest to thy son + The stranger's charity,--a grave. + +Must it be thus forever? No! + The hand of God sows not in vain, +Long sleeps the darkling seed below, +The seasons come, and change, and go, + And all the fields are deep with grain. + +Although our brother lie asleep, + Man's heart still struggles, still aspires; +His grave shall quiver yet, while deep +Through the brave Bay State's pulses leap + Her ancient energies and fires. + +When hours like this the senses' gush + Have stilled, and left the spirit room, +It hears amid the eternal hush +The swooping pinions' dreadful rush, + That bring the vengeance and the doom;-- + +Not man's brute vengeance, such as rends + What rivets man to man apart,-- +God doth not so bring round his ends, +But waits the ripened time, and sends + His mercy to the oppressor's heart. + + + +ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. CHANNING + +I do not come to weep above thy pall, + And mourn the dying-out of noble powers, +The poet's clearer eye should see, in all + Earth's seeming woe, seed of immortal flowers. + +Truth needs no champions: in the infinite deep + Of everlasting Soul her strength abides, +From Nature's heart her mighty pulses leap, + Through Nature's veins her strength, undying, tides. + +Peace is more strong than war, and gentleness, + Where force were vain, makes conquest o'er the wave; 10 +And love lives on and hath a power to bless, + When they who loved are hidden in the grave. + +The sculptured marble brags of deathstrewn fields, + And Glory's epitaph is writ in blood; +But Alexander now to Plato yields, + Clarkson will stand where Wellington hath stood. + +I watch the circle of the eternal years, + And read forever in the storied page +One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, and tears, + One onward step of Truth from age to age. 20 + +The poor are crushed: the tyrants link their chain; + The poet sings through narrow dungeon-grates; +Man's hope lies quenched; and, lo! with steadfast gain + Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates. + +Men slay the prophets; fagot, rack, and cross + Make up the groaning record of the past; +But Evil's triumphs are her endless loss, + And sovereign Beauty wins the soul at last. + +No power can die that ever wrought for Truth; + Thereby a law of Nature it became, 30 +And lives unwithered in its blithesome youth, + When he who called it forth is but a name. + +Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone; + The better part of thee is with us still; +Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown, + And only freer wrestles with the ill. + +Thou livest in the life of all good things; + What words thou spak'st for Freedom shall not die; +Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath wings + To soar where hence thy Hope could hardly fly. 40 + +And often, from that other world, on this + Some gleams from great souls gone before may shine, +To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss, + And clothe the Right with lustre more divine. + +Thou art not idle: in thy higher sphere + Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks, +And strength to perfect what it dreamed of here + Is all the crown and glory that it asks. + +For sure, in Heaven's wide chambers, there is room + For love and pity, and for helpful deeds; 50 +Else were our summons thither but a doom + To life more vain than this in clayey weeds. + +From off the starry mountain-peak of song, + Thy spirit shows me, in the coming time, +An earth unwithered by the foot of wrong, + A race revering its own soul sublime. + +What wars, what martyrdoms, what crimes, may come, + Thou knowest not, nor I; but God will lead +The prodigal soul from want and sorrow home, + And Eden ope her gates to Adam's seed. 60 + +Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand + Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning too; +Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand, + Then leap to thread the free, unfathomed blue: + +When that day comes, oh, may this hand grow cold, + Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the Right; +Oh, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold + To face dark Slavery's encroaching blight! + +This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier; + Let worthier hands than these thy wreath intwine; 70 +Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear,-- + For us weep rather thou in calm divine! + + + +TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD + +Another star 'neath Time's horizon dropped, + To gleam o'er unknown lands and seas; +Another heart that beat for freedom stopped,-- + What mournful words are these! + +O Love Divine, that claspest our tired earth, + And lullest it upon thy heart, +Thou knowest how much a gentle soul is worth + To teach men what thou art! + +His was a spirit that to all thy poor + Was kind as slumber after pain: +Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet's door + And call him home again? + +Freedom needs all her poets: it is they + Who give her aspirations wings, +And to the wiser law of music sway + Her wild imaginings. + +Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou unkind, + O Love Divine, for 'tis thy will +That gracious natures leave their love behind + To work for Mercy still. + +Let laurelled marbles weigh on other tombs, + Let anthems peal for other dead, +Rustling the bannered depth of minster-glooms + With their exulting spread. + +His epitaph shall mock the short-lived stone, + No lichen shall its lines efface, +He needs these few and simple lines alone + To mark his resting-place: + +'Here lies a Poet. Stranger, if to thee + His claim to memory be obscure, +If thou wouldst learn how truly great was he, + Go, ask it of the poor.' + + + +THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL + +According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy +Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the Last Supper with +his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and +remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in +the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who +had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and deed; but one of the +keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From +that time it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court +to go in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, +as may be read in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. +Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most exquisite +of his poems. + +The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of the +following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I have enlarged +the circle of competition in search of the miraculous cup in such a +manner as to include, not only other persons than the heroes of the +Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the supposed date +of King Arthur's reign. + + +PRELUDE TO PART FIRST + +Over his keys the musing organist, + Beginning doubtfully and far away, +First lets his fingers wander as they list, + And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay: +Then, as the touch of his loved instrument + Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, +First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent + Along the wavering vista of his dream. + + * * * * * + + Not only around our infancy + Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; 10 + Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, + We Sinais climb and know it not. + +Over our manhood bend the skies; + Against our fallen and traitor lives +The great winds utter prophecies; + With our faint hearts the mountain strives; +Its arms outstretched, the druid wood + Waits with its benedicite; +And to our age's drowsy Wood + Still shouts the inspiring sea. 20 + +Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us; + The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, +The priest hath his lee who comes and shrives us, + We bargain for the graves we lie in; +At the devil's booth are all things sold, + Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; +For a cap and bells our lives we pay, + Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking: +'Tis heaven alone that is given away, + 'Tis only God may be had for the asking 30 +No price is set on the lavish summer; + June may be had by the poorest comer. + +And what is so rare as a day in June? + Then, if ever, come perfect days; +Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, + And over it softly her warm ear lays; +Whether we look, or whether we listen, +We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; +Every clod feels a stir of might, + An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 40 +And, groping blindly above it for light, + Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; +The flush of life may well be seen + Thrilling back over hills and valleys; +The cowslip startles in meadows green, + The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, +And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean + To be some happy creature's palace; +The little bird sits at his door in the sun, + Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 50 +And lets his illumined being o'errun + With the deluge of summer it receives; +His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, + And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; +He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,-- + In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? + +Now is the high-tide of the year, + And whatever of life hath ebbed away +Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, + Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; 60 +Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, +We are happy now because God wills it; +No matter how barren the past may have been, +'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green; +We sit in the warm shade and feel right well +How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; +We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing +That skies are clear and grass is growing; +The breeze comes whispering in our ear, +That dandelions are blossoming near, 70 + That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, +That the river is bluer than the sky, +That the robin is plastering his house hard by; +And if the breeze kept the good news back, +For other couriers we should not lack; + We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,-- +And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, +Warmed with the new wine of the year, + Tells all in his lusty crowing! + +Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; 80 +Everything is happy now, + Everything is upward striving; +'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true +As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,-- + 'Tis the natural way of living: +Who knows whither the clouds have fled? + In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; +And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, + The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; +The soul partakes the season's youth, 90 + And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe +Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, + Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. +What wonder if Sir Launfal now +Remembered the keeping of his vow? + + +PART FIRST + + +I + +'My golden spurs now bring to me, + And bring to me my richest mail, +For to-morrow I go over land and sea + In search of the Holy Grail; +Shall never a bed for me be spread, 100 +Nor shall a pillow be under my head, +Till I begin my vow to keep; +Here on the rushes will I sleep, +And perchance there may come a vision true +Ere day create the world anew.' + Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, + Slumber fell like a cloud on him, +And into his soul the vision flew. + + +II + +The crows flapped over by twos and threes, +In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, 110 + The little birds sang as if it were + The one day of summer in all the year, +And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees: +The castle alone in the landscape lay +Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray: +'Twas the proudest hall in the North Countree, +And never its gates might opened be, +Save to lord or lady of high degree; +Summer besieged it on every side, +But the churlish stone her assaults defied; 120 +She could not scale the chilly wall, +Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall +Stretched left and right, +Over the hills and out of sight; + Green and broad was every tent, + And out of each a murmur went +Till the breeze fell off at night. + + +III + +The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, +And through the dark arch a charger sprang, +Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, 130 +In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright +It seemed the dark castle had gathered all +Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall + In his siege of three hundred summers long, +And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, + Had cast them forth: so, young and strong, +And lightsome as a locust-leaf, +Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden mail, +To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. + + +IV + +It was morning on hill and stream and tree, 140 + And morning in the young knight's heart; +Only the castle moodily +Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, + And gloomed by itself apart; +The season brimmed all other things up +Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. + + +V + +As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate, + He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same, +Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate; + And a loathing over Sir Launfal came; 150 +The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, + The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl, +And midway its leap his heart stood still + Like a frozen waterfall; +For this man, so foul and bent of stature, +Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, +And seemed the one blot on the summer morn,-- +So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. + + +VI + +The leper raised not the gold from the dust: +'Better to me the poor man's crust, 160 +Better the blessing of the poor, +Though I turn me empty from his door; +That is no true alms which the hand can hold; +He gives only the worthless gold + Who gives from a sense of duty; +But he who gives but a slender mite, +And gives to that which is out of sight, + That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty +Which runs through all and doth all unite,-- +The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 170 +The heart outstretches its eager palms, +For a god goes with it and makes it store +To the soul that was starving in darkness before.' + + + +PRELUDE TO PART SECOND + +Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, + From the snow five thousand summers old; +On open wold and hilltop bleak + It had gathered all the cold, +And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek; +It carried a shiver everywhere +From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; 180 +The little brook heard it and built a roof +'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof; +All night by the white stars' frosty gleams +He groined his arches and matched his beams; +Slender and clear were his crystal spars +As the lashes of light that trim the stars: +He sculptured every summer delight +In his halls and chambers out of sight; +Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt +Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 190 +Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees +Bending to counterfeit a breeze; +Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew +But silvery mosses that downward grew; +Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief +With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; +Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear +For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here +He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops +And hung them thickly with diamond drops, 200 +That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, +And made a star of every one: +No mortal builder's most rare device +Could match this winter-palace of ice; +'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay +In his depths serene through the summer day, +Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, +Lest the happy model should be lost, +Had been mimicked in fairy masonry +By the elfin builders of the frost. 210 + +Within the hall are song and laughter, + The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, +And sprouting is every corbel and rafter + With lightsome green of ivy and holly; +Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide +Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; +The broad flame-pennons droop and flap + And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; +Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, + Hunted to death in its galleries blind; 220 +And swift little troops of silent sparks, + Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, +Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks + Like herds of startled deer. + +But the wind without was eager and sharp, +Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, + And rattles and wrings + The icy strings, + Singing, in dreary monotone, + A Christmas carol of its own, 230 + Whose burden still, as he might guess, + Was 'Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!' +The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch +As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, +And he sat in the gateway and saw all night + The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, + Through the window-slits of the castle old, +Build out its piers of ruddy light +Against the drift of the cold. + + +PART SECOND + + +I + +There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 240 +The bare boughs rattled shudderingly; +The river was dumb and could not speak, + For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun; +A single crow on the tree-top bleak + From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun; +Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, +As if her veins were sapless and old, +And she rose up decrepitly +For a last dim look at earth and sea. + + +II + +Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, 250 +For another heir in his earldom sate; +An old, bent man, worn out and frail, +He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; +Little he recked of his earldom's loss, +No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, +But deep in his soul the sign he wore, +The badge of the suffering and the poor. + + +III + +Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare +Was idle mail 'gainst the barbèd air, +For it was just at the Christmas time; 260 +So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, +And sought for a shelter from cold and snow +In the light and warmth of long-ago; +He sees the snake-like caravan crawl +O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, +Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, +He can count the camels in the sun, +As over the red-hot sands they pass +To where, in its slender necklace of grass, +The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, 270 +And with its own self like an infant played, +And waved its signal of palms. + + +IV + +'For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms;' +The happy camels may reach the spring, +But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, +The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, +That cowers beside him, a thing as lone +And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas +In the desolate horror of his disease. + + +V + +And Sir Launfal said, 'I behold in thee 280 +An image of Him who died on the tree; +Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, +Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns, +And to thy life were not denied +The wounds in the hands and feet and side: +Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me; +Behold, through him, I give to thee!' + + +VI + +Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes + And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he +Remembered in what a haughtier guise 290 + He had flung an alms to leprosie, +When he girt his young life up in gilded mail +And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. +The heart within him was ashes and dust; +He parted in twain his single crust, +He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, +And gave the leper to eat and drink. +'Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, + 'Twas water out of a wooden bowl,-- +Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 300 +And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. + + +VII + +As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, +A light shone round about the place; +The leper no longer crouched at his side, +But stood before him glorified, +Shining and tall and fair and straight +As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,-- +Himself the Gate whereby men can +Enter the temple of God in Man. + + +VIII + +His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 310 +And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, +That mingle their softness and quiet in one +With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; +And the voice that was softer than silence said, +'Lo, it is I, be not afraid! +In many climes, without avail, +Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; +Behold, it is here,--this cup which thou +Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; +This crust is my body broken for thee, 320 +This water his blood that died on the tree; +The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, +In whatso we share with another's need; +Not what we give, but what we share, +For the gift without the giver is bare; +Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, +Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.' + + +IX + +Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound: +'The Grail in my castle here is found! +Hang my idle armor up on the wall, 330 +Let it be the spider's banquet hall; +He must be fenced with stronger mail +Who would seek and find the Holy Grail.' + + +X + +The castle gate stands open now, + And the wanderer is welcome to the hall +As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; + No longer scowl the turrets tall, +The Summer's long siege at last is o'er; +When the first poor outcast went in at the door, +She entered with him in disguise, +And mastered the fortress by surprise; 341 +There is no spot she loves so well on ground, +She lingers and smiles there the whole year round; +The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land +Has hall and bower at his command; +And there's no poor man in the North Countree +But is lord of the earldom as much as he. + + + +LETTER FROM BOSTON + +_December, 1846._ + +Dear M---- + By way of saving time, +I'll do this letter up in rhyme, +Whose slim stream through four pages flows +Ere one is packed with tight-screwed prose, +Threading the tube of an epistle, +Smooth as a child's breath through a whistle. + +The great attraction now of all +Is the 'Bazaar' at Faneuil Hall, +Where swarm the anti-slavery folks +As thick, dear Miller, as your jokes. 10 +There's GARRISON, his features very +Benign for an incendiary, +Beaming forth sunshine through his glasses +On the surrounding lads and lasses, +(No bee could blither be, or brisker,)-- +A Pickwick somehow turned John Ziska, +His bump of firmness swelling up +Like a rye cupcake from its cup. +And there, too, was his English tea-set, 19 +Which in his ear a kind of flea set, +His Uncle Samuel for its beauty +Demanding sixty dollars duty, +('Twas natural Sam should serve his trunk ill; +For G., you know, has cut his uncle,) +Whereas, had he but once made tea in't, +His uncle's ear had had the flea in't, +There being not a cent of duty +On any pot that ever drew tea. + +There was MARIA CHAPMAN, too, +With her swift eyes of clear steel-blue, 30 +The coiled-up mainspring of the Fair, +Originating everywhere +The expansive force without a sound +That whirls a hundred wheels around, +Herself meanwhile as calm and still +As the bare crown of Prospect Hill; +A noble woman, brave and apt, +Cumæan sibyl not more rapt, +Who might, with those fair tresses shorn, +The Maid of Orleans' casque have worn, 40 +Herself the Joan of our Ark, +For every shaft a shining mark. + +And there, too, was ELIZA FOLLEN, +Who scatters fruit-creating pollen +Where'er a blossom she can find +Hardy enough for Truth's north wind, +Each several point of all her face +Tremblingly bright with the inward grace, +As if all motion gave it light +Like phosphorescent seas at night. + +There jokes our EDMUND, plainly son 51 +Of him who bearded Jefferson, +A non-resistant by conviction, +But with a bump in contradiction, +So that whene'er it gets a chance +His pen delights to play the lance, +And--you may doubt it, or believe it-- +Full at the head of Joshua Leavitt +The very calumet he'd launch, +And scourge him with the olive branch. 60 +A master with the foils of wit, +'Tis natural he should love a hit; +A gentleman, withal, and scholar, +Only base things excite his choler, +And then his satire's keen and thin +As the lithe blade of Saladin. +Good letters are a gift apart, +And his are gems of Flemish art, +True offspring of the fireside Muse, +Not a rag-gathering of news 70 +Like a new hopfield which is all poles, +But of one blood with Horace Walpole's. + +There, with cue hand behind his back, +Stands PHILLIPS buttoned in a sack, +Our Attic orator, our Chatham; +Old fogies, when he lightens at 'em, +Shrivel like leaves; to him 'tis granted +Always to say the word that's wanted, +So that he seems but speaking clearer +The tiptop thought of every hearer; 80 +Each flash his brooding heart lets fall +Fires what's combustible in all, +And sends the applauses bursting in +Like an exploded magazine. +His eloquence no frothy show, +The gutter's street-polluted flow, +No Mississippi's yellow flood +Whose shoalness can't be seen for mud;-- +So simply clear, serenely deep, 89 +So silent-strong its graceful sweep, +None measures its unrippling force +Who has not striven to stem its course; +How fare their barques who think to play +With smooth Niagara's mane of spray, +Let Austin's total shipwreck say. +He never spoke a word too much-- +Except of Story, or some such, +Whom, though condemned by ethics strict, +The heart refuses to convict. + +Beyond; a crater in each eye, 100 +Sways brown, broad-shouldered PILLSBURY, +Who tears up words like trees by the roots, +A Theseus in stout cow-hide boots, +The wager of eternal war +Against that loathsome Minotaur +To whom we sacrifice each year +The best blood of our Athens here, +(Dear M., pray brush up your Lempriere.) +A terrible denouncer he, +Old Sinai burns unquenchably 110 +Upon his lips; he well might be a +Hot-blazing soul from fierce Judea, +Habakkuk, Ezra, or Hosea. +His words are red hot iron searers, +And nightmare-like he mounts his hearers, +Spurring them like avenging Fate, or +As Waterton his alligator. + +Hard by, as calm as summer even, +Smiles the reviled and pelted STEPHEN, +The unappeasable Boanerges 120 +To all the Churches and the Clergies, +The grim _savant_ who, to complete +His own peculiar cabinet, +Contrived to label 'mong his kicks +One from the followers of Hicks; +Who studied mineralogy +Not with soft book upon the knee, +But learned the properties of stones +By contact sharp of flesh and bones, +And made the _experimentum crucis_ 130 +With his own body's vital juices; +A man with caoutchouc endurance, +A perfect gem for life insurance, +A kind of maddened John the Baptist, +To whom the harshest word comes aptest, +Who, struck by stone or brick ill-starred, +Hurls back an epithet as hard, +Which, deadlier than stone or brick, +Has a propensity to stick. +His oratory is like the scream 140 +Of the iron-horse's frenzied steam +Which warns the world to leave wide space +For the black engine's swerveless race. +Ye men with neckcloths white, I warn you-- +_Habet_ a whole haymow _in cornu_. + +A Judith, there, turned Quakeress, +Sits ABBY in her modest dress, +Serving a table quietly, +As if that mild and downcast eye +Flashed never, with its scorn intense, 150 +More than Medea's eloquence. +So the same force which shakes its dread +Far-blazing blocks o'er Ætna's head, +Along the wires in silence fares +And messages of commerce bears. +No nobler gift of heart and brain, +No life more white from spot or stain, +Was e'er on Freedom's altar laid +Than hers, the simple Quaker maid. + +These last three (leaving in the lurch 160 +Some other themes) assault the Church, +Who therefore writes them in her lists +As Satan's limbs and atheists; +For each sect has one argument +Whereby the rest to hell are sent, +Which serve them like the Graiæ's tooth, +Passed round in turn from mouth to mouth;-- +If any _ism_ should arise, +Then look on it with constable's eyes, 169 +Tie round its neck a heavy _athe-_, +And give it kittens' hydropathy. +This trick with other (useful very) tricks +Is laid to the Babylonian _meretrix_, +But 'twas in vogue before her day +Wherever priesthoods had their way, +And Buddha's Popes with this struck dumb +The followers of Fi and Fum. + +Well, if the world, with prudent fear +Pay God a seventh of the year, +And as a Farmer, who would pack +All his religion in one stack, 181 +For this world works six days in seven +And idles on the seventh for Heaven, +Expecting, for his Sunday's sowing, +In the next world to go a-mowing +The crop of all his meeting-going;-- +If the poor Church, by power enticed, +Finds none so infidel as Christ, +Quite backward reads his Gospel meek, +(As 'twere in Hebrew writ, not Greek,) 190 +Fencing the gallows and the sword +With conscripts drafted from his word, +And makes one gate of Heaven so wide +That the rich orthodox might ride +Through on their camels, while the poor +Squirm through the scant, unyielding door, +Which, of the Gospel's straitest size, +Is narrower than bead-needles' eyes, +What wonder World and Church should call +The true faith atheistical? 200 + +Yet, after all, 'twixt you and me, +Dear Miller, I could never see +That Sin's and Error's ugly smirch +Stained the walls only of the Church; +There are good priests, and men who take +Freedom's torn cloak for lucre's sake; +I can't believe the Church so strong, +As some men do, for Right or Wrong, +But, for this subject (long and vext) +I must refer you to my next, 210 +As also for a list exact +Of goods with which the Hall was packed. + + + + +READER! _walk up at once (it will soon be too late), and buy +at a perfectly ruinous rate._ + +A FABLE FOR CRITICS; + +OR, BETTER-- + +_I like, as a thing that the reader's first fancy may strike, +an old fashioned title-page, +such as presents a tabular view of the volumes contents_,-- + +A GLANCE AT A FEW OF OUR LITERARY PROGENIES + +(Mrs. Malaprop's Word) + +FROM THE TUB OF DIOGENES; + +A VOCAL AND MUSICAL MEDLEY, + +THAT IS, + +A SERIES OF JOKES + +BY A WONDERFUL QUIZ + + +_Who accompanies himself with a rub-a-dub-dub, full of spirit and grace, +on the top of the tub._ + +SET FORTH IN + +_October, the 21st day, in the year '48._ + +G.P. PUTNAM, BROADWAY. + + +It being the commonest mode of procedure, I premise a few candid remarks + +TO THE READER:-- + +This trifle, begun to please only myself and my own private fancy, was +laid on the shelf. But some friends, who had seen it, induced me, by +dint of saying they liked it, to put it in print. That is, having come +to that very conclusion, I asked their advice when 'twould make no +confusion. For though (in the gentlest of ways) they had hinted it was +scarce worth the while, I should doubtless have printed it. + +I began it, intending a Fable, a frail, slender thing, rhymeywinged, +with a sting in its tail. But, by addings and alterings not previously +planned, digressions chance-hatched, like birds' eggs in the sand, and +dawdlings to suit every whimsey's demand (always freeing the bird which +I held In my hand, for the two perched, perhaps out of reach, in the +tree),--it grew by degrees to the size which you see. I was like the old +woman that carried the calf, and my neighbors, like hers, no doubt, +wonder and laugh; and when, my strained arms with their grown burthen +full, I call it my Fable, they call it a bull. + +Having scrawled at full gallop (as far as that goes) in a style that is +neither good verse nor bad prose, and being a person whom nobody knows, +some people will say I am rather more free with my readers than it is +becoming to be, that I seem to expect them to wait on my leisure in +following wherever I wander at pleasure, that, in short, I take more +than a young author's lawful ease, and laugh in a queer way so like +Mephistopheles, that the Public will doubt, as they grope through my +rhythm, if in truth I am making fun _of_ them or _with_ them. + +So the excellent Public is hereby assured that the sale of my book is +already secured. For there is not a poet throughout the whole land but +will purchase a copy or two out of hand, in the fond expectation of +being amused in it, by seeing his betters cut up and abused in it. Now, +I find, by a pretty exact calculation, there are something like ten +thousand bards in the nation, of that special variety whom the Review +and Magazine critics call _lofty_ and _true_, and about thirty +thousand (_this_ tribe is increasing) of the kinds who are termed +_full of promise_ and _pleasing_. The Public will see by a glance +at this schedule, that they cannot expect me to be over-sedulous about +courting _them_, since it seems I have got enough fuel made sure of +for boiling my pot. + +As for such of our poets as find not their names mentioned once in my +pages, with praises or blames, let them SEND IN THEIR CARDS, without +further DELAY, to my friend G.P. PUTNAM, Esquire, in Broadway, where a +LIST will be kept with the strictest regard to the day and the hour of +receiving the card. Then, taking them up as I chance to have time (that +is, if their names can be twisted in rhyme), I will honestly give each +his PROPER POSITION, at the rate of ONE AUTHOR to each NEW EDITION. Thus +a PREMIUM is offered sufficiently HIGH (as the magazines say when they +tell their best lie) to induce bards to CLUB their resources and buy the +balance of every edition, until they have all of them fairly been run +through the mill. + +One word to such readers (judicious and wise) as read books with +something behind the mere eyes, of whom in the country, perhaps, there +are two, including myself, gentle reader, and you. All the characters +sketched in this slight _jeu d'esprit_, though, it may be, they seem, +here and there, rather free, and drawn from a somewhat too cynical +standpoint, are _meant_ to be faithful, for that is the grand point, +and none but an owl would feel sore at a rub from a jester who tells you, +without any subterfuge, that he sits in Diogenes' tub. + + + +A PRELIMINARY NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION. + +Though it well may be reckoned, of all composition, the species at once +most delightful and healthy, is a thing which an author, unless he be +wealthy and willing to pay for that kind of delight, is not, in all +instances, called on to write, though there are, it is said, who, their +spirits to cheer, slip in a new title-page three times a year, and in +this way snuff up an imaginary savor of that sweetest of dishes, the +popular favor,--much as if a starved painter should fall to and treat +the Ugolino inside to a picture of meat. + +You remember (if not, pray turn, backward and look) that, in writing the +preface which ushered my book, I treated you, excellent Public, not +merely with a cool disregard, but downright cavalierly. Now I would not +take back the least thing I then said, though I thereby could butter +both sides of my bread, for I never could see that an author owed aught +to the people he solaced, diverted, or taught; and, as for mere fame, I +have long ago learned that the persons by whom it is finally earned are +those with whom _your_ verdict weighed not a pin, unsustained by the +higher court sitting within. + +But I wander from what I intended to say,--that you have, namely, shown +such a liberal way of thinking, and so much æsthetic perception of +anonymous worth in the handsome reception you gave to my book, spite of +some private piques (having bought the first thousand in barely two +weeks), that I think, past a doubt, if you measured the phiz of yours +most devotedly, Wonderful Quiz, you would find that its vertical section +was shorter, by an inch and two tenths, or 'twixt that and a quarter. + +You have watched a child playing--in those wondrous years when belief is +not bound to the eyes and the ears, and the vision divine is so clear +and unmarred, that each baker of pies in the dirt is a bard? Give a +knife and a shingle, he fits out a fleet, and, on that little mud-puddle +over the street, his fancy, in purest good faith, will make sail round +the globe with a puff of his breath for a gale, will visit, in barely +ten minutes, all climes, and do the Columbus-feat hundreds of times. Or, +suppose the young poet fresh stored with delights from that Bible of +childhood, the Arabian Nights, he will turn to a crony and cry, 'Jack, +let's play that I am a Genius!' Jacky straightway makes Aladdin's lamp +out of a stone, and, for hours, they enjoy each his own supernatural +powers. This is all very pretty and pleasant, but then suppose our two +urchins, have grown into men, and both have turned authors,--one says to +his brother, 'Let's play we're the American somethings or other,--say +Homer or Sophocles, Goethe or Scott (only let them be big enough, no +matter what). Come, you shall be Byron or Pope, which you choose: I'll +be Coleridge, and both shall write mutual reviews.' So they both (as +mere strangers) before many days send each other a cord of anonymous +bays. Each piling his epithets, smiles in his sleeve to see what his +friend can be made to believe; each, reading the other's unbiased +review, thinks--Here's pretty high praise, but no more than my due. +Well, we laugh at them both, and yet make no great fuss when the same +farce is acted to benefit us. Even I, who, it asked, scarce a month +since, what Fudge meant, should have answered, the dear Public's +critical judgment, begin to think sharp-witted Horace spoke sooth when +he said that the Public _sometimes_ hit the truth. + +In reading these lines, you perhaps have a vision of a person in pretty +good health and condition; and yet, since I put forth my primary +edition, I have been crushed, scorched, withered, used up and put down +(by Smith with the cordial assistance of Brown), in all, if you put any +faith in my rhymes, to the number of ninety-five several times, and, +while I am writing,--I tremble to think of it, for I may at this moment +be just on the brink of it,--Molybdostom, angry at being omitted, has +begun a critique,--am I not to be pitied?[1] + +Now I shall not crush _them_ since, indeed, for that matter, no pressure +I know of could render them flatter; nor wither, nor scorch them,--no +action of fire could make either them or their articles drier; nor waste +time in putting them down--I am thinking not their own self-inflation +will keep them from sinking; for there's this contradiction about the +whole bevy,--though without the least weight, they are awfully heavy. +No, my dear honest bore, _surdo fabulam narras_, they are no more to me +than a rat in the arras. I can walk with the Doctor, get facts from the +Don, or draw out the Lambish quintessence of John, and feel nothing more +than a half-comic sorrow, to think that they all will be lying to-morrow +tossed carelessly up on the waste-paper shelves, and forgotten by all +but their half-dozen selves. Once snug in my attic, my fire in a roar, I +leave the whole pack of them outside the door. With Hakluyt or Purchas I +wander away to the black northern seas or barbaric Cathay; get _fou_ +with O'Shanter, and sober me then with that builder of brick-kilnish +dramas, rare Ben; snuff Herbert, as holy as a flower on a grave; with +Fletcher wax tender, o'er Chapman grow brave; with Marlowe or Kyd take a +fine poet-rave; in Very, most Hebrew of Saxons, find peace; with Lycidas +welter on vext Irish seas; with Webster grow wild, and climb earthward +again, down by mystical Browne's Jacob's-ladder-like brain, to that +spiritual Pepys (Cotton's version) Montaigne; find a new depth in +Wordsworth, undreamed of before, that marvel, a poet divine who can +bore. Or, out of my study, the scholar thrown off, Nature holds up her +shield 'gainst the sneer and the scoff; the landscape, forever consoling +and kind, pours her wine and her oil on the smarts of the mind. The +waterfall, scattering its vanishing gems; the tall grove of hemlocks, +with moss on their stems, like plashes of sunlight; the pond in the +woods, where no foot but mine and the bittern's intrudes, where +pitcher-plants purple and gentians hard by recall to September the blue +of June's sky; these are all my kind neighbors, and leave me no wish to +say aught to you all, my poor critics, but--pish! I've buried the +hatchet: I'm twisting an allumette out of one of you now, and relighting +my calumet. In your private capacities, come when you please, I will +give you my hand and a fresh pipe apiece. + +As I ran through the leaves of my poor little book, to take a fond +author's first tremulous look, it was quite an excitement to hunt the +_errata_, sprawled in as birds' tracks are in some kinds of strata (only +these made things crookeder). Fancy an heir that a father had seen born +well-featured and fair, turning suddenly wry-nosed, club-footed, +squint-eyed, hair-lipped, wapper-jawed, carrot-haired, from a pride +become an aversion,--my case was yet worse. A club-foot (by way of a +change) in a verse, I might have forgiven, an _o_'s being wry, a limp in +an _e_, or a cock in an _i_,--but to have the sweet babe of my brain +served in _pi!_ I am not queasy-stomached, but such a Thyestean banquet +as that was quite out of the question. + +In the edition now issued no pains are neglected, and my verses, as +orators say, stand corrected. Yet some blunders remain of the public's +own make, which I wish to correct for my personal sake. For instance, a +character drawn in pure fun and condensing the traits of a dozen in one, +has been, as I hear, by some persons applied to a good friend of mine, +whom to stab in the side, as we walked along chatting and joking +together, would not be _my_ way. I can hardly tell whether a +question will ever arise in which he and I should by any strange fortune +agree, but meanwhile my esteem for him grows as I know him, and, though +not the best judge on earth of a poem, he knows what it is he is saying +and why, and is honest and fearless, two good points which I have not +found so rife I can easily smother my love for them, whether on my side +or t'other. + +For my other _anonymi_, you may be sure that I know what is meant by a +caricature, and what by a portrait. There _are_ those who think it is +capital fun to be spattering their ink on quiet, unquarrelsome folk, but +the minute the game changes sides and the others begin it, they see +something savage and horrible in it. As for me I respect neither women +nor men for their gender, nor own any sex in a pen. I choose just to +hint to some causeless unfriends that, as far as I know, there are +always two ends (and one of them heaviest, too) to a staff, and two +parties also to every good laugh. + + + + +A FABLE FOR CRITICS + + + Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade, +Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made, +For the god being one day too warm in his wooing, +She took to the tree to escape his pursuing; +Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk, +And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk; +And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her, +He somehow or other had never forgiven her; +Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic, +Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic, 10 +And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over +By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her. +'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked; +'When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked +In a laurel, as _she_ thought--but (ah, how Fate mocks!) +She has found it by this time a very bad box; +Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,-- +You're not always sure of your game when you've treed it. +Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress! +What romance would be left?--who can flatter or kiss trees? 20 +And, for mercy's sake, how could one keep up a dialogue +With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log,-- +Not to say that the thought would forever intrude +That you've less chance to win her the more she is wood? +Ah! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves, +To see those loved graces all taking their leaves; +Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting but now, +As they left me forever, each making its bough! +If her tongue _had_ a tang sometimes more than was right, +Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.' 30 + + Now, Daphne--before she was happily treeified-- +Over all other blossoms the lily had deified, +And when she expected the god on a visit +('Twas before he had made his intentions explicit), +Some buds she arranged with a vast deal of care, +To look as if artlessly twined in her hair, +Where they seemed, as he said, when he paid his addresses, +Like the day breaking through, the long night of her tresses; +So whenever he wished to be quite irresistible, +Like a man with eight trumps in his hand at a whist-table 40 +(I feared me at first that the rhyme was untwistable, +Though I might have lugged in an allusion to Cristabel),-- +He would take up a lily, and gloomily look in it, +As I shall at the----, when they cut up my book in it. + + Well, here, after all the bad rhyme I've been spinning, +I've got back at last to my story's beginning: +Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of his mistress, +As dull as a volume of old Chester mysteries, +Or as those puzzling specimens which, in old histories, +We read of his verses--the Oracles, namely,-- 50 +(I wonder the Greeks should have swallowed them tamely, +For one might bet safely whatever he has to risk, +They were laid at his door by some ancient Miss Asterisk, +And so dull that the men who retailed them out-doors +Got the ill name of augurs, because they were bores,--) +First, he mused what the animal substance or herb is +Would induce a mustache, for you know he's _imberbis;_ +Then he shuddered to think how his youthful position +Was assailed by the age of his son the physician; +At some poems he glanced, had been sent to him lately, 60 +And the metre and sentiment puzzled him greatly; +'Mehercle! I'd make such proceeding felonious,-- +Have they all of them slept in the cave of Trophonius? +Look well to your seat, 'tis like taking an airing +On a corduroy road, and that out of repairing; +It leads one, 'tis true, through the primitive forest, +Grand natural features, but then one has no rest; +You just catch a glimpse of some ravishing distance, +When a jolt puts the whole of it out of existence,-- +Why not use their ears, if they happen to have any?' 70 +--Here the laurel leaves murmured the name of poor Daphne. + + 'Oh, weep with me, Daphne,' he sighed, 'for you know it's +A terrible thing to be pestered with poets! +But, alas, she is dumb, and the proverb holds good, +She never will cry till she's out of the wood! +What wouldn't I give if I never had known of her? +'Twere a kind of relief had I something to groan over: +If I had but some letters of hers, now, to toss over, +I might turn for the nonce a Byronic philosopher, +And bewitch all the flats by bemoaning the loss of her. 80 +One needs something tangible, though, to begin on,-- +A loom, as it were, for the fancy to spin on; +What boots all your grist? it can never be ground +Till a breeze makes the arms of the windmill go round; +(Or, if 'tis a water-mill, alter the metaphor, +And say it won't stir, save the wheel be well wet afore, +Or lug in some stuff about water "so dreamily,"-- +It is not a metaphor, though, 'tis a simile); +A lily, perhaps, would set _my_ mill a-going, +For just at this season, I think, they are blowing. 90 +Here, somebody, fetch one; not very far hence +They're in bloom by the score, 'tis but climbing a fence; +There's a poet hard by, who does nothing but fill his +Whole garden, from one end to t'other, with lilies; +A very good plan, were it not for satiety, +One longs for a weed here and there, for variety; +Though a weed is no more than a flower in disguise, +Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.' + + Now there happened to be among Phoebus's followers, +A gentleman, one of the omnivorous swallowers, 100 +Who bolt every book that comes out of the press, +Without the least question of larger or less, +Whose stomachs are strong at the expense of their head,-- +For reading new books is like eating new bread, +One can bear it at first, but by gradual steps he +Is brought to death's door of a mental dyspepsy. +On a previous stage of existence, our Hero +Had ridden outside, with the glass below zero; +He had been, 'tis a fact you may safely rely on, +Of a very old stock a most eminent scion,-- 110 +A stock all fresh quacks their fierce boluses ply on, +Who stretch the new boots Earth's unwilling to try on, +Whom humbugs of all shapes and sorts keep their eye on, +Whose hair's in the mortar of every new Zion, +Who, when whistles are dear, go directly and buy one, +Who think slavery a crime that we must not say fie on, +Who hunt, if they e'er hunt at all, with the lion +(Though they hunt lions also, whenever they spy one), +Who contrive to make every good fortune a wry one, +And at last choose the hard bed of honor to die on, 120 +Whose pedigree, traced to earth's earliest years, +Is longer than anything else but their ears,-- +In short, he was sent into life with the wrong key, +He unlocked the door, and stept forth a poor donkey. +Though kicked and abused by his bipedal betters +Yet he filled no mean place in the kingdom of letters; +Far happier than many a literary hack, +He bore only paper-mill rags on his back +(For It makes a vast difference which side the mill +One expends on the paper his labor and skill); 130 +So, when his soul waited a new transmigration, +And Destiny balanced 'twixt this and that station, +Not having much time to expend upon bothers, +Remembering he'd had some connection with authors, +And considering his four legs had grown paralytic,-- +She set him on two, and he came forth a critic. + + Through his babyhood no kind of pleasure he took +In any amusement but tearing a book; +For him there was no intermediate stage +From babyhood up to straight-laced middle age; 140 +There were years when he didn't wear coat-tails behind, +But a boy he could never be rightly defined; +like the Irish Good Folk, though in length scarce a span, +From the womb he came gravely, a little old man; +While other boys' trousers demanded the toil +Of the motherly fingers on all kinds of soil, +Red, yellow, brown, black, clayey, gravelly, loamy, +He sat in the corner and read Viri Romæ. +He never was known to unbend or to revel once +In base, marbles, hockey, or kick up the devil once; 150 +He was just one of those who excite the benevolence +Of your old prigs who sound the soul's depths with a ledger, +And are on the lookout for some young men to 'edger- +cate,' as they call it, who won't be too costly, +And who'll afterward take to the ministry mostly; +Who always wear spectacles, always look bilious, +Always keep on good terms with each _mater-familias_ +Throughout the whole parish, and manage to rear +Ten boys like themselves, on four hundred a year: +Who, fulfilling in turn the same fearful conditions, 160 +Either preach through their noses, or go upon missions. + +In this way our Hero got safely to college, +Where he bolted alike both his commons and knowledge; +A reading-machine, always wound up and going, +He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing, +Appeared in a gown, with black waistcoat of satin, +To spout such a Gothic oration in Latin +That Tully could never have made out a word in it +(Though himself was the model the author preferred in it), +And grasping the parchment which gave him in fee 170 +All the mystic and-so-forths contained in A.B., +He was launched (life is always compared to a sea) +With just enough learning, and skill for the using it, +To prove he'd a brain, by forever confusing it. +So worthy St. Benedict, piously burning +With the holiest zeal against secular learning, +_Nesciensque scienter_, as writers express it, +_Indoctusque sapienter a Roma recessit_. + + 'Twould be endless to tell you the things that he knew, +Each a separate fact, undeniably true, 180 +But with him or each other they'd nothing to do; +No power of combining, arranging, discerning, +Digested the masses he learned into learning; +There was one thing in life he had practical knowledge for +(And this, you will think, he need scarce go to college for),-- +Not a deed would he do, nor a word would he utter, +Till he'd weighed its relations to plain bread and butter. +When he left Alma Mater, he practised his wits +In compiling the journals' historical bits,-- +Of shops broken open, men falling in fits, 190 +Great fortunes in England bequeathed to poor printers, +And cold spells, the coldest for many past winters,-- +Then, rising by industry, knack, and address, +Got notices up for an unbiased press, +With a mind so well poised, it seemed equally made for +Applause or abuse, just which chanced to be paid for: +From this point his progress was rapid and sure, +To the post of a regular heavy reviewer. + + And here I must say he wrote excellent articles +On Hebraical points, or the force of Greek particles; 200 +They filled up the space nothing else was prepared for, +And nobody read that which nobody cared for; +If any old book reached a fiftieth edition, +He could fill forty pages with safe erudition: +He could gauge the old books by the old set of rules, +And his very old nothings pleased very old fools; +But give him a new book, fresh out of the heart, +And you put him at sea without compass or chart,-- +His blunders aspired to the rank of an art; +For his lore was engraft, something foreign that grew in him, 210 +Exhausting the sap of the native and true in him, +So that when a man came with a soul that was new in him, +Carving new forms of truth out of Nature's old granite, +New and old at their birth, like Le Verrier's planet, +Which, to get a true judgment, themselves must create +In the soul of their critic the measure and weight, +Being rather themselves a fresh standard of grace, +To compute their own judge, and assign him his place, +Our reviewer would crawl all about it and round it, +And, reporting each circumstance just as he found it, 220 +Without the least malice,--his record would be +Profoundly æsthetic as that of a flea, +Which, supping on Wordsworth, should print for our sakes, +Recollections of nights with the Bard of the Lakes, +Or, lodged by an Arab guide, ventured to render a +Comprehensive account of the ruins at Denderah. + + As I said, he was never precisely unkind. +The defect in his brain was just absence of mind; +If he boasted, 'twas simply that he was self-made, +A position which I, for one, never gainsaid, 230 +My respect for my Maker supposing a skill +In his works which our Hero would answer but ill; +And I trust that the mould which he used may be cracked, or he, +Made bold by success, may enlarge his phylactery, +And set up a kind of a man-manufactory,-- +An event which I shudder to think about, seeing +That Man is a moral, accountable being. + + He meant well enough, but was still in the way, +As dunces still are, let them be where they may; +Indeed, they appear to come into existence 240 +To impede other folks with their awkward assistance; +If you set up a dunce on the very North pole +All alone with himself, I believe, on my soul, +He'd manage to get betwixt somebody's shins, +And pitch him down bodily, all in his sins, +To the grave polar bears sitting round on the ice, +All shortening their grace, to be in for a slice; +Or, if he found nobody else there to pother, +Why, one of his legs would just trip up the other, +For there's nothing we read of in torture's inventions, 250 +Like a well-meaning dunce, with the best of intentions. + + A terrible fellow to meet in society, +Not the toast that he buttered was ever so dry at tea; +There he'd sit at the table and stir in his sugar, +Crouching close for a spring, all the while, like a cougar; +Be sure of your facts, of your measures and weights, +Of your time,--he's as fond as an Arab of dates; +You'll be telling, perhaps, in your comical way, +Of something you've seen in the course of the day; +And, just as you're tapering out the conclusion, 260 +You venture an ill-fated classic allusion,-- +The girls have all got their laughs ready, when, whack! +The cougar comes down on your thunderstruck back! +You had left out a comma,--your Greek's put in joint, +And pointed at cost of your story's whole point. +In the course of the evening, you find chance for certain +Soft speeches to Anne, in the shade of the curtain: +You tell her your heart can be likened to _one_ flower, +'And that, O most charming of women, 's the sunflower, +Which turns'--here a clear nasal voice, to your terror, 270 +From outside the curtain, says, 'That's all an error.' +As for him, he's--no matter, he never grew tender, +Sitting after a ball, with his feet on the fender, +Shaping somebody's sweet features out of cigar smoke +(Though he'd willingly grant you that such doings are smoke); +All women he damns with _mutabile semper_, +And if ever he felt something like love's distemper, +'Twas tow'rds a young lady who spoke ancient Mexican, +And assisted her father in making a lexicon; +Though I recollect hearing him get quite ferocious 280 +About Mary Clausum, the mistress of Grotius, +Or something of that sort,--but, no more to bore ye +With character-painting, I'll turn to my story. + + Now, Apollo, who finds it convenient sometimes +To get his court clear of the makers of rhymes, +The _genus_, I think it is called, _irritabile_, +Every one of whom thinks himself treated most shabbily, +And nurses a--what is it?--_immedicabile_, +Which keeps him at boiling-point, hot for a quarrel, +As bitter as wormwood, and sourer than sorrel, 290 +If any poor devil but look at a laurel;-- +Apollo, I say, being sick of their rioting +(Though he sometimes acknowledged their verse had a quieting +Effect after dinner, and seemed to suggest a +Retreat to the shrine of a tranquil siesta), +Kept our Hero at hand, who, by means of a bray, +Which he gave to the life, drove the rabble away; +And if that wouldn't do, he was sure to succeed, +If he took his review out and offered to read; +Or, failing in plans of this milder description, 300 +He would ask for their aid to get up a subscription, +Considering that authorship wasn't a rich craft, +To print the 'American drama of Witchcraft.' +'Stay, I'll read you a scene,'--but he hardly began, +Ere Apollo shrieked 'Help!' and the authors all ran: +And once, when these purgatives acted with less spirit, +And the desperate case asked a remedy desperate, +He drew from his pocket a foolscap epistle +As calmly as if 'twere a nine-barrelled pistol, +And threatened them all with the judgment to come, 310 +Of 'A wandering Star's first impressions of Rome.' +'Stop! stop!' with their hands o'er their ears, screamed the Muses, +'He may go off and murder himself, if he chooses, +'Twas a means self-defence only sanctioned his trying, +'Tis mere massacre now that the enemy's flying; +If he's forced to 't again, and we happen to be there, +Give us each a large handkerchief soaked in strong ether.' + + I called this a 'Fable for Critics;' you think it's +More like a display of my rhythmical trinkets; +My plot, like an icicle's slender and slippery, 320 +Every moment more slender, and likely to slip awry, +And the reader unwilling _in loco desipere_ +Is free to jump over as much of my frippery +As he fancies, and, if he's a provident skipper, he +May have like Odysseus control of the gales, +And get safe to port, ere his patience quite fails; +Moreover, although 'tis a slender return +For your toil and expense, yet my paper will burn, +And, if you have manfully struggled thus far with me, +You may e'en twist me up, and just light your cigar with me: 330 +If too angry for that, you can tear me in pieces, +And my _membra disjecta_ consign to the breezes, +A fate like great Ratzau's, whom one of those bores, +Who beflead with bad verses poor Louis Quatorze, +Describes (the first verse somehow ends with _victoire_), +As _dispersant partout et ses membres et sa gloire;_ +Or, if I were over-desirous of earning +A repute among noodles for classical learning, +I could pick you a score of allusions, i-wis, +As new as the jests of _Didaskalos tis;_ 340 +Better still, I could make out a good solid list +From authors recondite who do not exist,-- +But that would be naughty: at least, I could twist +Something out of Absyrtus, or turn your inquiries +After Milton's prose metaphor, drawn from Osiris; +But, as Cicero says he won't say this or that +(A fetch, I must say, most transparent and flat), +After saying whate'er he could possibly think of,-- +I simply will state that I pause on the brink of +A mire, ankle-deep, of deliberate confusion, 350 +Made up of old jumbles of classic allusion: +So, when you were thinking yourselves to be pitied, +Just conceive how much harder your teeth you'd have gritted, +An 'twere not for the dulness I've kindly omitted. + + I'd apologize here for my many digressions. +Were it not that I'm certain to trip into fresh ones +('Tis so hard to escape if you get in their mesh once); +Just reflect, if you please, how 'tis said by Horatius, +That Mæonides nods now and then, and, my gracious! +It certainly does look a little bit ominous 360 +When he gets under way with _ton d'apameibomenos_. +(Here a something occurs which I'll just clap a rhyme to, +And say it myself, ere a Zoilus have time to,-- +Any author a nap like Van Winkle's may take, +If he only contrive to keep readers awake, +But he'll very soon find himself laid on the shelf, +If _they_ fall a-nodding when he nods himself.) + + Once for all, to return, and to stay, will I, nill I-- +When Phoebus expressed his desire for a lily, +Our Hero, whose homoeopathic sagacity 370 +With an ocean of zeal mixed his drop of capacity, +Set off for the garden as fast as the wind +(Or, to take a comparison more to my mind, +As a sound politician leaves conscience behind). +And leaped the low fence, as a party hack jumps +O'er his principles, when something else turns up trumps. + + He was gone a long time, and Apollo, meanwhile, +Went over some sonnets of his with a file, +For, of all compositions, he thought that the sonnet +Best repaid all the toil you expended upon it; 380 +It should reach with one impulse the end of its course, +And for one final blow collect all of its force; +Not a verse should be salient, but each one should tend +With a wave-like up-gathering to break at the end; +So, condensing the strength here, there smoothing a wry kink, +He was killing the time, when up walked Mr. D----, +At a few steps behind him, a small man in glasses +Went dodging about, muttering, 'Murderers! asses!' +From out of his pocket a paper he'd take, +With a proud look of martyrdom tied to its stake, 390 +And, reading a squib at himself, he'd say, 'Here I see +'Gainst American letters a bloody conspiracy, +They are all by my personal enemies written; +I must post an anonymous letter to Britain, +And show that this gall is the merest suggestion +Of spite at my zeal on the Copyright question, +For, on this side the water, 'tis prudent to pull +O'er the eyes of the public their national wool, +By accusing of slavish respect to John Bull +All American authors who have more or less 400 +Of that anti-American humbug--success, +While in private we're always embracing the knees +Of some twopenny editor over the seas, +And licking his critical shoes, for you know 'tis +The whole aim of our lives to get one English notice; +My American puffs I would willingly burn all +(They're all from one source, monthly, weekly, diurnal) +To get but a kick from a transmarine journal!' + + So, culling the gibes of each critical scorner +As if they were plums, and himself were Jack Horner, 410 +He came cautiously on, peeping round every corner, +And into each hole where a weasel might pass in, +Expecting the knife of some critic assassin, +Who stabs to the heart with a caricature. +Not so bad as those daubs of the Sun, to be sure, +Yet done with a dagger-o'-type, whose vile portraits +Disperse all one's good and condense all one's poor traits. + + Apollo looked up, hearing footsteps approaching, +And slipped out of sight the new rhymes he was broaching,-- +'Good day, Mr. D----, I'm happy to meet 420 +With a scholar so ripe, and a critic so neat, +Who through Grub Street the soul of a gentleman carries; +What news from that suburb of London and Paris +Which latterly makes such shrill claims to monopolize +The credit of being the New World's metropolis?' + + 'Why, nothing of consequence, save this attack +On my friend there, behind, by some pitiful hack, +Who thinks every national author a poor one, +That isn't a copy of something that's foreign, 429 +And assaults the American Dick--' + + Nay, 'tis clear +That your Damon there's fond of a flea in his ear, +And, if no one else furnished them gratis, on tick +He would buy some himself, just to hear the old click; +Why, I honestly think, if some fool in Japan +Should turn up his nose at the "Poems on Man," +(Which contain many verses as fine, by the bye, +As any that lately came under my eye,) +Your friend there by some inward instinct would know it, +Would get it translated, reprinted, and show it; +As a man might take off a high stock to exhibit 440 +The autograph round his own neck of the gibbet; +Nor would let it rest so, but fire column after column, +Signed Cato, or Brutus, or something as solemn, +By way of displaying his critical crosses, +And tweaking that poor transatlantic proboscis, +His broadsides resulting (this last there's no doubt of) +In successively sinking the craft they're fired out of. +Now nobody knows when an author is hit, +If he have not a public hysterical fit; +Let him only keep close in his snug garret's dim ether, 450 +And nobody'd think of his foes--or of him either; +If an author have any least fibre of worth in him, +Abuse would but tickle the organ of mirth in him; +All the critics on earth cannot crush with their ban +One word that's in tune with the nature of man.' + + 'Well, perhaps so; meanwhile I have brought you a book, +Into which if you'll just have the goodness to look, +You may feel so delighted (when once you are through it) +As to deem it not unworth your while to review it, +And I think I can promise your thoughts, if you do, 460 +A place in the next Democratic Review.' + + 'The most thankless of gods you must surely have thought me, +For this is the forty-fourth copy you've brought me; +I have given them away, or at least I have tried, +But I've forty-two left, standing all side by side +(The man who accepted that one copy died),-- +From one end of a shelf to the other they reach, +"With the author's respects" neatly written in each. +The publisher, sure, will proclaim a Te Deum, +When he hears of that order the British Museum 470 +Has sent for one set of what books were first printed +In America, little or big,--for 'tis hinted +That this is the first truly tangible hope he +Has ever had raised for the sale of a copy. +I've thought very often 'twould be a good thing +In all public collections of books, if a wing +Were set off by itself, like the seas from the dry lands, +Marked _Literature suited to desolate islands_, +And filled with such books as could never be read +Save by readers of proofs, forced to do it for bread,-- 480 +Such books as one's wrecked on in small country taverns, +Such as hermits might mortify over in caverns, +Such as Satan, if printing had then been invented, +As the climax of woe, would to Job have presented. +Such as Crusoe might dip in, although there are few so +Outrageously cornered by fate as poor Crusoe; +And since the philanthropists just now are banging +And gibbeting all who're in favor of hanging +(Though Cheever has proved that the Bible and Altar +Were let down from Heaven at the end of a halter. 490 +And that vital religion would dull and grow callous, +Unrefreshed, now and then, with a sniff of the gallows),-- +And folks are beginning to think it looks odd, +To choke a poor scamp for the glory of God; +And that He who esteems the Virginia reel +A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal, +And regards the quadrille as a far greater knavery +Than crushing his African children with slavery,-- +Since all who take part in a waltz or cotillon +Are mounted for hell on the Devil's own pillion, 500 +Who, as every true orthodox Christian well knows, +Approaches the heart through the door of the toes,-- +That He, I was saying, whose judgments are stored +For such as take steps in despite of his word, +Should look with delight on the agonized prancing +Of a wretch who has not the least ground for his dancing, +While the State, standing by, sings a verse from the Psalter +About offering to God on his favorite halter, +And, when the legs droop from their twitching divergence, +Sells the clothes to a Jew, and the corpse to the surgeons;-- +Now, instead of all this, I think I can direct you all 511 +To a criminal code both humane and effectual;-- +I propose to shut up every doer of wrong +With these desperate books, for such term, short or long, +As, by statute in such cases made and provided, +Shall be by your wise legislators decided: +Thus: Let murderers be shut, to grow wiser and cooler, +At hard labor for life on the works of Miss----; +Petty thieves, kept from flagranter crimes by their fears, +Shall peruse Yankee Doodle a blank term of years,-- 520 +That American Punch, like the English, no doubt,-- +Just the sugar and lemons and spirit left out. + + 'But stay, here comes Tityrus Griswold, and leads on +The flocks whom he first plucks alive, and then feeds on,-- +A loud-cackling swarm, in whose leathers warm drest, +He goes for as perfect a--swan as the rest. + + 'There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one, +Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on, +Whose prose is grand verse, while his verse, the Lord knows, +Is some of it pr---- No, 'tis not even prose; 530 +I'm speaking of metres; some poems have welled +From those rare depths of soul that have ne'er been excelled; +They're not epics, but that doesn't matter a pin, +In creating, the only hard thing's to begin; +A grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak; +If you've once found the way, you've achieved the grand stroke; +In the worst of his poems are mines of rich matter, +But thrown in a heap with a crash and a clatter; +Now it is not one thing nor another alone +Makes a poem, but rather the general tone, 540 +The something pervading, uniting the whole, +The before unconceived, unconceivable soul, +So that just in removing this trifle or that, you +Take away, as it were, a chief limb of the statue; +Roots, wood, bark, and leaves singly perfect may be, +But, clapt hodge-podge together, they don't make a tree. + + 'But, to come back to Emerson (whom, by the way, +I believe we left waiting),--his is, we may say, +A Greek head on right Yankee shoulders, whose range +Has Olympus for one pole, for t'other the Exchange; 550 +He seems, to my thinking (although I'm afraid +The comparison must, long ere this, have been made), +A Plotinus-Montaigne, where the Egyptian's gold mist +And the Gascon's shrewd wit cheek-by-jowl coexist; +All admire, and yet scarcely six converts he's got +To I don't (nor they either) exactly know what; +For though he builds glorious temples, 'tis odd +He leaves never a doorway to get in a god. +'Tis refreshing to old-fashioned people like me +To meet such a primitive Pagan as he, 560 +In whose mind all creation is duly respected +As parts of himself--just a little projected; +And who's willing to worship the stars and the sun, +A convert to--nothing but Emerson. +So perfect a balance there is in his head, +That he talks of things sometimes as if they were dead; +Life, nature, love, God, and affairs of that sort, +He looks at as merely ideas; in short, +As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet, +Of such vast extent that our earth's a mere dab in it; 570 +Composed just as he is inclined to conjecture her, +Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine parts pure lecturer; +You are filled with delight at his clear demonstration, +Each figure, word, gesture, just fits the occasion, +With the quiet precision of science he'll sort 'em, +But you can't help suspecting the whole a _post mortem_. + + 'There are persons, mole-blind to the soul's make and style, +Who insist on a likeness 'twixt him and Carlyle; +To compare him with Plato would be vastly fairer, +Carlyle's the more burly, but E. is the rarer; 580 +He sees fewer objects, but clearlier, truelier, +If C.'s as original, E.'s more peculiar; +That he's more of a man you might say of the one, +Of the other he's more of an Emerson; +C.'s the Titan, as shaggy of mind as of limb,-- +E. the clear-eyed Olympian, rapid and slim; +The one's two thirds Norseman, the other half Greek, +Where the one's most abounding, the other's to seek; +C.'s generals require to be seen in the mass,-- +E.'s specialties gain if enlarged by the glass; 590 +C. gives nature and God his own fits of the blues, +And rims common-sense things with mystical hues,-- +E. sits in a mystery calm and intense, +And looks coolly around him with sharp common-sense; +C. shows you how every-day matters unite +With the dim transdiurnal recesses of night,-- +While E., in a plain, preternatural way, +Makes mysteries matters of mere every day; +C. draws all his characters quite _à la_ Fuseli,-- +Not sketching their bundles of muscles and thews illy, 600 +He paints with a brush so untamed and profuse, +They seem nothing but bundles of muscles and thews; +E. is rather like Flaxman, lines strait and severe, +And a colorless outline, but full, round, and clear;-- +To the men he thinks worthy he frankly accords +The design of a white marble statue in words. +C. labors to get at the centre, and then +Take a reckoning from there of his actions and men; +E. calmly assumes the said centre as granted, +And, given himself, has whatever is wanted. 610 + + 'He has imitators in scores, who omit +No part of the man but his wisdom and wit,-- +Who go carefully o'er the sky-blue of his brain, +And when he has skimmed it once, skim it again; +If at all they resemble him, you may be sure it is +Because their shoals mirror his mists and obscurities, +As a mud-puddle seems deep as heaven for a minute, +While a cloud that floats o'er is reflected within it. + + 'There comes----, for instance; to see him's rare sport, +Tread in Emerson's tracks with legs painfully short; 620 +How he jumps, how he strains, and gets red in the face. +To keep step with the mystagogue's natural pace! +He follows as close as a stick to a rocket, +His fingers exploring the prophet's each pocket. +Fie, for shame, brother bard; with good fruit of your own, +Can't you let Neighbor Emerson's orchards alone? +Besides, 'tis no use, you'll not find e'en a core,-- +---- has picked up all the windfalls before. +They might strip every tree, and E. never would catch 'em, +His Hesperides have no rude dragon to watch 'em; 630 +When they send him a dishful, and ask him to try 'em, +He never suspects how the sly rogues came by 'em; +He wonders why 'tis there are none such his trees on, +And thinks 'em the best he has tasted this season. + + 'Yonder, calm as a cloud, Alcott stalks in a dream, +And fancies himself in thy groves, Academe, +With the Parthenon nigh, and the olive-trees o'er him, +And never a fact to perplex him or bore him, +With a snug room at Plato's when night comes, to walk to, +And people from morning till midnight to talk to, 640 +And from midnight till morning, nor snore in their listening;-- +So he muses, his face with the joy of it glistening, +For his highest conceit of a happiest state is +Where they'd live upon acorns, and hear him talk gratis; +And indeed, I believe, no man ever talked better,-- +Each sentence hangs perfectly poised to a letter; +He seems piling words, but there's royal dust hid +In the heart of each sky-piercing pyramid. +While he talks he is great, but goes out like a taper, +If you shut him up closely with pen, ink, and paper; 650 +Yet his fingers itch for 'em from morning till night, +And he thinks he does wrong if he don't always write; +In this, as in all things, a lamb among men, +He goes to sure death when he goes to his pen. + + 'Close behind him is Brownson, his mouth very full +With attempting to gulp a Gregorian bull; +Who contrives, spite of that, to pour out as he goes +A stream of transparent and forcible prose; +He shifts quite about, then proceeds to expound +That 'tis merely the earth, not himself, that turns round, +And wishes it clearly impressed on your mind 661 +That the weathercock rules and not follows the wind; +Proving first, then as deftly confuting each side, +With no doctrine pleased that's not somewhere denied, +He lays the denier away on the shelf, +And then--down beside him lies gravely himself. +He's the Salt River boatman, who always stands willing +To convey friend or foe without charging a shilling, +And so fond of the trip that, when leisure's to spare, +He'll row himself up, if he can't get a fare. 670 +The worst of it is, that his logic's so strong, +That of two sides he commonly chooses the wrong; +If there is only one, why, he'll split it in two, +And first pummel this half, then that, black and blue. +That white's white needs no proof, but it takes a deep fellow +To prove it jet-black, and that jet-black is yellow. +He offers the true faith to drink in a sieve,-- +When it reaches your lips there's naught left to believe +But a few silly-(syllo-, I mean,)-gisms that squat 'em +Like tadpoles, o'erjoyed with the mud at the bottom. 680 + + 'There is Willis, all _natty_ and jaunty and gay, +Who says his best things in so foppish a way, +With conceits and pet phrases so thickly o'erlaying 'em, +That one hardly knows whether to thank him for saying 'em; +Over-ornament ruins both poem and prose, +Just conceive of a Muse with a ring in her nose! +His prose had a natural grace of its own, +And enough of it, too, if he'd let it alone; +But he twitches and jerks so, one fairly gets tired, +And is forced to forgive where one might have admired; 690 +Yet whenever it slips away free and unlaced, +It runs like a stream with a musical waste, +And gurgles along with the liquidest sweep;-- +'Tis not deep as a river, but who'd have it deep? +In a country where scarcely a village is found +That has not its author sublime and profound, +For some one to be slightly shallow's a duty, +And Willis's shallowness makes half his beauty. +His prose winds along with a blithe, gurgling error, +And reflects all of Heaven it can see in its mirror: 700 +'Tis a narrowish strip, but it is not an artifice; +'Tis the true out-of-doors with its genuine hearty phiz; +It is Nature herself, and there's something in that, +Since most brains reflect but the crown of a hat. +Few volumes I know to read under a tree, +More truly delightful than his A l'Abri, +With the shadows of leaves flowing over your book, +Like ripple-shades netting the bed of a brook; +With June coming softly your shoulder to look over, +Breezes waiting to turn every leaf of your book over, 710 +And Nature to criticise still as you read,-- +The page that bears that is a rare one indeed. + + 'He's so innate a cockney, that had he been born +Where plain bare-skin's the only full-dress that is worn, +He'd have given his own such an air that you'd say +'T had been made by a tailor to lounge in Broadway. +His nature's a glass of champagne with the foam on 't, +As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beaumont; +So his best things are done in the flush of the moment; +If he wait, all is spoiled; he may stir it and shake it, 720 +But, the fixed air once gone, he can never re-make it. +He might be a marvel of easy delightfulness, +If he would not sometimes leave the _r_ out of sprightfulness; +And he ought to let Scripture alone--'tis self-slaughter, +For nobody likes inspiration-and-water. +He'd have been just the fellow to sup at the Mermaid, +Cracking jokes at rare Ben, with an eye to the barmaid, +His wit running up as Canary ran down,-- +The topmost bright bubble on the wave of The Town. + + 'Here comes Parker, the Orson of parsons, a man 730 +Whom the Church undertook to put under her ban +(The Church of Socinus, I mean),--his opinions +Being So-(ultra)-cinian, they shocked the Socinians: +They believed--faith, I'm puzzled--I think I may call +Their belief a believing in nothing at all, +Or something of that sort; I know they all went +For a general union of total dissent: +He went a step farther; without cough or hem, +He frankly avowed he believed not in them; +And, before he could be jumbled up or prevented, 740 +From their orthodox kind of dissent he dissented. +There was heresy here, you perceive, for the right +Of privately judging means simply that light +Has been granted to _me_, for deciding on _you;_ +And in happier times, before Atheism grew, +The deed contained clauses for cooking you too: +Now at Xerxes and Knut we all laugh, yet our foot +With the same wave is wet that mocked Xerxes and Knut, +And we all entertain a secure private notion, +That our _Thus far!_ will have a great weight with the ocean, +'Twas so with our liberal Christians: they bore 751 +With sincerest conviction their chairs to the shore; +They brandished their worn theological birches, +Bade natural progress keep out of the Churches, +And expected the lines they had drawn to prevail +With the fast-rising tide to keep out of their pale; +They had formerly dammed the Pontifical See, +And the same thing, they thought, would do nicely for P.; +But he turned up his nose at their mumming and shamming, +And cared (shall I say?) not a d---- for their damming; 760 +So they first read him out of their church, and next minute +Turned round and declared he had never been in it. +But the ban was too small or the man was too big, +For he recks not their bells, books, and candles a fig +(He scarce looks like a man who would _stay_ treated shabbily, +Sophroniscus' son's head o'er the features of Rabelais);-- +He bangs and bethwacks them,--their backs he salutes +With the whole tree of knowledge torn up by the roots; +His sermons with satire are plenteously verjuiced, +And he talks in one breath of Confutzee, Cass, Zerduscht, 770 +Jack Robinson, Peter the Hermit, Strap, Dathan, +Cush, Pitt (not the bottomless, _that_ he's no faith in), +Pan, Pillicock, Shakespeare, Paul, Toots, Monsieur Tonson, +Aldebaran, Alcander, Ben Khorat, Ben Jonson, +Thoth, Richter, Joe Smith, Father Paul, Judah Monis, +Musæus, Muretus, _hem_,--[Greek: m] Scorpionis, +Maccabee, Maccaboy, Mac--Mac--ah! Machiavelli, +Condorcet, Count d'Orsay, Conder, Say, Ganganelli, +Orion, O'Connell, the Chevalier D'O, +(See the Memoirs of Sully,) [Greek: to pan], the great toe 780 +Of the statue of Jupiter, now made to pass +For that of Jew Peter by good Romish brass, +(You may add for yourselves, for I find it a bore, +All the names you have ever, or not, heard before, +And when you've done that--why, invent a few more). +His hearers can't tell you on Sunday beforehand, +If in that day's discourse they'll be Bibled or Koraned, +For he's seized the idea (by his martyrdom fired) +That all men (not orthodox) _may be_ inspired; +Yet though wisdom profane with his creed he may weave in, +He makes it quite clear what he _doesn't_ believe in, 791 +While some, who decry him, think all Kingdom Come +Is a sort of a, kind of a, species of Hum, +Of which, as it were, so to speak, not a crumb +Would be left, if we didn't keep carefully mum, +And, to make a clean breast, that 'tis perfectly plain +That _all_ kinds of wisdom are somewhat profane; +Now P.'s creed than this may be lighter or darker, +But in one thing, 'tis clear, he has faith, namely--Parker; +And this is what makes him the crowd-drawing preacher, 800 +There's a background of god to each hard-working feature, +Every word that he speaks has been fierily furnaced +In the blast of a life that has struggled in earnest: +There he stands, looking more like a ploughman than priest, +If not dreadfully awkward, not graceful at least, +His gestures all downright and same, if you will, +As of brown-fisted Hobnail in hoeing a drill; +But his periods fall on you, stroke after stroke, +Like the blows of a lumberer felling an oak, +You forget the man wholly, you're thankful to meet 810 +With a preacher who smacks of the field and the street, +And to hear, you're not over-particular whence, +Almost Taylor's profusion, quite Latimer's sense. + + 'There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, and as dignified, +As a smooth, silent iceberg, that never is ignified, +Save when by reflection 'tis kindled o' nights +With a semblance of flame by the chill Northern Lights. +He may rank (Griswold says so) first bard of your nation +(There's no doubt that he stands in supreme iceolation), +Your topmost Parnassus he may set his heel on, 820 +But no warm applauses come, peal following peal on,-- +He's too smooth and too polished to hang any zeal on: +Unqualified merits, I'll grant, if you choose, he has 'em, +But he lacks the one merit of kindling enthusiasm; +If he stir you at all, it is just, on my soul, +Like being stirred up with the very North Pole. + + 'He is very nice reading in summer, but _inter +Nos_, we don't want _extra_ freezing in winter; +Take him up in the depth of July, my advice is, +When you feel an Egyptian devotion to ices. 830 +But, deduct all you can, there's enough that's right good in him, +He has a true soul for field, river, and wood in him; +And his heart, in the midst of brick walls, or where'er it is, +Glows, softens, and thrills with the tenderest charities-- +To you mortals that delve in this trade-ridden planet? +No, to old Berkshire's hills, with their limestone and granite. +If you're one who _in loco_ (add _foco_ here) _desipis_, +You will get out of his outermost heart (as I guess) a piece; +But you'd get deeper down if you came as a precipice, +And would break the last seal of its inwardest fountain, 840 +If you only could palm yourself off for a mountain. +Mr. Quivis, or somebody quite as discerning, +Some scholar who's hourly expecting his learning, +Calls B. the American Wordsworth; but Wordsworth +May be rated at more than your whole tuneful herd's worth. +No, don't be absurd, he's an excellent Bryant; +But, my friends, you'll endanger the life of your client, +By attempting to stretch him up into a giant; +If you choose to compare him, I think there are two per- +-sons fit for a parallel--Thomson and Cowper;[2] 850 +I don't mean exactly,--there's something of each, +There's T.'s love of nature, C.'s penchant to preach; +Just mix up their minds so that C.'s spice of craziness +Shall balance and neutralize T.'s turn for laziness, +And it gives you a brain cool, quite frictionless, quiet, +Whose internal police nips the buds of all riot,-- +A brain like a permanent strait-jacket put on +The heart that strives vainly to burst off a button,-- +A brain which, without being slow or mechanic, +Does more than a larger less drilled, more volcanic; 860 +He's a Cowper condensed, with no craziness bitten, +And the advantage that Wordsworth before him had written. + + 'But, my dear little bardlings, don't prick up your ears +Nor suppose I would rank you and Bryant as peers; +If I call him an iceberg, I don't mean to say +There is nothing in that which is grand in its way; +He is almost the one of your poets that knows +How much grace, strength, and dignity lie in Repose; +If he sometimes fall short, he is too wise to mar +His thought's modest fulness by going too far; 870 +'T would be well if your authors should all make a trial +Of what virtue there is in severe self-denial, +And measure their writings by Hesiod's staff, +Which teaches that all has less value than half. + + 'There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart +Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart, +And reveals the live Man, still supreme and erect, +Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect; +There was ne'er a man born who had more of the swing +Of the true lyric bard and all that kind of thing; 880 +And his failures arise (though he seem not to know it) +From the very same cause that has made him a poet,-- +A fervor of mind which knows no separation +'Twixt simple excitement and pure inspiration, +As my Pythoness erst sometimes erred from not knowing +If 'twere I or mere wind through her tripod was blowing; +Let his mind once get head in its favorite direction +And the torrent of verse bursts the dams of reflection, +While, borne with the rush of the metre along, +The poet may chance to go right or go wrong, 890 +Content with the whirl and delirium of song; +Then his grammar's not always correct, nor his rhymes, +And he's prone to repeat his own lyrics sometimes, +Not his best, though, for those are struck off at white-heats +When the heart in his breast like a trip-hammer beats, +And can ne'er be repeated again any more +Than they could have been carefully plotted before: +Like old what's-his-name there at the battle of Hastings +(Who, however, gave more than mere rhythmical bastings), +Our Quaker leads off metaphorical fights 900 +For reform and whatever they call human rights, +Both singing and striking in front of the war, +And hitting his foes with the mallet of Thor; +_Anne haec_, one exclaims, on beholding his knocks, +_Vestis filii tui_, O leather-clad Fox? +Can that be thy son, in the battle's mid din, +Preaching brotherly love and then driving it in +To the brain of the tough old Goliath of sin, +With the smoothest of pebbles from Castaly's spring +Impressed on his hard moral sense with a sling? 910 + + 'All honor and praise to the right-hearted bard +Who was true to The Voice when such service was hard, +Who himself was so free he dared sing for the slave +When to look but a protest in silence was brave; +All honor and praise to the women and men +Who spoke out for the dumb and the down-trodden then! +It needs not to name them, already for each +I see History preparing the statue and niche; +They were harsh, but shall _you_ be so shocked at hard words +Who have beaten your pruning-hooks up into swords, 920 +Whose rewards and hurrahs men are surer to gain +By the reaping of men and of women than grain? +Why should _you_ stand aghast at their fierce wordy war, if +You scalp one another for Bank or for Tariff? +Your calling them cut-throats and knaves all day long +Doesn't prove that the use of hard language is wrong; +While the World's heart beats quicker to think of such men +As signed Tyranny's doom with a bloody steel-pen, +While on Fourth-of-Julys beardless orators fright one +With hints at Harmodius and Aristogeiton, 930 +You need not look shy at your sisters and brothers +Who stab with sharp words for the freedom of others;-- +No, a wreath, twine a wreath for the loyal and true +Who, for sake of the many, dared stand with the few, +Not of blood-spattered laurel for enemies braved, +But of broad, peaceful oak-leaves for citizens saved! + + 'Here comes Dana, abstractedly loitering along, +Involved in a paulo-post-future of song, +Who'll be going to write what'll never be written +Till the Muse, ere he think of it, gives him the mitten,-- 940 +Who is so well aware of how things should be done, +That his own works displease him before they're begun,-- +Who so well all that makes up good poetry knows, +That the best of his poems is written in prose; +All saddled and bridled stood Pegasus waiting, +He was booted and spurred, but he loitered debating; +In a very grave question his soul was immersed,-- +Which foot in the stirrup he ought to put first: +And, while this point and that he judicially dwelt on, +He, somehow or other, had written Paul Felton, 950 +Whose beauties or faults, whichsoever you see there, +You'll allow only genius could hit upon either. +That he once was the Idle Man none will deplore, +But I fear he will never be anything more; +The ocean of song heaves and glitters before him, +The depth and the vastness and longing sweep o'er him. +He knows every breaker and shoal on the chart, +He has the Coast Pilot and so on by heart, +Yet he spends his whole life, like the man in the fable, +In learning to swim on his library table. 960 + + 'There swaggers John Neal, who has wasted in Maine +The sinews and cords of his pugilist brain, +Who might have been poet, but that, in its stead, he +Preferred to believe that he was so already; +Too hasty to wait till Art's ripe fruit should drop, +He must pelt down an unripe and colicky crop; +Who took to the law, and had this sterling plea for it, +It required him to quarrel, and paid him a fee for it; +A man who's made less than he might have, because +He always has thought himself more than he was,-- 970 +Who, with very good natural gifts as a bard, +Broke the strings of his lyre out by striking too hard, +And cracked half the notes of a truly fine voice, +Because song drew less instant attention than noise. +Ah, men do not know how much strength is in poise, +That he goes the farthest who goes far enough, +And that all beyond that is just bother and stuff. +No vain man matures, he makes too much new wood; +His blooms are too thick for the fruit to be good; +'Tis the modest man ripens, 'tis he that achieves, 980 +Just what's needed of sunshine and shade he receives; +Grapes, to mellow, require the cool dark of their leaves; +Neal wants balance; he throws his mind always too far, +Whisking out flocks of comets, but never a star; +He has so much muscle, and loves so to show it, +That he strips himself naked to prove he's a poet, +And, to show he could leap Art's wide ditch, if he tried, +Jumps clean o'er it, and into the hedge t'other side. +He has strength, but there's nothing about him in keeping; +One gets surelier onward by walking than leaping; 990 +He has used his own sinews himself to distress, +And had done vastly more had he done vastly less; +In letters, too soon is as bad as too late; +Could he only have waited he might have been great; +But he plumped into Helicon up to the waist, +And muddied the stream ere he took his first taste. + + 'There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare +That you hardly at first see the strength that is there; +A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet, +So earnest, so graceful, so lithe and so fleet, 1000 +Is worth a descent from Olympus to meet; +'Tis as if a rough oak that for ages had stood, +With his gnarled bony branches like ribs of the wood, +Should bloom, after cycles of struggle and scathe, +With a single anemone trembly and rathe; +His strength is so tender, his wildness so meek, +That a suitable parallel sets one to seek,-- +He's a John Bunyan Fouque, a Puritan Tieck; +When Nature was shaping him, clay was not granted +For making so full-sized a man as she wanted, 1010 +So, to fill out her model, a little she spared +From some finer-grained stuff for a woman prepared, +And she could not have hit a more excellent plan +For making him fully and perfectly man. +The success of her scheme gave her so much delight, +That she tried it again, shortly after, in Dwight; +Only, while she was kneading and shaping the clay, +She sang to her work in her sweet childish way, +And found, when she'd put the last touch to his soul, +That the music had somehow got mixed with the whole. 1020 + + 'Here's Cooper, who's written six volumes to show +He's as good as a lord: well, let's grant that he's so; +If a person prefer that description of praise, +Why, a coronet's certainly cheaper than bays; +But he need take no pains to convince us he's not +(As his enemies say) the American Scott. +Choose any twelve men, and let C. read aloud +That one of his novels of which he's most proud, +And I'd lay any bet that, without ever quitting +Their box, they'd be all, to a man, for acquitting. 1030 +He has drawn you one character, though, that is new, +One wildflower he's plucked that is wet with the dew +Of this fresh Western world, and, the thing not to mince, +He has done naught but copy it ill ever since; +His Indians, with proper respect be it said, +Are just Natty Bumppo, daubed over with red, +And his very Long Toms are the same useful Nat, +Rigged up in duck pants and a sou'wester hat +(Though once in a Coffin, a good chance was found +To have slipped the old fellow away underground). 1040 +All his other men-figures are clothes upon sticks, +The _dernière chemise_ of a man in a fix +(As a captain besieged, when his garrison's small, +Sets up caps upon poles to be seen o'er the wall); +And the women he draws from one model don't vary. +All sappy as maples and flat as a prairie. +When a character's wanted, he goes to the task +As a cooper would do in composing a cask; +He picks out the staves, of their qualities heedful, +Just hoops them together as tight as is needful, 1050 +And, if the best fortune should crown the attempt, he +Has made at the most something wooden and empty. + + 'Don't suppose I would underrate Cooper's abilities; +If I thought you'd do that, I should feel very ill at ease; +The men who have given to _one_ character life +And objective existence are not very rife; +You may number them all, both prose-writers and singers, +Without overrunning the bounds of your fingers, +And Natty won't go to oblivion quicker +Than Adams the parson or Primrose the vicar. 1060 + + 'There is one thing in Cooper I like, too, and that is +That on manners he lectures his countrymen gratis; +Not precisely so either, because, for a rarity, +He is paid for his tickets in unpopularity. +Now he may overcharge his American pictures, +But you'll grant there's a good deal of truth in his strictures; +And I honor the man who is willing to sink +Half his present repute for the freedom to think, +And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, +Will risk t'other half for the freedom to speak, 1070 +Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store, +Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower. + + 'There are truths you Americans need to be told, +And it never'll refute them to swagger and scold; +John Bull, looking o'er the Atlantic, in choler +At your aptness for trade, says you worship the dollar; +But to scorn such eye-dollar-try's what very few do, +And John goes to that church as often as you do, +No matter what John says, don't try to outcrow him, +'Tis enough to go quietly on and outgrow him; 1080 +Like most fathers, Bull hates to see Number One +Displacing himself in the mind of his son, +And detests the same faults in himself he'd neglected +When he sees them again in his child's glass reflected; +To love one another you're too like by half; +If he is a bull, you're a pretty stout calf, +And tear your own pasture for naught but to show +What a nice pair of horns you're beginning to grow. + + 'There are one or two things I should just like to hint, +For you don't often get the truth told you in print; 1090 +The most of you (this is what strikes all beholders) +Have a mental and physical stoop in the shoulders; +Though you ought to be free as the winds and the waves, +You've the gait and the manners of runaway slaves; +Though you brag of your New World, you don't half believe in it; +And as much of the Old as is possible weave in it; +Your goddess of freedom, a tight, buxom girl, +With lips like a cherry and teeth like a pearl, +With eyes bold as Herë's, and hair floating free, +And full of the sun as the spray of the sea, 1100 +Who can sing at a husking or romp at a shearing, +Who can trip through the forests alone without fearing, +Who can drive home the cows with a song through the grass, +Keeps glancing aside into Europe's cracked glass. +Hides her red hands in gloves, pinches up her lithe waist, +And makes herself wretched with transmarine taste; +She loses her fresh country charm when she takes +Any mirror except her own rivers and lakes. + + 'You steal Englishmen's books and think Englishmen's thought, +With their salt on her tail your wild eagle is caught; 1110 +Your literature suits its each whisper and motion +To what will be thought of it over the ocean; +The cast clothes of Europe your statesmanship tries +And mumbles again the old blarneys and lies;-- +Forget Europe wholly, your veins throb with blood, +To which the dull current in hers is but mud: +Let her sneer, let her say your experiment fails, +In her voice there's a tremble e'en now while she rails, +And your shore will soon be in the nature of things +Covered thick with gilt drift-wood of castaway kings, 1120 +Where alone, as it were in a Longfellow's Waif, +Her fugitive pieces will find themselves safe. +O my friends, thank your god, if you have one, that he +'Twixt the Old World and you set the gulf of a sea; +Be strong-backed, brown-handed, upright as your pines, +By the scale of a hemisphere shape your designs, +Be true to yourselves and this new nineteenth age, +As a statue by Powers, or a picture by Page, +Plough, sail, forge, build, carve, paint, make all over new, +To your own New-World instincts contrive to be true, 1130 +Keep your ears open wide to the Future's first call, +Be whatever you will, but yourselves first of all, +Stand fronting the dawn on Toil's heaven-scaling peaks, +And become my new race of more practical Greeks.-- +Hem! your likeness at present, I shudder to tell o't, +Is that you have your slaves, and the Greek had his helot.' + + Here a gentleman present, who had in his attic +More pepper than brains, shrieked, 'The man's a fanatic, +I'm a capital tailor with warm tar and feathers, +And will make him a suit that'll serve in all weathers; 1140 +But we'll argue the point first, I'm willing to reason 't, +Palaver before condemnation's but decent: +So, through my humble person, Humanity begs +Of the friends of true freedom a loan of bad eggs.' +But Apollo let one such a look of his show forth +As when [Greek: aeie nukti eoikios], and so forth, +And the gentleman somehow slunk out of the way, +But, as he was going, gained courage to say,-- +'At slavery in the abstract my whole soul rebels, +I am as strongly opposed to 't as any one else.' 1150 +'Ay, no doubt, but whenever I've happened to meet +With a wrong or a crime, it is always concrete,' +Answered Phoebus severely; then turning to us, +'The mistake of such fellows as just made the fuss +Is only in taking a great busy nation +For a part of their pitiful cotton-plantation.-- +But there comes Miranda, Zeus! where shall I flee to? +She has such a penchant for bothering me too! +She always keeps asking if I don't observe a +Particular likeness 'twixt her and Minerva; 1160 +She tells me my efforts in verse are quite clever;-- +She's been travelling now, and will be worse than ever; +One would think, though, a sharp-sighted noter she'd be +Of all that's worth mentioning over the sea, +For a woman must surely see well, if she try, +The whole of whose being's a capital I: +She will take an old notion, and make it her own, +By saying it o'er in her Sibylline tone, +Or persuade you 'tis something tremendously deep, +By repeating it so as to put you to sleep; 1170 +And she well may defy any mortal to see through it, +When once she has mixed up her infinite _me_ through it. +There is one thing she owns in her own single right, +It is native and genuine--namely, her spite; +Though, when acting as censor, she privately blows +A censer of vanity 'neath her own nose.' + + Here Miranda came up, and said, 'Phoebus! you know +That the Infinite Soul has its infinite woe, +As I ought to know, having lived cheek by jowl, +Since the day I was born, with the Infinite Soul; 1180 +I myself introduced, I myself, I alone, +To my Land's better life authors solely my own, +Who the sad heart of earth on their shoulders have taken, +Whose works sound a depth by Life's quiet unshaken, +Such as Shakespeare, for instance, the Bible, and Bacon, +Not to mention my own works; Time's nadir is fleet, +And, as for myself, I'm quite out of conceit'-- + + 'Quite out of conceit! I'm enchanted to hear it,' +Cried Apollo aside. 'Who'd have thought she was near it? +To be sure, one is apt to exhaust those commodities 1190 +One uses too fast, yet in this case as odd it is +As if Neptune should say to his turbots and whitings, +"I'm as much out of salt as Miranda's own writings" +(Which, as she in her own happy manner has said, +Sound a depth, for 'tis one of the functions of lead). +She often has asked me if I could not find +A place somewhere near me that suited her mind; +I know but a single one vacant, which she, +With her rare talent that way, would fit to a T. +And it would not imply any pause or cessation 1200 +In the work she esteems her peculiar vocation,-- +She may enter on duty to-day, if she chooses, +And remain Tiring-woman for life to the Muses.' + + Miranda meanwhile has succeeded in driving +Up into a corner, in spite of their striving, +A small flock of terrified victims, and there, +With an I-turn-the-crank-of-the-Universe air +And a tone which, at least to _my_ fancy, appears +Not so much to be entering as boxing your ears, +Is unfolding a tale (of herself, I surmise, 1210 +For 'tis dotted as thick as a peacock's with I's), +_Apropos_ of Miranda, I'll rest on my oars +And drift through a trifling digression on bores, +For, though not wearing ear-rings _in more majorum_, +Our ears are kept bored just as if we still wore 'em. +There was one feudal custom worth keeping, at least, +Roasted bores made a part of each well-ordered feast, +And of all quiet pleasures the very _ne plus_ +Was in hunting wild bores as the tame ones hunt us. +Archæologians, I know, who have personal fears 1220 +Of this wise application of hounds and of spears, +Have tried to make out, with a zeal more than wonted, +'Twas a kind of wild swine that our ancestors hunted; +But I'll never believe that the age which has strewn +Europe o'er with cathedrals, and otherwise shown +That it knew what was what, could by chance not have known +(Spending, too, its chief time with its buff on, no doubt) +Which beast 'twould improve the world most to thin out. +I divide bores myself, in the manner of rifles, +Into two great divisions, regardless of trifles:-- 1230 +There's your smooth-bore and screw-bore, who do not much vary +In the weight of cold lead they respectively carry. +The smooth-bore is one in whose essence the mind +Not a corner nor cranny to cling by can find; +You feel as in nightmares sometimes, when you slip +Down a steep slated roof, where there's nothing to grip; +You slide and you slide, the blank horror increases,-- +You had rather by far be at once smashed to pieces; +You fancy a whirlpool below white and frothing, +And finally drop off and light upon--nothing. 1240 +The screw-bore has twists in him, faint predilections +For going just wrong in the tritest directions; +When he's wrong he is flat, when he's right he can't show it, +He'll tell you what Snooks said about the new poet,[3] +Or how Fogrum was outraged by Tennyson's Princess; +He has spent all his spare time and intellect since his +Birth in perusing, on each art and science, +Just the books in which no one puts any reliance, +And though _nemo_, we're told, _horis omnibus sapit_, +The rule will not fit him, however you shape it, 1250 +For he has a perennial foison of sappiness; +He has just enough force to spoil half your day's happiness, +And to make him a sort of mosquito to be with, +But just not enough to dispute or agree with. + + These sketches I made (not to be too explicit) +From two honest fellows who made me a visit, +And broke, like the tale of the Bear and the Fiddle, +My reflections on Halleck short off by the middle; +I sha'n't now go into the subject more deeply, +For I notice that some of my readers look sleep'ly; 1260 +I will barely remark that, 'mongst civilized nations, +There's none that displays more exemplary patience +Under all sorts of boring, at all sorts of hours, +From all sorts of desperate persons, than ours. +Not to speak of our papers, our State legislatures, +And other such trials for sensitive natures, +Just look for a moment at Congress,--appalled, +My fancy shrinks back from the phantom it called; +Why, there's scarcely a member unworthy to frown +'Neath what Fourier nicknames the Boreal crown; 1270 +Only think what that infinite bore-pow'r could do +If applied with a utilitarian view; +Suppose, for example, we shipped it with care +To Sahara's great desert and let it bore there; +If they held one short session and did nothing else, +They'd fill the whole waste with Artesian wells. +But 'tis time now with pen phonographic to follow +Through some more of his sketches our laughing Apollo:-- + + 'There comes Harry Franco, and, as he draws near, +You find that's a smile which you took for a sneer; 1280 +One half of him contradicts t'other; his wont +Is to say very sharp things and do very blunt; +His manner's as hard as his feelings are tender, +And a _sortie_ he'll make when he means to surrender; +He's in joke half the time when he seems to be sternest, +When he seems to be joking, be sure he's in earnest; +He has common sense in a way that's uncommon, +Hates humbug and cant, loves his friends like a woman, +Builds his dislikes of cards and his friendships of oak, +Loves a prejudice better than aught but a joke, 1290 +Is half upright Quaker, half downright Come-outer, +Loves Freedom too well to go stark mad about her, +Quite artless himself, is a lover of Art, +Shuts you out of his secrets, and into his heart, +And though not a poet, yet all must admire +In his letters of Pinto his skill on the liar. + + 'There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, +Three fifths of him genius and two fifths sheer fudge, +Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters, +In a way to make people of common sense damn metres, 1300 +Who has written some things quite the best of their kind, +But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind, +Who--But hey-day! What's this? Messieurs Mathews and Poe, +You mustn't fling mud-balls at Longfellow so, +Does it make a man worse that his character's such +As to make his friends love him (as you think) too much? +Why, there is not a bard at this moment alive +More willing than he that his fellows should thrive; +While you are abusing him thus, even now +He would help either one of you out of a slough; 1310 +You may say that he's smooth and all that till you're hoarse, +But remember that elegance also is force; +After polishing granite as much as you will, +The heart keeps its tough old persistency still; +Deduct all you can, _that_ still keeps you at bay; +Why, he'll live till men weary of Collins and Gray. +I'm not over-fond of Greek metres in English, +To me rhyme's a gain, so it be not too jinglish, +And your modern hexameter verses are no more +Like Greek ones than sleek Mr. Pope is like Homer; 1320 +As the roar of the sea to the coo of a pigeon is, +So, compared to your moderns, sounds old Melesigenes; +I may be too partial, the reason, perhaps, o't is +That I've heard the old blind man recite his own rhapsodies, +And my ear with that music impregnate may be, +Like the poor exiled shell with the soul of the sea, +Or as one can't bear Strauss when his nature is cloven +To its deeps within deeps by the stroke of Beethoven; +But, set that aside, and 'tis truth that I speak, +Had Theocritus written in English, not Greek, 1330 +I believe that his exquisite sense would scarce change a line +In that rare, tender, virgin-like pastoral Evangeline. +That's not ancient nor modern, its place is apart +Where time has no sway, in the realm of pure Art, +'Tis a shrine of retreat from Earth's hubbub and strife +As quiet and chaste as the author's own life. + + There comes Philothea, her face all aglow, +She has just been dividing some poor creature's woe, +And can't tell which pleases her most, to relieve +His want, or his story to hear and believe; 1340 +No doubt against many deep griefs she prevails, +For her ear is the refuge of destitute tales; +She knows well that silence is sorrow's best food, +And that talking draws off from the heart its black blood, +So she'll listen with patience and let you unfold +Your bundle of rags as 'twere pure cloth of gold, +Which, indeed, it all turns to as soon as she's touched it, +And (to borrow a phrase from the nursery) _muched_ it; +She has such a musical taste, she will go +Any distance to hear one who draws a long bow; 1350 +She will swallow a wonder by mere might and main, +And thinks it Geometry's fault if she's fain +To consider things flat, inasmuch as they're plain; +Facts with her are accomplished, as Frenchmen would say-- +They will prove all she wishes them to either way,-- +And, as fact lies on this side or that, we must try, +If we're seeking the truth, to find where it don't lie; +I was telling her once of a marvellous aloe +That for thousands of years had looked spindling and sallow, +And, though nursed by the fruitfullest powers of mud, 1360 +Had never vouchsafed e'en so much as a bud, +Till its owner remarked (as a sailor, you know, +Often will in a calm) that it never would blow, +For he wished to exhibit the plant, and designed +That its blowing should help him in raising the wind; +At last it was told him that if he should water +Its roots with the blood of his unmarried daughter +(Who was born, as her mother, a Calvinist, said, +With William Law's serious caul on her head), +It would blow as the obstinate breeze did when by a 1370 +Like decree of her father died Iphigenia; +At first he declared he himself would be blowed +Ere his conscience with such a foul crime he would load, +But the thought, coming oft, grew less dark than before, +And he mused, as each creditor knocked at his door, +If _this_ were but done they would dun me no more; +I told Philothea his struggles and doubts, +And how he considered the ins and the outs +Of the visions he had, and the dreadful dyspepsy, +How he went to the seër that lives at Po'keepsie, 1380 +How the seër advised him to sleep on it first, +And to read his big volume in case of the worst, +And further advised he should pay him five dollars +For writing [Old English: Hum Hum] on his wristbands and collars; +Three years and ten days these dark words he had studied +When the daughter was missed, and the aloe had budded; +I told how he watched it grow large and more large, +And wondered how much for the show he should charge,-- +She had listened with utter indifference to this, till +I told how it bloomed, and, discharging its pistil 1390 +With an aim the Eumenides dictated, shot +The botanical filicide dead on the spot; +It had blown, but he reaped not his horrible gains, +For it blew with such force as to blow out his brains, +And the crime was blown also, because on the wad, +Which was paper, was writ "Visitation of God," +As well as a thrilling account of the deed +Which the coroner kindly allowed me to read. + + 'Well, my friend took this story up just, to be sure, 1399 +As one might a poor foundling that's laid at one's door; +She combed it and washed it and clothed it and fed it, +And as if 'twere her own child most tenderly bred it, +Laid the scene (of the legend, I mean) far away a- +-mong the green vales underneath Himalaya, +And by artist-like touches, laid on here and there, +Made the whole thing so touching, I frankly declare +I have read it all thrice, and, perhaps I am weak, +But I found every time there were tears on my cheek. + + 'The pole, science tells us, the magnet controls, +But she is a magnet to emigrant Poles, 1410 +And folks with a mission that nobody knows +Throng thickly about her as bees round a rose; +She can fill up the _carets_ in such, make their scope +Converge to some focus of rational hope, +And, with sympathies fresh as the morning, their gall +Can transmute into honey,--but this is not all; +Not only for those she has solace, oh say, +Vice's desperate nursling adrift in Broadway, +Who clingest, with all that is left of thee human, +To the last slender spar from the wreck of the woman, 1420 +Hast thou not found one shore where those tired drooping feet +Could reach firm mother-earth, one full heart on whose beat +The soothed head in silence reposing could hear +The chimes of far childhood throb back on the ear? +Ah, there's many a beam from the fountain of day +That, to reach us unclouded, must pass, on its way, +Through the soul of a woman, and hers is wide ope +To the influence of Heaven as the blue eyes of Hope; +Yes, a great heart is hers, one that dares to go in +To the prison, the slave-hut, the alleys of sin, 1430 +And to bring into each, or to find there, some line +Of the never completely out-trampled divine; +If her heart at high floods swamps her brain now and then, +'Tis but richer for that when the tide ebbs agen, +As, after old Nile has subsided, his plain +Overflows with a second broad deluge of grain; +What a wealth would it tiring to the narrow and sour +Could they be as a Child but for one little hour! + + 'What! Irving? thrice welcome, warm heart and fine brain, +You bring back the happiest spirit from Spain, 1440 +And the gravest sweet humor, that ever were there +Since Cervantes met death in his gentle despair; +Nay, don't be embarrassed, nor look so beseeching, +I sha'n't run directly against my own preaching, +And, having just laughed at their Raphaels and Dantes, +Go to setting you up beside matchless Cervantes; +But allow me to speak what I honestly feel,-- +To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele, +Throw in all of Addison, _minus_ the chill, 1449 +With the whole of that partnership's stock and good-will, +Mix well, and while stirring, hum o'er, as a spell, +The fine _old_ English Gentleman, simmer it well, +Sweeten just to your own private liking, then strain, +That only the finest and clearest remain, +Let it stand out of doors till a soul it receives +From the warm lazy sun loitering down through green leaves, +And you'll find a choice nature, not wholly deserving +A name either English or Yankee,--just Irving. + + 'There goes,--but _stet nominis umbra_,--his name +You'll be glad enough, some day or other, to claim, 1460 +And will all crowd about him and swear that you knew him +If some English critic should chance to review him. +The old _porcos ante ne projiciatis_ +MARGARITAS, for him you have verified gratis; +What matters his name? Why, it may be Sylvester, +Judd, Junior, or Junius, Ulysses, or Nestor, +For aught _I_ know or care; 'tis enough that I look +On the author of "Margaret," the first Yankee book +With the _soul_ of Down East in 't, and things farther East, +As far as the threshold of morning, at least, 1470 +Where awaits the fair dawn of the simple and true, +Of the day that comes slowly to make all things new. +'T has a smack of pine woods, of bare field and bleak hill, +Such as only the breed of the Mayflower could till; +The Puritan's shown in it, tough to the core, +Such as prayed, smiting Agag on red Marston Moor: +With an unwilling humor, half choked by the drouth +In brown hollows about the inhospitable mouth; +With a soul full of poetry, though it has qualms +About finding a happiness out of the Psalms; 1480 +Full of tenderness, too, though it shrinks in the dark, +Hamadryad-like, under the coarse, shaggy bark; +That sees visions, knows wrestlings of God with the Will, +And has its own Sinais and thunderings still.' + + Here, 'Forgive me, Apollo,' I cried, 'while I pour +My heart out to my birthplace: O loved more and more +Dear Baystate, from whose rocky bosom thy sons +Should suck milk, strong-will-giving, brave, such as runs +In the veins of old Greylock--who is it that dares 1489 +Call thee pedler, a soul wrapped in bank-books and shares? +It is false! She's a Poet! I see, as I write, +Along the far railroad the steam-snake glide white, +The cataract-throb of her mill-hearts, I hear, +The swift strokes of trip-hammers weary my ear, +Sledges ring upon anvils, through logs the saw screams, +Blocks swing to their place, beetles drive home the beams:-- +It is songs such as these that she croons to the din +Of her fast-flying shuttles, year out and year in, +While from earth's farthest corner there comes not a breeze +But wafts her the buzz of her gold-gleaning bees: 1500 +What though those horn hands have as yet found small time +For painting and sculpture and music and rhyme? +These will come in due order; the need that pressed sorest +Was to vanquish the seasons, the ocean, the forest, +To bridle and harness the rivers, the steam, +Making those whirl her mill-wheels, this tug in her team, +To vassalize old tyrant Winter, and make +Him delve surlily for her on river and lake;-- +When this New World was parted, she strove not to shirk +Her lot in the heirdom, the tough, silent Work, 1510 +The hero-share ever from Herakles down +To Odin, the Earth's iron sceptre and crown: +Yes, thou dear, noble Mother! if ever men's praise +Could be claimed for creating heroical lays, +Thou hast won it; if ever the laurel divine +Crowned the Maker and Builder, that glory is thine! +Thy songs are right epic, they tell how this rude +Rock-rib of our earth here was tamed and subdued; +Thou hast written them plain on the face of the planet +In brave, deathless letters of iron and granite; 1520 +Thou hast printed them deep for all time; they are set +From the same runic type-fount and alphabet +With thy stout Berkshire hills and the arms of thy Bay,-- +They are staves from the burly old Mayflower lay. +If the drones of the Old World, in querulous ease, +Ask thy Art and thy Letters, point proudly to these, +Or, if they deny these are Letters and Art, +Toil on with the same old invincible heart; +Thou art rearing the pedestal broad-based and grand +Whereon the fair shapes of the Artist shall stand, 1530 +And creating, through labors undaunted and long, +The theme for all Sculpture and Painting and Song! + + 'But my good mother Baystate wants no praise of mine, +She learned from _her_ mother a precept divine +About something that butters no parsnips, her _forte_ +In another direction lies, work is her sport +(Though she'll curtsey and set her cap straight, that she will, +If you talk about Plymouth and red Bunker's hill). +Dear, notable goodwife! by this time of night, +Her hearth is swept neatly, her fire burning bright, 1540 +And she sits in a chair (of home plan and make) rocking, +Musing much, all the while, as she darns on a stocking, +Whether turkeys will come pretty high next Thanksgiving, +Whether flour'll be so dear, for, as sure as she's living, +She will use rye-and-injun then, whether the pig +By this time ain't got pretty tolerable big, +And whether to sell it outright will be best, +Or to smoke hams and shoulders and salt down the rest,-- +At this minute, she'd swop all my verses, ah, cruel! +For the last patent stove that is saving of fuel; 1550 +So I'll just let Apollo go on, for his phiz +Shows I've kept him awaiting too long as it is.' + + 'If our friend, there, who seems a reporter, is done +With his burst of emotion, why, I will go on,' +Said Apollo; some smiled, and, indeed, I must own +There was something sarcastic, perhaps, in his tone;-- + + 'There's Holmes, who is matchless among you for wit; +A Leyden-jar always full-charged, from which flit +The electrical tingles of hit after hit; +In long poems 'tis painful sometimes, and invites 1560 +A thought of the way the new Telegraph writes, +Which pricks down its little sharp sentences spitefully +As if you got more than you'd title to rightfully, +And you find yourself hoping its wild father Lightning +Would flame in for a second and give you a fright'ning. +He has perfect sway of what I call a sham metre, +But many admire it, the English pentameter, +And Campbell, I think, wrote most commonly worse, +With less nerve, swing, and fire in the same kind of verse, +Nor e'er achieved aught in't so worthy of praise 1570 +As the tribute of Holmes to the grand _Marseillaise_. +You went crazy last year over Bulwer's New Timon;-- +Why, if B., to the day of his dying, should rhyme on, +Heaping verses on verses and tomes upon tomes, +He could ne'er reach the best point and vigor of Holmes. +His are just the fine hands, too, to weave you a lyric +Full of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced with satiric +In a measure so kindly, you doubt if the toes +That are trodden upon are your own or your foes'. + + 'There is Lowell, who's striving Parnassus to climb 1580 +With a whole bale of _isms_ tied together with rhyme, +He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, +But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders, +The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching +Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preaching; +His lyre has some chords that would ring pretty well, +But he'd rather by half make a drum of the shell, +And rattle away till he's old as Methusalem, +At the head of a march to the last new Jerusalem. 1589 + + 'There goes Halleck, whose Fanny's a pseudo Don Juan, +With the wickedness out that gave salt to the true one, +He's a wit, though, I hear, of the very first order, +And once made a pun on the words soft Recorder; +More than this, he's a very great poet, I'm told, +And has had his works published in crimson and gold, +With something they call "Illustrations," to wit, +Like those with which Chapman obscured Holy Writ,[4] +Which are said to illustrate, because, as I view it, +Like _lucus a non_, they precisely don't do it; +Let a man who can write what himself understands 1600 +Keep clear, if he can, of designing men's hands, +Who bury the sense, if there's any worth having, +And then very honestly call it engraving, +But, to quit _badinage_, which there isn't much wit in, +Halleck's better, I doubt not, than all he has written; +In his verse a clear glimpse you will frequently find, +If not of a great, of a fortunate mind, +Which contrives to be true to its natural loves +In a world of back-offices, ledgers, and stoves. +When his heart breaks away from the brokers and banks, 1610 +And kneels in his own private shrine to give thanks, +There's a genial manliness in him that earns +Our sincerest respect (read, for instance, his "Burns"), +And we can't but regret (seek excuse where we may) +That so much of a man has been peddled away. + + 'But what's that? a mass-meeting? No, there come in lots +The American Bulwers, Disraelis, and Scotts, +And in short the American everything elses, +Each charging the others with envies and jealousies;-- +By the way, 'tis a fact that displays what profusions 1620 +Of all kinds of greatness bless free institutions, +That while the Old World has produced barely eight +Of such poets as all men agree to call great, +And of other great characters hardly a score +(One might safely say less than that rather than more), +With you every year a whole crop is begotten, +They're as much of a staple as corn is, or cotton; +Why, there's scarcely a huddle of log-huts and shanties +That has not brought forth its own Miltons and Dantes; 1629 +I myself know ten Byrons, one Coleridge, three Shelleys, +Two Raphaels, six Titians (I think), one Apelles, +Leonardos and Rubenses plenty as lichens, +One (but that one is plenty) American Dickens, +A whole flock of Lambs, any number of Tennysons,-- +In short, if a man has the luck to have any sons, +He may feel pretty certain that one out of twain +Will be some very great person over again. +There is one inconvenience in all this, which lies +In the fact that by contrast we estimate size,[5] +And, where there are none except Titans, great stature 1640 +Is only the normal proceeding of nature. +What puff the strained sails of your praise will you furl at, if +The calmest degree that you know is superlative? +At Rome, all whom Charon took into his wherry must, +As a matter of course, be well _issimust_ and _errimust_, +A Greek, too, could feel, while in that famous boat he tost, +That his friends would take care he was [Greek: istost] and + [Greek: otatost], +And formerly we, as through graveyards we past, +Thought the world went from bad to worst fearfully fast; +Let us glance for a moment, 'tis well worth the pains, 1650 +And note what an average graveyard contains; +There lie levellers levelled, duns done up themselves, +There are booksellers finally laid on their shelves, +Horizontally there lie upright politicians, +Dose-a-dose with their patients sleep faultless physicians, +There are slave-drivers quietly whipped under ground, +There bookbinders, done up in boards, are fast bound, +There card-players wait till the last trump be played, +There all the choice spirits get finally laid, +There the babe that's unborn is supplied with a berth, 1660 +There men without legs get their six feet of earth, +There lawyers repose, each wrapped up in his case, +There seekers of office are sure of a place, +There defendant and plaintiff get equally cast, +There shoemakers quietly stick to the last, +There brokers at length become silent as stocks, +There stage-drivers sleep without quitting their box, +And so forth and so forth and so forth and so on, +With this kind of stuff one might endlessly go on; +To come to the point, I may safely assert you 1670 +Will find in each yard every cardinal virtue;[6] +Each has six truest patriots: four discoverers of ether, +Who never had thought on 't nor mentioned it either; +Ten poets, the greatest who ever wrote rhyme: +Two hundred and forty first men of their time: +One person whose portrait just gave the least hint +Its original had a most horrible squint: +One critic, most (what do they call it?) reflective, +Who never had used the phrase ob-or subjective: +Forty fathers of Freedom, of whom twenty bred 1680 +Their sons for the rice-swamps, at so much a head, +And their daughters for--faugh! thirty mothers of Gracchi: +Non-resistants who gave many a spiritual blackeye: +Eight true friends of their kind, one of whom was a jailer: +Four captains almost as astounding as Taylor: +Two dozen of Italy's exiles who shoot us his +Kaisership daily, stern pen-and-ink Brutuses, +Who, in Yankee back-parlors, with crucified smile,[7] +Mount serenely their country's funereal pile: +Ninety-nine Irish heroes, ferocious rebellers 1690 +'Gainst the Saxon in cis-marine garrets and cellars, +Who shake their dread fists o'er the sea and all that,-- +As long as a copper drops into the hat: +Nine hundred Teutonic republicans stark +From Vaterland's battle just won--in the Park, +Who the happy profession of martyrdom take +Whenever it gives them a chance at a steak; +Sixty-two second Washingtons: two or three Jacksons: +And so many everythings else that it racks one's +Poor memory too much to continue the list, 1700 +Especially now they no longer exist;-- +I would merely observe that you've taken to giving +The puffs that belong to the dead to the living, +And that somehow your trump-of-contemporary-doom's tones +Is tuned after old dedications and tombstones.' + + Here the critic came in and a thistle presented--[8] +From a frown to a smile the god's features relented, +As he stared at his envoy, who, swelling with pride, +To the god's asking look, nothing daunted, replied,-- +'You're surprised, I suppose, I was absent so long, 1710 +But your godship respecting the lilies was wrong; +I hunted the garden from one end to t'other, +And got no reward but vexation and bother, +Till, tossed out with weeds in a corner to wither, +This one lily I found and made haste to bring hither.' + +'Did he think I had given him a book to review? +I ought to have known what the fellow would do,' +Muttered Phoebus aside, 'for a thistle will pass +Beyond doubt for the queen of all flowers with an ass; +He has chosen in just the same way as he'd choose 1720 +His specimens out of the books he reviews; +And now, as this offers an excellent text, +I'll give 'em some brief hints on criticism next.' +So, musing a moment, he turned to the crowd, +And, clearing his voice, spoke as follows aloud:-- + + 'My friends, in the happier days of the muse, +We were luckily free from such things as reviews; +Then naught came between with its fog to make clearer +The heart of the poet to that of his hearer; +Then the poet brought heaven to the people, and they 1730 +Felt that they, too, were poets in hearing his lay; +Then the poet was prophet, the past in his soul +Precreated the future, both parts of one whole; +Then for him there was nothing too great or too small, +For one natural deity sanctified all; +Then the bard owned no clipper and meter of moods +Save the spirit of silence that hovers and broods +O'er the seas and the mountains, the rivers and woods; +He asked not earth's verdict, forgetting the clods, +His soul soared and sang to an audience of gods; 1740 +'Twas for them that he measured the thought and the line, +And shaped for their vision the perfect design, +With as glorious a foresight, a balance as true, +As swung out the worlds in the infinite blue; +Then a glory and greatness invested man's heart, +The universal, which now stands estranged and apart, +In the free individual moulded, was Art; +Then the forms of the Artist seemed thrilled with desire +For something as yet unattained, fuller, higher, +As once with her lips, lifted hands, and eyes listening, 1750 +And her whole upward soul in her countenance glistening, +Eurydice stood--like a beacon unfired, +Which, once touched with flame, will leap heav'nward inspired-- +And waited with answering kindle to mark +The first gleam of Orpheus that pained the red Dark. +Then painting, song, sculpture did more than relieve +The need that men feel to create and believe, +And as, in all beauty, who listens with love +Hears these words oft repeated--"beyond and above," +So these seemed to be but the visible sign 1760 +Of the grasp of the soul after things more divine; +They were ladders the Artist erected to climb +O'er the narrow horizon of space and of time, +And we see there the footsteps by which men had gained +To the one rapturous glimpse of the never-attained, +As shepherds could erst sometimes trace in the sod +The last spurning print of a sky-cleaving god. + + 'But now, on the poet's dis-privacied moods +With _do this_ and _do that_ the pert critic intrudes; +While he thinks he's been barely fulfilling his duty 1770 +To interpret 'twixt men and their own sense of beauty. +And has striven, while others sought honor or pelf, +To make his kind happy as he was himself, +He finds he's been guilty of horrid offences +In all kinds of moods, numbers, genders, and tenses; +He's been _ob_ and _sub_jective, what Kettle calls Pot, +Precisely, at all events, what he ought not, +_You have done this,_ says one judge; _done that,_ says another; +_You should have done this,_ grumbles one; _that,_ says t'other; +Never mind what he touches, one shrieks out _Taboo!_ 1780 +And while he is wondering what he shall do, +Since each suggests opposite topics for song, +They all shout together _you're right!_ and _you're wrong!_ + + 'Nature fits all her children with something to do, +He who would write and can't write can surely review, +Can set up a small booth as critic and sell us his +Petty conceit and his pettier jealousies; +Thus a lawyer's apprentice, just out of his teens, +Will do for the Jeffrey of six magazines; +Having read Johnson's lives of the poets half through, 1790 +There's nothing on earth he's not competent to; +He reviews with as much nonchalance as he whistles,-- +He goes through a book and just picks out the thistles; +It matters not whether he blame or commend, +If he's bad as a foe, he's far worse as a friend: +Let an author but write what's above his poor scope, +He goes to work gravely and twists up a rope, +And, inviting the world to see punishment done, +Hangs himself up to bleach in the wind and the sun; +'Tis delightful to see, when a man comes along 1800 +Who has anything in him peculiar and strong, +Every cockboat that swims clear its fierce (pop) gundeck at him, +And make as he passes its ludicrous Peck at him--' + + Here Miranda came up and began, 'As to that--' +Apollo at once seized his gloves, cane, and hat, +And, seeing the place getting rapidly cleared, +I too snatched my notes and forthwith disappeared. + + + + +THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT + +PART I + +SHOWING HOW HE BUILT HIS HOUSE AND HIS WIFE MOVED INTO IT + +My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott, + From business snug withdrawn, +Was much contented with a lot +That would contain a Tudor cot +'Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot, + And twelve feet more of lawn. + +He had laid business on the shelf + To give his taste expansion, +And, since no man, retired with pelf, + The building mania can shun, 10 +Knott, being middle-aged himself, +Resolved to build (unhappy elf!) + A mediæval mansion. + +He called an architect in counsel; + 'I want,' said he, 'a--you know what, + (You are a builder, I am Knott) + A thing complete from chimney-pot +Down to the very grounsel; + Here's a half-acre of good land; + Just have it nicely mapped and planned 20 +And make your workmen drive on; + Meadow there is, and upland too, + And I should like a water-view, +D'you think you could contrive one? + (Perhaps the pump and trough would do, + If painted a judicious blue?) + The woodland I've attended to;' + [He meant three pines stuck up askew, +Two dead ones and a live one.] + 'A pocket-full of rocks 'twould take 30 +To build a house of freestone, + But then it is not hard to make +What nowadays is _the_ stone; + The cunning painter in a trice + Your house's outside petrifies, + And people think it very gneiss +Without inquiring deeper; + _My_ money never shall be thrown + Away on such a deal of stone, +When stone of deal is cheaper.' 40 + +And so the greenest of antiques + Was reared for Knott to dwell in: +The architect worked hard for weeks +In venting all his private peaks +Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks + Had satisfied Fluellen; +Whatever anybody had +Out of the common, good or bad, + Knott had it all worked well in; +A donjon-keep, where clothes might dry, 50 +A porter's lodge that was a sty, +A campanile slim and high, + Too small to hang a bell in; +All up and down and here and there, +With Lord-knows-whats of round and square +Stuck on at random everywhere,-- +It was a house to make one stare, + All corners and all gables; +Like dogs let loose upon a bear, +Ten emulous styles _staboyed_ with care, 60 +The whole among them seemed to tear, +And all the oddities to spare + Were set upon the stables. + +Knott was delighted with a pile + Approved by fashion's leaders: +(Only he made the builder smile, +By asking every little while, +Why that was called the Twodoor style, + Which certainly had _three_ doors?) +Yet better for this luckless man 70 +If he had put a downright ban + Upon the thing _in limine;_ +For, though to quit affairs his plan, +Ere many days, poor Knott began +Perforce accepting draughts, that ran + All ways--except up chimney; +The house, though painted stone to mock, +With nice white lines round every block, + Some trepidation stood in, +When tempests (with petrific shock, 80 +So to speak,) made it really rock, + Though not a whit less wooden; +And painted stone, howe'er well done, +Will not take in the prodigal sun +Whose beams are never quite at one + With our terrestrial lumber; +So the wood shrank around the knots, +And gaped in disconcerting spots, +And there were lots of dots and rots + And crannies without number, 90 +Wherethrough, as you may well presume, +The wind, like water through a flume, + Came rushing in ecstatic, +Leaving, in all three floors, no room + That was not a rheumatic; +And, what with points and squares and rounds + Grown shaky on their poises, +The house at nights was full of pounds, +Thumps, bumps, creaks, scratchings, raps--till--'Zounds!' +Cried Knott, 'this goes beyond all bounds; 100 +I do not deal in tongues and sounds, +Nor have I let my house and grounds + To a family of Noyeses!' + +But, though Knott's house was full of airs, + _He_ had but one,--a daughter; +And, as he owned much stocks and shares, +Many who wished to render theirs +Such vain, unsatisfying cares, +And needed wives to sew their tears, + In matrimony sought her; 110 +They vowed her gold they wanted not, + Their faith would never falter, +They longed to tie this single Knott + In the Hymeneal halter; +So daily at the door they rang, + Cards for the belle delivering, +Or in the choir at her they sang, +Achieving such a rapturous twang + As set her nerves ashivering. + +Now Knott had quite made up his mind 120 + That Colonel Jones should have her; +No beauty he, but oft we find +Sweet kernels 'neath a roughish rind, +So hoped his Jenny'd be resigned + And make no more palaver; +Glanced at the fact that love was blind, +That girls were ratherish inclined + To pet their little crosses, +Then nosologically defined +The rate at which the system pined 130 +In those unfortunates who dined +Upon that metaphoric kind + Of dish--their own proboscis. + +But she, with many tears and moans, + Besought him not to mock her. +Said 'twas too much for flesh and bones +To marry mortgages and loans, +That fathers' hearts were stocks and stones. +And that she'd go, when Mrs. Jones, + To Davy Jones's locker; 140 +Then gave her head a little toss +That said as plain as ever was, +If men are always at a loss + Mere womankind to bridle-- +To try the thing on woman cross + Were fifty times as idle; +For she a strict resolve had made + And registered in private, +That either she would die a maid, +Or else be Mrs. Doctor Slade, 150 + If a woman could contrive it; +And, though the wedding-day was set, + Jenny was more so, rather, +Declaring, in a pretty pet, +That, howsoe'er they spread their net, +She would out-Jennyral them yet, + The colonel and her father. + +Just at this time the Public's eyes + Were keenly on the watch, a stir +Beginning slowly to arise 160 +About those questions and replies. +Those raps that unwrapped mysteries + So rapidly at Rochester, +And Knott, already nervous grown +By lying much awake alone. +And listening, sometimes to a moan, + And sometimes to a clatter, +Whene'er the wind at night would rouse +The gingerbread-work on his house, +Or when some, hasty-tempered mouse, 170 +Behind the plastering, made a towse + About a family matter, +Began to wonder if his wife, +A paralytic half her life. + Which made it more surprising, +Might not, to rule him from her urn, +Have taken a peripatetic turn + For want of exorcising. + +This thought, once nestled in his head, +Erelong contagious grew, and spread 180 +Infecting all his mind with dread, +Until at last he lay in bed +And heard his wife, with well-known tread, +Entering the kitchen through the shed, + (Or was't his fancy, mocking?) +Opening the pantry, cutting bread, +And then (she'd been some ten years dead) + Closets and drawers unlocking; +Or, in his room (his breath grew thick) 189 +He heard the long-familiar click +Of slender needles flying quick, + As if she knit a stocking; +For whom?--he prayed that years might flit + With pains rheumatic shooting, +Before those ghostly things she knit +Upon his unfleshed sole might fit, +He did not fancy it a bit, + To stand upon that footing: +At other times, his frightened hairs 199 + Above the bedclothes trusting, +He heard her, full of household cares, +(No dream entrapped in supper's snares, +The foal of horrible nightmares, +But broad awake, as he declares), +Go bustling up and down the stairs, +Or setting back last evening's chairs, + Or with the poker thrusting +The raked-up sea-coal's hardened crust-- +And--what! impossible! it must! +He knew she had returned to dust, 210 +And yet could scarce his senses trust, +Hearing her as she poked and fussed + About the parlor, dusting! + +Night after night he strove to sleep + And take his ease in spite of it; +But still his flesh would chill and creep, +And, though two night-lamps he might keep, + He could not so make light of it. +At last, quite desperate, he goes +And tells his neighbors all his woes, 220 + Which did but their amount enhance; +They made such mockery of his fears +That soon his days were of all jeers. + His nights of the rueful countenance; +'I thought most folks,' one neighbor said, +'Gave up the ghost when they were dead?' +Another gravely shook his head, + Adding, 'From all we hear, it's +Quite plain poor Knott is going mad-- +For how can he at once be sad 230 + And think he's full of spirits?' +A third declared he knew a knife + Would cut this Knott much quicker, +'The surest way to end all strife, +And lay the spirit of a wife, + Is just to take and lick her!' +A temperance man caught up the word, +'Ah yes,' he groaned, 'I've always heard + Our poor friend somewhat slanted 239 +Tow'rd taking liquor overmuch; +I fear these spirits may be Dutch, +(A sort of gins, or something such,) + With which his house is haunted; +I see the thing as clear as light,-- +If Knott would give up getting tight, + Naught farther would be wanted:' +So all his neighbors stood aloof +And, that the spirits 'neath his roof +Were not entirely up to proof, + Unanimously granted. 250 + +Knott knew that cocks and sprites were foes, +And so bought up, Heaven only knows +How many, for he wanted crows +To give ghosts caws, as I suppose, + To think that day was breaking; +Moreover what he called his park, +He turned into a kind of ark +For dogs, because a little bark +Is a good tonic in the dark, + If one is given to waking; 260 +But things went on from bad to worse, +His curs were nothing but a curse, + And, what was still more shocking, +Foul ghosts of living fowl made scoff +And would not think of going off + In spite of all his cocking. + +Shanghais, Bucks-counties, Dominiques, +Malays (that didn't lay for weeks), + Polanders, Bantams, Dorkings, +(Waiving the cost, no trifling ill, +Since each brought in his little bill,) 271 +By day or night were never still, +But every thought of rest would kill + With cacklings and with quorkings; +Henry the Eighth of wives got free + By a way he had of axing; +But poor Knott's Tudor henery +Was not so fortunate, and he + Still found his trouble waxing; +As for the dogs, the rows they made, 280 +And how they howled, snarled, barked and bayed, + Beyond all human knowledge is; +All night, as wide awake as gnats, +The terriers rumpused after rats, +Or, just for practice, taught their brats +To worry cast-off shoes and hats, +The bull-dogs settled private spats, +All chased imaginary cats, +Or raved behind the fence's slats +At real ones, or, from their mats, +With friends, miles off, held pleasant chats, 291 +Or, like some folks in white cravats, +Contemptuous of sharps and flats, + Sat up and sang dogsologies. +Meanwhile the cats set up a squall, +And, safe upon the garden-wall, + All night kept cat-a-walling, +As if the feline race were all. +In one wild cataleptic sprawl, + Into love's tortures falling. 300 + + +PART II + +SHOWING WHAT IS MEANT BY A FLOW OF SPIRITS + +At first the ghosts were somewhat shy, +Coming when none but Knott was nigh, +And people said 'twas all their eye, +(Or rather his) a flam, the sly + Digestion's machination: +Some recommended a wet sheet, +Some a nice broth of pounded peat, +Some a cold flat-iron to the feet, +Some a decoction of lamb's-bleat, +Some a southwesterly grain of wheat; 310 +Meat was by some pronounced unmeet, +Others thought fish most indiscreet, +And that 'twas worse than all to eat +Of vegetables, sour or sweet, +(Except, perhaps, the skin of beet,) + In such a concatenation: +One quack his button gently plucks +And murmurs, 'Biliary ducks!' + Says Knott, 'I never ate one;' +But all, though brimming full of wrath, 320 +Homoeo, Allo, Hydropath, +Concurred in this--that t'other's path + To death's door was the straight one. +Still, spite of medical advice, +The ghosts came thicker, and a spice + Of mischief grew apparent; +Nor did they only come at night, +But seemed to fancy broad daylight, +Till Knott, in horror and affright, + His unoffending hair rent; 330 +Whene'er with handkerchief on lap, +He made his elbow-chair a trap, +To catch an after-dinner nap, +The spirits, always on the tap, +Would make a sudden _rap, rap, rap,_ +The half-spun cord of sleep to snap, +(And what is life without its nap +But threadbareness and mere mishap?) 338 +As 'twere with a percussion cap + The trouble's climax capping; +It seemed a party dried and grim +Of mummies had come to visit him, +Each getting off from every limb + Its multitudinous wrapping; +Scratchings sometimes the walls ran round, +The merest penny-weights of sound; +Sometimes 'twas only by the pound + They carried on their dealing, +A thumping 'neath the parlor floor, +Thump-bump-thump-bumping o'er and o'er, 350 +As if the vegetables in store +(Quiet and orderly before) + Were all together peeling; +You would have thought the thing was done +By the spirit of some son of a gun, + And that a forty-two-pounder, +Or that the ghost which made such sounds +Could be none other than John Pounds, + Of Ragged Schools the founder. +Through three gradations of affright, 360 +The awful noises reached their height; + At first they knocked nocturnally, +Then, for some reason, changing quite, +(As mourners, after six months' flight, +Turn suddenly from dark to light,) + Began to knock diurnally, +And last, combining all their stocks, +(Scotland was ne'er so full of Knox,) +Into one Chaos (father of Nox,) +_Nocte pluit_--they showered knocks, 370 + And knocked, knocked, knocked, eternally; +Ever upon the go, like buoys, +(Wooden sea-urchins,) all Knott's joys, +They turned to troubles and a noise + That preyed on him internally. + +Soon they grew wider in their scope; +Whenever Knott a door would ope, +It would ope not, or else elope +And fly back (curbless as a trope +Once started down a stanza's slope 380 +By a bard that gave it too much rope--) + Like a clap of thunder slamming: +And, when kind Jenny brought his hat, +(She always, when he walked, did that,) +Just as upon his heart it sat, +Submitting to his settling pat, +Some unseen hand would jam it flat, +Or give it such a furious bat + That eyes and nose went cramming +Up out of sight, and consequently, 390 +As when in life it paddled free, + His beaver caused much damning; +If these things seem o'erstrained to be, +Read the account of Doctor Dee, +'Tis in our college library: +Read Wesley's circumstantial plea, +And Mrs. Crowe, more like a bee, +Sucking the nightshade's honeyed fee, +And Stilling's Pneumatology; +Consult Scot, Glanvil, grave Wie- 400 +rus and both Mathers; further see, +Webster, Casaubon, James First's trea- +tise, a right royal Q.E.D. +Writ with the moon in perigee, +Bodin de la Demonomanie-- +(Accent that last line gingerly) +All full of learning as the sea +Of fishes, and all disagree, +Save in _Sathanas apage!_ +Or, what will surely put a flea 410 +In unbelieving ears--with glee, +Out of a paper (sent to me +By some friend who forgot to P ... +A ... Y ...--I use cryptography +Lest I his vengeful pen should dree-- +His P ...O ...S ...T ...A ...G ...E ...) + Things to the same effect I cut, +About the tantrums of a ghost, +Not more than three weeks since, at most, + Near Stratford, in Connecticut. 420 +Knott's Upas daily spread its roots, +Sent up on all sides livelier shoots, +And bore more pestilential fruits; +The ghosts behaved like downright brutes, +They snipped holes in his Sunday suits, +Practised all night on octave flutes, +Put peas (not peace) into his boots, + Whereof grew corns in season, +They scotched his sheets, and, what was worse, +Stuck his silk nightcap full of burrs, 430 +Till he, in language plain and terse, +(But much unlike a Bible verse,) + Swore he should lose his reason. + +The tables took to spinning, too, +Perpetual yarns, and arm-chairs grew + To prophets and apostles; +One footstool vowed that only he +Of law and gospel held the key, +That teachers of whate'er degree +To whom opinion bows the knee 440 +Weren't fit to teach Truth's _a b c_, +And were (the whole lot) to a T + Mere fogies all and fossils; +A teapoy, late the property + Of Knox's Aunt Keziah, +(Whom Jenny most irreverently +Had nicknamed her aunt-tipathy) +With tips emphatic claimed to be + The prophet Jeremiah; +The tins upon the kitchen-wall, 450 +Turned tintinnabulators all, +And things that used to come to call + For simple household services +Began to hop and whirl and prance, +Fit to put out of countenance +The _Commís_ and _Grisettes_ of France + Or Turkey's dancing Dervises. + +Of course such doings, far and wide, +With rumors filled the countryside, +And (as it is our nation's pride 460 +To think a Truth not verified +Till with majorities allied) +Parties sprung up, affirmed, denied, +And candidates with questions plied, +Who, like the circus-riders, tried +At once both hobbies to bestride, +And each with his opponent vied + In being inexplicit. +Earnest inquirers multiplied; +Folks, whose tenth cousins lately died, 470 +Wrote letters long, and Knott replied; +All who could either walk or ride +Gathered to wonder or deride, + And paid the house a visit; +Horses were to his pine-trees tied, +Mourners in every corner sighed, +Widows brought children there that cried. +Swarms of lean Seekers, eager-eyed, +(People Knott never could abide,) +Into each hole and cranny pried 480 +With strings of questions cut and dried +From the Devout Inquirer's Guide, +For the wise spirits to decide-- + As, for example, is it +True that the damned are fried or boiled? +Was the Earth's axis greased or oiled? +Who cleaned the moon when it was soiled? +How baldness might be cured or foiled? + How heal diseased potatoes? +Did spirits have the sense of smell? 490 +Where would departed spinsters dwell? +If the late Zenas Smith were well? +If Earth were solid or a shell? +Were spirits fond of Doctor Fell? +_Did_ the bull toll Cock-Robin's knell? +What remedy would bugs expel? +If Paine's invention were a sell? +Did spirits by Webster's system spell? +Was it a sin to be a belle? +Did dancing sentence folks to hell? 500 +If so, then where most torture fell? + On little toes or great toes? +If life's true seat were in the brain? +Did Ensign mean to marry Jane? +By whom, in fact, was Morgan slain? +Could matter ever suffer pain? +What would take out a cherry-stain? +Who picked the pocket of Seth Crane, +Of Waldo precinct, State, of Maine? +Was Sir John Franklin sought in vain? 510 +Did primitive Christians ever train? +What was the family-name of Cain? +Them spoons, were they by Betty ta'en? +Would earth-worm poultice cure a sprain? +Was Socrates so dreadful plain? +What teamster guided Charles's wain? +Was Uncle Ethan mad or sane, +And could his will in force remain? +If not, what counsel to retain? +Did Le Sage steal Gil Blas from Spain? 520 +Was Junius writ by Thomas Paine? +Were ducks discomforted by rain? +_How_ did Britannia rule the main? +Was Jonas coming back again? +Was vital truth upon the wane? +Did ghosts, to scare folks, drag a chain? +Who was our Huldah's chosen swain? +Did none have teeth pulled without payin', + Ere ether was invented? +Whether mankind would not agree, 530 +If the universe were tuned in C? +What was it ailed Lucindy's knee? +Whether folks eat folks in Feejee? +Whether _his_ name would end with T? +If Saturn's rings were two or three, +And what bump in Phrenology + They truly represented? +These problems dark, wherein they groped, +Wherewith man's reason vainly coped, +Now that the spirit-world was oped, 540 +In all humility they hoped + Would be resolved _instanter_; +Each of the miscellaneous rout +Brought his, or her, own little doubt. +And wished to pump the spirits out, +Through his or her own private spout, + Into his or her decanter. + + +PART III + +WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT THE MOST ARDENT SPIRITS ARE MORE +ORNAMENTAL THAN USEFUL + +Many a speculating wight +Came by express-trains, day and night, +To see if Knott would 'sell his right,' 550 +Meaning to make the ghosts a sight-- + What they call a 'meenaygerie;' +One threatened, if he would not 'trade,' +His run of custom to invade, +(He could not these sharp folks persuade +That he was not, in some way, paid,) + And stamp him as a plagiary, +By coming down, at one fell swoop, +With THE ORIGINAL KNOCKING TROUPE, + Come recently from Hades, 560 +Who (for a quarter-dollar heard) +Would ne'er rap out a hasty word +Whence any blame might be incurred + From the most fastidious ladies; +The late lamented Jesse Soule, +To stir the ghosts up with a pole +And be director of the whole, + Who was engaged the rather +For the rare merits he'd combine, +Having been in the spirit line, 570 +Which trade he only did resign, +With general applause, to shine, +Awful in mail of cotton fine, + As ghost of Hamlet's father! +Another a fair plan reveals +Never yet hit on, which, he feels, +To Knott's religious sense appeals-- +'We'll have your house set up on wheels, + A speculation pious; +For music, we can shortly find 580 +A barrel-organ that will grind +Psalm-tunes--an instrument designed +For the New England tour--refined +From secular drosses, and inclined +To an unworldly turn, (combined + With no sectarian bias;) +Then, travelling by stages slow, +Under the style of Knott & Co., +I would accompany the show +As moral lecturer, the foe 590 +Of Rationalism; while you could throw +The rappings in, and make them go +Strict Puritan principles, you know, +(How _do_ you make 'em? with your toe?) +And the receipts which thence might flow, + We could divide between us; +Still more attractions to combine, +Beside these services of mine, +I will throw in a very fine +(It would do nicely for a sign) 600 + Original Titian's Venus.' +Another offered handsome fees +If Knott would get Demosthenes +(Nay, his mere knuckles, for more ease) +To rap a few short sentences; +Or if, for want of proper keys, + His Greek might make confusion, +Then just to get a rap from Burke, +To recommend a little work + On Public Elocution. 610 +Meanwhile, the spirits made replies +To all the reverent _whats_ and _whys_, +Resolving doubts of every size, +And giving seekers grave and wise, +Who came to know their destinies, + A rap-turous reception; +When unbelievers void of grace +Came to investigate the place, +(Creatures of Sadducistic race, +With grovelling intellects and base,) 620 +They could not find the slightest trace + To indicate deception; +Indeed, it is declared by some +That spirits (of this sort) are glum, +Almost, or wholly, deaf and dumb, +And (out of self-respect) quite mum +To skeptic natures cold and numb +Who of _this_ kind of Kingdom Come + Have not a just conception: +True, there were people who demurred 630 +That, though the raps no doubt were heard +Both under them and o'er them, +Yet, somehow, when a search they made, +They found Miss Jenny sore afraid, +Or Jenny's lover, Doctor Slade, +Equally awestruck and dismayed, +Or Deborah, the chambermaid, +Whose terrors not to be gainsaid +In laughs hysteric were displayed, + Was always there before them; +This had its due effect with some +Who straight departed, muttering, Hum! 642 + Transparent hoax! and Gammon! +But these were few: believing souls, +Came, day by day, in larger shoals, +As the ancients to the windy holes +'Neath Delphi's tripod brought their doles, + Or to the shrine of Ammon. + +The spirits seemed exceeding tame, +Call whom you fancied, and he came; 650 +The shades august of eldest fame + You summoned with an awful ease; +As grosser spirits gurgled out +From chair and table with a spout, +In Auerbach's cellar once, to flout +The senses of the rabble rout, +Where'er the gimlet twirled about + Of cunning Mephistopheles, +So did these spirits seem in store, +Behind the wainscot or the door, +Ready to thrill the being's core +Of every enterprising bore 662 + With their astounding glamour; +Whatever ghost one wished to hear, +By strange coincidence, was near +To make the past or future clear + (Sometimes in shocking grammar) +By raps and taps, now there, now here-- +It seemed as if the spirit queer +Of some departed auctioneer 670 +Were doomed to practise by the year + With the spirit of his hammer: +Whate'er you asked was answered, yet +One could not very deeply get +Into the obliging spirits' debt, +Because they used the alphabet + In all communications, +And new revealings (though sublime) +Rapped out, one letter at a time, + With boggles, hesitations, 680 +Stoppings, beginnings o'er again, +And getting matters into train, +Could hardly overload the brain + With too excessive rations, +Since just to ask _if two and two +Really make four? or, How d' ye do_? +And get the fit replies thereto +In the tramundane rat-tat-too, + Might ask a whole day's patience. + +'Twas strange ('mongst other things) to find 690 +In what odd sets the ghosts combined, + Happy forthwith to thump any +Piece of intelligence inspired, +The truth whereof had been inquired + By some one of the company; +For instance, Fielding, Mirabeau, +Orator Henley, Cicero, +Paley, John Ziska, Marivaux, +Melancthon, Robertson, Junot, 699 +Scaliger, Chesterfield, Rousseau, +Hakluyt, Boccaccio, South, De Foe, +Diaz, Josephus, Richard Roe, +Odin, Arminius, Charles _le gros_, +Tiresias, the late James Crow, +Casabianca, Grose, Prideaux, +Old Grimes, Young Norval, Swift, Brissot, +Malmonides, the Chevalier D'O, +Socrates, Fénelon, Job, Stow. +The inventor of _Elixir pro_, +Euripides, Spinoza, Poe, 710 +Confucius, Hiram Smith, and Fo, +Came (as it seemed, somewhat _de trop_) +With a disembodied Esquimaux, +To say that it was so and so, + With Franklin's expedition; +One testified to ice and snow, +One that the mercury was low, +One that his progress was quite slow, +One that he much desired to go, +One that the cook had frozen his toe, 720 +(Dissented from by Dandolo, +Wordsworth, Cynaegirus, Boileau, +La Hontan, and Sir Thomas Roe,) +One saw twelve white bears in a row, +One saw eleven and a crow, +With other things we could not know +(Of great statistic value, though,) + By our mere mortal vision. + +Sometimes the spirits made mistakes, +And seemed to play at ducks and drakes. 730 +With bold inquiry's heaviest stakes + In science or in mystery: +They knew so little (and that wrong) +Yet rapped it out so bold and strong, +One would have said the unnumbered throng + Had been Professors of History; +What made it odder was, that those +Who, you would naturally suppose, +Could solve a question, if they chose, +As easily as count their toes, 740 + Were just the ones that blundered; +One day, Ulysses happening down, +A reader of Sir Thomas Browne + And who (with him) had wondered +What song it was the Sirens sang, +Asked the shrewd Ithacan--_bang! bang!_ +With this response the chamber rang, + 'I guess it was Old Hundred.' +And Franklin, being asked to name +The reason why the lightning came, 750 + Replied, 'Because it thundered.' + +On one sole point the ghosts agreed +One fearful point, than which, indeed, + Nothing could seem absurder; +Poor Colonel Jones they all abused +And finally downright accused + The poor old man of murder; +'Twas thus; by dreadful raps was shown +Some spirit's longing to make known +A bloody fact, which he alone 760 +Was privy to, (such ghosts more prone + In Earth's affairs to meddle are;) +_Who are you?_ with awe-stricken looks, +All ask: his airy knuckles he crooks, +And raps, 'I _was_ Eliab Snooks, + That used to be a pedler; +Some on ye still are on my books!' +Whereat, to inconspicuous nooks, +(More fearing this than common spooks) + Shrank each indebted meddler; +Further the vengeful ghost declared 771 +That while his earthly life was spared, +About the country he had fared, + A duly licensed follower +Of that much-wandering trade that wins +Slow profit from the sale of tins + And various kinds of hollow-ware; +That Colonel Jones enticed him in, +Pretending that he wanted tin, +There slew him with a rolling-pin, +Hid him in a potato-bin, 781 + And (the same night) him ferried +Across Great Pond to t'other shore, +And there, on land of Widow Moore, +Just where you turn to Larkin's store, + Under a rock him buried; +Some friends (who happened to be by) +He called upon to testify +That what he said was not a lie, + And that he did not stir this 790 +Foul matter, out of any spite +But from a simple love of right;-- + Which statements the Nine Worthies, +Rabbi Akiba, Charlemagne, +Seth, Golley Gibber, General Wayne, +Cambyses, Tasso, Tubal-Cain, +The owner of a castle in Spain, +Jehanghire, and the Widow of Nain, +(The friends aforesaid,) made more plain + And by loud raps attested; 800 +To the same purport testified +Plato, John Wilkes, and Colonel Pride +Who knew said Snooks before he died, + Had in his wares invested, +Thought him entitled to belief +And freely could concur, in brief, + In everything the rest did. + +Eliab this occasion seized, +(Distinctly here the spirit sneezed,) +To say that he should ne'er be eased 810 +Till Jenny married whom she pleased, + Free from all checks and urgin's, +(This spirit dropt his final g's) +And that, unless Knott quickly sees +This done, the spirits to appease, +They would come back his life to tease, +As thick as mites in ancient cheese, +And let his house on an endless lease +To the ghosts (terrific rappers these +And veritable Eumenides) 820 + Of the Eleven Thousand Virgins! + +Knott was perplexed and shook his head, +He did not wish his child to wed + With a suspected murderer, +(For, true or false, the rumor spread,) +But as for this roiled life he led, +'It would not answer,' so he said, + 'To have it go no furderer.' +At last, scarce knowing what it meant, +Reluctantly he gave consent 830 +That Jenny, since 'twas evident +That she _would_ follow her own bent, + Should make her own election; +For that appeared the only way +These frightful noises to allay +Which had already turned him gray + And plunged him in dejection. + +Accordingly, this artless maid +Her father's ordinance obeyed, 839 +And, all in whitest crape arrayed, +(Miss Pulsifer the dresses made +And wishes here the fact displayed +That she still carries on the trade, +The third door south from Bagg's Arcade,) +A very faint 'I do' essayed +And gave her hand to Hiram Slade, +From which time forth, the ghosts were laid, + And ne'er gave trouble after; +But the Selectmen, be it known, +Dug underneath the aforesaid stone, 850 +Where the poor pedler's corpse was thrown, +And found thereunder a jaw-bone, +Though, when the crowner sat thereon, +He nothing hatched, except alone + Successive broods of laughter; +It was a frail and dingy thing, +In which a grinder or two did cling, + In color like molasses, +Which surgeons, called from far and wide. +Upon the horror to decide, 860 + Having put on their glasses, +Reported thus: 'To judge by looks, +These bones, by some queer hooks or crooks, +May have belonged to Mr. Snooks, +But, as men deepest read in books + Are perfectly aware, bones, +If buried fifty years or so, +Lose their identity and grow + From human bones to bare bones.' + +Still, if to Jaalam you go down, +You'll find two parties in the town, 871 +One headed by Benaiah Brown, + And one by Perez Tinkham; +The first believe the ghosts all through +And vow that they shall never rue +The happy chance by which they knew +That people in Jupiter are blue, +And very fond of Irish stew, +Two curious facts which Prince Lee Boo 879 +Rapped clearly to a chosen few-- + Whereas the others think 'em +A trick got up by Doctor Slade +With Deborah the chambermaid + And that sly cretur Jinny. +That all the revelations wise, +At which the Brownites made big eyes, +Might have been given by Jared Keyes, + A natural fool and ninny, +And, last week, didn't Eliab Snooks +Come back with never better looks, 890 +As sharp as new-bought mackerel hooks, + And bright as a new pin, eh? +Good Parson Wilbur, too, avers +(Though to be mixed in parish stirs +Is worse than handling chestnut-burrs) +That no case to his mind occurs +Where spirits ever did converse, +Save in a kind of guttural Erse, + (So say the best authorities;) +And that a charge by raps conveyed 900 +Should be most scrupulously weighed + And searched into, before it is +Made public, since it may give pain +That cannot soon be cured again, +And one word may infix a stain + Which ten cannot gloss over, +Though speaking for his private part, +He is rejoiced with all his heart + Miss Knott missed not her lover. + + + +FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM + +I am a man of forty, sirs, a native of East Haddam, +And have some reason to surmise that I descend from Adam; +But what's my pedigree to you? That I will soon unravel; +I've sucked my Haddam-Eden dry, therefore desire to travel, +And, as a natural consequence, presume I needn't say, +I wish to write some letters home and have those letters p---- +[I spare the word suggestive of those grim Next Morns that mount +_Clump, Clump_, the stairways of the brain with--'_Sir, my small + account_,' +And, after every good we gain--Love, Fame, Wealth, Wisdom--still, +As punctual as a cuckoo clock, hold up their little bill, 10 +The _garçons_ in our Café of Life, by dreaming us forgot-- +Sitting, like Homer's heroes, full and musing God knows what,-- +Till they say, bowing, _S'il vous plait, voila, Messieurs, la note!_] +I would not hint at this so soon, but in our callous day, +The Tollman Debt, who drops his bar across the world's highway, +Great Cæsar in mid-march would stop, if Cæsar could not pay; +Pilgriming's dearer than it was: men cannot travel now +Scot-free from Dan to Beersheba upon a simple vow; +Nay, as long back as Bess's time,--when Walsingham went over +Ambassador to Cousin France, at Canterbury and Dover 20 +He was so fleeced by innkeepers that, ere he quitted land, +He wrote to the Prime Minister to take the knaves in hand. +If I with staff and scallop-shell should try my way to win, +Would Bonifaces quarrel as to who should take me in? +Or would my pilgrim's progress end where Bunyan started his on, +And my grand tour be round and round the backyard of a prison? +I give you here a saying deep and therefore, haply true; +'Tis out of Merlin's prophecies, but quite as good as new: +The question boath for men and meates longe voyages yt beginne +Lyes in a notshell, rather saye lyes in a case of tinne. 20 +But, though men may not travel now, as in the Middle Ages, +With self-sustaining retinues of little gilt-edged pages, +Yet one may manage pleasantly, where'er he likes to roam, +By sending his small pages (at so much per small page) home; +And if a staff and scallop-shell won't serve so well as then, +Our outlay is about as small--just paper, ink, and pen. +Be thankful! Humbugs never die, more than the wandering Jew; +Bankrupt, they publish their own deaths, slink for a while from view, +Then take an _alias_, change the sign, and the old trade renew; +Indeed, 'tis wondrous how each Age, though laughing at the Past, 40 +Insists on having its tight shoe made on the same old last; +How it is sure its system would break up at once without +The bunion which it _will_ believe hereditary gout; +How it takes all its swans for geese, nay, stranger yet and sadder, +Sees in its treadmill's fruitless jog a heavenward Jacob's-ladder, +Shouts, _Lo, the Shining Heights are reached! One moment, more aspire!_ +Trots into cramps its poor, dear legs, gets never an inch the higher, +And like the others, ends with pipe and mug beside the fire. +There, 'tween each doze, it whiffs and sips and watches with a sneer +The green recruits that trudge and sweat where it had swinked + whilere, 50 +And sighs to think this soon spent zeal should be in simple truth, +The only interval between old Fogyhood and Youth: +'Well,' thus it muses, 'well, what odds? 'Tis not for us to warn; +'Twill be the same when we are dead, and was ere we were born; +Without the Treadmill, too, how grind our store of winter's corn? +Had we no stock, nor twelve per cent received from Treadmill shares, +We might ... but these poor devils at last will get our easy chairs. +High aims and hopes have great rewards, they, too, serene and snug, +Shall one day have their soothing pipe and their enlivening mug; +From Adam, empty-handed Youth hath always heard the hum 60 +Of Good Times Coming, and will hear until the last day come; +Young ears Hear forward, old ones back, and, while the earth rolls on, +Full-handed Eld shall hear recede the steps of Good Times Gone; +Ah what a cackle we set up whene'er an egg was laid! +_Cack-cack-cack-cackle!_ rang around, the scratch for worms was stayed, +_Cut-cut-ca-dah-cut!_ from _this_ egg the coming cock shall stalk! +The great New Era dawns, the age of Deeds and not of Talk! +And every stupid hen of us hugged close his egg of chalk, +Thought,--sure, I feel life stir within, each day with greater strength, +When lo, the chick! from former chicks he differed not a jot, 70 +But grew and crew and scratched and went, like those before, to pot!' +So muse the dim _Emeriti_, and, mournful though it be, +I must confess a kindred thought hath sometimes come to me, +Who, though but just of forty turned, have heard the rumorous fame +Of nine and ninety Coming Men, all--coming till they came. +Pure Mephistopheles all this? the vulgar nature jeers? +Good friend, while I was writing it, my eyes were dim with tears; +Thrice happy he who cannot see, or who his eyes can shut, +Life's deepest sorrow is contained in that small word there--But! + + * * * * * + +We're pretty nearly crazy here with change and go ahead, 80 +With flinging our caught bird away for two i' th' bush instead, +With butting 'gainst the wall which we declare _shall_ be a portal, +And questioning Deeps that never yet have oped their lips to mortal; +We're growing pale and hollow-eyed, and out of all condition, +With _mediums_ and prophetic chairs, and crickets with a mission, +(The most astounding oracles since Balaam's donkey spoke,-- +'Twould seem our furniture was all of Dodonean oak.) +Make but the public laugh, be sure 'twill take you to be somebody; +'Twill wrench its button from your clutch, my densely earnest glum body; +'Tis good, this noble earnestness, good in its place, but why 90 +Make great Achilles' shield the pan to bake a penny pie? +Why, when we have a kitchen-range, insist that we shall stop, +And bore clear down to central fires to broil our daily chop? +Excalibur and Durandart are swords of price, but then +Why draw them sternly when you wish to trim your nails or pen? +Small gulf between the ape and man; you bridge it with your staff; +But it will be impassable until the ape can laugh;-- +No, no, be common now and then, be sensible, be funny, +And, as Siberians bait their traps for bears with pots of honey, +From which ere they'll withdraw their snouts, they'll suffer many a + club-lick, 100 +So bait your moral figure-of-fours to catch the Orson public. +Look how the dead leaves melt their way down through deep-drifted snow; +They take the sun-warmth down with them--pearls could not conquer so; +There _is_ a moral here, you see: if you would preach, you must +Steep all your truths in sunshine would you have them pierce the crust; +Brave Jeremiah, you are grand and terrible, a sign +And wonder, but were never quite a popular divine; +Fancy the figure you would cut among the nuts and wine! +I, on occasion, too, could preach, but hold it wiser far +To give the public sermons it will take with its cigar, 110 +And morals fugitive, and vague as are these smoke-wreaths light +In which ... I trace ... a ... let me see--bless me! 'tis out of sight. + + * * * * * + +There are some goodish things at sea; for instance, one can feel +A grandeur in the silent man forever at the wheel, +That bit of two-legged intellect, that particle of drill, +Who the huge floundering hulk inspires with reason, brain, and will, +And makes the ship, though skies are black and headwinds whistle loud, +Obey her conscience there which feels the loadstar through the cloud; +And when by lusty western gales the full-sailed barque is hurled, +Towards the great moon which, setting on, the silent underworld, 120 +Rounds luridly up to look on ours, and shoots a broadening line, +Of palpitant light from crest to crest across the ridgy brine, +Then from the bows look back and feel a thrill that never stales, +In that full-bosomed, swan-white pomp of onward-yearning sails; +Ah, when dear cousin Bull laments that you can't make a poem, +Take him aboard a clipper-ship, young Jonathan, and show him +A work of art that in its grace and grandeur may compare +With any thing that any race has fashioned any where; +'Tis not a statue, grumbles John; nay, if you come to that, +We think of Hyde Park Corner, and concede you beat us flat 130 +With your equestrian statue to a Nose and a Cocked hat; +But 'tis not a cathedral; well, e'en that we will allow, +Both statues and cathedrals are anachronistic now; +Your minsters, coz, the monuments of men who conquered you, +You'd sell a bargain, if we'd take the deans and chapters too; +No; mortal men build nowadays, as always heretofore, +Good temples to the gods which they in very truth adore; +The shepherds of this Broker Age, with all their willing flocks, +Although they bow to stones no more, do bend the knee to stocks, +And churches can't be beautiful though crowded, floor and gallery, 140 +If people worship preacher, and if preacher worship salary; +'Tis well to look things in the face, the god o' the modern universe, +Hermes, cares naught for halls of art and libraries of puny verse, +If they don't sell, he notes them thus upon his ledger--say, _per +Contra_ to a loss of so much stone, best Russia duck and paper; +And, after all, about this Art men talk a deal of fudge, +Each nation has its path marked out, from which it must not budge; +The Romans had as little art as Noah in his ark, +Yet somehow on this globe contrived to make an epic mark; 149 +Religion, painting, sculpture, song--for these they ran up jolly ticks +With Greece and Egypt, but they were great artists in their politics, +And if we make no minsters, John, nor epics, yet the Fates +Are not entirely deaf to men who _can_ build ships and states; +The arts are never pioneers, but men have strength and health +Who, called on suddenly, can improvise a commonwealth, +Nay, can more easily go on and frame them by the dozen, +Than you can make a dinner-speech, dear sympathizing cousin; +And, though our restless Jonathan have not your graver bent, sure he +Does represent this hand-to-mouth, pert, rapid nineteenth century; +This is the Age of Scramble; men move faster than they did 160 +When they pried up the imperial Past's deep-dusted coffin-lid, +Searching for scrolls of precedent; the wire-leashed lightning now +Replaces Delphos--men don't leave the steamer for the scow; +What public, were they new to-day, would ever stop to read +The Iliad, the Shanàmeh, or the Nibelungenlied? +_Their_ public's gone, the artist Greek, the lettered Shah, + the hairy Graf-- +Folio and plesiosaur sleep well; _we_ weary o'er a paragraph; +The mind moves planet-like no more, it fizzes, cracks, and bustles; +From end to end with journals dry the land o'ershadowed rustles, +As with dead leaves a winter-beech, and, with their breath-roused + jars 170 +Amused, we care not if they hide the eternal skies and stars; +Down to the general level of the Board of Brokers sinking, +The Age takes in the newspapers, or, to say sooth unshrinking, +The newspapers take in the Age, and stocks do all the thinking. + + + +AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE + + Somewhere in India, upon a time, +(Read it not Injah, or you spoil the verse,) + There dwelt two saints whose privilege sublime +It was to sit and watch the world grow worse, + Their only care (in that delicious clime) +At proper intervals to pray and curse; + Pracrit the dialect each prudent brother + Used for himself, Damnonian for the other. + + One half the time of each was spent in praying +For blessings on his own unworthy head, 10 + The other half in fearfully portraying +Where certain folks would go when they were dead; + This system of exchanges--there's no saying +To what more solid barter 'twould have led, + But that a river, vext with boils and swellings + At rainy times, kept peace between their dwellings. + + So they two played at wordy battledore +And kept a curse forever in the air, + Flying this way or that from shore to shore; +Nor other labor did this holy pair, 20 + Clothed and supported from the lavish store +Which crowds lanigerous brought with daily care; + They toiled not, neither did they spin; their bias + Was tow'rd the harder task of being pious. + + Each from his hut rushed six score times a day, +Like a great canon of the Church full-rammed + With cartridge theologic, (so to say,) +Touched himself off, and then, recoiling, slammed + His hovel's door behind him in away +That to his foe said plainly,--_you'll_ be damned; 30 + And so like Potts and Wainwright, shrill and strong + The two D---- D'd each other all day long. + + One was a dancing Dervise, a Mohammedan, +The other was a Hindoo, a gymnosophist; + One kept his whatd'yecallit and his Ramadan, +Laughing to scorn the sacred rites and laws of his + Transfluvial rival, who, in turn, called Ahmed an +Old top, and, as a clincher, shook across a fist + With nails six inches long, yet lifted not + His eyes from off his navel's mystic knot. 40 + + 'Who whirls not round six thousand times an hour +Will go,' screamed Ahmed, 'to the evil place; + May he eat dirt, and may the dog and Giaour +Defile the graves of him and all his race; + Allah loves faithful souls and gives them power +To spin till they are purple in the face; + Some folks get you know what, but he that pure is + Earns Paradise and ninety thousand houris.' + + 'Upon the silver mountain, South by East, +Sits Brahma fed upon the sacred bean; 30 + He loves those men whose nails are still increased, +Who all their lives keep ugly, foul, and lean; + 'Tis of his grace that not a bird or beast +Adorned with claws like mine was ever seen; + The suns and stars are Brahma's thoughts divine, + Even as these trees I seem to see are mine.' + + 'Thou seem'st to see, indeed!' roared Ahmed back; +'Were I but once across this plaguy stream, + With a stout sapling in my hand, one whack +On those lank ribs would rid thee of that dream! 60 + Thy Brahma-blasphemy is ipecac +To my soul's stomach; couldst thou grasp the scheme + Of true redemption, thou wouldst know that Deity + Whirls by a kind of blessed spontaneity. + + 'And this it is which keeps our earth here going +With all the stars.'--'Oh, vile! but there's a place + Prepared for such; to think of Brahma throwing +Worlds like a juggler's balls up into Space! + Why, not so much as a smooth lotos blowing +Is e'er allowed that silence to efface 70 + Which broods round Brahma, and our earth, 'tis known, + Rests on a tortoise, moveless as this stone.' + + So they kept up their banning amoebæan, +When suddenly came floating down the stream + A youth whose face like an incarnate pæan +Glowed, 'twas so full of grandeur and of gleam; + 'If there _be_ gods, then, doubtless, this must be one,' +Thought both at once, and then began to scream, + 'Surely, whate'er immortals know, thou knowest, + Decide between us twain before thou goest!' 80 + + The youth was drifting in a slim canoe +Most like a huge white water-lily's petal, + But neither of our theologians knew +Whereof 'twas made; whether of heavenly metal + Seldseen, or of a vast pearl split in two +And hollowed, was a point they could not settle; + 'Twas good debate-seed, though, and bore large fruit + In after years of many a tart dispute. + + There were no wings upon the stranger's shoulders. +And yet he seemed so capable of rising 90 + That, had he soared like thistle-down, beholders +Had thought the circumstance noways surprising; + Enough that he remained, and, when the scolders +Hailed him as umpire in their vocal prize-ring, + The painter of his boat he lightly threw + Around a lotos-stem, and brought her to. + + The strange youth had a look as if he might +Have trod far planets where the atmosphere + (Of nobler temper) steeps the face with light, +Just as our skins are tanned and freckled here; 100 + His air was that of a cosmopolite +In the wide universe from sphere to sphere; + Perhaps he was (his face had such grave beauty) + An officer of Saturn's guards off duty. + + Both saints began to unfold their tales at once, +Both wished their tales, like simial ones, prehensile, + That they might seize his ear; _fool! knave!_ and _dunce!_ +Flew zigzag back and forth, like strokes of pencil + In a child's fingers; voluble as duns, +They jabbered like the stones on that immense hill 110 + In the Arabian Nights; until the stranger + Began to think his ear-drums in some danger. + + In general those who nothing have to say +Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it; + They turn and vary it in every way, +Hashing it, stewing it, mincing it, _ragouting_ it; + Sometimes they keep it purposely at bay, +Then let it slip to be again pursuing it; + They drone it, groan it, whisper it and shout it, + Refute it, flout it, swear to 't, prove it, doubt it. 120 + + Our saints had practised for some thirty years; +Their talk, beginning with a single stem, + Spread like a banyan, sending down live piers, +Colonies of digression, and, in them, + Germs of yet new dispersion; once by the ears, +They could convey damnation in a hem, + And blow the pinch of premise-priming off + Long syllogistic batteries, with a cough. + + Each had a theory that the human ear +A providential tunnel was, which led 130 + To a huge vacuum (and surely here +They showed some knowledge of the general head,) + For cant to be decanted through, a mere +Auricular canal or mill-race fed + All day and night, in sunshine and in shower, + From their vast heads of milk-and-water-power. + + The present being a peculiar case, +Each with unwonted zeal the other scouted, + Put his spurred hobby through its every pace, 139 +Pished, pshawed, poohed, horribled, bahed, jeered, sneered, flouted, + Sniffed, nonsensed, infideled, fudged, with his face +Looked scorn too nicely shaded to be shouted, + And, with each inch of person and of vesture, + Contrived to hint some most disdainful gesture. + + At length, when their breath's end was come about, +And both could now and then just gasp 'impostor!' + Holding their heads thrust menacingly out, +As staggering cocks keep up their fighting posture, + The stranger smiled and said, 'Beyond a doubt +'Tis fortunate, my friends, that you have lost your 150 + United parts of speech, or it had been + Impossible for me to get between. + + 'Produce! says Nature,--what have you produced? +A new strait-waistcoat for the human mind; + Are you not limbed, nerved, jointed, arteried, juiced, +As other men? yet, faithless to your kind, + Rather like noxious insects you are used +To puncture life's fair fruit, beneath the rind + Laying your creed-eggs, whence in time there spring + Consumers new to eat and buzz and sting. 160 + + 'Work! you have no conception how 'twill sweeten +Your views of Life and Nature, God and Man; + Had you been forced to earn what you have eaten, +Your heaven had shown a less dyspeptic plan; + At present your whole function is to eat ten +And talk ten times as rapidly as you can; + Were your shape true to cosmogonic laws, + You would be nothing but a pair of jaws. + + 'Of all the useless beings in creation +The earth could spare most easily you bakers 170 + Of little clay gods, formed in shape and fashion +Precisely in the image of their makers; + Why it would almost move a saint to passion, +To see these blind and deaf, the hourly breakers + Of God's own image in their brother men, + Set themselves up to tell the how, where, when, + + 'Of God's existence; one's digestion's worse-- +So makes a god of vengeance and of blood; + Another,--but no matter, they reverse +Creation's plan, out of their own vile mud 180 + Pat up a god, and burn, drown, hang, or curse +Whoever worships not; each keeps his stud + Of texts which wait with saddle on and bridle + To hunt down atheists to their ugly idol. + + 'This, I perceive, has been your occupation; +You should have been more usefully employed; + All men are bound to earn their daily ration, +Where States make not that primal contract void + By cramps and limits; simple devastation +Is the worm's task, and what he has destroyed 190 + His monument; creating is man's work, + And that, too, something more than mist and murk.' + + So having said, the youth was seen no more, +And straightway our sage Brahmin, the philosopher, + Cried, 'That was aimed at thee, thou endless bore, +Idle and useless as the growth of moss over + A rotting tree-trunk!' 'I would square that score +Full soon,' replied the Dervise, 'could I cross over + And catch thee by the beard. Thy nails I'd trim + And make thee work, as was advised by him. 200 + + 'Work? Am I not at work from morn till night +Sounding the deeps of oracles umbilical + Which for man's guidance never come to light, +With all their various aptitudes, until I call?' + 'And I, do I not twirl from left to right +For conscience' sake? Is that no work? Thou silly gull, + He had thee in his eye; 'twas Gabriel + Sent to reward my faith, I know him well.' + + 'Twas Vishnu, thou vile whirligig!' and so +The good old quarrel was begun anew; 210 + One would have sworn the sky was black as sloe, +Had but the other dared to call it blue; + Nor were the followers who fed them slow +To treat each other with their curses, too, + Each hating t'other (moves it tears or laughter?) + Because he thought him sure of hell hereafter. + + At last some genius built a bridge of boats +Over the stream, and Ahmed's zealots filed + Across, upon a mission to (cut throats +And) spread religion pure and undefiled; 220 + They sowed the propagandist's wildest oats, +Cutting off all, down to the smallest child, + And came back, giving thanks for such fat mercies, + To find their harvest gone past prayers or curses. + + All gone except their saint's religious hops, +Which he kept up with more than common flourish; + But these, however satisfying crops +For the inner man, were not enough to nourish + The body politic, which quickly drops +Reserve in such sad junctures, and turns currish; 230 + So Ahmed soon got cursed for all the famine + Where'er the popular voice could edge a damn in. + + At first he pledged a miracle quite boldly. +And, for a day or two, they growled and waited; + But, finding that this kind of manna coldly +Sat on their stomachs, they erelong berated + The saint for still persisting in that old lie, +Till soon the whole machine of saintship grated, + Ran slow, creaked, stopped, and, wishing him in Tophet, + They gathered strength enough to stone the prophet. 240 + + Some stronger ones contrived (by eatting leather, +Their weaker friends, and one thing or another) + The winter months of scarcity to weather; +Among these was the late saint's younger brother, + Who, in the spring, collecting them together, +Persuaded them that Ahmed's holy pother + Had wrought in their behalf, and that the place + Of Saint should be continued to his race. + + Accordingly, 'twas settled on the spot +That Allah favored that peculiar breed; 250 + Beside, as all were satisfied, 'twould not +Be quite respectable to have the need + Of public spiritual food forgot; +And so the tribe, with proper forms, decreed + That he, and, failing him, his next of kin, + Forever for the people's good should spin. + + + + + +THE BIGLOW PAPERS + +FIRST SERIES + +NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS + + +[I have observed, reader (bene-or male-volent, as it may happen), that +it is customary to append to the second editions of books, and to the +second works of authors, short sentences commendatory of the first, +under the title of _Notices of the Press_. These, I have been given to +understand, are procurable at certain established rates, payment being +made either in money or advertising patronage by the publisher, or by an +adequate outlay of servility on the part of the author. Considering +these things with myself, and also that such notices are neither +intended, nor generally believed, to convey any real opinions, being a +purely ceremonial accompaniment of literature, and resembling +certificates to the virtues of various morbiferal panaceas, I conceived +that it would be not only more economical to prepare a sufficient number +of such myself, but also more immediately subservient to the end in view +to prefix them to this our primary edition rather than to await the +contingency of a second, when they would seem to be of small utility. To +delay attaching the _bobs_ until the second attempt at flying the kite +would indicate but a slender experience in that useful art. Neither has +it escaped my notice nor failed to afford me matter of reflection, that, +when a circus or a caravan is about to visit Jaalam, the initial step is +to send forward large and highly ornamented bills of performance, to be +hung in the bar-room and the post-office. These having been sufficiently +gazed at, and beginning to lose their attractiveness except for the +flies, and, truly, the boys also (in whom I find it impossible to +repress, even during school-hours, certain oral and telegraphic +communications concerning the expected show), upon some fine morning the +band enters in a gayly painted wagon, or triumphal chariot, and with +noisy advertisement, by means of brass, wood, and sheepskin, makes the +circuit of our startled village streets. Then, as the exciting sounds +draw nearer and nearer, do I desiderate those eyes of Aristarchus, +'whose looks were as a breeching to a boy.' Then do I perceive, with +vain regret of wasted opportunities, the advantage of a pancratic or +pantechnic education, since he is most reverenced by my little subjects +who can throw the cleanest summerset or walk most securely upon the +revolving cask. The story of the Pied Piper becomes for the first time +credible to me (albeit confirmed by the Hameliners dating their legal +instruments from the period of his exit), as I behold how those strains, +without pretence of magical potency, bewitch the pupillary legs, nor +leave to the pedagogic an entire self-control. For these reasons, lest +my kingly prerogative should suffer diminution, I prorogue my restless +commons, whom I follow into the street, chiefly lest some mischief may +chance befall them. After the manner of such a band, I send forward the +following notices of domestic manufacture, to make brazen proclamation, +not unconscious of the advantage which will accrue, if our little craft, +_cymbula sutilis_, shall seem to leave port with a clipping breeze, and +to carry, in nautical phrase, a bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have +chosen, as being more equitable, to prepare some also sufficiently +objurgatory, that readers of every taste may find a dish to their +palate. I have modelled them upon actually existing specimens, preserved +in my own cabinet of natural curiosities. One, in particular, I had +copied with tolerable exactness from a notice of one of my own +discourses, which, from its superior tone and appearance of vast +experience, I concluded to have been written by a man at least three +hundred years of age, though I recollected no existing instance of such +antediluvian longevity. Nevertheless, I afterwards discovered the author +to be a young gentleman preparing for the ministry under the direction +of one of my brethren in a neighboring town, and whom I had once +instinctively corrected in a Latin quantity. But this I have been +forced to omit, from its too great length.--H.W.] + + * * * * * + +_From the Universal Littery Universe_. + +Full of passages which rivet the attention of the reader.... Under a +rustic garb, sentiments are conveyed which should be committed to the +memory and engraven on the heart of every moral and social being.... We +consider this a _unique_ performance.... We hope to see it soon +introduced into our common schools.... Mr. Wilbur has performed his +duties as editor with excellent taste and judgment.... This is a vein +which we hope to see successfully prosecuted.... We hail the appearance +of this work as a long stride toward the formation of a purely +aboriginal, indigenous, native, and American literature. We rejoice to +meet with an author national enough to break away from the slavish +deference, too common among us, to English grammar and orthography.... +Where all is so good, we are at a loss how to make extracts.... On the +whole, we may call it a volume which no library, pretending to entire +completeness, should fail to place upon its shelves. + + * * * * * + +_From the Higginbottomopolis Snapping-turtle_. + +A collection of the merest balderdash and doggerel that it was ever our +bad fortune to lay eyes on. The author is a vulgar buffoon, and the +editor a talkative, tedious old fool. We use strong language, but should +any of our readers peruse the book, (from which calamity Heaven preserve +them!) they will find reasons for it thick as the leaves of +Vallum-brozer, or, to use a still more expressive comparison, as the +combined heads of author and editor. The work is wretchedly got up.... +We should like to know how much _British gold_ was pocketed by this +libeller of our country and her purest patriots. + + * * * * * + +_From the Oldfogrumville Mentor_. + +We have not had time to do more than glance through this handsomely +printed volume, but the name of its respectable editor, the Rev. Mr. +Wilbur, of Jaalam, will afford a sufficient guaranty for the worth of +its contents.... The paper is white, the type clear, and the volume of a +convenient and attractive size.... In reading this elegantly executed +work, it has seemed to us that a passage or two might have been +retrenched with advantage, and that the general style of diction was +susceptible of a higher polish.... On the whole, we may safely leave the +ungrateful task of criticism to the reader. We will barely suggest, that +in volumes intended, as this is, for the illustration of a provincial +dialect and turns of expression, a dash of humor or satire might be +thrown in with advantage.... The work is admirably got up.... This work +will form an appropriate ornament to the centre table. It is beautifully +printed, on paper of an excellent quality. + + * * * * * + +_From the Dekay Bulwark_. + +We should be wanting in our duty as the conductor of that tremendous +engine, a public press, as an American, and as a man, did we allow such +an opportunity as is presented to us by 'The Biglow Papers' to pass by +without entering our earnest protest against such attempts (now, alas! +too common) at demoralizing the public sentiment. Under a wretched mask +of stupid drollery, slavery, war, the social glass, and, in short, all +the valuable and time-honored institutions justly dear to our common +humanity and especially to republicans, are made the butt of coarse and +senseless ribaldry by this low-minded scribbler. It is time that the +respectable and religious portion of our community should be aroused to +the alarming inroads of foreign Jacobinism, sansculottism, and +infidelity. It is a fearful proof of the widespread nature of this +contagion, that these secret stabs at religion and virtue are given from +under the cloak (_credite, posteri!_) of a clergyman. It is a mournful +spectacle indeed to the patriot and Christian to see liberality and new +ideas (falsely so called,--they are as old as Eden) invading the sacred +precincts of the pulpit.... On the whole, we consider this volume as one +of the first shocking results which we predicted would spring out of the +late French 'Revolution' (!) + + * * * * * + +_From the Bungtown Copper and Comprehensive Tocsin (a try-weakly family +journal)_. + + +Altogether an admirable work.... Full of humor, boisterous, but +delicate,--of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a pathos +cool as morning dew,--of satire ponderous as the mace of Richard, yet +keen as the scymitar of Saladin.... A work full of 'mountain-mirth,' +mischievous as Puck, and lightsome as Ariel.... We know not whether to +admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive concinnity of the author, +or his playful fancy, weird imagination, and compass of style, at once +both objective and subjective.... We might indulge in some criticisms, +but, were the author other than he is, he would be a different being. As +it is, he has a wonderful _pose_, which flits from flower to flower, and +bears the reader irresistibly along on its eagle pinions (like Ganymede) +to the 'highest heaven of invention.' ... We love a book so purely +objective ... Many of his pictures of natural scenery have an +extraordinary subjective clearness and fidelity.... In fine, we consider +this as one of the most extraordinary volumes of this or any age. We +know of no English author who could have written it. It is a work to +which the proud genius of our country, standing with one foot on the +Aroostook and the other on the Rio Grande, and holding up the +star-spangled banner amid the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds, +may point with bewildering scorn of the punier efforts of enslaved +Europe.... We hope soon to encounter our author among those higher walks +of literature in which he is evidently capable of achieving enduring +fame. Already we should be inclined to assign him a high position in the +bright galaxy of our American bards. + + * * * * * + +_From the Saltriver Pilot and Flag of Freedom._ + +A volume in bad grammar and worse taste.... While the pieces here +collected were confined to their appropriate sphere in the corners of +obscure newspapers, we considered them wholly beneath contempt, but, as +the author has chosen to come forward in this public manner, he must +expect the lash he so richly merits.... Contemptible slanders.... Vilest +Billingsgate.... Has raked all the gutters of our language.... The most +pure, upright, and consistent politicians not safe from his malignant +venom.... General Cushing comes in for a share of his vile calumnies.... +The _Reverend_ Homer Wilbur is a disgrace to his cloth.... + + * * * * * + +_From the World-Harmonic-Æolian-Attachment_. + +Speech is silver: silence is golden. No utterance more Orphic than this. +While, therefore, as highest author, we reverence him whose works +continue heroically unwritten, we have also our hopeful word for those +who with pen (from wing of goose loud-cackling, or seraph +God-commissioned) record the thing that is revealed.... Under mask of +quaintest irony, we detect here the deep, storm-tost (nigh ship-wracked) +soul, thunder-scarred, semi-articulate, but ever climbing hopefully +toward the peaceful summits of an Infinite Sorrow.... Yes, thou poor, +forlorn Hosea, with Hebrew fire-flaming soul in thee, for thee also this +life of ours has not been without its aspects of heavenliest pity and +laughingest mirth. Conceivable enough! Through coarse Thersites-cloak, +we have revelation of the heart, wild-glowing, world-clasping, that is +in him. Bravely he grapples with the life-problem as it presents itself +to him, uncombed, shaggy, careless of the 'nicer proprieties,' inexpert +of 'elegant diction,' yet with voice audible enough to whoso hath ears, +up there on the gravelly side-hills, or down on the splashy, +indiarubber-like salt-marshes of native Jaalam. To this soul also the +_Necessity of Creating_ somewhat has unveiled its awful front. If not +Oedipuses and Electras and Alcestises, then in God's name Birdofredum +Sawins! These also shall get born into the world, and filch (if so need) +a Zingali subsistence therein, these lank, omnivorous Yankees of his. He +shall paint the Seen, since the Unseen will not sit to him. Yet in him +also are Nibelungen-lays, and Iliads, and Ulysses-wanderings, and Divine +Comedies,--if only once he could come at them! Therein lies much, nay +all; for what truly is this which we name _All_, but that which we do +_not_ possess?... Glimpses also are given us of an old father Ezekiel, +not without paternal pride, as is the wont of such. A brown, +parchment-hided old man of the geoponic or bucolic species, gray-eyed, +we fancy, _queued_ perhaps, with much weather-cunning and plentiful +September-gale memories, bidding fair in good time to become the Oldest +Inhabitant. After such hasty apparition, he vanishes and is seen no +more.... Of 'Rev. Homer Wilbur, A.M., Pastor of the First Church in +Jaalam,' we have small care to speak here. Spare touch in him of his +Melesigenes namesake, save, haply, the--blindness! A tolerably +caliginose, nephelegeretous elderly gentleman, with infinite faculty of +sermonizing, muscularized by long practice and excellent digestive +apparatus, and, for the rest, well-meaning enough, and with small +private illuminations (somewhat tallowy, it is to be feared) of his own. +To him, there, 'Pastor of the First Church in Jaalam,' our Hosea +presents himself as a quite inexplicable Sphinx-riddle. A rich poverty +of Latin and Greek,--so far is clear enough, even to eyes peering myopic +through horn-lensed editorial spectacles,--but naught farther? O +purblind, well-meaning, altogether fuscous Melesigenes-Wilbur, there are +things in him incommunicable by stroke of birch! Did it ever enter that +old bewildered head of thine that there was the _Possibility of the +Infinite_ in him? To thee, quite wingless (and even featherless) biped, +has not so much even as a dream of wings ever come? 'Talented young +parishioner'? Among the Arts whereof thou art _Magister_, does that of +_seeing_ happen to be one? Unhappy _Artium Magister!_ Somehow a Nemean +lion, fulvous, torrid-eyed, dry-nursed in broad-howling +sand-wildernesses of a sufficiently rare spirit-Libya (it may be +supposed) has got whelped among the sheep. Already he stands +wild-glaring, with feet clutching the ground as with oak-roots, +gathering for a Remus-spring over the walls of thy little fold. In +heaven's name, go not near him with that flybite crook of thine! In good +time, thou painful preacher, thou wilt go to the appointed place of +departed Artillery-Election Sermons, Right-hands of Fellowship, and +Results of Councils, gathered to thy spiritual fathers with much Latin +of the Epitaphial sort; thou too, shalt have thy reward; but on him the +Eumenides have looked, not Xantippes of the pit, snake-tressed, +finger-threatening, but radiantly calm as on antique gems; for him paws +impatient the winged courser of the gods, champing unwelcome bit; him +the starry deeps, the empyrean glooms, and far-flashing splendors await. + + * * * * * + +_From the Onion Grove Phoenix._ + +A talented young townsman of ours, recently returned from a Continental +tour, and who is already favorably known to our readers by his sprightly +letters from abroad which have graced our columns, called at our office +yesterday. We learn from him, that, having enjoyed the distinguished +privilege, while in Germany, of an introduction to the celebrated Von +Humbug, he took the opportunity to present that eminent man with a copy +of the 'Biglow Papers.' The next morning he received the following note, +which he has kindly furnished us for publication. We prefer to print it +_verbatim_, knowing that our readers will readily forgive the few errors +into which the lllustrious writer has fallen, through ignorance of our +language. + +'HIGH-WORTHY MISTER! + +'I shall also now especially happy starve, because I have more or less a +work of one those aboriginal Red-Men seen in which have I so deaf an +interest ever taken full-worthy on the self shelf with our Gottsched to +be upset. + +'Pardon my in the English-speech un-practice! + +'Von Humbug.' + +He also sent with the above note a copy of his famous work on +'Cosmetics,' to be presented to Mr. Biglow; but this was taken from our +friend by the English custom-house officers, probably through a petty +national spite. No doubt, it has by this time found its way into the +British Museum. We trust this outrage will be exposed in all our +American papers. We shall do our best to bring it to the notice of the +State Department. Our numerous readers will share in the pleasure we +experience at seeing our young and vigorous national literature thus +encouragingly patted on the head by this venerable and world-renowned +German. We love to see these reciprocations of good-feeling between the +different branches of the great Anglo-Saxon race. + +[The following genuine 'notice' having met my eye, I gladly insert a +portion of it here, the more especially as it contains one of Mr. +Biglow's poems not elsewhere printed.--H.W.] + +_From the Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss._ + +... But, while we lament to see our young townsman thus mingling in the +heated contests of party politics, we think we detect in him the +presence of talents which, if properly directed, might give an innocent +pleasure to many. As a proof that he is competent to the production of +other kinds of poetry, we copy for our readers a short fragment of a +pastoral by him, the manuscript of which was loaned us by a friend. The +title of it is 'The Courtin'.' + +Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown, + An' peeked in thru the winder, +An' there sot Huldy all alone, + 'ith no one nigh to hender. + +Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung, + An' in amongst 'em rusted +The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young + Fetched back frum Concord busted. + +The wannut logs shot sparkles out + Towards the pootiest, bless her! +An' leetle fires danced all about + The chlny on the dresser. + +The very room, coz she wuz in, + Looked warm frum floor to ceilin', +An' she looked full ez rosy agin + Ez th' apples she wuz peelin'. + +She heerd a foot an' knowed it, tu, + Araspin' on the scraper,-- +All ways to once her feelins flew + Like sparks in burnt-up paper. + +He kin' o' l'itered on the mat, + Some doubtfle o' the seekle; +His heart kep' goin' pitypat, + But hern went pity Zekle. + +An' yet she gin her cheer a jerk + Ez though she wished him furder, +An' on her apples kep' to work + Ez ef a wager spurred her. + +'You want to see my Pa, I spose?' + 'Wall, no; I come designin'--' +'To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es + Agin to-morrow's i'nin'.' + +He stood a spell on one foot fust, + Then stood a spell on tother, +An' on which one he felt the wust + He couldn't ha' told ye, nuther. + +Sez he, 'I'd better call agin;' + Sez she,'Think likely, _Mister;_' +The last word pricked him like a pin, + An'--wal, he up and kist her. + +When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, + Huldy sot pale ez ashes, +All kind o'smily round the lips + An' teary round the lashes. + +Her blood riz quick, though, like the tide + Down to the Bay o' Fundy, +An' all I know is they wuz cried + In meetin', come nex Sunday. + + +SATIS multis sese emptores futuros libri professis, Georgius Nichols, +Cantabrigiensis, opus emittet de parte gravi sed adhuc neglecta +historiæ naturalis, cum titulo sequente, videlicet: + +_Conatus ad Delineationem naturalem nonnihil perfectiorem Scarabæi +Bombilatoris, vulgo dicti_ HUMBUG, ab HOMERO WILBUR, Artium Magistro, +Societatis historico-naturalis Jaalamensis Præside (Secretario, +Socioque (eheu!) singulo), multarumque aliarum Societatum eruditarum +(sive ineruditarum) tam domesticarum quam transmarinarum Socio--forsitan +futuro. + + + + +PROEMIUM + +LECTORI BENEVOLO S. + +Toga scholastica nondum deposita, quum systemata varia entomologica, a +viris ejus scientiæ cultoribus studiosissimis summa diligentia +ædificata, penitus indagassem, non fuit quin luctuose omnibus in iis, +quamvis aliter laude dignissimis, hiatum magni momenti perciperem. Tunc, +nescio quo motu superiore impulsus, aut qua captus dulcedine operis, ad +eum implendum (Curtius alter) me solemniter devovi. Nec ab isto labore, +[Greek: daimonios] imposito, abstinui antequam tractatulum sufficienter +inconcinnum lingua vernacula perfeceram. Inde, juveniliter tumefactus, +et barathro ineptiæ [Greek: ton bibliopolon] (necnon 'Publici +Legentis') nusquam explorato, me composuisse quod quasi placentas +præfervidas (ut sic dicam) homines ingurgitarent credidi. Sed, quum +huic et alio bibliopolæ MSS. mea submisissem et nihil solidius +responsione valde negativa in Musæum meum retulissem, horror ingens +atque misericordia, ob crassitudinem Lambertianam in cerebris +homunculorum istius muneris coelesti quadam ira infixam, me invasere. +Extemplo mei solius impensis librum edere decrevi, nihil omnino dubitans +quin 'Mundus Scientificus' (ut aiunt) crumenam meam ampliter repleret. +Nullam, attamen, ex agro illo meo parvulo segetem demessui præter +gaudium vacuum bene de Republica merendi. Iste panis meus pretiosus +super aquas literarias fæculentas præfidenter jactus, quasi Harpyiaram +quarundam (scilicet bibliopolarum istorum facinorosorum supradictorum) +tactu rancidus, intra perpaucos dies mihi domum rediit. Et, quum ipse +tali victu ali non tolerarem, primum in mentem venit pistori (typographo +nempe) nihilominus solvendum esse. Animum non idcirco demisi, imo æque +ac pueri naviculas suas penes se lino retinent (eo ut e recto cursu +delapsas ad ripam retrahant), sic ego Argâ meam chartaceam fluctibus +laborantem a quæsitu velleris aurei, ipse potius tonsus pelleque +exutus, mente solida revocavi. Metaphoram ut mutem, _boomarangam_ meam a +scopo aberrantem, retraxi, dum majore vi, occasione ministrante, +adversus Fortunam intorquerem. Ast mihi, talia volventi, et, sicut +Saturnus ille [Greek: paidoboros], liberos intellectûs mei depascere +fidenti, casus miserandus, nec antea inauditus, supervenit. Nam, ut +ferunt Scythas pietatis causa et parsimoniæ, parentes suos mortuos +devorâsse, sic filius hic meus primogenitus, Scythis ipsis minus +mansuetus, patrem vivum totum et calcitrantem exsorbere enixus est. Nec +tamen hac de causa sobolem meam esurientem exheredavi. Sed famem istam +pro valido testimonio virilitatis roborisque potius habui, cibumque ad +eam satiandam, salva paterna mea carne, petii. Et quia bilem illam +scaturientem ad æs etiam concoquendum idoneam esse estimabam, unde æs +alienum, ut minoris pretii, haberem, circumspexi. Rebus ita se +habentibus, ab avunculo meo Johanne Doolittie, Armigero, impetravi ut +pecunias necessarias suppeditaret, ne opus esset mihi universitatem +relinquendi antequam ad gradum primum in artibus pervenissem. Tune ego, +salvum facere patronum meum munificum maxime cupiens, omnes libros +primæ editionis operis mei non venditos una cum privilegio in omne +ævum ejusdem imprimendi et edendi avunculo meo dicto pigneravi. Ex illo +die, atro lapide notando, curæ vociferantes familiæ singulis annis +crescentis eo usque insultabant ut nunquam tam carum pignus e vinculis +istis aheneis solvere possem. + +Avunculo vero nuper mortuo, quum inter alios consanguineos testamenti +ejus lectionem audiendi causa advenissem, erectis auribus verba talia +sequentia accepi: 'Quoniam persuasum habeo meum dilectum nepotem +Homerum, longa et intima rerum angustarum domi experientia, aptissimum +esse qui divitias tueatur, beneficenterque ac prudenter iis divinis +creditis utatur,--ergo, motus hisce cogitationibus, exque amore meo in +illum magno, do, legoque nepoti caro meo supranominato omnes +singularesque istas possessiones nec ponderabiles nec computabiles meas +quæ sequuntur, scilicet: quingentos libros quos mihi pigneravit dictus +Homerus, anno lucis 1792, cum privilegio edendi et repetendi opus istud +"scientificum" (quod dicunt) suum, si sic elegerit. Tamen D.O.M, precor +oculos Homeri nepotis mei ita aperiat eumque moveat, ut libros istos in +bibliotheca unius e plurimis castellis suis Hispaniensibus tuto +abscondat.' + +His verbis vix credibilibus, auditis, cor meum in pectore exsultavit. +Deinde, quoniam tractatus Anglice scriptus spem auctoris fefellerat, +quippe quum studium Historiæ Naturalis in Republica nostra inter +factionis strepitum languescat, Latine versum edere statui, et eo potius +quia nescio quomodo disciplina academica et duo diplomata proficiant, +nisi quod peritos linguarum omnino mortuarum (et damnandarum, ut dicebat +iste [Greek: panourgos] Guilielmus Cobbett) nos faciant. + +Et mihi adhue superstes est tota illa editio prima, quam quasi +crepitaculum per quod dentes caninos dentibam retineo. + + * * * * * + +OPERIS SPECIMEN + +(_Ad exemplum Johannis Physiophili speciminis Monachologiæ_) + +12. S.B. _Militaris_, WILBUR. _Carnifex_, JABLONSK. _Profanus_, DESFONT. + +[Male hanece speciem _Cyclopem_ Fabricius vocat, ut qui singulo oculo ad +quod sui interest distinguitur. Melius vero Isaacus Outis nullum inter +S. milit. S. que Belzebul (Fabric. 152) discrimen esse defendit] + +Habitat civitat. Americ. austral. + +Aureis lineis splendidus; plerumque tamen sordidus, utpote lanienas +valde frequentans, foetore sanguinis allectus. Amat quoque insuper septa +apricari, neque inde, nisi maxima conatione detruditur. _Candidatus_ +ergo populariter vocatus. Caput cristam quasi pennarum ostendit. Pro +cibo vaccam publicam callide mulget; abdomen enorme; facultas suctus +haud facile estimanda. Otiosus, fatuus; ferox nihilominus, semperque +dimicare paratus. Tortuose repit. + +Capite sæpe maxima cum cura dissecto, ne illud rudimentum etiam cerebri +commune omnibus prope insectis detegere poteram. + +Unam de hoc S. milit. rem singularem notavi; nam S. Guineens. (Fabric. +143) servos facit, et idcirco a multis summa in reverentia habitus, +quasi scintillas rationis pæne humanæ demonstrans. + +24. S.B. _Criticus_, WILBUR. _Zoilus_, FABRIC. _Pygmæus_, CARLSEN. + +[Stultissime Johannes Stryx cum S. punctato (Fabric. 64-109) confundit. +Specimina quamplurima scrutationi microscopicæ subjeci, nunquam tamen +unum ulla indicia puncti cujusvis prorsus ostendentem inveni.] + +Præcipue formidolosus, insectatusque, in proxima rima anonyma sese +abscondit, _we, we_, creberrime stridens. Ineptus, segnipes. + +Habitat ubique gentium; in sicco; nidum suum terebratione indefessa +ædificans. Cibus. Libros depascit; siccos præcipue. + + + + +MELIBOEUS-HIPPONAX + + * * * * * + +THE + +Biglow Papers + +EDITED, + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, GLOSSARY, AND COPIOUS INDEX, + +BY + +HOMER WILBUR, A.M., + +PASTOR OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN JAALAM, AND (PROSPECTIVE) MEMBER OF +MANY LITERARY, LEARNED, AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES, + +(_for which see page 227_.) + +The ploughman's whistle, or the trivial flute, +Finds more respect than great Apollo's lute. +_Quarles's Emblems_, B. ii. E. 8. + +Margaritas, munde porcine, calcasti: en, siliquas accipe. +_Jac. Car. Fil. ad Pub. Leg._ Section 1. + + +NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE + +It will not have escaped the attentive eye, that I have, on the +title-page, omitted those honorary appendages to the editorial name +which not only add greatly to the value of every book, but whet and +exacerbate the appetite of the reader. For not only does he surmise that +an honorary membership of literary and scientific societies implies a +certain amount of necessary distinction on the part of the recipient of +such decorations, but he is willing to trust himself more entirely to an +author who writes under the fearful responsibility of involving the +reputation of such bodies as the _S. Archæol. Dahom._ or the _Acad. +Lit. et Scient. Kamtschat_. I cannot but think that the early editions +of Shakespeare and Milton would have met with more rapid and general +acceptance, but for the barrenness of their respective title-pages; and +I believe that, even now, a publisher of the works of either of those +justly distinguished men would find his account in procuring their +admission to the membership of learned bodies on the Continent,--a +proceeding no whit more incongruous than the reversal of the judgment +against Socrates, when he was already more than twenty centuries beyond +the reach of antidotes, and when his memory had acquired a deserved +respectability. I conceive that it was a feeling of the importance of +this precaution which induced Mr. Locke to style himself 'Gent.' on the +title-page of his Essay, as who should say to his readers that they +could receive his metaphysics on the honor of a gentleman. + +Nevertheless, finding that, without descending to a smaller size of type +than would have been compatible with the dignity of the several +societies to be named, I could not compress my intended list within the +limits of a single page, and thinking, moreover, that the act would +carry with it an air of decorous modesty, I have chosen to take the +reader aside, as it were, into my private closet, and there not only +exhibit to him the diplomas which I already possess, but also to furnish +him with a prophetic vision of those which I may, without undue +presumption, hope for, as not beyond the reach of human ambition and +attainment. And I am the rather induced to this from the fact that my +name has been unaccountably dropped from the last triennial catalogue of +our beloved _Alma Mater_. Whether this is to be attributed to the +difficulty of Latinizing any of those honorary adjuncts (with a complete +list of which I took care to furnish the proper persons nearly a year +beforehand), or whether it had its origin in any more culpable motives, +I forbear to consider in this place, the matter being in course of +painful investigation. But, however this may be, I felt the omission the +more keenly, as I had, in expectation of the new catalogue, enriched the +library of the Jaalam Athenæum with the old one then in my possession, +by which means it has come about that my children will be deprived of a +never-wearying winter evening's amusement in looking out the name of +their parent in that distinguished roll. Those harmless innocents had at +least committed no--but I forbear, having intrusted my reflections and +animadversions on this painful topic to the safe-keeping of my private +diary, intended for posthumous publication. I state this fact here, in +order that certain nameless individuals, who are, perhaps, overmuch +congratulating themselves upon my silence, may know that a rod is in +pickle which the vigorous hand of a justly incensed posterity will apply +to their memories. + +The careful reader will note that, in the list which I have prepared, I +have included the names of several Cisatlantic societies to which a +place is not commonly assigned in processions of this nature. I have +ventured to do this, not only to encourage native ambition and genius, +but also because I have never been able to perceive in what way distance +(unless we suppose them at the end of a lever) could increase the weight +of learned bodies. As far as I have been able to extend my researches +among such stuffed specimens as occasionally reach America, I have +discovered no generic difference between the antipodal _Fogrum +Japonicum_ and the _F. Americanum_, sufficiently common in our own +immediate neighborhood. Yet, with a becoming deference to the popular +belief that distinctions of this sort are enhanced in value by every +additional mile they travel, I have intermixed the names of some +tolerably distant literary and other associations with the rest. + +I add here, also, an advertisement, which, that it may be the more +readily understood by those persons especially interested therein, I +have written in that curtailed and otherwise maltreated canine Latin, to +the writing and reading of which they are accustomed. + +OMNIB. PER TOT. ORB. TERRAR. CATALOG. ACADEM, EDD. + +Minim. gent, diplom. ab inclytiss. acad. vest. orans, vir. honorand. +operosiss., at sol. ut sciat. quant. glor. nom. meum (dipl. fort. +concess.) catal. vest. temp. futur. affer., ill. subjec., addit. omnib. +titul. honorar. qu. adh. non tant. opt. quam probab. put. + +*** _Litt. Uncial, distinx. ut Præs. S. Hist. Nat. Jaal_. + +HOMERUS WILBUR, Mr., Episc. Jaalam, S.T.D. 1850, et Yal. 1849, et +Neo-Cæs. et Brun. et Gulielm. 1852, et Gul. et Mar. et Bowd. et +Georgiop. et Viridimont. et Columb. Nov. Ebor. 1853, et Amherst. et +Watervill. et S. Jarlath. Hib. et S. Mar. et S. Joseph, et S. And. Scot. +1854. et Nashvill. et Dart. et Dickins. et Concord. et Wash. et +Columbian. et Charlest. et Jeff. et Dubl. et Oxon. et Cantab. et Cæt. +1855. P.U.N.C.H. et J.U.D. Gott. et Osnab. et Heidelb. 1860, et Acad. +BORE US. Berolin. Soc., et SS. RR. Lugd. Bat. et Patav. et Lond. et +Edinb. et Ins. Feejee. et Null. Terr. et Pekin. Soc. Hon. et S.H.S et +S.P.A. et A.A.S. et S. Humb. Univ. et S. Omn. Rer. Quarund. q. Aliar. +Promov. Passamaquod. et H.P.C. et I.O.H, et [Greek: A.D.Ph.] et +[Greek: P.K.P.] et [Greek: Ph.B.K.] et Peucin. et Erosoph. et +Philadelph. et Frat. in Unit. et [Greek: S.T.] et S. Archæolog. +Athen. et Acad. Scient, et Lit. Panorm. et SS.R.H. Matrit. et +Beeloochist. et Caffrar. et Caribb. et M.S. Reg. Paris, et S. Am. +Antiserv. Soc. Hon. et P.D. Gott. et LL.D. 1852, et D.C.L. et Mus. Doc. +Oxon. 1860, et M.M.S.S. et M.D. 1854, et Med. Fac. Univ. Harv. Soc. et +S. pro Convers. Pollywog. Soc. Hon. et Higgl. Piggl. et LL.B. 1853, et +S. pro Christianiz. Moschet. Soc. et SS. Ante-Diluv. ubiq. Gent. Soc. +Hon. et Civit. Cleric. Jaalam. et S. pro Diffus. General. Tenebr. +Secret. Corr. + +INTRODUCTION + +When, more than three years ago, my talented young parishioner, Mr. +Biglow, came to me and submitted to my animadversions the first of his +poems which he intended to commit to the more hazardous trial of a city +newspaper, it never so much as entered my imagination to conceive that +his productions would ever be gathered into a fair volume, and ushered +into the august presence of the reading public by myself. + +So little are we short-sighted mortals able to predict the event! I +confess that there is to me a quite new satisfaction in being associated +(though only as sleeping partner) in a book which can stand by itself in +an independent unity on the shelves of libraries. For there is always +this drawback from the pleasure of printing a sermon, that, whereas the +queasy stomach of this generation will not bear a discourse long enough +to make a separate volume, those religious and godly-minded children +(those Samuels, if I may call them so) of the brain must at first be +buried in an undistinguished heap, and then get such resurrection as is +vouchsafed to them, mummy-wrapped with a score of others in a cheap +binding, with no other mark of distinction than the word +'_Miscellaneous_' printed upon the back. Far be it from me to claim any +credit for the quite unexpected popularity which I am pleased to find +these bucolic strains have attained unto. If I know myself, I am +measurably free from the itch of vanity; yet I may be allowed to say +that I was not backward to recognize in them a certain wild, puckery, +acidulous (sometimes even verging toward that point which, in our rustic +phrase, is termed _shut-eyed_) flavor, not wholly unpleasing, nor +unwholesome, to palates cloyed with the sugariness of tamed and +cultivated fruit. It may be, also, that some touches of my own, here and +there, may have led to their wider acceptance, albeit solely from my +larger experience of literature and authorship.[9] + +I was at first inclined to discourage Mr. Biglow's attempts, as knowing +that the desire to poetize is one of the diseases naturally incident to +adolescence, which, if the fitting remedies be not at once and with a +bold hand applied, may become chronic, and render one, who might else +have become in due time an ornament of the social circle, a painful +object even to nearest friends and relatives. But thinking, on a further +experience that there was a germ of promise in him which required only +culture and the pulling up of weeds from about it, I thought it best to +set before him the acknowledged examples of English composition in +verse, and leave the rest to natural emulation. With this view, I +accordingly lent him some volumes of Pope and Goldsmith, to the +assiduous study of which he promised to devote his evenings. Not long +afterward, he brought me some verses written upon that model, a specimen +of which I subjoin, having changed some phrases of less elegancy, and a +few rhymes objectionable to the cultivated ear. The poem consisted of +childish reminiscences, and the sketches which follow will not seem +destitute of truth to those whose fortunate education began in a country +village. And, first, let us hang up his charcoal portrait of the +school-dame. + +'Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see +The humble school-house of my A, B, C, +Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire, +Waited in ranks the wished command to fire, +Then all together, when the signal came, +Discharged their _a-b abs_ against the dame. +Daughter of Danaus, who could daily pour +In treacherous pipkins her Pierian store, +She, mid the volleyed learning firm and calm, +Patted the furloughed ferule on her palm, +And, to our wonder, could divine at once +Who flashed the pan, and who was downright dunce. + +'There young Devotion learned to climb with ease +The gnarly limbs of Scripture family-trees, +And he was most commended and admired +Who soonest to the topmost twig perspired; +Each name was called as many various ways +As pleased the reader's ear on different days, +So that the weather, or the ferule's stings, +Colds in the head, or fifty other things, +Transformed the helpless Hebrew thrice a week +To guttural Pequot or resounding Greek, +The vibrant accent skipping here and there, +Just as it pleased invention or despair; +No controversial Hebraist was the Dame; +With or without the points pleased her the same; +If any tyro found a name too tough. +And looked at her, pride furnished skill enough; +She nerved her larynx for the desperate thing, +And cleared the five-barred syllables at a spring. + +'Ah, dear old times! there once it was my hap, +Perched on a stool, to wear the long-eared cap; +From books degraded, there I sat at ease, +A drone, the envy of compulsory bees; +Rewards of merit, too, full many a time, +Each with its woodcut and its moral rhyme, +And pierced half-dollars hung on ribbons gay +About my neck (to be restored next day) +I carried home, rewards as shining then +As those that deck the lifelong pains of men, +More solid than the redemanded praise +With which the world beribbons later days. + +'Ah, dear old times! how brightly ye return! +How, rubbed afresh, your phosphor traces burn! +The ramble schoolward through dewsparkling meads, +The willow-wands turned Cinderella steeds, +The impromptu pin-bent hook, the deep remorse +O'er the chance-captured minnow's inchlong corse; +The pockets, plethoric with marbles round, +That still a space for ball and peg-top found, +Nor satiate yet, could manage to confine +Horsechestnuts, flagroot, and the kite's wound twine, +Nay, like the prophet's carpet could take in, +Enlarging still, the popgun's magazine; +The dinner carried in the small tin pail, +Shared with some dog, whose most beseeching tail +And dripping tongue and eager ears belied +The assumed indifference of canine pride; +The caper homeward, shortened if the cart +Of Neighbor Pomeroy, trundling from the mart, +O'ertook me,--then, translated to the seat +I praised the steed, how stanch he was and fleet, +While the bluff farmer, with superior grin, +Explained where horses should be thick, where thin, +And warned me (joke he always had in store) +To shun a beast that four white stockings wore. +What a fine natural courtesy was his! +His nod was pleasure, and his full bow bliss; +How did his well-thumbed hat, with ardor rapt, +Its curve decorous to each rank adapt! +How did it graduate with a courtly ease +The whole long scale of social differences, +Yet so gave each his measure running o'er, +None thought his own was less, his neighbor's more; +The squire was flattered, and the pauper knew +Old times acknowledged 'neath the threadbare blue! +Dropped at the corner of the embowered lane, +Whistling I wade the knee-deep leaves again, +While eager Argus, who has missed all day +The sharer of his condescending play, +Comes leaping onward with a bark elate +And boisterous tail to greet me at the gate; +That I was true in absence to our love +Let the thick dog's-ears in my primer prove.' + +I add only one further extract, which will possess a melancholy interest +to all such as have endeavored to glean the materials of revolutionary +history from the lips of aged persons, who took a part in the actual +making of it, and, finding the manufacture profitable, continued the +supply in an adequate proportion to the demand. + +'Old Joe is gone, who saw hot Percy goad +His slow artillery lip the Concord road, +A tale which grew in wonder, year by year, +As, every time he told it, Joe drew near +To the main fight, till, faded and grown gray, +The original scene to bolder tints gave way; +Then Joe had heard the foe's scared double-quick +Beat on stove drum with one un-captured stick, +And, ere death came the lengthening tale to lop, +Himself had fired, and seen a redcoat drop; +Had Joe lived long enough, that scrambling fight +Had squared more nearly with his sense of right, +And vanquished Percy, to complete the tale, +Had hammered stone for life in Concord jail.' + +I do not know that the foregoing extracts ought not to be called my own +rather than Mr. Biglow's, as, indeed, he maintained stoutly that my file +had left nothing of his in them. I should not, perhaps, have felt +entitled to take so great liberties with them, had I not more than +suspected an hereditary vein of poetry in myself, a very near ancestor +having written a Latin poem in the Harvard _Gratulatio_ on the accession +of George the Third. Suffice it to say, that, whether not satisfied with +such limited approbation as I could conscientiously bestow, or from a +sense of natural inaptitude, certain it is that my young friend could +never be induced to any further essays in this kind. He affirmed that it +was to him like writing in a foreign tongue,--that Mr. Pope's +versification was like the regular ticking of one of Willard's clocks, +in which one could fancy, after long listening, a certain kind of rhythm +or tune, but which yet was only a poverty-stricken _tick, tick_, after +all,--and that he had never seen a sweet-water on a trellis growing so +fairly, or in forms so pleasing to his eye, as a fox-grape over a +scrub-oak in a swamp. He added I know not what, to the effect that the +sweet-water would only be the more disfigured by having its leaves +starched and ironed out, and that Pegasus (so he called him) hardly +looked right with his mane and tail in curl-papers. These and other such +opinions I did not long strive to eradicate, attributing them rather to +a defective education and senses untuned by too long familiarity with +purely natural objects, than to a perverted moral sense. I was the more +inclined to this leniency since sufficient evidence was not to seek, +that his verses, wanting as they certainly were in classic polish and +point, had somehow taken hold of the public ear in a surprising manner. +So, only setting him right as to the quantity of the proper name +Pegasus, I left him to follow the bent of his natural genius. + +Yet could I not surrender him wholly to the tutelage of the pagan +(which, literally interpreted, signifies village) muse without yet a +further effort for his conversion, and to this end I resolved that +whatever of poetic fire yet burned in myself, aided by the assiduous +bellows of correct models, should be put in requisition. Accordingly, +when my ingenious young parishioner brought to my study a copy of verses +which he had written touching the acquisition of territory resulting +from the Mexican war, and the folly of leaving the question of slavery +or freedom to the adjudication of chance, I did myself indite a short +fable or apologue after the manner of Gay and Prior, to the end that he +might see how easily even such subjects as he treated of were capable of +a more refined style and more elegant expression. Mr. Biglow's +production was as follows:-- + + + +THE TWO GUNNERS + +A FABLE + +Two fellers, Isrel named and Joe, +One Sundy mornin' 'greed to go +Agunnin' soon 'z the bells wuz done +And meetin' finally begun, +So'st no one wouldn't be about +Ther Sabbath-breakin' to spy out. + +Joe didn't want to go a mite; +He felt ez though 'twarn't skeercely right, +But, when his doubts he went to speak on, +Isrel he up and called him Deacon, +An' kep' apokin' fun like sin +An' then arubbin' on it in, +Till Joe, less skeered o' doin' wrong +Than bein' laughed at, went along. + +Past noontime they went trampin' round +An' nary thing to pop at found, +Till, fairly tired o' their spree, +They leaned their guns agin a tree, +An' jest ez they wuz settin' down +To take their noonin', Joe looked roun' +And see (acrost lots in a pond +That warn't mor'n twenty rod beyond) +A goose that on the water sot +Ez ef awaitin' to be shot. + +Isrel he ups and grabs his gun; +Sez he, 'By ginger, here's some fun!' +'Don't fire,' sez Joe, 'it ain't no use, +Thet's Deacon Peleg's tame wil'-goose:' +Sez Isrel, 'I don't care a cent. +I've sighted an' I'll let her went;' +_Bang!_ went queen's-arm, ole gander flopped +His wings a spell, an' quorked, an' dropped. + +Sez Joe, 'I wouldn't ha' been hired +At that poor critter to ha' fired, +But since it's clean gin up the ghost, +We'll hev the tallest kind o' roast; +I guess our waistbands'll be tight +'Fore it comes ten o'clock ternight.' + +'I won't agree to no such bender,' +Sez Isrel; 'keep it tell it's tender; +'Tain't wuth a snap afore it's ripe.' +Sez Joe, 'I'd jest ez lives eat tripe; +You _air_ a buster ter suppose +I'd eat what makes me hol' my nose!' + +So they disputed to an' fro +Till cunnin' Isrel sez to Joe, +'Don't le's stay here an' play the fool, +Le's wait till both on us git cool, +Jest for a day or two le's hide it, +An' then toss up an' so decide it.' +'Agreed!' sez Joe, an' so they did, +An' the ole goose wuz safely hid. + +Now 'twuz the hottest kind o' weather, +An' when at last they come together, +It didn't signify which won, +Fer all the mischief hed been done: +The goose wuz there, but, fer his soul, +Joe wouldn't ha' tetched it with a pole; +But Isrel kind o' liked the smell on 't +An' made _his_ dinner very well on 't. + + +My own humble attempt was in manner and form following, and I print it +here, I sincerely trust, out of no vainglory, but solely with the hope +of doing good. + + + +LEAVING THE MATTER OPEN + +A TALE + +BY HOMER WILBUR, A.M. + +Two brothers once, an ill-matched pair, +Together dwelt (no matter where), +To whom an Uncle Sam, or some one, +Had left a house and farm in common. +The two in principles and habits +Were different as rats from rabbits; +Stout Farmer North, with frugal care, +Laid up provision for his heir, +Not scorning with hard sun-browned hands +To scrape acquaintance with his lands; +Whatever thing he had to do +He did, and made it pay him, too; +He sold his waste stone by the pound, +His drains made water-wheels spin round, +His ice in summer-time he sold, +His wood brought profit when 'twas cold, +He dug and delved from morn till night, +Strove to make profit square with right, +Lived on his means, cut no great dash, +And paid his debts in honest cash. + +On tother hand, his brother South +Lived very much from hand to mouth. +Played gentleman, nursed dainty hands, +Borrowed North's money on his lands, +And culled his morals and his graces +From cock-pits, bar-rooms, fights, and races; +His sole work in the farming line +Was keeping droves of long-legged swine, +Which brought great bothers and expenses +To North in looking after fences, +And, when they happened to break through, +Cost him both time and temper too, +For South insisted it was plain +He ought to drive them home again, +And North consented to the work +Because he loved to buy cheap pork. + +Meanwhile, South's swine increasing fast; +His farm became too small at last; +So, having thought the matter over, +And feeling bound to live in clover +And never pay the clover's worth, +He said one day to Brother North:-- + +'Our families are both increasing, +And, though we labor without ceasing, +Our produce soon will be too scant +To keep our children out of want; +They who wish fortune to be lasting +Must be both prudent and forecasting; +We soon shall need more land; a lot +I know, that cheaply can be bo't; +You lend the cash, I'll buy the acres. +And we'll be equally partakers.' + +Poor North, whose Anglo-Saxon blood +Gave him a hankering after mud, +Wavered a moment, then consented, +And, when the cash was paid, repented; +To make the new land worth a pin, +Thought he, it must be all fenced in, +For, if South's swine once get the run on 't +No kind of farming can be done on 't; +If that don't suit the other side, +'Tis best we instantly divide.' + +But somehow South could ne'er incline +This way or that to run the line, +And always found some new pretence +'Gainst setting the division fence; +At last he said:-- + 'For peace's sake, +Liberal concessions I will make; +Though I believe, upon my soul, +I've a just title to the whole, +I'll make an offer which I call +Gen'rous,--we'll have no fence at all; +Then both of us, whene'er we choose, +Can take what part we want to use; +If you should chance to need it first, +Pick you the best, I'll take the worst.' + +'Agreed!' cried North; thought he, This fall +With wheat and rye I'll sow it all; +In that way I shall get the start, +And South may whistle for his part. +So thought, so done, the field was sown, +And, winter haying come and gone, +Sly North walked blithely forth to spy, +The progress of his wheat and rye; +Heavens, what a sight! his brother's swine +Had asked themselves all out to dine; +Such grunting, munching, rooting, shoving, +The soil seemed all alive and moving, +As for his grain, such work they'd made on 't, +He couldn't spy a single blade on 't. + +Off in a rage he rushed to South, +'My wheat and rye'--grief choked his mouth: +'Pray don't mind me,' said South, 'but plant +All of the new land that you want;' +'Yes, but your hogs,' cried North; + + 'The grain +Won't hurt them,' answered South again; +'But they destroy my crop;' + + 'No doubt; +'Tis fortunate you've found it out; +Misfortunes teach, and only they, +You must not sow it in their way;' +'Nay, you,' says North, 'must keep them out;' +'Did I create them with a snout?' +Asked South demurely; 'as agreed, +The land is open to your seed, +And would you fain prevent my pigs +From running there their harmless rigs? +God knows I view this compromise +With not the most approving eyes; +I gave up my unquestioned rights +For sake of quiet days and nights; +I offered then, you know 'tis true, +To cut the piece of land in two.' +'Then cut it now,' growls North; + + 'Abate +Your heat,' says South, 'tis now too late; +I offered you the rocky corner, +But you, of your own good the scorner, +Refused to take it: I am sorry; +No doubt you might have found a quarry, +Perhaps a gold-mine, for aught I know, +Containing heaps of native rhino; +You can't expect me to resign +My rights'-- + + 'But where,' quoth North, 'are mine?' +'_Your_ rights,' says tother, 'well, that's funny, +_I_ bought the land'-- + '_I_ paid the money;' +'That,' answered South, 'is from the point, +The ownership, you'll grant, is joint; +I'm sure my only hope and trust is +Not law so much as abstract justice, +Though, you remember, 'twas agreed +That so and so--consult the deed; +Objections now are out of date, +They might have answered once, but Fate +Quashes them at the point we've got to; +_Obsta principiis_ that's my motto.' +So saying, South began to whistle +And looked as obstinate as gristle, +While North went homeward, each brown paw +Clenched like a knot of natural law, +And all the while, in either ear, +Heard something clicking wondrous clear. + + +To turn now to other matters, there are two things upon which it should +seem fitting to dilate somewhat more largely in this place,--the Yankee +character and the Yankee dialect. And, first, of the Yankee character, +which has wanted neither open maligners, nor even more dangerous enemies +in the persons of those unskilful painters who have given to it that +hardness, angularity, and want of proper perspective, which, in truth, +belonged, not to their subject, but to their own niggard and unskilful +pencil. + +New England was not so much the colony of a mother country, as a Hagar +driven forth into the wilderness. The little self-exiled band which came +hither in 1620 came, not to seek gold, but to found a democracy. They +came that they might have the privilege to work and pray, to sit upon +hard benches and listen to painful preachers as long as they would, yea, +even unto thirty-seventhly, if the spirit so willed it. And surely, if +the Greek might boast his Thermopylæ, where three hundred men fell in +resisting the Persian, we may well be proud of our Plymouth Rock, where +a handful of men, women, and children not merely faced, but vanquished, +winter, famine, the wilderness, and the yet more invincible _storge_ +that drew them back to the green island far away. These found no lotus +growing upon the surly shore, the taste of which could make them forget +their little native Ithaca; nor were they so wanting to themselves in +faith as to burn their ship, but could see the fair west-wind belly the +homeward sail, and then turn unrepining to grapple with the terrible +Unknown. + +As Want was the prime foe these hardy exodists had to fortress +themselves against, so it is little wonder if that traditional feud be +long in wearing out of the stock. The wounds of the old warfare were +long a-healing, and an east-wind of hard times puts a new ache into +every one of them. Thrift was the first lesson in their horn-book, +pointed out, letter after letter, by the lean finger of the hard +schoolmistress, Necessity. Neither were those plump, rosy-gilled +Englishmen that came hither, but a hard-faced, atrabilious, earnest-eyed +race, stiff from long wrestling with the Lord in prayer, and who had +taught Satan to dread the new Puritan hug. Add two hundred years' +influence of soil, climate, and exposure, with its necessary result of +idiosyncrasies, and we have the present Yankee, full of expedients, +half-master of all trades, inventive in all but the beautiful, full of +shifts, not yet capable of comfort, armed at all points against the old +enemy Hunger, longanimous, good at patching, not so careful for what is +best as for what will _do_, with a clasp to his purse and a button to +his pocket, not skilled to build against Time, as in old countries, but +against sore-pressing Need, accustomed to move the world with no [Greek: +pou sto] but his own two feet, and no lever but his own long forecast. A +strange hybrid, indeed, did circumstance beget, here in the New World, +upon the old Puritan stock, and the earth never before saw such +mystic-practicalism, such niggard-geniality, such +calculating-fanaticism, such cast-iron-enthusiasm, such +sour-faced-humor, such close-fisted-generosity. This new _Græculus +esuriens_ will make a living out of anything. He will invent new trades +as well as tools. His brain is his capital, and he will get education at +all risks. Put him on Juan Fernandez, and he would make a spelling-book +first, and a salt-pan afterward. _In coelum, jusseris, ibit_,--or the +other way either,--it is all one, so anything is to be got by it. Yet, +after all, thin, speculative Jonathan is more like the Englishman of two +centuries ago than John Bull himself is. He has lost somewhat in +solidity, has become fluent and adaptable, but more of the original +groundwork of character remains. He feels more at home with Fulke +Greville, Herbert of Cherbury, Quarles, George Herbert, and Browne, than +with his modern English cousins. He is nearer than John, by at least a +hundred years, to Naseby, Marston Moor, Worcester, and the time when, if +ever, there were true Englishmen. John Bull has suffered the idea of the +Invisible to be very much fattened out of him. Jonathan is conscious +still that he lives in the world of the Unseen as well as of the Seen. +To move John you must make your fulcrum of solid beef and pudding; an +abstract idea will do for Jonathan. + + * * * * * + + + +*** TO THE INDULGENT READER + + +My friend, the Rev. Mr. Wilbur, having been seized with a dangerous fit +of illness, before this Introduction had passed through the press, and +being incapacitated for all literary exertion, sent to me his notes, +memoranda, &c., and requested me to fashion them into some shape more +fitting for the general eye. This, owing to the fragmentary and +disjointed state of his manuscripts, I have felt wholly unable to do; +yet being unwilling that the reader should be deprived of such parts of +his lucubrations as seemed more finished, and not well discerning how to +segregate these from the rest, I have concluded to send them all to the +press precisely as they are. + +COLUMBUS NYE, + +_Pastor of a Church in Bungtown Corner._ + + +It remains to speak of the Yankee dialect. And, first, it may be +premised, in a general way, that any one much read in the writings of +the early colonists need not be told that the far greater share of the +words and phrases now esteemed peculiar to New England, and local there, +were brought from the mother country. A person familiar with the +dialect of certain portions of Massachusetts will not fail to recognize, +in ordinary discourse, many words now noted in English vocabularies as +archaic, the greater part of which were in common use about the time of +the King James translation of the Bible. Shakespeare stands less in need +of a glossary to most New-Englanders than to many a native of the Old +Country. The peculiarities of our speech, however, are rapidly wearing +out. As there is no country where reading is so universal and newspapers +are so multitudinous, so no phrase remains long local, but is +transplanted in the mail-bags to every remotest corner of the land. +Consequently our dialect approaches nearer to uniformity than that of +any other nation. + +The English have complained of us for coining new words. Many of those +so stigmatized were old ones by them forgotten, and all make now an +unquestioned part of the currency, wherever English is spoken. +Undoubtedly, we have a right to make new words, as they are needed by +the fresh aspects under which life presents itself here in the New +World; and, indeed, wherever a language is alive, it grows. It might be +questioned whether we could not establish a stronger title to the +ownership of the English tongue than the mother-islanders themselves. +Here, past all question, is to be its great home and centre. And not +only is it already spoken here by greater numbers, but with a far higher +popular average of correctness than in Britain. The great writers of it, +too, we might claim as ours, were ownership to be settled by the number +of readers and lovers. + +As regards the provincialisms to be met with in this volume, I may say +that the reader will not find one which is not (as I believe) either +native or imported with the early settlers, nor one which I have not, +with my own ears, heard in familiar use. In the metrical portion of the +book, I have endeavored to adapt the spelling as nearly as possible to +the ordinary mode of pronunciation. Let the reader who deems me +over-particular remember this caution of Martial:-- + + 'Quem recitas, meus est, O Fidentine, libellus; + Sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus.' + +A few further explanatory remarks will not be impertinent. + +I shall barely lay down a few general rules for the reader's guidance. + +1. The genuine Yankee never gives the rough sound to the _r_ when he can +help it, and often displays considerable ingenuity in avoiding it even +before a vowel. + +2. He seldom sounds the final _g_, a piece of self-denial, if we +consider his partiality for nasals. The same of the final _d_, as _han'_ +and _stan'_ for _hand_ and _stand_. + +3. The _h_ in such words as _while, when, where,_ he omits altogether. + +4. In regard to _a_, he shows some inconsistency, sometimes giving a +close and obscure sound, as _hev_ for _have, hendy_ for _handy, ez_ for +_as, thet_ for _that_, and again giving it the broad sound it has in +_father_, as _hânsome_ for _handsome._ + +5. To the sound _ou_ he prefixes an _e_ (hard to exemplify otherwise +than orally). + +The following passage in Shakespeare he would recite thus:-- + +'Neow is the winta uv eour discontent +Med glorious summa by this sun o'Yock, +An' all the cleouds thet leowered upun eour heouse +In the deep buzzum o' the oshin buried; +Neow air eour breows beound 'ith victorious wreaths; +Eour breused arms hung up fer monimunce; +Eour starn alarums changed to merry meetins, +Eour dreffle marches to delighfle masures. +Grim-visaged war heth smeuthed his wrinkled front, +An' neow, instid o' mountin' bare-bid steeds +To fright the souls o' ferfle edverseries, +He capers nimly in a lady's chămber, +To the lascivious pleasin' uv a loot.' + +6. _Au_, in such words as _daughter_ and _slaughter_, he pronounces +_ah_. + +7. To the dish thus seasoned add a drawl _ad libitum_. + +[Mr. Wilbur's notes here become entirely fragmentary.--C.N.] + + +[Greek: a]. Unable to procure a likeness of Mr. Biglow, I thought the +curious reader might be gratified with a sight of the editorial +effigies. And here a choice between two was offered,--the one a profile +(entirely black) cut by Doyle, the other a portrait painted by a native +artist of much promise. The first of these seemed wanting in expression, +and in the second a slight obliquity of the visual organs has been +heightened (perhaps from an over-desire of force on the part of the +artist) into too close an approach to actual _strabismus_. This slight +divergence in my optical apparatus from the ordinary model--however I +may have been taught to regard it in the light of a mercy rather than a +cross, since it enabled me to give as much of directness and personal +application to my discourses as met the wants of my congregation, +without risk of offending any by being supposed to have him or her in my +eye (as the saying is)--seemed yet to Mrs. Wilbur a sufficient objection +to the engraving of the aforesaid painting. We read of many who either +absolutely refused to allow the copying of their features, as especially +did Plotinus and Agesilaus among the ancients, not to mention the more +modern instances of Scioppius, Palæottus, Pinellus, Velserus, Gataker, +and others, or were indifferent thereto, as Cromwell. + +[Greek: b.] Yet was Cæsar desirous of concealing his baldness. _Per +contra_, my Lord Protector's carefulness in the matter of his wart might +be cited. Men generally more desirous of being _improved_ in their +portraits than characters. Shall probably find very unflattered +likenesses of ourselves in Recording Angel's gallery. + +[Greek: g.] Whether any of our national peculiarities may be traced to +our use of stoves, as a certain closeness of the lips in pronunciation, +and a smothered smoulderingness of disposition seldom roused to open +flame? An unrestrained intercourse with fire probably conducive to +generosity and hospitality of soul. Ancient Mexicans used stoves, as the +friar Augustin Ruiz reports, Hakluyt, III. 468,--but Popish priests not +always reliable authority. + +To-day picked my Isabella grapes. Crop injured by attacks of rose-bug in +the spring. Whether Noah was justifiable in preserving this class of +insects? + +[Greek: d]. Concerning Mr. Biglow's pedigree. Tolerably certain that +there was never a poet among his ancestors. An ordination hymn +attributed to a maternal uncle, but perhaps a sort of production not +demanding the creative faculty. + +His grandfather a painter of the grandiose or Michael Angelo school. +Seldom painted objects smaller than houses or barns, and these with +uncommon expression. + +[Greek: e]. Of the Wilburs no complete pedigree. The crest said to be a +_wild boar_, whence, perhaps, the name. (?) A connection with the Earls +of Wilbraham (_quasi_ wild boar ham) might be made out. This suggestion +worth following up. In 1677, John W.m. Expect----, had issue, 1. John, +2. Haggai, 3. Expect, 4. Ruhamah, 5. Desire. + +'Here lyes y'e bodye of Mrs. Expect Wilber, +Ye crewell salvages they kil'd her +Together w'th other Christian soles eleaven, +October y'e ix daye, 1707. +Y'e stream of Jordan sh' as crost ore +And now expeacts me on y'e other shore: +I live in hope her soon to join; +Her earthlye yeeres were forty and nine.' + + _From Gravestone in Pekussett, North Parish._ + +This is unquestionably the same John who afterward (1711) married +Tabitha Hagg or Ragg. + +But if this were the case, she seems to have died early; for only three +years after, namely, 1714, we have evidence that he married Winifred, +daughter of Lieutenant Tipping. + +He seems to have been a man of substance, for we find him in 1696 +conveying 'one undivided eightieth part of a salt-meadow' in Yabbok, and +he commanded a sloop in 1702. + +Those who doubt the importance of genealogical studies _fuste potius +quam argumento erudiendi_. + +I trace him as far as 1723, and there lose him. In that year he was +chosen selectman. + +No gravestone. Perhaps overthrown when new hearse-house was built, 1802. + +He was probably the son of John, who came from Bilham Comit. Salop. +circa 1642. + +This first John was a man of considerable importance, being twice +mentioned with the honorable prefix of _Mr._ in the town records. Name +spelt with two _l-s_. + +'Hear lyeth y'e bod [_stone unhappily broken_.] +Mr. Ihon Wilber [Esq.] [_I inclose this in brackets as doubtful. + To me it seems clear_.] +Ob't die [_illegible; looks like xviii_.].... iii [_prob. 1693_.] + ... paynt + ... deseased seinte: +A friend and [fath]er untoe all y'e opreast, +Hee gave y'e wicked familists noe reast, +When Sat[an bl]ewe his Antinomian blaste. +Wee clong to [Willber as a steadf]ast maste. +[A]gaynst y'e horrid Qua[kers] ...' + +It is greatly to be lamented that this curious epitaph is mutilated. It +is said that the sacrilegious British soldiers made a target of the +stone during the war of Independence. How odious an animosity which +pauses not at the grave! How brutal that which spares not the monuments +of authentic history! This is not improbably from the pen of Rev. Moody +Pyram, who is mentioned by Hubbard as having been noted for a silver +vein of poetry. If his papers be still extant, a copy might possibly be +recovered. + + + +THE BIGLOW PAPERS + +No. I + +A LETTER + +FROM MR. EZEKIEL BIGLOW OF JAALAM TO THE HON. JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM, +EDITOR OF THE BOSTON COURIER, INCLOSING A POEM OF HIS SON, MR. HOSEA +BIGLOW + +JAYLEM, june 1846. + +MISTER EDDYTER:--Our Hosea wuz down to Boston last week, and he see a +cruetin Sarjunt a struttin round as popler as a hen with 1 chicking, +with 2 fellers a drummin and fifin arter him like all nater. the sarjunt +he thout Hosea hedn't gut his i teeth cut cos he looked a kindo 's +though he'd jest com down, so he cal'lated to hook him in, but Hosy +woodn't take none o' his sarse for all he hed much as 20 Rooster's tales +stuck onto his hat and eenamost enuf brass a bobbin up and down on his +shoulders and figureed onto his coat and trousis, let alone wut nater +hed sot in his featers, to make a 6 pounder out on. + +wal, Hosea he com home considerabal riled, and arter I'd gone to bed I +heern Him a thrashin round like a short-tailed Bull in fli-time. The old +Woman ses she to me ses she, Zekle, ses she, our Hosee's gut the +chollery or suthin anuther ses she, don't you Bee skeered, ses I, he's +oney amakin pottery[10] ses i, he's ollers on hand at that ere busynes +like Da & martin, and shure enuf, cum mornin, Hosy he cum down stares +full chizzle, hare on eend and cote tales flyin, and sot rite of to go +reed his varses to Parson Wilbur bein he haint aney grate shows o' book +larnin himself, bimeby he cum back and sed the parson wuz dreffle +tickled with 'em as i hoop you will Be, and said they wuz True grit. + +Hosea ses taint hardly fair to call 'em hisn now, cos the parson kind o' +slicked off sum o' the last varses, but he told Hosee he didn't want to +put his ore in to tetch to the Rest on 'em, bein they wuz verry well As +thay wuz, and then Hosy ses he sed suthin a nuther about Simplex +Mundishes or sum sech feller, but I guess Hosea kind o' didn't hear him, +for I never hearn o' nobody o' that name in this villadge, and I've +lived here man and boy 76 year cum next tater diggin, and thair aint no +wheres a kitting spryer 'n I be. + +If you print 'em I wish you'd jest let folks know who hosy's father is, +cos my ant Keziah used to say it's nater to be curus ses she, she aint +livin though and he's a likely kind o' lad. + +EZEKIEL BIGLOW. + + + + * * * * * + +Thrash away, you'll _hev_ to rattle + On them kittle-drums o' yourn,-- +'Taint a knowin' kind o' cattle + Thet is ketched with mouldy corn; +Put in stiff, you fifer feller, + Let folks see how spry you be,-- +Guess you'll toot till you are yeller + 'Fore you git ahold o' me! + +Thet air flag's a leetle rotten, + Hope it aint your Sunday's best;-- 10 +Fact! it takes a sight o' cotton + To stuff out a soger's chest: +Sence we farmers hev to pay fer't, + Ef you must wear humps like these, +S'posin' you should try salt hay fer't, + It would du ez slick ez grease. + +'Twouldn't suit them Southun fellers, + They're a dreffle graspin' set, +We must ollers blow the bellers + Wen they want their irons het; 20 +May be it's all right ez preachin', + But _my_ narves it kind o' grates, +Wen I see the overreachin' + O' them nigger-drivin' States. + +Them thet rule us, them slave-traders, + Haint they cut a thunderin' swarth +(Helped by Yankee renegaders), + Thru the vartu o' the North! +We begin to think it's nater + To take sarse an' not be riled;-- 30 +Who'd expect to see a tater + All on eend at bein' biled? + +Ez fer war, I call it murder,-- + There you hev it plain an' flat; +I don't want to go no furder + Than my Testyment fer that; +God hez sed so plump an' fairly, + It's ez long ez it is broad, +An' you've gut to git up airly + Ef you want to take in God. 40 + +'Taint your eppyletts an' feathers + Make the thing a grain more right; +'Taint afollerin' your bell-wethers + Will excuse ye in His sight; +Ef you take a sword an' dror it, + An' go stick a feller thru, +Guv'ment aint to answer for it, + God'll send the bill to you. + +Wut's the use o' meetin'-goin' + Every Sabbath, wet or dry, 50 +Ef it's right to go amowin' + Feller-men like oats an' rye? +I dunno but wut it's pooty + Trainin' round in bobtail coats,-- +But it's curus Christian dooty + This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats. + +They may talk o' Freedom's airy + Tell they're pupple in the face,-- +It's a grand gret cemetary + Fer the barthrights of our race; 60 +They jest want this Californy + So's to lug new slave-states in +To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye, + An' to plunder ye like sin. + +Aint it cute to see a Yankee + Take sech everlastin' pains, +All to get the Devil's thankee + Helpin' on 'em weld their chains? +Wy, it's jest ez clear ez figgers, + Clear ez one an' one make two, 70 +Chaps thet make black slaves o' niggers + Want to make wite slaves o' you. + +Tell ye jest the eend I've come to + Arter cipherin' plaguy smart, +An' it makes a handy sum, tu. + Any gump could larn by heart; +Laborin' man an' laborin' woman + Hev one glory an' one shame. +Ev'y thin' thet's done inhuman + Injers all on 'em the same. 80 + +'Taint by turnln' out to hack folks + You're agoin' to git your right, +Nor by lookin' down on black folks + Coz you're put upon by wite; +Slavery aint o' nary color, + 'Taint the hide thet makes it wus, +All it keers fer in a feller + 'S jest to make him fill its pus. + +Want to tackle _me_ in, du ye? + I expect you'll hev to wait; 90 +Wen cold lead puts daylight thru ye + You'll begin to kal'late; +S'pose the crows wun't fall to pickin' + All the carkiss from your bones, +Coz you helped to give a lickin' + To them poor half-Spanish drones? + +Jest go home an' ask our Nancy + Wether I'd be sech a goose +Ez to jine ye,--guess you'd fancy + The etarnal bung wuz loose! 100 +She wants me fer home consumption, + Let alone the hay's to mow,-- +Ef you're arter folks o' gumption, + You've a darned long row to hoe. + +Take them editors thet's crowin' + Like a cockerel three months old,-- +Don't ketch any on 'em goin + Though they _be_ so blasted bold; +_Aint_ they a prime lot o' fellers? + 'Fore they think on 't guess they'll sprout 110 +(Like a peach thet's got the yellers), + With the meanness bustin' out. + +Wal, go 'long to help 'em stealin' + Bigger pens to cram with slaves, +Help the men thet's ollers dealin' + Insults on your fathers' graves; +Help the strong to grind the feeble, + Help the many agin the few, +Help the men thet call your people + Witewashed slaves an' peddlin' crew! 120 + +Massachusetts, God forgive her, + She's akneelin' with the rest, +She, thet ough' to ha' clung ferever + In her grand old eagle-nest; +She thet ough' to stand so fearless + W'ile the wracks are round her hurled, +Holdin' up a beacon peerless + To the oppressed of all the world! + +Ha'n't they sold your colored seamen? + Ha'n't they made your env'ys w'iz? 130 +_Wut_'ll make ye act like freemen? + _Wut_'ll git your dander riz? +Come, I'll tell ye wut I'm thinkin' + Is our dooty in this fix. +They'd ha' done 't ez quick ez winkin' + In the days o' seventy-six. + +Clang the bells in every steeple, + Call all true men to disown +The tradoocers of our people, + The enslavers o' their own; 140 +Let our dear old Bay State proudly + Put the trumpet to her mouth, +Let her ring this messidge loudly + In the ears of all the South:-- + +'I'll return ye good fer evil + Much ez we frail mortils can, +But I wun't go help the Devil + Makin' man the cuss o' man; +Call me coward, call me traiter, + Jest ez suits your mean idees,-- +Here I stand a tyrant hater, 151 + An' the friend o' God an' Peace!' + +Ef I'd _my_ way I hed ruther + We should go to work an part, +They take one way, we take t'other, + Guess it wouldn't break my heart; +Man hed ough' to put asunder + Them thet God has noways jined; +An' I shouldn't gretly wonder + Ef there's thousands o' my mind. 160 + + +[The first recruiting sergeant on record I conceive to have been that +individual who is mentioned in the Book of Job as _going to and fro in +the earth, and walking up and down in it._ Bishop Latimer will have him +to have been a bishop, but to me that other calling would appear more +congenial. The sect of Cainites is not yet extinct, who esteemed the +first-born of Adam to be the most worthy, not only because of that +privilege of primogeniture, but inasmuch as he was able to overcome and +slay his younger brother. That was a wise saying of the famous Marquis +Pescara to the Papal Legate, that _it was impossible for men to serve +Mars and Christ at the same time_. Yet in time past the profession of +arms was judged to be [Greek: kat exochaen] that of a gentleman, nor +does this opinion want for strenuous upholders even in our day. Must we +suppose, then, that the profession of Christianity was only intended for +losels, or, at best, to afford an opening for plebeian ambition? Or +shall we hold with that nicely metaphysical Pomeranian, Captain Vratz, +who was Count Königsmark's chief instrument in the murder of Mr. Thynne, +that the Scheme of Salvation has been arranged with an especial eye to +the necessities of the upper classes, and that 'God would consider a +_gentleman_ and deal with him suitably to the condition and profession +he had placed him in'? It may be said of us all, _Exemplo plus quam +ratione vivimus_.--H.W.] + + + +No. II + +A LETTER + +FROM MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE HON. J.T. BUCKINGHAM, EDITOR OF THE BOSTON +COURIER, COVERING A LETTER FROM MR. B. SAWIN, PRIVATE IN THE +MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT + + +[This letter of Mr. Sawin's was not originally written in verse. Mr. +Biglow, thinking it peculiarly susceptible of metrical adornment, +translated it, so to speak, into his own vernacular tongue. This is not +the time to consider the question, whether rhyme be a mode of expression +natural to the human race. If leisure from other and more important +avocations be granted, I will handle the matter more at large in an +appendix to the present volume. In this place I will barely remark, that +I have sometimes noticed in the unlanguaged prattlings of infants a +fondness for alliteration, assonance, and even rhyme, in which natural +predisposition we may trace the three degrees through which our +Anglo-Saxon verse rose to its culmination in the poetry of Pope. I would +not be understood as questioning in these remarks that pious theory +which supposes that children, if left entirely to themselves, would +naturally discourse in Hebrew. For this the authority of one experiment +is claimed, and I could, with Sir Thomas Browne, desire its +establishment, inasmuch as the acquirement of that sacred tongue would +thereby be facilitated. I am aware that Herodotus states the conclusion +of Psammetieus to have been in favor of a dialect of the Phrygian. But, +beside the chance that a trial of this importance would hardly be +blessed to a Pagan monarch whose only motive was curiosity, we have on +the Hebrew side the comparatively recent investigation of James the +Fourth of Scotland. I will add to this prefatory remark, that Mr. Sawin, +though a native of Jaalam, has never been a stated attendant on the +religious exercises of my congregation. I consider my humble efforts +prospered in that not one of my sheep hath ever indued the wolf's +clothing of war, save for the comparatively innocent diversion of a +militia training. Not that my flock are backward to undergo the +hardships of _defensive_ warfare. They serve cheerfully in the great +army which fights, even unto death _pro aris et focis_, accoutred with +the spade, the axe, the plane, the sledge, the spelling-book, and other +such effectual weapons against want and ignorance and unthrift. I have +taught them (under God) to esteem our human institutions as but tents of +a night, to be stricken whenever Truth puts the bugle to her lips and +sounds a march to the heights of wider-viewed intelligence and more +perfect organization.--H.W.] + + +MISTER BUCKINUM, the follerin Billet was writ hum by a Yung feller of +our town that wuz cussed fool enuff to goe atrottin inter Miss Chiff +arter a Drum and fife, it ain't Nater for a feller to let on that he's +sick o' any bizness that He went intu off his own free will and a Cord, +but I rather cal'late he's middlin tired o' voluntearin By this Time. I +bleeve u may put dependunts on his statemence. For I never heered nothin +bad on him let Alone his havin what Parson Wilbur cals a _pong shong_ +for cocktales, and he ses it wuz a soshiashun of idees sot him agoin +arter the Crootin Sargient cos he wore a cocktale onto his hat. + +his Folks gin the letter to me and i shew it to parson Wilbur and he ses +it oughter Bee printed. send It to mister Buckinum, ses he, i don't +ollers agree with him, ses he, but by Time,[11] ses he, I _du_ like a +feller that aint a Feared. + +I have intusspussed a Few refleckshuns hear and thar. We're a kind +o'prest with Hayin. + +Ewers respecfly +HOSEA BIGLOW. + + + +This kind o' sogerin' aint a mite like our October trainin', +A chap could clear right out from there ef 't only looked like rainin', +An' th' Cunnles, tu, could kiver up their shappoes with bandanners, +An' send the insines skootin' to the bar-room with their banners +(Fear o' gittin' on 'em spotted), an' a feller could cry quarter +Ef he fired away his ramrod arter tu much rum an' water. +Recollect wut fun we hed, you 'n' I an' Ezry Hollis, +Up there to Waltham plain last fall, along o' the Cornwallis?[12] + +This sort o' thing aint _jest_ like thet,--I wish thet I wuz furder,[13]-- +Ninepunce a day fer killin' folks comes kind o' low fer murder, 10 +(Wy I've worked out to slarterin' some fer Deacon Cephas Billins, +An' in the hardest times there wuz I ollers tetched ten shillins.) +There's sutthin' gits into my throat thet makes it hard to swaller, +It comes so naturel to think about a hempen collar; +It's glory,--but, in spite o' all my tryin' to git callous, +I feel a kind o' in a cart, aridin' to the gallus. +But wen it comes to _bein'_ killed,--I tell ye I felt streaked +The fust time 't ever I found out wy baggonets wuz peaked; +Here's how it wuz: I started out to go to a fandango, +The sentinul he ups an' sez, 'Thet's furder 'an you can go.' 20 +'None o' your sarse,' sez I; sez he, 'Stan' back!' 'Aint you a buster?' +Sez I, 'I'm up to all thet air, I guess I've ben to muster; +I know wy sentinuls air sot; you aint agoin' to eat us; +Caleb haint no monopoly to court the seenorcetas; +My folks to hum air full ez good ez his'n be, by golly!' +An' so ez I wuz goin' by, not thinkin' wut would folly, +The everlastin' cus he stuck his one-pronged pitchfork in me +An' made a hole right thru my close ez ef I wuz an in'my. + +Wal, it beats all how big I felt hoorawin' in ole Funnel +Wen Mister Bolles he gin the sword to our Leftenant Cunnle, 30 +(It's Mister Secondary Bolles,[14] thet writ the prize peace essay. +Thet's wy he didn't list himself along o' us, I dessay,) +An' Rantoul, tu, talked pooty loud, but don't put _his_ foot in it, +Coz human life's so sacred thet he's principled agin it,-- +Though I myself can't rightly see it's any wus achokin' on 'em; +Than puttin' bullets thru their lights, or with a bagnet pokin' on 'em; +How dreffle slick he reeled it off (like Blitz at our lyceum +Ahaulin' ribbins from his chops so quick you skeercely see 'em), +About the Anglo-Saxon race (an' saxons would be handy +To du the buryin' down here upon the Rio Grandy), 40 +About our patriotic pas an' our star-spangled banner, +Our country's bird alookin' on an' singin' out hosanner, +An' how he (Mister B. himself) wuz happy fer Ameriky,-- +I felt, ez sister Patience sez, a leetle mite histericky. +I felt, I swon, ez though it wuz a dreffle kind o' privilege +Atrampin' round thru Boston streets among the gutter's drivelage; +I act'lly thought it wuz a treat to hear a little drummin', +An' it did bonyfidy seem millanyum wuz acomin' +Wen all on us got suits (darned like them wore in the state prison) +An' every feller felt ez though all Mexico wuz hisn.[15] 50 +This 'ere's about the meanest place a skunk could wal dlskiver +(Saltillo's Mexican, I b'lieve, fer wut we call Salt-river); +The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater, +I'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one good blue-nose tater, +The country here thet Mister Bolles declared to be so charmin' +Throughout is swarmin' with the most alarmin' kind o' varmin. +He talked about delishis froots, but then it wuz a wopper all, +The holl on 't 's mud an' prickly pears, with here an' there a chapparal; +You see a feller peekin' out, an', fust you know, a lariat +Is round your throat an' you a copse, 'fore you can say, 'Wut air ye + at?'[16] 60 +You never see sech darned gret bugs (it may not be irrelevant +To say I've seen a _scarabæus pilularius_[17] big ez a year old elephant), +The rigiment come up one day in time to stop a red bug +From runnin off with Cunnle Wright,--'twuz jest a common _cimex + lectularius._ + +One night I started up on eend an' thought I wuz to hum agin, +I heern a horn, thinks I it's Sol the fisherman hez come agin, +_His_ bellowses is sound enough,--ez I'm a livin' creeter, +I felt a thing go thru my leg--'twuz nothin' more 'n a skeeter! +Then there's the yaller fever, tu, they call it here el vomito,-- +(Come, thet wun't du, you landcrab there, I tell ye to le' _go_ my + toe! 70 +My gracious! it's a scorpion thet's took a shine to play with 't, +I darsn't skeer the tarnal thing fer fear he'd run away with 't,) +Afore I come away from hum I hed a strong persuasion +Thet Mexicans worn't human beans,[18]--an ourang outang nation, +A sort o' folks a chap could kill an' never dream on 't arter, +No more 'n a feller'd dream o' pigs thet he hed hed to slarter; +I'd an idee thet they were built arter the darkie fashion all, +An' kickin' colored folks about, you know 's a kind o' national; +But wen I jined I worn't so wise ez thet air queen o' Sheby, +Fer, come to look at 'em, they aint much diff'rent from wut we be, 80 +An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' thir own dominions, +Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions, +Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' 's trowsis +An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes an' houses; +Wal, it doos seem a curus way, but then hooraw fer Jackson! +It must be right, fer Caleb sez it's reg'lar Anglo-Saxon, +The Mex'cans don't fight fair, they say, they piz'n all the water, +An' du amazin' lots o' things thet isn't wut they ough' to; +Bein' they haint no lead, they make their bullets out o' copper +An' shoot the darned things at us, tu, wich Caleb sez ain + proper; 90 +He sez they'd ough' to stan' right up an' let us pop 'em fairly +(Guess wen he ketches 'em at thet he'll hev to git up airly), +Thet our nation's bigger 'n theirn an' so its rights air bigger, +An' thet it's all to make 'em free thet we air pullin' trigger, +Thet Anglo Saxondom's idee's abreakin' 'em to pieces, +An' thet idee's thet every man doos jest wut he damn pleases; +Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, perhaps in some respex I can, +I know thet 'every man' don't mean a nigger or a Mexican; +An' there's another thing I know, an' thet is, ef these creeters, +Thet stick an Anglosaxon mask onto State-prison feeturs, 100 +Should come to Jaalam Centre fer to argify an' spout on 't, +The gals 'ould count the silver spoons the minnit they cleared out on 't. + +This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur, +An' ef it worn't fer wakin' snakes, I'd home agin short meter; +O, wouldn't I be off, quick time, ef 't worn't thet I wuz sartin +They'd let the daylight into me to pay me fer desartin! +I don't approve o' tellin' tales, but jest to you I may state +Our ossifers aiut wut they wuz afore they left the Bay-state; +Then it wuz 'Mister Sawin, sir, you're middlin' well now, be ye? +Step up an' take a nipper, sir; I'm dreffle glad to see ye:' 110 +But now it's 'Ware's my eppylet? here, Sawin, step an' fetch it! +An' mind your eye, be thund'rin' spry, or, damn ye, you shall ketch it!' +Wal, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will bile so, but by mighty, +Ef I hed some on 'em to hum, I'd give 'em linkum vity, +I'd play the rogue's march on their hides an' other music follerin'-- +But I must close my letter here, fer one on 'em 's ahollerin', +These Anglosaxon ossifers,--wal, taint no use ajawin', +I'm safe enlisted fer the war, + Yourn, + BIRDOFREDOM SAWIN. + + +[Those have not been wanting (as, indeed, when hath Satan been to seek +for attorneys?) who have maintained that our late inroad upon Mexico was +undertaken not so much for the avenging of any national quarrel, as for +the spreading of free institutions and of Protestantism. _Capita vix +duabus Anticyris medenda!_ Verily I admire that no pious sergeant among +these new Crusaders beheld Martin Luther riding at the front of the host +upon a tamed pontifical bull, as, in that former invasion of Mexico, the +zealous Gomara (spawn though he were of the Scarlet Woman) was favored +with a vision of St. James of Compostella, skewering the infidels upon +his apostolical lance. We read, also, that Richard of the lion heart, +having gone to Palestine on a similar errand of mercy, was divinely +encouraged to cut the throats of such Paynims as refused to swallow the +bread of life (doubtless that they might be thereafter incapacitated for +swallowing the filthy gobbets of Mahound) by angels of heaven, who cried +to the king and his knights,_--Seigneurs, tuez! tuez!_ providentially +using the French tongue, as being the only one understood by their +auditors. This would argue for the pantoglottism of these celestial +intelligences, while, on the other hand, the Devil, _teste_ Cotton +Mather, is unversed in certain of the Indian dialects. Yet must he be a +semeiologist the most expert, making himself intelligible to every +people and kindred by signs; no other discourse, indeed, being needful, +than such as the mackerel-fisher holds with his finned quarry, who, if +other bait be wanting, can by a bare bit of white rag at the end of a +string captivate those foolish fishes. Such piscatorial persuasion is +Satan cunning in. Before one he trails a hat and feather, or a bare +feather without a hat; before another, a Presidential chair or a +tide-waiter's stool, or a pulpit in the city, no matter what. To us, +dangling there over our heads, they seem junkets dropped out of the +seventh heaven, sops dipped in nectar, but, once in our mouths, they are +all one, bits of fuzzy cotton. + +This, however, by the way. It is time now _revocare gradum_. While so +many miracles of this sort, vouched by eye-witnesses, have encouraged +the arms of Papists, not to speak of Echetlæus at Marathon and those +_Dioscuri_ (whom we must conclude imps of the pit) who sundry times +captained the pagan Roman soldiery, it is strange that our first +American crusade was not in some such wise also signalized. Yet it is +said that the Lord hath manifestly prospered our armies. This opens the +question, whether, when our hands are strengthened to make great +slaughter of our enemies, it be absolutely and demonstratively certain +that this might is added to us from above, or whether some Potentate +from an opposite quarter may not have a finger in it, as there are few +pies into which his meddling digits are not thrust. Would the Sanctifier +and Setter-apart of the seventh day have assisted in a victory gained on +the Sabbath, as was one in the late war? Do we not know from Josephus, +that, careful of His decree, a certain river in Judaea abstained from +flowing on the day of Rest? Or has that day become less an object of His +especial care since the year 1697, when so manifest a providence +occurred to Mr. William Trowbridge, in answer to whose prayers, when he +and all on shipboard with him were starving, a dolphin was sent daily, +'which was enough to serve 'em; only on _Saturdays_ they still catched a +couple, and on the _Lord's Days_ they could catch none at all'? Haply +they might have been permitted, by way of mortification, to take some +few sculpins (those banes of the salt-water angler), which unseemly fish +would, moreover, have conveyed to them a symbolical reproof for their +breach of the day, being known in the rude dialect of our mariners as +_Cape Cod Clergymen_. + +It has been a refreshment to many nice consciences to know that our +Chief Magistrate would not regard with eyes of approval the (by many +esteemed) sinful pastime of dancing, and I own myseif to be so far of +that mind, that I could not but set my face against this Mexican Polka, +though danced to the Presidential piping with a Gubernatorial second. If +ever the country should be seized with another such mania _pro +propaganda fide_, I think it would be wise to fill our bombshells with +alternate copies of the Cambridge Platform and the Thirty-nine Articles, +which would produce a mixture of the highest explosive power, and to +wrap every one of our cannon-balls in a leaf of the New Testament, the +reading of which is denied to those who sit in the darkness of Popery. +Those iron evangelists would thus be able to disseminate vital religion +and Gospel truth in quarters inaccessible to the ordinary missionary. I +have seen lads, unimpregnate with the more sublimated punctiliousness of +Walton, secure pickerel, taking their unwary _siesta_ beneath the +lily-pads too nigh the surface, with a gun and small shot. Why not, +then, since gunpowder was unknown in the time of the Apostles (not to +enter here upon the question whether it were discovered before that +period by the Chinese), suit our metaphor to the age in which we live, +and say _shooters_ as well as _fishers_ of men? + +I do much fear that we shall be seized now and then with a Protestant +fervor, as long as we have neighbor Naboths whose wallowings in +Papistical mire excite our horror in exact proportion to the size and +desirableness of their vineyards. Yet I rejoice that some earnest +Protestants have been made by this war,--I mean those who protested +against it. Fewer they were than I could wish, for one might imagine +America to have been colonized by a tribe of those nondescript African +animals the Aye-Ayes, so difficult a word is _No_ to us all. There is +some malformation or defect of the vocal organs, which either prevents +our uttering it at all, or gives it so thick a pronunciation as to be +unintelligible. A mouth filled with the national pudding, or watering in +expectation thereof, is wholly incompetent to this refractory +monosyllable. An abject and herpetic Public Opinion is the Pope, the +Anti-Christ, for us to protest against _e corde cordium_. And by what +College of Cardinals is this our God's-vicar, our binder and looser, +elected? Very like, by the sacred conclave of Tag, Rag, and Bobtail, in +the gracious atmosphere of the grog-shop. Yet it is of this that we must +all be puppets. This thumps the pulpit-cushion, this guides the editor's +pen, this wags the senator's tongue. This decides what Scriptures are +canonical, and shuffles Christ away into the Apocrypha. According to +that sentence fathered upon Solon, [Greek: Onto daemosion kakon erchetai +oikad ekasto] This unclean spirit is skilful to assume various shapes. I +have known it to enter my own study and nudge my elbow of a Saturday, +under the semblance of a wealthy member of my congregation. It were a +great blessing, if every particular of what in the sum we call popular +sentiment could carry about the name of its manufacturer stamped legibly +upon it. I gave a stab under the fifth rib to that pestilent +fallacy,--'Our country, right or wrong,'--by tracing its original to a +speech of Ensign Cilley at a dinner of the Bungtown Fencibles.--H.W.] + + + +No. III + +WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS + +[A few remarks on the following verses will not be out of place. The +satire in them was not meant to have any personal, but only a general, +application. Of the gentleman upon whose letter they were intended as a +commentary Mr. Biglow had never heard, till he saw the letter itself. +The position of the satirist is oftentimes one which he would not have +chosen, had the election been left to himself. In attacking bad +principles, he is obliged to select some individual who has made himself +their exponent, and in whom they are impersonate, to the end that what +he says may not, through ambiguity, be dissipated _tenues in auras._ For +what says Seneca? _Longum iter per præcepta, breve et efficace per +exempla_. A bad principle is comparatively harmless while it continues +to be an abstraction, nor can the general mind comprehend it fully till +it is printed in that large type which all men can read at sight, +namely, the life and character, the sayings and doings, of particular +persons. It is one of the cunningest fetches of Satan, that he never +exposes himself directly to our arrows, but, still dodging behind this +neighbor or that acquaintance, compels us to wound him through them, if +at all. He holds our affections as hostages, the while he patches up a +truce with our conscience. + +Meanwhile, let us not forget that the aim of the true satirist is not to +be severe upon persons, but only upon falsehood, and, as Truth and +Falsehood start from the same point, and sometimes even go along +together for a little way, his business is to follow the path of the +latter after it diverges, and to show her floundering in the bog at the +end of it. Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so brave +a simplicity in her, that she can no more be made ridiculous than an oak +or a pine. The danger of the satirist is, that continual use may deaden +his sensibility to the force of language. He becomes more and more +liable to strike harder than he knows or intends. He may be careful to +put on his boxing-gloves, and yet forget that, the older they grow, the +more plainly may the knuckles inside be felt. Moreover, in the heat of +contest, the eye is insensibly drawn to the crown of victory, whose +tawdry tinsel glitters through that dust of the ring which obscures +Truth's wreath of simple leaves. I have sometimes thought that my young +friend, Mr. Biglow, needed a monitory hand laid on his arm,--_aliquid +sufflaminandus erat_. I have never thought it good husbandry to water +the tender plants of reform with _aqua fortis_, yet, where so much is to +do in the beds, he were a sorry gardener who should wage a whole day's +war with an iron scuffle on those ill weeds that make the garden-walks +of life unsightly, when a sprinkle of Attic salt will wither them up. +_Est ars etiam maledicendi_, says Scaliger, and truly it is a hard thing +to say where the graceful gentleness of the lamb merges in downright +sheepishness. We may conclude with worthy and wise Dr. Fuller, that 'one +may be a lamb in private wrongs, but in hearing general affronts to +goodness they are asses which are not lions.'--H.W.] + + +Guvener B. is a sensible man; + He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks; +He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, + An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez be wunt vote fer Guvener B. + +My! aint it terrible? Wut shall we du? + We can't never choose him o' course,--thet's flat; +Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you?) + An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that; + Fer John P. + Robinson he + Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. + +Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man: + He's ben on all sides thet gives places or pelf; +But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,-- + He's ben true to _one_ party,--an' thet is himself;-- + So John P. + Robinson he + Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. + +Gineral C. he goes in fer the war; + He don't vally princerple more'n an old cud; +Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer, + But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood? + So John P. + Robinson he + Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. + +We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village, + With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut aint, +We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage, + An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee. + +The side of our country must ollers be took, + An' Presidunt Polk, you know, _he_ is our country. +An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book + Puts the _debit_ to him, an' to us the _per contry;_ + An' John P. + Robinson he + Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. + +Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies; + Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest _fee, faw, fum;_ +An' thet all this big talk of our destinies + Is half on it ign'ance, an' t'other half rum; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez it aint no sech thing: an' of course, so must we. + +Parson Wilbur sez _he_ never heerd in his life + Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, +An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, + To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; + But John P. + Robinson he + Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee. + +Wal, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell us + The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow,-- +God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers, + To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough; + Fer John P. + Robinson he + Sez the world'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee! + + +[The attentive reader will doubtless have perceived in the foregoing +poem an allusion to that pernicious sentiment,--'Our country, right or +wrong.' It is an abuse of language to call a certain portion of land, +much more, certain personages, elevated for the time being to high +station, our country. I would not sever nor loosen a single one of those +ties by which we are united to the spot of our birth, nor minish by a +tittle the respect due to the Magistrate. I love our own Bay State too +well to do the one, and as for the other, I have myself for nigh forty +years exercised, however unworthily, the function of Justice of the +Peace, having been called thereto by the unsolicited kindness of that +most excellent man and upright patriot, Caleb Strong. _Patriæ fumus +igne alieno luculentior_ is best qualified with this,--_Ubi libertas, ibi +patria_. We are inhabitants of two worlds, and owe a double, but not a +divided, allegiance. In virtue of our clay, this little ball of earth +exacts a certain loyalty of us, while, in our capacity as spirits, we +are admitted citizens of an invisible and holier fatherland. There is a +patriotism of the soul whose claim absolves us from our other and +terrene fealty. Our true country is that ideal realm which we represent +to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, and the like. Our +terrestrial organizations are but far-off approaches to so fair a model, +and all they are verily traitors who resist not any attempt to divert +them from this their original intendment. When, therefore, one would +have us to fling up our caps and shout with the multitude,--'_Our +country, however bounded!_' he demands of us that we sacrifice the +larger to the less, the higher to the lower, and that we yield to the +imaginary claims of a few acres of soil our duty and privilege as +liegemen of Truth. Our true country is bounded on the north and the +south, on the east and the west, by Justice, and when she oversteps that +invisible boundary-line by so much as a hair's-breadth, she ceases to be +our mother, and chooses rather to be looked upon _quasi noverca_. That +is a hard choice when our earthly love of country calls upon us to tread +one path and our duty points us to another. We must make as noble and +becoming an election as did Penelope between Icarius and Ulysses. +Veiling our faces, we must take silently the hand of Duty to follow her. + +Shortly after the publication of the foregoing poem, there appeared some +comments upon it in one of the public prints which seemed to call for +animadversion. I accordingly addressed to Mr. Buckingham, of the Boston +Courier, the following letter. + + +JAALAM, November 4, 1847. + +'_To the Editor of the Courier:_ + +'RESPECTED SIR,--Calling at the post-office this morning, our worthy and +efficient postmaster offered for my perusal a paragraph in the Boston +Morning Post of the 3d instant, wherein certain effusions of the +pastoral muse are attributed to the pen of Mr. James Russell Lowell. For +aught I know or can affirm to the contrary, this Mr. Lowell may be a +very deserving person and a youth of parts (though I have seen verses of +his which I could never rightly understand); and if he be such, he, I am +certain, as well as I, would be free from any proclivity to appropriate +to himself whatever of credit (or discredit) may honestly belong to +another. I am confident, that, in penning these few lines, I am only +forestalling a disclaimer from that young gentleman, whose silence +hitherto, when rumor pointed to himward, has excited in my bosom mingled +emotions of sorrow and surprise. Well may my young parishioner, Mr. +Biglow, exclaim with the poet, + + "Sic vos non vobis," &c.; + +though, in saying this, I would not convey the impression that he is a +proficient in the Latin tongue,--the tongue, I might add, of a Horace +and a Tully. + +'Mr. B. does not employ his pen, I can safely say, for any lucre of +worldly gain, or to be exalted by the carnal plaudits of men, _digito +monstrari, &c_. He does not wait upon Providence for mercies, and in his +heart mean _merces_. But I should esteem myself as verily deficient in +my duty (who am his friend and in some unworthy sort his spiritual +_fidus Achates_, &c.), if I did not step forward to claim for him +whatever measure of applause might be assigned to him by the judicious. + +'If this were a fitting occasion, I might venture here a brief +dissertation touching the manner and kind of my young friend's poetry. +But I dubitate whether this abstruser sort of speculation (though +enlivened by some apposite instances from Aristophanes) would +sufficiently interest your oppidan readers. As regards their satirical +tone, and their plainness of speech, I will only say, that, in my +pastoral experience, I have found that the Arch-Enemy loves nothing +better than to be treated as a religious, moral, and intellectual being, +and that there is no _apage Sathanas!_ so potent as ridicule. But it is +a kind of weapon that must have a button of good-nature on the point of +it. + +'The productions of Mr. B. have been stigmatized in some quarters as +unpatriotic; but I can vouch that he loves his native soil with that +hearty, though discriminating, attachment which springs from an intimate +social intercourse of many years' standing. In the ploughing season, no +one has a deeper share in the well-being of the country than he. If Dean +Swift were right in saying that he who makes two blades of grass grow +where one grew before confers a greater benefit on the state than he who +taketh a city, Mr. B. might exhibit a fairer claim to the Presidency +than General Scott himself. I think that some of those disinterested +lovers of the hard-handed democracy, whose fingers have never touched +anything rougher than the dollars of our common country, would hesitate +to compare palms with him. It would do your heart good, respected Sir, +to see that young man mow. He cuts a cleaner and wider swath than any in +this town. + +'But it is time for me to be at my Post. It is very clear that my young +friend's shot has struck the lintel, for the Post is shaken (Amos ix. +1). The editor of that paper is a strenuous advocate of the Mexican war, +and a colonel, as I am given to understand. I presume, that, being +necessarily absent in Mexico, he has left his journal in some less +judicious hands. At any rate, the Post has been too swift on this +occasion. It could hardly have cited a more incontrovertible line from +any poem than that which it has selected for animadversion, namely,-- + + "We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage." + +'If the Post maintains the converse of this proposition, it can hardly +be considered as a safe guide-post for the moral and religious portions +of its party, however many other excellent qualities of a post it may be +blessed with. There is a sign in London on which is painted,--"The Green +Man." It would do very well as a portrait of any individual who should +support so unscriptural a thesis. As regards the language of the line +in question, I am bold to say that He who readeth the hearts of men will +not account any dialect unseemly which conveys a sound, and pious +sentiment. I could wish that such sentiments were more common, however +uncouthly expressed. Saint Ambrose affirms, that _veritas a quocunque_ +(why not, then, _quomodocunque?) dicatur, a, spiritu sancto est_. Digest +also this of Baxter: "The plainest words are the most profitable oratory +in the weightiest matters." + +'When the paragraph in question was shown to Mr. Biglow, the only part +of it which seemed to give him any dissatisfaction was that which +classed him with the Whig party. He says, that, if resolutions are a +nourishing kind of diet, that party must be in a very hearty and +flourishing condition; for that they have quietly eaten more good ones +of their own baking than he could have conceived to be possible without +repletion. He has been for some years past (I regret to say) an ardent +opponent of those sound doctrines of protective policy which form so +prominent a portion of the creed of that party. I confess, that, in some +discussions which I have had with him on this point in my study, he has +displayed a vein of obstinacy which I had not hitherto detected in his +composition. He is also (_horresco referens_) infected in no small +measure with the peculiar notions of a print called the Liberator, whose +heresies I take every proper opportunity of combating, and of which, I +thank God, I have never read a single line. + +'I did not see Mr. B.'s verses until they appeared in print, and there +_is_ certainly one thing in them which I consider highly improper. I +allude to the personal references to myself by name. To confer notoriety +on an humble individual who is laboring quietly in his vocation, and who +keeps his cloth as free as he can from the dust of the political arena +(though _voe mihi si non evangelizavero_), is no doubt an indecorum. The +sentiments which he attributes to me I will not deny to be mine. They +were embodied, though in a different form, in a discourse preached upon +the last day of public fasting, and were acceptable to my entire people +(of whatever political views), except the postmaster, who dissented _ex +officio_. I observe that you sometimes devote a portion of your paper to +a religious summary. I should be well pleased to furnish a copy of my +discourse for insertion in this department of your instructive journal. +By omitting the advertisements, it might easily be got within the limits +of a single number, and I venture to insure you the sale of some scores +of copies in this town. I will cheerfully render myself responsible for +ten. It might possibly be advantageous to issue it as an _extra_. But +perhaps you will not esteem it an object, and I will not press it. My +offer does not spring from any weak desire of seeing my name in print; +for I can enjoy this satisfaction at any time by turning to the +Triennial Catalogue of the University, where it also possesses that +added emphasis of Italics with which those of my calling are +distinguished. + +'I would simply add, that I continue to fit ingenuous youth for college, +and that I have two spacious and airy sleeping apartments at this moment +unoccupied. _Ingenuas didicisse_, &c. Terms, which vary according to the +circumstances of the parents, may be known on application to me by +letter, post-paid. In all cases the lad will be expected to fetch his +own towels. This rule, Mrs. W. desires me to add, has no exceptions. + +'Respectfully, your obedient servant, + +'HOMER WILBUR, A.M. + +'P.S. Perhaps the last paragraph may look like an attempt to obtain the +insertion of my circular gratuitously. If it should appear to you in +that light, I desire that you would erase it, or charge for it at the +usual rates, and deduct the amount from the proceeds in your hands from +the sale of my discourse, when it shall be printed. My circular is much +longer and more explicit, and will be forwarded without charge to any +who may desire it. It has been very neatly executed on a letter sheet, +by a very deserving printer, who attends upon my ministry, and is a +creditable specimen of the typographic art. I have one hung over my +mantelpiece in a neat frame, where it makes a beautiful and appropriate +ornament, and balances the profile of Mrs. W., cut with her toes by the +young lady born without arms. + +'H.W.' + + +I have in the foregoing letter mentioned General Scott in connection +with the Presidency, because I have been given to understand that he has +blown to pieces and otherwise caused to be destroyed more Mexicans than +any other commander. His claim would therefore be deservedly considered +the strongest. Until accurate returns of the Mexicans killed, wounded, +and maimed be obtained, it will be difficult to settle these nice points +of precedence. Should it prove that any other officer has been more +meritorious and destructive than General S., and has thereby rendered +himself more worthy of the confidence and support of the conservative +portion of our community, I shall cheerfully insert his name, instead of +that of General S., in a future edition. It may be thought, likewise, +that General S. has invalidated his claims by too much attention to the +decencies of apparel, and the habits belonging to a gentleman. These +abstruser points of statesmanship are beyond my scope. I wonder not that +successful military achievement should attract the admiration of the +multitude. Rather do I rejoice with wonder to behold how rapidly this +sentiment is losing its hold upon the popular mind. It is related of +Thomas Warton, the second of that honored name who held the office of +Poetry Professor at Oxford, that, when one wished to find him, being +absconded, as was his wont, in some obscure alehouse, he was counselled +to traverse the city with a drum and fife, the sound of which inspiring +music would be sure to draw the Doctor from his retirement into the +street. We are all more or less bitten with this martial insanity. +_Nescio qua dulcedine ... cunctos ducit_. I confess to some infection of +that itch myself. When I see a Brigadier-General maintaining his +insecure elevation in the saddle under the severe fire of the +training-field, and when I remember that some military enthusiasts, +through haste, inexperience, or an over-desire to lend reality to those +fictitious combats, will sometimes discharge their ramrods, I cannot but +admire, while I deplore, the mistaken devotion of those heroic officers. +_Semel insanivimus omnes_. I was myself, during the late war with Great +Britain, chaplain of a regiment, which was fortunately never called to +active military duty. I mention this circumstance with regret rather +than pride. Had I been summoned to actual warfare, I trust that I might +have been strengthened to bear myself after the manner of that reverend +father in our New England Israel, Dr. Benjamin Colman, who, as we are +told in Turell's life of him, when the vessel in which he had taken +passage for England was attacked by a French privateer, 'fought like a +philosopher and a Christian, ... and prayed all the while he charged and +fired.' As this note is already long, I shall not here enter upon a +discussion of the question, whether Christians may lawfully be soldiers. +I think it sufficiently evident, that, during the first two centuries of +the Christian era, at least, the two professions were esteemed +incompatible. Consult Jortin on this head,--H.W.] + + + +No. IV + +REMARKS OF INCREASE D. O'PHACE, ESQUIRE, + +AT AN EXTRUMPERY CAUCUS IN STATE STREET, REPORTED BY MR. H. BIGLOW + + +[The ingenious reader will at once understand that no such speech as the +following was ever _totidem verbis_ pronounced. But there are simpler +and less guarded wits, for the satisfying of which such an explanation +may be needful. For there are certain invisible lines, which as Truth +successively overpasses, she becomes Untruth to one and another of us, +as a large river, flowing from one kingdom into another, sometimes takes +a new name, albeit the waters undergo no change, how small soever. There +is, moreover, a truth of fiction more veracious than the truth of fact, +as that of the Poet, which represents to us things and events as they +ought to be, rather than servilely copies them as they are imperfectly +imaged in the crooked and smoky glass of our mundane affairs. It is this +which makes the speech of Antonius, though originally spoken in no wider +a forum than the brain of Shakespeare, more historically valuable than +that other which Appian has reported, by as much as the understanding of +the Englishman was more comprehensive than that of the Alexandrian. Mr. +Biglow, in the present instance, has only made use of a license assumed +by all the historians of antiquity, who put into the mouths of various +characters such words as seem to them most fitting to the occasion and +to the speaker. If it be objected that no such oration could ever have +been delivered, I answer, that there are few assemblages for +speech-making which do not better deserve the title of _Parliamentum +Indoctorum_ than did the sixth Parliament of Henry the Fourth, and that +men still continue to have as much faith in the Oracle of Fools as ever +Pantagruel had. Howell, in his letters, recounts a merry tale of a +certain ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, who, having written two +letters,--one to her Majesty, and the other to his wife,--directed them +at cross-purposes, so that the Queen was beducked and bedeared and +requested to send a change of hose, and the wife was beprincessed and +otherwise unwontedly besuperlatived, till the one feared for the wits of +her ambassador, and the other for those of her husband. In like manner +it may be presumed that our speaker has misdirected some of his +thoughts, and given to the whole theatre what he would have wished to +confide only to a select auditory at the back of the curtain. For it is +seldom that we can get any frank utterance from men, who address, for +the most part, a Buncombe either in this world or the next. As for their +audiences, it may be truly said of our people, that they enjoy one +political institution in common with the ancient Athenians: I mean a +certain profitless kind of, _ostracism_, wherewith, nevertheless, they +seem hitherto well enough content. For in Presidential elections, and +other affairs of the sort, whereas I observe that the _oysters_ fall to +the lot of comparatively few, the _shells_ (such as the privileges of +voting as they are told to do by the _ostrivori_ aforesaid, and of +huzzaing at public meetings) are very liberally distributed among the +people, as being their prescriptive and quite sufficient portion. + +The occasion of the speech is supposed to be Mr. Palfrey's refusal to +vote for the Whig candidate for the Speakership.--H.W.] + + +No? Hez he? He haint, though? Wut? Voted agin him? +Ef the bird of our country could ketch him, she'd skin him; +I seem 's though I see her, with wrath in each quill, +Like a chancery lawyer, afilin' her bill, +An' grindin' her talents ez sharp ez all nater, +To pounce like a writ on the back o' the traitor. +Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be het, +But a crisis like this must with vigor be met; +Wen an Arnold the star-spangled banner bestains, +Holl Fourth o' Julys seem to bile in my veins. 10 + +Who ever'd ha' thought sech a pisonous rig +Would be run by a chap thet wuz chose fer a Wig? +'We knowed wut his princerples wuz 'fore we sent him'? +Wut wuz there in them from this vote to prevent him? +A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler +O' purpose thet we might our princerples swaller; +It can hold any quantity on 'em, the belly can, +An' bring 'em up ready fer use like the pelican, +Or more like the kangaroo, who (wich is stranger) +Puts her family into her pouch wen there's danger. 20 +Aint princerple precious? then, who's goin' to use it +Wen there's resk o' some chap's gittin' up to abuse it? +I can't tell the wy on 't, but nothin' is so sure +Ez thet princerple kind o' gits spiled by exposure;[19] +A man that lets all sorts o' folks git a sight on 't +Ough' to hev it all took right away, every mite on 't; +Ef he cant keep it all to himself wen it's wise to, +He aint one it's fit to trust nothin' so nice to. + +Besides, ther's a wonderful power in latitude +To shift a man's morril relations an' attitude; 30 +Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty's granted +The minnit it's proved to be thoroughly wanted, +Thet a change o' demand makes a change o' condition, +An' thet everythin' 's nothin' except by position; +Ez, for instance, thet rubber-trees fust begun bearin' +Wen p'litikle conshunces come into wearin', +Thet the fears of a monkey, whose holt chanced to fail, +Drawed the vertibry out to a prehensile tail; +So, wen one's chose to Congriss, ez soon ez he's in it, +A collar grows right round his neck in a minnit, 40 +An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be strict +In bein' himself, when he gits to the Deestrict, +Fer a coat thet sets wal here in ole Massachusetts, +Wen it gits on to Washinton, somehow askew sets. + +Resolves, do you say, o' the Springfield Convention? +Thet's precisely the pint I was goin' to mention; +Resolves air a thing we most gen'ally keep ill, +They're a cheap kind o' dust fer the eyes o' the people; +A parcel o' delligits jest git together +An' chat fer a spell o' the crops an' the weather, 50 +Then, comin' to order, they squabble awile +An' let off the speeches they're ferful'll spile; +Then--Resolve,--Thet we wunt hev an inch o' slave territory; +Thet President Polk's holl perceedins air very tory; +Thet the war is a damned war, an' them thet enlist in it +Should hev a cravat with a dreffle tight twist in it; +Thet the war is a war fer the spreadin' o' slavery; +Thet our army desarves our best thanks fer their bravery; +Thet we're the original friends o' the nation, +All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrication; 60 +Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' C, +An' ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G. +In this way they go to the eend o' the chapter, +An' then they bust out in a kind of a raptur +About their own vartoo, an' folks's stone-blindness +To the men thet 'ould actilly do 'em a kindness,-- +The American eagle,--the Pilgrims thet landed,-- +Till on ole Plymouth Rock they git finally stranded. +Wal, the people they listen an' say, 'Thet's the ticket; +Ez fer Mexico, 'taint no great glory to lick it, 70 +But 'twould be a darned shame to go pullin' o' triggers +To extend the aree of abusin' the niggers.' + +So they march in percession, an' git up hooraws, +An' tramp thru the mud far the good o' the cause, +An' think they're a kind o' fulfillin' the prophecies, +Wen they're on'y jest changin' the holders of offices; +Ware A sot afore, B is comf'tably seated, +One humbug's victor'ous an' t' other defeated, +Each honnable doughface gits jest wut he axes, +An' the people,--their annooal soft-sodder an' taxes. 80 + +Now, to keep unimpaired all these glorious feeturs +Thet characterize morril an' reasonin' creeturs, +Thet give every paytriot all he can cram, +Thet oust the untrustworthy Presidunt Flam, +An' stick honest Presidunt Sham in his place, +To the manifest gain o' the holl human race, +An' to some indervidgewals on 't in partickler, +Who love Public Opinion an' know how to tickle her,-- +I say thet a party with gret aims like these +Must stick jest ez close ez a hive full o' bees. 90 + +I'm willin' a man should go tollable strong +Agin wrong in the abstract, fer thet kind o' wrong +Is ollers unpop'lar an' never gits pitied, +Because it's a crime no one never committed; +But he mus'n't be hard on partickler sins, +Coz then he'll be kickin' the people's own shins; +On'y look at the Demmercrats, see wut they've done +Jest simply by stickin' together like fun; +They've sucked us right into a mis'able war +Thet no one on airth aint responsible for; 100 +They've run us a hundred cool millions in debt +(An' fer Demmercrat Horners there's good plums left yet); +They talk agin tayriffs, but act fer a high one, +An' so coax all parties to build up their Zion; +To the people they're ollers ez slick ez molasses, +An' butter their bread on both sides with The Masses, +Half o' whom they've persuaded, by way of a joke, +Thet Washinton's mantlepiece fell upon Polk. + +Now all o' these blessin's the Wigs might enjoy, +Ef they'd gumption enough the right means to imploy;[20] 110 +Fer the silver spoon born in Dermoc'acy's mouth +Is a kind of a scringe thet they hev to the South; +Their masters can cuss 'em an' kick 'em an' wale 'em. +An' they notice it less 'an the ass did to Balaam; +In this way they screw into second-rate offices +Wich the slaveholder thinks 'ould substract too much off his ease; +The file-leaders, I mean, du, fer they, by their wiles, +Unlike the old viper, grow fat on their files. +Wal, the Wigs hev been tryin' to grab all this prey frum 'em +An' to hook this nice spoon o' good fortin' away frum 'em, 120 +An' they might ha' succeeded, ez likely ez not, +In lickin' the Demmercrats all round the lot, +Ef it warn't thet, wile all faithful Wigs were their knees on, +Some stuffy old codger would holler out,--'Treason! +You must keep a sharp eye on a dog thet hez bit you once, +An' _I_ aint agoin' to cheat my constitoounts,'-- +Wen every fool knows thet a man represents +Not the fellers thet sent him, but them on the fence,-- +Impartially ready to jump either side +An' make the fust use of a turn o' the tide,-- 130 +The waiters on Providunce here in the city, +Who compose wut they call a State Centerl Committy, +Constitoounts air hendy to help a man in, +But arterwards don't weigh the heft of a pin, +Wy, the people can't all live on Uncle Sam's pus, +So they've nothin' to du with 't fer better or wus; +It's the folks thet air kind o' brought up to depend on 't +Thet hev any consarn in 't, an' thet is the end on 't. +Now here wuz New England ahevin' the honor +Of a chance at the Speakership showered upon her;-- 140 +Do you say, 'She don't want no more Speakers, but fewer; +She's hed plenty o' them, wut she wants is a _doer'_? +Fer the matter o' thet, it's notorous in town +Thet her own representatives du her quite brown. +But thet's nothin' to du with it; wut right hed Palfrey +To mix himself up with fanatical small fry? +Warn't we gittin' on prime with our hot an' cold blowin', +Acondemnin' the war wilst we kep' it agoin'? +We'd assumed with gret skill a commandin' position. +On this side or thet, no one couldn't tell wich one, 150 +So, wutever side wipped, we'd a chance at the plunder +An' could sue fer infringin' our paytented thunder; +We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz eligible, +Ef on all pints at issoo he'd stay unintelligible. +Wal, sposin' we hed to gulp down our perfessions. +We were ready to come out next mornin' with fresh ones; +Besides, ef we did, 'twas our business alone, +Fer couldn't we du wut we would with our own? +An' ef a man can, wen pervisions hev riz so, +Eat up his own words, it's a marcy it is so. 160 +Wy, these chaps frum the North, with back-bones to 'em, darn 'em, +'Ould be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom Thumb is to Barnum: +Ther's enough thet to office on this very plan grow, +By exhibitin' how very small a man can grow; +But an M.C. frum here ollers hastens to state he +Belongs to the order called invertebraty, +Wence some gret filologists judge primy fashy +Thet M.C. is M.T. by paronomashy; +An' these few exceptions air _loosus naytury_ +Folks 'ould put down their quarters to stare at, like fury. 170 +It's no use to open the door o' success, +Ef a member can bolt so fer nothin' or less; +Wy, all o' them grand constitootional pillers +Our fore-fathers fetched with 'em over the billers, +Them pillers the people so soundly hev slep' on, +Wile to slav'ry, invasion, an' debt they were swep' on, +Wile our Destiny higher an' higher kep' mountin' +(Though I guess folks'll stare wen she hends her account in), +Ef members in this way go kickin' agin 'em, +They wunt hev so much ez a feather left in 'em. 180 + +An', ez fer this Palfrey,[21] we thought wen we'd gut him in, +He'd go kindly in wutever harness we put him in; +Supposin' we _did_ know thet he wuz a peace man? +Does he think he can be Uncle Sammle's policeman, +An' wen Sam gits tipsy an' kicks up a riot, +Lead him off to the lockup to snooze till he's quiet? +Wy, the war is a war thet true paytriots can bear, ef +It leads to the fat promised land of a tayriff; +_We_ don't go an' fight it, nor aint to be driv on, +Nor Demmercrats nuther, thet hev wut to live on; 190 +Ef it aint jest the thing thet's well pleasin' to God, +It makes us thought highly on elsewhere abroad; +The Rooshian black eagle looks blue in his eerie +An' shakes both his heads wen he hears o' Monteery; +In the Tower Victory sets, all of a fluster, +An' reads, with locked doors, how we won Cherry Buster; +An' old Philip Lewis--thet come an' kep' school here +Fer the mere sake o' scorin his ryalist ruler +On the tenderest part of our kings _in futuro_-- +Hides his crown underneath an old shut in his bureau, 200 +Breaks off in his brags to a suckle o' merry kings, +How he often hed hided young native Amerrikins, +An' turnin' quite faint in the midst of his fooleries, +Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front door o' the Tooleries.[22] +You say, 'We'd ha' seared 'em by growin' in peace, +A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these'? +Who is it dares say thet our naytional eagle +Won't much longer be classed with the birds thet air regal, +Coz theirn be hooked beaks, an' she, arter this slaughter, +'ll bring back a bill ten times longer 'n she'd ough' to? 210 +Wut's your name? Come, I see ye, you up-country feller, +You've put me out severil times with your beller; +Out with it! Wut? Biglow? I say nothin' furder, +Thet feller would like nothin' better 'n a murder; +He's a traiter, blasphemer, an' wut ruther worse is, +He puts all his ath'ism in dreffle bad verses; +Socity aint safe till sech monsters air out on it, +Refer to the Post, ef you hev the least doubt on it; +Wy, he goes agin war, agin indirect taxes, +Agin sellin' wild lands 'cept to settlers with axes, 220 +Agin holdin' o' slaves, though he knows it's the corner +Our libbaty rests on, the mis'able scorner! +In short, he would wholly upset with his ravages +All thet keeps us above the brute critters an' savages, +An' pitch into all kinds o' briles an' confusions +The holl of our civerlized, free institutions; +He writes fer thet ruther unsafe print, the Courier, +An' likely ez not hez a squintin' to Foorier; +I'll be----, thet is, I mean I'll be blest, +Ef I hark to a word frum so noted a pest; 230 +I sha'nt talk with _him_, my religion's too fervent. +Good mornin', my friends, I'm your most humble servant. + + +[Into the question whether the ability to express ourselves in +articulate language has been productive of more good or evil, I shall +not here enter at large. The two faculties of speech and of +speech-making are wholly diverse in their natures. By the first we make +ourselves intelligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. It +has not seldom occurred to me (noting how in our national legislature +everything runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be +unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming handsome +heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for +the manufacture of gabble. In these days, what with Town Meetings, +School Committees, Boards (lumber) of one kind and another, Congresses, +Parliaments, Diets, Indian Councils, Palavers, and the like, there is +scarce a village which has not its factories of this description driven +by milk-and-water power. I cannot conceive the confusion of tongues to +have been the curse of Babel, since I esteem my ignorance of other +languages as a kind of Martello-tower, in which I am safe from the +furious bombardments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I have ever +preferred the study of the dead languages, those primitive formations +being Ararats upon whose silent peaks I sit secure and watch this new +deluge without fear, though it rain figures (_simulacra_, semblances) of +speech forty days and nights together, as it not uncommonly happens. +Thus is my coat, as it were, without buttons by which any but a vernacular +wild bore can seize me. Is it not possible that the Shakers may intend +to convey a quiet reproof and hint, in fastening their outer garments +with hooks and eyes? + +This reflection concerning Babel, which I find in no Commentary, was +first thrown upon my mind when an excellent deacon of my congregation +(being infected with the Second Advent delusion) assured me that he had +received a first instalment of the gift of tongues as a small earnest of +larger possessions in the like kind to follow. For, of a truth, I could +not reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice and mercy that the +single wall which protected people of other languages from the +incursions of this otherwise well-meaning propagandist should be broken +down. + +In reading Congressional debates, I have fancied, that, after the +subsidence of those painful buzzings in the brain which result from such +exercises, I detected a slender residuum of valuable information. I made +the discovery that _nothing_ takes longer in the saying than anything +else, for as _ex nihilo nihil fit_, so from one polypus _nothing_ any +number of similar ones may be produced. I would recommend to the +attention of _viva voce_ debaters and controversialists the admirable +example of the monk Copres, who, in the fourth century, stood for half +an hour in the midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced a Manichæan +antagonist who had less of the salamander in him. As for those who +quarrel in print, I have no concern with them here, since the eyelids +are a divinely granted shield against all such. Moreover, I have +observed in many modern books that the printed portion is becoming +gradually smaller, and the number of blank or fly-leaves (as they are +called) greater. Should this fortunate tendency of literature continue, +books will grow more valuable from year to year, and the whole Serbonian +bog yield to the advances of firm arable land. + +The sagacious Lacedæmonians, hearing that Tesephone had bragged that he +could talk all day long on any given subject, made no more ado, but +forthwith banished him, whereby they supplied him a topic and at the +same time took care that his experiment upon it should be tried out of +earshot. + +I have wondered, in the Representatives' Chamber of our own +Commonwealth, to mark how little impression seemed to be produced by +that emblematic fish suspended over the heads of the members. Our wiser +ancestors, no doubt, hung it there as being the animal which the +Pythagoreans reverenced for its silence, and which certainly in that +particular does not so well merit the epithet _cold blooded_, by which +naturalists distinguish it, as certain bipeds, afflicted with +ditch-water on the brain, who take occasion to tap themselves in Faneuil +Halls, meeting-houses, and other places of public resort.--H.W.] + + + +No. V + +THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT + +SOT TO A NUSRY RHYME + + +[The incident which gave rise to the debate satirized in the following +verses was the unsuccessful attempt of Drayton and Sayres to give +freedom to seventy men and women, fellow-beings and fellow-Christians. +Had Tripoli, instead of Washington, been the scene of this undertaking, +the unhappy leaders in it would have been as secure of the theoretic as +they now are of the practical part of martyrdom. I question whether the +Dey of Tripoli is blessed with a District Attorney so benighted as ours +at the seat of government. Very fitly is he named Key, who would allow +himself to be made the instrument of locking the door of hope against +sufferers in such a cause. Not all the waters of the ocean can cleanse +the vile smutch of the jailer's fingers from off that little Key. +_Ahenea clavis_, a brazen Key indeed! + +Mr. Calhoun, who is made the chief speaker in this burlesque, seems to +think that the light of the nineteenth century is to be put out as soon +as he tinkles his little cow-bell curfew. Whenever slavery is touched, +he sets up his scarecrow of dissolving the Union. This may do for the +North, but I should conjecture that something more than a +pumpkin-lantern is required to scare manifest and irretrievable Destiny +out of her path. Mr. Calhoun cannot let go the apron-string of the Past. +The Past is a good nurse, but we must be weaned from her sooner or +later, even though, like Plotinus, we should run home from school to ask +the breast, after we are tolerably well-grown youths. It will not do for +us to hide our faces in her lap, whenever the strange Future holds out +her arms and asks us to come to her. + +But we are all alike. We have all heard it said, often enough, that +little boys must not play with fire; and yet, if the matches be taken +away from us, and put out of reach upon the shelf, we must needs get +into our little corner, and scowl and stamp and threaten the dire +revenge of going to bed without our supper. The world shall stop till we +get our dangerous plaything again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who has more +than enough household matters to mind, goes bustling hither and thither +as a hiss or a sputter tells her that this or that kettle of hers is +boiling over, and before bedtime we are glad to eat our porridge cold, +and gulp down our dignity along with it. + +Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the name of a great statesman, and, if +it be great statesmanship to put lance in rest and run a tilt at the +Spirit of the Age with the certainty of being next moment hurled neck +and heels into the dust amid universal laughter, he deserves the title. +He is the Sir Kay of our modern chivalry. He should remember the old +Scandinavian mythus. Thor was the strongest of gods, but he could not +wrestle with Time, nor so much as lift up a fold of the great snake +which bound the universe together; and when he smote the Earth, though +with his terrible mallet, it was but as if a leaf had fallen. Yet all +the while it seemed to Thor that he had only been wrestling with an old +woman, striving to lift a cat, and striking a stupid giant on the head. + +And in old times, doubtless, the giants _were_ stupid, and there was no +better sport for the Sir Launcelots and Sir Gawains than to go about +cutting off their great blundering heads with enchanted swords. But +things have wonderfully changed. It is the giants, nowadays, that have +the science and the intelligence, while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of +Conservatism still cumber themselves with the clumsy armor of a bygone +age. On whirls the restless globe through unsounded time, with its +cities and its silences, its births and funerals, half light, half +shade, but never wholly dark, and sure to swing round into the happy +morning at last. With an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun letting +slip his pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor +South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the Past.--H.W.] + + +TO MR. BUCKENAM + +MR. EDITER, As i wuz kinder prunin round, in a little nussry sot out a +year or 2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit cum inter my mine An so i took & +Sot it to wut I call a nussry rime. I hev made sum onnable Gentlemun +speak thut dident speak in a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the seeson is +dreffle backerd up This way + +ewers as ushul + +HOSEA BIGLOW. + + +'Here we stan' on the Constitution, by thunder! + It's a fact o' wich ther's bushils o' proofs; +Fer how could we trample on 't so, I wonder, + Ef 't worn't thet it's ollers under our hoofs?' + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he:-- + 'Human rights haint no more + Right to come on this floor, + No more 'n the man in the moon,' sez he. + +'The North haint no kind o' bisness with nothin,' + An' you've no idee how much bother it saves; 10 +We aint none riled by their frettin' an' frothin', + We're _used_ to layin' the string on our slaves,' + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;-- + Sez Mister Foote, + 'I should like to shoot + The holl gang, by the gret horn spoon!' sez he. + +'Freedom's Keystone is Slavery, thet ther's no doubt on, + It's sutthin' thet's--wha' d' ye call it?--divine,-- +An' the slaves thet we ollers _make_ the most out on + Air them north o' Mason an' Dixon's line,' 20 + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;-- + 'Fer all that,' sez Mangum, + ''Twould be better to hang 'em + An' so git red on 'em soon,' sez he. + +'The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on soffies, + Thet's the reason I want to spread Freedom's aree; +It puts all the cunninest on us in office, + An' reelises our Maker's orig'nal idee,' + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;-- + 'Thet's ez plain,' sez Cass, 30 + 'Ez thet some one's an ass, + It's ez clear ez the sun is at noon,' sez he. + +'Now don't go to say I'm the friend of oppression, + But keep all your spare breath fer coolin' your broth, +Fer I ollers hev strove (at least thet's my impression) + To make cussed free with the rights o' the North,' + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;-- + 'Yes,' sez Davis o' Miss., + 'The perfection o' bliss + Is in skinnin' thet same old coon,' sez he. 40 + +'Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion, + It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe; +Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection!) + Wich of our onnable body 'd be safe?' + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;-- + Sez Mister Hannegan, + Afore he began agin, + 'Thet exception is quite oppertoon,' sez he. + +'Gennle Cass, Sir, you needn't be twitchin' your collar, + _Your_ merit's quite clear by the dut on your knees, 50 +At the North we don't make no distinctions o' color; + You can all take a lick at our shoes wen you please,' + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;-- + Sez Mister Jarnagin, + 'They wun't hev to larn agin, + They all on 'em know the old toon,' sez he. + +'The slavery question aint no ways bewilderin,' + North an' South hev one int'rest, it's plain to a glance; +No'thern men, like us patriarchs, don't sell their childrin, + But they _du_ sell themselves, ef they git a good chance,' 60 + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;-- + Sez Atherton here, + 'This is gittin' severe, + I wish I could dive like a loon,' sez he. + +'It'll break up the Union, this talk about freedom, + An' your fact'ry gals (soon ez we split) 'll make head, +An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em, + 'll go to work raisin' permiscoous Ned,' + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;-- + 'Yes, the North,' sez Colquitt, 70 + 'Ef we Southeners all quit, + Would go down like a busted balloon,' sez he. + +'Jest look wut is doin', wut annyky's brewin' + In the beautiful clime o' the olive an' vine, +All the wise aristoxy's atumblin' to ruin, + An' the sankylots drorin' an' drinkin' their wine,' + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;-- + 'Yes,' sez Johnson, 'in France + They're beginnin' to dance + Beëlzebub's own rigadoon,' sez he. 80 + +'The South's safe enough, it don't feel a mite skeery, + Our slaves in their darkness an' dut air tu blest +Not to welcome with proud hallylugers the ery + Wen our eagle kicks yourn from the naytional nest,' + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;-- + 'Oh,' sez Westcott o' Florida, + 'Wut treason is horrider + Then our priv'leges tryin' to proon?' sez he. + +'It's 'coz they're so happy, thet, wen crazy sarpints + Stick their nose in our bizness, we git so darned riled; 90 +We think it's our dooty to give pooty sharp hints, + Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth sha'n't be spiled,' + Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;-- + 'Ah,' sez Dixon H. Lewis, + 'It perfectly true is + Thet slavery's airth's grettest boon,' sez he. + + +[It was said of old time, that riches have wings; and, though this be +not applicable in a literal strictness to the wealth of our patriarchal +brethren of the South, yet it is clear that their possessions have legs, +and an unaccountable propensity for using them in a northerly direction. +I marvel that the grand jury of Washington did not find a true bill +against the North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and Sayres. It +would have been quite of a piece with the intelligence displayed by the +South on other questions connected with slavery. I think that no ship of +state was ever freighted with a more veritable Jonah than this same +domestic institution of ours. Mephistopheles himself could not feign so +bitterly, so satirically sad a sight as this of three millions of human +beings crushed beyond help or hope by this one mighty argument,--_Our +fathers knew no better!_ Nevertheless, it is the unavoidable destiny of +Jonahs to be cast overboard sooner or later. Or shall we try the +experiment of hiding our Jonah in a safe place, that none may lay hands +on him to make jetsam of him? Let us, then, with equal forethought and +wisdom, lash ourselves to the anchor, and await, in pious confidence, +the certain result. Perhaps our suspicious passenger is no Jonah after +all, being black. For it is well known that a superintending Providence +made a kind of sandwich of Ham and his descendants, to be devoured by +the Caucasian race. + +In God's name, let all, who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of +the storm and the growl of the breakers, speak out! But, alas! we have +no right to interfere. If a man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in +danger of the justice; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who +says this? Our Constitution, consecrated by the callous consuetude of +sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument by the left hand of him +whose right hand clutches the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable +with the undethronable majesty of countless æons, says,--SPEAK! The +Past, wise with the sorrows and desolations of ages, from amid her +shattered fanes and wolf-housing palaces, echoes,--SPEAK! Nature, +through her thousand trumpets of freedom, her stars, her sunrises, her +seas, her winds, her cataracts, her mountains blue with cloudy pines, +blows jubilant encouragement, and cries,--SPEAK! From the soul's +trembling abysses the still, small voice not vaguely murmurs,--SPEAK! +But, alas! the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M.C., +say--BE DUMB! + +It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of inquiry in this connection, +whether, on that momentous occasion when the goats and the sheep shall +be parted, the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M.C., will +be expected to take their places on the left as our hircine vicars. + + Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? + Quem patronum rogaturus? + +There is a point where toleration sinks into sheer baseness and +poltroonery. The toleration of the worst leads us to look on what is +barely better as good enough, and to worship what is only moderately +good. Woe to that man, or that nation, to whom mediocrity has become an +ideal! + +Has our experiment of self-government succeeded, if it barely manage to +_rub and go?_ Here, now, is a piece of barbarism which Christ and the +nineteenth century say shall cease, and which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and +others say shall _not_ cease. I would by no means deny the eminent +respectability of these gentlemen, but I confess, that, in such a +wrestling match, I cannot help having my fears for them. + + _Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos_. + +H.W.] + + + +No. VI + +THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED + + +[At the special instance of Mr. Biglow, I preface the following satire +with an extract from a sermon preached during the past summer, from +Ezekiel xxxiv. 2: 'Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of +Israel.' Since the Sabbath on which this discourse was delivered, the +editor of the 'Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss' has unaccountably +absented himself from our house of worship. + +'I know of no so responsible position as that of the public journalist. +The editor of our day bears the same relation to his time that the clerk +bore to the age before the invention of printing. Indeed, the position +which he holds is that which the clergyman should hold even now. But the +clergyman chooses to walk off to the extreme edge of the world, and to +throw such seed as he has clear over into that darkness which he calls +the Next Life. As if _next_ did not mean _nearest_, and as if any life +were nearer than that immediately present one which boils and eddies all +around him at the caucus, the ratification meeting, and the polls! Who +taught him to exhort men to prepare for eternity, as for some future era +of which the present forms no integral part? The furrow which Time is +even now turning runs through the Everlasting, and in that must he +plant, or nowhere. Yet he would fain believe and teach that we are +_going_ to have more of eternity than we have now. This _going_ of his +is like that of the auctioneer, on which _gone_ follows before we have +made up our minds to bid,--in which manner, not three months back, I +lost an excellent copy of Chappelow on Job. So it has come to pass that +the preacher, instead of being a living force, has faded into an +emblematic figure at christenings, weddings, and funerals. Or, if he +exercise any other function, it is as keeper and feeder of certain +theologic dogmas, which, when occasion offers, he unkennels with a +_staboy!_ "to bark and bite as 'tis their nature to," whence that +reproach of _odium theologicum_ has arisen. + +'Meanwhile, see what a pulpit the editor mounts daily, sometimes with a +congregation of fifty thousand within reach of his voice, and never so +much as a nodder, even, among them! And from what a Bible can he choose +his text,--a Bible which needs no translation, and which no priestcraft +can shut and clasp from the laity,--the open volume of the world, upon +which, with a pen of sunshine or destroying fire, the inspired Present +is even now writing the annals of God! Methinks the editor who should +understand his calling, and be equal thereto, would truly deserve that +title of [Greek: poimaen laon], which Homer bestows upon princes. He +would be the Moses of our nineteenth century; and whereas the old Sinai, +silent now, is but a common mountain stared at by the elegant tourist +and crawled over by the hammering geologist, he must find his tables of +the new law here among factories and cities in this Wilderness of Sin +(Numbers xxxiii. 12) called Progress of Civilization, and be the captain +of our Exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order. + +'Nevertheless, our editor will not come so far within even the shadow of +Sinai as Mahomet did, but chooses rather to construe Moses by Joe Smith. +He takes up the crook, not that the sheep may be fed, but that he may +never want a warm woollen suit and a joint of mutton. + + _Immemor, O, fidei, pecorumque oblite tuorum!_ + +For which reason I would derive the name _editor_ not so much from +_edo_, to publish, as from _edo_, to eat, that being the peculiar +profession to which he esteems himself called. He blows up the flames of +political discord for no other occasion than that he may thereby handily +boil his own pot. I believe there are two thousand of these +mutton-loving shepherds in the United States, and of these, how many +have even the dimmest perception of their immense power, and the duties +consequent thereon? Here and there, haply, one. Nine hundred and +ninety-nine labor to impress upon the people the great principles of +_Tweedledum_, and other nine hundred and ninety-nine preach with equal +earnestness the gospel according to _Tweedledee_.'--H.W.] + +I du believe in Freedom's cause, + Ez fur away ez Payris is; +I love to see her stick her claws + In them infarnal Phayrisees; +It's wal enough agin a king + To dror resolves an' triggers,-- +But libbaty's a kind o' thing + Thet don't agree with niggers. + +I du believe the people want + A tax on teas an' coffees, 10 +Thet nothin' aint extravygunt,-- + Purvidin' I'm in office; +For I hev loved my country sence + My eye-teeth filled their sockets, +An' Uncle Sam I reverence, + Partic'larly his pockets. + +I du believe in _any_ plan + O' levyin' the texes, +Ez long ez, like a lumberman, + I git jest wut I axes; 20 +I go free-trade thru thick an' thin, + Because it kind o' rouses +The folks to vote,--an' keeps us in + Our quiet custom-houses. + +I du believe it's wise an' good + To sen' out furrin missions, +Thet is, on sartin understood + An' orthydox conditions;-- +I mean nine thousan' dolls. per ann., + Nine thousan' more fer outfit, 30 +An' me to recommend a man + The place 'ould jest about fit. + +I du believe in special ways + O' prayin' an' convartin'; +The bread comes back in many days, + An' buttered, tu, fer sartin; +I mean in preyin' till one busts + On wut the party chooses, +An' in convartin' public trusts + To very privit uses. 40 + +I du believe hard coin the stuff + Fer 'lectioneers to spout on; +The people's ollers soft enough + To make hard money out on; +Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his, + An' gives a good-sized junk to all,-- +I don't care _how_ hard money is, + Ez long ez mine's paid punctooal. + +I du believe with all my soul + In the gret Press's freedom, 50 +To pint the people to the goal + An' in the traces lead 'em; +Palsied the arm thet forges yokes + At my fat contracts squintin', +An' withered be the nose thet pokes + Inter the gov'ment printin'! + +I du believe thet I should give + Wut's his'n unto Cæsar, +Fer it's by him I move an' live, + Frum him my bread an' cheese air; 60 +I du believe thet all o' me + Doth bear his superscription,-- +Will, conscience, honor, honesty, + An' things o' thet description. + +I du believe in prayer an' praise + To him that hez the grantin' +O' jobs,--in every thin' thet pays, + But most of all in CANTIN'; +This doth my cup with marcies fill, + This lays all thought o' sin to rest,-- 70 +I _don't_ believe in princerple, + But oh, I _du_ in interest. + +I du believe in bein' this + Or thet, ez it may happen +One way or t'other hendiest is + To ketch the people nappln'; +It aint by princerples nor men + My preudunt course is steadied,-- +I scent wich pays the best, an' then + Go into it baldheaded. 80 + +I du believe thet holdin' slaves + Comes nat'ral to a Presidunt, +Let 'lone the rowdedow it saves + To hev a wal-broke precedunt: +Fer any office, small or gret, + I couldn't ax with no face, +'uthout I'd ben, thru dry an' wet, + Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface. + +I du believe wutever trash + 'll keep the people in blindness,-- 90 +Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash + Right inter brotherly kindness, +Thet bombshells, grape, an' powder 'n' ball + Air good-will's strongest magnets, +Thet peace, to make it stick at all, + Must be druv in with bagnets. + +In short, I firmly du believe + In Humbug generally, +Fer it's a thing thet I perceive + To hev a solid vally; 100 +This heth my faithful shepherd ben, + In pasturs sweet heth led me, +An' this'll keep the people green + To feed ez they hev fed me. + + +[I subjoin here another passage from my before-mentioned discourse. + + +'Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it rightly, is the newspaper. To +me, for example, sitting on the critical front bench of the pit, in my +study here in Jaalam, the advent of my weekly journal is as that of a +strolling theatre, or rather of a puppet-show, on whose stage, narrow as +it is, the tragedy, comedy, and farce of life are played in little. +Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in a brown-paper +wrapper! + +'Hither, to my obscure corner, by wind or steam, on horseback or +dromedary-back, in the pouch of the Indian runner, or clicking over the +magnetic wires, troop all the famous performers from the four quarters +of the globe. Looked at from a point of criticism, tiny puppets they +seem all, as the editor sets up his booth upon my desk and officiates as +showman. Now I can truly see how little and transitory is life. The +earth appears almost as a drop of vinegar, on which the solar microscope +of the imagination must be brought to bear in order to make out +anything distinctly. That animalcule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis +Philippe, just landed on the coast of England. That other, in the gray +surtout and cocked hat, is Napoleon Bonaparte Smith, assuring France +that she need apprehend no interference from him in the present alarming +juncture. At that spot, where you seem to see a speck of something in +motion, is an immense mass-meeting. Look sharper, and you will see a +mite brandishing his mandibles in an excited manner. That is the great +Mr. Soandso, defining his position amid tumultuous and irrepressible +cheers. That infinitesimal creature, upon whom some score of others, as +minute as he, are gazing in open-mouthed admiration, is a famous +philosopher, expounding to a select audience their capacity for the +Infinite. That scarce discernible pufflet of smoke and dust is a +revolution. That speck there is a reformer, just arranging the lever +with which he is to move the world. And lo, there creeps forward the +shadow of a skeleton that blows one breath between its grinning teeth, +and all our distinguished actors are whisked off the slippery stage into +the dark Beyond. + +'Yes, the little show-box has its solemner suggestions. Now and then we +catch a glimpse of a grim old man, who lays down a scythe and hour-glass +in the corner while he shifts the scenes. There, too, in the dim +background, a weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he leans upon his +mattock, and gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly married on +their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe brought home from +christening. Suddenly (for the scene grows larger and larger as we look) +a bony hand snatches back a performer in the midst of his part, and him, +whom yesterday two infinities (past and future) would not suffice, a +handful of dust is enough to cover and silence forever. Nay, we see the +same fleshless fingers opening to clutch the showman himself, and guess, +not without a shudder, that they are lying in wait for spectator also. + +'Think of it: for three dollars a year I buy a season-ticket to this +great Globe Theatre, for which God would write the dramas (only that we +like farces, spectacles, and the tragedies of Apollyon better), whose +scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is rung down by Death. + +'Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes as I am tearing off the +wrapper of my newspaper. Then suddenly that otherwise too often vacant +sheet becomes invested for me with a strange kind of awe. Look! deaths +and marriages, notices of inventions, discoveries, and books, lists of +promotions, of killed, wounded, and missing, news of fires, accidents, +of sudden wealth and as sudden poverty;--I hold in my hand the ends of +myriad invisible electric conductors, along which tremble the joys, +sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, hopes, and despairs of as many men and women +everywhere. So that upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate me +from mankind as a spectator of their puppet-pranks, another supervenes, +in which I feel that I, too, unknown and unheard of, am yet of some +import to my fellows. For, through my newspaper here, do not families +take pains to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death among them? +Are not here two who would have me know of their marriage? And, +strangest of all, is not this singular person anxious to have me +informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry Bruisgins? But +to none of us does the Present continue miraculous (even if for a moment +discerned as such). We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to +Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this sheet, +(Acts x. 11, 12) in which a vision was let down to me from Heaven, shall +be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a beggar's broken +victuals.'--H.W.] + + + +No. VII + +A LETTER + +FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS +PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, INCLOSED IN A NOTE FROM MR. BIGLOW TO S.H. +GAY, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-SLAVERY STANDARD + + +[Curiosity may be said to be the quality which preeminently +distinguishes and segregates man from the lower animals. As we trace the +scale of animated nature downward, we find this faculty (as it may truly +he called) of the mind diminished in the savage, and wellnigh extinct +in the brute. The first object which civilized man proposes to himself I +take to be the finding out whatsoever he can concerning his neighbors. +_Nihil humanum a me alienum puto;_ I am curious about even John Smith. +The desire next in strength to this (an opposite pole, indeed, of the +same magnet) is that of communicating the unintelligence we have +carefully picked up. + +Men in general may be divided into the inquisitive and the +communicative. To the first class belong Peeping Toms, eaves-droppers, +navel-contemplating Brahmins, metaphysicians, travellers, Empedocleses, +spies, the various societies for promoting Rhinothism, Columbuses, +Yankees, discoverers, and men of science, who present themselves to the +mind as so many marks of interrogation wandering up and down the world, +or sitting in studies and laboratories. The second class I should again +subdivide into four. In the first subdivision I would rank those who +have an itch to tell us about themselves,--as keepers of diaries, +insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, Horace Walpoles, +autobiographers, poets. The second includes those who are anxious to +impart information concerning other people,--as historians, barbers, and +such. To the third belong those who labor to give us intelligence about +nothing at all,--as novelists, political orators, the large majority of +authors, preachers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth come those +who are communicative from motives of public benevolence,--as finders of +mares'-nests and bringers of ill news. Each of us two-legged fowls +without feathers embraces all these subdivisions in himself to a greater +or less degree, for none of us so much as lays an egg, or incubates a +chalk one, but straightway the whole barnyard shall know it by our +cackle or our cluck. _Omnibus hoc vitium est_. There are different +grades in all these classes. One will turn his telescope toward a +back-yard, another toward Uranus; one will tell you that he dined with +Smith, another that he supped with Plato. In one particular, all men may +be considered as belonging to the first grand division, inasmuch as they +all seem equally desirous of discovering the mote in their neighbor's eye. + +To one or another of these species every human being may safely be +referred. I think it beyond a peradventure that Jonah prosecuted some +inquiries into the digestive apparatus of whales, and that Noah sealed +up a letter in an empty bottle, that news in regard to him might not be +wanting in case of the worst. They had else been super or subter human. +I conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons who continually +peep and pry at the keyhole of that mysterious door through which, +sooner or later, we all make our exits, so there are doubtless ghosts +fidgeting and fretting on the other side of it, because they have no +means of conveying back to this world the scraps of news they have +picked up in that. For there is an answer ready somewhere to every +question, the great law of _give and take_ runs through all nature, and +if we see a hook, we may be sure that an eye is waiting for it. I read +in every face I meet a standing advertisement of information wanted in +regard to A.B., or that the friends of C.D. can hear something to his +disadvantage by application to such a one. + +It was to gratify the two great passions of asking and answering that +epistolary correspondence was first invented. Letters (for by this +usurped title epistles are now commonly known) are of several kinds. +First, there are those which are not letters at all--as letters-patent, +letters dismissory, letters enclosing bills, letters of administration, +Pliny's letters, letters of diplomacy, of Cato, of Mentor, of Lords +Lyttelton, Chesterfield, and Orrery, of Jacob Behmen, Seneca (whom St. +Jerome includes in his list of sacred writers), letters from abroad, +from sons in college to their fathers, letters of marque, and letters +generally, which are in no wise letters of mark. Second, are real +letters, such as those of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, Howell, Lamb, D.Y., the +first letters from children (printed in staggering capitals), Letters +from New York, letters of credit, and others, interesting for the sake +of the writer or the thing written. I have read also letters from Europe +by a gentleman named Pinto, containing some curious gossip, and which I +hope to see collected for the benefit of the curious. There are, +besides, letters addressed to posterity,--as epitaphs, for example, +written for their own monuments by monarchs, whereby we have lately +become possessed of the names of several great conquerors and kings of +kings, hitherto unheard of and still unpronounceable, but valuable to +the student of the entirely dark ages. The letter of our Saviour to King +Abgarus, that which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in the year of grace +755, that of the Virgin to the magistrates of Messina, that of the +Sanhedrim of Toledo to Annas and Caiaphas, A.D. 35, that of Galeazzo +Sforza's spirit to his brother Lodovico, that of St. Gregory +Thaumaturgus to the D----l, and that of this last-mentioned active +police-magistrate to a nun of Girgenti, I would place in a class by +themselves, as also the letters of candidates, concerning which I shall +dilate more fully in a note at the end of the following poem. At present +_sat prata biberunt_. Only, concerning the shape of letters, they are +all either square or oblong, to which general figures circular letters +and round-robins also conform themselves.--H.W.] + + +Deer Sir its gut to be the fashun now to rite letters to the candid 8s +and i wus chose at a publick Meetin in Jaalam to du wut wus nessary fur +that town. i writ to 271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha air called +candid 8s but I don't see nothin candid about 'em. this here 1 wich I +send wus thought satty's factory. I dunno as it's ushle to print +Poscrips, but as all the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it wus +best. times has gretly changed. Formaly to knock a man into a cocked hat +wus to use him up, but now it ony gives him a chance fur the cheef +madgustracy.--H.B. + + +Dear Sir,--You wish to know my notions + On sartin pints thet rile the land; +There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns + Ez bein' mum or underhand; +I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur + Thet blurts right out wut's in his head. +An' ef I've one pecooler feetur, + It is a nose thet wunt be led. + +So, to begin at the beginnin' + An' come direcly to the pint, 10 +I think the country's underpinnin' + Is some consid'ble out o' jint; +I aint agoin' to try your patience + By tellin' who done this or thet, +I don't make no insinooations, + I jest let on I smell a rat. + +Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so, + But, ef the public think I'm wrong, +I wunt deny but wut I be so,-- + An' fact, it don't smell very strong; 20 +My mind's tu fair to lose its balance + An' say wich party hez most sense; +There may be folks o' greater talence + Thet can't set stiddier on the fence. + +I'm an eclectic; ez to choosin' + 'Twixt this an' thet, I'm plaguy lawth; +I leave a side thet looks like losin', + But (wile there's doubt) I stick to both; +I stan' upon the Constitution, + Ez preudunt statesman say, who've planned 30 +A way to git the most profusion + O' chances ez to _ware_ they'll stand. + +Ez fer the war, I go agin it,-- + I mean to say I kind o' du,-- +Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it, + The best way wuz to fight it thru'; +Not but wut abstract war is horrid, + I sign to thet with all my heart,-- +But civlyzation _doos_ git forrid 39 + Sometimes upon a powder-cart. + +About thet darned Proviso matter + I never hed a grain o' doubt. +Nor I aint one my sense to scatter + So 'st no one couldn't pick it out; +My love fer North an' South is equil, + So I'll jest answer plump an' frank, +No matter wut may be the sequil,-- + Yes, Sir, I _am_ agin a Bank. + +Ez to the answerin' o' questions, + I'm an off ox at bein' druv, 50 +Though I ain't one thet ary test shuns + 'll give our folks a helpin' shove; +Kind o' permiscoous I go it + Fer the holl country, an' the ground +I take, ez nigh ez I can show it, + Is pooty gen'ally all round. + +I don't appruve o' givin' pledges; + You'd ough' to leave a feller free, +An' not go knockin' out the wedges + To ketch his fingers in the tree; +Pledges air awfle breachy cattle 61 + Thet preudunt farmers don't turn out,-- +Ez long 'z the people git their rattle, + Wut is there fer 'em to grout about? + +Ez to the slaves, there's no confusion + In _my_ idees consarnin' them,-- +_I_ think they air an Institution, + A sort of--yes, jest so,--ahem: +Do _I_ own any? Of my merit + On thet pint you yourself may jedge; 70 +All is, I never drink no sperit, + Nor I haint never signed no pledge. + +Ez to my princerples, I glory + In hevin' nothin' o' the sort; +I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory, + I'm jest a canderdate, in short; +Thet's fair an' square an' parpendicler + But, ef the Public cares a fig +To hev me an'thin' in particler, + Wy, I'm a kind o' peri-Wig. 80 + +P.S. + +Ez we're a sort o' privateerin', + O' course, you know, it's sheer an' sheer, +An' there is sutthin' wuth your hearin' + I'll mention in _your_ privit ear; +Ef you git _me_ inside the White House, + Your head with ile I'll kin' o' 'nint +By gittin' _you_ inside the Lighthouse + Down to the eend o' Jaalam Pint. +An' ez the North hez took to brustlin' + At bein' scrouged frum off the roost, 90 +I'll tell ye wut'll save all tusslin' + An' give our side a harnsome boost,-- +Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question + I'm RIGHT, although to speak I'm lawth; +This gives you a safe pint to rest on, + An' leaves me frontin' South by North. + + +[And now of epistles candidatial, which are of two kinds,--namely, +letters of acceptance, and letters definitive of position. Our republic, +on the eve of an election, may safely enough be called a republic of +letters. Epistolary composition becomes then an epidemic, which seizes +one candidate after another, not seldom cutting short the thread of +political life. It has come to such a pass, that a party dreads less the +attacks of its opponents than a letter from its candidate. _Litera +scripta manet_, and it will go hard if something bad cannot be made of +it. General Harrison, it is well understood, was surrounded, during his +candidacy, with the _cordon sanitaire_ of a vigilance committee. No +prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously deprived of writing +materials. The soot was scraped carefully from the chimney-places; +outposts of expert rifle-shooters rendered it sure death for any goose +(who came clad in feathers) to approach within a certain limited +distance of North Bend; and all domestic fowls about the premises were +reduced to the condition of Plato's original man. By these precautions +the General was saved. _Parva componere magnis_, I remember, that, when +party-spirit once ran high among my people, upon occasion of the choice +of a new deacon, I, having my preferences, yet not caring too openly to +express them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring about that result +which I deemed most desirable. My stratagem was no other than the +throwing a copy of the Complete Letter-Writer in the way of the +candidate whom I wished to defeat. He caught the infection, and +addressed a short note to his constituents, in which the opposite party +detected so many and so grave improprieties (he had modelled it upon the +letter of a young lady accepting a proposal of marriage), that he not +only lost his election, but, falling under a suspicion of Sabellianism +and I know not what (the widow Endive assured me that he was a +Paralipomenon, to her certain knowledge), was forced to leave the town. +Thus it is that the letter killeth. + +The object which candidates propose to themselves in writing is to +convey no meaning at all. And here is a quite unsuspected pitfall into +which they successively plunge headlong. For it is precisely in such +cryptographies that mankind are prone to seek for and find a wonderful +amount and variety of significance. _Omne ignotum pro mirifico_. How do +we admire at the antique world striving to crack those oracular nuts +from Delphi, Hammon, and elsewhere, in only one of which can I so much +as surmise that any kernel had ever lodged; that, namely, wherein Apollo +confessed that he was mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, related to have +written six thousand books on the single subject of grammar, a topic +rendered only more tenebrific by the labors of his successors, and which +seems still to possess an attraction for authors in proportion as they +can make nothing of it. A singular loadstone for theologians, also, is +the Beast in the Apocalypse, whereof, in the course of my studies, I +have noted two hundred and three several interpretations, each +lethiferal to all the rest. _Non nostrum est tantas componere lites_, +yet I have myself ventured upon a two hundred and fourth, which I +embodied in a discourse preached on occasion of the demise of the late +usurper, Napoleon Bonaparte, and which quieted, in a large measure, the +minds of my people. It is true that my views on this important point +were ardently controverted by Mr. Shearjashub Holden, the then preceptor +of our academy, and in other particulars a very deserving and sensible +young man, though possessing a somewhat limited knowledge of the Greek +tongue. But his heresy struck down no deep root, and, he having been +lately removed by the hand of Providence, I had the satisfaction of +reaffirming my cherished sentiments in a sermon preached upon the Lord's +day immediately succeeding his funeral. This might seem like taking an +unfair advantage, did I not add that he had made provision in his last +will (being celibate) for the publication of a posthumous tractate in +support of his own dangerous opinions. + +I know of nothing in our modern times which approaches so nearly to the +ancient oracle as the letter of a Presidential candidate. Now, among the +Greeks, the eating of beans was strictly forbidden to all such as had it +in mind to consult those expert amphibologists, and this same +prohibition on the part of Pythagoras to his disciples is understood to +imply an abstinence from politics, beans having been used as ballots. +That other explication, _quod videlicet sensus eo cibo obtundi +existimaret_, though supported _pugnis et calcibus_ by many of the +learned, and not wanting the countenance of Cicero, is confuted by the +larger experience of New England. On the whole, I think it safer to +apply here the rule of interpretation which now generally obtains in +regard to antique cosmogonies, myths, fables, proverbial expressions, +and knotty points generally, which is, to find a common-sense meaning, +and then select whatever can be imagined the most opposite thereto. In +this way we arrive at the conclusion, that the Greeks objected to the +questioning of candidates. And very properly, if, as I conceive, the +chief point be not to discover what a person in that position is, or +what he will do, but whether he can be elected. _Vos exemplaria Græca +nocturna versate manu, versate diurna_. + +But, since an imitation of the Greeks in this particular (the asking of +questions being one chief privilege of freemen) is hardly to be hoped +for, and our candidates will answer, whether they are questioned or not, +I would recommend that these ante-electionary dialogues should be +carried on by symbols, as were the diplomatic correspondences of the +Scythians an Macrobii, or confined to the language of signs, like the +famous interview of Panurge and Goatsnose. A candidate might then +convey a suitable reply to all committees of inquiry by closing one eye, +or by presenting them with a phial of Egyptian darkness to be speculated +upon by their respective constituencies. These answers would be +susceptible of whatever retrospective construction the exigencies of the +political campaign might seem to demand, and the candidate could take +his position on either side of the fence with entire consistency. Or, if +letters must be written, profitable use might be made of the Dighton +rock hieroglyphic or the cuneiform script, every fresh decipherer of +which is enabled to educe a different meaning, whereby a sculptured +stone or two supplies us, and will probably continue to supply +posterity, with a very vast and various body of authentic history. For +even the briefest epistle in the ordinary chirography is dangerous. +There is scarce any style so compressed that superfluous words may not +be detected in it. A severe critic might curtail that famous brevity of +Cæsar's by two thirds, drawing his pen through the supererogatory +_veni_ and _vidi_. Perhaps, after all, the surest footing of hope is to +be found in the rapidly increasing tendency to demand less and less of +qualification in candidates. Already have statesmanship, experience, and +the possession (nay, the profession, even) of principles been rejected +as superfluous, and may not the patriot reasonably hope that the ability +to write will follow? At present, there may be death in pothooks as well +as pots, the loop of a letter may suffice for a bowstring, and all the +dreadful heresies of Antislavery may lurk in a flourish.--H.W.] + + + +No. VIII + +A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ. + + +[In the following epistle, we behold Mr. Sawin returning, a _miles +emeritus_, to the bosom of his family. _Quantum mutatus!_ The good +Father of us all had doubtless intrusted to the keeping of this child of +his certain faculties of a constructive kind. He had put in him a share +of that vital force, the nicest economy of every minute atom of which is +necessary to the perfect development of Humanity. He had given him a +brain and heart, and so had equipped his soul with the two strong wings +of knowledge and love, whereby it can mount to hang its nest under the +eaves of heaven. And this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to the +keeping of his vicar, the State. How stands the account of that +stewardship? The State, or Society (call her by what name you will), had +taken no manner of thought of him till she saw him swept out into the +street, the pitiful leavings of last night's debauch, with cigar-ends, +lemon-parings, tobacco-quids, slops, vile stenches, and the whole +loathsome next-morning of the bar-room,--an own child of the Almighty +God! I remember him as he was brought to be christened, a ruddy, rugged +babe; and now there he wallows, reeking, seething,--the dead corpse, not +of a man, but of a soul,--a putrefying lump, horrible for the life that +is in it. Comes the wind of heaven, that good Samaritan, and parts the +hair upon his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss those parched, cracked +lips; the morning opens upon him her eyes full of pitying sunshine, the +sky yearns down to him,--and there he lies fermenting. O sleep! let me +not profane thy holy name by calling that stertorous unconsciousness a +slumber! By and by comes along the State, God's vicar. Does she say, 'My +poor, forlorn foster-child! Behold here a force which I will make dig +and plant and build for me'? Not so, but, 'Here is a recruit ready-made +to my hand, a piece of destroying energy lying unprofitably idle.' So +she claps an ugly gray suit on him, puts a musket in his grasp, and +sends him off, with Gubernatorial and other godspeeds, to do duty as a +destroyer. + +I made one of the crowd at the last Mechanics' Fair, and, with the rest, +stood gazing in wonder at a perfect machine, with its soul of fire, its +boiler-heart that sent the hot blood pulsing along the iron arteries, +and its thews of steel. And while I was admiring the adaptation of means +to end, the harmonious involutions of contrivance, and the +never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, the +imperious engine's lackey and drudge, whose sole office was to let fall, +at intervals, a drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then my soul +said within me, See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you +marvel at is but as the rude first effort of a child,--a force which not +merely suffices to set a few wheels in motion, but which can send an +impulse all through the infinite future,--a contrivance, not for turning +out pins, or stitching button-holes, but for making Hamlets and Lears. +And yet this thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from rust +and dust, and it shall be a crime but so much as to scratch it with a +pin; while the other, with its fire of God in it, shall be buffeted +hither and thither, and finally sent carefully a thousand miles to be +the target for a Mexican cannon-ball. Unthrifty Mother State! My heart +burned within me for pity and indignation, and I renewed this covenant +with my own soul,--_In aliis mansuetus ero, at, in blasphemiis contra +Christum, non ita._.--H.W.] + + +I spose you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me, +Exacly ware I be myself,--meanin' by thet the holl o' me. +Wen I left hum, I hed two legs, an' they worn't bad ones neither, +(The scaliest trick they ever played wuz bringin' on me hither,) +Now one on 'em's I dunno ware;--they thought I wuz adyin', +An' sawed it off because they said 'twuz kin' o' mortifyin'; +I'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I don't see, nuther, +Wy one shoud take to feelin' cheap a minnit sooner 'n t'other, +Sence both wuz equilly to blame; but things is ez they be; +It took on so they took it off, an' thet's enough fer me: 10 +There's one good thing, though, to be said about my wooden new one,-- +The liquor can't git into it ez 't used to in the true one; +So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller couldn't beg +A gretter blessin' then to hev one ollers sober peg; +It's true a chap's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum, +But all the march I'm up to now is jest to Kingdom Come. + +I've lost one eye, but thet's a loss it's easy to supply +Out o' the glory thet I've gut, fer thet is all my eye; +An' one is big enough, I guess, by diligently usin' it, +To see all I shall ever git by way o' pay fer losin' it; 20 +Off'cers I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an' kickins, +Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the fattest pickins; +So, ez the eye's put fairly out, I'll larn to go without it, +An' not allow _myself_ to be no gret put out about it. +Now, le' me see, thet isn't all; I used, 'fore leavin' Jaalam, +To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em: +Ware's my left hand? Oh, darn it, yes, I recollect wut's come on 't; +I haint no left arm but my right, an' thet's gut jest a thumb on 't; +It aint so bendy ez it wuz to cal'late a sum on 't. +I've hed some ribs broke,--six (I b'lieve),--I haint kep' no account on + 'em; 30 +Wen pensions git to be the talk, I'll settle the amount on 'em. +An' now I'm speakin' about ribs, it kin' o' brings to mind +One thet I couldn't never break,--the one I lef' behind; +Ef you should see her, jest clear out the spout o' your invention +An' pour the longest sweetnin' in about an annooal pension, +An' kin' o' hint (in case, you know, the critter should refuse to be +Consoled) I aint so 'xpensive now to keep ez wut I used to be; +There's one arm less, ditto one eye, an' then the leg thet's wooden +Can be took off an' sot away wenever ther's a puddin'. + +I spose you think I'm comin' back ez opperlunt ez thunder, 40 +With shiploads o' gold images an' varus sorts o' plunder; +Wal, 'fore I vullinteered, I thought this country wuz a sort o' +Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land flowin' with rum an' water, +Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultivation, +An' gold wuz dug ez taters be among our Yankee nation, +Ware nateral advantages were pufficly amazin', +Ware every rock there wuz about with precious stuns wuz blazin'. +Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez thick ez you could cram 'em, +An' desput rivers run about a beggin' folks to dam 'em; +Then there were meetinhouses, tu, chockful o' gold an' silver 50 +Thet you could take, an' no one couldn't hand ye in no bill fer;-- +Thet's wut I thought afore I went, thet's wut them fellers told us +Thet stayed to hum an' speechified an' to the buzzards sold us; +I thought thet gold-mines could be gut cheaper than Chiny asters, +An' see myself acomin' back like sixty Jacob Astors; +But sech idees soon melted down an' didn't leave a grease-spot; +I vow my holl sheer o' the spiles wouldn't come nigh a V spot; +Although, most anywares we've ben, you needn't break no locks, +Nor run no kin' o' risks, to fill your pocket full o' rocks. +I 'xpect I mentioned in my last some o' the nateral feeturs 60 +O' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way o' awfle creeturs, +But I fergut to name (new things to speak on so abounded) +How one day you'll most die o' thust, an' 'fore the next git drownded. +The clymit seems to me jest like a teapot made o' pewter +Our Preudence hed, thet wouldn't pour (all she could du) to suit her; +Fust place the leaves 'ould choke the spout, so's not a drop 'ould dreen + out, +Then Prude 'ould tip an' tip an' tip, till the holl kit bust clean out, +The kiver-hinge-pin bein' lost, tea-leaves an' tea an' kiver +'ould all come down _kerswosh!_ ez though the dam bust in a river. +Jest so 'tis here; holl months there aint a day o' rainy weather, 70 +An' jest ez th' officers 'ould be a layin' heads together +Ez t' how they'd mix their drink at sech a milingtary deepot,-- +'Twould pour ez though the lid wuz off the everlastin' teapot. +The cons'quence is, thet I shall take, wen I'm allowed to leave here, +One piece o' propaty along, an' thet's the shakin' fever; +It's reggilar employment, though, an' thet aint thought to harm one, +Nor 'taint so tiresome ez it wuz with t'other leg an' arm on; +An' it's a consolation, tu, although it doosn't pay, +To hev it said you're some gret shakes in any kin' o' way. +'Tworn't very long, I tell ye wut, I thought o' fortin-makin',-- 80 +One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' next ez good ez bakin',-- +One day abrilin' in the sand, then smoth'rin' in the mashes,-- +Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o' hacks an' smashes. +But then, thinks I, at any rate there's glory to be hed,-- +Thet's an investment, arter all, thet mayn't turn out so bad; +But somehow, wen we'd fit an' licked, I ollers found the thanks +Gut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez low down ez the ranks; +The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the Cunnles next, an' so on,-- +_We_ never gat a blasted mite o' glory ez I know on; +An' spose we hed, I wonder how you're goin' to contrive its 90 +Division so's to give a piece to twenty thousand privits; +Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st one, +You wouldn't git more 'n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun; +We git the licks,--we're jest the grist thet's put into War's hoppers; +Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the coppers. +It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in 't, +An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in 't; +But glory is a kin' o' thing _I_ sha'n't pursue no furder, +Coz thet's the off'cers' parquisite,--yourn's on'y jest the murder. + +Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there's one 100 +Thing in the bills we aint bed yit, an' thet's the GLORIOUS FUN; +Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume we +All day an' night shall revel in the halls o' Montezumy. +I'll tell ye wut _my_ revels wuz, an' see how you would like 'em; +_We_ never gut inside the hall: the nighest ever _I_ come +Wuz stan'in' sentry in the sun (an', fact, it _seemed_ a cent'ry) +A ketchin' smells o' biled an' roast thet come out thru the entry, +An' hearin' ez I sweltered thru my passes an' repasses, +A rat-tat-too o' knives an' forks, a clinkty-clink o' glasses: +I can't tell off the bill o' fare the Gin'rals hed inside; 110 +All I know is, thet out o' doors a pair o' soles wuz fried, +An' not a hunderd miles away from ware this child wuz posted, +A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an' biled an' roasted; +The on'y thing like revellin' thet ever come to me +Wuz bein' routed out o' sleep by thet darned revelee. + +They say the quarrel's settled now; for my part I've some doubt on 't, +'t'll take more fish-skin than folks think to take the rile clean on 't; +At any rate I'm so used up I can't do no more fightin', +The on'y chance thet's left to me is politics or writin'; +Now, ez the people's gut to hev a milingtary man, 120 +An' I aint nothin' else jest now, I've hit upon a plan; +The can'idatin' line, you know, 'ould suit me to a T, +An' ef I lose, 'twunt hurt my ears to lodge another flea; +So I'll set up ez can'idate fer any kin' o' office, +(I mean fer any thet includes good easy-cheers an' soffies; +Fer ez tu runnin' fer a place ware work's the time o' day, +You know thet's wut I never did,--except the other way;) +Ef it's the Presidential cheer fer wich I'd better run, +Wut two legs anywares about could keep up with my one? +There aint no kin' o' quality in can'idates, it's said, 130 +So useful eza wooden leg,--except a wooden head; +There's nothin' aint so poppylar--(wy, it 's a parfect sin +To think wut Mexico hez paid fer Santy Anny's pin;)-- +Then I haint gut no princerples, an', sence I wuz knee-high, +I never _did_ hev any gret, ez you can testify; +I'm a decided peace-man, tu, an' go agin the war,-- +Fer now the holl on 't's gone an' past, wut is there to go _for_? +Ef, wile you're 'lectioneerin' round, some curus chaps should beg +To know my views o' state affairs, jest answer WOODEN LEG! +Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' o' pry an' doubt 140 +An' ax fer sutthin' deffynit, jest say ONE EYE PUT OUT! +Thet kin' o' talk I guess you'll find'll answer to a charm, +An' wen you're druv tu nigh the wall, hol' up my missin' arm; +Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, put on a vartoous look +An' tell 'em thet's precisely wut I never gin nor--took! + +Then you can call me 'Timbertoes,'--thet's wut the people likes; +Sutthin' combinin' morril truth with phrases sech ez strikes; +Some say the people's fond o' this, or thet, or wut you please,-- +I tell ye wut the people want is jest correct idees; +'Old Timbertoes,' you see, 's a creed it's safe to be quite bold + on, 150 +There's nothin' in 't the other side can any ways git hold on; +It's a good tangible idee, a sutthin' to embody +Thet valooable class o' men who look thru brandy-toddy; +It gives a Party Platform, tu, jest level with the mind +Of all right-thinkin', honest folks thet mean to go it blind; +Then there air other good hooraws to dror on ez you need 'em, +Sech ez the ONE-EYED SLARTERER, the BLOODY BIRDOFREDUM: +Them's wut takes hold o' folks thet think, ez well ez o' the masses, +An' makes you sartin o' the aid o' good men of all classes. + +There's one thing I'm in doubt about: in order to be Presidunt, 160 +It's absolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern residunt; +The Constitution settles thet, an' also thet a feller +Must own a nigger o' some sort, jet black, or brown, or yeller. +Now I haint no objections agin particklar climes, +Nor agin ownin' anythin' (except the truth sometimes), +But, ez I haint no capital, up there among ye, maybe, +You might raise funds enough fer me to buy a low-priced baby, +An' then to suit the No'thern folks, who feel obleeged to say +They hate an' cus the very thing they vote fer every day, +Say you're assured I go full butt fer Libbaty's diffusion 170 +An' make the purchis on'y jest to spite the Institootion;-- +But, golly! there's the currier's hoss upon the pavement pawin'! +I'll be more 'xplicit in my next. + Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. + + +[We have now a tolerably fair chance of estimating how the balance-sheet +stands between our returned volunteer and glory. Supposing the entries +to be set down on both sides of the account in fractional parts of one +hundred, we shall arrive at something like the following result:-- + +B. SAWIN, Esq., _in account with_ (BLANK) GLORY. + +_Cr._ +By loss of one leg............................................... 20 + " do. one arm................................................ 15 + " do. four fingers............................................ 5 + " do. one eye................................................ 10 + " the breaking of six ribs........................................ 6 + " having served under Colonel Cushing one month.................. 44 + ------- + 100 +_Dr._ +To one 675th three cheers in Faneuil Hall......................... 30 + " do. do. on occasion of presentation of sword to Colonel Wright.. 25 +To one suit of gray clothes (ingeniously unbecoming).............. 15 + " musical entertainments (drum and fife six months)............... 5 + " one dinner after return......................................... 1 + " chance of pension............................................... 1 + " privilege of drawing longbow during rest of natural life....... 23 + ------ + 100 + +E.E. + + +It should appear that Mr. Sawin found the actual feast curiously the +reverse of the bill of fare advertised in Faneuil Hall and other places. +His primary object seems to have been the making of his fortune. +_Quærenda pecunia primum, virtus post nummos_. He hoisted sail for +Eldorado, and shipwrecked on Point Tribulation. _Quid, non mortalia +pectora cogis, auri sacra fames?_ The speculation has sometimes crossed +my mind, in that dreary interval of drought which intervenes between +quarterly stipendiary showers, that Providence, by the creation of a +money-tree, might have simplified wonderfully the sometimes perplexing +problem of human life. We read of bread-trees, the butter for which lies +ready-churned in Irish bogs. Milk-trees we are assured of in South +America, and stout Sir John Hawkins testifies to water-trees in the +Canaries. Boot-trees bear abundantly in Lynn and elsewhere; and I have +seen, in the entries of the wealthy, hat-trees with a fair show of +fruit. A family-tree I once cultivated myself, and found therefrom but a +scanty yield, and that quite tasteless and innutritious. Of trees +bearing men we are not without examples; as those in the park of Louis +the Eleventh of France. Who has forgotten, moreover, that olive-tree, +growing in the Athenian's back-garden, with its strange uxorious crop, +for the general propagation of which, as of a new and precious variety, +the philosopher Diogenes, hitherto uninterested in arboriculture, was so +zealous? In the _sylva_ of our own Southern States, the females of my +family have called my attention to the china-tree. Not to multiply +examples, I will barely add to my list the birch-tree, in the smaller +branches of which has been implanted so miraculous a virtue for +communicating the Latin and Greek languages, and which may well, +therefore, be classed among the trees producing necessaries of +life,--_venerabile donum fatalis virgæ_. That money-trees existed in +the golden age there want not prevalent reasons for our believing. For +does not the old proverb, when it asserts that money does not grow on +_every_ bush, imply _a fortiori_ that there were certain bushes which +did produce it? Again, there is another ancient saw to the effect that +money is the _root_ of all evil. From which two adages it may be safe to +infer that the aforesaid species of tree first degenerated into a shrub, +then absconded underground, and finally, in our iron age, vanished +altogether. In favorable exposures it may be conjectured that a specimen +or two survived to a great age, as in the garden of the Hesperides; and, +indeed, what else could that tree in the Sixth Æneid have been with a +branch whereof the Trojan hero procured admission to a territory, for +the entering of which money is a surer passport than to a certain other +more profitable and too foreign kingdom? Whether these speculations of +mine have any force in them, or whether they will not rather, by most +readers, be deemed impertinent to the matter in hand, is a question +which I leave to the determination of an indulgent posterity. That there +were, in more primitive and happier times, shops where money was +sold,--and that, too, on credit and at a bargain,--I take to be matter +of demonstration. For what but a dealer in this article was that Æolus +who supplied Ulysses with motive-power for his fleet in bags? what that +Ericus, King of Sweden, who is said to have kept the winds in his cap? +what, in more recent times, those Lapland Nornas who traded in favorable +breezes? All which will appear the more clearly when we consider, that, +even to this day, _raising the wind_ is proverbial for raising money, +and that brokers and banks were invented by the Venetians at a later +period. + +And now for the improvement of this digression. I find a parallel to Mr. +Sawin's fortune in an adventure of my own. For, shortly after I had +first broached to myself the before-stated natural-historical and +archæological theories, as I was passing, _haec negotia penitus mecum +revolvens_, through one of the obscure suburbs of our New England +metropolis, my eye was attracted by these words upon a signboard,--CHEAP +CASH-STORE. Here was at once the confirmation of my speculations, and +the substance of my hopes. Here lingered the fragment of a happier past, +or stretched out the first tremulous organic filament of a more +fortunate future. Thus glowed the distant Mexico to the eyes of Sawin, +as he looked through the dirty pane of the recruiting-office window, or +speculated from the summit of that mirage-Pisgah which the imps of the +bottle are so cunning to raise up. Already had my Alnaschar-fancy (even +during that first half-believing glance) expended in various useful +directions the funds to be obtained by pledging the manuscript of a +proposed volume of discourses. Already did a clock ornament the tower of +the Jaalam meeting-house, a gift appropriately, but modestly, +commemorated in the parish and town records, both, for now many years, +kept by myself. Already had my son Seneca completed his course at the +University. Whether, for the moment, we may not be considered as +actually lording it over those Baratarias with the viceroyalty of which +Hope invests us, and whether we are ever so warmly housed as in our +Spanish castles, would afford matter of argument. Enough that I found +that signboard to be no other than a bait to the trap of a decayed +grocer. Nevertheless, I bought a pound of dates (getting short weight by +reason of immense flights of harpy flies who pursued and lighted upon +their prey even in the very scales), which purchase I made not only with +an eye to the little ones at home, but also as a figurative reproof of +that too frequent habit of my mind, which, forgetting the due order of +chronology, will often persuade me that the happy sceptre of Saturn is +stretched over this Astræa-forsaken nineteenth century. + +Having glanced at the ledger of Glory under the title _Sawin, B._, let +us extend our investigations, and discover if that instructive volume +does not contain some charges more personally interesting to ourselves. +I think we should be more economical of our resources, did we thoroughly +appreciate the fact, that, whenever Brother Jonathan seems to be +thrusting his hand into his own pocket, he is, in fact, picking ours. I +confess that the late _muck_ which the country has been running has +materially changed my views as to the best method of raising revenue. +If, by means of direct taxation, the bills for every extraordinary +outlay were brought under our immediate eye, so that, like thrifty +housekeepers, we could see where and how fast the money was going, we +should be less likely to commit extravagances. At present, these things +are managed in such a hugger-mugger way, that we know not what we pay +for; the poor man is charged as much as the rich; and, while we are +saving and scrimping at the spigot, the government is drawing off at the +bung. If we could know that a part of the money we expend for tea and +coffee goes to buy powder and balls, and that it is Mexican blood which +makes the clothes on our backs more costly, it would set some of us +athinking. During the present fall, I have often pictured to myself a +government official entering my study and handing me the following +bill:-- + + WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 1848, +REV. HOMER WILBUR to _Uncle Samuel_, + + _Dr._ +To his share of work done in Mexico + on partnership account, sundry + jobs, as below. +"killing, maiming and wounding + about 5000 Mexicans. . . . . . . . $2.00 +"slaughtering one woman carrying + water to wounded. . . . . . . . . . .10 +"extra work on two different Sabbaths + (one bombardment and one assault), + whereby the Mexicans were prevented + from defiling themselves with the + idolatries of high mass . . . . . . 3.50 +"throwing an especially fortunate and + Protestant bomb-shell into the + Cathedral at Vera Cruz, whereby + several female Papists were slain + at the altar. . . . . . . . . . . . .50 +"his proportion of cash paid for + conquered territory. . . . . . . . 1.75 +"do. do. for conquering do . . . . . 1.50 +"manuring do. with new superior + compost called 'American Citizen'. .50 +"extending the area of freedom and + Protestantism. . . . . . . . . . . .01 +"glory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .01 + _____ + $9.87 +_Immediate payment is requested._ + +N.B. Thankful for former favors, U.S. requests a continuance of +patronage. Orders executed with neatness and despatch. Terms as low as +those of any other contractor for the same kind and style of work. + + +I can fancy the official answering my look of horror with--'Yes, Sir, it +looks like a high charge. Sir; but in these days slaughtering is +slaughtering.' Verily, I would that every one understood that it was; +for it goes about obtaining money under the false pretence of being +glory. For me, I have an imagination which plays me uncomfortable +tricks. It happens to me sometimes to see a slaughterer on his way home +from his day's work, and forthwith my imagination puts a cocked-hat upon +his head and epaulettes upon his shoulders, and sets him up as a +candidate for the Presidency. So, also, on a recent public occasion, as +the place assigned to the 'Reverend Clergy' is just behind that of +'Officers of the Army and Navy' in processions, it was my fortune to be +seated at the dinner-table over against one of these respectable +persons. He was arrayed as (out of his own profession) only kings, +court-officers, and footmen are in Europe, and Indians in America. Now +what does my over-officious imagination but set to work upon him, strip +him of his gay livery, and present him to me coatless, his trousers +thrust into the tops of a pair of boots thick with clotted blood, and a +basket on his arm out of which lolled a gore-smeared axe, thereby +destroying my relish for the temporal mercies upon the board before me! +--H.W.] + + + +No. IX + +A THIRD LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ. + + +[Upon the following letter slender comment will be needful. In what +river Selemnus has Mr. Sawin bathed, that he has become so swiftly +oblivious of his former loves? From an ardent and (as befits a soldier) +confident wooer of that coy bride, the popular favor, we see him subside +of a sudden into the (I trust not jilted) Cincinnatus, returning to his +plough with a goodly sized branch of willow in his hand; figuratively +returning, however, to a figurative plough, and from no profound +affection for that honored implement of husbandry (for which, indeed, +Mr. Sawin never displayed any decided predilection), but in order to be +gracefully summoned therefrom to more congenial labors. It should seem +that the character of the ancient Dictator had become part of the +recognized stock of our modern political comedy, though, as our term of +office extends to a quadrennial length, the parallel is not so minutely +exact as could be desired. It is sufficiently so, however, for purposes +of scenic representation. An humble cottage (if built of logs, the +better) forms the Arcadian background of the stage. This rustic paradise +is labelled Ashland, Jaalam, North Bend, Marshfield, Kinderhook, or +Bâton Rouge, as occasion demands. Before the door stands a something +with one handle (the other painted in proper perspective), which +represents, in happy ideal vagueness, the plough. To this the defeated +candidate rushes with delirious joy, welcomed as a father by appropriate +groups of happy laborers, or from it the successful one is torn with +difficulty, sustained alone by a noble sense of public duty. Only I have +observed, that, if the scene be laid at Bâton Rouge or Ashland, the +laborers are kept carefully in the backgrouud, and are heard to shout +from behind the scenes in a singular tone resembling ululation, and +accompanied by a sound not unlike vigorous clapping. This, however, may +be artistically in keeping with the habits of the rustic population of +those localities. The precise connection between agricultural pursuits +and statesmanship I have not been able, after diligent inquiry, to +discover. But, that my investigations may not be barren of all fruit, I +will mention one curious statistical fact, which I consider thoroughly +established, namely, that no real farmer ever attains practically beyond +a seat in the General Court, however theoretically qualified for more +exalted station. + +It is probable that some other prospect has been opened to Mr. Sawin, +and that he has not made this great sacrifice without some definite +understanding in regard to a seat in the cabinet or a foreign mission. +It may be supposed that we of Jaalam were not untouched by a feeling of +villatic pride in beholding our townsman occupying so large a space in +the public eye. And to me, deeply revolving the qualifications necessary +to a candidate in these frugal times, those of Mr. S. seemed peculiarly +adapted to a successful campaign. The loss of a leg, an arm, an eye, and +four fingers reduced him so nearly to the condition of a _vox et +præterea nihil_ that I could think of nothing but the loss of his head +by which his chance could have been bettered. But since he has chosen to +balk our suffrages, we must content ourselves with what we can get, +remembering _lactucas non esse dandas, dum cardui sufficiant_,--H.W.] + + +I spose you recollect thet I explained my gennle views +In the last billet thet I writ, 'way down frum Veery Cruze, +Jest arter I'd a kin' o' ben spontanously sot up +To run unannermously fer the Preserdential cup; +O' course it worn't no wish o' mine, 'twuz ferflely distressin', +But poppiler enthusiasm gut so almighty pressin' +Thet, though like sixty all along I fumed an' fussed an' sorrered, +There didn't seem no ways to stop their bringin' on me forrerd: +Fact is, they udged the matter so, I couldn't help admittin' +The Father o' his Country's shoes no feet but mine 'ould fit in, 10 +Besides the savin' o' the soles fer ages to succeed, +Seein' thet with one wannut foot, a pair'd be more 'n I need; +An', tell ye wut, them shoes'll want a thund'rin sight o' patchin', +Ef this ere fashion is to last we've gut into o' hatchin' +A pair o' second Washintons fer every new election,-- +Though, fer ez number one's consarned, I don't make no objection. + +I wuz agoin' on to say thet wen at fust I saw +The masses would stick to 't I wuz the Country's father-'n-law, +(They would ha' hed it _Father_, but I told 'em 'twouldn't du, +Coz thet wuz sutthin' of a sort they couldn't split in tu, 20 +An' Washinton hed hed the thing laid fairly to his door, +Nor darsn't say 'tworn't his'n, much ez sixty year afore,) +But 'taint no matter ez to thet; wen I wuz nomernated, +'Tworn't natur but wut I should feel consid'able elated, +An' wile the hooraw o' the thing wuz kind o' noo an' fresh, +I thought our ticket would ha' caird the country with a resh. + +Sence I've come hum, though, an' looked round, I think I seem to find +Strong argimunts ez thick ez fleas to make me change my mind; +It's clear to any one whose brain aint fur gone in a phthisis, +Thet hail Columby's happy land is goin' thru a crisis, 30 +An' 'twouldn't noways du to hev the people's mind distracted +By bein' all to once by sev'ral pop'lar names attackted; +'Twould save holl haycartloads o' fuss an' three four months o' jaw, +Ef some illustrous paytriot should back out an' withdraw; +So, ez I aint a crooked stick, jest like--like ole (I swow, +I dunno ez I know his name)--I'll go back to my plough. +Wenever an Amerikin distinguished politishin +Begins to try et wut they call definin' his posishin, +Wal, I, fer one, feel sure he ain't gut nothin' to define; +It's so nine cases out o' ten, but jest thet tenth is mine; 40 +An' 'taint no more 'n proper 'n' right in sech a sitooation +To hint the course you think'll be the savin' o' the nation; +To funk right out o' p'lit'cal strife aint thought to be the thing, +Without you deacon off the toon you want your folks should sing; +So I edvise the noomrous friends thet's in one boat with me +To jest up killick, jam right down their hellum hard alee, +Haul the sheets taut, an', layin' out upon the Suthun tack, +Make fer the safest port they can, wich, _I_ think, is Ole Zack. + +Next thing you'll want to know, I spose, wut argimunts I seem +To see thet makes me think this ere'll be the strongest team; 50 +Fust place, I've ben consid'ble round in bar-rooms an' saloons +Agetherin' public sentiment, 'mongst Demmercrats and Coons, +An' 'taint ve'y offen thet I meet a chap but wut goes in +Fer Rough an' Ready, fair an' square, hufs, taller, horns, an' skin; +I don't deny but wut, fer one, ez fur ez I could see, +I didn't like at fust the Pheladelphy nomernee: +I could ha' pinted to a man thet wuz, I guess, a peg +Higher than him,--a soger, tu, an' with a wooden leg; +But every day with more an' more o' Taylor zeal I'm burnin', +Seein' wich way the tide thet sets to office is aturnin'; 60 +Wy, into Bellers's we notched the votes down on three sticks,-- +'Twuz Birdofredum _one_, Cass _aught_ an Taylor + _twenty-six_, +An' bein' the on'y canderdate thet wuz upon the ground, +They said 'twuz no more 'n right thet I should pay the drinks all round; +Ef I'd expected sech a trick, I wouldn't ha' cut my foot +By goin' an' votin' fer myself like a consumed coot; +It didn't make no deff'rence, though; I wish I may be cust, +Ef Bellers wuzn't slim enough to say he wouldn't trust! + +Another pint thet influences the minds o' sober jedges +Is thet the Gin'ral hezn't gut tied hand an' foot with pledges; 70 +He hezn't told ye wut he is, an' so there aint no knowin' +But wut he may turn out to be the best there is agoin'; +This, at the on'y spot thet pinched, the shoe directly eases, +Coz every one is free to 'xpect percisely wut he pleases: +I want free-trade; you don't; the Gin'ral isn't bound to neither;-- +I vote my way; you, yourn; an' both air sooted to a T there. +Ole Rough an' Ready, tu, 's a Wig, but without bein' ultry; +He's like a holsome hayin' day, thet's warm, but isn't sultry; +He's jest wut I should call myself, a kin' of _scratch_ ez 'tware, +Thet aint exacly all a wig nor wholly your own hair; 80 +I 've ben a Wig three weeks myself, jest o' this mod'rate sort, +An' don't find them an' Demmercrats so defferent ez I thought; +They both act pooty much alike, an' push an' scrouge an' cus; +They're like two pickpockets in league fer Uncle Samwells pus; +Each takes a side, an' then they squeeze the ole man in between 'em, +Turn all his pockets wrong side out an' quick ez lightnin' clean 'em; +To nary one on 'em I'd trust a secon'-handed rail +No furder off 'an I could sling a bullock by the tail. + +Webster sot matters right in thet air Mashfiel' speech o' his'n; +'Taylor,' sez he, 'aint nary ways the one thet I'd a chizzen, 90 +Nor he aint fittin' fer the place, an' like ez not he aint +No more 'n a tough ole bullethead, an' no gret of a saint; +But then,' sez he, 'obsarve my pint, he's jest ez good to vote fer +Ez though the greasin' on him worn't a thing to hire Choate fer; +Aint it ez easy done to drop a ballot in a box +Fer one ez 'tis fer t'other, fer the bull-dog ez the fox?' +It takes a mind like Dannel's, fact, ez big ez all ou' doors, +To find out thet it looks like rain arter it fairly pours; +I 'gree with him, it aint so dreffle troublesome to vote +Fer Taylor arter all,--it's jest to go an' change your coat; 100 +Wen he's once greased, you'll swaller him an' never know on 't, scurce, +Unless he scratches, goin' down, with them 'ere Gin'ral's spurs. +I've ben a votin' Demmercrat, ez reg'lar as a clock, +But don't find goin' Taylor gives my narves no gret 'f a shock; +Truth is, the cutest leadin' Wigs, ever sence fust they found +Wich side the bread gut buttered on, hev kep' a edgin' round; +They kin' o' slipt the planks frum out th' ole platform one by one +An' made it gradooally noo, 'fore folks khow'd wut wuz done, +Till, fur 'z I know, there aint an inch thet I could lay my han' on, +But I, or any Demmercrat, feels comf'table to stan' on, 110 +An' ole Wig doctrines act'lly look, their occ'pants bein' gone, +Lonesome ez steddies on a mash without no hayricks on. + +I spose it's time now I should give my thoughts upon the plan, +Thet chipped the shell at Buffalo, o' settin' up ole Van. +I used to vote fer Martin, but, I swan, I'm clean disgusted,-- +He aint the man thet I can say is fittin' to be trusted; +He aint half antislav'ry 'nough, nor I aint sure, ez some be, +He'd go in fer abolishin' the Deestrick o' Columby; +An', now I come to recollec', it kin' o' makes me sick 'z +A horse, to think o' wut he wuz in eighteen thirty-six. 120 +An' then, another thing;--I guess, though mebby I am wrong, +This Buff'lo plaster aint agoin' to dror almighty strong; +Some folks, I know, hev gut th' idee thet No'thun dough'll rise, +Though, 'fore I see it riz an 'baked, I wouldn't trust my eyes; +'Twill take more emptins, a long chalk, than this noo party's gut, +To give sech heavy cakes ez them a start, I tell ye wut. +But even ef they caird the day, there wouldn't be no endurin' +To stan' upon a platform with sech critters ez Van Buren;-- +An' his son John, tu, I can't think how thet 'ere chap should dare +To speak ez he doos; wy, they say he used to cuss an' swear! 130 +I spose he never read the hymn thet tells how down the stairs +A feller with long legs wuz throwed thet wouldn't say his prayers. +This brings me to another pint: the leaders o' the party +Aint jest sech men ez I can act along with free an' hearty; +They aint not quite respectable, an' wen a feller's morrils +Don't toe the straightest kin' o' mark, wy, him an' me jest quarrils. +I went to a free soil meetin' once, an' wut d'ye think I see? +A feller was aspoutin' there thet act'lly come to me, +About two year ago last spring, ez nigh ez I can jedge, +An' axed me ef I didn't want to sign the Temprunce pledge! 140 +He's one o' them that goes about an' sez you hedn't oughter +Drink nothin', mornin', noon, or night, stronger 'an Taunton water. +There's one rule I've ben guided by, in settlin' how to vote, ollers,-- +I take the side thet _isn't_ took by them consarned teetotallers. + +Ez fer the niggers, I've ben South, an' thet hez changed my min'; +A lazier, more ongrateful set you couldn't nowers fin', +You know I mentioned in my last thet I should buy a nigger, +Ef I could make a purchase at a pooty mod'rate figger; +So, ez there's nothin' in the world I'm fonder of 'an gunnin', +I closed a bargain finally to take a feller runnin'. 150 +I shou'dered queen's-arm an' stumped out, an' wen I come t' th' swamp, +'Tworn't very long afore I gut upon the nest o' Pomp; +I come acrost a kin' o' hut, an', playin' round the door, +Some little woolly-headed cubs, ez many 'z six or more. +At fust I thought o' firin', but _think twice_ is safest ollers; +There aint, thinks I, not one on 'em but's wuth his twenty dollars, +Or would be, ef I hed 'em back into a Christian land,-- +How temptin' all on 'em would look upon an auction-stand! +(Not but wut _I_ hate Slavery, in th' abstract, stem to starn,-- +I leave it ware our fathers did, a privit State consarn.) 160 +Soon 'z they see me, they yelled an' run, but Pomp wuz out ahoein' +A leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else there aint no knowin' +He wouldn't ha' took a pop at me; but I hed gut the start, +An' wen he looked, I vow he groaned ez though he'd broke his heart; +He done it like a wite man, tu, ez nat'ral ez a pictur, +The imp'dunt, pis'nous hypocrite! wus 'an a boy constrictur. +'You can't gum _me_, I tell ye now, an' so you needn't try, +I 'xpect my eye-teeth every mail, so jest shet up,' sez I. +'Don't go to actin' ugly now, or else I'll let her strip, +You'd best draw kindly, seein' 'z how I've gut ye on the hip; 170 +Besides, you darned ole fool, it aint no gret of a disaster +To be benev'lently druv back to a contented master, +Ware you hed Christian priv'ledges you don't seem quite aware on, +Or you'd ha' never run away from bein' well took care on; +Ez fer kin' treatment, wy, he wuz so fond on ye, he said, +He'd give a fifty spot right out, to git ye, 'live or dead; +Wite folks aint sot by half ez much; 'member I run away, +Wen I wuz bound to Cap'n Jakes, to Mattysqumscot Bay; +Don' know him, likely? Spose not; wal, the mean old codger went +An' offered--wut reward, think? Wal, it worn't no _less_ 'n + a cent.' 180 + +Wal, I jest gut 'em into line, an' druv 'em on afore me; +The pis'nous brutes, I'd no idee o' the ill-will they bore me; +We walked till som'ers about noon, an' then it grew so hot +I thought it best to camp awile, so I chose out a spot +Jest under a magnoly tree, an' there right down I sot; +Then I unstrapped my wooden leg, coz it begun to chafe, +An' laid it down 'longside o' me, supposin' all wuz safe; +I made my darkies all set down around me in a ring, +An' sot an' kin' o' ciphered up how much the lot would bring; +But, wile I drinked the peaceful cup of a pure heart an' min' 190 +(Mixed with some wiskey, now an' then), Pomp he snaked up behin', +An' creepin' grad'lly close tu, ez quiet ez a mink, +Jest grabbed my leg, an' then pulled foot, quicker 'an you could wink, +An', come to look, they each on' em hed gut behin' a tree, +An' Pomp poked out the leg a piece, jest so ez I could see, +An' yelled to me to throw away my pistils an' my gun, +Or else thet they'd cair off the leg, an' fairly cut an' run. +I vow I didn't b'lieve there wuz a decent alligatur +Thet hed a heart so destitoot o' common human natur; +However, ez there worn't no help, I finally give in 200 +An' heft my arms away to git my leg safe back agin. + +Pomp gethered all the weapins up, an' then he come an' grinned, +He showed his ivory some, I guess, an' sez, 'You're fairly pinned; +Jest buckle on your leg agin, an' git right up an' come, +'T wun't du fer fammerly men like me to be so long frum hum.' +At fust I put my foot right down an' swore I wouldn't budge. +'Jest ez you choose,' sez he, quite cool, 'either be shot or trudge.' +So this black-hearted monster took an' act'lly druv me back +Along the very feetmarks o' my happy mornin' track, +An' kep' me pris'ner 'bout six months, an' worked me, tu, like sin, 210 +Till I hed gut his corn an' his Carliny taters in; +He made me larn him readin', tu (although the crittur saw +How much it hut my morril sense to act agin the law), +So'st he could read a Bible he'd gut; an' axed ef I could pint +The North Star out; but there I put his nose some out o' jint, +Fer I weeled roun' about sou'west, an', lookin' up a bit, +Picked out a middlin' shiny one an' tole him thet wuz it. +Fin'lly he took me to the door, an' givin' me a kick, +Sez, 'Ef you know wut's best fer ye, be off, now, double-quick; +The winter-time's a comin' on, an' though I gut ye cheap, 220 +You're so darned lazy, I don't think you're hardly woth your keep; +Besides, the childrin's growin' up, an' you aint jest the model +I'd like to hev 'em immertate, an' so you'd better toddle!' + +Now is there anythin' on airth'll ever prove to me +Thet renegader slaves like him air fit fer bein' free? +D' you think they'll suck me in to jine the Buff'lo chaps, an' them +Rank infidels thet go agin the Scriptur'l cus o' Shem? +Not by a jugfull! sooner 'n thet, I'd go thru fire an' water; +Wen I hev once made up my mind, a meet'nhus aint sotter; 229 +No, not though all the crows thet flies to pick my bones wuz cawin',-- +I guess we're in a Christian land,-- + Yourn, + BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. + + +[Here, patient reader, we take leave of each other, I trust with some +mutual satisfaction. I say _patient_, for I love not that kind which +skims dippingly over the surface of the page, as swallows over a pool +before rain. By such no pearls shall be gathered. But if no pearls there +be (as, indeed the world is not without example of books wherefrom the +longest-winded diver shall bring up no more than his proper handful of +mud), yet let us hope that an oyster or two may reward adequate +perseverance. If neither pearls nor oysters, yet is patience itself a +gem worth diving deeply for. + +It may seem to some that too much space has been usurped by my own +private lucubrations, and some may be fain to bring against me that old +jest of him who preached all his hearers out of the meeting-house save +only the sexton, who, remaining for yet a little space, from a sense of +official duty, at last gave out also, and, presenting the keys, humbly +requested our preacher to lock the doors, when he should have wholly +relieved himself of his testimony. I confess to a satisfaction in the +self act of preaching, nor do I esteem a discourse to be wholly thrown +away even upon a sleeping or unintelligent auditory. I cannot easily +believe that the Gospel of Saint John, which Jacques Cartier ordered to +be read in the Latin tongue to the Canadian savages, upon his first +meeting with them, fell altogether upon stony ground. For the +earnestness of the preacher is a sermon appreciable by dullest +intellects and most alien ears. In this wise did Episcopius convert many +to his opinions, who yet understood not the language in which he +discoursed. The chief thing is that the messenger believe that he has an +authentic message to deliver. For counterfeit messengers that mode of +treatment which Father John de Plano Carpini relates to have prevailed +among the Tartars would seem effectual, and, perhaps, deserved enough. +For my own part, I may lay claim to so much of the spirit of martyrdom +as would have led me to go into banishment with those clergymen whom +Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal drave out of his kingdom for refusing to +shorten their pulpit eloquence. It is possible, that, I having been +invited into my brother Biglow's desk, I may have been too little +scrupulous in using it for the venting of my own peculiar doctrines to a +congregation drawn together in the expectation and with the desire of +hearing him. + +I am not wholly unconscious of a peculiarity of mental organization +which impels me, like the railroad-engine with its train of cars, to run +backward for a short distance in order to obtain a fairer start. I may +compare myself to one fishing from the rocks when the sea runs high, +who, misinterpreting the suction of the undertow for the biting of some +larger fish, jerks suddenly, and finds that he has _caught bottom_, +hauling in upon the end of his line a trail of various _algæ_, among +which, nevertheless, the naturalist may haply find somewhat to repay the +disappointment of the angler. Yet have I conscientiously endeavored to +adapt myself to the impatient temper of the age, daily degenerating more +and more from the high standard of our pristine New England. To the +catalogue of lost arts I would mournfully add also that of listening to +two-hour sermons. Surely we have been abridged into a race of pygmies. +For, truly, in those of the old discourses yet subsisting to us in +print, the endless spinal column of divisions and subdivisions can be +likened to nothing so exactly as to the vertebræ of the saurians, +whence the theorist may conjecture a race of Anakim proportionate to the +withstanding of these other monsters. I say Anakim rather than Nephelim, +because there seem reasons for supposing that the race of those whose +heads (though no giants) are constantly enveloped in clouds (which that +name imports) will never become extinct. The attempt to vanquish the +innumerable _heads_ of one of those aforementioned discourses may supply +us with a plausible interpretation of the second labor of Hercules, and +his successful experiment with fire affords us a useful precedent. + +But while I lament the degeneracy of the age in this regard, I cannot +refuse to succumb to its influence. Looking out through my study-window, +I see Mr. Biglow at a distance busy in gathering his Baldwins, of which, +to judge by the number of barrels lying about under the trees, his crop +is more abundant than my own,--by which sight I am admonished to turn to +those orchards of the mind wherein my labors may be more prospered, and +apply myself diligently to the preparation of my next Sabbath's +discourse.--H.W.] + + +MELIBOEUS-HIPPONAX + + * * * * * + + + +THE + +Biglow Papers + +SECOND SERIES + +[Greek: 'Estin ar o idiotismos eniote tou kosmou parapolu + emphanistkoteron.'] + +LONGIXUS. + + +'J'aimerois mieulx que mon fils apprinst aux tavernes à parler, qu'aux +escholes de la parlerie.' + +MONTAIGNE. + + +"Unser Sprach ist auch ein Sprach und fan so wohl ein Sad nennen als +die Lateiner saccus." + +FISCHART. + + +'Vim rebus aliquando ipsa verborum humilitas affert.' + +QUINTILIANUS. + + +'O ma lengo, +Plantarèy une estèlo à toun froun encrumit!' + +JASMIN. + + * * * * * + +'Multos enim, quibus loquendi ratio non desit, invenias, quos curiose +potius loqui dixeris quam Latine; quomodo et illa Attica anus +Theophrastum, hominem alioqui disertissimum, annotata unius affectatione +verbi, hospitem dixit, nec alio se id deprehendisse interrogata +respondit, quam quod nimium Attice loqueretur.'--QUINTILIANUS. + +'Et Anglice sermonicari solebat populo, sed secundum linguam Norfolchie +ubi natus et nutritus erat.'--CRONICA JOCELINI. + +'La politique est une pierre attachée an cou de la littérature, et qui en +moins de six mois la submerge.... Cette politique va offenser mortellement +une moitié des lecteurs, et ennuyer l'autre qui l'a trouvée bien autrement +spéciale et énergique dans le journal du matin.'--HENRI BEYLE. + +[When the book appeared it bore a dedication to E.R. Hoar, and was +introduced by an essay of the Yankee form of English speech. This +Introduction is so distinctly an essay that it has been thought best to +print it as an appendix to this volume, rather than allow it to break in +upon the pages of verse. There is, however, one passage in it which may +be repeated here, since it bears directly upon the poem which serves as +a sort of prelude to the series.] + + +'The only attempt I had ever made at anything like a pastoral (if that +may be called an attempt which was the result almost of pure accident) +was in _The Courtin'_. While the introduction to the First Series was +going through the press, I received word from the printer that there was +a blank page left which must be filled. I sat down at once and +improvised another fictitious "notice of the press," in which, because +verse would fill up space more cheaply than prose, I inserted an extract +from a supposed ballad of Mr. Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the +printer, as directed, cut it off when the gap was filled. Presently I +began to receive letters asking for the rest of it, sometimes for the +_balance_ of it. I had none, but to answer such demands, I patched a +conclusion upon it in a later edition. Those who had only the first +continued to importune me. Afterward, being asked to write it out as an +autograph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commission Fair, I added other +verses, into some of which I infused a little more sentiment in a homely +way, and after a fashion completed it by sketching in the characters and +making a connected story. Most likely I have spoiled it, but I shall put +it at the end of this Introduction, to answer once for all those kindly +importunings.' + + + +THE COURTIN' + +God makes sech nights, all white an' still + Fur 'z you can look or listen, +Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, + All silence an' all glisten. + +Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown + An' peeked in thru' the winder, +An' there sot Huldy all alone, + 'ith no one nigh to hender. + +A fireplace filled the room's one side + With half a cord o' wood in-- +There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died) + To bake ye to a puddin'. + +The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out + Towards the pootiest, bless her, +An' leetle flames danced all about + The chiny on the dresser. + +Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, + An' in amongst 'em rusted +The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young + Fetched back f'om Concord busted. + +The very room, coz she was in, + Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin', +An' she looked full ez rosy agin + Ez the apples she was peelin'. + +'Twas kin' o' kingdom come to look + On sech a blessed cretur, +A dogrose blushin' to a brook + Ain't modester nor sweeter. + +He was six foot o' man, A 1, + Clear grit an' human natur', +None couldn't quicker pitch a ton + Nor dror a furrer straighter. + +He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, + Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, +Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells-- + All is, he couldn't love 'em. + +But long o' her his veins 'ould run + All crinkly like curled maple, +The side she breshed felt full o' sun + Ez a south slope in Ap'il. + +She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing + Ez hisn in the choir; +My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, + She _knowed_ the Lord was nigher. + +An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, + When her new meetin'-bunnet +Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair + O' blue eyes sot upon it. + +Thet night, I tell ye, she looked _some!_ + She seemed to've gut a new soul, +For she felt sartin-sure he'd come, + Down to her very shoe-sole. + +She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, + A-raspin' on the scraper,-- +All ways to once, her feelins flew + Like sparks in burnt-up paper. + +He kin' o' l'itered on the mat, + Some doubtfle o' the sekle, +His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, + But hern went pity Zekle. + +An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk + Ez though she wished him furder, +An' on her apples kep' to work, + Parin' away like murder. + +'You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?' + 'Wal ... no ... I come dasignin'-- +'To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es + Agin to-morrer's i'nin'.' + +To say why gals acts so or so, + Or don't, 'ould be persumin'; +Mebby to mean _yes_ an' say _no_ + Comes nateral to women. + +He stood a spell on one foot fust, + Then stood a spell on t'other, +An' on which one he felt the wust + He couldn't ha' told ye nuther. + +Says he, 'I'd better call agin:' + Says she, 'Think likely, Mister:' +Thet last word pricked him like a pin, + An' ... Wal, he up an' kist her. + +When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, + Huldy sot pale ez ashes, +All kin' o' smily roun' the lips + An' teary roun' the lashes. + +For she was jes' the quiet kind + Whose naturs never vary, +Like streams that keep a summer mind + Snowhid in Jenooary. + +The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued + Too tight for all expressin', +Tell mother see how metters stood, + An' gin 'em both her blessin'. + +Then her red come back like the tide + Down to the Bay o' Fundy, +An' all I know is they was cried + In meetin' come nex' Sunday. + + + +THE BIGLOW PAPERS + +SECOND SERIES + +No. I + +BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., +TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW + +LETTER FROM THE REVEREND HOMER WILBUR, M.A., ENCLOSING THE EPISTLE +AFORESAID + +JAALAM, 15th Nov., 1861. + + * * * * * + +It is not from any idle wish to obtrude my humble person with undue +prominence upon the publick view that I resume my pen upon the present +occasion. _Juniores ad labores_. But having been a main instrument in +rescuing the talent of my young parishioner from being buried in the +ground, by giving it such warrant with the world as could be derived +from a name already widely known by several printed discourses (all of +which I may be permitted without immodesty to state have been deemed +worthy of preservation in the Library of Harvard College by my esteemed +friend Mr. Sibley), it seemed becoming that I should not only testify to +the genuineness of the following production, but call attention to it, +the more as Mr. Biglow had so long been silent as to be in danger of +absolute oblivion. I insinuate no claim to any share in the authorship +(_vix ea nostra voco_) of the works already published by Mr. Biglow, but +merely take to myself the credit of having fulfilled toward them the +office of taster (_experto crede_), who, having first tried, could +afterward bear witness (_credenzen_ it was aptly named by the Germans), +an office always arduous, and sometimes even dangerous, as in the case +of those devoted persons who venture their lives in the deglutition of +patent medicines (_dolus latet in generalibus_, there is deceit in the +most of them) and thereafter are wonderfully preserved long enough to +append their signatures to testimonials in the diurnal and hebdomadal +prints. I say not this as covertly glancing at the authors of certain +manuscripts which have been submitted to my literary judgment (though an +epick in twenty-four books on the 'Taking of Jericho' might, save for +the prudent forethought of Mrs. Wilbur in secreting the same just as I +had arrived beneath the walls and was beginning a catalogue of the +various horns and their blowers, too ambitiously emulous in longanimity +of Homer's list of ships, might, I say, have rendered frustrate any hope +I could entertain _vacare Musis_ for the small remainder of my days), +but only the further to secure myself against any imputation of unseemly +forthputting. I will barely subjoin, in this connexion, that, whereas +Job was left to desire, in the soreness of his heart, that his adversary +had written a book, as perchance misanthropically wishing to indite a +review thereof, yet was not Satan allowed so far to tempt him as to send +Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar each with an unprinted work in his wallet to +be submitted to his censure. But of this enough. Were I in need of other +excuse, I might add that I write by the express desire of Mr. Biglow +himself, whose entire winter leisure is occupied, as he assures me, in +answering demands for autographs, a labor exacting enough in itself, and +egregiously so to him, who, being no ready penman, cannot sign so much +as his name without strange contortions of the face (his nose, even, +being essential to complete success) and painfully suppressed +Saint-Vitus-dance of every muscle in his body. This, with his having +been put in the Commission of the Peace by our excellent Governor (_O, +si sic omnes!_) immediately on his accession to office, keeps him +continually employed. _Haud inexpertus loquor_, having for many years +written myself J.P., and being not seldom applied to for specimens of my +chirography, a request to which I have sometimes over weakly assented, +believing as I do that nothing written of set purpose can properly be +called an autograph, but only those unpremeditated sallies and lively +runnings which betray the fireside Man instead of the hunted Notoriety +doubling on his pursuers. But it is time that I should bethink me of St. +Austin's prayer, _libera me a meipso_, if I would arrive at the matter +in hand. + +Moreover, I had yet another reason for taking up the pen myself. I am +informed that 'The Atlantic Monthly' is mainly indebted for its success +to the contributions and editorial supervision of Dr. Holmes, whose +excellent 'Annals of America' occupy an honored place upon my shelves. +The journal itself I have never seen; but if this be so, it might seem +that the recommendation of a brother-clergyman (though _par magis quam +similis_) should carry a greater weight. I suppose that you have a +department for historical lucubrations, and should be glad, if deemed +desirable, to forward for publication my 'Collections for the +Antiquities of Jaalam,' and my (now happily complete) pedigree of the +Wilbur family from its _fons et origo_, the Wild Boar of Ardennes. +Withdrawn from the active duties of my profession by the settlement of a +colleague-pastor, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus +Four-Corners, I might find time for further contributions to general +literature on similar topicks. I have made large advances towards a +completer genealogy of Mrs. Wilbur's family, the Pilcoxes, not, if I +know myself, from any idle vanity, but with the sole desire of rendering +myself useful in my day and generation. _Nulla dies sine lineâ_. I +inclose a meteorological register, a list of the births, deaths, and +marriages, and a few _memorabilia_ of longevity in Jaalam East Parish +for the last half-century. Though spared to the unusual period of more +than eighty years, I find no diminution of my faculties or abatement of +my natural vigor, except a scarcely sensible decay of memory and a +necessity of recurring to younger eyesight or spectacles for the finer +print in Cruden. It would gratify me to make some further provision for +declining years from the emoluments of my literary labors. I had +intended to effect an insurance on my life, but was deterred therefrom +by a circular from one of the offices, in which the sudden death of so +large a proportion of the insured was set forth as an inducement, that +it seemed to me little less than a tempting of Providence. _Neque in +summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus potest, ne sapienti quidem_. + +Thus far concerning Mr. Biglow; and so much seemed needful (_brevis esse +laboro_) by way of preliminary, after a silence of fourteen years. He +greatly fears lest he may in this essay have fallen below himself, well +knowing that, if exercise be dangerous on a full stomach, no less so is +writing on a full reputation. Beset as he has been on all sides, he +could not refrain, and would only imprecate patience till he shall again +have 'got the hang' (as he calls it) of an accomplishment long disused. +The letter of Mr. Sawin was received some time in last June, and others +have followed which will in due season be submitted to the publick. How +largely his statements are to be depended on, I more than merely +dubitate. He was always distinguished for a tendency to +exaggeration,--it might almost be qualified by a stronger term. +_Fortiter mentire, aliquid hæret_ seemed to be his favorite rule of +rhetoric. That he is actually where he says he is the postmark would +seem to confirm; that he was received with the publick demonstrations he +describes would appear consonant with what we know of the habits of +those regions; but further than this I venture not to decide. I have +sometimes suspected a vein of humor in him which leads him to speak by +contraries; but since, in the unrestrained intercourse of private life, +I have never observed in him any striking powers of invention, I am the +more willing to put a certain qualified faith in the incidents and the +details of life and manners which give to his narratives some portion of +the interest and entertainment which characterizes a Century Sermon. + +It may be expected of me that I should say something to justify myself +with the world for a seeming inconsistency with my well-known principles +in allowing my youngest son to raise a company for the war, a fact known +to all through the medium of the publick prints. I did reason with the +young man, but _expellas naturam furcâ tamen usque recurrit_. Having +myself been a chaplain in 1812, I could the less wonder that a man of +war had sprung from my loins. It was, indeed, grievous to send my +Benjamin, the child of my old age; but after the discomfiture of +Manassas, I with my own hands did buckle on his armor, trusting in the +great Comforter and Commander for strength according to my need. For +truly the memory of a brave son dead in his shroud were a greater staff +of my declining years than a living coward (if those may be said to have +lived who carry all of themselves into the grave with them), though his +days might be long in the land, and he should get much goods. It is not +till our earthen vessels are broken that we find and truly possess the +treasure that was laid up in them. _Migravi in animam meam_, I have +sought refuge in my own soul; nor would I be shamed by the heathen +comedian with his _Neqwam illud verbum, bene vult, nisi bene facit_. +During our dark days, I read constantly in the inspired book of Job, +which I believe to contain more food to maintain the fibre of the soul +for right living and high thinking than all pagan literature together, +though I would by no means vilipend the study of the classicks. There I +read that Job said in his despair, even as the fool saith in his heart +there is no God,--'The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that +provoke God are secure.' (Job xii. 6.) But I sought farther till I found +this Scripture also, which I would have those perpend who have striven +to turn our Israel aside to the worship of strange gods.--'If I did +despise the cause of my manservant or of my maid-servant, when they +contended with me, what then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he +visiteth, what shall I answer him?' (Job xxxi. 13, 14.) On this text I +preached a discourse on the last day of Fasting and Humiliation with +general acceptance, though there were not wanting one or two Laodiceans +who said that I should have waited till the President announced his +policy. But let us hope and pray, remembering this of Saint Gregory, +_Vult Deus rogari, vult cogi, vult quâdam importunitate vinci_. + +We had our first fall of snow on Friday last. Frosts have been unusually +backward this fall. A singular circumstance occurred in this town on the +20th October, in the family of Deacon Pelatiah Tinkham. On the previous +evening, a few moments before family prayers, + + * * * * * + +[The editors of the 'Atlantic' find it necessary here to cut short the +letter of their valued correspondent, which seemed calculated rather on +the rates of longevity in Jaalam than for less favored localities. They +have every encouragement to hope that he will write again.] + +With esteem and respect, Your obedient servant, Homer Wilbur, A.M. + + +It's some consid'ble of a spell sence I hain't writ no letters, +An' ther' 's gret changes hez took place in all polit'cle metters: +Some canderdates air dead an' gone, an' some hez ben defeated, +Which 'mounts to pooty much the same; fer it's ben proved repeated +A betch o' bread thet hain't riz once ain't goin' to rise agin, +An' it's jest money throwed away to put the emptins in: +But thet's wut folks wun't never larn; they dunno how to go, +Arter you want their room, no more 'n a bullet-headed bean; +Ther' 's ollers chaps a-hangin' roun' thet can't see peatime's past, +Mis'ble as roosters in a rain, heads down an' tails half-mast: 10 +It ain't disgraceful bein' beat, when a holl nation doos it, +But Chance is like an amberill,--it don't take twice to lose it. + +I spose you're kin' o' cur'ous, now, to know why I hain't writ. +Wal, I've ben where a litt'ry taste don't somehow seem to git +Th' encouragement a feller'd think, thet's used to public schools, +An' where sech things ez paper 'n' ink air clean agin the rules: +A kind o' vicyvarsy house, built dreffle strong an' stout, +So 's 't honest people can't get in, ner t'other sort git out. +An' with the winders so contrived, you'd prob'ly like the view +Better alookin' in than out, though it seems sing'lar, tu; 20 +But then the landlord sets by ye, can't bear ye out o' sight, +And locks ye up ez reg'lar ez an outside door at night. + +This world is awfle contrary: the rope may stretch your neck +Thet mebby kep' another chap frum washin' off a wreck; +An' you may see the taters grow in one poor feller's patch, +So small no self-respectin' hen thet vallied time 'ould scratch, +So small the rot can't find 'em out, an' then agin, nex' door, +Ez big ez wut hogs dream on when they're 'most too fat to snore. +But groutin' ain't no kin' o' use; an' ef the fust throw fails, +Why, up an' try agin, thet's all,--the coppers ain't all tails, 30 +Though I _hev_ seen 'em when I thought they hedn't no more head +Than 'd sarve a nussin' Brigadier thet gits some Ink to shed. + +When I writ last, I'd ben turned loose by thet blamed nigger, Pomp, +Ferlorner than a musquash, ef you'd took an' dreened his swamp; +But I ain't o' the meechin' kind, thet sets an' thinks fer weeks +The bottom's out o' th' univarse coz their own gillpot leaks. +I hed to cross bayous an' criks, (wal, it did beat all natur',) +Upon a kin' o' corderoy, fust log, then alligator; +Luck'ly, the critters warn't sharp-sot; I guess 'twuz overruled +They 'd done their mornin's marketin' an' gut their hunger cooled; 40 +Fer missionaries to the Creeks an' runaways are viewed +By them an' folks ez sent express to be their reg'lar food; +Wutever 'twuz, they laid an' snoozed ez peacefully ez sinners, +Meek ez disgestin' deacons be at ordination dinners; +Ef any on 'em turned an' snapped, I let 'em kin' o' taste +My live-oak leg, an' so, ye see, ther' warn't no gret o' waste; +Fer they found out in quicker time than ef they'd ben to college +'Twarn't heartier food than though 'twuz made out o' the tree o' + knowledge. +But I tell _you_ my other leg hed larned wut pizon-nettle meant, +An' var'ous other usefle things, afore I reached a settlement, 50 +An' all o' me thet wuzn't sore an' sendin' prickles thru me +Wuz jest the leg I parted with in lickin' Montezumy: +A useful limb it's ben to me, an' more of a support +Than wut the other hez ben,--coz I dror my pension for 't. + +Wal, I gut in at last where folks wuz civerlized an' white, +Ez I diskivered to my cost afore 'twarn't hardly night; +Fer 'z I wuz settin' in the bar a-takin' sunthin' hot, +An' feelin' like a man agin, all over in one spot, +A feller thet sot oppersite, arter a squint at me, +Lep' up an' drawed his peacemaker, an', 'Dash it, Sir,' suz he, 60 +'I'm doubledashed ef you ain't him thet stole my yaller chettle, +(You're all the stranger thet's around,) so now you've gut to settle; +It ain't no use to argerfy ner try to cut up frisky, +I know ye ez I know the smell of ole chain-lightnin' whiskey; +We're lor-abidin' folks down here, we'll fix ye so's 't a bar +Wouldn' tech ye with a ten-foot pole; (Jedge, you jest warm the tar;) +You'll think you'd better ha' gut among a tribe o' Mongrel Tartars, +'fore we've done showin' how we raise our Southun prize tar-martyrs; +A moultin' fallen cherubim, ef he should see ye, 'd snicker, +Thinkin' he warn't a suckemstance. Come, genlemun, le' 's liquor; 70 +An', Gin'ral, when you've mixed the drinks an' chalked 'em up, tote roun' +An' see ef ther' 's a feather-bed (thet's borryable) in town. +We'll try ye fair, ole Grafted-Leg, an' ef the tar wun't stick, +Th' ain't not a juror here but wut'll 'quit ye double-quick,' +To cut it short, I wun't say sweet, they gi' me a good dip, +(They ain't _perfessin'_ Bahptists here,) then give the bed a rip,-- +The jury'd sot, an' quicker 'n a flash they hetched me out, a livin' +Extemp'ry mammoth turkey-chick fer a Fejee Thanksgivin'. +Thet I felt some stuck up is wut it's nat'ral to suppose, +When poppylar enthusiasm hed funnished me sech clo'es; 80 +(Ner 'tain't without edvantiges, this kin' o' suit, ye see, +It's water-proof, an' water's wut I like kep' out o' me;) +But nut content with thet, they took a kerridge from the fence +An' rid me roun' to see the place, entirely free 'f expense, +With forty-'leven new kines o' sarse without no charge acquainted me, +Gi' me three cheers, an' vowed thet I wuz all their fahncy painted me; +They treated me to all their eggs; (they keep 'em I should think, +Fer sech ovations, pooty long, for they wuz mos' distinc'); +They starred me thick 'z the Milky-Way with indiscrim'nit cherity, +Fer wut we call reception eggs air sunthin' of a rerity; 90 +Green ones is plentifle anough, skurce wuth a nigger's getherin', +But your dead-ripe ones ranges high fer treatin' Nothun bretherin; +A spotteder, ring-streakeder child the' warn't in Uncle Sam's +Holl farm,--a cross of striped pig an' one o' Jacob's lambs; +'Twuz Dannil in the lions' den, new an' enlarged edition, +An' everythin' fust-rate o' 'ts kind; the' warn't no impersition. +People's impulsiver down here than wut our folks to home be, +An' kin' o' go it 'ith a resh in raisin' Hail Columby: +Thet's _so:_ an' they swarmed out like bees, for your real Southun men's +Time isn't o' much more account than an ole settin' hen's; 100 +(They jest work semioccashnally, or else don't work at all, +An' so their time an' 'tention both air at saci'ty's call.) +Talk about hospatality! wut Nothun town d' ye know +Would take a totle stranger up an' treat him gratis so? +You'd better b'lleve ther' 's nothin' like this spendin' days an' nights +Along 'ith a dependent race fer civerlizin' whites. + +But this wuz all prelim'nary; it's so Gran' Jurors here +Fin' a true bill, a hendier way than ourn, an' nut so dear; +So arter this they sentenced me, to make all tight 'n' snug, +Afore a reg'lar court o' law, to ten years in the Jug. 110 +I didn't make no gret defence: you don't feel much like speakin', +When, ef you let your clamshells gape, a quart o' tar will leak in: +I _hev_ hearn tell o' winged words, but pint o' fact it tethers +The spoutin' gift to hev your words _tu_ thick sot on with feathers, +An' Choate ner Webster wouldn't ha' made an A 1 kin' o' speech +Astride a Southun chestnut horse sharper 'n a baby's screech. +Two year ago they ketched the thief, 'n' seein' I wuz innercent, +They jest uncorked an' le' me run, an' in my stid the sinner sent +To see how _he_ liked pork 'n' pone flavored with wa'nut saplin', +An' nary social priv'ledge but a one-hoss, starn-wheel chaplin. 120 +When I come out, the folks behaved mos' gen'manly an' harnsome; +They 'lowed it wouldn't be more 'n right, ef I should cuss 'n' darn some: +The Cunnle he apolergized; suz he, 'I'll du wut's right, +I'll give ye settisfection now by shootin' ye at sight, +An' give the nigger (when he's caught), to pay him fer his trickin' +In gittin' the wrong man took up, a most H fired lickin',-- +It's jest the way with all on 'em, the inconsistent critters, +They're 'most enough to make a man blaspheme his mornin' bitters; +I'll be your frien' thru thick an' thin an' in all kines o' weathers, +An' all you'll hev to pay fer's jest the waste o' tar an' + feathers: 130 +A lady owned the bed, ye see, a widder, tu, Miss Shennon; +It wuz her mite; we would ha' took another, ef ther' 'd ben one: +We don't make _no_ charge for the ride an' all the other fixins. +Le' 's liquor; Gin'ral, you can chalk our friend for all the mixins.' +A meetin' then wuz called, where they 'RESOLVED, Thet we respec' +B.S. Esquire for quallerties o' heart an' intellec' +Peculiar to Columby's sile, an' not to no one else's, +Thet makes European tyrans scringe in all their gilded pel'ces, +An' doos gret honor to our race an' Southun institootions:' +(I give ye jest the substance o' the leadin' resolootions:) 140 +'RESOLVED, Thet we revere In him a soger 'thout a flor, +A martyr to the princerples o' libbaty an' lor: +RESOLVED, Thet other nations all, ef sot 'longside o' us, +For vartoo, larnin', chivverlry, ain't noways wuth a cuss.' +They got up a subscription, tu, but no gret come o' _thet;_ +I 'xpect in cairin' of it roun' they took a leaky hat; +Though Southun genelmun ain't slow at puttin' down their name, +(When they can write,) fer in the eend it comes to jes' the same, +Because, ye see, 't 's the fashion here to sign an' not to think +A critter'd be so sordid ez to ax 'em for the chink: 150 +I didn't call but jest on one, an' _he_ drawed tooth-pick on me, +An' reckoned he warn't goin' to stan' no sech dog-gauned econ'my: +So nothin' more wuz realized, 'ceptin' the good-will shown, +Than ef 't had ben from fust to last a regular Cotton Loan. +It's a good way, though, come to think, coz ye enjy the sense +O' lendin' lib'rally to the Lord, an' nary red o' 'xpense: +Sence then I've gut my name up for a gin'rous-hearted man +By jes' subscribin' right an' left on this high-minded plan; +I've gin away my thousans so to every Southun sort +O' missions, colleges, an' sech, ner ain't no poorer for 't. 160 + +I warn't so bad off, arter all; I needn't hardly mention +That Guv'ment owed me quite a pile for my arrears o' pension,-- +I mean the poor, weak thing we _hed:_ we run a new one now, +Thet strings a feller with a claim up ta the nighes' bough, +An' _prectises_ the rights o' man, purtects down-trodden debtors, +Ner wun't hev creditors about ascrougin' o' their betters: +Jeff's gut the last idees ther' is, poscrip', fourteenth edition, +He knows it takes some enterprise to run an oppersition; +Ourn's the fust thru-by-daylight train, with all ou'doors for deepot; +Yourn goes so slow you'd think 'twuz drawed by a las' cent'ry + teapot;-- 170 +Wal, I gut all on 't paid in gold afore our State seceded, +An' done wal, for Confed'rit bonds warn't jest the cheese I needed: +Nut but wut they're ez _good_ ez gold, but then it's hard a-breakin' + on 'em, +An' ignorant folks is ollers sot an' wun't git used to takin' on 'em; +They're wuth ez much ez wut they wuz afore ole Mem'nger signed 'em, +An' go off middlin' wal for drinks, when ther' 's a knife behind 'em; +We _du_ miss silver, jes' fer thet an' ridin' in a bus, +Now we've shook off the desputs thet wuz suckin' at our pus; +An' it's _because_ the South's so rich; 'twuz nat'ral to expec' +Supplies o' change wuz jes' the things we shouldn't recollec'; 180 +We'd ough' to ha' thought aforehan', though, o' thet good rule o' + Crockett's, +For 't 's tiresome cairin' cotton-bales an' niggers in your pockets, +Ner 'tain't quite hendy to pass off one o' your six-foot Guineas +An' git your halves an' quarters back in gals an' pickaninnies: +Wal, 'tain't quite all a feller'd ax, but then ther's this to say, +It's on'y jest among ourselves thet we expec' to pay; +Our system would ha' caird us thru in any Bible cent'ry, +'fore this onscripterl plan come up o' books by double entry; +We go the patriarkle here out o' all sight an' hearin', +For Jacob warn't a suckemstance to Jeff at financierin'; 190 +_He_ never'd thought o' borryin' from Esau like all nater +An' then cornfiscatin' all debts to sech a small pertater; +There's p'litickle econ'my, now, combined 'ith morril beauty +Thet saycrifices privit eends (your in'my's, tu) to dooty! +Wy, Jeff 'd ha' gin him five an' won his eye-teeth 'fore he knowed it, +An', stid o' wastin' pottage, he'd ha' eat it up an' owed it. +But I wuz goin' on to say how I come here to dwall;-- +'Nough said, thet, arter lookin' roun', I liked the place so wal, +Where niggers doos a double good, with us atop to stiddy 'em, +By bein' proofs o' prophecy an' suckleatin' medium, 200 +Where a man's sunthin' coz he's white, an' whiskey's cheap ez fleas, +An' the financial pollercy jes' sooted my idees, +Thet I friz down right where I wuz, merried the Widder Shennon, +(Her thirds wuz part in cotton-land, part in the curse o' Canaan,) +An' here I be ez lively ez a chipmunk on a wall, +With nothin' to feel riled about much later 'n Eddam's fall. + +Ez fur ez human foresight goes, we made an even trade: +She gut an overseer, an' I a fem'ly ready-made, +The youngest on 'em 's 'mos' growed up, rugged an' spry ez weazles, +So 's 't ther' 's no resk o' doctors' bills fer hoopin'-cough an' measles. +Our farm's at Turkey-Buzzard Roost, Little Big Boosy River, 211 +Wal located in all respex,--fer 'tain't the chills 'n' fever +Thet makes my writin' seem to squirm; a Southuner'd allow I'd +Some call to shake, for I've jest hed to meller a new cowhide. +Miss S. is all 'f a lady; th' ain't no better on Big Boosy +Ner one with more accomplishmunts 'twist here an' Tuscaloosy; +She's an F.F., the tallest kind, an' prouder 'n the Gran' Turk, +An' never hed a relative thet done a stroke o' work; +Hern ain't a scrimpin' fem'ly sech ez _you_ git up Down East, +Th' ain't a growed member on 't but owes his thousuns et the least: +She _is_ some old; but then agin ther' 's drawbacks in my sheer: 221 +Wut's left o' me ain't more 'n enough to make a Brigadier: +Wust is, thet she hez tantrums; she's like Seth Moody's gun +(Him thet wuz nicknamed from his limp Ole Dot an' Kerry One); +He'd left her loaded up a spell, an' hed to git her clear, +So he onhitched,--Jeerusalem! the middle o' last year +Wuz right nex' door compared to where she kicked the critter tu +(Though _jest_ where he brought up wuz wut no human never knew); +His brother Asaph picked her up an' tied her to a tree, +An' then she kicked an hour 'n' a half afore she'd let it be: 230 +Wal, Miss S. _doos_ hev cuttins-up an' pourins-out o' vials, +But then she hez her widder's thirds, an' all on us hez trials. +My objec', though, in writin' now warn't to allude to sech, +But to another suckemstance more dellykit to tech,-- +I want thet you should grad'lly break my merriage to Jerushy, +An' there's a heap of argymunts thet's emple to indooce ye: +Fust place, State's Prison,--wal, it's true it warn't fer crime, + o' course, +But then it's jest the same fer her in gittin' a disvorce; +Nex' place, my State's secedin' out hez leg'lly lef' me free +To merry any one I please, pervidin' it's a she; 240 +Fin'lly, I never wun't come back, she needn't hev no fear on 't, +But then it's wal to fix things right fer fear Miss S. should hear on 't; +Lastly, I've gut religion South, an' Rushy she's a pagan +Thet sets by th' graven imiges o' the gret Nothun Dagon; +(Now I hain't seen one in six munts, for, sence our Treashry Loan, +Though yaller boys is thick anough, eagles hez kind o' flown;) +An' ef J wants a stronger pint than them thet I hev stated, +Wy, she's an aliun in'my now, an' I've been cornfiscated,-- +For sence we've entered on th' estate o' the late nayshnul eagle, +She hain't no kin' o' right but jes' wut I allow ez legle: 250 +Wut _doos_ Secedin' mean, ef 'tain't thet nat'rul rights hez riz, 'n' +Thet wut is mine's my own, but wut's another man's ain't his'n? + +Besides, I couldn't do no else; Miss S. suz she to me, +'You've sheered my bed,' [thet's when I paid my interduction fee +To Southun rites,] 'an' kep' your sheer,' [wal, I allow it sticked +So 's 't I wuz most six weeks in jail afore I gut me picked,] +'Ner never paid no demmiges; but thet wun't do no harm, +Pervidin' thet you'll ondertake to oversee the farm; +(My eldes' boy he's so took up, wut with the Ringtail Rangers +An' settin' in the Jestice-Court for welcomin' o' strangers;') 260 +[He sot on _me;_] 'an' so, ef you'll jest ondertake the care +Upon a mod'rit sellery, we'll up an' call it square; +But ef you _can't_ conclude,' suz she, an' give a kin' o' grin, +'Wy, the Gran' Jurymen, I 'xpect, 'll hev to set agin.' +That's the way metters stood at fust; now wut wuz I to du, +But jes' to make the best on 't an' off coat an' buckle tu? +Ther' ain't a livin' man thet finds an income necessarier +Than me,--bimeby I'll tell ye how I fin'lly come to merry her. +She hed another motive, tu: I mention of it here +T' encourage lads thet's growin' up to study 'n' persevere, 270 +An' show 'em how much better 't pays to mind their winter-schoolin' +Than to go off on benders 'n' sech, an' waste their time in foolin'; +Ef 'twarn't for studyin' evenins, why, I never 'd ha' ben here +A orn'ment o' saciety, in my approprut spear: +She wanted somebody, ye see, o' taste an' cultivation, +To talk along o' preachers when they stopt to the plantation; +For folks in Dixie th't read an' rite, onless it is by jarks, +Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th' origenle patriarchs; +To fit a feller f' wut they call the soshle higherarchy, +All thet you've gut to know is jes' beyond an evrage darky; 280 +Schoolin' 's wut they can't seem to stan', they 're tu consarned + high-pressure, +An' knowin' t' much might spile a boy for hem' a Secesher. +We hain't no settled preachin' here, ner ministeril taxes; +The min'ster's only settlement's the carpet-bag he packs his +Razor an' soap-brush intu, with his hym-book an' his Bible,-- +But they _du_ preach, I swan to man, it's puf'kly indescrib'le! +They go it like an Ericsson's ten-hoss-power coleric ingine, +An' make Ole Split-Foot winch an' squirm, for all he's used to singein'; +Hawkins's whetstone ain't a pinch o' primin' to the innards +To hearin' on 'em put free grace t' a lot o' tough old sinhards! 290 +But I must eend this letter now: 'fore long I'll send a fresh un; +I've lots o' things to write about, perticklerly Seceshun: +I'm called off now to mission-work, to let a leetle law in +To Cynthy's hide: an' so, till death, + Yourn, + BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. + + + +No. II + +MASON AND SLIDELL: A YANKEE IDYLL + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +JAALAM, 6th Jan., 1862. + +Gentlemen,--I was highly gratified by the insertion of a portion of my +letter in the last number of your valuable and entertaining Miscellany, +though in a type which rendered its substance inaccessible even to the +beautiful new spectacles presented to me by a Committee of the Parish on +New Year's Day. I trust that I was able to bear your very considerable +abridgment of my lucubrations with a spirit becoming a Christian. My +third granddaughter, Rebekah, aged fourteen years, and whom I have +trained to read slowly and with proper emphasis (a practice too much +neglected in our modern systems of education), read aloud to me the +excellent essay upon 'Old Age,' the author of which I cannot help +suspecting to be a young man who has never yet known what it was to have +snow (_canities morosa_) upon his own roof. _Dissolve frigus, large +super foco ligna reponens_, is a rule for the young, whose woodpile is +yet abundant for such cheerful lenitives. A good life behind him is the +best thing to keep an old man's shoulders from shivering at every +breath of sorrow or ill-fortune. But methinks it were easier for an old +man to feel the disadvantages of youth than the advantages of age. Of +these latter I reckon one of the chiefest to be this: that we attach a +less inordinate value to our own productions, and, distrusting daily +more and more our own wisdom (with the conceit whereof at twenty we wrap +ourselves away from knowledge as with a garment), do reconcile ourselves +with the wisdom of God. I could have wished, indeed, that room might +have been made for the residue of the anecdote relating to Deacon +Tinkham, which would not only have gratified a natural curiosity on the +part of the publick (as I have reason to know from several letters of +inquiry already received), but would also, as I think, have largely +increased the circulation of your Magazine in this town. _Nihil humani +alienum_, there is a curiosity about the affairs of our neighbors which +is not only pardonable, but even commendable. But I shall abide a more +fitting season. + +As touching the following literary effort of Esquire Biglow, much might +be profitably said on the topick of Idyllick and Pastoral Poetry, and +concerning the proper distinctions to be made between them, from +Theocritus, the inventor of the former, to Collins, the latest authour I +know of who has emulated the classicks in the latter style. But in the +time of a Civil War worthy a Milton to defend and a Lucan to sing, it +may be reasonably doubted whether the publick, never too studious of +serious instruction, might not consider other objects more deserving of +present attention. Concerning the title of Idyll, which Mr. Biglow has +adopted at my suggestion, it may not be improper to animadvert, that the +name properly signifies a poem somewhat rustick in phrase (for, though +the learned are not agreed as to the particular dialect employed by +Theocritus, they are universanimous both as to its rusticity and its +capacity of rising now and then to the level of more elevated sentiments +and expressions), while it is also descriptive of real scenery and +manners. Yet it must be admitted that the production now in question +(which here and there bears perhaps too plainly the marks of my +correcting hand) does partake of the nature of a Pastoral, inasmuch as +the interlocutors therein are purely imaginary beings, and the whole is +little better than [Greek: kapnou skias onar]. The plot was, as I +believe, suggested by the 'Twa Brigs' of Robert Burns, a Scottish poet +of the last century, as that found its prototype in the 'Mutual +Complaint of Plainstanes and Causey' by Fergusson, though, the metre of +this latter be different by a foot in each verse. Perhaps the Two Dogs +of Cervantes gave the first hint. I reminded my talented young +parishioner and friend that Concord Bridge had long since yielded to the +edacious tooth of Time. But he answered me to this effect: that there +was no greater mistake of an authour than to suppose the reader had no +fancy of his own; that, if once that faculty was to be called into +activity, it were _better_ to be in for the whole sheep than the +shoulder; and that he knew Concord like a book,--an expression +questionable in propriety, since there are few things with which he is +not more familiar than with the printed page. In proof of what he +affirmed, he showed me some verses which with others he had stricken +out as too much delaying the action, but which I communicate in this +place because they rightly define 'punkin-seed' (which Mr. Bartlett +would have a kind of perch,--a creature to which I have found a rod or +pole not to be so easily equivalent in our inland waters as in the books +of arithmetic) and because it conveys an eulogium on the worthy son of +an excellent father, with whose acquaintance (_eheu, fugaces anni!_) I +was formerly honoured. + +'But nowadays the Bridge ain't wut they show, +So much ez Em'son, Hawthorne, an' Thoreau. +I know the village, though; was sent there once +A-schoolin', 'cause to home I played the dunce; +An' I 've ben sence a visitin' the Jedge, +Whose garding whispers with the river's edge, +Where I 've sot mornin's lazy as the bream, +Whose on'y business is to head upstream, +(We call 'em punkin-seed,) or else in chat +Along 'th the Jedge, who covers with his hat +More wit an' gumption an' shrewd Yankee sense +Than there is mosses on an ole stone fence.' + +Concerning the subject-matter of the verses. I have not the leisure at +present to write so fully as I could wish, my time being occupied with +the preparation of a discourse for the forthcoming bicentenary +celebration of the first settlement of Jaalam East Parish. It may +gratify the publick interest to mention the circumstance, that my +investigations to this end have enabled me to verify the fact (of much +historick importance, and hitherto hotly debated) that Shearjashub +Tarbox was the first child of white parentage born in this town, being +named in his father's will under date August 7th, or 9th, 1662. It is +well known that those who advocate the claims of Mehetable Goings are +unable to find any trace of her existence prior to October of that year. +As respects the settlement of the Mason and Slidell question, Mr. Biglow +has not incorrectly stated the popular sentiment, so far as I can judge +by its expression in this locality. For myself, I feel more sorrow than +resentment: for I am old enough to have heard those talk of England who +still, even after the unhappy estrangement, could not unschool their +lips from calling her the Mother-Country. But England has insisted on +ripping up old wounds, and has undone the healing work of fifty years; +for nations do not reason, they only feel, and the _spretæ injuria +formæ_ rankles in their minds as bitterly as in that of a woman. And +because this is so, I feel the more satisfaction that our Government has +acted (as all Governments should, standing as they do between the people +and their passions) as if it had arrived at years of discretion. There +are three short and simple words, the hardest of all to pronounce in any +language (and I suspect they were no easier before the confusion of +tongues), but which no man or nation that cannot utter can claim to have +arrived at manhood. Those words are, _I was wrong;_ and I am proud that, +while England played the boy, our rulers had strength enough from the +People below and wisdom enough from God above to quit themselves like +men. + +The sore points on both sides have been skilfully exasperated by +interested and unscrupulous persons, who saw in a war between the two +countries the only hope of profitable return for their investment in +Confederate stock, whether political or financial. The always +supercilious, often insulting, and sometimes even brutal tone of British +journals and publick men has certainly not tended to soothe whatever +resentment might exist in America. + +'Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, +But why did you kick me down stairs?' + +We have no reason to complain that England, as a necessary consequence +of her clubs, has become a great society for the minding of other +people's business, and we can smile good-naturedly when she lectures +other nations on the sins of arrogance and conceit: but we may justly +consider it a breach of the political _convenances_ which are expected +to regulate the intercourse of one well-bred government with another, +when men holding places in the ministry allow themselves to dictate our +domestic policy, to instruct us in our duty, and to stigmatize as unholy +a war for the rescue of whatever a high-minded people should hold most +vital and most sacred. Was it in good taste, that I may use the mildest +term, for Earl Russell to expound our own Constitution to President +Lincoln, or to make a new and fallacious application of an old phrase +for our benefit, and tell us that the Rebels were fighting for +independence and we for empire? As if all wars for independence were by +nature just and deserving of sympathy, and all wars for empire ignoble +and worthy only of reprobation, or as if these easy phrases in any way +characterized this terrible struggle,--terrible not so truly in any +superficial sense, as from the essential and deadly enmity of the +principles that underlie it. His Lordship's bit of borrowed rhetoric +would justify Smith O'Brien, Nana Sahib, and the Maori chieftains, while +it would condemn nearly every war in which England has ever been +engaged. Was it so very presumptuous in us to think that it would be +decorous in English statesmen if they spared time enough to acquire some +kind of knowledge, though of the most elementary kind, in regard to this +country and the questions at issue here, before they pronounced so +off-hand a judgment? Or is political information expected to come +Dogberry-fashion in England, like reading and writing, by nature? + +And now all respectable England is wondering at our irritability, and +sees a quite satisfactory explanation of it in our national vanity. +_Suave mari magno_, it is pleasant, sitting in the easy-chairs of +Downing Street, to sprinkle pepper on the raw wounds of a kindred people +struggling for life, and philosophical to find in self-conceit the cause +of our instinctive resentment. Surely we were of all nations the least +liable to any temptation of vanity at a time when the gravest anxiety +and the keenest sorrow were never absent from our hearts. Nor is conceit +the exclusive attribute of any one nation. The earliest of English +travellers, Sir John Mandeville, took a less provincial view of the +matter when he said, 'For fro what partie of the erthe that men duellen, +other aboven or beneathen, it semethe alweys to hem that duellen that +thei gon more righte than any other folke.' The English have always had +their fair share of this amiable quality. We may say of them still, as +the authour of the 'Lettres Cabalistiques' said of them more than a +century ago, _'Ces derniers disent naturellement qu'il n'y a qu'eux qui +soient estimables_'. And, as he also says,_'J'aimerois presque autant +tomber entre les mains d'un Inquisiteur que d'un Anglois qui me fait +sentir sans cesse combien il s'estime plus que moi, et qui ne daigne me +parler que pour injurier ma Nation et pour m'ennuyer du récit des +grandes qualités de la sienne_.' Of _this_ Bull we may safely say with +Horace, _habet fænum in cornu._ What we felt to be especially insulting +was the quiet assumption that the descendants of men who left the Old +World for the sake of principle, and who had made the wilderness into a +New World patterned after an Idea, could not possibly be susceptible of +a generous or lofty sentiment, could have no feeling of nationality +deeper than that of a tradesman for his shop. One would have thought, in +listening to England, that we were presumptuous in fancying that we were +a nation at all, or had any other principle of union than that of booths +at a fair, where there is no higher notion of government than the +constable, or better image of God than that stamped upon the current +coin. + +It is time for Englishmen to consider whether there was nothing in the +spirit of their press and of their leading public men calculated to +rouse a just indignation, and to cause a permanent estrangement on the +part of any nation capable of self-respect, and sensitively jealous, as +ours then was, of foreign interference. Was there nothing in the +indecent haste with which belligerent rights were conceded to the +Rebels, nothing in the abrupt tone assumed in the Trent case, nothing in +the fitting out of Confederate privateers, that might stir the blood of +a people already overcharged with doubt, suspicion, and terrible +responsibility? The laity in any country do not stop to consider points +of law, but they have an instinctive perception of the _animus_ that +actuates the policy of a foreign nation; and in our own case they +remembered that the British authorities in Canada did not wait till +diplomacy could send home to England for her slow official tinder-box to +fire the 'Caroline.' Add to this, what every sensible American knew, +that the moral support of England was equal to an army of two hundred +thousand men to the Rebels, while it insured us another year or two of +exhausting war. It was not so much the spite of her words (though the +time might have been more tastefully chosen) as the actual power for +evil in them that we felt as a deadly wrong. Perhaps the most immediate +and efficient cause of mere irritation was, the sudden and unaccountable +change of manner on the other side of the water. Only six months before, +the Prince of Wales had come over to call us cousins; and everywhere it +was nothing but 'our American brethren,' that great offshoot of British +institutions in the New World, so almost identical with them in laws, +language, and literature,--this last of the alliterative compliments +being so bitterly true, that perhaps it will not be retracted even now. +To this outburst of long-repressed affection we responded with genuine +warmth, if with something of the awkwardness of a poor relation +bewildered with the sudden tightening of the ties of consanguinity when +it is rumored that he has come into a large estate. Then came the +Rebellion, and, _presto!_ a flaw in our titles was discovered, the plate +we were promised at the family table is flung at our head, and we were +again the scum of creation, intolerably vulgar, at once cowardly and +overbearing,--no relations of theirs, after all, but a dreggy hybrid of +the basest bloods of Europe. Panurge was not quicker to call Friar John +his _former_ friend. I cannot help thinking of Walter Mapes's jingling +paraphrase of Petronius,-- + +'Dummodo sim splendidis vestibus ornatus, +Et multa familia sim circumvallatus, +Prudens sum et sapiens et morigeratus, +Et tuus nepos sum et tu meus cognatus,'-- + +which I may freely render thus:-- + +So long as I was prosperous, I'd dinners by the dozen, +Was well-bred, witty, virtuous, and everybody's cousin; +If luck should turn, as well she may, her fancy is so flexile, +Will virtue, cousinship, and all return with her from exile? + +There was nothing in all this to exasperate a philosopher, much to make +him smile rather; but the earth's surface is not chiefly inhabited by +philosophers, and I revive the recollection of it now in perfect +good-humour, merely by way of suggesting to our _ci-devant_ British +cousins, that it would have been easier for them to hold their tongues +than for us to keep our tempers under the circumstances. + +The English Cabinet made a blunder, unquestionably, in taking it so +hastily for granted that the United States had fallen forever from their +position as a first-rate power, and it was natural that they should vent +a little of their vexation on the people whose inexplicable obstinacy in +maintaining freedom and order, and in resisting degradation, was likely +to convict them of their mistake. But if bearing a grudge be the sure +mark of a small mind in the individual, can it be a proof of high spirit +in a nation? If the result of the present estrangement between the two +countries shall be to make us more independent of British twaddle +(_Indomito nec dira ferens stipendia Tauro_), so much the better; but if +it is to make us insensible to the value of British opinion in matters +where it gives us the judgment of an impartial and cultivated outsider, +if we are to shut ourselves out from the advantages of English culture, +the loss will be ours, and not theirs. Because the door of the old +homestead has been once slammed in our faces, shall we in a huff reject +all future advances of conciliation, and cut ourselves foolishly off +from any share in the humanizing influences of the place, with its +ineffable riches of association, its heirlooms of immemorial culture, +its historic monuments, ours no less than theirs, its noble gallery of +ancestral portraits? We have only to succeed, and England will not only +respect, but, for the first time, begin to understand us. And let us +not, in our justifiable indignation at wanton insult, forget that +England is not the England only of snobs who dread the democracy they do +not comprehend, but the England of history, of heroes, statesmen, and +poets, whose names are dear, and their influence as salutary to us as to +her. + +Let us strengthen the hands of those in authority over us, and curb our +own tongues, remembering that General Wait commonly proves in the end +more than a match for General Headlong, and that the Good Book ascribes +safety to a multitude, indeed, but not to a mob, of counsellours. Let us +remember and perpend the words of Paulus Emilius to the people of Rome; +that, 'if they judged they could manage the war to more advantage by any +other, he would willingly yield up his charge; but if they confided in +him, _they were not to make themselves his colleagues in his office, or +raise reports, or criticise his actions, but, without talking, supply +him with means and assistance necessary to the carrying on of the war; +for, if they proposed to command their own commander, they would render +this expedition more ridiculous than the former.' (Vide Plutarchum in +Vitâ P.E._) Let us also not forget what the same excellent authour says +concerning Perseus's fear of spending money, and not permit the +covetousness of Brother Jonathan to be the good fortune of Jefferson +Davis. For my own part, till I am ready to admit the Commander-in-Chief +to my pulpit, I shall abstain from planning his battles. If courage be +the sword, yet is patience the armour of a nation; and in our desire for +peace, let us never be willing to surrender the Constitution bequeathed +us by fathers at least as wise as ourselves (even with Jefferson Davis +to help us), and, with those degenerate Romans, _tuta et præsentia quam +vetera et periculosa malle_. + +And not only should we bridle our own tongues, but the pens of others, +which are swift to convey useful intelligence to the enemy. This is no +new inconvenience; for, under date, 3d June, 1745, General Pepperell +wrote thus to Governor Shirley from Louisbourg: 'What your Excellency +observes of the _army's being made acquainted with any plans proposed, +until ready to be put in execution_, has always been disagreeable to me, +and I have given many cautions relating to it. But when your Excellency +considers that _our Council of War consists of more than twenty +members_, I am persuaded you will think it _impossible for me to hinder +it_, if any of them will persist in communicating to inferior officers +and soldiers what ought to be kept secret. I am informed that the Boston +newspapers are filled with paragraphs from private letters relating to +the expedition. Will your Excellency permit me to say I think it may be +of ill consequence? Would it not be convenient, if your Excellency +should forbid the Printers' inserting such news?' Verily, if _tempora +mutantur_, we may question the _et nos mutamur in illis;_ and if tongues +be leaky, it will need all hands at the pumps to save the Ship of State. +Our history dotes and repeats itself. If Sassycus (rather than +Alcibiades) find a parallel in Beauregard, so Weakwash, as he is called +by the brave Lieutenant Lion Gardiner, need not seek far among our own +Sachems for his anti-type. + + With respect, + Your ob't humble serv't + Homer Wilbur, A.M. + + +I love to start out arter night's begun, +An' all the chores about the farm are done, +The critters milked an' foddered, gates shet fast, +Tools cleaned aginst to-morrer, supper past. +An' Nancy darnin' by her ker'sene lamp,-- +I love, I say, to start upon a tramp, +To shake the kinkles out o' back an' legs, +An' kind o' rack my life off from the dregs +Thet's apt to settle in the buttery-hutch +Of folks thet foller in one rut too much: 10 +Hard work is good an' wholesome, past all doubt; +But 't ain't so, ef the mind gits tuckered out. +Now, bein' born in Middlesex, you know, +There's certin spots where I like best to go: +The Concord road, for instance (I, for one, +Most gin'lly ollers call it _John Bull's Run_). +The field o' Lexin'ton where England tried +The fastest colours thet she ever dyed, +An' Concord Bridge, thet Davis, when he came, +Found was the bee-line track to heaven an' fame, 20 +Ez all roads be by natur', ef your soul +Don't sneak thru shun-pikes so's to save the toll. + +They're 'most too fur away, take too much time +To visit of'en, ef it ain't in rhyme; +But the' 's a walk thet's hendier, a sight, +An' suits me fust-rate of a winter's night,-- +I mean the round whale's-back o' Prospect Hill. +I love to l'iter there while night grows still, +An' in the twinklin' villages about, +Fust here, then there, the well-saved lights goes out, 30 +An' nary sound but watch-dogs' false alarms, +Or muffled cock-crows from the drowsy farms, +Where some wise rooster (men act jest thet way) +Stands to 't thet moon-rise is the break o' day; +(So Mister Seward sticks a three-months' pin +Where the war'd oughto eend, then tries agin: +My gran'ther's rule was safer 'n 'tis to crow: +_Don't never prophesy--onless ye know_.) +I love to muse there till it kind o' seems +Ez ef the world went eddyin' off in dreams; 40 +The northwest wind thet twitches at my baird +Blows out o' sturdier days not easy scared, +An' the same moon thet this December shines +Starts out the tents an' booths o' Putnam's lines; +The rail-fence posts, acrost the hill thet runs, +Turn ghosts o' sogers should'rin' ghosts o' guns; +Ez wheels the sentry, glints a flash o' light, +Along the firelock won at Concord Fight, +An', 'twixt the silences, now fur, now nigh, +Rings the sharp chellenge, hums the low reply. 50 + +Ez I was settin' so, it warn't long sence, +Mixin' the puffict with the present tense, +I heerd two voices som'ers in the air, +Though, ef I was to die, I can't tell where: +Voices I call 'em: 'twas a kind o' sough +Like pine-trees thet the wind's ageth'rin' through; +An', fact, I thought it _was_ the wind a spell, +Then some misdoubted, couldn't fairly tell, +Fust sure, then not, jest as you hold an eel, +I knowed, an' didn't,--fin'lly seemed to feel 60 +'Twas Concord Bridge a talkin' off to kill +With the Stone Spike thet's druv thru Bunker's Hill; +Whether 'twas so, or ef I on'y dreamed, +I couldn't say; I tell it ez it seemed. + + +THE BRIDGE + +Wal, neighbor, tell us wut's turned up thet's new? +You're younger 'n I be,--nigher Boston, tu: +An' down to Boston, ef you take their showin', +Wut they don't know ain't hardly wuth the knowin'. +There's _sunthin'_ goin' on, I know: las' night +The British sogers killed in our gret fight 70 +(Nigh fifty year they hedn't stirred nor spoke) +Made sech a coil you'd thought a dam hed broke: +Why, one he up an' beat a revellee +With his own crossbones on a holler tree, +Till all the graveyards swarmed out like a hive +With faces I hain't seen sence Seventy-five. +Wut _is_ the news? 'T ain't good, or they'd be cheerin'. +Speak slow an' clear, for I'm some hard o' hearin'. + + +THE MONIMENT + +I don't know hardly ef it's good or bad,-- + + +THE BRIDGE + +At wust, it can't be wus than wut we've had. 80 + + +THE MONIMENT + +You know them envys thet the Rebbles sent, +An' Cap'n Wilkes he borried o' the Trent? + + +THE BRIDGE + +Wut! they ha'n't hanged 'em? +Then their wits is gone! +Thet's the sure way to make a goose a swan! + + +THE MONIMENT + +No: England she _would_ hev 'em, _Fee, Faw, Fum!_ +(Ez though she hedn't fools enough to home,) +So they've returned 'em-- + + +THE BRIDGE + + _Hev_ they? Wal, by heaven, +Thet's the wust news I've heerd sence Seventy-seven! +_By George_, I meant to say, though I declare +It's 'most enough to make a deacon swear. 90 + + +THE MONIMENT + +Now don't go off half-cock: folks never gains +By usin' pepper-sarse instid o' brains. +Come, neighbor, you don't understan'-- + + +THE BRIDGE + + How? Hey? +Not understan'? Why, wut's to hender, pray? +Must I go huntin' round to find a chap +To tell me when my face hez hed a slap? + + +THE MONIMENT + +See here: the British they found out a flaw +In Cap'n Wilkes's readin' o' the law: +(They _make_ all laws, you know, an' so, o' course, +It's nateral they should understan' their force:) 100 +He'd oughto ha' took the vessel into port, +An' hed her sot on by a reg'lar court; +She was a mail-ship, an' a steamer, tu, +An' thet, they say, hez changed the pint o' view, +Coz the old practice, bein' meant for sails, +Ef tried upon a steamer, kind o' fails; +You _may_ take out despatches, but you mus'n't +Take nary man-- + + +THE BRIDGE + +You mean to say, you dus'n't! +Changed pint o'view! No, no,--it's overboard +With law an' gospel, when their ox is gored! 110 +I tell ye, England's law, on sea an' land, +Hez ollers ben, '_I've gut the heaviest hand_.' +Take nary man? Fine preachin' from _her_ lips! +Why, she hez taken hunderds from our ships, +An' would agin, an' swear she had a right to, +Ef we warn't strong enough to be perlite to. +Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind, +England _doos_ make the most onpleasant kind: +It's you're the sinner ollers, she's the saint; +Wut's good's all English, all thet isn't ain't; 120 +Wut profits her is ollers right an' just, +An' ef you don't read Scriptur so, you must; +She's praised herself ontil she fairly thinks +There ain't no light in Natur when she winks; +Hain't she the Ten Comman'ments in her pus? +Could the world stir 'thout she went, tu, ez nus? +She ain't like other mortals, thet's a fact: +_She_ never stopped the habus-corpus act, +Nor specie payments, nor she never yet +Cut down the int'rest on her public debt; 130 +_She_ don't put down rebellions, lets 'em breed, +An' 's ollers willin' Ireland should secede; +She's all thet's honest, honnable, an' fair, +An' when the vartoos died they made her heir. + + +THE MONIMENT + +Wal, wal, two wrongs don't never make a right; +Ef we're mistaken, own up, an' don't fight: +For gracious' sake, ha'n't we enough to du +'thout gettin' up a fight with England, tu? +She thinks we're rabble-rid-- + + +THE BRIDGE + + An' so we can't +Distinguish 'twixt _You oughtn't_ an' _You shan't!_ 140 +She jedges by herself; she's no idear +How 't stiddies folks to give 'em their fair sheer: +The odds 'twixt her an' us is plain's a steeple,-- +Her People's turned to Mob, our Mob's turned People. + + +THE MONIMENT + +She's riled jes' now-- + + +THE BRIDGE + + Plain proof her cause ain't strong,-- +The one thet fust gits mad's 'most ollers wrong. +Why, sence she helped in lickin' Nap the Fust, +An' pricked a bubble jest agoin' to bust, +With Rooshy, Prooshy, Austry, all assistin', +Th' ain't nut a face but wut she's shook her fist in, 150 +Ez though she done it all, an' ten times more, +An' nothin' never hed gut done afore, +Nor never could agin, 'thout she wuz spliced +On to one eend an' gin th' old airth a hoist. +She _is_ some punkins, thet I wun't deny, +(For ain't she some related to you 'n' I?) +But there's a few small intrists here below +Outside the counter o' John Bull an' Co, +An' though they can't conceit how 't should be so, +I guess the Lord druv down Creation's spiles 160 +'thout no _gret_ helpin' from the British Isles, +An' could contrive to keep things pooty stiff +Ef they withdrawed from business in a miff; +I ha'n't no patience with sech swellin' fellers ez +Think God can't forge 'thout them to blow the bellerses. + + +THE MONIMENT + +You're ollers quick to set your back aridge, +Though 't suits a tom-cat more 'n a sober bridge: +Don't you get het: they thought the thing was planned; +They'll cool off when they come to understand. + + +THE BRIDGE + +Ef _thet_'s wut you expect, you'll _hev_ to wait; 170 +Folks never understand the folks they hate: +She'll fin' some other grievance jest ez good, +'fore the month's out, to git misunderstood. +England cool off! She'll do it, ef she sees +She's run her head into a swarm o' bees. +I ain't so prejudiced ez wut you spose: +I hev thought England was the best thet goes; +Remember (no, you can't), when _I_ was reared, +_God save the King_ was all the tune you heerd: +But it's enough to turn Wachuset roun' 180 +This stumpin' fellers when you think they're down. + + +THE MONIMENT + +But, neighbor, ef they prove their claim at law, +The best way is to settle, an' not jaw. +An' don't le' 's mutter 'bout the awfle bricks +We'll give 'em, ef we ketch 'em in a fix: +That 'ere's most frequently the kin' o' talk +Of critters can't be kicked to toe the chalk; +Your 'You'll see _nex'_ time!' an' 'Look out bumby!' +'Most ollers ends in eatin' umble-pie. +'Twun't pay to scringe to England: will it pay 190 +To fear thet meaner bully, old 'They'll say'? +Suppose they _du_ say; words are dreffle bores, +But they ain't quite so bad ez seventy-fours. +Wut England wants is jest a wedge to fit +Where it'll help to widen out our split: +She's found her wedge, an' 'tain't for us to come +An' lend the beetle thet's to drive it home. +For growed-up folks like us 'twould be a scandle, +When we git sarsed, to fly right off the handle. +England ain't _all_ bad, coz she thinks us blind: 200 +Ef she can't change her skin, she can her mind; +An' we shall see her change it double-quick. +Soon ez we've proved thet we're a-goin' to lick. +She an' Columby's gut to be fas' friends: +For the world prospers by their privit ends: +'Twould put the clock back all o' fifty years +Ef they should fall together by the ears. + + +THE BRIDGE + +I 'gree to thet; she's nigh us to wut France is; +But then she'll hev to make the fust advances; +We've gut pride, tu, an' gut it by good rights, 210 +An' ketch _me_ stoopin' to pick up the mites +O' condescension she'll be lettin' fall +When she finds out we ain't dead arter all! +I tell ye wut, it takes more'n one good week +Afore _my_ nose forgits it's hed a tweak. + + +THE MONIMENT + +She'll come out right bumby, thet I'll engage, +Soon ez she gits to seein' we're of age; +This talkin' down o' hers ain't wuth a fuss; +It's nat'ral ez nut likin' 'tis to us; 220 +Ef we're agoin' to prove we _be_ growed-up. +'Twun't be by barkin' like a tarrier pup, +But turnin' to an' makin' things ez good +Ez wut we're ollers braggin' that we could; +We're boun' to be good friends, an' so we'd oughto, +In spite of all the fools both sides the water. + + +THE BRIDGE + +I b'lieve thet's so; but hearken in your ear,-- +I'm older'n you,--Peace wun't keep house with Fear; +Ef you want peace, the thing you've gut tu du +Is jes' to show you're up to fightin', tu. +_I_ recollect how sailors' rights was won, 230 +Yard locked in yard, hot gun-lip kissin' gun; +Why, afore thet, John Bull sot up thet he +Hed gut a kind o' mortgage on the sea; +You'd thought he held by Gran'ther Adam's will, +An' ef you knuckle down, _he_'ll think so still. +Better thet all our ships an' all their crews +Should sink to rot in ocean's dreamless ooze, +Each torn flag wavin' chellenge ez it went, +An' each dumb gun a brave man's moniment, +Than seek sech peace ez only cowards crave: 240 +Give _me_ the peace of dead men or of brave! + + +THE MONIMENT + +I say, ole boy, it ain't the Glorious Fourth: +You'd oughto larned 'fore this wut talk wuz worth. +It ain't _our_ nose thet gits put out o' jint; +It's England thet gives up her dearest pint. +We've gut, I tell ye now, enough to du +In our own fem'ly fight, afore we're thru. +I hoped, las' spring, jest arter Sumter's shame, +When every flag-staff flapped its tethered flame, +An' all the people, startled from their doubt, 250 +Come must'rin' to the flag with sech a shout,-- +I hoped to see things settled 'fore this fall, +The Rebbles licked, Jeff Davis hanged, an' all; +Then come Bull Run, an' _sence_ then I've ben waitin' +Like boys in Jennooary thaw for skatin', +Nothin' to du but watch my shadder's trace +Swing, like a ship at anchor, roun' my base, +With daylight's flood an' ebb: it's gittin' slow, +An' I 'most think we'd better let 'em go. +I tell ye wut, this war's a-goin' to cost-- 260 + + +THE BRIDGE + +An' I tell _you_ it wun't be money lost; +Taxes milks dry, but, neighbor, you'll allow +Thet havin' things onsettled kills the cow: +We've gut to fix this thing for good an' all; +It's no use buildin' wut's a-goin' to fall. +I'm older'n you, an' I've seen things an' men, +An' _my_ experunce,--tell ye wut it's ben: +Folks thet worked thorough was the ones thet thriv, +But bad work follers ye ez long's ye live; +You can't git red on 't; jest ez sure ez sin, 270 +It's ollers askin' to be done agin: +Ef we should part, it wouldn't be a week +'Fore your soft-soddered peace would spring aleak. +We've turned our cuffs up, but, to put her thru, +We must git mad an' off with jackets, tu; +'Twun't du to think thet killin' ain't perlite,-- +You've gut to be to airnest, ef you fight; +Why, two thirds o' the Rebbles 'ould cut dirt, +Ef they once thought thet Guv'ment meant to hurt; +An' I _du_ wish our Gin'rals hed in mind 280 +The folks in front more than the folks behind; +You wun't do much ontil you think it's God, +An' not constitoounts, thet holds the rod; +We want some more o' Gideon's sword, I jedge, +For proclamations ha'n't no gret of edge; +There's nothin' for a cancer but the knife, +Onless you set by 't more than by your life. +_I_'ve seen hard times; I see a war begun +Thet folks thet love their bellies never'd won; +Pharo's lean kine hung on for seven long year; 290 +But when 'twas done, we didn't count it dear; +Why, law an' order, honor, civil right, +Ef they _ain't_ wuth it, wut _is_ wuth a fight? +I'm older'n you: the plough, the axe, the mill, +All kin's o' labor an' all kin's o' skill, +Would be a rabbit in a wile-cat's claw, +Ef 'twarn't for thet slow critter, 'stablished law; +Onsettle _thet_, an' all the world goes whiz, +A screw's gut loose in eyerythin' there is: +Good buttresses once settled, don't you fret 300 +An' stir 'em; take a bridge's word for thet! +Young folks are smart, but all ain't good thet's new; +I guess the gran'thers they knowed sunthin', tu. + + +THE MONIMENT + +Amen to thet! build sure in the beginnin': +An' then don't never tech the underpinnin': +Th' older a guv'ment is, the better 't suits; +New ones hunt folks's corns out like new boots: +Change jes' for change, is like them big hotels +Where they shift plates, an' let ye live on smells. + + +THE BRIDGE + +Wal, don't give up afore the ship goes down: 310 +It's a stiff gale, but Providence wun't drown; +An' God wun't leave us yit to sink or swim, +Ef we don't fail to du wut's right by Him, +This land o' ourn, I tell ye, 's gut to be +A better country than man ever see. +I feel my sperit swellin' with a cry +Thet seems to say, 'Break forth an' prophesy!' +O strange New World, thet yit wast never young, +Whose youth from thee by gripin' need was wrung, +Brown foundlin' o' the woods, whose baby-bed 320 +Was prowled roun' by the Injun's cracklin' tread, +An' who grew'st strong thru shifts an' wants an' pains, +Nussed by stern men with empires in their brains, +Who saw in vision their young Ishmel strain +With each hard hand a vassal ocean's mane, +Thou, skilled by Freedom an' by gret events +To pitch new States ez Old-World men pitch tents, +Thou, taught by Fate to know Jehovah's plan +Thet man's devices can't unmake a man, +An' whose free latch-string never was drawed in 330 +Against the poorest child of Adam's kin,-- +The grave's not dug where traitor hands shall lay +In fearful haste thy murdered corse away! +I see-- + + Jest here some dogs begun to bark, +So thet I lost old Concord's last remark: +I listened long, but all I seemed to hear +Was dead leaves gossipin' on some birch-trees near; +But ez they hedn't no gret things to say, +An' sed 'em often, I come right away, +An', walkin' home'ards, jest to pass the time, 340 +I put some thoughts thet bothered me in rhyme; +I hain't hed time to fairly try 'em on, +But here they be--it's + + +JONATHAN TO JOHN + +It don't seem hardly right, John, + When both my hands was full, +To stump me to a fight, John,-- + Your cousin, tu, John Bull! + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess + We know it now,' sez he, +'The lion's paw is all the law, + Accordin' to J.B., + Thet's fit for you an' me!' 9 + +You wonder why we're hot, John? + Your mark wuz on the guns, +The neutral guns, thet shot, John, + Our brothers an' our sons: + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess + There's human blood,' sez he, +'By fits an' starts, in Yankee hearts, + Though't may surprise J.B. + More 'n it would you an' me.' + +Ef _I_ turned mad dogs loose, John, + On _your_ front-parlor stairs, 20 +Would it jest meet your views, John, + To wait an' sue their heirs? + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess, + I on'y guess,' sez he, + 'Thet ef Vattel on _his_ toes fell, + 'Twould kind o' rile J.B., + Ez wal ez you an' me!' + +Who made the law thet hurts, John, + _Heads I win,--ditto tails?_ +'J.B.' was on his shirts, John, 30 + Onless my memory fails. + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess + (I'm good at thet),' sez he, +'Thet sauce for goose ain't _jest_ the juice + For ganders with J.B., + No more 'n with you or me!' + +When your rights was our wrongs, John, + You didn't stop for fuss,-- +Britanny's trident prongs, John, + Was good 'nough law for us. 40 + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess, + Though physic's good,' sez he, +'It doesn't foller thet he can swaller + Prescriptions signed "J.B.," + Put up by you an' me!' + +We own the ocean, tu, John: + You mus'n' take it hard, +Ef we can't think with you, John, + It's jest your own back-yard. 49 + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess, + Ef _thet's_ his claim,' sez he, +'The fencin' stuff'll cost enough + To bust up friend J.B., + Ez wal ez you an' me!' + +Why talk so dreffle big, John, + Of honor when it meant +You didn't care a fig, John, + But jest for _ten per cent?_ + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess + He's like the rest,' sez he: 60 +'When all is done, it's number one + Thet's nearest to J.B., + Ez wal ez t' you an' me!' + +We give the critters back, John, + Cos Abram thought 'twas right; +It warn't your bullyin' clack, John, + Provokin' us to fight. + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess + We've a hard row,' sez he, +'To hoe jest now; but thet, somehow, 70 + May happen to J.B., + Ez wal ez you an' me!' + +We ain't so weak an' poor, John, + With twenty million people. +An' close to every door, John, + A school-house an' a steeple. + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess, + It is a fact,' sez he, +'The surest plan to make a Man + Is, think him so, J.B., 80 + Ez much ez you or me!' + +Our folks believe in Law, John; + An' it's for her sake, now, +They've left the axe an' saw, John, + The anvil an' the plough. + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess, + Ef 'twarn't for law,' sez he, +'There'd be one shindy from here to Indy; + An' thet don't suit J.B. + (When't ain't 'twixt you an' me!) 90 + +We know we've got a cause, John, + Thet's honest, just, an' true; +We thought 'twould win applause, John, + Ef nowheres else, from you. + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess + His love of right,' sez he, +'Hangs by a rotten fibre o' cotton: + There's natur' in J.B., + Ez wal 'z in you an' me!' + +The South says, '_Poor folks down!_' John, 100 + An' '_All men up!_' say we,-- +White, yaller, black, an' brown, John: + Now which is your idee? + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess, + John preaches wal,' sez he; +'But, sermon thru, an' come to _du_, + Why, there's the old J.B. + A-crowdin' you an' me!' + +Shall it be love, or hate, John? + It's you thet's to decide; 110 +Ain't _your_ bonds held by Fate, John, + Like all the world's beside? + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess + Wise men forgive,' sez he, +'But not forgit; an' some time yit + Thet truth may strike J.B., + Ez wal ez you an' me!' + +God means to make this land, John, + Clear thru, from sea to sea, +Believe an' understand, John, 120 + The _wuth_ o' bein' free. + Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess, + God's price is high,' sez he; +'But nothin' else than wut He sells + Wears long, an' thet J.B. + May larn, like you an' me!' + + + +No. III + +BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW + +_With the following Letter from the_ REVEREND HOMER WILBUR, A.M. + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +JAALAM, 7th Feb., 1862. + +RESPECTED FRIENDS,--If I know myself,--and surely a man can hardly be +supposed to have overpassed the limit of fourscore years without +attaining to some proficiency in that most useful branch of learning (_e +coelo descendit_, says the pagan poet),--I have no great smack of that +weakness which would press upon the publick attention any matter +pertaining to my private affairs. But since the following letter of Mr. +Sawin contains not only a direct allusion to myself, but that in +connection with a topick of interest to all those engaged in the publick +ministrations of the sanctuary, I may be pardoned for touching briefly +thereupon. Mr. Sawin was never a stated attendant upon my +preaching,--never, as I believe, even an occasional one, since the +erection of the new house (where we now worship) in 1845. He did, +indeed, for a time, supply a not unacceptable bass in the choir; but, +whether on some umbrage (_omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus_) taken +against the bass-viol, then, and till his decease in 1850 (_æt._ 77,) +under the charge of Mr. Asaph Perley, or, as was reported by others, on +account of an imminent subscription for a new bell, he thenceforth +absented himself from all outward and visible communion. Yet he seems to +have preserved (_altâ mente repostum_), as it were, in the pickle of a +mind soured by prejudice, a lasting _scunner_, as he would call it, +against our staid and decent form of worship; for I would rather in that +wise interpret his fling, than suppose that any chance tares sown by my +pulpit discourses should survive so long, while good seed too often +fails to root itself. I humbly trust that I have no personal feeling in +the matter; though I know that, if we sound any man deep enough, our +lead shall bring up the mud of human nature at last. The Bretons believe +in an evil spirit which they call _ar c'houskezik_, whose office it is +to make the congregation drowsy; and though I have never had reason to +think that he was specially busy among my flock, yet have I seen enough +to make me sometimes regret the hinged seats of the ancient +meeting-house, whose lively clatter, not unwillingly intensified by boys +beyond eyeshot of the tithing-man, served at intervals as a wholesome +_réveil_. It is true, I have numbered among my parishioners some who are +proof against the prophylactick fennel, nay, whose gift of somnolence +rivalled that of the Cretan Rip Van Winkle, Epimenides, and who, +nevertheless, complained not so much of the substance as of the length +of my (by them unheard) discourses. Some ingenious persons of a +philosophick turn have assured us that our pulpits were set too high, +and that the soporifick tendency increased with the ratio of the angle +in which the hearer's eye was constrained to seek the preacher. This +were a curious topick for investigation. There can be no doubt that some +sermons are pitched too high, and I remember many struggles with the +drowsy fiend in my youth. Happy Saint Anthony of Padua, whose finny +acolytes, however they might profit, could never murmur! _Quare +fremuerunt gentes?_ Who is he that can twice a week be inspired, or has +eloquence (_ut ita dicam_) always on tap? A good man, and, next to +David, a sacred poet (himself, haply, not inexpert of evil in this +particular), has said,-- + +'The worst speak something good: if all want sense, +God takes a text and preacheth patience.' + +There are one or two other points in Mr. Sawin's letter which I would +also briefly animadvert upon. And first, concerning the claim he sets up +to a certain superiority of blood and lineage in the people of our +Southern States, now unhappily in rebellion against lawful authority and +their own better interests. There is a sort of opinions, anachronisms at +once and anachorisms, foreign both to the age and the country, that +maintain a feeble and buzzing existence, scarce to be called life, like +winter flies, which in mild weather crawl out from obscure nooks and +crannies to expatiate in the sun, and sometimes acquire vigor enough to +disturb with their enforced familiarity the studious hours of the +scholar. One of the most stupid and pertinacious of these is the theory +that the Southern States were settled by a class of emigrants from the +Old World socially superior to those who founded the institutions of New +England. The Virginians especially lay claim to this generosity of +lineage, which were of no possible account, were it not for the fact +that such superstitions are sometimes not without their effect on the +course of human affairs. The early adventurers to Massachusetts at least +paid their passages; no felons were ever shipped thither; and though it +be true that many deboshed younger brothers of what are called good +families may have sought refuge in Virginia, it is equally certain that +a great part of the early deportations thither were the sweepings of the +London streets and the leavings of the London stews. It was this my Lord +Bacon had in mind when he wrote: 'It is a shameful and unblessed thing +to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men to be the people +with whom you plant.' That certain names are found there is nothing to +the purpose, for, even had an _alias_ been beyond the invention of the +knaves of that generation, it is known that servants were often called +by their masters' names, as slaves are now. On what the heralds call the +spindle side, some, at least, of the oldest Virginian families are +descended from matrons who were exported and sold for so many hogsheads +of tobacco the head. So notorious was this, that it became one of the +jokes of contemporary playwrights, not only that men bankrupt in purse +and character were 'food for the Plantations' (and this before the +settlement of New England), but also that any drab would suffice to wive +such pitiful adventurers. 'Never choose a wife as if you were going to +Virginia,' says Middleton in one of his comedies. The mule is apt to +forget all but the equine side of his pedigree. How early the +counterfeit nobility of the Old Dominion became a topick of ridicule in +the Mother Country may be learned from a play of Mrs. Behn's, founded on +the Rebellion of Bacon: for even these kennels of literature may yield a +fact or two to pay the raking. Mrs. Flirt, the keeper of a Virginia +ordinary, calls herself the daughter of a baronet, 'undone in the late +rebellion,'--her father having in truth been a tailor,--and three of the +Council, assuming to themselves an equal splendor of origin, are shown +to have been, one 'a broken exciseman who came over a poor servant,' +another a tinker transported for theft, and the third 'a common +pickpocket often flogged at the cart's tail.' The ancestry of South +Carolina will as little pass muster at the Herald's Visitation, though I +hold them to have been more reputable, inasmuch as many of them were +honest tradesmen and artisans, in some measure exiles for conscience' +sake, who would have smiled at the high-flying nonsense of their +descendants. Some of the more respectable were Jews. The absurdity of +supposing a population of eight millions all sprung from gentle loins in +the course of a century and a half is too manifest for confutation. But +of what use to discuss the matter? An expert genealogist will provide +any solvent man with a _genus et pro avos_ to order. My Lord Burleigh +used to say, with Aristotle and the Emperor Frederick II. to back him, +that 'nobility was ancient riches,' whence also the Spanish were wont to +call their nobles _ricos hombres_, and the aristocracy of America are +the descendants of those who first became wealthy, by whatever means. +Petroleum will in this wise be the source of much good blood among our +posterity. The aristocracy of the South, such as it is, has the +shallowest of all foundations, for it is only skin-deep,--the most +odious of all, for, while affecting to despise trade, it traces its +origin to a successful traffick in men, women, and children, and still +draws its chief revenues thence. And though, as Doctor Chamberlayne +consolingly says in his 'Present State of England,' 'to become a +Merchant of Foreign Commerce, without serving any Apprentisage, hath +been allowed no disparagement to a Gentleman born, especially to a +younger Brother,' yet I conceive that he would hardly have made a like +exception in favour of the particular trade in question. Oddly enough +this trade reverses the ordinary standards of social respectability no +less than of morals, for the retail and domestick is as creditable as +the wholesale and foreign is degrading to him who follows it. Are our +morals, then, no better than _mores_ after all? I do not believe that +such aristocracy as exists at the South (for I hold with Marius, +_fortissimum quemque generosissimum_) will be found an element of +anything like persistent strength in war,--thinking the saying of Lord +Bacon (whom one quaintly called _inductionis dominus et Verulamii_) as +true as it is pithy, that 'the more gentlemen, ever the lower books of +subsidies.' It is odd enough as an historical precedent, that, while the +fathers of New England were laying deep in religion, education, and +freedom the basis of a polity which has substantially outlasted any then +existing, the first work of the founders of Virginia, as may be seen in +Wingfield's 'Memorial,' was conspiracy and rebellion,--odder yet, as +showing the changes which are wrought by circumstance, that the first +insurrection, in South Carolina was against the aristocratical scheme of +the Proprietary Government. I do not find that the cuticular aristocracy +of the South has added anything to the refinements of civilization +except the carrying of bowie-knives and the chewing of tobacco,--a +high-toned Southern gentleman being commonly not only _quadrumanous_ but +_quidruminant_. + +I confess that the present letter of Mr. Sawin increases my doubts as to +the sincerity of the convictions which he professes, and I am inclined +to think that the triumph, of the legitimate Government, sure sooner or +later to take place, will find him and a large majority of his newly +adopted fellow-citizens (who hold with Dædalus, the primal +sitter-on-the-fence, that _medium tenere tutissimum_) original Union +men. The criticisms towards the close of his letter on certain of our +failings are worthy to be seriously perpended; for he is not, as I +think, without a spice of vulgar shrewdness. _Fas est et ab hoste +doceri_: there is no reckoning without your host. As to the good-nature +in us which he seems to gird at, while I would not consecrate a chapel, +as they have not scrupled to do in France, to _Notre Dame de la Haine_ +(Our Lady of Hate), yet I cannot forget that the corruption of +good-nature is the generation of laxity of principle. Good-nature is our +national characteristick; and though it be, perhaps, nothing more than a +culpable weakness or cowardice, when it leads us to put up tamely with +manifold impositions and breaches of implied contracts (as too +frequently in our publick conveyances) it becomes a positive crime when +it leads us to look unresentfully on peculation, and to regard treason +to the best Government that ever existed as something with which a +gentleman may shake hands without soiling his fingers. I do not think +the gallows-tree the most profitable member of our _Sylva;_ but, since +it continues to be planted, I would fain see a Northern limb ingrafted +on it, that it may bear some other fruit than loyal Tennesseeans. + +A relick has recently been discovered on the east bank of Bushy Brook in +North Jaalam, which I conceive to be an inscription in Runick characters +relating to the early expedition of the Northmen to this continent. I +shall make fuller investigations, and communicate the result in due +season. + + Respectfully, + + Your obedient servant, + + HOMER WILBUR, A.M. + +P.S.--I inclose a year's subscription from Deacon Tinkham. + + +I hed it on my min' las' time, when I to write ye started, +To tech the leadin' featurs o' my gittin' me convarted; +But, ez my letters hez to go clearn roun' by way o' Cuby, +'Twun't seem no staler now than then, by th' time it gits where you be. +You know up North, though secs an' things air plenty ez you please, +Ther' warn't nut one on 'em thet come jes' square with my idees: +They all on 'em wuz too much mixed with Covenants o' Works, +An' would hev answered jest ez wal for Afrikins an' Turks, +Fer where's a Christian's privilege an' his rewards eusuin', +Ef 'taint perfessin' right and eend 'thout nary need o' doin'? 10 +I dessay they suit workin'-folks thet ain't noways pertic'lar, +But nut your Southun gen'leman thet keeps his parpendic'lar; +I don't blame nary man thet casts his lot along o' _his_ folks, +But ef you cal'late to save _me_, 't must be with folks thet _is_ folks; +Cov'nants o' works go 'ginst my grain, but down here I've found out +The true fus'-fem'ly A 1 plan,--here's how it come about. +When I fus' sot up with Miss S., sez she to me, sez she, +'Without you git religion, Sir, the thing can't never be; +Nut but wut I respeck,' sez she, 'your intellectle part, +But you wun't noways du for me athout a change o' heart; 20 +Nothun religion works wal North, but it's ez soft ez spruce, +Compared to ourn, for keepin' sound,' sez she, 'upon the goose; +A day's experunce 'd prove to ye, ez easy 'z pull a trigger. +It takes the Southun pint o' view to raise ten bales a nigger; +You'll fin' thet human natur', South, ain't wholesome more 'n skin-deep, +An' once 't a darkie's took with it, he wun't be wuth his keep,' +'How _shell_ I git it, Ma'am?'--sez I, 'Attend the nex' camp-meetin',' +Sez she, 'an' it'll come to ye ez cheap ez onbleached sheetin'.' +Wal, so I went along an' hearn most an impressive sarmon +About besprinklin' Afriky with fourth-proof dew o' Harmon: 30 +He didn't put no weaknin' in, but gin it tu us hot, +'Z ef he an' Satan 'd ben two bulls in one five-acre lot: +I don't purtend to foller him, but give ye jes' the heads; +For pulpit ellerkence, you know, 'most ollers kin' o' spreads. +Ham's seed wuz gin to us in chairge, an' shouldn't we be li'ble +In Kingdom Come, ef we kep' back their priv'lege in the Bible? +The cusses an' the promerses make one gret chain, an' ef +You snake one link out here, one there, how much on 't ud be lef'? +All things wuz gin to man for 's use, his sarvice, an' delight; 39 +An' don't the Greek an' Hebrew words thet mean a Man mean White? +Ain't it belittlin' the Good Book in all its proudes' featurs +To think 'twuz wrote for black an' brown an' 'lasses-colored creaturs, +Thet couldn' read it, ef they would, nor ain't by lor allowed to, +But ough' to take wut we think suits their naturs, an' be proud to? +Warn't it more prof'table to bring your raw materil thru +Where you can work it inta grace an' inta cotton, tu, +Than sendin' missionaries out where fevers might defeat 'em, +An' ef the butcher didn' call, their p'rishioners might eat 'em? +An' then, agin, wut airthly use? Nor 'twarn't our fault, in so fur +Ez Yankee skippers would keep on atotin' on 'em over. 50 +'T improved the whites by savin' 'em from ary need o' workin', +An' kep' the blacks from bein' lost thru idleness an' shirkin'; +We took to 'em ez nat'ral ez a barn-owl doos to mice, +An' hed our hull time on our hands to keep us out o' vice; +It made us feel ez pop'lar ez a hen doos with one chicken, +An' fill our place in Natur's scale by givin' 'em a lickin': +For why should Cæsar git his dues more 'n Juno, Pomp, an' Cuffy? +It's justifyin' Ham to spare a nigger when he's stuffy. +Where'd their soles go tu, like to know, ef we should let 'em ketch +Freeknowledgism an' Fourierism an' Speritoolism an' sech? 60 +When Satan sets himself to work to raise his very bes' muss, +He scatters roun' onscriptur'l views relatin' to Ones'mus. +You'd ough' to seen, though, how his facs an' argymunce an' figgers +Drawed tears o' real conviction from a lot o' pen'tent niggers! +It warn't like Wilbur's meetin', where you're shet up in a pew, +Your dickeys sorrin' off your ears, an' bilin' to be thru; +Ther' wuz a tent clost by thet hed a kag o' sunthin' in it, +Where you could go, ef you wuz dry, an' damp ye in a minute; +An' ef you did dror off a spell, ther' wuzn't no occasion +To lose the thread, because, ye see, he bellered like all Bashan. 70 +It's dry work follerin' argymunce an' so, 'twix' this an' thet, +I felt conviction weighin' down somehow inside my hat; +It growed an' growed like Jonah's gourd, a kin' o' whirlin' ketched me, +Ontil I fin'lly clean gin out an' owned up thet he'd fetched me; +An' when nine tenths o' th' perrish took to tumblin' roun' an' hollerin', +I didn' fin' no gret in th' way o' turnin' tu an' follerin'. +Soon ez Miss S. see thet, sez she, '_Thet_'s wut I call wuth seein'! +_Thet_'s actin' like a reas'nable an' intellectle bein'!' +An' so we fin'lly made it up, concluded to hitch hosses, +An' here I be 'n my ellermunt among creation's bosses; 80 +Arter I'd drawed sech heaps o' blanks, Fortin at last hez sent a prize, +An' chose me for a shinin' light o' missionary entaprise. + +This leads me to another pint on which I've changed my plan +O' thinkin' so's't I might become a straight-out Southun man. +Miss S. (her maiden name wuz Higgs, o' the fus' fem'ly here) +On her Ma's side's all Juggernot, on Pa's all Cavileer, +An' sence I've merried into her an' stept into her shoes, +It ain't more 'n nateral thet I should modderfy my views: +I've ben a-readin' in Debow ontil I've fairly gut +So 'nlightened thet I'd full ez lives ha' ben a Dook ez nut; 90 +An' when we've laid ye all out stiff, an' Jeff hez gut his crown, +An' comes to pick his nobles out, _wun't_ this child be in town! +We'll hev an Age o' Chivverlry surpassin' Mister Burke's, +Where every fem'ly is fus'-best an' nary white man works: +Our system's sech, the thing'll root ez easy ez a tater; +For while your lords in furrin parts ain't noways marked by natur', +Nor sot apart from ornery folks in featurs nor in figgers, +Ef ourn'll keep their faces washed, you'll know 'em from their niggers. +Ain't _sech_ things wuth secedin' for, an' gittin' red o' you +Thet waller in your low idees, an' will tell all is blue? 100 +Fact is, we _air_ a diff'rent race, an' I, for one, don't see, +Sech havin' ollers ben the case, how w'ever _did_ agree. +It's sunthin' thet you lab'rin'-folks up North hed ough' to think on, +Thet Higgses can't bemean themselves to rulin' by a Lincoln,-- +Thet men, (an' guv'nors, tu,) thet hez sech Normal names ez Pickens, +Accustomed to no kin' o' work, 'thout 'tis to givin' lickins, +Can't measure votes with folks thet get their living from their farms, +An' prob'ly think thet Law's ez good ez hevin' coats o' arms. +Sence I've ben here, I've hired a chap to look about for me +To git me a transplantable an' thrifty fem'ly-tree, 110 +An' he tells _me_ the Sawins is ez much o' Normal blood +Ez Pickens an' the rest on 'em, an' older 'n Noah's flood. +Your Normal schools wun't turn ye into Normals, for it's clear, +Ef eddykatin' done the thing, they'd be some skurcer here. +Pickenses, Boggses, Pettuses, Magoffins, Letchers, Polks,-- +Where can you scare up names like them among your mudsill folks? +Ther's nothin' to compare with 'em, you'd fin', ef you should glance, +Among the tip-top femerlies in Englan', nor in France: +I've hearn frum 'sponsible men whose word wuz full ez good's their note, +Men thet can run their face for drinks, an' keep a Sunday coat, 120 +That they wuz all on 'em come down, an' come down pooty fur, +From folks thet, 'thout their crowns wuz on, ou' doors wouldn' never stir, +Nor thet ther' warn't a Southun man but wut wuz _primy fashy_ +O' the bes' blood in Europe, yis, an' Afriky an' Ashy: +Sech bein' the case, is 't likely we should bend like cotton wickin', +Or set down under anythin' so low-lived ez a lickin'? +More 'n this,--hain't we the literatoor an science, tu, by gorry? +Hain't we them intellectle twins, them giants, Simms an' Maury, +Each with full twice the ushle brains, like nothin' thet I know, +'thout 'twuz a double-headed calf I see once to a show? 130 + +For all thet, I warn't jest at fust in favor o' secedin'; +I wuz for layin' low a spell to find out where 'twuz leadin', +For hevin' South-Carliny try her hand at sepritnationin', +She takin' resks an' findin' funds, an' we co-operationin',-- +I mean a kin' o' hangin' roun' an' settin' on the fence, +Till Prov'dunce pinted how to jump an' save the most expense; +I recollected thet 'ere mine o' lead to Shiraz Centre +Thet bust up Jabez Pettibone, an' didn't want to ventur' +'Fore I wuz sartin wut come out ud pay for wut went in, +For swappin' silver off for lead ain't the sure way to win; 140 +(An', fact, it _doos_ look now ez though--but folks must live an' larn-- +We should git lead, an' more 'n we want, out o' the Old Consarn;) +But when I see a man so wise an' honest ez Buchanan +A-lettin' us hev all the forts an' all the arms an' cannon, +Admittin' we wuz nat'lly right an' you wuz nat'lly wrong, +Coz you wuz lab'rin'-folks an' we wuz wut they call _bong-tong_, +An' coz there warn't no fight in ye more 'n in a mashed potater, +While two o' _us_ can't skurcely meet but wut we fight by natur', +An' th' ain't a bar-room here would pay for openin' on 't a night; +Without it giv the priverlege o' bein' shot at sight, 150 +Which proves we're Natur's noblemen, with whom it don't surprise +The British aristoxy should feel boun' to sympathize,-- +Seein' all this, an' seein', tu, the thing wuz strikin' roots +While Uncle Sam sot still in hopes thet some one'd bring his boots, +I thought th' ole Union's hoops wuz off, an' let myself be sucked in +To rise a peg an' jine the crowd thet went for reconstructin',-- +Thet is to hev the pardnership under th' ole name continner +Jest ez it wuz, we drorrin' pay, you findin' bone an' sinner,-- +On'y to put it in the bond, an' enter 't in the journals, +Thet you're the nat'ral rank an' file, an' we the nat'ral + kurnels. 160 + +Now this I thought a fees'ble plan, thet 'ud work smooth ez grease, +Suitin' the Nineteenth Century an' Upper Ten idees, +An' there I meant to stick, an' so did most o' th' leaders, tu, +Coz we all thought the chance wuz good o' puttin' on it thru; +But Jeff he hit upon a way o' helpin' on us forrard +By bein' unannermous,--a trick you ain't quite up to, Norrard. +A Baldin hain't no more 'f a chance with them new apple-corers +Than folks's oppersition views aginst the Ringtail Roarers; +They'll take 'em out on him 'bout east,--one canter on a rail +Makes a man feel unannermous ez Jonah in the whale: 170 +Or ef he's a slow-moulded cuss thet can't seem quite t' 'gree, +He gits the noose by tellergraph upon the nighes' tree: +Their mission-work with Afrikins hez put 'em up, thet's sartin, +To all the mos' across-lot ways o' preachin' an' convartin'; +I'll bet my hat th' ain't nary priest, nor all on 'em together; +Thet cairs conviction to the min' like Reveren' Taranfeather; +Why, he sot up with me one night, an' labored to sech purpose, +Thet (ez an owl by daylight 'mongst a flock o' teazin' chirpers +Sees clearer 'n mud the wickedness o' eatin' little birds) +I see my error an' agreed to shen it arterwurds; 180 +An' I should say, (to jedge our folks by facs in my possession,) +Thet three's Unannermous where one's a 'Riginal Secession; +So it's a thing you fellers North may safely bet your chink on, +Thet we're all water-proofed agin th' usurpin' reign o' Lincoln. + +Jeff's _some_. He's gut another plan thet hez pertic'lar merits, +In givin' things a cheerfle look an' stiffnin' loose-hung sperits; +For while your million papers, wut with lyin' an' discussin', +Keep folks's tempers all on eend a-fumin' an' a-fussin', +A-wondrin' this an' guessin' thet, an' dreadin' every night +The breechin' o' the Univarse'll break afore it's light, 190 +Our papers don't purtend to print on'y wut Guv'ment choose, +An' thet insures us all to git the very best o' noose: +Jeff hez it of all sorts an' kines, an' sarves it out ez wanted, +So's't every man gits wut he likes an' nobody ain't scanted; +Sometimes it's vict'ries (they're 'bout all ther' is that's cheap + down here,) +Sometimes it's France an' England on the jump to interfere. +Fact is, the less the people know o' wut ther' is a-doin', +The hendier 'tis for Guv'ment, sence it henders trouble brewin'; +An' noose is like a shinplaster,--it's good, ef you believe it, +Or, wut's all same, the other man thet's goin' to receive it: 200 +Ef you've a son in th' army, wy, it's comfortin' to hear +He'll hev no gretter resk to run than seein' th' in'my's rear, +Coz, ef an F.F. looks at 'em, they ollers break an' run, +Or wilt right down ez debtors will thet stumble on a dun, +(An' this, ef an'thin', proves the wuth o' proper fem'ly pride, +Fer sech mean shucks ez creditors are all on Lincoln's side); +Ef I hev scrip thet wun't go off no more 'n a Belgin rifle, +An' read thet it's at par on 'Change, it makes me feel deli'fle; +It's cheerin', tu, where every man mus' fortify his bed, +To hear thet Freedom's the one thing our darkies mos'ly dread, 210 +An' thet experunce, time 'n' agin, to Dixie's Land hez shown +Ther' 's nothin' like a powder-cask fer a stiddy corner-stone; +Ain't it ez good ez nuts, when salt is sellin' by the ounce +For its own weight in Treash'ry-bons, (ef bought in small amounts,) +When even whiskey's gittin' skurce an' sugar can't be found, +To know thet all the ellerments o' luxury abound? +An' don't it glorify sal'-pork, to come to understand +It's wut the Richmon' editors call fatness o' the land! +Nex' thing to knowin' you're well off is _nut_ to know when y' ain't; +An' ef Jeff says all's goin' wal, who'll ventur' t' say it + ain't? 220 + +This cairn the Constitooshun roun' ez Jeff doos in his hat +Is hendier a dreffle sight, an' comes more kin' o' pat. +I tell ye wut, my jedgment is you're pooty sure to fail, +Ez long 'z the head keeps turnin' back for counsel to the tail: +Th' advantiges of our consarn for bein' prompt air gret, +While, 'long o' Congress, you can't strike, 'f you git an iron het; +They bother roun' with argooin', an' var'ous sorts o' foolin', +To make sure ef it's leg'lly het, an' all the while it's coolin', +So's't when you come to strike, it ain't no gret to wish ye j'y on, +An' hurts the hammer 'z much or more ez wut it doos the iron, 239 +Jeff don't allow no jawin'-sprees for three mouths at a stretch, +Knowin' the ears long speeches suits air mostly made to metch; +He jes' ropes in your tonguey chaps an' reg'lar ten-inch bores +An' lets 'em play at Congress, ef they'll du it with closed doors; +So they ain't no more bothersome than ef we'd took an' sunk 'em, +An' yit enj'y th' exclusive right to one another's Buncombe +'thout doin' nobody no hurt, an' 'thout its costin' nothin', +Their pay bein' jes' Confedrit funds, they findin' keep an' clothin'; +They taste the sweets o' public life, an' plan their little jobs, +An' suck the Treash'ry (no gret harm, for it's ez dry ez cobs,) 240 +An' go thru all the motions jest ez safe ez in a prison, +An' hev their business to themselves, while Buregard hez hisn: +Ez long 'z he gives the Hessians fits, committees can't make bother +'bout whether 't's done the legle way or whether 't's done tother. +An' _I_ tell _you_ you've gut to larn thet War ain't one long teeter +Betwixt _I wan' to_ an' _'Twun't du_, debatin' like a skeetur +Afore he lights,--all is, to give the other side a millin', +An' arter thet's done, th' ain't no resk but wut the lor'll be willin'; +No metter wut the guv'ment is, ez nigh ez I can hit it, +A lickin' 's constitooshunal, pervidin' _We_ don't git it. 250 +Jeff don't stan' dilly-dallyin', afore he takes a fort, +(With no one in,) to git the leave o' the nex' Soopreme Court, +Nor don't want forty-'leven weeks o' jawin' an' expoundin', +To prove a nigger hez a right to save him, ef he's drowndin'; +Whereas ole Abe 'ud sink afore he'd let a darkie boost him, +Ef Taney shouldn't come along an' hedn't interdooced him. +It ain't your twenty millions thet'll ever block Jeff's game, +But one Man thet wun't let 'em jog jest ez he's takin' aim: +Your numbers they may strengthen ye or weaken ye, ez 't heppens +They're willin' to be helpin' hands or wuss-'n-nothin' cap'ns. 260 + +I've chose my side, an' 'tain't no odds ef I wuz drawed with magnets, +Or ef I thought it prudenter to jine the nighes' bagnets; +I've made my ch'ice, an' ciphered out, from all I see an' heard, +Th' ole Constitooshun never'd git her decks for action cleared, +Long 'z you elect for Congressmen poor shotes thet want to go +Coz they can't seem to git their grub no otherways than so, +An' let your bes' men stay to home coz they wun't show ez talkers, +Nor can't be hired to fool ye an' sof'-soap ye at a caucus,-- +Long 'z ye set by Rotashun more 'n ye do by folks's merits, 269 +Ez though experunce thriv by change o' sile, like corn an' kerrits,-- +Long 'z you allow a critter's 'claims' coz, spite o' shoves an' tippins, +He's kep' his private pan jest where 'twould ketch mos' public + drippin's,-- +Long 'z A.'ll turn tu an' grin' B.'s exe, ef B.'ll help him grin' hisn, +(An' thet's the main idee by which your leadin' men hev risen,)-- +Long 'z you let _ary_ exe be groun', 'less 'tis to cut the weasan' +O' sneaks thet dunno till they're told wut is an' wut ain't Treason,-- +Long 'z ye give out commissions to a lot o' peddlin' drones +Thet trade in whiskey with their men an' skin 'em to their bones,-- +Long 'z ye sift out 'safe' canderdates thet no one ain't afeared on +Coz they're so thund'rin' eminent for bein' never heard on, 280 +An' hain't no record, ez it's called, for folks to pick a hole in, +Ez ef it hurt a man to hev a body with a soul in, +An' it wuz ostentashun to be showin' on 't about, +When half his feller-citizens contrive to du without,-- +Long 'z you suppose your votes can turn biled kebbage into brain, +An' ary man thet's pop'lar's fit to drive a lightnin'-train,-- +Long 'z you believe democracy means _I'm ez good ez you be,_ +An' that a feller from the ranks can't be a knave or booby,-- +Long 'z Congress seems purvided, like yer street-cars an' yer 'busses, +With ollers room for jes' one more o' your spiled-in-bakin' + cusses, 290 +Dough 'thout the emptins of a soul, an' yit with means about 'em +(Like essence-peddlers[23]) thet'll make folks long to be without 'em, +Jes heavy 'nough to turn a scale thet's doubtfle the wrong way, +An' make their nat'ral arsenal o' bein' nasty pay.-- +Long 'z them things last, (an' _I_ don't see no gret signs of improvin',) +I sha'n't up stakes, not hardly yit, nor 'twouldn't pay for movin': +For, 'fore you lick us, it'll be the long'st day ever _you_ see. +Yourn, (ez I 'xpec' to be nex' spring,) + B., MARKISS O' BIG BOOSY. + + + + + +No. IV + +A MESSAGE OF JEFF DAVIS IN SECRET SESSION + +_Conjecturally reported by_ H. BIGLOW + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +JAALAM, 10th March, 1862. + +GENTLEMEN,--My leisure has been so entirely occupied with the hitherto +fruitless endeavour to decypher the Runick inscription whose fortunate +discovery I mentioned in my last communication, that I have not found +time to discuss, as I had intended, the great problem of what we are to +do with slavery,--a topick on which the publick mind in this place is at +present more than ever agitated. What my wishes and hopes are I need not +say, but for safe conclusions I do not conceive that we are yet in +possession of facts enough on which to bottom them with certainty. +Acknowledging the hand of Providence, as I do, in all events, I am +sometimes inclined to think that they are wiser than we, and am willing +to wait till we have made this continent once more a place where freemen +can live in security and honour, before assuming any further +responsibility. This is the view taken by my neighbour Habakkuk +Sloansure, Esq., the president of our bank, whose opinion in the +practical affairs of life has great weight with me, as I have generally +found it to be justified by the event, and whose counsel, had I followed +it, would have saved me from an unfortunate investment of a considerable +part of the painful economies of half a century in the Northwest-Passage +Tunnel. After a somewhat animated discussion with this gentleman a few +days since, I expanded, on the _audi alteram partem_ principle, +something which he happened to say by way of illustration, into the +following fable. + + +FESTINA LENTE + +Once on a time there was a pool +Fringed all about with flag-leaves cool +And spotted with cow-lilies garish, +Of frogs and pouts the ancient parish. +Alders the creaking redwings sink on, +Tussocks that house blithe Bob o' Lincoln +Hedged round the unassailed seclusion, +Where muskrats piled their cells Carthusian; +And many a moss-embroidered log, +The watering-place of summer frog, +Slept and decayed with patient skill, +As watering-places sometimes will. + +Now in this Abbey of Theleme, +Which realized the fairest dream +That ever dozing bull-frog had, +Sunned on a half-sunk lily-pad, +There rose a party with a mission +To mend the polliwogs' condition, +Who notified the selectmen +To call a meeting there and then. +'Some kind of steps,' they said, 'are needed; +They don't come on so fast as we did: +Let's dock their tails; if that don't make 'em +Frogs by brevet, the Old One take 'em! +That boy, that came the other day +To dig some flag-root down this way, +His jack-knife left, and 'tis a sign +That Heaven approves of our design: +'Twere wicked not to urge the step on, +When Providence has sent the weapon.' + +Old croakers, deacons of the mire, +That led the deep batrachian choir, +_Uk! Uk! Caronk!_ with bass that might +Have left Lablache's out of sight, +Shook nobby heads, and said, 'No go! +You'd better let 'em try to grow: +Old Doctor Time is slow, but still +He does know how to make a pill.' + +But vain was all their hoarsest bass, +Their old experience out of place, +And spite of croaking and entreating, +The vote was carried in marsh-meeting. + +'Lord knows,' protest the polliwogs, +'We're anxious to be grown-up frogs; +But don't push in to do the work +Of Nature till she prove a shirk; +'Tis not by jumps that she advances, +But wins her way by circumstances; +Pray, wait awhile, until you know +We're so contrived as not to grow; +Let Nature take her own direction, +And she'll absorb our imperfection; +_You_ mightn't like 'em to appear with, +But we must have the things to steer with.' + +'No,' piped the party of reform, +'All great results are ta'en by storm; +Fate holds her best gifts till we show +We've strength to make her let them go; +The Providence that works in history, +And seems to some folks such a mystery, +Does not creep slowly on _incog._, +But moves by jumps, a mighty frog; +No more reject the Age's chrism, +Your queues are an anachronism; +No more the Future's promise mock, +But lay your tails upon the block, +Thankful that we the means have voted +To have you thus to frogs promoted.' + +The thing was done, the tails were cropped. +And home each philotadpole hopped, +In faith rewarded to exult, +And wait the beautiful result. +Too soon it came; our pool, so long +The theme of patriot bull-frog's song, +Next day was reeking, fit to smother, +With heads and tails that missed each other,-- +Here snoutless tails, there tailless snouts; +The only gainers were the pouts. + + +MORAL + +From lower to the higher next, +Not to the top, is Nature's text; +And embryo Good, to reach full stature, +Absorbs the Evil in its nature. + + +I think that nothing will ever give permanent peace and security to this +continent but the extirpation of Slavery therefrom, and that the +occasion is nigh; but I would do nothing hastily or vindictively, nor +presume to jog the elbow of Providence. No desperate measures for me +till we are sure that all others are hopeless,--_flectere si nequeo_ +SUPEROS, _Acheronta movebo_. To make Emancipation a reform instead of a +revolution is worth a little patience, that we may have the Border +States first, and then the non-slaveholders of the Cotton States, with +us in principle,--a consummation that seems to be nearer than many +imagine. _Fiat justitia, ruat coelum_, is not to be taken in a literal +sense by statesmen, whose problem is to get justice done with as little +jar as possible to existing order, which has at least so much of heaven +in it that it is not chaos. Our first duty toward our enslaved brother +is to educate him, whether he be white or black. The first need of the +free black is to elevate himself according to the standard of this +material generation. So soon as the Ethiopian goes in his chariot, he +will find not only Apostles, but Chief Priests and Scribes and Pharisees +willing to ride with him. + + 'Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se + Quam quod ridiculos homines facit.' + +I rejoice in the President's late Message, which at last proclaims the +Government on the side of freedom, justice, and sound policy. + +As I write, comes the news of our disaster at Hampton Roads. I do not +understand the supineness which, after fair warning, leaves wood to an +unequal conflict with iron. It is not enough merely to have the right on +our side, if we stick to the old flint-lock of tradition. I have +observed in my parochial experience (_haud ignarus mali_) that the Devil +is prompt to adopt the latest inventions of destructive warfare, and may +thus take even such a three-decker as Bishop Butler at an advantage. It +is curious, that, as gunpowder made armour useless on shore, so armour +is having its revenge by baffling its old enemy at sea; and that, while +gunpowder robbed land warfare of nearly all its picturesqueness to give +even greater stateliness and sublimity to a sea-fight, armour bids fair +to degrade the latter into a squabble between two iron-shelled turtles. + +Yours, with esteem and respect, + +HOMER WILBUR, A.M. + +P.S.--I had wellnigh forgotten to say that the object of this letter is +to enclose a communication from the gifted pen of Mr. Biglow. + + +I sent you a messige, my friens, t'other day, +To tell you I'd nothin' pertickler to say: +'twuz the day our new nation gut kin' o' stillborn, +So 'twuz my pleasant dooty t' acknowledge the corn, +An' I see clearly then, ef I didn't before, +Thet the _augur_ in inauguration means _bore_. +I needn't tell _you_ thet my messige wuz written +To diffuse correc' notions in France an' Gret Britten, +An' agin to impress on the poppylar mind +The comfort an' wisdom o' goin' it blind,-- 10 +To say thet I didn't abate not a hooter +O' my faith in a happy an' glorious futur', +Ez rich in each soshle an' p'litickle blessin' +Ez them thet we now hed the joy o' possessin', +With a people united, an' longin' to die +For wut _we_ call their country, without askin' why, +An' all the gret things we concluded to slope for +Ez much within reach now ez ever--to hope for. +We've gut all the ellerments, this very hour, +Thet make up a fus'-class, self-governin' power: 20 +We've a war, an' a debt, an' a flag; an' ef this +Ain't to be inderpendunt, why, wut on airth is? +An' nothin' now henders our takin' our station +Ez the freest, enlightenedest, civerlized nation, +Built up on our bran'-new politickle thesis +Thet a Gov'ment's fust right is to tumble to pieces,-- +I say nothin' henders our takin' our place +Ez the very fus'-best o' the whole human race, +A spittin' tobacker ez proud ez you please +On Victory's bes' carpets, or loaf-in' at ease 30 +In the Tool'ries front-parlor, discussin' affairs +With our heels on the backs o' Napoleon's new chairs, +An' princes a-mixin' our cocktails an' slings,-- +Excep', wal, excep' jest a very few things, +Sech ez navies an' armies an' wherewith to pay, +An' gettin' our sogers to run t'other way, +An' not be too over-pertickler in tryin' +To hunt up the very las' ditches to die in. + +Ther' are critters so base thet they want it explained +Jes' wut is the totle amount thet we've gained, 40 +Ez ef we could maysure stupenjious events +By the low Yankee stan'ard o' dollars an' cents: +They seem to forgit, thet, sence last year revolved, +We've succeeded in gittin' seceshed an' dissolved, +An' thet no one can't hope to git thru dissolootion +'thout some kin' o' strain on the best Constitootion. +Who asks for a prospec' more flettrin' an' bright, +When from here clean to Texas it's all one free fight? +Hain't we rescued from Seward the gret leadin' featurs +Thet makes it wuth while to be reasonin' creators? 50 +Hain't we saved Habus Coppers, improved it in fact, +By suspendin' the Unionists 'stid o' the Act? +Ain't the laws free to all? Where on airth else d' ye see +Every freeman improvin' his own rope an' tree? +Ain't our piety sech (in our speeches an' messiges) +Ez t' astonish ourselves in the bes'-composed pessiges, +An' to make folks thet knowed us in th' ole state o' things +Think convarsion ez easy ez drinkin' gin-slings? +It's ne'ssary to take a good confident tone +With the public; but here, jest amongst us, I own 60 +Things look blacker 'n thunder. Ther' 's no use denyin' +We're clean out o' money, an' 'most out o' lyin'; +Two things a young nation can't mennage without, +Ef she wants to look wal at her fust comin' out; +For the fust supplies physickle strength, while the second +Gives a morril advantage thet's hard to be reckoned: +For this latter I'm willin' to du wut I can; +For the former you'll hev to consult on a plan,-- +Though our _fust_ want (an' this pint I want your best views on) +Is plausible paper to print I.O.U.s on. 70 +Some gennlemen think it would cure all our cankers +In the way o' finance, ef we jes' hanged the bankers; +An' I own the proposle 'ud square with my views, +Ef their lives wuzn't all thet we'd left 'em to lose. +Some say thet more confidence might be inspired, +Ef we voted our cities an' towns to be fired,-- +A plan thet 'ud suttenly tax our endurance, +Coz 'twould be our own bills we should git for th' insurance; +But cinders, no matter how sacred we think 'em, +Mightn't strike furrin minds ez good sources of income, 80 +Nor the people, perhaps, wouldn't like the eclaw +O' bein' all turned into paytriots by law. +Some want we should buy all the cotton an' burn it, +On a pledge, when we've gut thru the war, to return it,-- +Then to take the proceeds an' hold _them_ ez security +For an issue o' bonds to be met at maturity +With an issue o' notes to be paid in hard cash +On the fus' Monday follerin' the 'tarnal Allsmash: +This hez a safe air, an', once hold o' the gold, +'ud leave our vile plunderers out in the cold, 90 +An' _might_ temp' John Bull, ef it warn't for the dip he +Once gut from the banks o' my own Massissippi. +Some think we could make, by arrangin' the figgers, +A hendy home-currency out of our niggers; +But it wun't du to lean much on ary sech staff, +For they're gittin' tu current a'ready, by half. + +One gennleman says, ef we lef' our loan out +Where Floyd could git hold on 't _he_'d take it, no doubt; +But 'tain't jes' the takin', though 't hez a good look, +We mus' git sunthin' out on it arter it's took, 100 +An' we need now more'n ever, with sorrer I own, +Thet some one another should let us a loan, +Sence a soger wun't fight, on'y jes' while he draws his +Pay down on the nail, for the best of all causes, +'thout askin' to know wut the quarrel's about,-- +An' once come to thet, why, our game is played out. +It's ez true ez though I shouldn't never hev said it, +Thet a hitch hez took place in our system o' credit; +I swear it's all right in my speeches an' messiges, +But ther's idees afloat, ez ther' is about sessiges: 110 +Folks wun't take a bond ez a basis to trade on, +Without nosin' round to find out wut it's made on, +An' the thought more an' more thru the public min' crosses +Thet our Treshry hez gut 'mos' too many dead hosses. +Wut's called credit, you see, is some like a balloon, +Thet looks while it's up 'most ez harnsome 'z a moon, +But once git a leak in 't, an' wut looked so grand +Caves righ' down in a jiffy ez flat ez your hand. +Now the world is a dreffle mean place, for our sins, +Where ther' ollus is critters about with long pins 120 +A-prickin' the bubbles we've blowed with sech care, +An' provin' ther' 's nothin' inside but bad air: +They're all Stuart Millses, poor-white trash, an' sneaks, +Without no more chivverlry 'n Choctaws or Creeks, +Who think a real gennleman's promise to pay +Is meant to be took in trade's ornery way: +Them fellers an' I couldn' never agree; +They're the nateral foes o' the Southun Idee; +I'd gladly take all of our other resks on me +To be red o' this low-lived politikle 'con'my! 130 + +Now a dastardly notion is gittin' about +Thet our bladder is bust an' the gas oozin' out, +An' onless we can mennage in some way to stop it, +Why, the thing's a gone coon, an' we might ez wal drop it. +Brag works wal at fust, but it ain't jes' the thing +For a stiddy inves'ment the shiners to bring, +An' votin' we're prosp'rous a hundred times over +Wun't change bein' starved into livin' in clover. +Manassas done sunthin' tow'rds drawin' the wool +O'er the green, antislavery eyes o' John Bull: 140 +Oh, _warn't_ it a godsend, jes' when sech tight fixes +Wuz crowdin' us mourners, to throw double-sixes! +I wuz tempted to think, an' it wuzn't no wonder, +Ther' wuz really a Providence,--over or under,-- +When, all packed for Nashville, I fust ascertained +From the papers up North wut a victory we'd gained. +'twuz the time for diffusin' correc' views abroad +Of our union an' strength an' relyin' on God; +An', fact, when I'd gut thru my fust big surprise, +I much ez half b'lieved in my own tallest lies, 150 +An' conveyed the idee thet the whole Southun popperlace +Wuz Spartans all on the keen jump for Thermopperlies, +Thet set on the Lincolnites' bombs till they bust, +An' fight for the priv'lege o' dyin' the fust; +But Roanoke, Bufort, Millspring, an' the rest +Of our recent starn-foremost successes out West, +Hain't left us a foot for our swellin' to stand on,-- +We've showed _too_ much o' wut Buregard calls _abandon_, +For all our Thermopperlies (an' it's a marcy +We hain't hed no more) hev ben clean vicy-varsy, 160 +An' wut Spartans wuz lef' when the battle wuz done +Wuz them thet wuz too unambitious to run. + +Oh, ef we hed on'y jes' gut Reecognition, +Things now would ha' ben in a different position! +You'd ha' hed all you wanted: the paper blockade +Smashed up into toothpicks; unlimited trade +In the one thing thet's needfle, till niggers, I swow, +Hed ben thicker'n provisional shin-plasters now; +Quinine by the ton 'ginst the shakes when they seize ye; +Nice paper to coin into C.S.A. specie; 170 +The voice of the driver'd be heerd in our land, +An' the univarse scringe, ef we lifted our hand: +Wouldn't _thet_ be some like a fulfillin' the prophecies, +With all the fus' fem'lies in all the fust offices? +'twuz a beautiful dream, an' all sorrer is idle,-- +But _ef_ Lincoln _would_ ha' hanged Mason an' Slidell! +For wouldn't the Yankees hev found they'd ketched Tartars, +Ef they'd raised two sech critters as them into martyrs? +Mason _wuz_ F.F.V., though a cheap card to win on, +But t'other was jes' New York trash to begin on; 180 +They ain't o' no good in European pellices, +But think wut a help they'd ha' ben on their gallowses! +They'd ha' felt they wuz truly fulfillin' their mission, +An' oh, how dog-cheap we'd ha' gut Reecognition! + +But somehow another, wutever we've tried, +Though the the'ry's fust-rate, the facs _wun't_ coincide: +Facs are contrary 'z mules, an' ez hard in the mouth, +An' they allus hev showed a mean spite to the South. +Sech bein' the case, we hed best look about +For some kin' o' way to slip _our_ necks out: 190 +Le's vote our las' dollar, ef one can be found, +(An', at any rate, votin' it hez a good sound,)-- +Le''s swear thet to arms all our people is flyin', +(The critters can't read, an' wun't know how we're lyin',)-- +Thet Toombs is advancin' to sack Cincinnater, +With a rovin' commission to pillage an' slahter,-- +Thet we've throwed to the winds all regard for wut's lawfle, +An' gone in for sunthin' promiscu'sly awfle. +Ye see, hitherto, it's our own knaves an' fools +Thet we've used, (those for whetstones, an' t'others ez tools,) 200 +An' now our las' chance is in puttin' to test +The same kin' o' cattle up North an' out West,-- +Your Belmonts, Vallandighams, Woodses, an' sech, +Poor shotes thet ye couldn't persuade us to tech, +Not in ornery times, though we're willin' to feed 'em +With a nod now an' then, when we happen to need 'em; +Why, for my part, I'd ruther shake hands with a nigger +Than with cusses that load an' don't darst dror a trigger; +They're the wust wooden nutmegs the Yankees perdooce, +Shaky everywheres else, an' jes' sound on the goose; 210 +They ain't wuth a cuss, an' I set nothin' by 'em, +But we're in sech a fix thet I s'pose we mus' try 'em. +I--But, Gennlemen, here's a despatch jes' come in +Which shows thet the tide's begun turnin' agin',-- +Gret Cornfedrit success! C'lumbus eevacooated! +I mus' run down an' hev the thing properly stated, +An' show wut a triumph it is, an' how lucky +To fin'lly git red o' thet cussed Kentucky,-- +An' how, sence Fort Donelson, winnin' the day +Consists in triumphantly gittin' away. 220 + + + +No. V + +SPEECH OF HONOURABLE PRESERVED DOE IN SECRET CAUCUS + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +JAALAM, 12th April, 1862. + +GENTLEMEN,--As I cannot but hope that the ultimate, if not speedy, +success of the national arms is now sufficiently ascertained, sure as I +am of the righteousness of our cause and its consequent claim on the +blessing of God, (for I would not show a faith inferior to that of the +Pagan historian with his _Facile evenit quod Dis cordi est_,) it seems +to me a suitable occasion to withdraw our minds a moment from the +confusing din of battle to objects of peaceful and permanent interest. +Let us not neglect the monuments of preterite history because what shall +be history is so diligently making under our eyes. _Cras ingens +iterabimus æquor;_ to-morrow will be time enough for that stormy sea; +to-day let me engage the attention of your readers with the Runick +inscription to whose fortunate discovery I have heretofore alluded. Well +may we say with the poet, _Multa renascuntur quæ jam cecidere_. And I +would premise, that, although I can no longer resist the evidence of my +own senses from the stone before me to the ante-Columbian discovery of +this continent by the Northmen, _gens inclytissima_, as they are called +in a Palermitan inscription, written fortunately in a less debatable +character than that which I am about to decipher, yet I would by no +means be understood as wishing to vilipend the merits of the great +Genoese, whose name will never be forgotten so long as the inspiring +strains of 'Hail Columbia' shall continue to be heard. Though he must be +stripped also of whatever praise may belong to the experiment of the +egg, which I find proverbially attributed by Castilian authors to a +certain Juanito or Jack, (perhaps an offshoot of our giant-killing +mythus,) his name will still remain one of the most illustrious of +modern times. But the impartial historian owes a duty likewise to +obscure merit, and my solicitude to render a tardy justice is perhaps +quickened by my having known those who, had their own field of labour +been less secluded, might have found a readier acceptance with the +reading publick, I could give an example, but I forbear: _forsitan +nostris ex ossibus oritur ultor_. + +Touching Runick inscriptions, I find that they may lie classed under +three general heads; 1º. Those which are understood by the Danish Royal +Society of Northern Antiquaries, and Professor Rafn, their Secretary; +2º. Those which are comprehensible only by Mr. Rafn; and 3º. Those +which neither the Society, Mr. Rafn, nor anybody else can be said in any +definite sense to understand, and which accordingly offer peculiar +temptations to enucleating sagacity. These last are naturally deemed the +most valuable by intelligent antiquaries, and to this class the stone +now in my possession fortunately belongs. Such give a picturesque +variety to ancient events, because susceptible oftentimes of as many +interpretations as there are individual archæologists; and since facts +are only the pulp in which the Idea or event-seed is softly imbedded +till it ripen, it is of little consequence what colour or flavour we +attribute to them, provided it be agreeable. Availing myself of the +obliging assistance of Mr. Arphaxad Bowers, an ingenious photographick +artist, whose house-on-wheels has now stood for three years on our +Meeting-House Green, with the somewhat contradictory inscription,--'_our +motto is onward_,'--I have sent accurate copies of my treasure to many +learned men and societies, both native and European. I may hereafter +communicate their different and (_me judice_) equally erroneous +solutions. I solicit also, Messrs. Editors, your own acceptance of the +copy herewith enclosed. I need only premise further, that the stone +itself is a goodly block of metamorphick sandstone, and that the Runes +resemble very nearly the ornithichnites or fossil bird-tracks of Dr. +Hitchcock, but with less regularity or apparent design than is displayed +by those remarkable geological monuments. These are rather the _non bene +junctarum discordia semina rerum_. Resolved to leave no door open to +cavil, I first of all attempted the elucidation of this remarkable +example of lithick literature by the ordinary modes, but with no +adequate return for my labour. I then considered myself amply justified +in resorting to that heroick treatment the felicity of which, as applied +by the great Bentley to Milton, had long ago enlisted my admiration. +Indeed, I had already made up my mind, that, in case good fortune should +throw any such invaluable record in my way, I would proceed with it in +the following simple and satisfactory method. Alter a cursory +examination, merely sufficing for an approximative estimate of its +length, I would write down a hypothetical inscription based upon +antecedent probabilities, and then proceed to extract from the +characters engraven on the stone a meaning as nearly as possible +conformed to this _a priori_ product of my own ingenuity. The result +more than justified my hopes, inasmuch as the two inscriptions were made +without any great violence to tally in all essential particulars. I then +proceeded, not without some anxiety, to my second test, which was, to +read the Runick letters diagonally, and again with the same success. +With an excitement pardonable under the circumstances, yet tempered with +thankful humility, I now applied my last and severest trial, my +_experimentum crucis_. I turned the stone, now doubly precious in my +eyes, with scrupulous exactness upside down. The physical exertion so +far displaced my spectacles as to derange for a moment the focus of +vision. I confess that it was with some tremulousness that I readjusted +them upon my nose, and prepared my mind to bear with calmness any +disappointment that might ensue. But, _O albo dies notanda lapillo!_ +what was my delight to find that the change of position had effected +none in the sense of the writing, even by so much as a single letter! I +was now, and justly, as I think, satisfied of the conscientious +exactness of my interpretation. It is as follows: + + HERE + BJARNA GRIMOLFSSON + FIRST DRANK CLOUD-BROTHER + THROUGH CHILD-OF-LAND-AND-WATER: + +that is, drew smoke through a reed stem. In other words, we have here a +record of the first smoking of the herb _Nicotiana Tabacum_ by an +European on this continent. The probable results of this discovery are +so vast as to baffle conjecture. If it be objected, that the smoking of +a pipe would hardly justify the setting up of a memorial stone, I +answer, that even now the Moquis Indian, ere he takes his first whiff, +bows reverently toward the four quarters of the sky in succession, and +that the loftiest monuments have been read to perpetuate fame, which is +the dream of the shadow of smoke. The _Saga_, it will be remembered, +leaves this Bjarna to a fate something like that of Sir Humphrey +Gilbert, on board a sinking ship in the 'wormy sea,' having generously +given up his place in the boat to a certain Icelander. It is doubly +pleasant, therefore, to meet with this proof that the brave old man +arrived safely in Vinland, and that his declining years were cheered by +the respectful attentions of the dusky denizens of our then uninvaded +forest. Most of all was I gratified, however, in thus linking forever +the name of my native town with one of the most momentous occurrences of +modern times. Hitherto Jalaam, though in soil, climate, and geographical +position as highly qualified to be the theatre of remarkable historical +incidents as any spot on the earth's surface, has been, if I may say it +without seeming to question the wisdom of Providence, almost maliciously +neglected, as it might appear, by occurrences of world-wide interest in +want of a situation. And in matters of this nature it must be confessed +that adequate events are as necessary as the _vates sacer_ to record +them. Jaalam stood always modestly ready, but circumstances made no +fitting response to her generous intentions. Now, however, she assumes +her place on the historick roll. I have hitherto been a zealous opponent +of the Circean herb, but I shall now reëxamine the question without +bias. + +I am aware that the Rev. Jonas Tutchel, in a recent communication to the +'Bogus Four Corners Weekly Meridian,' has endeavored to show that this +is the sepulchral inscription of Thorwald Eriksson, who, as is +well-known, was slain in Vinland by the natives. But I think he has been +misled by a preconceived theory, and cannot but feel that he has thus +made an ungracious return for my allowing him to inspect the stone with +the aid of my own glasses (he having by accident left his at home) and +in my own study. The heathen ancients might have instructed this +Christian minister in the rites of hospitality; but much is to be +pardoned to the spirit of self-love. He must indeed be ingenious who can +make out the words _hèr hvilir_ from any characters in the inscription +in question, which, whatever else it may be, is certainly not mortuary. +And even should the reverend gentleman succeed in persuading some +fantastical wits of the soundness of his views, I do not see what useful +end he will have gained. For if the English Courts of Law hold the +testimony of gravestones from the burial-grounds of Protestant +dissenters to be questionable, even where it is essential in proving a +descent, I cannot conceive that the epitaphial assertions of heathens +should be esteemed of more authority by any man of orthodox sentiments. + +At this moment, happening to cast my eyes upon the stone, whose +characters a transverse light from my southern window brings out with +singular distinctness, another interpretation has occurred to me, +promising even more interesting results. I hasten to close my letter in +order to follow at once the clue thus providentially suggested. + +I inclose, as usual, a contribution from Mr. Biglow, and remain, + +Gentlemen, with esteem and respect, + +Your Obedient Humble Servant, + +HOMER WILBUR, A.M. + + +I thank ye, my frien's, for the warmth o' your greetin': +Ther' 's few airthly blessin's but wut's vain an' fleetin'; +But ef ther' is one thet hain't _no_ cracks an' flaws, +An' is wuth goin' in for, it's pop'lar applause; +It sends up the sperits ez lively ez rockets, +An' I feel it--wal, down to the eend o' my pockets. +Jes' lovin' the people is Canaan in view, +But it's Canaan paid quarterly t' hev 'em love you; +It's a blessin' thet's breakin' out ollus in fresh spots; +It's a-follerin' Moses 'thout losin' the flesh-pots. 10 +But, Gennlemen, 'scuse me, I ain't sech a raw cus +Ez to go luggin' ellerkence into a caucus,-- +Thet is, into one where the call comprehen's +Nut the People in person, but on'y their frien's; +I'm so kin' o' used to convincin' the masses +Of th' edvantage o' bein' self-governin' asses, +I forgut thet _we_'re all o' the sort thet pull wires +An' arrange for the public their wants an' desires, +An' thet wut we hed met for wuz jes' to agree +Wut the People's opinions in futur' should be. 20 + +Now, to come to the nub, we've ben all disappinted, +An' our leadin' idees are a kind o' disjinted, +Though, fur ez the nateral man could discern, +Things ough' to ha' took most an oppersite turn. +But The'ry is jes' like a train on the rail, +Thet, weather or no, puts her thru without fail, +While Fac' 's the ole stage thet gits sloughed in the ruts, +An' hez to allow for your darned efs an' buts, +An' so, nut intendin' no pers'nal reflections, +They don't--don't nut allus, thet is,--make connections: 30 +Sometimes, when it really doos seem thet they'd oughter +Combine jest ez kindly ez new rum an' water, +Both'll be jest ez sot in their ways ez a bagnet, +Ez otherwise-minded ez th' eends of a magnet, +An' folks like you 'n' me, thet ain't ept to be sold, +Git somehow or 'nother left out in the cold. + +I expected 'fore this, 'thout no gret of a row, +Jeff D. would ha' ben where A. Lincoln is now, +With Taney to say 'twuz all legle an' fair, +An' a jury o' Deemocrats ready to swear 40 +Thet the ingin o' State gut throwed into the ditch +By the fault o' the North in misplacin' the switch. +Things wuz ripenin' fust-rate with Buchanan to nuss 'em; +But the People--they wouldn't be Mexicans, cuss 'em! +Ain't the safeguards o' freedom upsot, 'z you may say, +Ef the right o' rev'lution is took clean away? +An' doosn't the right primy-fashy include +The bein' entitled to nut be subdued? +The fect is, we'd gone for the Union so strong, +When Union meant South ollus right an' North wrong, 50 +Thet the People gut fooled into thinkin' it might +Worry on middlin' wal with the North in the right. +We might ha' ben now jest ez prosp'rous ez France, +Where p'litikle enterprise hez a fair chance, +An' the People is heppy an' proud et this hour, +Long ez they hev the votes, to let Nap hey the power; +But _our_ folks they went an' believed wut we'd told 'em +An', the flag once insulted, no mortle could hold 'em. +'Twuz pervokin' jest when we wuz cert'in to win,-- +And I, for one, wun't trust the masses agin: 60 +For a People thet knows much ain't fit to be free +In the self-cockin', back-action style o' J.D. + +I can't believe now but wut half on 't is lies; +For who'd thought the North wuz agoin' to rise, +Or take the pervokin'est kin' of a stump, +'thout 'twuz sunthin' ez pressin' ez Gabr'el's las' trump? +Or who'd ha' supposed, arter _sech_ swell an' bluster +'bout the lick-ary-ten-on-ye fighters they'd muster, +Raised by hand on briled lightnin', ez op'lent 'z you please +In a primitive furrest ol femmily-trees,-- 70 +Who'd ha' thought thet them Southuners ever 'ud show +Starns with pedigrees to 'em like theirn to the foe, +Or, when the vamosin' come, ever to find +Nat'ral masters in front an' mean white folks behind? +By ginger, ef I'd ha' known half I know now, +When I wuz to Congress, I wouldn't, I swow, +Hey let 'em cair on so high-minded an' sarsy, +'thout _some_ show o' wut you may call vicy-varsy. +To be sure, we wuz under a contrac' jes' then +To be dreffle forbearin' towards Southun men; 80 +We hed to go sheers in preservin' the bellance; +An' ez they seemed to feel they wuz wastin' their tellents +'thout some un to kick, 'twarn't more 'n proper, you know, +Each should furnish his part; an' sence they found the toe, +An' we wuzn't cherubs--wal, we found the buffer, +For fear thet the Compromise System should suffer. + +I wun't say the plan hedn't onpleasant featurs,-- +For men are perverse an' onreasonin' creaturs, +An' forgit thet in this life 'tain't likely to heppen +Their own privit fancy should ollus be cappen,-- 90 +But it worked jest ez smooth ez the key of a safe, +An' the gret Union bearin's played free from all chafe. +They warn't hard to suit, ef they hed their own way, +An' we (thet is, some on us) made the thing pay: +'twuz a fair give-an'-take out of Uncle Sam's heap; +Ef they took wut warn't theirn, wut we give come ez cheap; +The elect gut the offices down to tide-waiter, +The people took skinnin' ez mild ez a tater. +Seemed to choose who they wanted tu, footed the bills, +An' felt kind o' 'z though they wuz havin' their wills, 100 +Which kep' 'em ez harmless an' cherfle ez crickets, +While all we invested wuz names on the tickets; +Wal, ther' 's nothin', for folks fond o' lib'ral consumption +Free o' charge, like democ'acy tempered with gumption! + +Now warn't thet a system wuth pains in presarvin', +Where the people found jints an' their frien's done the carvin',-- +Where the many done all o' their thinkin' by proxy, +An' were proud on 't ez long ez 'twuz christened Democ'cy,-- +Where the few let us sap all o' Freedom's foundations, +Ef you call it reformin' with prudence an' patience, 110 +An' were willin' Jeff's snake-egg should hetch with the rest, +Ef you writ 'Constitootional' over the nest? +But it's all out o' kilter, ('twuz too good to last,) +An' all jes' by J.D.'s perceedin' too fast; +Ef he'd on'y hung on for a month or two more, +We'd ha' gut things fixed nicer 'n they hed ben before: +Afore he drawed off an' lef all in confusion, +We wuz safely entrenched in the ole Constitootion, +With an outlyin', heavy-gun, case-mated fort +To rake all assailants,--I mean th' S.J. Court. 120 +Now I never'll acknowledge (nut ef you should skin me) +'twuz wise to abandon sech works to the in'my, +An' let him fin' out thet wut scared him so long, +Our whole line of argyments, lookin' so strong, +All our Scriptur an' law, every the'ry an' fac', +Wuz Quaker-guns daubed with Pro-slavery black. +Why, ef the Republicans ever should git +Andy Johnson or some one to lend 'em the wit +An' the spunk jes' to mount Constitootion an' Court +With Columbiad guns, your real ekle-rights sort, 130 +Or drill out the spike from the ole Declaration +Thet can kerry a solid shot clearn roun' creation, +We'd better take maysures for shettin' up shop, +An' put off our stock by a vendoo or swop. + +But they wun't never dare tu; you'll see 'em in Edom +'fore they ventur' to go where their doctrines 'ud lead 'em: +They've ben takin' our princerples up ez we dropt 'em, +An' thought it wuz terrible 'cute to adopt 'em; +But they'll fin' out 'fore long thet their hope's ben deceivin' 'em, +An' thet princerples ain't o' no good, ef you b'lieve in 'em; +It makes 'em tu stiff for a party to use, 141 +Where they'd ough' to be easy 'z an ole pair o' shoes. +If _we_ say 'n our pletform thet all men are brothers, +We don't mean thet some folks ain't more so 'n some others; +An' it's wal understood thet we make a selection, +An' thet brotherhood kin' o' subsides arter 'lection. +The fust thing for sound politicians to larn is, +Thet Truth, to dror kindly in all sorts o' harness, +Mus' be kep' in the abstract,--for, come to apply it, +You're ept to hurt some folks's interists by it. 150 +Wal, these 'ere Republicans (some on 'em) ects +Ez though gineral mexims 'ud suit speshle facts; +An' there's where we'll nick 'em, there's where they'll be lost; +For applyin' your princerple's wut makes it cost, +An' folks don't want Fourth o' July t' interfere +With the business-consarns o' the rest o' the year, +No more 'n they want Sunday to pry an' to peek +Into wut they are doin' the rest o' the week. + +A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, +Ef he _must_ hev beliefs, nut to b'lieve 'em tu hard; 160 +For, ez sure ez he does, he'll be blartin' 'em out +'thout regardin' the natur' o' man more 'n a spout, +Nor it don't ask much gumption to pick out a flaw +In a party whose leaders are loose in the jaw: +An' so in our own case I ventur' to hint +Thet we'd better nut air our perceedin's in print, +Nor pass resserlootions ez long ez your arm +Thet may, ez things heppen to turn, du us harm; +For when you've done all your real meanin' to smother, +The darned things'll up an' mean sunthin' or 'nother. 170 +Jeff'son prob'ly meant wal with his 'born free an' ekle,' +But it's turned out a real crooked stick in the sekle; +It's taken full eighty-odd year--don't you see?-- +From the pop'lar belief to root out thet idee, +An', arter all, suckers on 't keep buddin' forth +In the nat'lly onprincipled mind o' the North. +No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu, +An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu, +Nor don't leave no friction-idees layin' loose +For the ign'ant to put to incend'ary use. 180 + +You know I'm a feller thet keeps a skinned eye +On the leetle events thet go skurryin' by, +Coz it's of'ner by them than by gret ones you'll see +Wut the p'litickle weather is likely to be. +Now I don't think the South's more 'n begun to be licked, +But I _du_ think, ez Jeff says, the wind-bag's gut pricked; +It'll blow for a spell an' keep puffin' an' wheezin', +The tighter our army an' navy keep, squeezin'-- +For they can't help spread-eaglein' long 'z ther's a mouth +To blow Enfield's Speaker thru lef' at the South. 190 +But it's high time for us to be settin' our faces +Towards reconstructin' the national basis, +With an eye to beginnin' agin on the jolly ticks +We used to chalk up 'hind the back-door o' politics; +An' the fus' thing's to save wut of Slav'ry ther's lef' +Arter this (I mus' call it) imprudence o' Jeff: +For a real good Abuse, with its roots fur an' wide, +Is the kin' o' thing _I_ like to hev on my side; +A Scriptur' name makes it ez sweet ez a rose, +An' it's tougher the older an' uglier it grows-- 200 +(I ain't speakin' now o' the righteousness of it, +But the p'litickle purchase it gives an' the profit). + +Things look pooty squally, it must be allowed, +An' I don't see much signs of a bow in the cloud: +Ther's too many Deemocrats--leaders wut's wuss-- +Thet go for the Union 'thout carin' a cuss +Ef it helps ary party thet ever wuz heard on, +So our eagle ain't made a split Austrian bird on. +But ther's still some consarvative signs to be found +Thet shows the gret heart o' the People is sound: 210 +(Excuse me for usin' a stump-phrase agin, +But, once in the way on 't, they _will_ stick like sin:) +There's Phillips, for instance, hez jes' ketched a Tartar +In the Law-'n'-Order Party of ole Cincinnater; +An' the Compromise System ain't gone out o' reach, +Long 'z you keep the right limits on freedom o' speech. +'Twarn't none too late, neither, to put on the gag, +For he's dangerous now he goes in for the flag. +Nut thet I altogether approve o' bad eggs, +They're mos' gin'ly argymunt on its las' legs,-- 220 +An' their logic is ept to be tu indiscriminate, +Nor don't ollus wait the right objecs to 'liminate; +But there is a variety on 'em, you'll find, +Jest ez usefle an' more, besides bein' refined,-- +I mean o' the sort thet are laid by the dictionary, +Sech ez sophisms an' cant, thet'll kerry conviction ary +Way thet you want to the right class o' men, +An' are staler than all 't ever come from a hen: +'Disunion' done wal till our resh Southun friends +Took the savor all out on 't for national ends; 230 +But I guess 'Abolition' 'll work a spell yit, +When the war's done, an' so will 'Forgive-an'-forgit.' +Times mus' be pooty thoroughly out o' all jint, +Ef we can't make a good constitootional pint; +An' the good time'll come to be grindin' our exes, +When the war goes to seed in the nettle o' texes: +Ef Jon'than don't squirm, with sech helps to assist him, +I give up my faith in the free-suffrage system; +Democ'cy wun't be nut a mite interestin', +Nor p'litikle capital much wuth investin'; 240 +An' my notion is, to keep dark an' lay low +Till we see the right minute to put in our blow.-- + +But I've talked longer now 'n I hed any idee, +An' ther's others you want to hear more 'n you du me; +So I'll set down an' give thet 'ere bottle a skrimmage, +For I've spoke till I'm dry ez a real graven image. + + + +No. VI + +SUNTHIN' IN THE PASTORAL LINE + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +JAALAM, 17th May, 1862. + +GENTLEMEN,--At the special request of Mr. Biglow, I intended to +inclose, together with his own contribution, (into which, at my +suggestion, he has thrown a little more of pastoral sentiment than +usual,) some passages from my sermon on the day of the National Fast, +from the text, 'Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them,' +Heb. xiii, 3. But I have not leisure sufficient at present for the +copying of them, even were I altogether satisfied with the production as +it stands. I should prefer, I confess, to contribute the entire +discourse to the pages of your respectable miscellany, if it should be +found acceptable upon perusal, especially as I find the difficulty in +selection of greater magnitude than I had anticipated. What passes +without challenge in the fervour of oral delivery, cannot always stand +the colder criticism of the closet. I am not so great an enemy of +Eloquence as my friend Mr. Biglow would appear to be from some passages +in his contribution for the current month. I would not, indeed, hastily +suspect him of covertly glancing at myself in his somewhat caustick +animadversions, albeit some of the phrases he girds at are not entire +strangers to my lips. I am a more hearty admirer of the Puritans than +seems now to be the fashion, and believe, that, if they Hebraized a +little too much in their speech, they showed remarkable practical +sagacity as statesmen and founders. But such phenomena as Puritanism are +the results rather of great religious than of merely social convulsions, +and do not long survive them. So soon as an earnest conviction has +cooled into a phrase, its work is over, and the best that can be done +with it is to bury it. _Ite, missa est_. I am inclined to agree with Mr. +Biglow that we cannot settle the great political questions which are now +presenting themselves to the nation by the opinions of Jeremiah or +Ezekiel as to the wants and duties of the Jews in their time, nor do I +believe that an entire community with their feelings and views would be +practicable or even agreeable at the present day. At the same time I +could wish that their habit of subordinating the actual to the moral, +the flesh to the spirit, and this world to the other, were more common. +They had found out, at least, the great military secret that soul weighs +more than body.--But I am suddenly called to a sick-bed in the household +of a valued parishioner. + + With esteem and respect, + + Your obedient servant, + + HOMER WILBUR. + + +Once git a smell o' musk into a draw, +An' it clings hold like precerdents in law: +Your gra'ma'am put it there,--when, goodness knows,-- +To jes' this-worldify her Sunday-clo'es; +But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife, +(For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?) +An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread +O' the spare chamber, slinks into the shed, +Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides +To holdin' seeds an' fifty things besides; 10 +But better days stick fast in heart an' husk, +An' all you keep in 't gits a scent o' musk. + +Jes' so with poets: wut they've airly read +Gits kind o' worked into their heart an' head, +So's't they can't seem to write but jest on sheers +With furrin countries or played-out ideers, +Nor hev a feelin', ef it doosn't smack +O' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back: +This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' things, +Ez though we'd nothin' here that blows an' sings,-- 20 +(Why, I'd give more for one live bobolink +Than a square mile o' larks in printer's ink,)-- +This makes 'em think our fust o' May is May, +Which 'tain't, for all the almanicks can say. + +O little city-gals, don't never go it +Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet! +They're apt to puff, an' May-day seldom looks +Up in the country ez it doos in books; +They're no more like than hornets'-nests an' hives, +Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. 30 +I, with my trouses perched on cowhide boots, +Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the roots, +Hev seen ye come to fling on April's hearse +Your muslin nosegays from the milliner's, +Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose, +An' dance your throats sore in morocker shoes: +I've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come wut would, +Our Pilgrim stock wuz pethed with hardihood. +Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch, +Ez though 'twuz sunthin' paid for by the inch; 40 +But yit we du contrive to worry thru, +Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing's to du, +An' kerry a hollerday, ef we set out, +Ez stiddily ez though 'twuz a redoubt. + +I, country-born an' bred, know where to find +Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind, +An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes,-- +Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, +Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl, +Each on 'em's cradle to a baby-pearl,-- 50 +But these are jes' Spring's pickets; sure ez sin, +The rebble frosts'll try to drive 'em in; +For half our May's so awfully like Mayn't, +'twould rile a Shaker or an evrige saint; +Though I own up I like our back'ard springs +Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things, +An' when you 'most give up, 'uthout more words +Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds; +Thet's Northun natur', slow an' apt to doubt, +But when it _doos_ git stirred, ther' 's no gin-out! 60 + +Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees, +An' settlin' things in windy Congresses,-- +Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinned +Ef all on 'em don't head aginst the wind, +'fore long the trees begin to show belief,-- +The maple crimsons to a coral-reef. +Then saffern swarms swing off from all the willers +So plump they look like yaller caterpillars, +Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands unfold +Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old: 70 +Thet's robin-redbreast's almanick; he knows +Thet arter this ther's only blossom-snows; +So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, +He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. + +Then seems to come a hitch,--things lag behind. +Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind, +An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams +Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams, +A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole cleft, +Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left, 80 +Then all the waters bow themselves an' come, +Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam, +Jes' so our Spring gits eyerythin' in tune +An' gives one leap from Aperl into June; +Then all comes crowdin' in; afore you think, +Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pink; +The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud; +The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud; +Red--cedars blossom tu, though few folks know it, +An' look all dipt in sunshine like a poet; 90 +The lime-trees pile their solid stacks o'shade +An' drows'ly simmer with the bees' sweet trade; +In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird clings +An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings; +All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers +The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers, +Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to try, +With pins,--they'll worry yourn so, boys, bimeby! +But I don't love your cat'logue style,--do you?-- +Ez ef to sell off Natur' by vendoo; 100 +One word with blood in 't's twice ez good ez two: +'nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, +Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; +Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, +Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, +Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, +Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air. + +I ollus feel the sap start in my veins +In Spring, with curus heats an' prickly pains +Thet drive me, when I git a chance to walk 110 +Off by myself to hev a privit talk +With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree +Along o' me like most folks,--Mister Me. +Ther' 's times when I'm unsoshle ez a stone, +An' sort o' suffercate to be alone,-- +I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh, +An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky; +Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind +Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, +An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather, 120 +My innard vane pints east for weeks together, +My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins +Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins: +Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight +An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight +With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf, +The crook'dest stick in all the heap,--Myself. + +'Twuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'-time: +Findin' my feelin's wouldn't noways rhyme +With nobody's, but off the hendle flew 130 +An' took things from an east-wind pint o' view, +I started off to lose me in the hills +Where the pines be, up back o' 'Siah's Mills: +Pines, ef you're blue, are the best friends I know, +They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feelin's so,-- +They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan, +You half-forgit you've gut a body on. +Ther' 's a small school'us' there where four roads meet, +The door-steps hollered out by little feet, +An' side-posts carved with names whose owners grew 140 +To gret men, some on 'em, an' deacons, tu; +'tain't used no longer, coz the town hez gut +A high-school, where they teach the Lord knows wut: +Three-story larnin' 's pop'lar now: I guess +We thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less, +For it strikes me ther' 's sech a thing ez sinnin' +By overloadin' children's underpinnin': +Wal, here it wuz I larned my ABC, +An' it's a kind o' favorite spot with me. + +We're curus critters: Now ain't jes' the minute 150 +Thet ever fits us easy while we're in it; +Long ez 'twuz futur', 'twould be perfect bliss,-- +Soon ez it's past, _thet_ time's wuth ten o' this; +An' yit there ain't a man thet need be told +Thet Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold. +A knee-high lad, I used to plot an' plan +An' think 'twuz life's cap-sheaf to be a man: +Now, gittin' gray, there's nothin' I enjoy +Like dreamin' back along into a boy: +So the ole school'us' is a place I choose 160 +Afore all others, ef I want to muse; +I set down where I used to set, an' git +My boyhood back, an' better things with it,-- +Faith, Hope, an' sunthin', ef it isn't Cherrity, +It's want o' guile, an' thet's ez gret a rerrity,-- +While Fancy's cushin', free to Prince and Clown, +Makes the hard bench ez soft ez milk-weed-down. + +Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath arternoon +When I sot out to tramp myself in tune, +I found me in the school'us' on my seat, 170 +Drummin' the march to No-wheres with my feet. +Thinkin' o' nothin', I've heerd ole folks say +Is a hard kind o' dooty in its way: +It's thinkin' everythin' you ever knew, +Or ever hearn, to make your feelin's blue. +I sot there tryin' thet on for a spell: +I thought o' the Rebellion, then o' Hell, +Which some folks tell ye now is jest a metterfor +(A the'ry, p'raps, it wun't _feel_ none the better for); +I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we'd win 180 +Patchin' our patent self-blow-up agin: +I thought ef this 'ere milkin' o' the wits, +So much a month, warn't givin' Natur' fits,-- +Ef folks warn't druv, findin' their own milk fail, +To work the cow thet hez an iron tail, +An' ef idees 'thout ripenin' in the pan +Would send up cream to humor ary man: +From this to thet I let my worryin' creep. +Till finally I must ha' fell asleep. + +Our lives in sleep are some like streams thet glide 190 +'twixt flesh an' sperrit boundin' on each side, +Where both shores' shadders kind o' mix an' mingle +In sunthin' thet ain't jes' like either single; +An' when you cast off moorin's from To-day, +An' down towards To-morrer drift away, +The imiges thet tengle on the stream +Make a new upside-down'ard world o' dream: +Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks an' warnin's +O' wut'll be in Heaven on Sabbath-mornin's, +An', mixed right in ez ef jest out o' spite, 200 +Sunthin' thet says your supper ain't gone right. +I'm gret on dreams, an' often when I wake, +I've lived so much it makes my mem'ry ache. +An' can't skurce take a cat-nap in my cheer +'thout hevin' 'em, some good, some bad, all queer. + +Now I wuz settin' where I'd ben, it seemed, +An' ain't sure yit whether I r'ally dreamed, +Nor, ef I did, how long I might ha' slep', +When I hearn some un stompin' up the step, +An' lookin' round, ef two an' two make four, 210 +I see a Pilgrim Father in the door. +He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an' spurs +With rowels to 'em big ez ches'nut-burrs, +An' his gret sword behind him sloped away +Long 'z a man's speech thet dunno wut to say.-- +'Ef your name's Biglow, an' your given-name +Hosee,' sez he, 'it's arter you I came: +I'm your gret-gran'ther multiplied by three.'-- +'My _wut?_' sez I.--'Your gret-gret-gret,' sez he: +'You wouldn't ha' never ben here but for me. 220 +Two hundred an' three year ago this May +The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay; +I'd been a cunnle in our Civil War,-- +But wut on airth hev _you_ gut up one for? +Coz we du things in England, 'tain't for you +To git a notion you can du 'em tu: +I'm told you write in public prints: ef true, +It's nateral you should know a thing or two.'-- +'Thet air's an argymunt I can't endorse,-- +'twould prove, coz you wear spurs, you kep' a horse: 230 +For brains,' sez I, 'wutever you may think, +Ain't boun' to cash the drafs o' pen-an'-ink,-- +Though mos' folks write ez ef they hoped jes' quickenin' +The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin'; +But skim-milk ain't a thing to change its view +O' wut it's meant for more 'n a smoky flue. +But du pray tell me, 'fore we furder go, +How in all Natur' did you come to know +'bout our affairs,' sez I, 'in Kingdom-Come?'-- +'Wal, I worked round at sperrit-rappin' some, 240 +An' danced the tables till their legs wuz gone, +In hopes o' larnin' wut wuz goin' on,' +Sez he, 'but mejums lie so like all-split +Thet I concluded it wuz best to quit. +But, come now, ef you wun't confess to knowin', +You've some conjectures how the thing's a-goin'.'-- +'Gran'ther,' sez I, 'a vane warn't never known +Nor asked to hev a jedgment of its own; +An' yit, ef 'tain't gut rusty in the jints. +It's safe to trust its say on certin pints: 250 +It knows the wind's opinions to a T, +An' the wind settles wut the weather'll be.' +'I never thought a scion of our stock +Could grow the wood to make a weather-cock; +When I wuz younger 'n you, skurce more 'n a shaver, +No airthly wind,' sez he, 'could make me waver!' +(Ez he said this, he clinched his jaw an' forehead, +Hitchin' his belt to bring his sword-hilt forrard.)-- +'Jes so it wuz with me,' sez I, 'I swow. +When _I_ wuz younger 'n wut you see me now,-- 260 +Nothin' from Adam's fall to Huldy's bonnet, +Thet I warn't full-cocked with my jedgment on it; +But now I'm gittin' on in life, I find +It's a sight harder to make up my mind,-- +Nor I don't often try tu, when events +Will du it for me free of all expense. +The moral question's ollus plain enough,-- +It's jes' the human-natur' side thet's tough; +'Wut's best to think mayn't puzzle me nor you,-- +The pinch comes in decidin' wut to _du;_ 270 +Ef you _read_ History, all runs smooth ez grease, +Coz there the men ain't nothin' more 'n idees,-- +But come to _make_ it, ez we must to-day, +Th' idees hev arms an' legs an' stop the way; +It's easy fixin' things in facts an' figgers,-- +They can't resist, nor warn't brought up with niggers; +But come to try your the'ry on,--why, then +Your facts and figgers change to ign'ant men +Actin' ez ugly--'--'Smite 'em hip an' thigh!' +Sez gran'ther, 'and let every man-child die! 280 +Oh for three weeks o' Crommle an' the Lord! +Up, Isr'el, to your tents an' grind the sword!'-- +'Thet kind o' thing worked wal in ole Judee, +But you forgit how long it's ben A.D.; +You think thet's ellerkence,--I call it shoddy, +A thing,' sez I, 'wun't cover soul nor body; +I like the plain all-wool o' common-sense, +Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelvemonth hence, +_You_ took to follerin' where the Prophets beckoned, +An', fust you knowed on, back come Charles the Second; +Now wut I want's to hev all _we_ gain stick, 291 +An' not to start Millennium too quick; +We hain't to punish only, but to keep, +An' the cure's gut to go a cent'ry deep.' +'Wall, milk-an'-water ain't the best o' glue,' +Sez he, 'an' so you'll find afore you're thru; +Ef reshness venters sunthin', shilly-shally +Loses ez often wut's ten times the vally. +Thet exe of ourn, when Charles's neck gut split, +Opened a gap thet ain't bridged over yit: 300 +Slav'ry's your Charles, the Lord hez gin the exe'-- +'Our Charles,' sez I, 'hez gut eight million necks. +The hardest question ain't the black man's right, +The trouble is to 'mancipate the white; +One's chained in body an' can be sot free, +But t'other's chained in soul to an idee: +It's a long job, but we shall worry thru it; +Ef bagnets fail, the spellin'-book must du it.' +'Hosee,' sez he, 'I think you're goin' to fail: +The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the tail; 310 +This 'ere rebellion's nothing but the rettle,-- +You'll stomp on thet an' think you've won the bettle: +It's Slavery thet's the fangs an' thinkin' head, +An' ef you want selvation, cresh it dead,-- +An' cresh it suddin, or you'll larn by waitin' +Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to debatin'!'-- +'God's truth!' sez I,--'an' ef _I_ held the club, +An' knowed jes' where to strike,--but there's the rub!'-- +'Strike soon,' sez he, 'or you'll be deadly ailin',-- +Folks thet's afeared to fail are sure o' failin'; 320 +God hates your sneakin' creturs thet believe +He'll settle things they run away an' leave!' +He brought his foot down fiercely, ez he spoke, +An' give me sech a startle thet I woke. + + + +No. VII + +LATEST VIEWS OF MR. BIGLOW + +PRELIMINARY NOTE + +[It is with feelings of the liveliest pain that we inform our readers of +the death of the Reverend Homer Wilbur, A.M., which took place suddenly, +by an apoplectic stroke, on the afternoon of Christmas day, 1862. Our +venerable friend (for so we may venture to call him, though we never +enjoyed the high privilege of his personal acquaintance) was in his +eighty-fourth year, having been born June 12, 1779, at Pigsgusset +Precinct (now West Jerusha) in the then District of Maine. Graduated +with distinction at Hubville College in 1805, he pursued his theological +studies with the late Reverend Preserved Thacker, D.D., and was called +to the charge of the First Society in Jaalam in 1809, where he remained +till his death. + +'As an antiquary he has probably left no superior, if, indeed, an +equal,' writes his friend and colleague, the Reverend Jeduthun +Hitchcock, to whom we are indebted for the above facts; 'in proof of +which I need only allude to his "History of Jaalam, Genealogical, +Topographical, and Ecclesiastical," 1849, which has won him an eminent +and enduring place in our more solid and useful literature. It is only +to be regretted that his intense application to historical studies +should have so entirely withdrawn him from the pursuit of poetical +composition, for which he was endowed by Nature with a remarkable +aptitude. His well-known hymn, beginning "With clouds of care +encompassed round," has been attributed in some collections to the late +President Dwight, and it is hardly presumptuous to affirm that the +simile of the rainbow in the eighth stanza would do no discredit to that +polished pen.' + +We regret that we have not room at present for the whole of Mr. +Hitchcock's exceedingly valuable communication. We hope to lay more +liberal extracts from it before our readers at an early day. A summary +of its contents will give some notion of its importance and interest. It +contains: 1st, A biographical sketch of Mr. Wilbur, with notices of his +predecessors in the pastoral office, and of eminent clerical +contemporaries; 2d, An obituary of deceased, from the Punkin-Falls +'Weekly Parallel;' 3d, A list of his printed and manuscript productions +and of projected works; 4th, Personal anecdotes and recollections, with +specimens of table-talk; 5th, A tribute to his relict, Mrs. Dorcas +(Pilcox) Wilbur; 6th, A list of graduates fitted for different colleges +by Mr. Wilbur, with biographical memoranda touching the more +distinguished; 7th, Concerning learned, charitable, and other +societies, of which Mr. Wilbur was a member, and of those with which, +had his life been prolonged, he would doubtless have been associated, +with a complete catalogue of such Americans as have been Fellows of the +Royal Society; 8th, A brief summary of Mr. Wilbur's latest conclusions +concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast in its special application to +recent events, for which the public, as Mr. Hitchcock assures us, have +been waiting with feelings of lively anticipation; 9th, Mr. Hitchcock's +own views on the same topic; and, 10th, A brief essay on the importance +of local histories. It will be apparent that the duty of preparing Mr. +Wilbur's biography could not have fallen into more sympathetic hands. + +In a private letter with which the reverend gentleman has since favored +us, he expresses the opinion that Mr. Wilbur's life was shortened by our +unhappy civil war. It disturbed his studies, dislocated all his habitual +associations and trains of thought, and unsettled the foundations of a +faith, rather the result of habit than conviction, in the capacity of +man for self-government. 'Such has been the felicity of my life,' he +said to Mr. Hitchcock, on the very morning of the day he died, 'that, +through the divine mercy, I could always say, _Summum nec metuo diem, +nec opto_. It has been my habit, as you know, on every recurrence of +this blessed anniversary, to read Milton's "Hymn of the Nativity" till +its sublime harmonies so dilated my soul and quickened its spiritual +sense that I seemed to hear that other song which gave assurance to the +shepherds that there was One who would lead them also in green pastures +and beside the still waters. But to-day I have been unable to think of +anything but that mournful text, "I came not to send peace, but a +sword," and, did it not smack of Pagan presumptuousness, could almost +wish I had never lived to see this day.' + +Mr. Hitchcock also informs us that his friend 'lies buried in the Jaalam +graveyard, under a large red-cedar which he specially admired. A neat +and substantial monument is to be erected over his remains, with a Latin +epitaph written by himself; for he was accustomed to say, pleasantly, +"that there was at least one occasion in a scholar's life when he might +show the advantages of a classical training."' + +The following fragment of a letter addressed to us, and apparently +intended to accompany Mr. Biglow's contribution to the present number, +was found upon his table after his decease.--EDITORS ATLANTIC MONTHLY.] + + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +JAALAM, 24th Dec., 1862. + +RESPECTED SIRS,--- The infirm state of my bodily health would be a +sufficient apology for not taking up the pen at this time, wholesome as +I deem it for the mind to apricate in the shelter of epistolary +confidence, were it not that a considerable, I might even say a large, +number of individuals in this parish expect from their pastor some +publick expression of sentiment at this crisis. Moreover, _Qui tacitus +ardet magis uritur_. In trying times like these, the besetting sin of +undisciplined minds is to seek refuge from inexplicable realities in the +dangerous stimulant of angry partisanship or the indolent narcotick of +vague and hopeful vaticination: _fortunamque suo temperat arbitrio_. +Both by reason of my age and my natural temperament, I am unfitted for +either. Unable to penetrate the inscrutable judgments of God, I am more +than ever thankful that my life has been prolonged till I could in some +small measure comprehend His mercy. As there is no man who does not at +some time render himself amenable to the one,--_quum vix justus sit +securus_,--so there is none that does not feel himself in daily need of +the other. + +I confess I cannot feel, as some do, a personal consolation for the +manifest evils of this war in any remote or contingent advantages that +may spring from it. I am old and weak, I can bear little, and can scarce +hope to see better days; nor is it any adequate compensation to know +that Nature is young and strong and can bear much. Old men philosophize +over the past, but the present is only a burthen and a weariness. The +one lies before them like a placid evening landscape; the other is full +of vexations and anxieties of housekeeping. It may be true enough that +_miscet hæc illis, prohibetque Clotho fortunam stare_, but he who said +it was fain at last to call in Atropos with her shears before her time; +and I cannot help selfishly mourning that the fortune of our Republick +could not at least stay till my days were numbered. + +Tibullus would find the origin of wars in the great exaggeration of +riches, and does not stick to say that in the days of the beechen +trencher there was peace. But averse as I am by nature from all wars, +the more as they have been especially fatal to libraries, I would have +this one go on till we are reduced to wooden platters again, rather than +surrender the principle to defend which it was undertaken. Though I +believe Slavery to have been the cause of it, by so thoroughly +demoralizing Northern politicks for its own purposes as to give +opportunity and hope to treason, yet I would not have our thought and +purpose diverted from their true object,--the maintenance of the idea of +Government. We are not merely suppressing an enormous riot, but +contending for the possibility of permanent order coexisting with +democratical fickleness; and while I would not superstitiously venerate +form to the sacrifice of substance, neither would I forget that an +adherence to precedent and prescription can alone give that continuity +and coherence under a democratical constitution which are inherent in +the person of a despotick monarch and the selfishness of an +aristocratieal class. _Stet pro ratione voluntas_ is as dangerous in a +majority as in a tyrant. + +I cannot allow the present production of my young friend to go out +without a protest from me against a certain extremeness in his views, +more pardonable in the poet than in the philosopher. While I agree with +him, that the only cure for rebellion is suppression by force, yet I +must animadvert upon certain phrases where I seem to see a coincidence +with a popular fallacy on the subject of compromise. On the one hand +there are those who do not see that the vital principle of Government +and the seminal principle of Law cannot properly be made a subject of +compromise at all, and on the other those who are equally blind to the +truth that without a compromise of individual opinions, interests, and +even rights, no society would be possible. _In medio tutissimus_. For my +own part, I would gladly-- + + +Ef I a song or two could make + Like rockets druv by their own burnin', +All leap an' light, to leave a wake + Men's hearts an' faces skyward turnin'!-- +But, it strikes me, 'tain't jest the time + Fer stringin' words with settisfaction: +Wut's wanted now's the silent rhyme + 'Twixt upright Will an' downright Action. + +Words, ef you keep 'em, pay their keep, + But gabble's the short cut to ruin; 10 +It's gratis, (gals half-price,) but cheap + At no rate, ef it henders doin'; +Ther' 's nothin' wuss, 'less 'tis to set + A martyr-prem'um upon jawrin': +Teapots git dangerous, ef you shet + Their lids down on 'em with Fort Warren. + +'Bout long enough it's ben discussed + Who sot the magazine afire, +An' whether, ef Bob Wickliffe bust, + 'Twould scare us more or blow us higher. 20 +D' ye spose the Gret Foreseer's plan + Wuz settled fer him in town-meetin'? +Or thet ther'd ben no Fall o' Man, + Ef Adam'd on'y bit a sweetin'? + +Oh, Jon'than, ef you want to be + A rugged chap agin an' hearty, +Go fer wutever'll hurt Jeff D., + Nut wut'll boost up ary party. +Here's hell broke loose, an' we lay flat + With half the univarse a-singe-in', 30 +Till Sen'tor This an' Gov'nor Thet + Stop squabblin' fer the gardingingin. + +It's war we're in, not politics; + It's systems wrastlin' now, not parties; +An' victory in the eend'll fix + Where longest will an' truest heart is, +An' wut's the Guv'ment folks about? + Tryin' to hope ther' 's nothin' doin', +An' look ez though they didn't doubt + Sunthin' pertickler wuz a-brewin'. 40 + +Ther' 's critters yit thet talk an' act + Fer wut they call Conciliation; +They'd hand a buff'lo-drove a tract + When they wuz madder than all Bashan. +Conciliate? it jest means _be kicked_, + No metter how they phrase an' tone it; +It means thet we're to set down licked, + Thet we're poor shotes an' glad to own it! + +A war on tick's ez dear 'z the deuce, + But it wun't leave no lastin' traces, 50 +Ez 'twould to make a sneakin' truce + Without no moral specie-basis: +Ef greenbacks ain't nut jest the cheese, + I guess ther' 's evils thet's extremer,-- +Fer instance,--shinplaster idees + Like them put out by Gov'nor Seymour. + +Last year, the Nation, at a word, + When tremblin' Freedom cried to shield her, +Flamed weldin' into one keen sword + Waitin' an' longin' fer a wielder: +A splendid flash!--but how'd the grasp 61 + With sech a chance ez thet wuz tally? +Ther' warn't no meanin' in our clasp,-- + Half this, half thet, all shilly-shally. + +More men? More man! It's there we fail; + Weak plans grow weaker yit by lengthenin': +Wut use in addin' to the tail, + When it's the head's in need o' strengthenin'? +We wanted one thet felt all Chief + From roots o' hair to sole o' stockin', 70 +Square-sot with thousan'-ton belief + In him an' us, ef earth went rockin'! + +Ole Hick'ry wouldn't ha' stood see-saw + 'Bout doin' things till they wuz done with,-- +He'd smashed the tables o' the Law + In time o' need to load his gun with; +He couldn't see but jest one side,-- + Ef his, 'twuz God's, an' thet wuz plenty; +An' so his '_Forrards!_' multiplied + An army's fightin' weight by twenty. 80 + +But this 'ere histin', creak, creak, creak, + Your cappen's heart up with a derrick, +This tryin' to coax a lightnin'-streak + Out of a half-discouraged hayrick, +This hangin' on mont' arter mont' + Fer one sharp purpose 'mongst the twitter,-- +I tell ye, it doos kind o' stunt + The peth and sperit of a critter. + +In six months where'll the People be, + Ef leaders look on revolution 90 +Ez though it wuz a cup o' tea,-- + Jest social el'ments in solution? +This weighin' things doos wal enough + When war cools down, an' comes to writin'; +But while it's makin', the true stuff + Is pison-mad, pig-headed fightin'. + +Democ'acy gives every man + The right to be his own oppressor; +But a loose Gov'ment ain't the plan, + Helpless ez spilled beans on a dresser: 100 +I tell ye one thing we might larn + From them smart critters, the Seceders,-- +Ef bein' right's the fust consarn, + The 'fore-the-fust's cast-iron leaders. + +But 'pears to me I see some signs + Thet we're a-goin' to use our senses: +Jeff druv us into these hard lines, + An' ough' to bear his half th' expenses; +Slavery's Secession's heart an' will, + South, North, East, West, where'er you find it, 110 +An' ef it drors into War's mill, + D'ye say them thunder-stones sha'n't grind it? + +D' ye s'pose, ef Jeff giv _him_ a lick, + Ole Hick'ry'd tried his head to sof'n +So's 'twouldn't hurt thet ebony stick + Thet's made our side see stars so of'n? +'No!' he'd ha' thundered, 'on your knees, + An' own one flag, one road to glory! +Soft-heartedness, in times like these, + Shows sof'ness in the upper story!' 120 + +An' why should we kick up a muss + About the Pres'dunt's proclamation? +It ain't a-goin' to lib'rate us, + Ef we don't like emancipation: +The right to be a cussed fool + Is safe from all devices human, +It's common (ez a gin'l rule) + To every critter born o' woman. + +So _we're_ all right, an' I, fer one, + Don't think our cause'll lose in vally 130 +By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, + An' gittin' Natur' fer an ally: +Thank God, say I, fer even a plan + To lift one human bein's level, +Give one more chance to make a man, + Or, anyhow, to spile a devil! + +Not thet I'm one thet much expec' + Millennium by express to-morrer; +They _will_ miscarry,--I rec'lec' + Tu many on 'em, to my sorrer: +Men ain't made angels in a day, 141 + No matter how you mould an' labor 'em, +Nor 'riginal ones, I guess, don't stay + With Abe so of'n ez with Abraham. + +The'ry thinks Fact a pooty thing, + An' wants the banns read right ensuin'; +But fact wun't noways wear the ring, + 'Thout years o' settin' up an' wooin': +Though, arter all, Time's dial-plate + Marks cent'ries with the minute-finger, 150 +An' Good can't never come tu late, + Though it does seem to try an' linger. + +An' come wut will, I think it's grand + Abe's gut his will et last bloom-furnaced +In trial-flames till it'll stand + The strain o' bein' in deadly earnest: +Thet's wut we want,--we want to know + The folks on our side hez the bravery +To b'lieve ez hard, come weal, come woe, + In Freedom ez Jeff doos in Slavery. 160 + +Set the two forces foot to foot, + An' every man knows who'll be winner, +Whose faith in God hez ary root + Thet goes down deeper than his dinner: +_Then_ 'twill be felt from pole to pole, + Without no need o' proclamation, +Earth's biggest Country's gut her soul + An' risen up Earth's Greatest Nation! + + + +No. VIII + +KETTELOPOTOMACHIA + +PRELIMINARY MOTE + +[In the month of February, 1866, the editors of the 'Atlantic Monthly' +received from the Rev. Mr. Hitchcock of Jaalam a letter enclosing the +macaronic verses which follow, and promising to send more, if more +should be communicated. 'They were rapped out on the evening of Thursday +last past,' he says, 'by what claimed to be the spirit of my late +predecessor in the ministry here, the Rev. Dr. Wilbur, through the +medium of a young man at present domiciled in my family. As to the +possibility of such spiritual manifestations, or whether they be +properly so entitled, I express no opinion, as there is a division of +sentiment on that subject in the parish, and many persons of the highest +respectability in social standing entertain opposing views. The young +man who was improved as a medium submitted himself to the experiment +with manifest reluctance, and is still unprepared to believe in the +authenticity of the manifestations. During his residence with me his +deportment has always been exemplary; he has been constant in his +attendance upon our family devotions and the public ministrations of the +Word, and has more than once privately stated to me, that the latter had +often brought him under deep concern of mind. The table is an ordinary +quadrupedal one, weighing about thirty pounds, three feet seven inches +and a half in height, four feet square on the top, and of beech or +maple, I am not definitely prepared to say which. It had once belonged +to my respected predecessor, and had been, so far as I can learn upon +careful inquiry, of perfectly regular and correct habits up to the +evening in question. On that occasion the young man previously alluded +to had been sitting with his hands resting carelessly upon it, while I +read over to him at his request certain portions of my last Sabbath's +discourse. On a sudden the rappings, as they are called, commenced to +render themselves audible, at first faintly, but in process of time more +distinctly and with violent agitation of the table. The young man +expressed himself both surprised and pained by the wholly unexpected, +and, so far as he was concerned, unprecedented occurrence. At the +earnest solicitation, however, of several who happened to be present, he +consented to go on with the experiment, and with the assistance of the +alphabet commonly employed in similar emergencies, the following +communication was obtained and written down immediately by myself. +Whether any, and if so, how much weight should be attached to it, I +venture no decision. That Dr. Wilbur had sometimes employed his leisure +in Latin versification I have ascertained to be the case, though all +that has been discovered of that nature among his papers consists of +some fragmentary passages of a version into hexameters of portions of +the Song of Solomon. These I had communicated about a week or ten days +previous[ly] to the young gentleman who officiated as medium in the +communication afterwards received. I have thus, I believe, stated all +the material facts that have any elucidative bearing upon this +mysterious occurrence.' + +So far Mr. Hitchcock, who seems perfectly master of Webster's +unabridged quarto, and whose flowing style leads him into certain +farther expatiations for which we have not room. We have since learned +that the young man he speaks of was a sophomore, put under his care +during a sentence of rustication from ---- College, where he had +distinguished himself rather by physical experiments on the comparative +power of resistance in window-glass to various solid substances, than in +the more regular studies of the place. In answer to a letter of inquiry, +the professor of Latin says, 'There was no harm in the boy that I know +of beyond his loving mischief more than Latin, nor can I think of any +spirits likely to possess him except those commonly called animal. He +was certainly not remarkable for his Latinity, but I see nothing in the +verses you enclose that would lead me to think them beyond his capacity, +or the result of any special inspiration whether of beech or maple. Had +that of _birch_ been tried upon him earlier and more faithfully, the +verses would perhaps have been better in quality and certainly in +quantity.' This exact and thorough scholar then goes on to point out +many false quantities and barbarisms. It is but fair to say, however, +that the author, whoever he was, seems not to have been unaware of some +of them himself, as is shown by a great many notes appended to the +verses as we received them, and purporting to be by Scaliger, Bentley, +and others,--among them the _Esprit de Voltaire_! These we have omitted +as clearly meant to be humorous and altogether failing therein. + +Though entirely satisfied that the verses are altogether unworthy of Mr. +Wilbur, who seems to Slave been a tolerable Latin scholar after the +fashion of his day, yet we have determined to print them here, partly as +belonging to the _res gestæ_ of this collection, and partly as a +warning to their putative author which may keep him from such indecorous +pranks for the future.] + + +KETTELOPOTOMACHIA + +P. Ovidii Nasonis carmen heroicum macaronicum perplexametrum, inter +Getas getico moro compostum, denuo per medium ardentispiritualem +adjuvante mensâ diabolice obsessâ, recuperatum, curâque Jo. Conradi +Schwarzii umbræ, allis necnon plurimis adjuvantibus, restitutum. + + +LIBER I + + +Punctorum garretos colens et cellara Quinque, +Gutteribus quæ et gaudes sunday-am abstingere frontem, +Plerumque insidos solita fluitare liquore +Tanglepedem quem homines appellant Di quoque rotgut, +Pimpliidis, rubicundaque, Musa, O, bourbonolensque, +Fenianas rixas procul, alma, brogipotentis +Patricii cyathos iterantis et horrida bella, +Backos dum virides viridis Brigitta remittit, +Linquens, eximios celebrem, da, Virginienses +Rowdes, præcipue et TE, heros alte, Polarde! 10 +Insignes juvenesque, illo certamine lictos, +Colemane, Tylere, nec vos oblivione relinquam. + +Ampla aquilæ invictæ fausto est sub tegmine terra, +Backyfer, ooiskeo pollens, ebenoque bipede, +Socors præsidum et altrix (denique quidruminantium), +Duplefveorum uberrima; illis et integre cordi est +Deplere assidue et sine proprio incommodo fiscum; +Nunc etiam placidum hoc opus invictique secuti, +Goosam aureos ni eggos voluissent immo necare +Quæ peperit, saltem ac de illis meliora merentem. 20 + +Condidit hanc Smithius Dux, Captinus inclytus ille +Regis Ulyssæ instar, docti arcum intendere longum; +Condidit ille Johnsmith, Virginiamque vocavit, +Settledit autem Jacobus rex, nomine primus, +Rascalis implens ruptis, blagardisque deboshtis, +Militibusque ex Falstaffi legione fugatis +Wenchisque illi quas poterant seducere nuptas; +Virgineum, ah, littus matronis talibus impar! +Progeniem stirpe ex hoc non sine stigmate ducunt +Multi sese qui jactant regum esse nepotes: 30 +Haud omnes, Mater, genitos quæ nuper habebas +Bello fortes, consilio cautos, virtute decoros, +Jamque et habes, sparso si patrio in sanguine virtus, +Mostrabisque iterum, antiquis sub astris reducta! +De illis qui upkikitant, dicebam, rumpora tanta, +Letcheris et Floydis magnisque Extra ordine Billis; +Est his prisca fides jurare et breakere wordum: +Poppere fellerum a tergo, aut stickere clam bowiknifo, +Haud sane facinus, dignum sed victrice lauro; +Larrupere et nigerum, factum præstantius ullo: 40 +Ast chlamydem piciplumatam, Icariam, flito et ineptam, +Yanko gratis induere, illum et valido railo +Insuper acri equitare docere est hospitio uti. + +Nescio an ille Polardus duplefveoribus ortus, +Sed reputo potius de radice poorwitemanorum; +Fortuiti proles, ni fallor, Tylerus erat +Præsidis, omnibus ab Whiggis nominatus a poor cuss; +Et nobilem tertium evincit venerabile nomen. +Ast animosi omnes bellique ad tympana ha! ha! +Vociferant læti, procul et si proelia, sive 50 +Hostem incautum atsito possint shootere salvi; +Imperiique capaces, esset si stylus agmen, +Pro dulci spoliabant et sine dangere fito. +Præ ceterisque Polardus: si Secessia licta, +Se nunquam licturum jurat res et unheardof, +Verbo hæsit, similisque audaci roosteri invicto, +Dunghilli solitus rex pullos whoppere molles, +Grantum, hirelingos stripes quique et splendida tollunt +Sidera, et Yankos, territum et omnem sarsuit orbem. + +Usque dabant operam isti omnes, noctesque diesque, 60 +Samuelem demulgere avunculum, id vero siccum; +Uberibus sed ejus, et horum est culpa, remotis, +Parvam domi vaccam, nec mora minima, quærunt, +Lacticarentem autem et droppam vix in die dantem; +Reddite avunculi, et exclamabant, reddite pappam! +Polko ut consule, gemens, Billy immurmurat Extra; +Echo respondit, thesauro ex vacuo, pappam! +Frustra explorant pocketa, ruber nare repertum; +Officia expulsi aspiciunt rapta, et Paradisum +Occlusum, viridesque Laud illis nascere backos; 70 +Stupent tunc oculis madidis spittantque silenter. +Adhibere usu ast longo vires prorsus inepti, +Si non ut qui grindeat axve trabemve reuolvat, +Virginiam excruciant totis nunc mightibu' matrem; +Non melius, puta, nono panis dimidiumne est? + +Readere ibi non posse est casus commoner ullo; +Tanto intentius imprimere est opus ergo statuta; +Nemo propterea pejor, melior, sine doubto, +Obtineat qui contractum, si et postea rhino; +Ergo Polardus, si quis, inexsuperabilis heros, 80 +Colemanus impavidus nondum, atque in purpure natus +Tylerus Iohanides celerisque in flito Nathaniel, +Quisque optans digitos in tantum stickere pium, +Adstant accincti imprimere aut perrumpere leges: +Quales os miserum rabidi tres ægre molossi, +Quales aut dubium textum atra in veste ministri, +Tales circumstabant nunc nostri inopes hoc job. + +Hisque Polardus voce canoro talia fatus: +Primum autem, veluti est mos, præceps quisque liquorat, +Quisque et Nicotianum ingens quid inserit atrum, 90 +Heroûm nitidum decus et solamen avitum, +Masticat ac simul altisonans, spittatque profuse: +Quis de Virginia meruit præstantius unquam? +Quis se pro patria curavit impigre tutum? +Speechisque articulisque hominum quis fortior ullus, +Ingeminans pennæ lickos et vulnera vocis? +Quisnam putidius (hic) sarsuit Yankinimicos, +Sæpius aut dedit ultro datam et broke his parolam? +Mente inquassatus solidâque, tyranno minante, +Horrisonis (hic) bombis moenia et alta quatente, 100 +Sese promptum (hic) jactans Yankos lickere centum, +Atque ad lastum invictus non surrendidit unquam? +Ergo haud meddlite, posco, mique relinquite (hic) hoc job, +Si non--knifumque enormem mostrat spittatque tremendus. + +Dixerat: ast alii reliquorant et sine pauso +Pluggos incumbunt maxillis, uterque vicissim +Certamine innocuo valde madidam inquinat assem: +Tylerus autem, dumque liquorat aridus hostis, +Mirum aspicit duplumque bibentem, astante Lyæo; +Ardens impavidusque edidit tamen impia verba; 110 +Duplum quamvis te aspicio, esses atque viginti, +Mendacem dicerem totumque (hic) thrasherem acervum; +Nempe et thrasham, doggonatus (hic) sim nisi faxem; +Lambastabo omnes catawompositer-(hic) que chawam! +Dixit et impulsus Ryeo ruitur bene titus, +Illi nam gravidum caput et laterem habet in hatto. + +Hunc inhiat titubansque Polardus, optat et illum +Stickere inermem, protegit autem rite Lyæus, +Et pronos geminos, oculis dubitantibus, heros +Cernit et irritus hostes, dumque excogitat utrum 120 +Primum inpitchere, corruit, inter utrosque recumbit, +Magno asino similis nimio sub pondere quassus: +Colemanus hos moestus, triste ruminansque solamen, +Inspicit hiccans, circumspittat terque cubantes; +Funereisque his ritibus humidis inde solutis, +Sternitur, invalidusque illis superincidit infans; +Hos sepelit somnus et snorunt cornisonantes, +Watchmanus inscios ast calybooso deinde reponit. + + + +No. IX + +[The Editors of the 'Atlantic' have received so many letters of inquiry +concerning the literary remains of the late Mr. Wilbur, mentioned by his +colleague and successor, Rev. Jeduthun Hitchcock, in a communication +from which we made some extracts in our number for February, 1863, and +have been so repeatedly urged to print some part of them for the +gratification of the public, that they felt it their duty at least to +make some effort to satisfy so urgent a demand. They have accordingly +carefully examined the papers intrusted to them, but find most of the +productions of Mr. Wilbur's pen so fragmentary, and even chaotic, +written as they are on the backs of letters in an exceedingly cramped +chirography,--here a memorandum for a sermon; there an observation of +the weather; now the measurement of an extraordinary head of cabbage, +and then of the cerebral capacity of some reverend brother deceased; a +calm inquiry into the state of modern literature, ending in a method of +detecting if milk be impoverished with water, and the amount thereof; +one leaf beginning with a genealogy, to be interrupted halfway down with +an entry that the brindle cow had calved,--that any attempts at +selection seemed desperate. His only complete work, 'An Enquiry +concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast,' even in the abstract of it +given by Mr. Hitchcock, would, by a rough computation of the printers, +fill five entire numbers of our journal, and as he attempts, by a new +application of decimal fractions, to identify it with the Emperor +Julian, seems hardly of immediate concern to the general reader. Even +the Table-Talk, though doubtless originally highly interesting in the +domestic circle, is so largely made up of theological discussion and +matters of local or preterite interest, that we have found it hard to +extract anything that would at all satisfy expectation. But, in order to +silence further inquiry, we subjoin a few passages as illustrations of +its general character.] + +I think I could go near to be a perfect Christian if I were always a +visitor, as I have sometimes been, at the house of some hospitable +friend. I can show a great deal of self-denial where the best of +everything is urged upon me with kindly importunity. It is not so very +hard to turn the other cheek for a kiss. And when I meditate upon the +pains taken for our entertainment in this life, on the endless variety +of seasons, of human character and fortune, on the costliness of the +hangings and furniture of our dwelling here, I sometimes feel a singular +joy in looking upon myself as God's guest, and cannot but believe that +we should all be wiser and happier, because more grateful, if we were +always mindful of our privilege in this regard. And should we not rate +more cheaply any honor that men could pay us, if we remembered that +every day we sat at the table of the Great King? Yet must we not forget +that we are in strictest bonds His servants also; for there is no +impiety so abject as that which expects to be _deadheaded (ut ita +dicam)_ through life, and which, calling itself trust in Providence, is +in reality asking Providence to trust us and taking up all our goods on +false pretences. It is a wise rule to take the world as we find it, not +always to leave it so. + +It has often set me thinking when I find that I can always pick up +plenty of empty nuts under my shagbark-tree. The squirrels know them by +their lightness, and I have seldom seen one with the marks of their +teeth in it. What a school-house is the world, if our wits would only +not play truant! For I observe that men set most store by forms and +symbols in proportion as they are mere shells. It is the outside they +want and not the kernel. What stores of such do not many, who in +material things are as shrewd as the squirrels, lay up for the spiritual +winter-supply of themselves and their children! I have seen churches +that seemed to me garners of these withered nuts, for it is wonderful +how prosaic is the apprehension of symbols by the minds of most men. It +is not one sect nor another, but all, who, like the dog of the fable, +have let drop the spiritual substance of symbols for their material +shadow. If one attribute miraculous virtues to mere holy water, that +beautiful emblem of inward purification at the door of God's house, +another cannot comprehend the significance of baptism without being +ducked over head and ears in the liquid vehicle thereof. + + +[Perhaps a word of historical comment may be permitted here. My late +reverend predecessor was, I would humbly affirm, as free from prejudice +as falls to the lot of the most highly favored individuals of our +species. To be sure, I have heard Him say that 'what were called strong +prejudices were in fact only the repulsion of sensitive organizations +from that moral and even physical effluvium through which some natures +by providential appointment, like certain unsavory quadrupeds, gave +warning of their neighborhood. Better ten mistaken suspicions of this +kind than one close encounter.' This he said somewhat in heat, on being +questioned as to his motives for always refusing his pulpit to those +itinerant professors of vicarious benevolence who end their discourses +by taking up a collection. But at another time I remember his saying, +'that there was one large thing which small minds always found room for, +and that was great prejudices.' This, however, by the way. The statement +which I purposed to make was simply this. Down to A.D. 1830, Jaalam had +consisted of a single parish, with one house set apart for religions +services. In that year the foundations of a Baptist Society were laid by +the labors of Elder Joash Q. Balcom, 2d. As the members of the new body +were drawn from the First Parish, Mr. Wilbur was for a time considerably +exercised in mind. He even went so far as on one occasion to follow the +reprehensible practice of the earlier Puritan divines in choosing a +punning text, and preached from Hebrews xiii, 9: 'Be not carried about +with _divers_ and strange doctrines.' He afterwards, in accordance with +one of his own maxims,--'to get a dead injury out of the mind as soon as +is decent, bury it, and then ventilate,'--in accordance with this maxim, +I say, he lived on very friendly terms with Rev. Shearjashub Scrimgour, +present pastor of the Baptist Society in Jaalam. Yet I think it was +never unpleasing to him that the church edifice of that society (though +otherwise a creditable specimen of architecture) remained without a +bell, as indeed it does to this day. So much seemed necessary to do away +with any appearance of acerbity toward a respectable community of +professing Christians, which might be suspected in the conclusion of the +above paragraph.--J.H.] + + +In lighter moods he was not averse from an innocent play upon words. +Looking up from his newspaper one morning, as I entered his study, he +said, 'When I read a debate in Congress, I feel as if I were sitting at +the feet of Zeno in the shadow of the Portico.' On my expressing a +natural surprise, he added, smiling, 'Why, at such times the only view +which honorable members give me of what goes on in the world is through +their intercalumniations.' I smiled at this after a moment's reflection, +and he added gravely, 'The most punctilious refinement of manners is the +only salt that will keep a democracy from stinking; and what are we to +expect from the people, if their representatives set them such lessons? +Mr. Everett's whole life has been a sermon from this text. There was, at +least, this advantage in duelling, that it set a certain limit on the +tongue. When Society laid by the rapier, it buckled on the more subtle +blade of etiquette wherewith to keep obtrusive vulgarity at bay.' In +this connection, I may be permitted to recall a playful remark of his +upon another occasion. The painful divisions in the First Parish, A.D. +1844, occasioned by the wild notions in respect to the rights of (what +Mr. Wilbur, so far as concerned the reasoning faculty, always called) +the unfairer part of creation, put forth by Miss Parthenia Almira Fitz, +are too well known to need more than a passing allusion. It was during +these heats, long since happily allayed, that Mr. Wilbur remarked that +'the Church had more trouble in dealing with one _she_resiarch than with +twenty _he_resiarchs,' and that the men's _conscia recti_, or certainty +of being right, was nothing to the women's. + +When I once asked his opinion of a poetical composition on which I had +expended no little pains, he read it attentively, and then remarked +'Unless one's thought pack more neatly in verse than in prose, it is +wiser to refrain. Commonplace gains nothing by being translated into +rhyme, for it is something which no hocus-pocus can transubstantiate +with the real presence of living thought. You entitle your piece, "My +Mother's Grave," and expend four pages of useful paper in detailing your +emotions there. But, my dear sir, watering does not improve the quality +of ink, even though you should do it with tears. To publish a sorrow to +Tom, Dick, and Harry is in some sort to advertise its unreality, for I +have observed in my intercourse with the afflicted that the deepest +grief instinctively hides its face with its hands and is silent. If your +piece were printed, I have no doubt it would be popular, for people like +to fancy that they feel much better than the trouble of feeling. I would +put all poets on oath whether they have striven to say everything they +possibly could think of, or to leave out all they could not help saying. +In your own case, my worthy young friend, what you have written is +merely a deliberate exercise, the gymnastic of sentiment. For your +excellent maternal relative is still alive, and is to take tea with me +this evening, D.V. Beware of simulated feeling; it is hypocrisy's first +cousin; it is especially dangerous to a preacher; for he who says one +day, "Go to, let me seem to be pathetic," may be nearer than he thinks +to saying, "Go to, let me seem to be virtuous, or earnest, or under +sorrow for sin." Depend upon it, Sappho loved her verses more sincerely +than she did Phaon, and Petrarch his sonnets better than Laura, who was +indeed but his poetical stalking-horse. After you shall have once heard +that muffled rattle of clods on the coffin-lid of an irreparable loss, +you will grow acquainted with a pathos that will make all elegies +hateful. When I was of your age, I also for a time mistook my desire to +write verses for an authentic call of my nature in that direction. But +one day as I was going forth for a walk, with my head full of an "Elegy +on the Death of Flirtilla," and vainly groping after a rhyme for _lily_ +that should not be _silly_ or _chilly_, I saw my eldest boy Homer busy +over the rain-water hogshead, in that childish experiment at +parthenogenesis, the changing a horse-hair into a water-snake. All +immersion of six weeks showed no change in the obstinate filament. Here +was a stroke of unintended sarcasm. Had I not been doing in my study +precisely what my boy was doing out of doors? Had my thoughts any more +chance of coming to life by being submerged in rhyme than his hair by +soaking in water? I burned my elegy and took a course of Edwards on the +Will. People do not make poetry; it is made out of _them_ by a process +for which I do not find myself fitted. Nevertheless, the writing of +verses is a good rhetorical exercitation, as teaching us what to shun +most carefully in prose. For prose bewitched is like window-glass with +bubbles in it, distorting what it should show with pellucid veracity.' + + +It is unwise to insist on doctrinal points as vital to religion. The +Bread of Life is wholesome and sufficing in itself, but gulped down with +these kickshaws cooked up by theologians, it is apt to produce an +indigestion, nay, eyen at last an incurable dyspepsia of scepticism. + + +One of the most inexcusable weaknesses of Americans is in signing their +names to what are called credentials. But for my interposition, a person +who shall be nameless would have taken from this town a recommendation +for an office of trust subscribed by the selectmen and all the voters of +both parties, ascribing to him as many good qualities as if it had been +his tombstone. The excuse was that it would be well for the town to be +rid of him, as it would erelong be obliged to maintain him. I would not +refuse my name to modest merit, but I would be as cautious as in signing +a bond. [I trust I shall be subjected to no imputation of unbecoming +vanity, if I mention the fact that Mr. W. indorsed my own qualifications +as teacher of the high-school at Pequash Junction. J.H.] When I see a +certificate of character with everybody's name to it, I regard it as a +letter of introduction from the Devil. Never give a man your name unless +you are willing to trust him with your reputation. + + +There seem nowadays to be two sources of literary inspiration,--fulness +of mind and emptiness of pocket. + + +I am often struck, especially in reading Montaigne, with the obviousness +and familiarity of a great writer's thoughts, and the freshness they +gain because said by him. The truth is, we mix their greatness with all +they say and give it our best attention. Johannes Faber sic cogitavit +would be no enticing preface to a book, but an accredited name gives +credit like the signature to a note of hand. It is the advantage of fame +that it is always privileged to take the world by the button, and a +thing is weightier for Shakespeare's uttering it by the whole amount of +his personality. + + +It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how +patient with overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no +injury while the other may he their ruin. + + +People are apt to confound mere alertness of mind with attention. The +one is but the flying abroad of all the faculties to the open doors and +windows at every passing rumor; the other is the concentration of every +one of them in a single focus, as in the alchemist over his alembic at +the moment of expected projection. Attention is the stuff that memory is +made of, and memory is accumulated genius. + + +Do not look for the Millennium as imminent. One generation is apt to get +all the wear it can out of the cast clothes of the last, and is always +sure to use up every paling of the old fence that will hold a nail in +building the new. + + +You suspect a kind of vanity in my genealogical enthusiasm. Perhaps you +are right; but it is a universal foible. Where it does not show itself +in a personal and private way, it becomes public and gregarious. We +flatter ourselves in the Pilgrim Fathers, and the Virginian offshoot of +a transported convict swells with the fancy ef a cavalier ancestry. +Pride of birth, I have noticed, takes two forms. One complacently traces +himself up to a coronet; another, defiantly, to a lapstone. The +sentiment is precisely the same in both cases, only that one is the +positive and the other the negative pole of it. + + +Seeing a goat the other day kneeling in order to graze with less +trouble, it seemed to me a type of the common notion of prayer. Most +people are ready enough to go down on their knees for material +blessings, but how few for those spiritual gifts which alone are an +answer to our orisons, if we but knew it! + + +Some people, nowadays, seem to have hit upon a new moralization of the +moth and the candle. They would lock up the light of Truth, lest poor +Psyche should put it out in her effort to draw nigh, to it. + + + + +No. X + +MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + + +DEAR SIR,--Your letter come to han' + Requestin' me to please be funny; +But I ain't made upon a plan + Thet knows wut's comin', gall or honey: +Ther' 's times the world does look so queer, + Odd fancies come afore I call 'em; +An' then agin, for half a year, + No preacher 'thout a call's more solemn. + +You're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, + Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish, 10 +An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, + I'd take an' citify my English. +I _ken_ write long-tailed, ef I please,-- + But when I'm jokin', no, I thankee; +Then, fore I know it, my idees + Run helter-skelter into Yankee. + +Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, + I tell ye wut, I hain't ben foolin'; +The parson's books, life, death, an' time + Hev took some trouble with my schoolin'; 20 +Nor th' airth don't git put out with me, + Thet love her 'z though she wuz a woman; +Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree + But half forgives my bein' human. + + +An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way + Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger; +Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, + While book-froth seems to whet your hunger; +For puttin' in a downright lick + 'twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can metch it, 30 +An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick + Ez stret-grained hickory does a hetchet. + +But when I can't, I can't, thet's all, + For Natur' won't put up with gullin'; +Idees you hev to shove an' haul + Like a druv pig ain't wuth a mullein: +Live thoughts ain't sent for; thru all rifts + O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards, +Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts + Feel thet th' old arth's a-wheelin' sunwards. 40 + +Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick + Ez office-seekers arter 'lection, +An' into ary place 'ould stick + Without no bother nor objection; +But sence the war my thoughts hang back + Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em, +An' subs'tutes,--_they_ don't never lack, + But then they'll slope afore you've mist 'em. + +Nothin' don't seem like wut it wuz; + I can't see wut there is to hender, 50 +An' yit my brains jes' go buzz, buzz, + Like bumblebees agin a winder; +'fore these times come, in all airth's row, + Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in, +Where I could hide an' think,--but now + It's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'. + +Where's Peace? I start, some clear-blown night, + When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number, +An' creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white, + Walk the col' starlight into summer; 60 +Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell + Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer +Than the last smile thet strives to tell + O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer. + +I hev been gladder o' sech things + Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover, +They filled my heart with livin' springs, + But now they seem to freeze 'em over; +Sights innercent ez babes on knee, + Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, 70 +Jes' coz they be so, seem to me + To rile me more with thoughts o' battle. + +Indoors an' out by spells I try; + Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin', +But leaves my natur' stiff and dry + Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin'; +An' her jes' keepin' on the same, + Calmer 'n a clock, an' never carin' +An' findin' nary thing to blame, + Is wus than ef she took to swearin'. 80 + +Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane + The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant, +But I can't hark to wut they're say'n', + With Grant or Sherman ollers present; +The chimbleys shudder in the gale, + Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' +Like a shot hawk, but all's ez stale + To me ez so much sperit-rappin'. + +Under the yaller-pines I house, + When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, 90 +An' hear among their furry boughs + The baskin' west-wind purr contented, +While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low + Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', +The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, + Further an' further South retreatin'. + +Or up the slippery knob I strain + An' see a hundred hills like islan's +Lift their blue woods in broken chain + Out o' the sea o' snowy silence; 100 +The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth, + Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin' +Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth + Of empty places set me thinkin'. + +Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows, + An' rattles di'mon's from his granite; +Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, + An' into psalms or satires ran it; +But he, nor all the rest thet once + Started my blood to country-dances, 110 +Can't set me goin' more 'n a dunce + Thet hain't no use for dreams an' fancies. + +Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street + I hear the drummers makin' riot, +An' I set thinkin' o' the feet + Thet follered once an' now are quiet,-- +White feet ez snowdrops innercent, + Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, +Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't, + No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin', 120 + +Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee? + Didn't I love to see 'em growin', +Three likely lads ez wal could be, + Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'? +I set an' look into the blaze + Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin', +Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways, + An' half despise myself for rhymin'. + +Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth + On War's red techstone rang true metal, 130 +Who ventered life an' love an' youth + For the gret prize o' death in battle? +To him who, deadly hurt, agen + Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, +Tippin' with fire the bolt of men + Thet rived the Rebel line asunder? + +'Tain't right to hev the young go fust, + All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces, +Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust + To try an' make b'lieve fill their places: 140 +Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, + Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in, +An' _thet_ world seems so fur from this + Lef' for us loafers to grow gray in! + +My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth + Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners; +I pity mothers, tu, down South, + For all they sot among the scorners: +I'd sooner take my chance to stan' + At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, 150 +Than at God's bar hol' up a han' + Ez drippin' red ez yourn, Jeff Davis! + +Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed + For honor lost an' dear ones wasted, +But proud, to meet a people proud, + With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted! +Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt, + An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter! +Longin' for you, our sperits wilt + Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. 160 + +Come, while our country feels the lift + Of a gret instinct shoutin' 'Forwards!' +An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift + Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards! +Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when + They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, +An' bring fair wages for brave men, + A nation saved, a race delivered! + + + +No. XI + +MR. HOSEA BIGLOW'S SPEECH IN MARCH MEETING + +TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +JAALAM, April 5, 1866. + + +MY DEAR SIR,-- + +(an' noticin' by your kiver thet you're some dearer than wut you wuz, I +enclose the deffrence) I dunno ez I know Jest how to interdoose this +las' perduction of my mews, ez Parson Wilber allus called 'em, which is +goin' to _be_ the last an' _stay_ the last onless sunthin' pertikler +sh'd interfear which I don't expec' ner I wun't yield tu ef it wuz ez +pressin' ez a deppity Shiriff. Sence Mr. Wilbur's disease I hevn't hed +no one thet could dror out my talons. He ust to kind o' wine me up an' +set the penderlum agoin' an' then somehow I seemed to go on tick as it +wear tell I run down, but the noo minister ain't of the same brewin' nor +I can't seem to git ahold of no kine of huming nater in him but sort of +slide rite off as you du on the eedge of a mow. Minnysteeril natur is +wal enough an' a site better'n most other kines I know on, but the other +sort sech as Welbor hed wuz of the Lord's makin' an' naterally more +wonderfle an' sweet tastin' leastways to me so fur as heerd from. He +used to interdooce 'em smooth ez ile athout sayin' nothin' in pertickler +an' I misdoubt he didn't set so much by the sec'nd Ceres as wut he done +by the Fust, fact, he let on onct thet his mine misgive him of a sort of +fallin' off in spots. He wuz as outspoken as a norwester _he_ wuz, but I +tole him I hoped the fall wuz from so high up thet a feller could ketch +a good many times fust afore comin' bunt onto the ground as I see Jethro +C. Swett from the meetin' house steeple up to th' old perrish, an' took +up for dead but he's alive now an' spry as wut you be. Turnin' of it +over I recelected how they ust to put wut they called Argymunce onto the +frunts of poymns, like poorches afore housen whare you could rest ye a +spell whilst you wuz concludin' whether you'd go in or nut espeshully +ware tha wuz darters, though I most allus found it the best plen to go +in fust an' think afterwards an' the gals likes it best tu. I dno as +speechis ever hez any argimunts to 'em, I never see none thet hed an' I +guess they never du but tha must allus be a B'ginnin' to everythin' +athout it is Etarnity so I'll begin rite away an' anybody may put it +afore any of his speeches ef it soots an' welcome. I don't claim no +paytent. + +THE ARGYMUNT + +Interducshin, w'ich may be skipt. Begins by talkin' about himself: +thet's jest natur an' most gin'ally allus pleasin', I b'leeve I've +notist, to _one_ of the cumpany, an' thet's more than wut you can say of +most speshes of talkin'. Nex' comes the gittin' the goodwill of the +orjunce by lettin' 'em gether from wut you kind of ex'dentally let drop +thet they air about East, A one, an' no mistaik, skare 'em up an' take +'em as they rise. Spring interdooced with a fiew approput flours. Speach +finally begins witch nobuddy needn't feel obolygated to read as I never +read 'em an' never shell this one ag'in. Subjick staited; expanded; +delayted; extended. Pump lively. Subjick staited ag'in so's to avide all +mistaiks. Ginnle remarks; continooed; kerried on; pushed furder; kind o' +gin out. Subjick _re_staited; dielooted; stirred up permiscoous. Pump +ag'in. Gits back to where he sot out. Can't seem to stay thair. Ketches +into Mr. Seaward's hair. Breaks loose ag'in an' staits his subjick; +stretches it; turns it; folds it; onfolds it; folds it ag'in so's't, no +one can't find it. Argoos with an imedginary bean thet ain't aloud to +say nothin' in replye. Gives him a real good dressin' an' is settysfide +he's rite. Gits into Johnson's hair. No use tryin' to git into his head. +Gives it up. Hez to stait his subjick ag'in; doos it back'ards, +sideways, eendways, criss-cross, bevellin', noways. Gits finally red on +it. Concloods. Concloods more. Reads some xtrax. Sees his subjick +a-nosin' round arter him ag'in. Tries to avide it. Wun't du. _Mis_states +it. Can't conjectur' no other plawsable way of staytin' on it. Tries +pump. No fx. Finely concloods to conclood. Yeels the flore. + +You kin spall an' punctooate thet as you please. I allus do, it kind of +puts a noo soot of close onto a word, thisere funattick spellin' doos +an' takes 'em out of the prissen dress they wair in the Dixonary. Ef I +squeeze the cents out of 'em it's the main thing, an' wut they wuz made +for: wut's left's jest pummis. + +Mistur Wilbur sez he to me onct, sez he, 'Hosee,' sez he, 'in +litterytoor the only good thing is Natur. It's amazin' hard to come at,' +sez he, 'but onct git it an' you've gut everythin'. Wut's the sweetest +small on airth?' sez he. 'Noomone hay,' sez I, pooty bresk, for he wuz +allus hankerin' round in hayin'. 'Nawthin' of the kine,' sez he. 'My +leetle Huldy's breath,' sez I ag'in. 'You're a good lad,' sez he, his +eyes sort of ripplin' like, for he lost a babe onct nigh about her +age,--'you're a good lad; but 'tain't thet nuther,' sez he. 'Ef you want +to know,' sez he, 'open your winder of a mornin' et ary season, and +you'll larn thet the best of perfooms is jest fresh air, _fresh air_,' +sez he, emphysizin', 'athout no mixtur. Thet's wut _I_ call natur in +writin', and it bathes my lungs and washes 'em sweet whenever I git a +whiff on 't.' sez he. I often think o' thet when I set down to write but +the winders air so ept to git stuck, an' breakin' a pane costs sunthin'. + +Yourn for the last time, + +_Nut_ to be continooed, + +HOSEA BIGLOW. + + +I don't much s'pose, hows'ever I should plen it, +I could git boosted into th' House or Sennit,-- +Nut while the twolegged gab-machine's so plenty, +'nablin' one man to du the talk o' twenty; +I'm one o' them thet finds it ruther hard +To mannyfactur' wisdom by the yard, +An' maysure off, accordin' to demand, +The piece-goods el'kence that I keep on hand, +The same ole pattern runnin' thru an' thru, +An' nothin' but the customer thet's new. 10 +I sometimes think, the furder on I go, +Thet it gits harder to feel sure I know, +An' when I've settled my idees, I find +'twarn't I sheered most in makin' up my mind; +'twuz this an' thet an' t'other thing thet done it, +Sunthin' in th' air, I couldn' seek nor shun it. +Mos' folks go off so quick now in discussion, +All th' ole flint-locks seems altered to percussion, +Whilst I in agin' sometimes git a hint, +Thet I'm percussion changin' back to flint; 20 +Wal, ef it's so, I ain't agoin' to werrit, +For th' ole Queen's-arm hez this pertickler merit,-- +It gives the mind a hahnsome wedth o' margin +To kin' o make its will afore dischargin': +I can't make out but jest one ginnle rule,-- +No man need go an' _make_ himself a fool, +Nor jedgment ain't like mutton, thet can't bear +Cookin' tu long, nor be took up tu rare. + +Ez I wuz say'n', I hain't no chance to speak +So's't all the country dreads me onct a week, 30 +But I've consid'ble o' thet sort o' head +Thet sets to home an' thinks wut _might_ be said, +The sense thet grows an' werrits underneath, +Comin' belated like your wisdom-teeth, +An' git so el'kent, sometimes, to my gardin +Thet I don' vally public life a fardin'. +Our Parson Wilbur (blessin's on his head!) +'mongst other stories of ole times he hed, +Talked of a feller thet rehearsed his spreads +Beforehan' to his rows o' kebbige-heads, 40 +(Ef 'twarn't Demossenes, I guess 'twuz Sisro,) +Appealin' fust to thet an' then to this row, +Accordin' ez he thought thet his idees +Their diff'runt ev'riges o' brains 'ould please; +'An',' sez the Parson, 'to hit right, you must +Git used to maysurin' your hearers fust; +For, take my word for 't, when all's come an' past, +The kebbige-heads'll cair the day et last; +Th' ain't ben a meetin' sence the worl' begun +But they made (raw or biled ones) ten to one.' 50 + +I've allus foun' 'em, I allow, sence then +About ez good for talkin' tu ez men; +They'll take edvice, like other folks, to keep, +(To use it 'ould be holdin' on 't tu cheap,) +They listen wal, don' kick up when you scold 'em, +An' ef they've tongues, hev sense enough to hold 'em; +Though th' ain't no denger we shall lose the breed, +I gin'lly keep a score or so for seed, +An' when my sappiness gits spry in spring, +So's't my tongue itches to run on full swing, 60 +I fin' 'em ready-planted in March-meetin', +Warm ez a lyceum-audience in their greetin', +An' pleased to hear my spoutin' frum the fence,-- +Comin', ez 't doos, entirely free 'f expense. +This year I made the follerin' observations +Extrump'ry, like most other tri'ls o' patience, +An', no reporters bein' sent express +To work their abstrac's up into a mess +Ez like th' oridg'nal ez a woodcut pictur' +Thet chokes the life out like a boy-constrictor, 70 +I've writ 'em out, an' so avide all jeal'sies +'twixt nonsense o' my own an' some one's else's. + +(N.B. Reporters gin'lly git a hint +To make dull orjunces seem 'live in print, +An', ez I hev t' report myself, I vum, +I'll put th' applauses where they'd _ough' to_ come!) + + +MY FELLER KEBBIGE-HEADS, who look so green, +I vow to gracious thet ef I could dreen +The world of all its hearers but jest you, +'twould leave 'bout all tha' is wuth talkin' to, 80 +An' you, my ven'able ol' frien's, thet show +Upon your crowns a sprinklin' o' March snow, +Ez ef mild Time had christened every sense +For wisdom's church o' second innocence. +Nut Age's winter, no, no sech a thing, +But jest a kin' o' slippin'-back o' spring,-- + [Sev'ril noses blowed.] +We've gathered here, ez ushle, to decide +Which is the Lord's an' which is Satan's side, +Coz all the good or evil thet can heppen +Is 'long o' which on 'em you choose for Cappen. + [Cries o' 'Thet's so.'] + +Aprul's come back; the swellin' buds of oak 91 +Dim the fur hillsides with a purplish smoke; +The brooks are loose an', singing to be seen, +(Like gals,) make all the hollers soft an' green; +The birds are here, for all the season's late; +They take the sun's height an' don' never wait; +Soon 'z he officially declares it's spring +Their light hearts lift 'em on a north'ard wing, +An' th' ain't an acre, fur ez you can hear, +Can't by the music tell the time o' year; 100 +But thet white dove Carliny seared away, +Five year ago, jes' sech an Aprul day; +Peace, that we hoped 'ould come an' build last year +An' coo by every housedoor, isn't here,-- +No, nor wun't never be, for all our jaw, +Till we're ez brave in pol'tics ez in war! +O Lord, ef folks wuz made so's't they could see +The begnet-pint there is to an idee! [Sensation.] +Ten times the danger in 'em th' is in steel; +They run your soul thru an' you never feel, 110 +But crawl about an' seem to think you're livin', +Poor shells o' men, nut wuth the Lord's forgivin', +Tell you come bunt ag'in a real live feet, +An' go to pieces when you'd ough' to ect! +Thet kin' o' begnet's wut we're crossin' now, +An' no man, fit to nevvigate a scow, +'ould stan' expectin' help from Kingdom Come, +While t'other side druv their cold iron home. + +My frien's, you never gethered from my mouth, +No, nut one word ag'in the South ez South, 120 +Nor th' ain't a livin' man, white, brown, nor black, +Gladder 'n wut I should be to take 'em back; +But all I ask of Uncle Sam is fust +To write up on his door, 'No goods on trust'; + [Cries o' 'Thet's the ticket!'] +Give us cash down in ekle laws for all, +An' they'll be snug inside afore nex' fall. +Give wut they ask, an' we shell hev Jamaker, +Wuth minus some consid'able an acre; +Give wut they need, an' we shell git 'fore long +A nation all one piece, rich, peacefle, strong; 130 +Make 'em Amerikin, an' they'll begin +To love their country ez they loved their sin; +Let 'em stay Southun, an' you've kep' a sore +Ready to fester ez it done afore. +No mortle man can boast of perfic' vision, +But the one moleblin' thing is Indecision, +An' th' ain't no futur' for the man nor state +Thet out of j-u-s-t can't spell great. +Some folks 'ould call thet reddikle, do you? +'Twas commonsense afore the war wuz thru; 140 +_Thet_ loaded all our guns an' made 'em speak +So's't Europe heared 'em clearn acrost the creek; +'They're drivin' o' their spiles down now,' sez she, +'To the hard grennit o' God's fust idee; +Ef they reach thet, Democ'cy needn't fear +The tallest airthquakes _we_ can git up here.' +Some call 't insultin' to ask _ary_ pledge, +An' say 'twill only set their teeth on edge, +But folks you've jest licked, fur 'z I ever see, +Are 'bout ez mad 'z they wal know how to be; 150 +It's better than the Rebs themselves expected +'fore they see Uncle Sam wilt down henpected; +Be kind 'z you please, but fustly make things fast, +For plain Truth's all the kindness thet'll last; +Ef treason is a crime, ez _some_ folks say, +How could we punish it in a milder way +Than sayin' to 'em, 'Brethren, lookee here, +We'll jes' divide things with ye, sheer an' sheer, +An' sence both come o' pooty strong-backed daddies, +You take the Darkies, ez we've took the Paddies; 160 +Ign'ant an' poor we took 'em by the hand, +An' they're the bones an' sinners o' the land,' +I ain't o' them thet fancy there's a loss on +Every inves'ment thet don't start from Bos'on; +But I know this: our money's safest trusted +In sunthin', come wut will, thet _can't_ be busted, +An' thet's the old Amerikin idee, +To make a man a Man an' let him be. [Gret applause.] + +Ez for their l'yalty, don't take a goad to 't, +But I do' want to block their only road to 't 170 +By lettin' 'em believe thet they can git +Mor'n wut they lost, out of our little wit: +I tell ye wut, I'm 'fraid we'll drif' to leeward +'thout we can put more stiffenin' into Seward; +He seems to think Columby'd better ect +Like a scared widder with a boy stiff-necked +Thet stomps an' swears he wun't come in to supper; +She mus' set up for him, ez weak ez Tupper, +Keepin' the Constitootion on to warm, +Tell he'll eccept her 'pologies in form: 180 +The neighbors tell her he's a cross-grained cuss +Thet needs a hidin' 'fore he comes to wus; +'No,' sez Ma Seward, 'he's ez good 'z the best, +All he wants now is sugar-plums an' rest;' +'He sarsed my Pa,' sez one; 'He stoned my son,' +Another edds, 'Oh wal, 'twuz jes' his fun.' +'He tried to shoot our Uncle Samwell dead.' +''Twuz only tryin' a noo gun he hed.' +'Wal, all we ask's to hev it understood +You'll take his gun away from him for good; 190 +We don't, wal, nut exac'ly, like his play, +Seem' he allus kin' o' shoots our way. +You kill your fatted calves to no good eend, +'thout his fust sayin', "Mother, I hev sinned!"' + ['Amen!' frum Deac'n Greenleaf] + +The Pres'dunt _he_ thinks thet the slickest plan +'ould be t' allow thet he's our on'y man, +An' thet we fit thru all thet dreffle war +Jes' for his private glory an' eclor; +'Nobody ain't a Union man,' sez he, +''thout he agrees, thru thick an' thin, with me; 200 +Warn't Andrew Jackson's 'nitials jes' like mine? +An' ain't thet sunthin' like a right divine +To cut up ez kentenkerous ez I please, +An' treat your Congress like a nest o' fleas?' +Wal, I expec' the People wouldn' care, if +The question now wuz techin' bank or tariff, +But I conclude they've 'bout made up their min' +This ain't the fittest time to go it blin', +Nor these ain't metters thet with pol'tics swings, +But goes 'way down amongst the roots o' things; 210 +Coz Sumner talked o' whitewashin' one day +They wun't let four years' war be throwed away. +'Let the South hev her rights?' They say, 'Thet's you! +But nut greb hold of other folks's tu.' +Who owns this country, is it they or Andy? +Leastways it ough' to be the People _and_ he; +Let him be senior pardner, ef he's so, +But let them kin' o' smuggle in ez Co; [Laughter.] +Did he diskiver it? Consid'ble numbers +Think thet the job wuz taken by Columbus. 220 +Did he set tu an' make it wut it is? +Ef so, I guess the One-Man-power _hez_ riz. +Did he put thru the rebbles, clear the docket, +An' pay th' expenses out of his own pocket? +Ef thet's the case, then everythin' I exes +Is t' hev him come an' pay my ennooal texes. + [Profoun' sensation.] +Was 't he thet shou'dered all them million guns? +Did he lose all the fathers, brothers, sons? +Is this ere pop'lar gov'ment thet we run +A kin' o' sulky, made to kerry one? 230 +An' is the country goin' to knuckle down +To hev Smith sort their letters 'stid o'Brown? +Who wuz the 'Nited States 'fore Richmon' fell? +Wuz the South needfle their full name to spell? +An' can't we spell it in thet short-han' way +Till th' underpinnin's settled so's to stay? +Who cares for the Resolves of '61, +Thet tried to coax an airthquake with a bun? +Hez act'ly nothin' taken place sence then +To larn folks they must hendle fects like men? 240 +Ain't _this_ the true p'int? Did the Rebs accep' 'em? +Ef nut, whose fault is 't thet we hevn't kep 'em? +Warn't there _two_ sides? an' don't it stend to reason +Thet this week's 'Nited States ain't las' week's treason? +When all these sums is done, with nothin' missed, +An' nut afore, this school 'll be dismissed. + +I knowed ez wal ez though I'd seen 't with eyes +Thet when the war wuz over copper'd rise, +An' thet we'd hev a rile-up in our kettle +'twould need Leviathan's whole skin to settle: 250 +I thought 'twould take about a generation +'fore we could wal begin to be a nation, +But I allow I never did imegine +'twould be our Pres'dunt thet 'ould drive a wedge in +To keep the split from closin' ef it could. +An' healin' over with new wholesome wood; +For th' ain't no chance o' healin' while they think +Thet law an' gov'ment's only printer's ink; +I mus' confess I thank him for discoverin' +The curus way in which the States are sovereign; 260 +They ain't nut _quite_ enough so to rebel, +But, when they fin' it's costly to raise h----, + [A groan from Deac'n G.] +Why, then, for jes' the same superl'tive reason, +They're 'most too much so to be tetched for treason; +They _can't_ go out, but ef they somehow _du_, +Their sovereignty don't noways go out tu; +The State goes out, the sovereignty don't stir, +But stays to keep the door ajar for her. +He thinks secession never took 'em out, +An' mebby he's correc', but I misdoubt? 270 +Ef they warn't out, then why, 'n the name o' sin, +Make all this row 'bout lettin' of 'em in? +In law, p'r'aps nut; but there's a diffurence, ruther, +Betwixt your mother-'n-law an' real mother, + [Derisive cheers.] +An' I, for one, shall wish they'd all ben _som'eres_, +Long 'z U.S. Texes are sech reg'lar comers. +But, O my patience! must we wriggle back +Into th' ole crooked, pettyfoggin' track, +When our artil'ry-wheels a road hev cut +Stret to our purpose ef we keep the rut? 280 +War's jes' dead waste excep' to wipe the slate +Clean for the cyph'rin' of some nobler fate. + [Applause.] +Ez for dependin' on their oaths an' thet, +'twun't bind 'em more 'n the ribbin roun' my het: +I heared a fable once from Othniel Starns, +That pints it slick ez weathercocks do barns; +Onct on a time the wolves hed certing rights +Inside the fold; they used to sleep there nights, +An' bein' cousins o' the dogs, they took +Their turns et watchin', reg'lar ez a book; 290 +But somehow, when the dogs hed gut asleep, +Their love o' mutton beat their love o' sheep, +Till gradilly the shepherds come to see +Things warn't agoin' ez they'd ough' to be; +So they sent off a deacon to remonstrate +Along 'th the wolves an' urge 'em to go on straight; +They didn't seem to set much by the deacon, +Nor preachin' didn' cow 'em, nut to speak on; +Fin'ly they swore thet they'd go out an' stay, +An' hev their fill o' mutton every day; 300 +Then dogs an' shepherds, after much hard dammin', + [Groan from Deac'n G.] +Turned tu an' give 'em a tormented lammin', +An' sez, 'Ye sha'n't go out, the murrain rot ye, +To keep us wastin' half our time to watch ye!' +But then the question come, How live together +'thout losin' sleep, nor nary yew nor wether? +Now there wuz some dogs (noways wuth their keep) +Thet sheered their cousins' tastes an' sheered the sheep; +They sez, 'Be gin'rous, let 'em swear right in, +An', ef they backslide, let 'em swear ag'in; 310 +Jes' let 'em put on sheep-skins whilst they're swearin'; +To ask for more 'ould be beyond all bearin'.' +'Be gin'rous for yourselves, where _you_'re to pay, +Thet's the best prectice,' sez a shepherd gray; +'Ez for their oaths they wun't be wuth a button, +Long 'z you don't cure 'em o' their taste for mutton; +Th' ain't but one solid way, howe'er you puzzle: +Tell they're convarted, let 'em wear a muzzle.' + [Cries of 'Bully for you!'] + +I've noticed thet each half-baked scheme's abetters +Are in the hebbit o' producin' letters 320 +Writ by all sorts o' never-heared-on fellers, +'bout ez oridge'nal ez the wind in bellers; +I've noticed, tu, it's the quack med'cine gits +(An' needs) the grettest heaps o' stiffykits; + [Two pothekeries goes out.] +Now, sence I lef off creepin' on all fours, +I hain't ast no man to endorse my course; +It's full ez cheap to be your own endorser, +An' ef I've made a cup, I'll fin' the saucer; +But I've some letters here from t'other side, +An' them's the sort thet helps me to decide; 330 +Tell me for wut the copper-comp'nies hanker, +An' I'll tell you jest where it's safe to anchor. [Faint hiss.] +Fus'ly the Hon'ble B.O. Sawin writes +Thet for a spell he couldn't sleep o' nights, +Puzzlin' which side wuz preudentest to pin to, +Which wuz th' ole homestead, which the temp'ry leanto; +Et fust he jedged 'twould right-side-up his pan +To come out ez a 'ridge'nal Union man, +'But now,' he sez, 'I ain't nut quite so fresh; +The winnin' horse is goin' to be Secesh; 340 +You might, las' spring, hev eas'ly walked the course, +'fore we contrived to doctor th' Union horse; +Now _we_'re the ones to walk aroun' the nex' track: +Jest you take hol' an' read the follerin' extrac', +Out of a letter I received last week +From an ole frien' thet never sprung a leak, +A Nothun Dem'crat o' th' ole Jarsey blue, +Born copper-sheathed an' copper-fastened tu.' + +'These four years past it hez ben tough +To say which side a feller went for; 350 +Guideposts all gone, roads muddy 'n' rough, +An' nothin' duin' wut 'twuz meant for; +Pickets a-firin' left an' right, +Both sides a lettin' rip et sight,-- +Life warn't wuth hardly payin' rent for. + +'Columby gut her back up so, +It warn't no use a-tryin' to stop her,-- +War's emptin's riled her very dough +An' made it rise an' act improper; +'Twuz full ez much ez I could du 360 +To jes' lay low an' worry thru, +'Thout hevin' to sell out my copper. + +'Afore the war your mod'rit men, +Could set an' sun 'em on the fences, +Cyph'rin' the chances up, an' then +Jump off which way bes' paid expenses; +Sence, 'twuz so resky ary way, +_I_ didn't hardly darst to say +I 'greed with Paley's Evidences. + [Groan from Deac'n G.] + +'Ask Mac ef tryin' to set the fence 370 +Warn't like bein' rid upon a rail on 't, +Headin' your party with a sense +O' bein' tipjint in the tail on 't, +An' tryin' to think thet, on the whole, +You kin' o' quasi own your soul +When Belmont's gut a bill o' sale on 't? + [Three cheers for Grant and Sherman.] + +'Come peace, I sposed thet folks 'ould like +Their pol'tics done ag'in by proxy; +Give their noo loves the bag an' strike +A fresh trade with their reg'lar doxy; 380 +But the drag's broke, now slavery's gone, +An' there's gret resk they'll blunder on, +Ef they ain't stopped, to real Democ'cy. + +'We've gut an awful row to hoe +In this 'ere job o' reconstructin'; +Folks dunno skurce which way to go, +Where th' ain't some boghole to be ducked in; +But one thing's clear; there _is_ a crack, +Ef we pry hard, 'twixt white an' black, +Where the ole makebate can be tucked in. 390 + +'No white man sets in airth's broad aisle +Thet I ain't willin' t' own ez brother, +An' ef he's happened to strike ile, +I dunno, fin'ly, but I'd ruther; +An' Paddies, long 'z they vote all right, +Though they ain't jest a nat'ral white, +I hold one on 'em good 'z another, + [Applause.] + +'Wut _is_ there lef I'd like to know, +Ef 'tain't the defference o' color, +To keep up self-respec' an' show 400 +The human natur' of a fullah? +Wut good in bein' white, onless +It's fixed by law, nut lef' to guess, +We're a heap smarter an' they duller? + +'Ef we're to hev our ekle rights, +'twun't du to 'low no competition; +Th' ole debt doo us for bein' whites +Ain't safe onless we stop th' emission +O' these noo notes, whose specie base +Is human natur', thout no trace 410 +O' shape, nor color, nor condition. + [Continood applause.] + +'So fur I'd writ an' couldn' jedge +Aboard wut boat I'd best take pessige, +My brains all mincemeat, 'thout no edge +Upon 'em more than tu a sessige, +But now it seems ez though I see +Sunthin' resemblin' an idee, +Sence Johnson's speech an' veto message. + +'I like the speech best, I confess, +The logic, preudence, an' good taste on 't; 420 +An' it's so mad, I ruther guess +There's some dependence to be placed on 't; [Laughter.] +It's narrer, but 'twixt you an' me, +Out o' the allies o' J.D. +A temp'ry party can be based on 't. + +'Jes' to hold on till Johnson's thru +An' dug his Presidential grave is, +An' _then!_--who knows but we could slew +The country roun' to put in----? +Wun't some folks rare up when we pull 430 +Out o' their eyes our Union wool +An' larn 'em wut a p'lit'cle shave is! + +'Oh, did it seem 'z ef Providunce +_Could_ ever send a second Tyler? +To see the South all back to once, +Reapin' the spiles o' the Free-siler, +Is cute ez though an ingineer +Should claim th' old iron for his sheer +Coz 'twas himself that bust the biler!' + [Gret laughter.] + +Thet tells the story! Thet's wut we shall git 440 +By tryin' squirtguns on the burnin' Pit; +For the day never comes when it'll du +To kick off Dooty like a worn-out shoe. +I seem to hear a whisperin' in the air, +A sighin' like, of unconsoled despair, +Thet comes from nowhere an' from everywhere, +An' seems to say, 'Why died we? warn't it, then, +To settle, once for all, thet men wuz men? +Oh, airth's sweet cup snetched from us barely tasted, +The grave's real chill is feelin' life wuz wasted! 450 +Oh, you we lef', long-lingerin' et the door, +Lovin' you best, coz we loved Her the more, +Thet Death, not we, had conquered, we should feel +Ef she upon our memory turned her heel, +An' unregretful throwed us all away +To flaunt it in a Blind Man's Holiday!' + +My frien's, I've talked nigh on to long enough. +I hain't no call to bore ye coz ye're tough; +My lungs are sound, an' our own v'ice delights +Our ears, but even kebbige-heads hez rights. 460 +It's the las' time thet I shell e'er address ye, +But you'll soon fin' some new tormentor: bless ye! + [Tumult'ous applause and cries of 'Go on!' 'Don't stop!'] + + + + +UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS + + + +TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON + +AGRO DOLCE + +The wind is roistering out of doors, +My windows shake and my chimney roars; +My Elmwood chimneys seem crooning to me, +As of old, in their moody, minor key, +And out of the past the hoarse wind blows, +As I sit in my arm-chair, and toast my toes. + +'Ho! ho! nine-and-forty,' they seem to sing, +'We saw you a little toddling thing. +We knew you child and youth and man, +A wonderful fellow to dream and plan, +With a great thing always to come,--who knows? +Well, well! 'tis some comfort to toast one's toes. + +'How many times have you sat at gaze +Till the mouldering fire forgot to blaze, +Shaping among the whimsical coals +Fancies and figures and shining goals! +What matters the ashes that cover those? +While hickory lasts you can toast your toes. + +'O dream-ship-builder: where are they all, +Your grand three-deckers, deep-chested and tall, +That should crush the waves under canvas piles, +And anchor at last by the Fortunate Isles? +There's gray in your beard, the years turn foes, +While you muse in your arm-chair, and toast your toes.' + +I sit and dream that I hear, as of yore, +My Elmwood chimneys' deep-throated roar; +If much be gone, there is much remains; +By the embers of loss I count my gains, +You and yours with the best, till the old hope glows +In the fanciful flame, as I toast my toes. + +Instead of a fleet of broad-browed ships, +To send a child's armada of chips! +Instead of the great gun, tier on tier, +A freight of pebbles and grass-blades sere! +'Well, maybe more love with the less gift goes,' +I growl, as, half moody, I toast my toes. + + + +UNDER THE WILLOWS + +Frank-hearted hostess of the field and wood, +Gypsy, whose roof is every spreading tree, +June is the pearl of our New England year. +Still a surprisal, though expected long. +Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait, +Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, +Then, from some southern ambush in the sky, +With one great gush of blossom storms the world. +A week ago the sparrow was divine; +The bluebird, shifting his light load of song 10 +From post to post along the cheerless fence, +Was as a rhymer ere the poet come; +But now, oh rapture! sunshine winged and voiced, +Pipe blown through by the warm wild breath of the West +Shepherding his soft droves of fleecy cloud, +Gladness of woods, skies, waters, all in one, +The bobolink has come, and, like the soul +Of the sweet season vocal in a bird, +Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what +Save _June! Dear June! Now God be praised for June_. 20 + +May is a pious fraud of the almanac, +A ghastly parody of real Spring +Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern wind; +Or if, o'er-confident, she trust the date, +And, with her handful of anemones, +Herself as shivery, steal into the sun, +The season need but turn his hour-glass round, +And Winter suddenly, like crazy Lear, +Reels back, and brings the dead May in his arms, +Her budding breasts and wan dislustred front 30 +With frosty streaks and drifts of his white beard +All overblown. Then, warmly walled with books, +While my wood-fire supplies the sun's defect, +Whispering old forest-sagas in its dreams, +I take my May down from the happy shelf +Where perch the world's rare song-birds in a row, +Waiting my choice to open with full breast, +And beg an alms of springtime, ne'er denied +Indoors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh woods +Throb thick with merle and mavis all the year. 40 + +July breathes hot, sallows the crispy fields, +Curls up the wan leaves of the lilac-hedge, +And every eve cheats us with show of clouds +That braze the horizon's western rim, or hang +Motionless, with heaped canvas drooping idly, +Like a dim fleet by starving men besieged, +Conjectured half, and half descried afar, +Helpless of wind, and seeming to slip back +Adown the smooth curve of the oily sea. + +But June is full of invitations sweet, 50 +Forth from the chimney's yawn and thrice-read tomes +To leisurely delights and sauntering thoughts +That brook no ceiling narrower than the blue. +The cherry, drest for bridal, at my pane +Brushes, then listens, _Will he come?_ The bee, +All dusty as a miller, takes his toll +Of powdery gold, and grumbles. What a day +To sun me and do nothing! Nay, I think +Merely to bask and ripen is sometimes +The student's wiser business; the brain 60 +That forages all climes to line its cells, +Ranging both worlds on lightest wings of wish, +Will not distil the juices it has sucked +To the sweet substance of pellucid thought, +Except for him who hath the secret learned +To mix his blood with sunshine, and to take +The winds into his pulses. Hush! 'tis he! +My oriole, my glance of summer fire, +Is come at last, and, ever on the watch, +Twitches the packthread I had lightly wound 70 +About the bough to help his housekeeping,-- +Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck, +Yet fearing me who laid it in his way, +Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs, +Divines the providence that hides and helps. +_Heave, ho! Heave, ho!_ he whistles as the twine +Slackens its hold; _once more, now!_ and a flash +Lightens across the sunlight to the elm +Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt. +Nor all his booty is the thread; he trails 80 +My loosened thought with it along the air, +And I must follow, would I ever find +The inward rhyme to all this wealth of life. + +I care not how men trace their ancestry, +To ape or Adam: let them please their whim; +But I in June am midway to believe +A tree among my far progenitors, +Such sympathy is mine with all the race, +Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet +There is between us. Surely there are times 90 +When they consent to own me of their kin, +And condescend to me, and call me cousin, +Murmuring faint lullabies of eldest time, +Forgotten, and yet dumbly felt with thrills +Moving the lips, though fruitless of all words. +And I have many a lifelong leafy friend, +Never estranged nor careful of my soul, +That knows I hate the axe, and welcomes me +Within his tent as if I were a bird, +Or other free companion of the earth, 100 +Yet undegenerate to the shifts of men. +Among them one, an ancient willow, spreads +Eight balanced limbs, springing at once all round +His deep-ridged trunk with upward slant diverse, +In outline like enormous beaker, fit +For hand of Jotun, where mid snow and mist +He holds unwieldy revel. This tree, spared, +I know not by what grace,--for in the blood +Of our New World subduers lingers yet +Hereditary feud with trees, they being 110 +(They and the red-man most) our fathers' foes,-- +Is one of six, a willow Pleiades, +The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink +Where the steep upland dips into the marsh, +Their roots, like molten metal cooled in flowing, +Stiffened in coils and runnels down the bank. +The friend of all the winds, wide-armed he towers +And glints his steely aglets in the sun, +Or whitens fitfully with sudden bloom +Of leaves breeze-lifted, much as when a shoal 120 +Of devious minnows wheel from where a pike +Lurks balanced 'neath the lily-pads, and whirl +A rood of silver bellies to the day. +Alas! no acorn from the British oak +'Neath which slim fairies tripping wrought those rings +Of greenest emerald, wherewith fireside life +Did with the invisible spirit of Nature wed, +Was ever planted here! No darnel fancy +Might choke one useful blade in Puritan fields; +With horn and hoof the good old Devil came, 130 +The witch's broomstick was not contraband, +But all that superstition had of fair, +Or piety of native sweet, was doomed. +And if there be who nurse unholy faiths, +Fearing their god as if he were a wolf +That snuffed round every home and was not seen, +There should be some to watch and keep alive +All beautiful beliefs. And such was that,-- +By solitary shepherd first surmised +Under Thessalian oaks, loved by some maid 140 +Of royal stirp, that silent came and vanished, +As near her nest the hermit thrush, nor dared +Confess a mortal name,--that faith which gave +A Hamadryed to each tree; and I +Will hold it true that in this willow dwells +The open-handed spirit, frank and blithe, +Of ancient Hospitality, long since, +With ceremonious thrift, bowed out of doors. + +In June 'tis good to lie beneath a tree +While the blithe season comforts every sense, 150 +Steeps all the brain in rest, and heals the heart, +Brimming it o'er with sweetness unawares, +Fragrant and silent as that rosy snow +Wherewith the pitying apple-tree fills up +And tenderly lines some last-year robin's nest. +There muse I of old times, old hopes, old friends,-- +Old friends! The writing of those words has borne +My fancy backward to the gracious past, +The generous past, when all was possible. +For all was then untried; the years between 160 +Have taught some sweet, some bitter lessons, none +Wiser than this,--to spend in all things else, +But of old friends to be most miserly. +Each year to ancient friendships adds a ring, +As to an oak, and precious more and more, +Without deservingness or help of ours, +They grow, and, silent, wider spread, each year, +Their unbought ring of shelter or of shade, +Sacred to me the lichens on the bark, +Which Nature's milliners would scrape away; 170 +Most dear and sacred every withered limb! +'Tis good to set them early, for our faith +Pines as we age, and, after wrinkles come, +Few plant, but water dead ones with vain tears. + +This willow is as old to me as life; +And under it full often have I stretched, +Feeling the warm earth like a thing alive, +And gathering virtue in at every pore +Till it possessed me wholly, and thought ceased, +Or was transfused in something to which thought 180 +Is coarse and dull of sense. Myself was lost. +Gone from me like an ache, and what remained +Become a part of the universal joy. +My soul went forth, and, mingling with the tree, +Danced in the leaves; or, floating in the cloud, +Saw its white double in the stream below; +Or else, sublimed to purer ecstasy, +Dilated in the broad blue over all. +I was the wind that dappled the lush grass, +The tide that crept with coolness to its roots, 190 +The thin-winged swallow skating on the air; +The life that gladdened everything was mine. +Was I then truly all that I beheld? +Or is this stream of being but a glass +Where the mind sees its visionary self, +As, when the kingfisher flits o'er his bay, +Across the river's hollow heaven below +His picture flits,--another, yet the same? +But suddenly the sound of human voice +Or footfall, like the drop a chemist pours, 200 +Doth in opacous cloud precipitate +The consciousness that seemed but now dissolved +Into an essence rarer than its own. +And I am narrowed to myself once more. + +For here not long is solitude secure, +Nor Fantasy left vacant to her spell. +Here, sometimes, in this paradise of shade, +Rippled with western winds, the dusty Tramp, +Seeing the treeless causey burn beyond, +Halts to unroll his bundle of strange food 210 +And munch an unearned meal. I cannot help +Liking this creature, lavish Summer's bedesman, +Who from the almshouse steals when nights grow warm, +Himself his large estate and only charge, +To be the guest of haystack or of hedge, +Nobly superior to the household gear +That forfeits us our privilege of nature. +I bait him with my match-box and my pouch, +Nor grudge the uncostly sympathy of smoke, +His equal now, divinely unemployed. 220 +Some smack of Robin Hood is in the man, +Some secret league with wild wood-wandering things; +He is our ragged Duke, our barefoot Earl, +By right of birth exonerate from toil, +Who levies rent from us his tenants all, +And serves the state by merely being. Here +The Scissors-grinder, pausing, doffs his hat, +And lets the kind breeze, with its delicate fan, +Winnow the heat from out his dank gray hair,-- +A grimy Ulysses, a much-wandered man, 230 +Whose feet are known to all the populous ways, +And many men and manners he hath seen, +Not without fruit of solitary thought. +He, as the habit is of lonely men,-- +Unused to try the temper of their mind +In fence with others,--positive and shy, +Yet knows to put an edge upon his speech, +Pithily Saxon in unwilling talk. +Him I entrap with my long-suffering knife, +And, while its poor blade hums away in sparks, 240 +Sharpen my wit upon his gritty mind, +In motion set obsequious to his wheel, +And in its quality not much unlike. + +Nor wants my tree more punctual visitors. +The children, they who are the only rich, +Creating for the moment, and possessing +Whate'er they choose to feign,--for still with them +Kind Fancy plays the fairy godmother, +Strewing their lives with cheap material +For wingèd horses and Aladdin's lamps, 250 +Pure elfin-gold, by manhood's touch profane +To dead leaves disenchanted,--long ago +Between the branches of the tree fixed seats, +Making an o'erturned box their table. Oft +The shrilling girls sit here between school hours, +And play at _What's my thought like?_ while the boys, +With whom the age chivalric ever bides, +Pricked on by knightly spur of female eyes, +Climb high to swing and shout on perilous boughs, +Or, from the willow's armory equipped 260 +With musket dumb, green banner, edgeless sword, +Make good the rampart of their tree-redoubt +'Gainst eager British storming from below, +And keep alive the tale of Bunker's Hill. + +Here, too, the men that mend our village ways, +Vexing Macadam's ghost with pounded slate, +Their nooning take; much noisy talk they spend +On horses and their ills; and, as John Bull +Tells of Lord This or That, who was his friend, +So these make boast of intimacies long 270 +With famous teams, and add large estimates, +By competition swelled from mouth to mouth. +Of how much they could draw, till one, ill pleased +To have his legend overbid, retorts: +'You take and stretch truck-horses in a string +From here to Long Wharf end, one thing I know, +Not heavy neither, they could never draw,-- +Ensign's long bow!' Then laughter loud and long. +So they in their leaf-shadowed microcosm +Image the larger world; for wheresoe'er 280 +Ten men are gathered, the observant eye +Will find mankind in little, as the stars +Glide up and set, and all the heavens revolve +In the small welkin of a drop of dew. + +I love to enter pleasure by a postern, +Not the broad popular gate that gulps the mob; +To find my theatres in roadside nooks, +Where men are actors, and suspect it not; +Where Nature all unconscious works her will, +And every passion moves with easy gait, 290 +Unhampered by the buskin or the train. +Hating the crowd, where we gregarious men +Lead lonely lives, I love society, +Nor seldom find the best with simple souls +Unswerved by culture from their native bent, +The ground we meet on being primal man, +And nearer the deep bases of our lives. + +But oh, half heavenly, earthly half, my soul, +Canst thou from those late ecstasies descend, +Thy lips still wet with the miraculous wine 300 +That transubstantiates all thy baser stuff +To such divinity that soul and sense, +Once more commingled in their source, are lost,-- +Canst thou descend to quench a vulgar thirst +With the mere dregs and rinsings of the world? +Well, if my nature find her pleasure so, +I am content, nor need to blush; I take +My little gift of being clean from God, +Not haggling for a better, holding it +Good as was ever any in the world, 310 +My days as good and full of miracle. +I pluck my nutriment from any bush, +Finding out poison as the first men did +By tasting and then suffering, if I must. +Sometimes my bush burns, and sometimes it is +A leafless wilding shivering by the wall; +But I have known when winter barberries +Pricked the effeminate palate with surprise +Of savor whose mere harshness seemed divine. + +Oh, benediction of the higher mood 320 +And human-kindness of the lower! for both +I will be grateful while I live, nor question +The wisdom that hath made us what we are, +With such large range as from the ale-house bench +Can reach the stars and be with both at home. +They tell us we have fallen on prosy days, +Condemned to glean the leavings of earth's feast +Where gods and heroes took delight of old; +But though our lives, moving in one dull round +Of repetition infinite, become 330 +Stale as a newspaper once read, and though +History herself, seen in her workshop, seem +To have lost the art that dyed those glorious panes, +Rich with memorial shapes of saint and sage, +That pave with splendor the Past's dusky aisles,-- +Panes that enchant the light of common day +With colors costly as the blood of kings, +Till with ideal hues it edge our thought,-- +Yet while the world is left, while nature lasts, +And man the best of nature, there shall be 340 +Somewhere contentment for these human hearts, +Some freshness, some unused material +For wonder and for song. I lose myself +In other ways where solemn guide-posts say, +_This way to Knowledge, This way to Repose_, +But here, here only, I am ne'er betrayed, +For every by-path leads me to my love. + +God's passionless reformers, influences, +That purify and heal and are not seen, +Shall man say whence your virtue is, or how 350 +Ye make medicinal the wayside weed? +I know that sunshine, through whatever rift, +How shaped it matters not, upon my walls +Paints discs as perfect-rounded as its source, +And, like its antitype, the ray divine, +However finding entrance, perfect still, +Repeats the image unimpaired of God. + +We, who by shipwreck only find the shores +Of divine wisdom, can but kneel at first; +Can but exult to feel beneath our feet, 360 +That long stretched vainly down the yielding deeps, +The shock and sustenance of solid earth; +Inland afar we see what temples gleam +Through immemorial stems of sacred groves, +And we conjecture shining shapes therein; +Yet for a space we love to wander here +Among the shells and seaweed of the beach. + +So mused I once within my willow-tent +One brave June morning, when the bluff northwest, +Thrusting aside a dank and snuffling day 370 +That made us bitter at our neighbors' sins, +Brimmed the great cup of heaven with sparkling cheer +And roared a lusty stave; the sliding Charles, +Blue toward the west, and bluer and more blue, +Living and lustrous as a woman's eyes +Look once and look no more, with southward curve +Ran crinkling sunniness, like Helen's hair +Glimpsed in Elysium, insubstantial gold; +From blossom-clouded orchards, far away +The bobolink tinkled; the deep meadows flowed 380 +With multitudinous pulse of light and shade +Against the bases of the southern hills, +While here and there a drowsy island rick +Slept and its shadow slept; the wooden bridge +Thundered, and then was silent; on the roofs +The sun-warped shingles rippled with the heat; +Summer on field and hill, in heart and brain, +All life washed clean in this high tide of June. + + + +DARA + +When Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand +Wilted with harem-heats, and all the land +Was hovered over by those vulture ills +That snuff decaying empire from afar, +Then, with a nature balanced as a star, +Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills. + +He who had governed fleecy subjects well +Made his own village by the selfsame spell +Secure and quiet as a guarded fold; +Then, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees 10 +Under his sway, to neighbor villages +Order returned, and faith and justice old. + +Now when it fortuned that a king more wise +Endued the realm with brain and hands and eyes, +He sought on every side men brave and just; +And having heard our mountain shepherd's praise, +How he refilled the mould of elder days, +To Dara gave a satrapy in trust. + +So Dara shepherded a province wide, +Nor in his viceroy's sceptre took more pride 20 +Than in his crook before; but envy finds +More food in cities than on mountains bare; +And the frank sun of natures clear and rare +Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish minds. + +Soon it was hissed into the royal ear, +That, though wise Dara's province, year by year, +Like a great sponge, sucked wealth and plenty up, +Yet, when he squeezed it at the king's behest, +Some yellow drops, more rich than all the rest, +Went to the filling of his private cup. 30 + +For proof, they said, that, wheresoe'er he went, +A chest, beneath whose weight the camel bent, +Went with him; and no mortal eye had seen +What was therein, save only Dara's own; +But, when 'twas opened, all his tent was known +To glow and lighten with heaped jewels' sheen. + +The King set forth for Dara's province straight; +There, as was fit, outside the city's gate, +The viceroy met him with a stately train, +And there, with archers circled, close at hand, 40 +A camel with the chest was seen to stand: +The King's brow reddened, for the guilt was plain. + +'Open me here,' he cried, 'this treasure-chest!' +'Twas done; and only a worn shepherd's vest +Was found therein. Some blushed and hung the head; +Not Dara; open as the sky's blue roof +He stood, and 'O my lord, behold the proof +That I was faithful to my trust,' he said. + +'To govern men, lo all the spell I had!' +My soul in these rude vestments ever clad 50 +Still to the unstained past kept true and leal, +Still on these plains could breathe her mountain air, +And fortune's heaviest gifts serenely bear, +Which bend men from their truth and make them reel. + +'For ruling wisely I should have small skill, +Were I not lord of simple Dara still; +That sceptre kept, I could not lose my way.' +Strange dew in royal eyes grew round and bright, +And strained the throbbing lids; before 'twas night +Two added provinces blest Dara's sway. 60 + + + +THE FIRST SNOW-FALL + +The snow had begun in the gloaming, + And busily all the night +Had been heaping field and highway + With a silence deep and white. + +Every pine and fir and hemlock + Wore ermine too dear for an earl, +And the poorest twig on the elm-tree + Was ridged inch deep with pearl. + +From sheds new-roofed with Carrara + Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, +The stiff rails softened to swan's-down, + And still fluttered down the snow. + +I stood and watched by the window + The noiseless work of the sky, +And the sudden flurries of snowbirds, + Like brown leaves whirling by. + +I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn + Where a little headstone stood; +How the flakes were folding it gently, + As did robins the babes in the wood. + +Up spoke our own little Mabel, + Saying, 'Father, who makes it snow?' +And I told of the good All-father + Who cares for us here below. + +Again I looked at the snow-fall, + And thought of the leaden sky +That arched o'er our first great sorrow, + When that mound was heaped so high. + +I remembered the gradual patience + That fell from that cloud like snow, +Flake by flake, healing and hiding + The scar that renewed our woe. + +And again to the child I whispered, + 'The snow that husheth all, +Darling, the merciful Father + Alone can make it fall!' + +Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her: + And she, kissing back, could not know +That _my_ kiss was given to her sister, + Folded close under deepening snow. + + + +THE SINGING LEAVES + +A BALLAD + +I + +'What fairings will ye that I bring?' + Said the King to his daughters three; +'For I to Vanity Fair am bound, +Now say what shall they be?' + +Then up and spake the eldest daughter, + That lady tall and grand: +'Oh, bring me pearls and diamonds great, + And gold rings for my hand.' + +Thereafter spake the second daughter, + That was both white and red: 10 +'For me bring silks that will stand alone, + And a gold comb for my head.' + +Then came the turn of the least daughter, + That was whiter than thistle-down, +And among the gold of her blithesome hair + Dim shone the golden crown. + +'There came a bird this morning, + And sang 'neath my bower eaves, +Till I dreamed, as his music made me, + "Ask thou for the Singing Leaves."' 20 + +Then the brow of the King swelled crimson + With a flush of angry scorn: +'Well have ye spoken, my two eldest, + And chosen as ye were born; + +'But she, like a thing of peasant race, + That is happy binding the sheaves;' +Then he saw her dead mother in her face, + And said, 'Thou shalt have thy leaves.' + + +II + +He mounted and rode three days and nights + Till he came to Vanity Fair, 30 +And 'twas easy to buy the gems and the silk, + But no Singing Leaves were there. + +Then deep in the greenwood rode he, + And asked of every tree, +'Oh, if you have ever a Singing Leaf, + I pray you give it me!' + +But the trees all kept their counsel, + And never a word said they, +Only there sighed from the pine-tops + A music of seas far away. 40 + +Only the pattering aspen + Made a sound of growing rain, +That fell ever faster and faster, + Then faltered to silence again. + +'Oh, where shall I find a little foot-page + That would win both hose and shoon, +And will bring to me the Singing Leaves + If they grow under the moon?' + +Then lightly turned him Walter the page, + By the stirrup as he ran: 50 +'Now pledge you me the truesome word + Of a king and gentleman, + +'That you will give me the first, first thing + You meet at your castle-gate, +And the Princess shall get the Singing Leaves, + Or mine be a traitor's fate.' + +The King's head dropt upon his breast + A moment, as it might be; +'Twill be my dog, he thought, and said, + 'My faith I plight to thee.' 60 + +Then Walter took from next his heart + A packet small and thin, +'Now give you this to the Princess Anne, + The Singing Leaves are therein.' + + +III + +As the King rode in at his castle-gate, + A maiden to meet him ran, +And 'Welcome, father!' she laughed and cried + Together, the Princess Anne. + +'Lo, here the Singing Leaves,' quoth he, + 'And woe, but they cost me dear!' 70 +She took the packet, and the smile + Deepened down beneath the tear. + +It deepened down till it reached her heart, + And then gushed up again, +And lighted her tears as the sudden sun + Transfigures the summer rain. + +And the first Leaf, when it was opened, + Sang: 'I am Walter the page, +And the songs I sing 'neath thy window + Are my only heritage.' 80 + +And the second Leaf sang: 'But in the land + That is neither on earth nor sea, +My lute and I are lords of more + Than thrice this kingdom's fee.' + +And the third Leaf sang, 'Be mine! Be mine!' + And ever it sang, 'Be mine!' +Then sweeter it sang and ever sweeter, + And said, 'I am thine, thine, thine!' + +At the first Leaf she grew pale enough, + At the second she turned aside, 90 +At the third, 'twas as if a lily flushed + With a rose's red heart's tide. + +'Good counsel gave the bird,' said she, + 'I have my hope thrice o'er, +For they sing to my very heart,' she said, + 'And it sings to them evermore.' + +She brought to him her beauty and truth, + But and broad earldoms three, +And he made her queen of the broader lands + He held of his lute in fee. 100 + + + +SEAWEED + +Not always unimpeded can I pray, +Nor, pitying saint, thine intercession claim; +Too closely clings the burden of the day, +And all the mint and anise that I pay +But swells my debt and deepens my self-blame. + +Shall I less patience have than Thou, who know +That Thou revisit'st all who wait for thee, +Nor only fill'st the unsounded deeps below, +But dost refresh with punctual overflow +The rifts where unregarded mosses be? + +The drooping seaweed hears, in night abyssed, +Far and more far the wave's receding shocks, +Nor doubts, for all the darkness and the mist, +That the pale shepherdess will keep her tryst, +And shoreward lead again her foam-fleeced flocks. + +For the same wave that rims the Carib shore +With momentary brede of pearl and gold, +Goes hurrying thence to gladden with its roar +Lorn weeds bound fast on rocks of Labrador, +By love divine on one sweet errand rolled. + +And, though Thy healing waters far withdraw, +I, too, can wait and feed on hope of Thee +And of the dear recurrence of Thy law, +Sure that the parting grace my morning saw +Abides its time to come in search of me. + + + +THE FINDING OF THE LYRE + +There lay upon the ocean's shore +What once a tortoise served to cover; +A year and more, with rush and roar, +The surf had rolled it over, +Had played with it, and flung it by, +As wind and weather might decide it, +Then tossed it high where sand-drifts dry +Cheap burial might provide it. + +It rested there to bleach or tan, +The rains had soaked, the suns had burned it; +With many a ban the fisherman +Had stumbled o'er and spurned it; +And there the fisher-girl would stay, +Conjecturing with her brother +How in their play the poor estray +Might serve some use or other. + +So there it lay, through wet and dry +As empty as the last new sonnet, +Till by and by came Mercury, +And, having mused upon it, +'Why, here,' cried he, 'the thing of things +In shape, material, and dimension! +Give it but strings, and, lo, it sings, +A wonderful invention!' + +So said, so done; the chords he strained, +And, as his fingers o'er them hovered, +The shell disdained a soul had gained, +The lyre had been discovered. +O empty world that round us lies, +Dead shell, of soul and thought forsaken, +Brought we but eyes like Mercury's, +In thee what songs should waken! + + + +NEW-YEAR'S EVE, 1850 + +This is the midnight of the century,--hark! +Through aisle and arch of Godminster have gone +Twelve throbs that tolled the zenith of the dark, +And mornward now the starry hands move on; +'Mornward!' the angelic watchers say, +'Passed is the sorest trial; +No plot of man can stay +The hand upon the dial; +Night is the dark stem of the lily Day.' + +If we, who watched in valleys here below, +Toward streaks, misdeemed of morn, our faces turned +When volcan glares set all the east aglow, +We are not poorer that we wept and yearned; +Though earth swing wide from God's intent, +And though no man nor nation +Will move with full consent +In heavenly gravitation, +Yet by one Sun is every orbit bent. + + + +FOR AN AUTOGRAPH + +Though old the thought and oft exprest, +'Tis his at last who says it best,-- +I'll try my fortune with the rest. + +Life is a leaf of paper white +Whereon each one of us may write +His word or two, and then comes night. + +'Lo, time and space enough,' we cry, +'To write an epic!' so we try +Our nibs upon the edge, and die. + +Muse not which way the pen to hold, +Luck hates the slow and loves the bold, +Soon come the darkness and the cold. + +Greatly begin! though thou have time +But for a line, be that sublime,-- +Not failure, but low aim, is crime. + +Ah, with what lofty hope we came! +But we forget it, dream of fame, +And scrawl, as I do here, a name. + + + +AL FRESCO + +The dandelions and buttercups +Gild all the lawn; the drowsy bee +Stumbles among the clover-tops, +And summer sweetens all but me: +Away, unfruitful lore of books, +For whose vain idiom we reject +The soul's more native dialect, +Aliens among the birds and brooks, +Dull to interpret or conceive +What gospels lost the woods retrieve! 10 +Away, ye critics, city-bred, +Who springes set of thus and so, +And in the first man's footsteps tread, +Like those who toil through drifted snow! +Away, my poets, whose sweet spell +Can make a garden of a cell! +I need ye not, for I to-day +Will make one long sweet verse of play. + +Snap, chord of manhood's tenser strain! +To-day I will be a boy again; 20 +The mind's pursuing element, +Like a bow slackened and unbent, +In some dark corner shall be leant. +The robin sings, as of old, from the limb! +The cat-bird croons in the lilac-bush! +Through the dim arbor, himself more dim, +Silently hops the hermit-thrush, +The withered leaves keep dumb for him; +The irreverent buccaneering bee +Hath stormed and rifled the nunnery 30 +Of the lily, and scattered the sacred floor +With haste-dropt gold from shrine to door; +There, as of yore, +The rich, milk-tingeing buttercup +Its tiny polished urn holds up, +Filled with ripe summer to the edge, +The sun in his own wine to pledge; +And our tall elm, this hundredth year +Doge of our leafy Venice here, +Who, with an annual ring, doth wed 40 +The blue Adriatic overhead, +Shadows with his palatial mass +The deep canals of flowing grass. + +O unestrangèd birds and bees! +O face of Nature always true! +O never-unsympathizing trees! +O never-rejecting roof of blue, +Whose rash disherison never falls +On us unthinking prodigals, +Yet who convictest all our ill, 50 +So grand and unappeasable! +Methinks my heart from each of these +Plucks part of childhood back again, +Long there imprisoned, as the breeze +Doth every hidden odor seize +Of wood and water, hill and plain: +Once more am I admitted peer +In the upper house of Nature here, +And feel through all my pulses run +The royal blood of wind and sun. 60 + +Upon these elm-arched solitudes +No hum of neighbor toil intrudes; +The only hammer that I hear +Is wielded by the woodpecker, +The single noisy calling his +In all our leaf-hid Sybaris; +The good old time, close-hidden here, +Persists, a loyal cavalier, +While Roundheads prim, with point of fox, +Probe wainscot-chink and empty box; 70 +Here no hoarse-voiced iconoclast, +Insults thy statues, royal Past; +Myself too prone the axe to wield, +I touch the silver side of the shield +With lance reversed, and challenge peace, +A willing convert of the trees. + +How chanced it that so long I tost +A cable's length from this rich coast, +With foolish anchors hugging close +The beckoning weeds and lazy ooze, 80 +Nor had the wit to wreck before +On this enchanted island's shore, +Whither the current of the sea, +With wiser drift, persuaded me? + +Oh, might we but of such rare days +Build up the spirit's dwelling-place! +A temple of so Parian stone +Would brook a marble god alone, +The statue of a perfect life, +Far-shrined from earth's bestaining strife. 90 +Alas! though such felicity +In our vext world here may not be, +Yet, as sometimes the peasant's hut +Shows stones which old religion cut +With text inspired, or mystic sign +Of the Eternal and Divine, +Torn from the consecration deep +Of some fallen nunnery's mossy sleep, +So, from the ruins of this day +Crumbling in golden dust away, 100 +The soul one gracious block may draw, +Carved with, some fragment of the law, +Which, set in life's prosaic wall, +Old benedictions may recall, +And lure some nunlike thoughts to take +Their dwelling here for memory's sake. + + + +MASACCIO + +IN THE BRANCACCI CHAPEL + +He came to Florence long ago, +And painted here these walls, that shone +For Raphael and for Angelo, +With secrets deeper than his own, +Then shrank into the dark again, +And died, we know not how or when. + +The shadows deepened, and I turned +Half sadly from the fresco grand; +'And is this,' mused I, 'all ye earned, +High-vaulted brain and cunning hand, +That ye to greater men could teach +The skill yourselves could never reach?' + +'And who were they,' I mused, 'that wrought +Through pathless wilds, with labor long, +The highways of our daily thought? +Who reared those towers of earliest song +That lift us from the crowd to peace +Remote in sunny silences?' + +Out clanged the Ave Mary bells, +And to my heart this message came: +Each clamorous throat among them tells +What strong-souled martyrs died in flame +To make it possible that thou +Shouldst here with brother sinners bow. + +Thoughts that great hearts once broke for, we +Breathe cheaply in the common air; +The dust we trample heedlessly +Throbbed once in saints and heroes rare, +Who perished, opening for their race +New pathways to the commonplace. + +Henceforth, when rings the health to those +Who live in story and in song, +O nameless dead, that now repose, +Safe in Oblivion's chambers strong, +One cup of recognition true +Shall silently be drained to you! + + + +WITHOUT AND WITHIN + +My coachman, in the moonlight there, + Looks through the side-light of the door; +I hear him with his brethren swear, + As I could do,--but only more. + +Flattening his nose against the pane, + He envies me my brilliant lot, +Breathes on his aching fists in vain, + And dooms me to a place more hot. + +He sees me in to supper go, + A silken wonder by my side, +Bare arms, bare shoulders, and a row + Of flounces, for the door too wide. + +He thinks how happy is my arm + 'Neath its white-gloved and jewelled load; +And wishes me some dreadful harm, + Hearing the merry corks explode. + +Meanwhile I inly curse the bore + Of hunting still the same old coon, +And envy him, outside the door, + In golden quiets of the moon. + +The winter wind is not so cold + As the bright smile he sees me win, +Nor the host's oldest wine so old + As our poor gabble sour and thin. + +I envy him the ungyved prance + With which his freezing feet he warms, +And drag my lady's chains and dance + The galley-slave of dreary forms. + +Oh, could he have my share of din, + And I his quiet!--past a doubt +'Twould still be one man bored within, + And just another bored without. + +Nay, when, once paid my mortal fee, + Some idler on my headstone grim +Traces the moss-blurred name, will he + Think me the happier, or I him? + + + +THE PARTING OF THE WAYS + + + +GODMINSTER CHIMES + +WRITTEN IN AID OF A CHIME OF BELLS FOR CHRIST CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE + +Godminster? Is it Fancy's play? + I know not, but the word +Sings in my heart, nor can I say + Whether 'twas dreamed or heard; +Yet fragrant in my mind it clings + As blossoms after rain, +And builds of half-remembered things + This vision in my brain. + +Through aisles of long-drawn centuries + My spirit walks in thought, +And to that symbol lifts its eyes + Which God's own pity wrought; +From Calvary shines the altar's gleam, + The Church's East is there, +The Ages one great minster seem, + That throbs with praise and prayer. + +And all the way from Calvary down + The carven pavement shows +Their graves who won the martyr's crown + And safe in God repose; +The saints of many a warring creed + Who now in heaven have learned +That all paths to the Father lead + Where Self the feet have spurned. + +And, as the mystic aisles I pace, + By aureoled workmen built, +Lives ending at the Cross I trace + Alike through grace and guilt; +One Mary bathes the blessed feet + With ointment from her eyes, +With spikenard one, and both are sweet, + For both are sacrifice. + +Moravian hymn and Roman chant + In one devotion blend, +To speak the soul's eternal want + Of Him, the inmost friend; +One prayer soars cleansed with martyr fire, + One choked with sinner's tears, +In heaven both meet in one desire, + And God one music hears. + +Whilst thus I dream, the bells clash out + Upon the Sabbath air, +Each seems a hostile faith to shout, + A selfish form of prayer: +My dream is shattered, yet who knows + But in that heaven so near +These discords find harmonious close + In God's atoning ear? + +O chime of sweet Saint Charity, + Peal soon that Easter morn +When Christ for all shall risen be, + And in all hearts new-born! +That Pentecost when utterance clear + To all men shall be given, +When all shall say _My Brother_ here, + And hear _My Son_ in heaven! + + + +THE PARTING OF THE WAYS + +Who hath not been a poet? Who hath not, +With life's new quiver full of wingèd years, +Shot at a venture, and then, following on, +Stood doubtful at the Parting of the Ways? + +There once I stood in dream, and as I paused, +Looking this way and that, came forth to me +The figure of a woman veiled, that said, +'My name is Duty, turn and follow me;' +Something there was that chilled me in her voice; +I felt Youth's hand grow slack and cold in mine, 10 +As if to be withdrawn, and I exclaimed: +'Oh, leave the hot wild heart within my breast! +Duty comes soon enough, too soon comes Death; +This slippery globe of life whirls of itself, +Hasting our youth away into the dark; +These senses, quivering with electric heats, +Too soon will show, like nests on wintry boughs +Obtrusive emptiness, too palpable wreck, +Which whistling north-winds line with downy snow +Sometimes, or fringe with foliaged rime, in vain, 20 +Thither the singing birds no more return.' + +Then glowed to me a maiden from the left, +With bosom half disclosed, and naked arms +More white and undulant than necks of swans; +And all before her steps an influence ran +Warm as the whispering South that opens buds +And swells the laggard sails of Northern May. +'I am called Pleasure, come with me!' she said, +Then laughed, and shook out sunshine from her hair, +Nor only that, but, so it seemed, shook out 30 +All memory too, and all the moonlit past, +Old loves, old aspirations, and old dreams, +More beautiful for being old and gone. + +So we two went together; downward sloped +The path through yellow meads, or so I dreamed, +Yellow with sunshine and young green, but I +Saw naught nor heard, shut up in one close joy; +I only felt the hand within my own, +Transmuting all my blood to golden fire, +Dissolving all my brain in throbbing mist. 40 + +Suddenly shrank the hand; suddenly burst +A cry that split the torpor of my brain, +And as the first sharp thrust of lightning loosens +From the heaped cloud its rain, loosened my sense: +'Save me!' it thrilled; 'oh, hide me! there is Death! +Death the divider, the unmerciful, +That digs his pitfalls under Love and Youth, +And covers Beauty up in the cold ground; +Horrible Death! bringer of endless dark; +Let him not see me! hide me in thy breast!' 50 +Thereat I strove to clasp her, but my arms +Met only what slipped crumbling down, and fell, +A handful of gray ashes, at my feet. + +I would have fled, I would have followed back +That pleasant path we came, but all was changed; +Rocky the way, abrupt, and hard to find; +Yet I toiled on, and, toiling on, I thought, +'That way lies Youth, and Wisdom, and all Good; +For only by unlearning Wisdom comes +And climbing backward to diviner Youth; 60 +What the world teaches profits to the world, +What the soul teaches profits to the soul, +Which then first stands erect with Godward face, +When she lets fall her pack of withered facts, +The gleanings of the outward eye and ear, +And looks and listens with her finer sense; +Nor Truth nor Knowledge cometh from without.' + +After long, weary days I stood again +And waited at the Parting of the Ways; +Again the figure of a woman veiled 70 +Stood forth and beckoned, and I followed now: +Down to no bower of roses led the path, +But through the streets of towns where chattering Cold +Hewed wood for fires whose glow was owned and fenced, +Where Nakedness wove garments of warm wool +Not for itself;--or through the fields it led +Where Hunger reaped the unattainable grain, +Where idleness enforced saw idle lands, +Leagues of unpeopled soil, the common earth, +Walled round with paper against God and Man. 80 +'I cannot look,' I groaned, 'at only these; +The heart grows hardened with perpetual wont, +And palters with a feigned necessity, +Bargaining with itself to be content; +Let me behold thy face.' + The Form replied: +'Men follow Duty, never overtake; +Duty nor lifts her veil nor looks behind.' +But, as she spake, a loosened lock of hair +Slipped from beneath her hood, and I, who looked +To see it gray and thin, saw amplest gold; 90 +Not that dull metal dug from sordid earth, +But such as the retiring sunset flood +Leaves heaped on bays and capes of island cloud. +'O Guide divine,' I prayed, 'although not yet +I may repair the virtue which I feel +Gone out at touch of untuned things and foul +With draughts of Beauty, yet declare how soon!' + +'Faithless and faint of heart,' the voice returned, +'Thou seest no beauty save thou make it first; +Man, Woman, Nature each is but a glass 100 +Where the soul sees the image of herself, +Visible echoes, offsprings of herself. +But, since thou need'st assurance of how soon, +Wait till that angel comes who opens all, +The reconciler, he who lifts the veil, +The reuniter, the rest-bringer, Death.' + +I waited, and methought he came; but how, +Or in what shape, I doubted, for no sign, +By touch or mark, he gave me as he passed; +Only I knew a lily that I held 110 +Snapt short below the head and shrivelled up; +Then turned my Guide and looked at me unveiled, +And I beheld no face of matron stern, +But that enchantment I had followed erst, +Only more fair, more clear to eye and brain, +Heightened and chastened by a household charm; +She smiled, and 'Which is fairer,' said her eyes, +'The hag's unreal Florimel or mine?' + + + +ALADDIN + +When I was a beggarly boy + And lived in a cellar damp, +I had not a friend nor a toy, + But I had Aladdin's lamp; +When I could not sleep for the cold, + I had fire enough in my brain, +And builded, with roofs of gold, + My beautiful castles in Spain! + +Since then I have toiled day and night, + I have money and power good store, +But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright + For the one that is mine no more; +Take, Fortune, whatever you choose, + You gave, and may snatch again; +I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose, + For I own no more castles in Spain! + + + +AN INVITATION + +TO J[OHN] F[RANCIS] H[EATH] + +Nine years have slipt like hour-glass sand +From life's still-emptying globe away, +Since last, dear friend, I clasped your hand, +And stood upon the impoverished land, +Watching the steamer down the bay. + +I held the token which you gave, +While slowly the smoke-pennon curled +O'er the vague rim 'tween sky and wave, +And shut the distance like a grave, +Leaving me in the colder world; 10 + +The old, worn world of hurry and heat, +The young, fresh world of thought and scope; +While you, where beckoning billows fleet +Climb far sky-beaches still and sweet, +Sank wavering down the ocean-slope. + +You sought the new world in the old, +I found the old world in the new, +All that our human hearts can hold, +The inward world of deathless mould, +The same that Father Adam knew. 20 + +He needs no ship to cross the tide, +Who, in the lives about him, sees +Fair window-prospects opening wide +O'er history's fields on every side, +To Ind and Egypt, Rome and Greece. + +Whatever moulds of various brain +E'er shaped the world to weal or woe, +Whatever empires' wax and wane +To him that hath not eyes in vain, +Our village-microcosm can show. 30 + +Come back our ancient walks to tread, +Dear haunts of lost or scattered friends, +Old Harvard's scholar-factories red, +Where song and smoke and laughter sped +The nights to proctor-haunted ends. + +Constant are all our former loves, +Unchanged the icehouse-girdled pond, +Its hemlock glooms, its shadowy coves, +Where floats the coot and never moves, +Its slopes of long-tamed green beyond. 40 + +Our old familiars are not laid, +Though snapt our wands and sunk our books; +They beckon, not to be gainsaid, +Where, round broad meads that mowers wade, +The Charles his steel-blue sickle crooks. + +Where, as the cloudbergs eastward blow, +From glow to gloom the hillsides shift +Their plumps of orchard-trees arow, +Their lakes of rye that wave and flow, +Their snowy whiteweed's summer drift. 50 + +There have we watched the West unfurl +A cloud Byzantium newly born, +With flickering spires and domes of pearl, +And vapory surfs that crowd and curl +Into the sunset's Golden Horn. + +There, as the flaming occident +Burned slowly down to ashes gray, +Night pitched o'erhead her silent tent, +And glimmering gold from Hesper sprent +Upon the darkened river lay, 60 + +Where a twin sky but just before +Deepened, and double swallows skimmed, +And from a visionary shore +Hung visioned trees, that more and more +Grew dusk as those above were dimmed. + +Then eastward saw we slowly grow +Clear-edged the lines of roof and spire, +While great elm-masses blacken slow, +And linden-ricks their round heads show +Against a flush of widening fire. 70 + +Doubtful at first and far away, +The moon-flood creeps more wide and wide; +Up a ridged beach of cloudy gray, +Curved round the east as round a bay, +It slips and spreads its gradual tide. + +Then suddenly, in lurid mood, +The disk looms large o'er town and field +As upon Adam, red like blood, +'Tween him and Eden's happy wood, +Glared the commissioned angel's shield. 80 + +Or let us seek the seaside, there +To wander idly as we list, +Whether, on rocky headlands bare, +Sharp cedar-horns, like breakers, tear +The trailing fringes of gray mist, + +Or whether, under skies full flown, +The brightening surfs, with foamy din, +Their breeze-caught forelocks backward blown, +Against the beach's yellow zone +Curl slow, and plunge forever in. 90 + +And, as we watch those canvas towers +That lean along the horizon's rim, +'Sail on,' I'll say; 'may sunniest hours +Convoy you from this land of ours, +Since from my side you bear not him!' + +For years thrice three, wise Horace said, +A poem rare let silence bind; +And love may ripen to the shade, +Like ours, for nine long seasons laid +In deepest arches of the mind. 100 + +Come back! Not ours the Old World's good, +The Old World's ill, thank God, not ours; +But here, far better understood, +The days enforce our native mood, +And challenge all our manlier powers. + +Kindlier to me the place of birth +That first my tottering footsteps trod; +There may be fairer spots of earth, +But all their glories are not worth +The virtue in the native sod. 110 + +Thence climbs an influence more benign +Through pulse and nerve, through heart and brain; +Sacred to me those fibres fine +That first clasped earth. Oh, ne'er be mine +The alien sun and alien rain! + +These nourish not like homelier glows +Or waterings of familiar skies, +And nature fairer blooms bestows +On the heaped hush of wintry snows, +In pastures dear to childhood's eyes, 120 + +Than where Italian earth receives +The partial sunshine's ampler boons, +Where vines carve friezes 'neath the eaves, +And, in dark firmaments of leaves, +The orange lifts its golden moons. + + + +THE NOMADES + +What Nature makes in any mood +To me is warranted for good, +Though long before I learned to see +She did not set us moral theses, +And scorned to have her sweet caprices +Strait-waistcoated in you or me. + +I, who take root and firmly cling, +Thought fixedness the only thing; +Why Nature made the butterflies, +(Those dreams of wings that float and hover 10 +At noon the slumberous poppies over,) +Was something hidden from mine eyes, + +Till once, upon a rock's brown bosom, +Bright as a thorny cactus-blossom, +I saw a butterfly at rest; +Then first of both I felt the beauty; +The airy whim, the grim-set duty, +Each from the other took its best. + +Clearer it grew than winter sky +That Nature still had reasons why; 20 +And, shifting sudden as a breeze, +My fancy found no satisfaction, +No antithetic sweet attraction, +So great as in the Nomades. + +Scythians, with Nature not at strife, +Light Arabs of our complex life, +They build no houses, plant no mills +To utilize Time's sliding river, +Content that it flow waste forever, +If they, like it, may have their wills. 30 + +An hour they pitch their shifting tents +In thoughts, in feelings, and events; +Beneath the palm-trees, on the grass, +They sing, they dance, make love, and chatter, +Vex the grim temples with their clatter, +And make Truth's fount their looking-glass. + +A picnic life; from love to love, +From faith to faith they lightly move, +And yet, hard-eyed philosopher, +The flightiest maid that ever hovered 40 +To me your thought-webs fine discovered, +No lens to see them through like her. + +So witchingly her finger-tips +To Wisdom, as away she trips, +She kisses, waves such sweet farewells +To Duty, as she laughs 'To-morrow!' +That both from that mad contrast borrow +A perfectness found nowhere else. + +The beach-bird on its pearly verge +Follows and flies the whispering surge, 50 +While, in his tent, the rock-stayed shell +Awaits the flood's star-timed vibrations, +And both, the flutter and the patience, +The sauntering poet loves them well. + +Fulfil so much of God's decree +As works its problem out in thee, +Nor dream that in thy breast alone +The conscience of the changeful seasons, +The Will that in the planets reasons +With space-wide logic, has its throne. 60 + +Thy virtue makes not vice of mine, +Unlike, but none the less divine; +Thy toil adorns, not chides, my play; +Nature of sameness is so chary, +With such wild whim the freakish fairy +Picks presents for the christening-day. + + + +SELF-STUDY + +A presence both by night and day, + That made my life seem just begun, +Yet scarce a presence, rather say + The warning aureole of one. + +And yet I felt it everywhere; + Walked I the woodland's aisles along, +It seemed to brush me with its hair; + Bathed I, I heard a mermaid's song. + +How sweet it was! A buttercup + Could hold for me a day's delight, +A bird could lift my fancy up + To ether free from cloud or blight. + +Who was the nymph? Nay, I will see, + Methought, and I will know her near; +If such, divined, her charm can be, + Seen and possessed, how triply dear! + +So every magic art I tried, + And spells as numberless as sand, +Until, one evening, by my side + I saw her glowing fulness stand. + +I turned to clasp her, but 'Farewell,' + Parting she sighed, 'we meet no more; +Not by my hand the curtain fell + That leaves you conscious, wise, and poor. + +'Since you nave found me out, I go; + Another lover I must find, +Content his happiness to know, + Nor strive its secret to unwind.' + + + +PICTURES FROM APPLEDORE + +I + +A heap of bare and splintery crags +Tumbled about by lightning and frost, +With rifts and chasms and storm-bleached jags, +That wait and growl for a ship to be lost; +No island, but rather the skeleton +Of a wrecked and vengeance-smitten one, +Where, æons ago, with half-shut eye, +The sluggish saurian crawled to die, +Gasping under titanic ferns; +Ribs of rock that seaward jut, 10 +Granite shoulders and boulders and snags, +Round which, though the winds in heaven be shut, +The nightmared ocean murmurs and yearns, +Welters, and swashes, and tosses, and turns, +And the dreary black seaweed lolls and wags; +Only rock from shore to shore, +Only a moan through the bleak clefts blown, +With sobs in the rifts where the coarse kelp shifts, +Falling and lifting, tossing and drifting, +And under all a deep, dull roar, 20 +Dying and swelling, forevermore,-- +Rock and moan and roar alone, +And the dread of some nameless thing unknown, +These make Appledore. + +These make Appledore by night: +Then there are monsters left and right; +Every rock is a different monster; +All you have read of, fancied, dreamed, +When you waked at night because you screamed, +There they lie for half a mile, 30 +Jumbled together in a pile, +And (though you know they never once stir) +If you look long, they seem to be moving +Just as plainly as plain can be, +Crushing and crowding, wading and shoving +Out into the awful sea, +Where you can hear them snort and spout +With pauses between, as if they were listening, +Then tumult anon when the surf breaks glistening +In the blackness where they wallow about. 40 + + +II + +All this you would scarcely comprehend, +Should you see the isle on a sunny day; +Then it is simple enough in its way,-- +Two rocky bulges, one at each end, +With a smaller bulge and a hollow between; +Patches of whortleberry and bay; +Accidents of open green, +Sprinkled with loose slabs square and gray, +Like graveyards for ages deserted; a few +Unsocial thistles; an elder or two, 50 +Foamed over with blossoms white as spray; +And on the whole island never a tree +Save a score of sumachs, high as your knee. +That crouch in hollows where they may, +(The cellars where once stood a village, men say,) +Huddling for warmth, and never grew +Tall enough for a peep at the sea; +A general dazzle of open blue; +A breeze always blowing and playing rat-tat +With the bow of the ribbon round your hat; 60 +A score of sheep that do nothing but stare +Up or down at you everywhere; +Three or four cattle that chew the cud +Lying about in a listless despair; +A medrick that makes you look overhead +With short, sharp scream, as he sights his prey, +And, dropping straight and swift as lead, +Splits the water with sudden thud;-- +This is Appledore by day. + +A common island, you will say; 70 +But stay a moment: only climb +Up to the highest rock of the isle, +Stand there alone for a little while, +And with gentle approaches it grows sublime, +Dilating slowly as you win +A sense from the silence to take it in. +So wide the loneness, so lucid the air, +The granite beneath you so savagely bare, +You well might think you were looking down +From some sky-silenced mountain's crown, 80 +Whose waist-belt of pines is wont to tear +Locks of wool from the topmost cloud. +Only be sure you go alone, +For Grandeur is inaccessibly proud, +And never yet has backward thrown +Her veil to feed the stare of a crowd; +To more than one was never shown +That awful front, nor is it fit +That she, Cothurnus-shod, stand bowed +Until the self-approving pit 90 +Enjoy the gust of its own wit +In babbling plaudits cheaply loud; +She hides her mountains and her sea +From the harriers of scenery, +Who hunt down sunsets, and huddle and bay, +Mouthing and mumbling the dying day. + +Trust me, 'tis something to be cast +Face to face with one's Self at last, +To be taken out of the fuss and strife, +The endless clatter of plate and knife, 100 +The bore of books and the bores of the street, +From the singular mess we agree to call Life, +Where that is best which the most fools vote is, +And planted firm on one's own two feet +So nigh to the great warm heart of God, +You almost seem to feel it beat +Down from the sunshine and up from the sod; +To be compelled, as it were, to notice +All the beautiful changes and chances +Through which the landscape flits and glances, 110 +And to see how the face of common day +Is written all over with tender histories, +When you study it that intenser way +In which a lover looks at his mistress. + +Till now you dreamed not what could be done +With a bit of rock and a ray of sun: +But look, how fade the lights and shades +Of keen bare edge and crevice deep! +How doubtfully it fades and fades, +And glows again, yon craggy steep, 120 +O'er which, through color's dreamiest grades, +The musing sunbeams pause and creep! +Now pink it blooms, now glimmers gray, +Now shadows to a filmy blue, +Tries one, tries all, and will not stay, +But flits from opal hue to hue, +And runs through every tenderest range +Of change that seems not to be change, +So rare the sweep, so nice the art, +That lays no stress on any part, 130 +But shifts and lingers and persuades; +So soft that sun-brush in the west, +That asks no costlier pigments' aids, +But mingling knobs, flaws, angles, dints, +Indifferent of worst or best, +Enchants the cliffs with wraiths and hints +And gracious preludings of tints, +Where all seems fixed, yet all evades, +And indefinably pervades +Perpetual movement with perpetual rest! 140 + + +III + +Away northeast is Boone Island light; +You might mistake it for a ship, +Only it stands too plumb upright, +And like the others does not slip +Behind the sea's unsteady brink; +Though, if a cloud-shade chance to dip +Upon it a moment, 'twill suddenly sink, +Levelled and lost in the darkened main, +Till the sun builds it suddenly up again, +As if with a rub of Aladdin's lamp. 150 +On the mainland you see a misty camp +Of mountains pitched tumultuously: +That one looming so long and large +Is Saddleback, and that point you see +Over yon low and rounded marge, +Like the boss of a sleeping giant's targe +Laid over his breast, is Ossipee; +That shadow there may be Kearsarge; +That must be Great Haystack; I love these names, +Wherewith the lonely farmer tames 160 +Nature to mute companionship +With his own mind's domestic mood, +And strives the surly world to clip +In the arms of familiar habitude. +'Tis well he could not contrive to make +A Saxon of Agamenticus: +He glowers there to the north of us, +Wrapt in his blanket of blue haze, +Unconvertibly savage, and scorns to take +The white man's baptism or his ways. 170 +Him first on shore the coaster divines +Through the early gray, and sees him shake +The morning mist from his scalp-lock of pines; +Him first the skipper makes out in the west, +Ere the earliest sunstreak shoots tremulous, +Plashing with orange the palpitant lines +Of mutable billow, crest after crest, +And murmurs _Agamenticus!_ +As if it were the name of a saint. +But is that a mountain playing cloud, 180 +Or a cloud playing mountain, just there, so faint? +Look along over the low right shoulder +Of Agamenticus into that crowd +Of brassy thunderheads behind it; +Now you have caught it, but, ere you are older +By half an hour, you will lose it and find it +A score of times; while you look 'tis gone, +And, just as you've given it up, anon +It is there again, till your weary eyes +Fancy they see it waver and rise, 190 +With its brother clouds; it is Agiochook, +There if you seek not, and gone if you look, +Ninety miles off as the eagle flies. + +But mountains make not all the shore +The mainland shows to Appledore: +Eight miles the heaving water spreads +To a long, low coast with beaches and heads +That run through unimagined mazes, +As the lights and shades and magical hazes +Put them away or bring them near, 200 +Shimmering, sketched out for thirty miles +Between two capes that waver like threads, +And sink in the ocean, and reappear, +Crumbled and melted to little isles +With filmy trees, that seem the mere +Half-fancies of drowsy atmosphere; +And see the beach there, where it is +Flat as a threshing-floor, beaten and packed +With the flashing flails of weariless seas, +How it lifts and looms to a precipice, 210 +O'er whose square front, a dream, no more, +The steepened sand-stripes seem to pour, +A murmurless vision of cataract; +You almost fancy you hear a roar, +Fitful and faint from the distance wandering; +But 'tis only the blind old ocean maundering, +Raking the shingle to and fro, +Aimlessly clutching and letting go +The kelp-haired sedges of Appledore, +Slipping down with a sleepy forgetting, 220 +And anon his ponderous shoulder setting, +With a deep, hoarse pant against Appledore. + + +IV + +Eastward as far as the eye can see, +Still eastward, eastward, endlessly, +The sparkle and tremor of purple sea +That rises before you, a flickering hill, +On and on to the shut of the sky, +And beyond, you fancy it sloping until +The same multitudinous throb and thrill +That vibrate under your dizzy eye 230 +In ripples of orange and pink are sent +Where the poppied sails doze on the yard, +And the clumsy junk and proa lie +Sunk deep with precious woods and nard, +'Mid the palmy isles of the Orient. +Those leaning towers of clouded white +On the farthest brink of doubtful ocean, +That shorten and shorten out of sight, +Yet seem on the selfsame spot to stay, +Receding with a motionless motion, 240 +Fading to dubious films of gray, +Lost, dimly found, then vanished wholly, +Will rise again, the great world under, +First films, then towers, then high-heaped clouds, +Whose nearing outlines sharpen slowly +Into tall ships with cobweb shrouds, +That fill long Mongol eyes with wonder, +Crushing the violet wave to spray +Past some low headland of Cathay;-- +What was that sigh which seemed so near, 250 +Chilling your fancy to the core? +'Tis only the sad old sea you hear, +That seems to seek forevermore +Something it cannot find, and so, +Sighing, seeks on, and tells its woe +To the pitiless breakers of Appledore. + + +V + +How looks Appledore in a storm? + I have seen it when its crags seemed frantic, + Butting against the mad Atlantic, +When surge on surge would heap enorme, 260 + Cliffs of emerald topped with snow, + That lifted and lifted, and then let go +A great white avalanche of thunder, + A grinding, blinding, deafening ire +Monadnock might have trembled under; + And the island, whose rock-roots pierce below + To where they are warmed with the central fire, +You could feel its granite fibres racked, + As it seemed to plunge with a shudder and thrill + Right at the breast of the swooping hill, 270 +And to rise again snorting a cataract +Of rage-froth from every cranny and ledge, + While the sea drew its breath in hoarse and deep, +And the next vast breaker curled its edge, + Gathering itself for a mightier leap. + +North, east, and south there are reefs and breakers + You would never dream of in smooth weather, +That toss and gore the sea for acres, + Bellowing and gnashing and snarling together; +Look northward, where Duck Island lies, 280 +And over its crown you will see arise, +Against a background of slaty skies, + A row of pillars still and white, + That glimmer, and then are gone from sight, +As if the moon should suddenly kiss, + While you crossed the gusty desert by night, +The long colonnades of Persepolis; +Look southward for White Island light, + The lantern stands ninety feet o'er the tide; +There is first a half-mile of tumult and fight, 290 +Of dash and roar and tumble and fright, + And surging bewilderment wild and wide, +Where the breakers struggle left and right, + Then a mile or more of rushing sea, +And then the lighthouse slim and lone; +And whenever the weight of ocean is thrown +Full and fair on White Island head, + A great mist-jotun you will see + Lifting himself up silently +High and huge o'er the lighthouse top, 300 +With hands of wavering spray outspread, + Groping after the little tower, + That seems to shrink and shorten and cower, +Till the monster's arms of a sudden drop, + And silently and fruitlessly + He sinks back into the sea. + +You, meanwhile, where drenched you stand, + Awaken once more to the rush and roar, +And on the rock-point tighten your hand, +As you turn and see a valley deep, 310 + That was not there a moment before, +Suck rattling down between you and a heap + Of toppling billow, whose instant fall + Must sink the whole island once for all, +Or watch the silenter, stealthier seas + Feeling their way to you more and more; +If they once should clutch you high as the knees, +They would whirl you down like a sprig of kelp, +Beyond all reach of hope or help;-- + And such in a storm is Appledore. 320 + + +VI + +'Tis the sight of a lifetime to behold +The great shorn sun as you see it now, +Across eight miles of undulant gold +That widens landward, weltered and rolled, +With freaks of shadow and crimson stains; +To see the solid mountain brow +As it notches the disk, and gains and gains, +Until there comes, you scarce know when, +A tremble of fire o'er the parted lips +Of cloud and mountain, which vanishes; then 330 +From the body of day the sun-soul slips +And the face of earth darkens; but now the strips +Of western vapor, straight and thin, +From which the horizon's swervings win +A grace of contrast, take fire and burn +Like splinters of touchwood, whose edges a mould +Of ashes o'er feathers; northward turn +For an instant, and let your eye grow cold +On Agamenticus, and when once more +You look, 'tis as if the land-breeze, growing, 340 +From the smouldering brands the film were blowing, +And brightening them down to the very core; +Yet, they momently cool and dampen and deaden, +The crimson turns golden, the gold turns leaden, +Hardening into one black bar +O'er which, from the hollow heaven afar, +Shoots a splinter of light like diamond, +Half seen, half fancied; by and by +Beyond whatever is most beyond +In the uttermost waste of desert sky, 350 +Grows a star; +And over it, visible spirit of dew,-- +Ah, stir not, speak not, hold your breath, +Or surely the miracle vanisheth,-- +The new moon, tranced in unspeakable blue! +No frail illusion; this were true, +Rather, to call it the canoe +Hollowed out of a single pearl, +That floats us from the Present's whirl +Back to those beings which were ours, 360 +When wishes were wingèd things like powers! +Call it not light, that mystery tender, +Which broods upon the brooding ocean, +That flush of ecstasied surrender +To indefinable emotion, +That glory, mellower than a mist +Of pearl dissolved with amethyst, +Which rims Square Rock, like what they paint +Of mitigated heavenly splendor +Round the stern forehead of a Saint! 370 + +No more a vision, reddened, largened, +The moon dips toward her mountain nest, +And, fringing it with palest argent, +Slow sheathes herself behind the margent +Of that long cloud-bar in the West, +Whose nether edge, erelong, you see +The silvery chrism in turn anoint, +And then the tiniest rosy point +Touched doubtfully and timidly +Into the dark blue's chilly strip, +As some mute, wondering thing below, 381 +Awakened by the thrilling glow, +Might, looking up, see Dian dip +One lucent foot's delaying tip +In Latmian fountains long ago. + +Knew you what silence was before? +Here is no startle of dreaming bird +That sings in his sleep, or strives to sing; +Here is no sough of branches stirred, +Nor noise of any living thing, 390 +Such as one hears by night on shore; +Only, now and then, a sigh, +With fickle intervals between, +Sometimes far, and sometimes nigh, +Such as Andromeda might have heard, +And fancied the huge sea-beast unseen +Turning in sleep; it is the sea +That welters and wavers uneasily. +Round the lonely reefs of Appledore. + + + +THE WIND-HARP + + +I treasure in secret some long, fine hair + Of tenderest brown, but so inwardly golden +I half used to fancy the sunshine there, +So shy, so shifting, so waywardly rare, + Was only caught for the moment and holden +While I could say _Dearest!_ and kiss it, and then +In pity let go to the summer again. + +I twisted this magic in gossamer strings + Over a wind-harp's Delphian hollow; +Then called to the idle breeze that swings +All day in the pine-tops, and clings, and sings + 'Mid the musical leaves, and said, 'Oh, follow +The will of those tears that deepen my words, +And fly to my window to waken these chords.' + +So they trembled to life, and, doubtfully + Feeling their way to my sense, sang, 'Say whether +They sit all day by the greenwood tree, +The lover and loved, as it wont to be, + When we--' But grief conquered, and all together +They swelled such weird murmur as haunts a shore +Of some planet dispeopled,--'Nevermore!' + +Then from deep in the past, as seemed to me, + The strings gathered sorrow and sang forsaken, +'One lover still waits 'neath the greenwood tree, +But 'tis dark,' and they shuddered, 'where lieth she, + Dark and cold! Forever must one be taken?' +But I groaned, 'O harp of all ruth bereft, +This Scripture is sadder,--"the other left"!' + +There murmured, as if one strove to speak, + And tears came instead; then the sad tones wandered +And faltered among the uncertain chords +In a troubled doubt between sorrow and words; + At last with themselves they questioned and pondered, +'Hereafter?--who knoweth?' and so they sighed +Down the long steps that lead to silence and died. + + + +AUF WIEDERSEHEN + +SUMMER + +The little gate was reached at last, + Half hid in lilacs down the lane; +She pushed it wide, and, as she past, +A wistful look she backward cast, + And said,--'_Auf wiedersehen!_' + +With hand on latch, a vision white + Lingered reluctant, and again +Half doubting if she did aright, +Soft as the dews that fell that night, + She said,--'_Auf wiedersehen!_' + +The lamp's clear gleam flits up the stair; + I linger in delicious pain; +Ah, in that chamber, whose rich air +To breathe in thought I scarcely dare, + Thinks she,--'_Auf wiedersehen?_' ... + +'Tis thirteen years; once more I press + The turf that silences the lane; +I hear the rustle of her dress, +I smell the lilacs, and--ah, yes, + I hear '_Auf wiedersehen!_' + +Sweet piece of bashful maiden art! + The English words had seemed too fain, +But these--they drew us heart to heart, +Yet held us tenderly apart; + She said, '_Auf wiedersehen!_' + + + +PALINODE + +AUTUMN + +Still thirteen years: 'tis autumn now + On field and hill, in heart and brain; +The naked trees at evening sough; +The leaf to the forsaken bough + Sighs not,--'_Auf wiedersehen!_' + +Two watched yon oriole's pendent dome, + That now is void, and dank with rain, +And one,--oh, hope more frail than foam! +The bird to his deserted home + Sings not,--'_Auf wiedersehen!_' + +The loath gate swings with rusty creak; + Once, parting there, we played at pain: +There came a parting, when the weak +And fading lips essayed to speak + Vainly,--'_Auf wiedersehen!_' + +Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith, + Though thou in outer dark remain; +One sweet sad voice ennobles death, +And still, for eighteen centuries saith + Softly,--'_Auf wiedersehen!_' + +If earth another grave must bear, + Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strain, +And something whispers my despair, +That, from an orient chamber there, + Floats down, '_Auf wiedersehen!_' + + + +AFTER THE BURIAL + + +Yes, faith is a goodly anchor; + When skies are sweet as a psalm, +At the bows it lolls so stalwart, + In its bluff, broad-shouldered calm. + +And when over breakers to leeward + The tattered surges are hurled, +It may keep our head to the tempest, + With its grip on the base of the world. + +But, after the shipwreck, tell me + What help in its iron thews, +Still true to the broken hawser, + Deep down among sea-weed and ooze? + +In the breaking gulfs of sorrow, + When the helpless feet stretch out +And find in the deeps of darkness + No footing so solid as doubt, + +Then better one spar of Memory, + One broken plank of the Past, +That our human heart may cling to, + Though hopeless of shore at last! + +To the spirit its splendid conjectures, + To the flesh its sweet despair, +Its tears o'er the thin-worn locket + With its anguish of deathless hair! + +Immortal? I feel it and know it, + Who doubts it of such as she? +But that is the pang's very secret,-- + Immortal away from me. + +There's a narrow ridge in the graveyard + Would scarce stay a child in his race, +But to me and my thought it is wider + Than the star-sown vague of Space. + +Your logic, my friend, is perfect, + Your moral most drearily true; +But, since the earth clashed on _her_ coffin, + I keep hearing that, and not you. + +Console if you will, I can bear it; + 'Tis a well-meant alms of breath; +But not all the preaching since Adam + Has made Death other than Death. + +It is pagan; but wait till you feel it,-- + That jar of our earth, that dull shock +When the ploughshare of deeper passion + Tears down to our primitive rock. + +Communion in spirit! Forgive me, + But I, who am earthly and weak, +Would give all my incomes from dreamland + For a touch of her hand on my cheek. +That little shoe in the corner, + So worn and wrinkled and brown, +With its emptiness confutes you, + And argues your wisdom down. + + + +THE DEAD HOUSE + +Here once my step was quickened, + Here beckoned the opening door, +And welcome thrilled from the threshold + To the foot it had known before. + +A glow came forth to meet me + From the flame that laughed in the grate, +And shadows adance on the ceiling, + Danced blither with mine for a mate. + +'I claim you, old friend,' yawned the arm-chair, + 'This corner, you know, is your seat;' +'Best your slippers on me,' beamed the fender, + 'I brighten at touch of your feet.' + +'We know the practised finger,' + Said the books, 'that seems like brain;' +And the shy page rustled the secret + It had kept till I came again. + +Sang the pillow, 'My down once quivered + On nightingales' throats that flew +Through moonlit gardens of Hafiz + To gather quaint dreams for you.' + +Ah me, where the Past sowed heart's-ease. + The Present plucks rue for us men! +I come back: that scar unhealing + Was not in the churchyard then. + +But, I think, the house is unaltered, + I will go and beg to look +At the rooms that were once familiar + To my life as its bed to a brook. + +Unaltered! Alas for the sameness + That makes the change but more! +'Tis a dead man I see in the mirrors, + 'Tis his tread that chills the floor! + +To learn such a simple lesson, + Need I go to Paris and Rome, +That the many make the household, + But only one the home? + +'Twas just a womanly presence, + An influence unexprest, +But a rose she had worn, on my gravesod + Were more than long life with the rest! + +'Twas a smile, 'twas a garment's rustle, + 'Twas nothing that I can phrase. +But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscious, + And put on her looks and ways. + +Were it mine I would close the shutters, + Like lids when the life is fled, +And the funeral fire should wind it, + This corpse of a home that is dead. + +For it died that autumn morning + When she, its soul, was borne +To lie all dark on the hillside + That looks over woodland and corn. + + + +A MOOD + +I go to the ridge in the forest +I haunted in days gone by, +But thou, O Memory, pourest +No magical drop in mine eye, +Nor the gleam of the secret restorest +That hath faded from earth and sky: +A Presence autumnal and sober +Invests every rock and tree, +And the aureole of October +Lights the maples, but darkens me. + +Pine in the distance, +Patient through sun or rain, +Meeting with graceful persistence, +With yielding but rooted resistance, +The northwind's wrench and strain, +No memory of past existence +Brings thee pain; +Right for the zenith heading, +Friendly with heat or cold, +Thine arms to the influence spreading +Of the heavens, just from of old, +Thou only aspirest the more, +Unregretful the old leaves shedding +That fringed thee with music before, +And deeper thy roots embedding +In the grace and the beauty of yore; +Thou sigh'st not, 'Alas, I am older, +The green of last summer is sear!' +But loftier, hopefuller, bolder, +Winnest broader horizons each year. + +To me 'tis not cheer thou art singing: +There's a sound of the sea, +O mournful tree, +In thy boughs forever clinging, +And the far-off roar +Of waves on the shore +A shattered vessel flinging. + +As thou musest still of the ocean +On which thou must float at last, +And seem'st to foreknow +The shipwreck's woe +And the sailor wrenched from the broken mast, +Do I, in this vague emotion, +This sadness that will not pass, +Though the air throb with wings, +And the field laughs and sings, +Do I forebode, alas! +The ship-building longer and wearier, +The voyage's struggle and strife, +And then the darker and drearier +Wreck of a broken life? + + + +THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND + +I + +BIÖRN'S BECKONERS + +Now Biörn, the son of Heriulf, had ill days +Because the heart within him seethed with blood +That would not be allayed with any toil, +Whether of war or hunting or the oar, +But was anhungered for some joy untried: +For the brain grew not weary with the limbs, +But, while they slept, still hammered like a Troll, +Building all night a bridge of solid dream +Between him and some purpose of his soul, +Or will to find a purpose. With the dawn 10 +The sleep-laid timbers, crumbled to soft mist, +Denied all foothold. But the dream remained, +And every night with yellow-bearded kings +His sleep was haunted,--mighty men of old, +Once young as he, now ancient like the gods, +And safe as stars in all men's memories. +Strange sagas read he in their sea-blue eyes +Cold as the sea, grandly compassionless; +Like life, they made him eager and then mocked. +Nay, broad awake, they would not let him be; 20 +They shaped themselves gigantic in the mist, +They rose far-beckoning in the lamps of heaven, +They whispered invitation in the winds, +And breath came from them, mightier than the wind, +To strain the lagging sails of his resolve, +Till that grew passion which before was wish, +And youth seemed all too costly to be staked +On the soiled cards wherewith men played their game, +Letting Time pocket up the larger life, +Lost with base gain of raiment, food, and roof. 30 +'What helpeth lightness of the feet?' they said, +'Oblivion runs with swifter foot than they; +Or strength of sinew? New men come as strong, +And those sleep nameless; or renown in war? +Swords grave no name on the long-memoried rock +But moss shall hide it; they alone who wring +Some secret purpose from the unwilling gods +Survive in song for yet a little while +To vex, like us, the dreams of later men, +Ourselves a dream, and dreamlike all we did.' 40 + + +II + +THORWALD'S LAY + +So Biörn went comfortless but for his thought, +And by his thought the more discomforted, +Till Erle Thurlson kept his Yule-tide feast: +And thither came he, called among the rest, +Silent, lone-minded, a church-door to mirth; +But, ere deep draughts forbade such serious song +As the grave Skald might chant nor after blush, +Then Eric looked at Thorwald where he sat +Mute as a cloud amid the stormy hall, +And said: 'O Skald, sing now an olden song, 50 +Such as our fathers heard who led great lives; +And, as the bravest on a shield is borne +Along the waving host that shouts him king, +So rode their thrones upon the thronging seas!' +Then the old man arose; white-haired he stood, +White-bearded, and with eyes that looked afar +From their still region of perpetual snow, +Beyond the little smokes and stirs of men: +His head was bowed with gathered flakes of years, +As winter bends the sea-foreboding pine, 60 +But something triumphed in his brow and eye, +Which whoso saw it could not see and crouch: +Loud rang the emptied beakers as he mused, +Brooding his eyried thoughts; then, as an eagle +Circles smooth-winged above the wind-vexed woods, +So wheeled his soul into the air of song +High o'er the stormy hall; and thus he sang: +'The fletcher for his arrow-shaft picks out +Wood closest-grained, long-seasoned, straight as light; +And from a quiver full of such as these 70 +The wary bowman, matched against his peers, +Long doubting, singles yet once more the best. +Who is it needs such flawless shafts as Fate? +What archer of his arrows is so choice, +Or hits the white so surely? They are men, +The chosen of her quiver; nor for her +Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained stick +At random from life's vulgar fagot plucked: +Such answer household ends; but she will have +Souls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, sound 80 +Down to the heart of heart; from these she strips +All needless stuff, all sapwood; seasons them; +From circumstance untoward feathers plucks +Crumpled and cheap; and barbs with iron will: +The hour that passes is her quiver-boy: +When she draws bow, 'tis not across the wind, +Nor 'gainst the sun her haste-snatched arrow sings, +For sun and wind have plighted faith to her: +Ere men have heard the sinew twang, behold +In the butt's heart her trembling messenger! 90 + +'The song is old and simple that I sing; +But old and simple are despised as cheap, +Though hardest to achieve of human things: +Good were the days of yore, when men were tried +By ring of shields, as now by ring of words; +But while the gods are left, and hearts of men, +And wide-doored ocean, still the days are good. +Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity, +Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for her. +Be not abroad, nor deaf with household cares 100 +That chatter loudest as they mean the least; +Swift-willed is thrice-willed; late means nevermore; +Impatient is her foot, nor turns again.' +He ceased; upon his bosom sank his beard +Sadly, as one who oft had seen her pass +Nor stayed her: and forthwith the frothy tide +Of interrupted wassail roared along. +But Biörn, the son of Heriulf, sat apart +Musing, and, with his eyes upon the fire, +Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen. 110 +'A ship,' he muttered,'is a wingèd bridge +That leadeth every way to man's desire, +And ocean the wide gate to manful luck.' +And then with that resolve his heart was bent, +Which, like a humming shaft, through many a stripe +Of day and night, across the unpathwayed seas +Shot the brave prow that cut on Vinland sands +The first rune in the Saga of the West. + + +III + +GUDRIDA'S PROPHECY + +Four weeks they sailed, a speck in sky-shut seas, +Life, where was never life that knew itself, 120 +But tumbled lubber-like in blowing whales; +Thought, where the like had never been before +Since Thought primeval brooded the abyss; +Alone as men were never in the world. +They saw the icy foundlings of the sea, +White cliffs of silence, beautiful by day, +Or looming, sudden-perilous, at night +In monstrous hush; or sometimes in the dark +The waves broke ominous with paly gleams +Crushed by the prow in sparkles of cold fire. 130 +Then came green stripes of sea that promised land +But brought it not, and on the thirtieth day +Low in the west were wooded shores like cloud. +They shouted as men shout with sudden hope; +But Biörn was silent, such strange loss there is +Between the dream's fulfilment and the dream, +Such sad abatement in the goal attained. +Then Gudrida, that was a prophetess, +Rapt with strange influence from Atlantis, sang: +Her words: the vision was the dreaming shore's. 140 + + Looms there the New Land; + Locked in the shadow + Long the gods shut it, + Niggards of newness + They, the o'er-old. + + Little it looks there, + Slim as a cloud-streak; + It shall fold peoples + Even as a shepherd + Foldeth his flock. 150 + + Silent it sleeps now; + Great ships shall seek it, + Swarming as salmon; + Noise of its numbers + Two seas shall hear. + + Men from the Northland, + Men from the Southland, + Haste empty-handed; + No more than manhood + Bring they, and hands. 160 + + Dark hair and fair hair, + Red blood and blue blood, + There shall be mingled; + Force of the ferment + Makes the New Man. + + Pick of all kindreds, + Kings' blood shall theirs be, + Shoots of the eldest + Stock upon Midgard, + Sons of the poor. 170 + + Them waits the New Land; + They shall subdue it, + Leaving their sons' sons + Space for the body, + Space for the soul. + + Leaving their sons' sons + All things save song-craft, + Plant long in growing, + Thrusting its tap-root + Deep in the Gone. 180 + + Here men shall grow up + Strong from self-helping; + Eyes for the present + Bring they as eagles', + Blind to the Past. + + They shall make over + Creed, law, and custom: + Driving-men, doughty + Builders of empire, + Builders of men. 190 + + Here is no singer; + What should they sing of? + They, the unresting? + Labor is ugly, + Loathsome is change. + + These the old gods hate, + Dwellers in dream-land, + Drinking delusion + Out of the empty + Skull of the Past. 200 + + These hate the old gods, + Warring against them; + Fatal to Odin, + Here the wolf Fenrir + Lieth in wait. + + Here the gods' Twilight + Gathers, earth-gulfing; + Blackness of battle, + Fierce till the Old World + Flare up in fire. 210 + + Doubt not, my Northmen; + Fate loves the fearless; + Fools, when their roof-tree + Falls, think it doomsday; + Firm stands the sky. + + Over the ruin + See I the promise; + Crisp waves the cornfield, + Peace-walled, the homestead + Waits open-doored. 220 + + There lies the New Land; + Yours to behold it, + Not to possess it; + Slowly Fate's perfect + Fulness shall come. + + Then from your strong loins + Seed shall be scattered, + Men to the marrow, + Wilderness tamers, + Walkers of waves. 230 + + Jealous, the old gods + Shut it in shadow, + Wisely they ward it, + Egg of the serpent, + Bane to them all. + + Stronger and sweeter + New gods shall seek it. + Fill it with man-folk + Wise for the future, + Wise from the past. 240 + + Here all is all men's, + Save only Wisdom; + King he that wins her; + Him hail they helmsman, + Highest of heart. + + Might makes no master + Here any longer; + Sword is not swayer; + Here e'en the gods are + Selfish no more. 250 + + Walking the New Earth, + Lo, a divine One + Greets all men godlike, + Calls them his kindred, + He, the Divine. + + Is it Thor's hammer + Rays in his right hand? + Weaponless walks he; + It is the White Christ, + Stronger than Thor. 260 + + Here shall a realm rise + Mighty in manhood; + Justice and Mercy + Here set a stronghold + Safe without spear. + + Weak was the Old World, + Wearily war-fenced; + Out of its ashes, + Strong as the morning, + Springeth the New. 270 + + Beauty of promise, + Promise of beauty, + Safe in the silence + Sleep thou, till cometh + Light to thy lids! + + Thee shall awaken + Flame from the furnace, + Bath of all brave ones, + Cleanser of conscience, + Welder of will. 280 + + Lowly shall love thee, + Thee, open-handed! + Stalwart shall shield thee, + Thee, worth their best blood, + Waif of the West! + + Then shall come singers, + Singing no swan-song, + Birth-carols, rather, + Meet for the mail child + Mighty of bone. 290 + + + +MAHMOOD THE IMAGE-BREAKER + +Old events have modern meanings; only that survives +Of past history which finds kindred in all hearts and lives. + +Mahmood once, the idol-breaker, spreader of the Faith, +Was at Sumnat tempted sorely, as the legend saith. + +In the great pagoda's centre, monstrous and abhorred, +Granite on a throne of granite, sat the temple's lord, + +Mahmood paused a moment, silenced by the silent face +That, with eyes of stone unwavering, awed the ancient place. + +Then the Brahmins knelt before him, by his doubt made bold, +Pledging for their idol's ransom countless gems and gold. + +Gold was yellow dirt to Mahmood, but of precious use, +Since from it the roots of power suck a potent juice. + +'Were yon stone alone in question, this would please me well,' +Mahmood said; 'but, with the block there, I my truth must sell. + +'Wealth and rule slip down with Fortune, as her wheel turns round; +He who keeps his faith, he only cannot be discrowned. + +'Little were a change of station, loss of life or crown, +But the wreck were past retrieving if the Man fell down.' + +So his iron mace he lifted, smote with might and main, +And the idol, on the pavement tumbling, burst in twain. + +Luck obeys the downright striker; from the hollow core, +Fifty times the Brahmins' offer deluged all the floor. + + + +INVITA MINERVA + +The Bardling came where by a river grew +The pennoned reeds, that, as the west-wind blew, +Gleamed and sighed plaintively, as if they knew +What music slept enchanted in each stem, +Till Pan should choose some happy one of them, +And with wise lips enlife it through and through. + +The Bardling thought, 'A pipe is all I need; +Once I have sought me out a clear, smooth reed, +And shaped it to my fancy, I proceed +To breathe such strains as, yonder mid the rocks, +The strange youth blows, that tends Admetus' flocks. +And all the maidens shall to me pay heed.' + +The summer day he spent in questful round, +And many a reed he marred, but never found +A conjuring-spell to free the imprisoned sound; +At last his vainly wearied limbs he laid +Beneath a sacred laurel's flickering shade, +And sleep about his brain her cobweb wound. + +Then strode the mighty Mother through his dreams, +Saying: 'The reeds along a thousand streams +Are mine, and who is he that plots and schemes +To snare the melodies wherewith my breath +Sounds through the double pipes of Life and Death, +Atoning what to men mad discord seems? + +'He seeks not me, but I seek oft in vain +For him who shall my voiceful reeds constrain, +And make them utter their melodious pain; +He flies the immortal gift, for well he knows +His life of life must with its overflows +Flood the unthankful pipe, nor come again. + +'Thou fool, who dost my harmless subjects wrong, +'Tis not the singer's wish that makes the song: +The rhythmic beauty wanders dumb, how long, +Nor stoops to any daintiest instrument, +Till, found its mated lips, their sweet consent +Makes mortal breath than Time and Fate more strong.' + + + +THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH + +I + +'Tis a woodland enchanted! +By no sadder spirit +Than blackbirds and thrushes, +That whistle to cheer it +All day in the bushes. +This woodland is haunted: +And in a small clearing, +Beyond sight or hearing +Of human annoyance, +The little fount gushes, 10 +First smoothly, then dashes +And gurgles and flashes, +To the maples and ashes +Confiding its joyance; +Unconscious confiding, +Then, silent and glossy, +Slips winding and hiding +Through alder-stems mossy, +Through gossamer roots +Fine as nerves, 20 +That tremble, as shoots +Through their magnetized curves +The allurement delicious +Of the water's capricious +Thrills, gushes, and swerves. + +II + +'Tis a woodland enchanted! +I am writing no fiction; +And this fount, its sole daughter, +To the woodland was granted +To pour holy water 30 +And win benediction; +In summer-noon flushes, +When all the wood hushes, +Blue dragon-flies knitting +To and fro in the sun, +With sidelong jerk flitting +Sink down on the rashes, +And, motionless sitting, +Hear it bubble and run, +Hear its low inward singing, 40 +With level wings swinging +On green tasselled rushes, +To dream in the sun. + +III + +'Tis a woodland enchanted! +The great August noonlight! +Through myriad rifts slanted, +Leaf and bole thickly sprinkles +With flickering gold; +There, in warm August gloaming, +With quick, silent brightenings, 50 +From meadow-lands roaming, +The firefly twinkles +His fitful heat-lightnings; +There the magical moonlight +With meek, saintly glory +Steeps summit and wold; +There whippoorwills plain in the solitudes hoary +With lone cries that wander +Now hither, now yonder, +Like souls doomed of old 60 +To a mild purgatory; +But through noonlight and moonlight +The little fount tinkles +Its silver saints'-bells, +That no sprite ill-boding +May make his abode in +Those innocent dells. + +IV + +'Tis a woodland enchanted! +When the phebe scarce whistles +Once an hour to his fellow. 70 +And, where red lilies flaunted, +Balloons from the thistles +Tell summer's disasters, +The butterflies yellow, +As caught in an eddy +Of air's silent ocean, +Sink, waver, and steady +O'er goats'-beard and asters, +Like souls of dead flowers, +With aimless emotion 80 +Still lingering unready +To leave their old bowers; +And the fount is no dumber, +But still gleams and flashes, +And gurgles and plashes, +To the measure of summer; +The butterflies hear it, +And spell-bound are holden, +Still balancing near it +O'er the goats' beard so golden. 90 + +V + +'Tis a woodland enchanted! +A vast silver willow, +I know not how planted, +(This wood is enchanted, +And full of surprises.) +Stands stemming a billow, +A motionless billow +Of ankle-deep mosses; +Two great roots it crosses +To make a round basin. 100 +And there the Fount rises; +Ah, too pure a mirror +For one sick of error +To see his sad face in! +No dew-drop is stiller +In its lupin-leaf setting +Than this water moss-bounded; +But a tiny sand-pillar +From the bottom keeps jetting, +And mermaid ne'er sounded 110 +Through the wreaths of a shell, +Down amid crimson dulses +In some cavern of ocean, +A melody sweeter +Than the delicate pulses, +The soft, noiseless metre, +The pause and the swell +Of that musical motion: +I recall it, not see it; +Could vision be clearer? 120 +Half I'm fain to draw nearer +Half tempted to flee it; +The sleeping Past wake not, +Beware! +One forward step take not, +Ah! break not +That quietude rare! +By my step unaffrighted +A thrush hops before it, +And o'er it 130 +A birch hangs delighted, +Dipping, dipping, dipping its tremulous hair; +Pure as the fountain, once +I came to the place, +(How dare I draw nearer?) +I bent o'er its mirror, +And saw a child's face +Mid locks of bright gold in it; +Yes, pure as this fountain once,-- +Since, bow much error! 140 +Too holy a mirror +For the man to behold in it +His harsh, bearded countenance! + +VI + +'Tis a woodland enchanted! +Ah, fly unreturning! +Yet stay;-- +'Tis a woodland enchanted, +Where wonderful chances +Have sway; +Luck flees from the cold one, 150 +But leaps to the bold one +Half-way; +Why should I be daunted? +Still the smooth mirror glances, +Still the amber sand dances, +One look,--then away! +O magical glass! +Canst keep in thy bosom +Shades of leaf and of blossom +When summer days pass, 160 +So that when thy wave hardens +It shapes as it pleases, +Unharmed by the breezes, +Its fine hanging gardens? +Hast those in thy keeping. +And canst not uncover, +Enchantedly sleeping, +The old shade of thy lover? +It is there! I have found it! +He wakes, the long sleeper! 170 +The pool is grown deeper, +The sand dance is ending, +The white floor sinks, blending +With skies that below me +Are deepening and bending, +And a child's face alone +That seems not to know me, +With hair that fades golden +In the heaven-glow round it, +Looks up at my own; 180 +Ah, glimpse through the portal +That leads to the throne, +That opes the child's olden +Regions Elysian! +Ah, too holy vision +For thy skirts to be holden +By soiled hand of mortal! +It wavers, it scatters, +'Tis gone past recalling! +A tear's sudden falling 190 +The magic cup shatters, +Breaks the spell of the waters, +And the sand cone once more, +With a ceaseless renewing, +Its dance is pursuing +On the silvery floor, +O'er and o'er, +With a noiseless and ceaseless renewing. + +VII + +'Tis a woodland enchanted! +If you ask me, _Where is it?_ 200 +I can but make answer, +''Tis past my disclosing;' +Not to choice is it granted +By sure paths to visit +The still pool enclosing +Its blithe little dancer; +But in some day, the rarest +Of many Septembers, +When the pulses of air rest, +And all things lie dreaming 210 +In drowsy haze steaming +From the wood's glowing embers, +Then, sometimes, unheeding, +And asking not whither, +By a sweet inward leading +My feet are drawn thither, +And, looking with awe in the magical mirror, +I see through my tears, +Half doubtful of seeing, +The face unperverted, 220 +The warm golden being +Of a child of five years; +And spite of the mists and the error. +And the days overcast, +Can feel that I walk undeserted, +But forever attended +By the glad heavens that bended +O'er the innocent past; +Toward fancy or truth +Doth the sweet vision win me? 230 +Dare I think that I cast +In the fountain of youth +The fleeting reflection +Of some bygone perfection +That still lingers in me? + + + +YUSSOUF + +A stranger came one night to Yussouf's tent, +Saying, 'Behold one outcast and in dread, +Against whose life the bow of power is bent, +Who flies, and hath not where to lay his head; +I come to thee for shelter and for food, +To Yussouf, called through all our tribes "The Good." + +'This tent is mine,' said Yussouf, 'but no more +Than it is God's come in and be at peace; +Freely shall thou partake of all my store +As I of His who buildeth over these +Our tents his glorious roof of night and day, +And at whose door none ever yet heard Nay.' + +So Yussouf entertained his guest that night, +And, waking him ere day, said: 'Here is gold; +My swiftest horse is saddled for thy flight; +Depart before the prying day grow bold.' +As one lamp lights another, nor grows less, +So nobleness enkindleth nobleness. + +That inward light the stranger's face made grand, +Which shines from all self-conquest; kneeling low, +He bowed his forehead upon Yussouf's hand, +Sobbing: 'O Sheik, I cannot leave thee so; +I will repay thee; all this thou hast done +Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son!' + +'Take thrice the gold,' said Yussouf 'for with thee +Into the desert, never to return, +My one black thought shall ride away from me; +First-born, for whom by day and night I yearn, +Balanced and just are all of God's decrees; +Thou art avenged, my first-born, sleep in peace!' + + + +THE DARKENED MIND + +The fire is turning clear and blithely, +Pleasantly whistles the winter wind; +We are about thee, thy friends and kindred, +On us all flickers the firelight kind; +There thou sittest in thy wonted corner +Lone and awful in thy darkened mind. + +There thou sittest; now and then thou moanest; +Thou dost talk with what we cannot see, +Lookest at us with an eye so doubtful, +It doth put us very far from thee; +There thou sittest; we would fain be nigh thee, +But we know that it can never be. + +We can touch thee, still we are no nearer; +Gather round thee, still thou art alone; +The wide chasm of reason is between us; +Thou confutest kindness with a moan; +We can speak to thee, and thou canst answer, +Like two prisoners through a wall of stone. + +Hardest heart would call it very awful +When thou look'st at us and seest--oh, what? +If we move away, thou sittest gazing +With those vague eyes at the selfsame spot, +And thou mutterest, thy hands thou wringest, +Seeing something,--us thou seest not. + +Strange it is that, in this open brightness, +Thou shouldst sit in such a narrow cell; +Strange it is that thou shouldst be so lonesome +Where those are who love thee all so well; +Not so much of thee is left among us +As the hum outliving the hushed bell. + + + +WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID + +Rabbi Jehosha used to say +That God made angels every day, +Perfect as Michael and the rest +First brooded in creation's nest, +Whose only office was to cry +_Hosanna!_ once, and then to die; +Or rather, with Life's essence blent, +To be led home from banishment. + +Rabbi Jehosha had the skill +To know that Heaven is in God's will; +And doing that, though for a space +One heart-beat long, may win a grace +As full of grandeur and of glow +As Princes of the Chariot know. + +'Twere glorious, no doubt, to be +One of the strong-winged Hierarchy, +To burn with Seraphs, or to shine +With Cherubs, deathlessly divine; +Yet I, perhaps, poor earthly clod, +Could I forget myself in God, +Could I but find my nature's clue +Simply as birds and blossoms do, +And but for one rapt moment know +'Tis Heaven must come, not we must go, +Should win my place as near the throne +As the pearl-angel of its zone. +And God would listen mid the throng +For my one breath of perfect song, +That, in its simple human way, +Said all the Host of Heaven could say. + + + +ALL-SAINTS + +One feast, of holy days the crest, + I, though no Churchman, love to keep, +All-Saints,--the unknown good that rest + In God's still memory folded deep; +The bravely dumb that did their deed, + And scorned to blot it with a name, +Men of the plain heroic breed, + That loved Heaven's silence more than fame. + +Such lived not in the past alone, + But thread to-day the unheeding street, +And stairs to Sin and Famine known + Sing with the welcome of their feet; +The den they enter grows a shrine, + The grimy sash an oriel burns, +Their cup of water warms like wine, + Their speech is filled from heavenly urns. + +About their brows to me appears + An aureole traced in tenderest light, +The rainbow-gleam of smiles through tears + In dying eyes, by them made bright, +Of souls that shivered on the edge + Of that chill ford repassed no more, +And in their mercy felt the pledge + And sweetness of the farther shore. + + + +A WINTER-EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE + + +I + +Beauty on my hearth-stone blazing! +To-night the triple Zoroaster +Shall my prophet be and master; +To-night will I pure Magian be, +Hymns to thy sole honor raising, +While thou leapest fast and faster, +Wild with self-delighted glee, +Or sink'st low and glowest faintly +As an aureole still and saintly, +Keeping cadence to my praising 10 +Thee! still thee! and only thee! + + +II + +Elfish daughter of Apollo! +Thee, from thy father stolen and bound +To serve in Vulcan's clangorous smithy, +Prometheus (primal Yankee) found, +And, when he had tampered with thee, +(Too confiding little maid!) +In a reed's precarious hollow +To our frozen earth conveyed: +For he swore I know not what; 20 +Endless ease should be thy lot, +Pleasure that should never falter, +Lifelong play, and not a duty +Save to hover o'er the altar, +Vision of celestial beauty, +Fed with precious woods and spices; +Then, perfidious! having got +Thee in the net of his devices, +Sold thee into endless slavery, +Made thee a drudge to boil the pot, 30 +Thee, Helios' daughter, who dost bear +His likeness in thy golden hair; +Thee, by nature wild and wavery, +Palpitating, evanescent +As the shade of Dian's crescent, +Life, motion, gladness, everywhere! + + +III + +Fathom deep men bury thee +In the furnace dark and still. +There, with dreariest mockery, 39 +Making thee eat, against thy will, +Blackest Pennsylvanian stone; +But thou dost avenge thy doom, +For, from out thy catacomb, +Day and night thy wrath is blown +In a withering simoom, +And, adown that cavern drear, +Thy black pitfall in the floor, +Staggers the lusty antique cheer, +Despairing, and is seen no more! + + +IV + +Elfish I may rightly name thee; 50 +We enslave, but cannot tame thee; +With fierce snatches, now and then, +Thou pluckest at thy right again, +And thy down-trod instincts savage +To stealthy insurrection creep +While thy wittol masters sleep, +And burst in undiscerning ravage: +Then how thou shak'st thy bacchant locks! +While brazen pulses, far and near, +Throb thick and thicker, wild with fear 60 +And dread conjecture, till the drear +Disordered clangor every steeple rocks! + + +V + +But when we make a friend of thee, +And admit thee to the hall +On our nights of festival, +Then, Cinderella, who could see +In thee the kitchen's stunted thrall? +Once more a Princess lithe and tan, +Thou dancest with a whispering tread, +While the bright marvel of thy head 70 +In crinkling gold floats all abroad, +And gloriously dost vindicate +The legend of thy lineage great, +Earth-exiled daughter of the Pythian god! +Now in the ample chimney-place, +To honor thy acknowledged race, +We crown thee high with laurel good, +Thy shining father's sacred wood, +Which, guessing thy ancestral right, +Sparkles and snaps its dumb delight, 80 +And, at thy touch, poor outcast one, +Feels through its gladdened fibres go +The tingle and thrill and vassal glow +Of instincts loyal to the sun. + + +VI + +O thou of home the guardian Lar, +And, when our earth hath wandered far, +Into the cold, and deep snow covers +The walks of our New England lovers, +Their sweet secluded evening-star! +'Twas with thy rays the English Muse 90 +Ripened her mild domestic hues; +'Twas by thy flicker that she conned +The fireside wisdom that enrings +With light from heaven familiar things; +By thee she found the homely faith +In whose mild eyes thy comfort stay'th +When Death, extinguishing his torch, +Gropes for the latch-string in the porch; +The love that wanders not beyond +His earliest nest, but sits and sings 100 +While children smooth his patient wings; +Therefore with thee I love to read +Our brave old poets; at thy touch how stirs +Life in the withered words: how swift recede +Time's shadows; and how glows again +Through its dead mass the incandescent verse, +As when upon the anvils of the brain +It glittering lay, cyclopically wrought +By the fast-throbbing hammers of the poet's thought! +Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred, 110 +The aspirations unattained, +The rhythms so rathe and delicate, +They bent and strained +And broke, beneath the sombre weight +Of any airiest mortal word. + + +VII + +What warm protection dost thou bend +Round curtained talk of friend with friend, +While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, +To softest outline rounds the roof, +Or the rude North with baffled strain 120 +Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane! +Now the kind nymph to Bacchus born +By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems +Gifted opon her natal morn +By him with fire, by her with dreams, +Nicotia, dearer to the Muse +Than all the grape's bewildering juice, +We worship, unforbid of thee; +And, as her incense floats and curls +In airy spires and wayward whirls, 130 +Or poises on its tremulous stalk +A flower of frailest revery, +So winds and loiters, idly free, +The current of unguided talk, +Now laughter-rippled, and now caught +In smooth, dark pools of deeper thought. +Meanwhile thou mellowest every word, +A sweetly unobtrusive third; +For thou hast magic beyond wine, +To unlock natures each to each; 140 +The unspoken thought thou canst divine; +Thou fill'st the pauses of the speech +With whispers that to dream-land reach +And frozen fancy-springs unchain +In Arctic outskirts of the brain: +Sun of all inmost confidences, +To thy rays doth the heart unclose +Its formal calyx of pretences, +That close against rude day's offences, +And open its shy midnight rose! 150 + + +VIII + +Thou holdest not the master key +With which thy Sire sets free the mystic gates +Of Past and Future: not for common fates +Do they wide open fling, +And, with a far heard ring, +Swing back their willing valves melodiously; +Only to ceremonial days, +And great processions of imperial song +That set the world at gaze, +Doth such high privilege belong; 160 +But thou a postern-door canst ope +To humbler chambers of the selfsame palace +Where Memory lodges, and her sister Hope, +Whose being is but as a crystal chalice +Which, with her various mood, the elder fills +Of joy or sorrow, +So coloring as she wills +With hues of yesterday the unconscious morrow. + + +IX + +Thou sinkest, and my fancy sinks with thee: +For thee I took the idle shell, 170 +And struck the unused chords again, +But they are gone who listened well; +Some are in heaven, and all are far from me: +Even as I sing, it turns to pain, +And with vain tears my eyelids throb and swell: +Enough; I come not of the race +That hawk their sorrows in the market-place. +Earth stops the ears I best had loved to please; +Then break, ye untuned chords, or rust in peace! +As if a white-haired actor should come back 180 +Some midnight to the theatre void and black, +And there rehearse his youth's great part +Mid thin applauses of the ghosts. +So seems it now: ye crowd upon my heart, +And I bow down in silence, shadowy hosts! + + + +FANCY'S CASUISTRY + +How struggles with the tempest's swells +That warning of tumultuous bells! +The fire is loose! and frantic knells + Throb fast and faster, +As tower to tower confusedly tells + News of disaster. + +But on my far-off solitude +No harsh alarums can intrude; +The terror comes to me subdued + And charmed by distance, +To deepen the habitual mood + Of my existence. + +Are those, I muse, the Easter chimes? +And listen, weaving careless rhymes +While the loud city's griefs and crimes + Pay gentle allegiance +To the fine quiet that sublimes + These dreamy regions. + +And when the storm o'erwhelms the shore, +I watch entranced as, o'er and o'er, +The light revolves amid the roar + So still and saintly, +Now large and near, now more and more + Withdrawing faintly. + +This, too, despairing sailors see +Flash out the breakers 'neath their lee +In sudden snow, then lingeringly + Wane tow'rd eclipse, +While through the dark the shuddering sea + Gropes for the ships. + +And is it right, this mood of mind +That thus, in revery enshrined, +Can in the world mere topics find + For musing stricture, +Seeing the life of humankind + Only as picture? + +The events in line of battle go; +In vain for me their trumpets blow +As unto him that lieth low + In death's dark arches, +And through the sod hears throbbing slow + The muffled marches. + +O Duty, am I dead to thee +In this my cloistered ecstasy, +In this lone shallop on the sea + That drifts tow'rd Silence? +And are those visioned shores I see + But sirens' islands? + +My Dante frowns with lip-locked mien, +As who would say, ''Tis those, I ween, +Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes lean + That win the laurel;' +But where _is_ Truth? What does it mean, + The world-old quarrel? + +Such questionings are idle air: +Leave what to do and what to spare +To the inspiring moment's care, + Nor ask for payment +Of fame or gold, but just to wear + Unspotted raiment. + + + +TO MR. JOHN BARTLETT + +WHO HAD SENT ME A SEVEN-POUND TROUT + +Fit for an Abbot of Theleme, + For the whole Cardinals' College, or +The Pope himself to see in dream +Before his lenten vision gleam. + He lies there, the sogdologer! + +His precious flanks with stars besprent, + Worthy to swim in Castaly! +The friend by whom such gifts are sent, +For him shall bumpers full be spent, + His health! be Luck his fast ally! + +I see him trace the wayward brook + Amid the forest mysteries, +Where at their shades shy aspens look. +Or where, with many a gurgling crook, + It croons its woodland histories. + +I see leaf-shade and sun-fleck lend + Their tremulous, sweet vicissitude +To smooth, dark pool, to crinkling bend,-- +(Oh, stew him, Ann, as 'twere your friend, + With amorous solicitude!) + +I see him step with caution due, + Soft as if shod with moccasins, +Grave as in church, for who plies you, +Sweet craft, is safe as in a pew + From all our common stock o' sins. + +The unerring fly I see him cast, + That as a rose-leaf falls as soft, +A flash! a whirl! he has him fast! +We tyros, how that struggle last + Confuses and appalls us oft. + +Unfluttered he: calm as the sky + Looks on our tragi-comedies, +This way and that he lets him fly, +A sunbeam-shuttle, then to die + Lands him, with cool _aplomb_, at ease. + +The friend who gave our board such gust, + Life's care may he o'erstep it half, +And, when Death hooks him, as he must, +He'll do it handsomely, I trust, + And John H---- write his epitaph! + +Oh, born beneath the Fishes' sign, + Of constellations happiest, +May he somewhere with Walton dine, +May Horace send him Massic wine, + And Burns Scotch drink, the nappiest! + +And when they come his deeds to weigh, + And how he used the talents his, +One trout-scale in the scales he'll lay +(If trout had scales), and 'twill outsway + The wrong side of the balances. + + + +ODE TO HAPPINESS + +Spirit, that rarely comest now + And only to contrast my gloom, + Like rainbow-feathered birds that bloom +A moment on some autumn bough +That, with the spurn of their farewell +Sheds its last leaves,--thou once didst dwell + With me year-long, and make intense +To boyhood's wisely vacant days +Their fleet but all-sufficing grace + Of trustful inexperience, 10 + While soul could still transfigure sense, +And thrill, as with love's first caress, +At life's mere unexpectedness. + Days when my blood would leap and run + As full of sunshine as a breeze, + Or spray tossed up by Summer seas + That doubts if it be sea or sun! +Days that flew swiftly like the band + That played in Grecian games at strife, +And passed from eager hand to hand 20 + The onward-dancing torch of life! + +Wing-footed! thou abid'st with him + Who asks it not; but he who hath + Watched o'er the waves thy waning path, +Shall nevermore behold returning +Thy high-heaped canvas shoreward yearning! +Thou first reveal'st to us thy face +Turned o'er the shoulder's parting grace, + A moment glimpsed, then seen no more,-- +Thou whose swift footsteps we can trace 30 + Away from every mortal door. + +Nymph of the unreturning feet, + How may I win thee back? But no, + I do thee wrong to call thee so; +'Tis I am changed, not thou art fleet: +The man thy presence feels again, +Not in the blood, but in the brain, +Spirit, that lov'st the upper air +Serene and passionless and rare, + Such as on mountain heights we find 40 + And wide-viewed uplands of the mind; +Or such as scorns to coil and sing +Round any but the eagle's wing + Of souls that with long upward beat + Have won an undisturbed retreat +Where, poised like wingèd victories, +They mirror in relentless eyes. + The life broad-basking 'neath their feet,-- +Man ever with his Now at strife, + Pained with first gasps of earthly air, 50 + Then praying Death the last to spare, +Still fearful of the ampler life. + +Not unto them dost thou consent + Who, passionless, can lead at ease +A life of unalloyed content, + A life like that of land-locked seas, +Who feel no elemental gush +Of tidal forces, no fierce rush + Of storm deep-grasping scarcely spent + 'Twixt continent and continent. 60 +Such quiet souls have never known + Thy truer inspiration, thou + Who lov'st to feel upon thy brow +Spray from the plunging vessel thrown + Grazing the tusked lee shore, the cliff +That o'er the abrupt gorge holds its breath, + Where the frail hair-breadth of an _if_ +Is all that sunders life and death: +These, too, are cared for, and round these +Bends her mild crook thy sister Peace; 70 + These in unvexed dependence lie, + Each 'neath his strip of household sky; +O'er these clouds wander, and the blue +Hangs motionless the whole day through; + Stars rise for them, and moons grow large +And lessen in such tranquil wise +As joys and sorrows do that rise + Within their nature's sheltered marge; +Their hours into each other flit + Like the leaf-shadows of the vine 80 +And fig-tree under which they sit, + And their still lives to heaven incline +With an unconscious habitude, + Unhistoried as smokes that rise +From happy hearths and sight elude + In kindred blue of morning skies. + +Wayward! when once we feel thy lack, +'Tis worse than vain to woo thee back! + Yet there is one who seems to be +Thine elder sister, in whose eyes 90 +A faint far northern light will rise + Sometimes, and bring a dream of thee; +She is not that for which youth hoped, + But she hath blessings all her own, +Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped, + And faith to sorrow given alone: +Almost I deem that it is thou +Come back with graver matron brow, + With deepened eyes and bated breath, + Like one that somewhere hath met Death: 100 +But 'No,' she answers, 'I am she +Whom the gods love, Tranquillity; + That other whom you seek forlorn + Half earthly was; but I am born +Of the immortals, and our race +Wears still some sadness on its face: + He wins me late, but keeps me long, +Who, dowered with every gift of passion, +In that fierce flame can forge and fashion + Of sin and self the anchor strong; 110 +Can thence compel the driving force +Of daily life's mechanic course, +Nor less the nobler energies +Of needful toil and culture wise; +Whose soul is worth the tempter's lure, +Who can renounce, and yet endure, +To him I come, not lightly wooed, +But won by silent fortitude.' + + + +VILLA FRANCA + +1859 + +Wait a little: do _we_ not wait? +Louis Napoleon is not Fate, +Francis Joseph is not Time; +There's One hath swifter feet than Crime; +Cannon-parliaments settle naught; +Venice is Austria's,--whose is Thought? +Minié is good, but, spite of change, +Gutenberg's gun has the longest range. + Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! + Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! + In the shadow, year out, year in, + The silent headsman waits forever. + +Wait, we say: our years are long; +Men are weak, out Man is strong; +Since the stars first curved their rings, +We have looked on many things: +Great wars come and great wars go, +Wolf-tracks light on polar snow; +We shall see him come and gone, +This second-hand Napoleon. + Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! + Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! + In the shadow, year out, year in, + The silent headsman waits forever. + +We saw the elder Corsican, +And Clotho muttered as she span, +While crowned lackeys bore the train, +Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne: +'Sister, stint not length of thread! +Sister, stay the scissors dread! +On Saint Helen's granite Weak, +Hark, the vulture whets his beak!' + Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! + Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! + In the shadow, year out, year in, + The silent headsman waits forever. + +The Bonapartes, we know their bees +That wade in honey red to the knees; +Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep sound +In dreamless garners underground: +We know false glory's spendthrift race +Pawning nations for feathers and lace; +It may be short, it may be long, +''Tis reckoning-day!' sneers unpaid Wrong. + Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! + Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! + In the shadow, year out, year in, + The silent headsman waits forever. + +The Cock that wears the Eagle's skin +Can promise what he ne'er could win; +Slavery reaped for fine words sown, +System for all, and rights for none, +Despots atop, a wild clan below, +Such is the Gaul from long ago; +Wash the black from the Ethiop's face, +Wash the past out of man or race! + Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! + Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! + In the shadow, year out, year in, + The silent headsman waits forever. + +'Neath Gregory's throne a spider swings, +And snares the people for the kings; +'Luther is dead; old quarrels pass: +The stake's black scars are healed with grass;' +So dreamers prate; did man e'er live +Saw priest or woman yet forgive? +But Luther's broom is left, and eyes +Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. + Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! + Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! + In the shadow, year out, year in, + The silent headsman waits forever. + +Smooth sails the ship of either realm, +Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm; +We look down the depths, and mark +Silent workers in the dark +Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs, +Old instincts hardening to new beliefs; +Patience a little; learn to wait; +Hours are long on the clock of Fate. + Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! + Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! + Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, + But surely God endures forever! + + + +THE MINER + +Down 'mid the tangled roots of things + That coil about the central fire, +I seek for that which giveth wings + To stoop, not soar, to my desire. + +Sometimes I hear, as 'twere a sigh, + The sea's deep yearning far above, +'Thou hast the secret not,' I cry, + 'In deeper deeps is hid my Love.' + +They think I burrow from the sun, + In darkness, all alone, and weak; +Such loss were gain if He were won, + For 'tis the sun's own Sun I seek. + +'The earth,' they murmur, 'is the tomb + That vainly sought his life to prison; +Why grovel longer in the gloom? + He is not here; he hath arisen.' + +More life for me where he hath lain + Hidden while ye believed him dead, +Than in cathedrals cold and vain, + Built on loose sands of _It is said_. + +My search is for the living gold; + Him I desire who dwells recluse, +And not his image worn and old, + Day-servant of our sordid use. + +If him I find not, yet I find + The ancient joy of cell and church, +The glimpse, the surety undefined, + The unquenched ardor of the search. + +Happier to chase a flying goal + Than to sit counting laurelled gains, +To guess the Soul within the soul + Than to be lord of what remains. + +Hide still, best Good, in subtile wise, + Beyond my nature's utmost scope; +Be ever absent from mine eyes + To be twice present in my hope! + + + +GOLD EGG: A DREAM-FANTASY + +HOW A STUDENT IN SEARCH OF THE BEAUTIFUL FELL ASLEEP IN DRESDEN OVER HERR +PROFESSOR DOCTOR VISCHER'S WISSENSCHAFT DES SCHÖNEN, AND WHAT CAME THEREOF + +I swam with undulation soft, + Adrift on Vischer's ocean, +And, from my cockboat up aloft, +Sent down my mental plummet oft + In hope to reach a notion. + +But from the metaphysic sea + No bottom was forthcoming, +And all the while (how drearily!) +In one eternal note of B + My German stove kept humming. 10 + +'What's Beauty?' mused I; 'is it told + By synthesis? analysis? +Have you not made us lead of gold? +To feed your crucible, not sold + Our temple's sacred chalices?' + +Then o'er my senses came a change; + My book seemed all traditions, +Old legends of profoundest range, +Diablery, and stories strange + Of goblins, elves, magicians. 20 + +Old gods in modern saints I found, + Old creeds in strange disguises; +I thought them safely underground, +And here they were, all safe and sound, + Without a sign of phthisis. + +Truth was, my outward eyes were closed, + Although I did not know it; +Deep into dream-land I had dozed, +And thus was happily transposed + From proser into poet. 30 + +So what I read took flesh and blood, + And turned to living creatures: +The words were but the dingy bud +That bloomed, like Adam, from the mud, + To human forms and features. + +I saw how Zeus was lodged once more + By Baucis and Philemon; +The text said, 'Not alone of yore, +But every day, at every door + Knocks still the masking Demon.' 40 + +DAIMON 'twas printed in the book + And, as I read it slowly, +The letters stirred and changed, and took +Jove's stature, the Olympian look + Of painless melancholy. + +He paused upon the threshold worn: + 'With coin I cannot pay you; +Yet would I fain make some return; +The gift for cheapness do not spurn, + Accept this hen, I pray you. 50 + +'Plain feathers wears my Hemera, + And has from ages olden; +She makes her nest in common hay, +And yet, of all the birds that lay, + Her eggs alone are golden.' + +He turned, and could no more be seen; + Old Bancis stared a moment, +Then tossed poor Partlet on the green, +And with a tone, half jest, half spleen, + Thus made her housewife's comment: 60 + +'The stranger had a queerish face, + His smile was hardly pleasant, +And, though he meant it for a grace, +Yet this old hen of barnyard race + Was but a stingy present. + +'She's quite too old for laying eggs, + Nay, even to make a soup of; +One only needs to see her legs,-- +You might as well boil down the pegs + I made the brood-hen's coop of! 70 + +'Some eighteen score of such do I + Raise every year, her sisters; +Go, in the woods your fortunes try, +All day for one poor earthworm pry, + And scratch your toes to blisters!' + +Philemon found the rede was good, + And, turning on the poor hen, +He clapt his hands, and stamped, and shooed, +Hunting the exile tow'rd the wood, + To house with snipe and moorhen. 80 + +A poet saw and cried: 'Hold! hold! + What are you doing, madman? +Spurn you more wealth than can be told, +The fowl that lays the eggs of gold, + Because she's plainly clad, man?' + +To him Philemon: 'I'll not balk + Thy will with any shackle; +Wilt add a harden to thy walk? +There! take her without further talk: + You're both but fit to cackle!' 90 + +But scarce the poet touched the bird, + It swelled to stature regal; +And when her cloud-wide wings she stirred, +A whisper as of doom was heard, + 'Twas Jove's bolt-bearing eagle. + +As when from far-off cloud-bergs springs + A crag, and, hurtling under, +From cliff to cliff the rumor flings, +So she from flight-foreboding wings + Shook out a murmurous thunder. 100 + +She gripped the poet to her breast, + And ever, upward soaring, +Earth seemed a new moon in the west, +And then one light among the rest + Where squadrons lie at mooring. + +How tell to what heaven-hallowed seat + The eagle bent his courses? +The waves that on its bases beat, +The gales that round it weave and fleet, + Are life's creative forces. 110 + +Here was the bird's primeval nest, + High on a promontory +Star-pharosed, where she takes her rest +To brood new æons 'neath her breast, + The future's unfledged glory. + +I know not how, but I was there + All feeling, hearing, seeing; +It was not wind that stirred my hair +But living breath, the essence rare + Of unembodied being. 120 + +And in the nest an egg of gold + Lay soft in self-made lustre, +Gazing whereon, what depths untold +Within, what marvels manifold, + Seemed silently to muster! + +Daily such splendors to confront + Is still to me and you sent? +It glowed as when Saint Peter's front, +Illumed, forgets its stony wont, + And seems to throb translucent. 130 + +One saw therein the life of man, + (Or so the poet found it,) +The yolk and white, conceive who can, +Were the glad earth, that, floating, span + In the glad heaven around it. + +I knew this as one knows in dream, + Where no effects to causes +Are chained as in our work-day scheme, +And then was wakened by a scream + That seemed to come from Baucis. 140 + +'Bless Zeus!' she cried, 'I'm safe below!' + First pale, then red as coral; +And I, still drowsy, pondered slow, +And seemed to find, but hardly know, + Something like this for moral. + +Each day the world is born anew + For him who takes it rightly; +Not fresher that which Adam knew, +Not sweeter that whose moonlit dew + Entranced Arcadia nightly. 150 + +Rightly? That's simply: 'tis to see + _Some_ substance casts these shadows +Which we call Life and History, +That aimless seem to chase and flee + Like wind-gleams over meadows. + +Simply? That's nobly: 'tis to know + That God may still be met with, +Nor groweth old, nor doth bestow +These senses fine, this brain aglow, + To grovel and forget with. 160 + +Beauty, Herr Doctor, trust in me, + No chemistry will win you; +Charis still rises from the sea: +If you can't find her, _might_ it be + Because you seek within you? + + + +A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND + +Alike I hate to be your debtor, +Or write a mere perfunctory letter; +For letters, so it seems to me, +Our careless quintessence should be, +Our real nature's truant play +When Consciousness looks t'other way; +Not drop by drop, with watchful skill, +Gathered in Art's deliberate still, +But life's insensible completeness +Got as the ripe grape gets its sweetness, 10 +As if it had a way to fuse +The golden sunlight into juice. +Hopeless my mental pump I try, +The boxes hiss, the tube is dry; +As those petroleum wells that spout +Awhile like M.C.'s, then give out, +My spring, once full as Arethusa, +Is a mere bore as dry's Creusa; +And yet you ask me why I'm glum, +And why my graver Muse is dumb. 20 +Ah me! I've reasons manifold +Condensed in one,--I'm getting old! + +When life, once past its fortieth year, +Wheels up its evening hemisphere, +The mind's own shadow, which the boy +Saw onward point to hope and joy, +Shifts round, irrevocably set +Tow'rd morning's loss and vain regret, +And, argue with it as we will, +The clock is unconverted still. 30 + +'But count the gains,' I hear you say, +'Which far the seeming loss out-weigh; +Friendships built firm 'gainst flood and wind +On rock foundations of the mind; +Knowledge instead of scheming hope; +For wild adventure, settled scope; +Talents, from surface-ore profuse, +Tempered and edged to tools for use; +Judgment, for passion's headlong whirls; +Old sorrows crystalled into pearls; 40 +Losses by patience turned to gains, +Possessions now, that once were pains; +Joy's blossom gone, as go it must, +To ripen seeds of faith and trust; +Why heed a snow-flake on the roof +If fire within keep Age aloof, +Though blundering north-winds push and strain +With palms benumbed against the pane?' + +My dear old Friend, you're very wise; +We always are with others' eyes, 50 +And see _so_ clear! (our neighbor's deck on) +What reef the idiot's sure to wreck on; +Folks when they learn how life has quizzed 'em +Are fain to make a shift with Wisdom, +And, finding she nor breaks nor bends, +Give her a letter to their friends. +Draw passion's torrent whoso will +Through sluices smooth to turn a mill, +And, taking solid toll of grist, +Forget the rainbow in the mist, 60 +The exulting leap, the aimless haste +Scattered in iridescent waste; +Prefer who likes the sure esteem +To cheated youth's midsummer dream, +When every friend was more than Damon, +Each quicksand safe to build a fame on; +Believe that prudence snug excels +Youth's gross of verdant spectacles, +Through which earth's withered stubble seen +Looks autumn-proof as painted green,-- 70 +I side with Moses 'gainst the masses, +Take you the drudge, give me the glasses! +And, for your talents shaped with practice, +Convince me first that such the fact is; +Let whoso likes be beat, poor fool, +On life's hard stithy to a tool, +Be whoso will a ploughshare made, +Let me remain a jolly blade! + +What's Knowledge, with her stocks and lands, +To gay Conjecture's yellow strands? 80 +What's watching her slow flock's increase +To ventures for the golden fleece? +What her deep ships, safe under lee, +To youth's light craft, that drinks the sea, +For Flying Islands making sail, +And failing where 'tis gain to fail? +Ah me! Experience (so we're told), +Time's crucible, turns lead to gold; +Yet what's experience won but dross, +Cloud-gold transmuted to our loss? 90 +What but base coin the best event +To the untried experiment! + +'Twas an old couple, says the poet, +That lodged the gods and did not know it; +Youth sees and knows them as they were +Before Olympus' top was bare; +From Swampscot's flats his eye divine +Sees Venus rocking on the brine, +With lucent limbs, that somehow scatter a +Charm that turns Doll to Cleopatra; 100 +Bacchus (that now is scarce induced +To give Eld's lagging blood a boost), +With cymbals' clang and pards to draw him, +Divine as Ariadne saw him, +Storms through Youth's pulse with all his train +And wins new Indies in his brain; +Apollo (with the old a trope, +A sort of finer Mister Pope), +Apollo--but the Muse forbids: +At his approach cast down thy lids, 110 +And think it joy enough to hear +Far off his arrows singing clear; +He knows enough who silent knows +The quiver chiming as he goes; +He tells too much who e'er betrays +The shining Archer's secret ways. + +Dear Friend, you're right and I am wrong; +My quibbles are not worth a song, +And I sophistically tease +My fancy sad to tricks like these. 120 +I could not cheat you if I would; +You know me and my jesting mood, +Mere surface-foam, for pride concealing +The purpose of my deeper feeling. +I have not spilt one drop of joy +Poured in the senses of the boy, +Nor Nature fails my walks to bless +With all her golden inwardness; +And as blind nestlings, unafraid, +Stretch up wide-mouthed to every shade 130 +By which their downy dream is stirred, +Taking it for the mother-bird, +So, when God's shadow, which is light, +Unheralded, by day or night, +My wakening instincts falls across, +Silent as sunbeams over moss, +In my heart's nest half-conscious things +Stir with a helpless sense of wings, +Lift themselves up, and tremble long +With premonitions sweet of song. 140 + +Be patient, and perhaps (who knows?) +These may be winged one day like those; +If thrushes, close-embowered to sing, +Pierced through with June's delicious sting; +If swallows, their half-hour to run +Star-breasted in the setting sun. +At first they're but the unfledged proem, +Or songless schedule of a poem; +When from the shell they're hardly dry +If some folks thrust them forth, must I? 150 + +But let me end with a comparison +Never yet hit upon by e'er a son +Of our American Apollo, +(And there's where I shall beat them hollow, +If he indeed's no courtly St. John, +But, as West said, a Mohawk Injun.) +A poem's like a cruise for whales: +Through untried seas the hunter sails, +His prow dividing waters known +To the blue iceberg's hulk alone; 160 +At last, on farthest edge of day, +He marks the smoky puff of spray; +Then with bent oars the shallop flies +To where the basking quarry lies; +Then the excitement of the strife, +The crimsoned waves,--ah, this is life! + +But, the dead plunder once secured +And safe beside the vessel moored, +All that had stirred the blood before +Is so much blubber, nothing more, 170 +(I mean no pun, nor image so +Mere sentimental verse, you know,) +And all is tedium, smoke, and soil, +In trying out the noisome oil. + +Yes, this _is_ life! And so the bard +Through briny deserts, never scarred +Since Noah's keel, a subject seeks, +And lies upon the watch for weeks; +That once harpooned and helpless lying, +What follows is but weary trying. 180 + +Now I've a notion, if a poet +Beat up for themes, his verse will show it; +I wait for subjects that hunt me, +By day or night won't let me be, +And hang about me like a curse, +Till they have made me into verse, +From line to line my fingers tease +Beyond my knowledge, as the bees +Build no new cell till those before +With limpid summer-sweet run o'er; 190 +Then, if I neither sing nor shine, +Is it the subject's fault, or mine? + + + +AN EMBER PICTURE + +How strange are the freaks of memory! + The lessons of life we forget, +While a trifle, a trick of color, + In the wonderful web is set,-- + +Set by some mordant of fancy, + And, spite of the wear and tear +Of time or distance or trouble, + Insists on its right to be there. + +A chance had brought us together; + Our talk was of matters-of-course; +We were nothing, one to the other, + But a short half-hour's resource. + +We spoke of French acting and actors, + And their easy, natural way: +Of the weather, for it was raining, + As we drove home from the play. + +We debated the social nothings + We bore ourselves so to discuss; +The thunderous rumors of battle + Were silent the while for us. + +Arrived at her door, we left her + With a drippingly hurried adieu, +And our wheels went crunching the gravel + Of the oak-darkened avenue. + +As we drove away through the shadow, + The candle she held in the door +From rain-varnished tree-trunk to tree-trunk + Flashed fainter, and flashed no more;-- + +Flashed fainter, then wholly faded + Before we had passed the wood; +But the light of the face behind it + Went with me and stayed for good. + +The vision of scarce a moment, + And hardly marked at the time, +It comes unbidden to haunt me, + Like a scrap of ballad-rhyme. + +Had she beauty? Well, not what they call so; + You may find a thousand as fair; +And yet there's her face in my memory + With no special claim to be there. + +As I sit sometimes in the twilight, + And call back to life in the coals +Old faces and hopes and fancies + Long buried, (good rest to their souls!) + +Her face shines out in the embers; + I see her holding the light, +And hear the crunch of the gravel + And the sweep of the rain that night. + +'Tis a face that can never grow older, + That never can part with its gleam, +'Tis a gracious possession forever, + For is it not all a dream? + + + +TO H.W.L. + +ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 27TH FEBRUARY, 1867 + +I need not praise the sweetness of his song, + Where limpid verse to limpid verse succeeds +Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing lest he wrong +The new moon's mirrored skiff, he slides along, + Full without noise, and whispers in his reeds. + +With loving breath of all the winds his name + Is blown about the world, but to his friends +A sweeter secret hides behind his fame, +And Love steals shyly through the loud acclaim + To murmur a _God bless you!_ and there ends. + +As I muse backward up the checkered years + Wherein so much was given, so much was lost, +Blessings in both kinds, such as cheapen tears,-- +But hush! this is not for profaner ears; + Let them drink molten pearls nor dream the cost. + +Some suck up poison from a sorrow's core, + As naught but nightshade grew upon earth's ground; +Love turned all his to heart's-ease, and the more +Fate tried his bastions, she but forced a door + Leading to sweeter manhood and more sound. + +Even as a wind-waved fountain's swaying shade + Seems of mixed race, a gray wraith shot with sun, +So through his trial faith translucent rayed +Till darkness, halt disnatured so, betrayed + A heart of sunshine that would fain o'errun. + +Surely if skill in song the shears may stay + And of its purpose cheat the charmed abyss, +If our poor life be lengthened by a lay, +He shall not go, although his presence may, + And the next age in praise shall double this. + +Long days be his, and each as lusty-sweet + As gracious natures find his song to be; +May Age steal on with softly-cadenced feet +Falling in music, as for him were meet + Whose choicest verse is harsher-toned than he! + + + +THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY + +'Come forth!' my catbird calls to me, + 'And hear me sing a cavatina +That, in this old familiar tree, + Shall hang a garden of Alcina. + +'These buttercups shall brim with wine + Beyond all Lesbian juice or Massic; +May not New England be divine? + My ode to ripening summer classic? + +'Or, if to me you will not hark, + By Beaver Brook a thrush is ringing +Till all the alder-coverts dark + Seem sunshine-dappled with his singing. + +'Come out beneath the unmastered sky, + With its emancipating spaces, +And learn to sing as well as I, + Without premeditated graces. + +'What boot your many-volumed gains, + Those withered leaves forever turning, +To win, at best, for all your pains, + A nature mummy-wrapt to learning? + + +'The leaves wherein true wisdom lies + On living trees the sun are drinking; +Those white clouds, drowsing through the skies, + Grew not so beautiful by thinking. + +'"Come out!" with me the oriole cries, + Escape the demon that pursues you: +And, hark, the cuckoo weather-wise, + Still hiding farther onward, wooes you.' + +'Alas, dear friend, that, all my days, + Hast poured from that syringa thicket +The quaintly discontinuous lays + To which I hold a season-ticket. + +'A season-ticket cheaply bought + With a dessert of pilfered berries, +And who so oft my soul hast caught + With morn and evening voluntaries, + +'Deem me not faithless, if all day + Among my dusty books I linger, +No pipe, like thee, for June to play + With fancy-led, half-conscious finger. + +'A bird is singing in my brain + And bubbling o'er with mingled fancies, +Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain + Fed with the sap of old romances. + +'I ask no ampler skies than those + His magic music rears above me, +No falser friends, no truer foes,-- + And does not Doña Clara love me? + +'Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars, + A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing, +Then silence deep with breathless stars, + And overhead a white hand flashing. + +'O music of all moods and climes, + Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly, +Where still, between the Christian chimes, + The Moorish cymbal tinkles faintly! + +'O life borne lightly in the hand, + For friend or foe with grace Castilian! +O valley safe in Fancy's land, + Not tramped to mud yet by the million! + +'Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale + To his, my singer of all weathers, +My Calderon, my nightingale, + My Arab soul in Spanish feathers. + +'Ah, friend, these singers dead so long, + And still, God knows, in purgatory, +Give its best sweetness to all song, + To Nature's self her better glory.' + + + +IN THE TWILIGHT + +Men say the sullen instrument, + That, from the Master's bow, + With pangs of joy or woe, +Feels music's soul through every fibre sent, + Whispers the ravished strings +More than he knew or meant; + Old summers in its memory glow; + The secrets of the wind it sings; + It hears the April-loosened springs; + And mixes with its mood + All it dreamed when it stood + In the murmurous pine-wood + Long ago! + +The magical moonlight then + Steeped every bough and cone; +The roar of the brook in the glen + Came dim from the distance blown; +The wind through its glooms sang low, + And it swayed to and fro + With delight as it stood, + In the wonderful wood, + Long ago! + +O my life, have we not had seasons + That only said, Live and rejoice? +That asked not for causes and reasons, + But made us all feeling and voice? +When we went with the winds in their blowing, + When Nature and we were peers, +And we seemed to share in the flowing + Of the inexhaustible years? + Have we not from the earth drawn juices + Too fine for earth's sordid uses? + Have I heard, have I seen + All I feel, all I know? + Doth my heart overween? + Or could it have been + Long ago? + +Sometimes a breath floats by me, + An odor from Dreamland sent. +That makes the ghost seem nigh me + Of a splendor that came and went, +Of a life lived somewhere, I know not + In what diviner sphere, +Of memories that stay not and go not, + Like music heard once by an ear + That cannot forget or reclaim it, +A something so shy, it would shame it + To make it a show, +A something too vague, could I name it, + For others to know, +As if I had lived it or dreamed it, +As if I had acted or schemed it, + Long ago! + +And yet, could I live it over, + This life that stirs in my brain, +Could I be both maiden and lover. +Moon and tide, bee and clover, + As I seem to have been, once again, +Could I but speak it and show it, + This pleasure more sharp than pain, + That baffles and lures me so, +The world should once more have a poet, + Such as it had + In the ages glad, + Long ago! + + + +THE FOOT-PATH + +It mounts athwart the windy hill + Through sallow slopes of upland bare, +And Fancy climbs with foot-fall still + Its narrowing curves that end in air. + +By day, a warmer-hearted blue + Stoops softly to that topmost swell; +Its thread-like windings seem a clue + To gracious climes where all is well. + +By night, far yonder, I surmise + An ampler world than clips my ken, +Where the great stars of happier skies + Commingle nobler fates of men. + +I look and long, then haste me home, + Still master of my secret rare; +Once tried, the path would end in Rome, + But now it leads me everywhere. + +Forever to the new it guides, + From former good, old overmuch; +What Nature for her poets hides, + 'Tis wiser to divine than clutch. + +The bird I list hath never come + Within the scope of mortal ear; +My prying step would make him dumb, + And the fair tree, his shelter, sear. + +Behind the hill, behind the sky, + Behind my inmost thought, he sings; +No feet avail; to hear it nigh, + The song itself must lend the wings. + +Sing on, sweet bird close hid, and raise + Those angel stairways in my brain, +That climb from these low-vaulted days + To spacious sunshines far from pain. + +Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet, + I leave thy covert haunt untrod, +And envy Science not her feat + To make a twice-told tale of God. + +They said the fairies tript no more, + And long ago that Pan was dead; +'Twas but that fools preferred to bore + Earth's rind inch-deep for truth instead. + +Pan leaps and pipes all summer long, + The fairies dance each full-mooned night, +Would we but doff our lenses strong, + And trust our wiser eyes' delight. + +City of Elf-land, just without + Our seeing, marvel ever new, +Glimpsed in fair weather, a sweet doubt + Sketched-in, mirage-like, on the blue, + +I build thee in yon sunset cloud, + Whose edge allures to climb the height; +I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loud, + From still pools dusk with dreams of night. + +Thy gates are shut to hardiest will, + Thy countersign of long-lost speech,-- +Those fountained courts, those chambers still, + Fronting Time's far East, who shall reach? + +I know not, and will never pry, + But trust our human heart for all; +Wonders that from the seeker fly + Into an open sense may fall. + +Hide in thine own soul, and surprise + The password of the unwary elves; +Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies; + Unsought, they whisper it themselves. + + + + +POEMS OF THE WAR + + + +THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD + +OCTOBER, 1861 + +Along a river-side, I know not where, +I walked one night in mystery of dream; +A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my hair, +To think what chanced me by the pallid gleam +Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air. + +Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow-mist +Their hales, wavering thistledowns of light; +The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst, +Laughed; and the echoes, huddling in affright, +Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down the night. 10 + +Then all was silent, till there smote my ear +A movement in the stream that checked my breath: +Was it the slow plash of a wading deer? +But something said, 'This water is of Death! +The Sisters wash a shroud,--ill thing to hear!' + +I, looking then, beheld the ancient Three +Known to the Greek's and to the Northman's creed, +That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree, +Still crooning, as they weave their endless brede, +One song: 'Time was, Time is, and Time shall be.' 20 + +No wrinkled crones were they, as I had deemed, +But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-morrow +To mourner, lover, poet, ever seemed; +Something too high for joy, too deep for sorrow, +Thrilled in their tones, and from their faces gleamed. + +'Still men and nations reap as they have strawn,' +So sang they, working at their task the while; +'The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere dawn: +For Austria? Italy? the Sea-Queen's isle? +O'er what quenched grandeur must our shroud be drawn? 30 + +'Or is it for a younger, fairer corse, +That gathered States like children round his knees, +That tamed the wave to be his posting-horse, +Feller of forests, linker of the seas, +Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son of Thor's? + +'What make we, murmur'st thou? and what are we? +When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud, +The time-old web of the implacable Three: +Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud? +Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it,--why not he?' 40 + +'Is there no hope?' I moaned, 'so strong, so fair! +Our Fowler whose proud bird would brook erewhile +No rival's swoop in all our western air! +Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file +For him, life's morn yet golden in his hair? + +'Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying dames! +I see, half seeing. Tell me, ye who scanned +The stars, Earth's elders, still must noblest aims +Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sands? +Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of names?' 50 + +'When grass-blades stiffen with red battle-dew, +Ye deem we choose the victor and the slain: +Say, choose we them that shall be leal and true +To the heart's longing, the high faith of brain? +Yet there the victory lies, if ye but knew. + +'Three roots bear up Dominion: Knowledge, Will,-- +These twain are strong, but stronger yet the third,-- +Obedience,--'tis the great tap-root that still, +Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred, +Though Heaven-loosed tempests spend their utmost skill. 60 + +'Is the doom sealed for Hesper? 'Tis not we +Denounce it, but the Law before all time: +The brave makes danger opportunity; +The waverer, paltering with the chance sublime, +Dwarfs it to peril: which shall Hesper be? + +'Hath he let vultures climb his eagle's seat +To make Jove's bolts purveyors of their maw? +Hath he the Many's plaudits found more sweet +Than Wisdom? held Opinion's wind for Law? +Then let him hearken for the doomster's feet! 70 + +'Rough are the steps, slow-hewn in flintiest rock, +States climb to power by; slippery those with gold +Down which they stumble to eternal mock: +No chafferer's hand shall long the sceptre hold, +Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell the block. + +'We sing old Sagas, songs of weal and woe, +Mystic because too cheaply understood; +Dark sayings are not ours; men hear and know, +See Evil weak, see strength alone in Good, +Yet hope to stem God's fire with walls of tow. 80 + +'Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is, +That offers choice of glory or of gloom; +The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his. +But hasten, Sisters! for even now the tomb +Grates its slow hinge and calls from the abyss.' + +'But not for him,' I cried, 'not yet for him, +Whose large horizon, westering, star by star +Wins from the void to where on Ocean's rim +The sunset shuts the world with golden bar, +Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow dim! 90 + +'His shall be larger manhood, saved for those +That walk unblenching through the trial-fires; +Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes, +And he no base-born son of craven sires, +Whose eye need blench confronted with his foes. + +'Tears may be ours, but proud, for those who win +Death's royal purple in the foe-man's lines; +Peace, too, brings tears; and mid the battle-din, +The wiser ear some text of God divines, +For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin. 100 + +'God, give us peace! not such as lulls to sleep, +But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit! +And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep, +Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit, +And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap!' + +So cried I with clenched hands and passionate pain, +Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side; +Again the loon laughed mocking, and again +The echoes bayed far down the night and died, +While waking I recalled my wandering brain. 110 + + + +TWO SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF BLONDEL + +AUTUMN, 1863 + + +SCENE I.--_Near a castle in Germany._ + +'Twere no hard task, perchance, to win + The popular laurel for my song; +'Twere only to comply with sin, + And own the crown, though snatched by wrong: +Rather Truth's chaplet let me wear, + Though sharp as death its thorns may sting: +Loyal to Loyalty, I bear + No badge but of my rightful king. + +Patient by town and tower I wait, + Or o'er the blustering moorland go; 10 +I buy no praise at cheaper rate, + Or what faint hearts may fancy so; +For me, no joy in lady's bower, + Or hall, or tourney, will I sing, +Till the slow stars wheel round the hour + That crowns my hero and my king. + +While all the land runs red with strife, + And wealth is won by pedler-crimes, +Let who will find content in life + And tinkle in unmanly rhymes; 20 +I wait and seek; through dark and light, + Safe in my heart my hope I bring, +Till I once more my faith may plight + To him my whole soul owns her king. + +When power is filched by drone and dolt, + And, with canght breath and flashing eye, +Her knuckles whitening round the bolt, + Vengeance leans eager from the sky, +While this and that the people guess, + And to the skirts of praters cling, 30 +Who court the crowd they should compress, + I turn in scorn to seek my king. + +Shut in what tower of darkling chance + Or dungeon of a narrow doom, +Dream'st thou of battle-axe and lance + That for the Cross make crashing room? +Come! with hushed breath the battle waits + In the wild van thy mace's swing; +While doubters parley with their fates, + Make thou thine own and ours, my king! 40 + +O strong to keep upright the old, + And wise to buttress with the new, +Prudent, as only are the bold, + Clear-eyed, as only are the true, +To foes benign, to friendship stern, + Intent to imp Law's broken wing, +Who would not die, if death might earn + The right to kiss thy hand, my king? + + +SCENE II.--_An Inn near the Château of Chalus_. + +Well, the whole thing is over, and here I sit + With one arm in a sling and a milk-score of gashes, 50 +And this flagon of Cyprus must e'en warm my wit, + Since what's left of youth's flame is a head flecked with ashes. +I remember I sat in this very same inn,-- + I was young then, and one young man thought I was handsome,-- +I had found out what prison King Richard was in, + And was spurring for England to push on the ransom. + +How I scorned the dull souls that sat guzzling around + And knew not my secret nor recked my derision! +Let the world sink or swim, John or Richard be crowned, + All one, so the beer-tax got lenient revision. 60 +How little I dreamed, as I tramped up and down, + That granting our wish one of Fate's saddest Jokes is! +I had mine with a vengeance,--my king got his crown, + And made his whole business to break other folks's. + +I might as well join in the safe old _tum, tum_: + A hero's an excellent loadstar,--but, bless ye, +What infinite odds 'twixt a hero to come + And your only too palpable hero _in esse!_ +Precisely the odds (such examples are rife) + 'Twixt the poem conceived and the rhyme we make show of, 70 +'Twixt the boy's morning dream and the wake-up of life, + 'Twixt the Blondel God meant and a Blondel I know of! + +But the world's better off, I'm convinced of it now, + Than if heroes, like buns, could be bought for a penny +To regard all mankind as their haltered milch-cow, + And just care for themselves. Well, God cares for the many; +For somehow the poor old Earth blunders along, + Each son of hers adding his mite of unfitness, +And, choosing the sure way of coming out wrong, + Gets to port as the next generation will witness. 80 + +You think her old ribs have come all crashing through, + If a whisk of Fate's broom snap your cobweb asunder; +But her rivets were clinched by a wiser than you. + And our sins cannot push the Lord's right hand from under. +Better one honest man who can wait for God's mind + In our poor shifting scene here though heroes were plenty! +Better one bite, at forty, of Truth's bitter rind, + Than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty! + +I see it all now: when I wanted a king, + 'Twas the kingship that failed in myself I was seeking,-- 90 +'Tis so much less easy to do than to sing, + So much simpler to reign by a proxy than _be_ king! +Yes, I think I _do_ see; after all's said and sung, + Take this one rule of life and you never will rue it,-- +'Tis but do your own duty and hold your own tongue + And Blondel were royal himself, if he knew it! + + + +MEMORIAE POSITUM + +R.G. SHAW + + +I + + Beneath the trees, + My lifelong friends in this dear spot, + Sad now for eyes that see them not, + I hear the autumnal breeze +Wake the dry leaves to sigh for gladness gone, +Whispering vague omens of oblivion, + Hear, restless as the seas, +Time's grim feet rustling through the withered grace +Of many a spreading realm and strong-stemmed race, + Even as my own through these. 10 + + Why make we moan + For loss that doth enrich us yet + With upward yearning of regret? + Bleaker than unmossed stone +Our lives were but for this immortal gain +Of unstilled longing and inspiring pain! + As thrills of long-hushed tone +Live in the viol, so our souls grow fine +With keen vibrations from the touch divine + Of noble natures gone. 20 + + 'Twere indiscreet + To vex the shy and sacred grief + With harsh obtrusions of relief; + Yet, Verse, with noiseless feet, +Go whisper: '_This_ death hath far choicer ends +Than slowly to impearl to hearts of friends; + These obsequies 'tis meet +Not to seclude in closets of the heart, +But, church-like, with wide doorways, to impart + Even to the heedless street.' 30 + + +II + + Brave, good, and true, + I see him stand before me now. + And read again on that young brow, + Where every hope was new, +_How sweet were life!_ Yet, by the mouth firm-set, +And look made up for Duty's utmost debt, + I could divine he knew +That death within the sulphurous hostile lines, +In the mere wreck of nobly pitched designs, + Plucks heart's-ease, and not rue. 40 + + Happy their end + Who vanish down life's evening stream + Placid as swans that drift in dream + Round the next river-bend! +Happy long life, with honor at the close, +Friends' painless tears, the softened thought of foes! + And yet, like him, to spend +All at a gush, keeping our first faith sure +From mid-life's doubt and eld's contentment poor, + What more could Fortune send? 50 + + Right in the van, + On the red rampart's slippery swell, +With heart that beat a charge, he fell + Foeward, as fits a man; +But the high soul burns on to light men's feet +Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet; + His life her crescent's span +Orbs full with share in their undarkening days +Who ever climbed the battailous steeps of praise + Since valor's praise began. 60 + + +III + + His life's expense + Hath won him coeternal youth + With the immaculate prime of Truth; + While we, who make pretence +At living on, and wake and eat and sleep, +And life's stale trick by repetition keep, + Our fickle permanence +(A poor leaf-shadow on a brook, whose play +Of busy idlesse ceases with our day) + Is the mere cheat of sense. 70 + + We bide our chance, + Unhappy, and make terms with Fate + A little more to let us wait; + He leads for aye the advance, +Hope's forlorn-hopes that plant the desperate good +For nobler Earths and days of manlier mood; + Our wall of circumstance + Cleared at a bound, he flashes o'er the fight, + A saintly shape of fame, to cheer the right + And steel each wavering glance. 80 + + I write of one, + While with dim eyes I think of three; + Who weeps not others fair and brave as he? + Ah, when the fight is won, +Dear Land, whom triflers now make bold to scorn, +(Thee! from whose forehead Earth awaits her morn,) + How nobler shall the sun +Flame in thy sky, how braver breathe thy air, +That thou bred'st children who for thee could dare + And die as thine have done! + + + +ON BOARD THE '76 + +WRITTEN FOR MR. BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY + +NOVEMBER 3, 1884 + +Our ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, + Her rudder gone, her mainmast o'er the side; +Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch staggering free, + Trailed threads of priceless crimson through the tide; +Sails, shrouds, and spars with pirate cannon torn, + We lay, awaiting morn. + +Awaiting morn, such morn as mocks despair; + And she that bare the promise of the world. +Within her sides, now hopeless, helmless, bare, + At random o'er the wildering waters hurled; 10 +The reek of battle drifting slow alee + Not sullener than we. + +Morn came at last to peer into our woe, + When lo, a sail! Mow surely help was nigh; +The red cross flames aloft, Christ's pledge; but no, + Her black guns grinning hate, she rushes by +And hails us:--'Gains the leak! Ay, so we thought! + Sink, then, with curses fraught!' + +I leaned against my gun still angry-hot, + And my lids tingled with the tears held back: 20 +This scorn methought was crueller than shot: + The manly death-grip in the battle-wrack, +Yard-arm to yard-arm, were more friendly far + Than such fear-smothered war. + +There our foe wallowed, like a wounded brute + The fiercer for his hurt. What now were best? +Once more tug bravely at the peril's root, + Though death came with it? Or evade the test +If right or wrong in this God's world of ours + Be leagued with mightier powers? 30 + +Some, faintly loyal, felt their pulses lag + With the slow beat that doubts and then despairs; +Some, caitiff, would have struck the starry flag + That knits us with our past, and makes us heirs +Of deeds high-hearted as were ever done + 'Neath the all-seeing sun. + +But there was one, the Singer of our crew, + Upon whose head Age waved his peaceful sign, +But whose red heart's-blood no surrender knew; + And couchant under brows of massive line, 40 +The eyes, like guns beneath a parapet, + Watched, charged with lightnings yet. + +The voices of the hills did his obey; + The torrents flashed and tumbled in his song; +He brought our native fields from far away, + Or set us 'mid the innumerable throng +Of dateless woods, or where we heard the calm + Old homestead's evening psalm. + +But now he sang of faith to things unseen, + Of freedom's birthright given to us in trust; 50 +And words of doughty cheer he spoke between, + That made all earthly fortune seem as dust, +Matched with that duty, old as Time and new, + Of being brave and true. + +We, listening, learned what makes the might of words,-- + Manhood to back them, constant as a star: +His voice rammed home our cannon, edged our swords, + And sent our boarders shouting; shroud and spar +Heard him and stiffened; the sails heard, and wooed + The winds with loftier mood. 60 + +In our dark hours he manned our guns again; + Remanned ourselves from his own manhood's stores; +Pride, honor, country, throbbed through all his strain; + And shall we praise? God's praise was his before; +And on our futile laurels he looks down, + Himself our bravest crown. + + + +ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION + +JULY 21, 1865 + + +I + + Weak-winged is song, +Nor aims at that clear-ethered height +Whither the brave deed climbs for light: + We seem to do them wrong, +Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse +Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse, +Our trivial song to honor those who come +With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum, +And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire, +Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire: 10 + Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, +A gracious memory to buoy up and save +From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave + Of the unventurous throng. + + +II + +To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back + Her wisest Scholars, those who understood +The deeper teaching of her mystic tome, + And offered their fresh lives to make it good: + No lore of Greece or Rome, +No science peddling with the names of things, 20 +Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, + Can lift our life with wings +Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits, + And lengthen out our dates +With that clear fame whose memory sings +In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates: +Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all! + Not such the trumpet-call + Of thy diviner mood, + That could thy sons entice 30 +From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest +Of those half-virtues which the world calls best, + Into War's tumult rude; + But rather far that stern device +The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood + In the dim, unventured wood, + The VERITAS that lurks beneath + The letter's unprolific sheath, + Life of whate'er makes life worth living, +Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food, 40 + One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving. + + +III + +Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil + Amid the dust of books to find her, +Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, + With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. + Many in sad faith sought for her, + Many with crossed hands sighed for her; + But these, our brothers, fought for her, + At life's dear peril wrought for her, + So loved her that they died for her, 50 + Tasting the raptured fleetness + Of her divine completeness: + Their higher instinct knew +Those love her best who to themselves are true, +And what they dare to dream of, dare to do; + They followed her and found her + Where all may hope to find, +Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, +But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her. + Where faith made whole with deed 60 + Breathes its awakening breath + Into the lifeless creed, + They saw her plumed and mailed, + With sweet, stern face unveiled. +And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death. + + +IV + +Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides + Into the silent hollow of the past; + What is there that abides + To make the next age better for the last? + Is earth too poor to give us 70 + Something to live for here that shall outlive us? + Some more substantial boon +Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune's fickle moon? + The little that we see + From doubt is never free; + The little that we do + Is but half-nobly true; + With our laborious hiving +What men call treasure, and the gods call dross, + Life seems a fest of Fate's contriving, 80 + Only secure in every one's conniving, +A long account of nothings paid with loss, +Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, + After our little hour of strut and rave, +With all our pasteboard passions and desires, +Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, + Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. + But stay! no age was e'er degenerate, + Unless men held it at too cheap a rate, + For in our likeness still we shape our fate. 90 + Ah, there is something here + Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer, + Something that gives our feeble light + A high immunity from Night, + Something that leaps life's narrow bars +To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven; + A seed of sunshine that can leaven + Our earthly dullness with the beams of stars, + And glorify our clay + With light from fountains elder than the Day; 100 + A conscience more divine than we, + A gladness fed with secret tears, + A vexing, forward-reaching sense + Of some more noble permanence; + A light across the sea, + Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, +Still beaconing from the heights of undegenerate years. + + +V + + Whither leads the path + To ampler fates that leads? + Not down through flowery meads, 110 + To reap an aftermath + Of youth's vainglorious weeds, + But up the steep, amid the wrath + And shock of deadly-hostile creeds, + Where the world's best hope and stay +By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, +And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. + Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, + Ere yet the sharp, decisive word +Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword 120 + Dreams in its easeful sheath; +But some day the live coal behind the thought, + Whether from Baäl's stone obscene, + Or from the shrine serene + Of God's pure altar brought, +Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen +Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught, +And, helpless in the fiery passion caught, +Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men: +Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed 130 +Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, +And cries reproachful: 'Was it, then, my praise, +And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth; +I claim of thee the promise of thy youth; +Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, +The victim of thy genius, not its mate!' + Life may be given in many ways, + And loyalty to Truth be sealed +As bravely in the closet as the field, + So bountiful is Fate; 140 + But then to stand beside her, + When craven churls deride her, +To front a lie in arms and not to yield, + This shows, methinks, God's plan + And measure of a stalwart man, + Limbed like the old heroic breeds, + Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, + Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, +Fed from within with all the strength he needs. + + +VI + +Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 150 + Whom late the Nation he had led. + With ashes on her head, +Wept with the passion of an angry grief: +Forgive me, if from present things I turn +To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, +And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. + Nature, they say, doth dote, + And cannot make a man + Save on some worn-out plan, + Repeating as by rote: 160 +For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw, + And, choosing sweet clay from the breast + Of the unexhausted West, +With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, +Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true, + How beautiful to see +Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, +Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; +One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, + Not lured by any cheat of birth, 170 + But by his clear-grained human worth, +And brave old wisdom of sincerity! + They knew that outward grace is dust; + They could not choose but trust +In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, + And supple-tempered will +That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. + His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind. + Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, + A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; 180 + Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, + Fruitful and friendly for all human kind, +Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. + Nothing of Europe here, +Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, + Ere any names of Serf and Peer + Could Nature's equal scheme deface + And thwart her genial will; + Here was a type of the true elder race, +And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 190 + I praise him not; it were too late; +And some innative weakness there must be +In him who condescends to victory +Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, + Safe in himself as in a fate, + So always firmly he: + He knew to bide his time, + And can his fame abide, +Still patient in his simple faith sublime, + Till the wise years decide. + Great captains, with their guns and drums, 201 + Disturb our judgment for the hour, + But at last silence comes; + These all are gone, and, standing like a tower. + Our children shall behold his fame, + The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man. +Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, + New birth of our new soil, the first American. + + +VII + + Long as man's hope insatiate can discern + Or only guess some more inspiring goal 210 + Outside of Self, enduring as the pole, + Along whose course the flying axles burn + Of spirits bravely pitched, earth's manlier brood, + Long as below we cannot find + The meed that stills the inexorable mind; + So long this faith to some ideal Good, + Under whatever mortal names it masks, + Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood +That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, + Feeling its challenged pulses leap, 220 + While others skulk in subterfuges cheap, +And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks, + Shall win man's praise and woman's love, + Shall be a wisdom that we set above +All other skills and gifts to culture dear, + A virtue round whose forehead we inwreathe + Laurels that with a living passion breathe +When other crowns grow, while we twine them, sear. + What brings us thronging these high rites to pay, +And seal these hours the noblest of our year, 230 + Save that our brothers found this better way? + + +VIII + + We sit here in the Promised Land + That flows with Freedom's honey and milk; + But 'twas they won it, sword in hand, +Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk. + We welcome back our bravest and our best;-- + Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest, +Who went forth brave and bright as any here! +I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, + But the sad strings complain, 240 + And will not please the ear: +I sweep them for a pæan, but they wane + Again and yet again +Into a dirge, and die away, in pain. +In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, +Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, +Dark to the triumph which they died to gain: + Fitlier may others greet the living, + For me the past is unforgiving; + I with uncovered head 250 + Salute the sacred dead, +Who went, and who return not.--Say not so! +'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay, +But the high faith that failed not by the way; +Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; +No ban of endless night exiles the brave; + And to the saner mind +We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. +Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! +For never shall their aureoled presence lack: 260 +I see them muster in a gleaming row, +With ever-youthful brows that nobler show; +We find in our dull road their shining track; + In every nobler mood +We feel the orient of their spirit glow, +Part of our life's unalterable good, +Of all our saintlier aspiration; + They come transfigured back, +Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, +Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 270 +Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation! + + +IX + + But is there hope to save + Even this ethereal essence from the grave? + What ever 'scaped Oblivion's subtle wrong +Save a few clarion names, or golden threads of song? + Before my musing eye + The mighty ones of old sweep by, + Disvoicèd now and insubstantial things, + As noisy once as we; poor ghosts of kings, + Shadows of empire wholly gone to dust, 280 + And many races, nameless long ago, + To darkness driven by that imperious gust + Of ever-rushing Time that here doth blow: + O visionary world, condition strange, + Where naught abiding is but only Change, +Where the deep-bolted stars themselves still shift and range! + Shall we to more continuance make pretence? +Renown builds tombs, a life-estate is Wit; + And, bit by bit, +The cunning years steal all from us but woe; 290 + Leaves are we, whose decays no harvest sow. + But, when we vanish hence, +Shall they lie forceless in the dark below, +Save to make green their little length of souls, +Or deepen pansies for a year or two, +Who now to us are shining-sweet as gods? +Was dying all they had the skill to do? +That were not fruitless: but the Soul resents +Such short-lived service, as if blind events +Ruled without her, or earth could so endure; 300 +She claims a more divine investiture +Of longer tenure than Fame's airy rents; +Whate'er she touches doth her nature share; +Her inspiration haunts the ennobled air, + Gives eyes to mountains blind, +Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the wind, +And her clear trump slugs succor everywhere +By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful mind; +For soul inherits all that soul could dare: + Yea, Manhood hath a wider span 310 +And larger privilege of life than man. +The single deed, the private sacrifice, +So radiant now through proudly-hidden tears, +Is covered up erelong from mortal eyes +With thoughtless drift of the deciduous years; +But that high privilege that makes all men peers, +That leap of heart whereby a people rise + Up to a noble anger's height, +And, flamed on by the Fates, not shrink, but grow more bright, + That swift validity in noble veins, 320 + Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, + Of being set on flame + By the pure fire that flies all contact base +But wraps its chosen with angelic might, + These are imperishable gains, + Sure as the sun, medicinal as light, + These hold great futures in their lusty reins +And certify to earth a new imperial race. + + +X + + Who now shall sneer? + Who dare again to say we trace 330 + Our lines to a plebeian race? + Roundhead and Cavalier! +Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud; +Dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud, + They flit across the ear: +That is best blood that hath most iron in 't, +To edge resolve with, pouring without stint + For what makes manhood dear. + Tell us not of Plantagenets, +Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl 340 +Down from some victor in a border-brawl! + How poor their outworn coronets, +Matched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath +Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, + Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets +Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears +Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears + With vain resentments and more vain regrets! + + +XI + + Not in anger, not in pride, + Pure from passion's mixture rude 350 + Ever to base earth allied, + But with far-heard gratitude, + Still with heart and voice renewed, + To heroes living and dear martyrs dead, +The strain should close that consecrates our brave. + Lift the heart and lift the head! + Lofty be its mood and grave, + Not without a martial ring, + Not without a prouder tread + And a peal of exultation: 360 + Little right has he to sing + Through whose heart in such an hour + Beats no march of conscious power, + Sweeps no tumult of elation! + 'Tis no Man we celebrate, + By his country's victories great, + A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, + But the pith and marrow of a Nation + Drawing force from all her men, + Highest, humblest, weakest, all, 370 + For her time of need, and then + Pulsing it again through them, + Till the basest can no longer cower, + Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, + Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. + Come back, then, noble pride, for 'tis her dower! + How could poet ever tower, + If his passions, hopes, and fears, + If his triumphs and his tears, + Kept not measure with his people? 380 +Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves! +Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple! +Banners, adance with triumph, bend your staves! + And from every mountain-peak + Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, + Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he, +And so leap on in light from sea to sea, + Till the glad news be sent + Across a kindling continent, +Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver: 390 +'Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her! + She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, + She of the open soul and open door, + With room about her hearth for all mankind! + The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more; + From her bold front the helm she doth unbind, + Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, + And bids her navies, that so lately hurled + Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in, + Swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful shore. 400 + No challenge sends she to the elder world, + That looked askance and hated; a light scorn + Plays o'er her mouth, as round her mighty knees + She calls her children back, and waits the morn +Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas.' + + +XII + +Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release! + Thy God, in these distempered days, + Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of his ways, +And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace! + Bow down in prayer and praise! 410 +No poorest in thy borders but may now +Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow. +O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more! +Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair +O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, + And letting thy set lips, + Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, +The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, +What words divine of lover or of poet +Could tell our love and make thee know it, 420 +Among the Nations bright beyond compare? + What were our lives without thee? + What all our lives to save thee? + We reck not what we gave thee; + We will not dare to doubt thee, +But ask whatever else, and we will dare! + + + +L'ENVOI + + +TO THE MUSE + +Whither? Albeit I follow fast, + In all life's circuit I but find, +Not where thou art, but where thou wast, + Sweet beckoner, more fleet than wind! +I haunt the pine-dark solitudes, + With soft brown silence carpeted, +And plot to snare thee in the woods: + Peace I o'ertake, but thou art fled! +I find the rock where thou didst rest, +The moss thy skimming foot hath prest; 10 + All Nature with thy parting thrills, +Like branches after birds new-flown; + Thy passage hill and hollow fills +With hints of virtue not their own; +In dimples still the water slips +Where thou hast dipt thy finger-tips; + Just, just beyond, forever burn + Gleams of a grace without return; + Upon thy shade I plant my foot, +And through my frame strange raptures shoot; 20 +All of thee but thyself I grasp; + I seem to fold thy luring shape, +And vague air to my bosom clasp, + Thou lithe, perpetual Escape! + +One mask and then another drops, +And thou art secret as before; + Sometimes with flooded ear I list, + And hear thee, wondrous organist, +From mighty continental stops +A thunder of new music pour; 30 +Through pipes of earth and air and stone +Thy inspiration deep is blown; +Through mountains, forests, open downs, +Lakes, railroads, prairies, states, and towns, +Thy gathering fugue goes rolling on +From Maine to utmost Oregon; +The factory-wheels in cadence hum, +From brawling parties concords come; +All this I hear, or seem to hear, +But when, enchanted, I draw near 40 +To mate with words the various theme, +Life seems a whiff of kitchen steam, +History an organ-grinder's thrum, + For thou hast slipt from it and me +And all thine organ-pipes left dumb, + Most mutable Perversity! + +Not weary yet, I still must seek, +And hope for luck next day, next week; +I go to see the great man ride, +Shiplike, the swelling human tide 50 +That floods to bear him into port, +Trophied from Senate-hall and Court; +Thy magnetism, I feel it there, +Thy rhythmic presence fleet and rare, +Making the Mob a moment fine +With glimpses of their own Divine, +As in their demigod they see + Their cramped ideal soaring free; +'Twas thou didst bear the fire about, + That, like the springing of a mine, 60 +Sent up to heaven the street-long shout; +Full well I know that thou wast here, +It was thy breath that brushed my ear; +But vainly in the stress and whirl +I dive for thee, the moment's pearl. + +Through every shape thou well canst run, +Proteus, 'twixt rise and set of sun, +Well pleased with logger-camps in Maine + As where Milan's pale Duomo lies +A stranded glacier on the plain, 70 + Its peaks and pinnacles of ice + Melted in many a quaint device, +And sees, above the city's din, +Afar its silent Alpine kin: +I track thee over carpets deep +To wealth's and beauty's inmost keep; +Across the sand of bar-room floors +Mid the stale reek of boosing boors; +Where browse the hay-field's fragrant heats, +Or the flail-heart of Autumn beats; 80 +I dog thee through the market's throngs +To where the sea with myriad tongues +Laps the green edges of the pier, +And the tall ships that eastward steer, +Curtsy their farewells to the town, +O'er the curved distance lessening down: +I follow allwhere for thy sake, +Touch thy robe's hem, but ne'er o'ertake, +Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies, +Warm from thy limbs, thy last disguise; 90 +But thou another shape hast donned, +And lurest still just, just beyond! + +But here a voice, I know not whence, +Thrills clearly through my inward sense, +Saying: 'See where she sits at home +While thou in search of her dost roam! +All summer long her ancient wheel + Whirls humming by the open door, +Or, when the hickory's social zeal + Sets the wide chimney in a roar, 100 +Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth, +It modulates the household mirth +With that sweet serious undertone +Of duty, music all her own; +Still as of old she sits and spins +Our hopes, our sorrows, and our sins; +With equal care she twines the fates +Of cottages and mighty states; +She spins the earth, the air, the sea, +The maiden's unschooled fancy free, 110 +The boy's first love, the man's first grief, +The budding and the fall o' the leaf; +The piping west-wind's snowy care +For her their cloudy fleeces spare, +Or from the thorns of evil times +She can glean wool to twist her rhymes; +Morning and noon and eve supply +To her their fairest tints for dye, +But ever through her twirling thread +There spires one line of warmest red, 120 +Tinged from the homestead's genial heart, +The stamp and warrant of her art; +With this Time's sickle she outwears, +And blunts the Sisters' baffled shears. + +'Harass her not: thy heat and stir +But greater coyness breed in her; +Yet thou mayst find, ere Age's frost, +Thy long apprenticeship not lost, +Learning at last that Stygian Fate +Unbends to him that knows to wait. 130 +The Muse is womanish, nor deigns +Her love to him that pules and plains; +With proud, averted face she stands +To him that wooes with empty hands. +Make thyself free of Manhood's guild; +Pull down thy barns and greater build; +The wood, the mountain, and the plain +Wave breast-deep with the poet's grain; +Pluck thou the sunset's fruit of gold, +Glean from the heavens and ocean old; 140 +From fireside lone and trampling street +Let thy life garner daily wheat; +The epic of a man rehearse, +Be something better than thy verse; +Make thyself rich, and then the Muse +Shall court thy precious interviews, +Shall take thy head upon her knee, +And such enchantment lilt to thee, +That thou shalt hear the life-blood flow +From farthest stars to grass-blades low, 150 +And find the Listener's science still +Transcends the Singer's deepest skill!' + + + +THE CATHEDRAL + + + * * * * * + + To + + MR. JAMES T. FIELDS + + MY DEAR FIELDS: + + Dr. Johnson's sturdy self-respect led him to invent the Bookseller as a + substitute for the Patron. My relations with you have enabled me to + discover how pleasantly the Friend may replace the Bookseller. Let me + record my sense of many thoughtful services by associating your name + with a poem which owes its appearance in this form to your partiality. + + Cordially yours, + + J.R. LOWELL. + + CAMBRIDGE, _November_ 29, 1869. + + * * * * * + +Far through the memory shines a happy day, +Cloudless of care, down-shod to every sense, +And simply perfect from its own resource, +As to a bee the new campanula's +Illuminate seclusion swung in air. +Such days are not the prey of setting suns, +Nor ever blurred with mist of afterthought; +Like words made magical by poets dead, +Wherein the music of all meaning is +The sense hath garnered or the soul divined, 10 +They mingle with our life's ethereal part, +Sweetening and gathering sweetness evermore, +By beauty's franchise disenthralled of time. + +I can recall, nay, they are present still, +Parts of myself, the perfume of my mind, +Days that seem farther off than Homer's now +Ere yet the child had loudened to the boy, +And I, recluse from playmates, found perforce +Companionship in things that not denied +Nor granted wholly; as is Nature's wont, 20 +Who, safe in uncontaminate reserve, +Lets us mistake our longing for her love, +And mocks with various echo of ourselves. + +These first sweet frauds upon our consciousness, +That blend the sensual with its imaged world, +These virginal cognitions, gifts of morn, +Ere life grow noisy, and slower-footed thought +Can overtake the rapture of the sense, +To thrust between ourselves and what we feel, +Have something in them secretly divine. 30 +Vainly the eye, once schooled to serve the brain, +With pains deliberate studies to renew +The ideal vision: second-thoughts are prose; +For beauty's acme hath a term as brief +As the wave's poise before it break in pearl, +Our own breath dims the mirror of the sense, +Looking too long and closely: at a flash +We snatch the essential grace of meaning out, +And that first passion beggars all behind, +Heirs of a tamer transport prepossessed. 40 +Who, seeing once, has truly seen again +The gray vague of unsympathizing sea +That dragged his Fancy from her moorings back +To shores inhospitable of eldest time, +Till blank foreboding of earth-gendered powers, +Pitiless seignories in the elements, +Omnipotences blind that darkling smite, +Misgave him, and repaganized the world? +Yet, by some subtler touch of sympathy, +These primal apprehensions, dimly stirred, 50 +Perplex the eye with pictures from within. +This hath made poets dream of lives foregone +In worlds fantastical, more fair than ours; +So Memory cheats us, glimpsing half-revealed. +Even as I write she tries her wonted spell +In that continuous redbreast boding rain: +The bird I hear sings not from yonder elm; +But the flown ecstasy my childhood heard +Is vocal in my mind, renewed by him, +Haply made sweeter by the accumulate thrill 60 +That threads my undivided life and steals +A pathos from the years and graves between. + +I know not how it is with other men, +Whom I but guess, deciphering myself; +For me, once felt is so felt nevermore. +The fleeting relish at sensation's brim +Had in it the best ferment of the wine. +One spring I knew as never any since: +All night the surges of the warm southwest +Boomed intermittent through the wallowing elms, 70 +And brought a morning from the Gulf adrift, +Omnipotent with sunshine, whose quick charm +Startled with crocuses the sullen turf +And wiled the bluebird to his whiff of song: +One summer hour abides, what time I perched, +Dappled with noonday, under simmering leaves, +And pulled the pulpy oxhearts, while aloof +An oriole clattered and the robins shrilled, +Denouncing me an alien and a thief: +One morn of autumn lords it o'er the rest, 80 +When in the lane I watched the ash-leaves fall, +Balancing softly earthward without wind, +Or twirling with directer impulse down +On those fallen yesterday, now barbed with frost, +While I grew pensive with the pensive year: +And once I learned how marvellous winter was, +When past the fence-rails, downy-gray with rime, +I creaked adventurous o'er the spangled crust +That made familiar fields seem far and strange +As those stark wastes that whiten endlessly 90 +In ghastly solitude about the pole, +And gleam relentless to the unsetting sun: +Instant the candid chambers of my brain +Were painted with these sovran images; +And later visions seem but copies pale +From those unfading frescos of the past, +Which I, young savage, in my age of flint, +Gazed at, and dimly felt a power in me +Parted from Nature by the joy in her +That doubtfully revealed me to myself. 100 +Thenceforward I must stand outside the gate; +And paradise was paradise the more, +Known once and barred against satiety. + +What we call Nature, all outside ourselves, +Is but our own conceit of what we see, +Our own reaction upon what we feel; +The world's a woman to our shifting mood, +Feeling with us, or making due pretence +And therefore we the more persuade ourselves +To make all things our thought's confederates, 110 +Conniving with us in whate'er we dream. +So when our Fancy seeks analogies, +Though she have hidden what she after finds, +She loves to cheat herself with feigned surprise. +I find my own complexion everywhere; +No rose, I doubt, was ever, like the first, +A marvel to the bush it dawned upon, +The rapture of its life made visible, +The mystery of its yearning realized, +As the first babe to the first woman born; 120 +No falcon ever felt delight of wings +As when, an eyas, from the stolid cliff +Loosing himself, he followed his high heart +To swim on sunshine, masterless as wind; +And I believe the brown earth takes delight +In the new snowdrop looking back at her, +To think that by some vernal alchemy +It could transmute her darkness into pearl; +What is the buxom peony after that, +With its coarse constancy of hoyden blush? 130 +What the full summer to that wonder new? + +But, if in nothing else, in us there is +A sense fastidious hardly reconciled +To the poor makeshifts of life's scenery, +Where the same slide must double all its parts, +Shoved in for Tarsus and hitched back for Tyre, +I blame not in the soul this daintiness, +Rasher of surfeit than a humming-bird, +In things indifferent by sense purveyed; +It argues her an immortality 140 +And dateless incomes of experience, +This unthrift housekeeping that will not brook +A dish warmed-over at the feast of life, +And finds Twice stale, served with whatever sauce. +Nor matters much how it may go with me +Who dwell in Grub Street and am proud to drudge +Where men, my betters, wet their crust with tears; +Use can make sweet the peach's shady side, +That only by reflection tastes of sun. + +But she, my Princess, who will sometimes deign 150 +My garret to illumine till the walls, +Narrow and dingy, scrawled with hackneyed thought +(Poor Richard slowly elbowing Plato out), +Dilate and drape themselves with tapestries +Nausikaa might have stooped o'er, while, between, +Mirrors, effaced in their own clearness, send +Her only image on through deepening deeps +With endless repercussion of delight,-- +Bringer of life, witching each sense to soul, +That sometimes almost gives me to believe 160 +I might have been a poet, gives at least +A brain dasaxonized, an ear that makes +Music where none is, and a keener pang +Of exquisite surmise outleaping thought,-- +Her will I pamper in her luxury: +No crumpled rose-leaf of too careless choice +Shall bring a northern nightmare to her dreams, +Vexing with sense of exile; hers shall be +The invitiate firstlings of experience, +Vibrations felt but once and felt life long: 170 +Oh, more than half-way turn that Grecian front +Upon me, while with self-rebuke I spell, +On the plain fillet that confines thy hair +In conscious bounds of seeming unconstraint, +The _Naught in overplus_, thy race's badge! + +One feast for her I secretly designed +In that Old World so strangely beautiful +To us the disinherited of eld,-- +A day at Chartres, with no soul beside +To roil with pedant prate my joy serene 180 +And make the minster shy of confidence. +I went, and, with the Saxon's pious care, +First ordered dinner at the pea-green inn, +The flies and I its only customers. +Eluding these, I loitered through the town, +With hope to take my minster unawares +In its grave solitude of memory. +A pretty burgh, and such as Fancy loves +For bygone grandeurs, faintly rumorous now +Upon the mind's horizon, as of storm 190 +Brooding its dreamy thunders far aloof, +That mingle with our mood, but not disturb. +Its once grim bulwarks, tamed to lovers' walks, +Look down unwatchful on the sliding Eure, +Whose listless leisure suits the quiet place, +Lisping among his shallows homelike sounds +At Concord and by Bankside heard before. +Chance led me to a public pleasure-ground, +Where I grew kindly with the merry groups, +And blessed the Frenchman for his simple art 200 +Of being domestic in the light of day. +His language has no word, we growl, for Home; +But he can find a fireside in the sun, +Play with his child, make love, and shriek his mind, +By throngs of strangers undisprivacied. +He makes his life a public gallery, +Nor feels himself till what he feels comes back +In manifold reflection from without; +While we, each pore alert with consciousness, +Hide our best selves as we had stolen them, 210 +And each bystander a detective were, +Keen-eyed for every chink of undisguise. + +So, musing o'er the problem which was best,-- +A life wide-windowed, shining all abroad, +Or curtains drawn to shield from sight profane +The rites we pay to the mysterious I,-- +With outward senses furloughed and head bowed +I followed some fine instinct in my feet, +Till, to unbend me from the loom of thought, +Looking up suddenly, I found mine eyes 220 +Confronted with the minster's vast repose. +Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff +Left inland by the ocean's slow retreat, +That hears afar the breeze-borne rote and longs, +Remembering shocks of surf that clomb and fell, +Spume-sliding down the baffled decuman, +It rose before me, patiently remote +From the great tides of life it breasted once, +Hearing the noise of men as in a dream. +I stood before the triple northern port, 230 +Where dedicated shapes of saints and kings, +Stern faces bleared with immemorial watch, +Looked down benignly grave and seemed to say, +_Ye come and go incessant; we remain +Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past; +Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, +Of faith so nobly realized as this._ +I seem to have heard it said by learnèd folk +Who drench you with æsthetics till you feel +As if all beauty were a ghastly bore, 240 +The faucet to let loose a wash of words, +That Gothic is not Grecian, therefore worse; +But, being convinced by much experiment +How little inventiveness there is in man, +Grave copier of copies, I give thanks +For a new relish, careless to inquire +My pleasure's pedigree, if so it please, +Nobly, I mean, nor renegade to art. +The Grecian gluts me with its perfectness, +Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained, 250 +The one thing finished in this hasty world, +Forever finished, though the barbarous pit, +Fanatical on hearsay, stamp and shout +As if a miracle could be encored. +But ah! this other, this that never ends, +Still climbing, luring fancy still to climb, +As full of morals half-divined as life, +Graceful, grotesque, with ever new surprise +Of hazardous caprices sure to please, +Heavy as nightmare, airy-light as fern, 260 +Imagination's very self in stone! +With one long sigh of infinite release +From pedantries past, present, or to come, +I looked, and owned myself a happy Goth. +Your blood is mine, ye architects of dream, +Builders of aspiration incomplete, +So more consummate, souls self-confident, +Who felt your own thought worthy of record +In monumental pomp! No Grecian drop +Rebukes these veins that leap with kindred thrill, 270 +After long exile, to the mother-tongue. + +Ovid in Pontus, puling for his Rome +Of men invirile and disnatured dames +That poison sucked from the Attic bloom decayed, +Shrank with a shudder from the blue-eyed race +Whose force rough-handed should renew the world, +And from the dregs of Romulus express +Such wine as Dante poured, or he who blew +Roland's vain blast, or sang the Campeador +In verse that clanks like armor in the charge, 280 +Homeric juice, though brimmed in Odin's horn. +And they could build, if not the columned fane +That from the height gleamed seaward many-hued, +Something more friendly with their ruder skies: +The gray spire, molten now in driving mist, +Now lulled with the incommunicable blue; +The carvings touched to meaning new with snow, +Or commented with fleeting grace of shade; +The statues, motley as man's memory, +Partial as that, so mixed of true and false, 290 +History and legend meeting with a kiss +Across this bound-mark where their realms confine; +The painted windows, freaking gloom with glow, +Dusking the sunshine which they seem to cheer, +Meet symbol of the senses and the soul, +And the whole pile, grim with the Northman's thought +Of life and death, and doom, life's equal fee,-- +These were before me: and I gazed abashed, +Child of an age that lectures, not creates, +Plastering our swallow-nests on the awful Past, 300 +And twittering round the work of larger men, +As we had builded what we but deface. +Far up the great bells wallowed in delight, +Tossing their clangors o'er the heedless town, +To call the worshippers who never came, +Or women mostly, in loath twos and threes. +I entered, reverent of whatever shrine +Guards piety and solace for my kind +Or gives the soul a moment's truce of God, +And shared decorous in the ancient rite 310 +My sterner fathers held idolatrous. +The service over, I was tranced in thought: +Solemn the deepening vaults, and most to me, +Fresh from the fragile realm of deal and paint, +Or brick mock-pious with a marble front; +Solemn the lift of high-embowered roof, +The clustered stems that spread in boughs disleaved, +Through which the organ blew a dream of storm, +Though not more potent to sublime with awe +And shut the heart up to tranquillity, 320 +Than aisles to me familiar that o'erarch +The conscious silences of brooding woods, +Centurial shadows, cloisters of the elk:, +Yet here was sense of undefined regret, +Irreparable loss, uncertain what: +Was all this grandeur but anachronism, +A shell divorced of its informing life, +Where the priest housed him like a hermit-crab, +An alien to that faith of elder days +That gathered round it this fair shape of stone? 330 +Is old Religion but a spectre now, +Haunting the solitude of darkened minds, +Mocked out of memory by the sceptic day? +Is there no corner safe from peeping Doubt, +Since Gutenberg made thought cosmopolite +And stretched electric threads from mind to mind? +Nay, did Faith build this wonder? or did Fear, +That makes a fetish and misnames it God +(Blockish or metaphysic, matters not), +Contrive this coop to shut its tyrant in, 340 +Appeased with playthings, that he might not harm? + +I turned and saw a beldame on her knees; +With eyes astray, she told mechanic beads +Before some shrine of saintly womanhood, +Bribed intercessor with the far-off Judge: +Such my first thought, by kindlier soon rebuked, +Pleading for whatsoever touches life +With upward impulse: be He nowhere else, +God is in all that liberates and lifts, +In all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles: 350 +Blessed the natures shored on every side +With landmarks of hereditary thought! +Thrice happy they that wander not life long +Beyond near succor of the household faith, +The guarded fold that shelters, not confines! +Their steps find patience In familiar paths, +Printed with hope by loved feet gone before +Of parent, child, or lover, glorified +By simple magic of dividing Time. +My lids were moistened as the woman knelt, 360 +And--was it will, or some vibration faint +Of sacred Nature, deeper than the will?-- +My heart occultly felt itself in hers, +Through mutual intercession gently leagued. + +Or was it not mere sympathy of brain? +A sweetness intellectually conceived +In simpler creeds to me impossible? +A juggle of that pity for ourselves +In others, which puts on such pretty masks +And snares self-love with bait of charity? 370 +Something of all it might be, or of none: +Yet for a moment I was snatched away +And had the evidence of things not seen; +For one rapt moment; then it all came back, +This age that blots out life with question-marks, +This nineteenth century with its knife and glass +That make thought physical, and thrust far off +The Heaven, so neighborly with man of old, +To voids sparse-sown with alienated stars. + +'Tis irrecoverable, that ancient faith, 380 +Homely and wholesome, suited to the time, +With rod or candy for child-minded men: +No theologic tube, with lens on lens +Of syllogism transparent, brings it near,-- +At best resolving some new nebula, +Or blurring some fixed-star of hope to mist. +Science was Faith once; Faith were Science now, +Would she but lay her bow and arrows by +And arm her with the weapons of the time. +Nothing that keeps thought out is safe from thought. 390 +For there's no virgin-fort but self-respect, +And Truth defensive hath lost hold on God. +Shall we treat Him as if He were a child +That knew not his own purpose? nor dare trust +The Rock of Ages to their chemic tests, +Lest some day the all-sustaining base divine +Should fail from under us, dissolved in gas? +The armèd eye that with a glance discerns +In a dry blood-speck between ox and man +Stares helpless at this miracle called life, 400 +This shaping potency behind the egg, +This circulation swift of deity, +Where suns and systems inconspicuous float +As the poor blood-disks in our mortal veins. +Each age must worship its own thought of God, +More or less earthy, clarifying still +With subsidence continuous of the dregs; +Nor saint nor sage could fix immutably +The fluent image of the unstable Best, +Still changing in their very hands that wrought: 410 +To-day's eternal truth To-morrow proved +Frail as frost-landscapes on a window-pane. +Meanwhile Thou smiledst, inaccessible, +At Thought's own substance made a cage for Thought, +And Truth locked fast with her own master-key; +Nor didst Thou reck what image man might make +Of his own shadow on the flowing world; +The climbing instinct was enough for Thee. +Or wast Thou, then, an ebbing tide that left +Strewn with dead miracle those eldest shores, 420 +For men to dry, and dryly lecture on, +Thyself thenceforth incapable of flood? +Idle who hopes with prophets to be snatched +By virtue in their mantles left below; +Shall the soul live on other men's report, +Herself a pleasing fable of herself? +Man cannot be God's outlaw if he would, +Nor so abscond him in the caves of sense +But Nature stall shall search some crevice out +With messages of splendor from that Source 430 +Which, dive he, soar he, baffles still and lures. +This life were brutish did we not sometimes +Have intimation clear of wider scope, +Hints of occasion infinite, to keep +The soul alert with noble discontent +And onward yearnings of unstilled desire; +Fruitless, except we now and then divined +A mystery of Purpose, gleaming through +The secular confusions of the world, +Whose will we darkly accomplish, doing ours, 440 +No man can think nor in himself perceive, +Sometimes at waking, in the street sometimes, +Or on the hillside, always unforwarned. +A grace of being, finer than himself, +That beckons and is gone,--a larger life +Upon his own impinging, with swift glimpse +Of spacious circles luminous with mind, +To which the ethereal substance of his own +Seems but gross cloud to make that visible, +Touched to a sudden glory round the edge, 450 +Who that hath known these visitations fleet +Would strive to make them trite and ritual? +I, that still pray at morning and at eve, +Loving those roots that feed us from the past, +And prizing more than Plato things I learned +At that best academe, a mother's knee, +Thrice in my life perhaps have truly prayed, +Thrice, stirred below my conscious self, have felt +That perfect disenthralment which is God; +Nor know I which to hold worst enemy, 460 +Him who on speculation's windy waste +Would turn me loose, stript of the raiment warm +By Faith contrived against our nakedness, +Or him who, cruel-kind, would fain obscure, +With painted saints and paraphrase of God, +The soul's east-window of divine surprise, +Where others worship I but look and long; +For, though not recreant to my fathers' faith, +Its forms to me are weariness, and most +That drony vacuum of compulsory prayer, 470 +Still pumping phrases for the Ineffable, +Though all the valves of memory gasp and wheeze. +Words that have drawn transcendent meanings up +From the best passion of all bygone time, +Steeped through with tears of triumph and remorse, +Sweet with all sainthood, cleansed in martyr-fires, +Can they, so consecrate and so inspired, +By repetition wane to vexing wind? +Alas! we cannot draw habitual breath +In the thin air of life's supremer heights, 480 +We cannot make each meal a sacrament, +Nor with our tailors be disbodied souls,-- +We men, too conscious of earth's comedy, +Who see two sides, with our posed selves debate, +And only for great stakes can be sublime! +Let us be thankful when, as I do here, +We can read Bethel on a pile of stones, +And, seeing where God _has_ been, trust in Him. + +Brave Peter Fischer there in Nuremberg, +Moulding Saint Sebald's miracles in bronze, 490 +Put saint and stander-by in that quaint garb +Familiar to him in his daily walk, +Not doubting God could grant a miracle +Then and in Nuremberg, if so He would; +But never artist for three hundred years +Hath dared the contradiction ludicrous +Of supernatural in modern clothes. +Perhaps the deeper faith that is to come +Will see God rather in the strenuous doubt, +Than in the creed held as an infant's hand 500 +Holds purposeless whatso is placed therein. + +Say it is drift, not progress, none the less, +With the old sextant of the fathers' creed, +We shape our courses by new-risen stars, +And, still lip-loyal to what once was truth, +Smuggle new meanings under ancient names, +Unconscious perverts of the Jesuit, Time. +Change is the mask that all Continuance wears +To keep us youngsters harmlessly amused; +Meanwhile some ailing or more watchful child, 510 +Sitting apart, sees the old eyes gleam out, +Stern, and yet soft with humorous pity too. +Whilere, men burnt men for a doubtful point, +As if the mind were quenchable with fire, +And Faith danced round them with her war-paint on, +Devoutly savage as an Iroquois; +Now Calvin and Servetus at one board +Snuff in grave sympathy a milder roast, +And o'er their claret settle Comte unread. +Fagot and stake were desperately sincere: 520 +Our cooler martyrdoms are done in types; +And flames that shine in controversial eyes +Burn out no brains but his who kindles them. +This is no age to get cathedrals built: +Did God, then, wait for one in Bethlehem? +Worst is not yet: lo, where his coming looms, +Of earth's anarchic children latest born, +Democracy, a Titan who hath learned +To laugh at Jove's old-fashioned thunder-bolts,-- +Could he not also forge them, if he would? 530 +He, better skilled, with solvents merciless, +Loosened in air and borne on every wind, +Saps unperceived: the calm Olympian height +Of ancient order feels its bases yield, +And pale gods glance for help to gods as pale. +What will be left of good or worshipful, +Of spiritual secrets, mysteries, +Of fair religion's guarded heritage, +Heirlooms of soul, passed downward unprofaned +From eldest Ind? This Western giant coarse, 540 +Scorning refinements which he lacks himself, +Loves not nor heeds the ancestral hierarchies, +Each rank dependent on the next above +In ordinary gradation fixed as fate. +King by mere manhood, nor allowing aught +Of holier unction than the sweat of toil; +In his own strength sufficient; called to solve, +On the rough edges of society, +Problems long sacred to the choicer few, +And improvise what elsewhere men receive 550 +As gifts of deity; tough foundling reared +Where every man's his own Melchisedek, +How make him reverent of a King of kings? +Or Judge self-made, executor of laws +By him not first discussed and voted on? +For him no tree of knowledge is forbid, +Or sweeter if forbid. How save the ark, +Or holy of holies, unprofaned a day +From his unscrupulous curiosity +That handles everything as if to buy, 560 +Tossing aside what fabrics delicate +Suit not the rough-and-tumble of his ways? +What hope for those fine-nerved humanities +That made earth gracious once with gentler arts, +Now the rude hands have caught the trick of thought +And claim an equal suffrage with the brain? + +The born disciple of an elder time, +(To me sufficient, friendlier than the new,) +Who in my blood feel motions of the Past, +I thank benignant nature most for this,-- 570 +A force of sympathy, or call it lack +Of character firm-planted, loosing me +From the pent chamber of habitual self +To dwell enlarged in alien modes of thought, +Haply distasteful, wholesomer for that, +And through imagination to possess, +As they were mine, the lives of other men. +This growth original of virgin soil, +By fascination felt in opposites, +Pleases and shocks, entices and perturbs. 580 +In this brown-fisted rough, this shirt-sleeved Cid, +This backwoods Charlemagne of empires new, +Whose blundering heel instinctively finds out +The goutier foot of speechless dignities, +Who, meeting Cæsar's self, would slap his back, +Call him 'Old Horse,' and challenge to a drink, +My lungs draw braver air, my breast dilates +With ampler manhood, and I front both worlds, +Of sense and spirit, as my natural fiefs, +To shape and then reshape them as I will. 590 +It was the first man's charter; why not mine? +How forfeit? when, deposed in other hands? + +Thou shudder'st, Ovid? Dost in him forebode +A new avatar of the large-limbed Goth, +To break, or seem to break, tradition's clue. +And chase to dreamland back thy gods dethroned? +I think man's soul dwells nearer to the east, +Nearer to morning's fountains than the sun; +Herself the source whence all tradition sprang, +Herself at once both labyrinth and clue, 600 +The miracle fades out of history, +But faith and wonder and the primal earth +Are born into the world with every child. +Shall this self-maker with the prying eyes, +This creature disenchanted of respect +By the New World's new fiend, Publicity, +Whose testing thumb leaves everywhere its smutch, +Not one day feel within himself the need +Of loyalty to better than himself, +That shall ennoble him with the upward look? 610 +Shall he not catch the Voice that wanders earth, +With spiritual summons, dreamed or heard, +As sometimes, just ere sleep seals up the sense, +We hear our mother call from deeps of Time, +And, waking, find it vision,--none the less +The benediction bides, old skies return, +And that unreal thing, preëminent, +Makes air and dream of all we see and feel? +Shall he divine no strength unmade of votes, +Inward, impregnable, found soon as sought, 620 +Not cognizable of sense, o'er sense supreme? +Else were he desolate as none before. +His holy places may not be of stone, +Nor made with hands, yet fairer far than aught +By artist feigned or pious ardor reared, +Fit altars for who guards inviolate +God's chosen seat, the sacred form of man. +Doubtless his church will be no hospital +For superannuate forms and mumping shams, +No parlor where men issue policies 630 +Of life-assurance on the Eternal Mind, +Nor his religion but an ambulance +To fetch life's wounded and malingerers in, +Scorned by the strong; yet he, unconscious heir +To the Influence sweet of Athens and of Rome, +And old Judaea's gift of secret fire, +Spite of himself shall surely learn to know +And worship some ideal of himself, +Some divine thing, large-hearted, brotherly, +Not nice in trifles, a soft creditor, 640 +Pleased with his world, and hating only cant. +And, if his Church be doubtful, it is sure +That, in a world, made for whatever else, +Not made for mere enjoyment, in a world +Of toil but half-requited, or, at best, +Paid in some futile currency of breath, +A world of incompleteness, sorrow swift +And consolation laggard, whatsoe'er +The form of building or the creed professed, +The Cross, bold type of shame to homage turned, 650 +Of an unfinished life that sways the world, +Shall tower as sovereign emblem over all. + +The kobold Thought moves with us when we shift +Our dwelling to escape him; perched aloft +On the first load of household-stuff he went: +For, where the mind goes, goes old furniture. +I, who to Chartres came to feed my eye +And give to Fancy one clear holiday, +Scarce saw the minster for the thoughts it stirred +Buzzing o'er past and future with vain quest. 660 +Here once there stood a homely wooden church, +Which slow devotion nobly changed for this +That echoes vaguely to my modern steps. +By suffrage universal it was built, +As practised then, for all the country came +From far as Rouen, to give votes for God, +Each vote a block of stone securely laid +Obedient to the master's deep-mused plan. +Will what our ballots rear, responsible +To no grave forethought, stand so long as this? 670 +Delight like this the eye of after days +Brightening with pride that here, at least, were men +Who meant and did the noblest thing they knew? +Can our religion cope with deeds like this? +We, too, build Gothic contract-shams, because +Our deacons have discovered that it pays, +And pews sell better under vaulted roofs +Of plaster painted like an Indian squaw. +Shall not that Western Goth, of whom we spoke, +So fiercely practical, so keen of eye, 680 +Find out, some day, that nothing pays but God, +Served whether on the smoke-shut battle-field, +In work obscure done honestly, or vote +For truth unpopular, or faith maintained +To ruinous convictions, or good deeds +Wrought for good's sake, mindless of heaven or hell? +Shall he not learn that all prosperity, +Whose bases stretch not deeper than the sense, +Is but a trick of this world's atmosphere, +A desert-born mirage of spire and dome, 690 +Or find too late, the Past's long lesson missed, +That dust the prophets shake from off their feet +Grows heavy to drag down both tower and wall? +I know not; but, sustained by sure belief +That man still rises level with the height +Of noblest opportunities, or makes +Such, if the time supply not, I can wait. +I gaze round on the windows, pride of France, +Each the bright gift of some mechanic guild +Who loved their city and thought gold well spent 700 +To make her beautiful with piety; +I pause, transfigured by some stripe of bloom, +And my mind throngs with shining auguries, +Circle on circle, bright as seraphim, +With golden trumpets, silent, that await +The signal to blow news of good to men. +Then the revulsion came that always comes +After these dizzy elations of the mind: +And with a passionate pang of doubt I cried, +'O mountain-born, sweet with snow-filtered air 710 +From uncontaminate wells of ether drawn +And never-broken secrecies of sky, +Freedom, with anguish won, misprized till lost, +They keep thee not who from thy sacred eyes +Catch the consuming lust of sensual good +And the brute's license of unfettered will. +Far from the popular shout and venal breath +Of Cleon blowing the mob's baser mind +To bubbles of wind-piloted conceit, +Thou shrinkest, gathering up thy skirts, to hide 720 +In fortresses of solitary thought +And private virtue strong in self-restraint. +Must we too forfeit thee misunderstood, +Content with names, nor inly wise to know +That best things perish of their own excess, +And quality o'er-driven becomes defect? +Nay, is it thou indeed that we have glimpsed, +Or rather such illusion as of old +Through Athens glided menadlike and Rome, +A shape of vapor, mother of vain dreams 730 +And mutinous traditions, specious plea +Of the glaived tyrant and long-memoried priest?' + +I walked forth saddened; for all thought is sad, +And leaves a bitterish savor in the brain, +Tonic, it may be, not delectable, +And turned, reluctant, for a parting look +At those old weather-pitted images +Of bygone struggle, now so sternly calm. +About their shoulders sparrows had built nests, +And fluttered, chirping, from gray perch to perch, 740 +Now on a mitre poising, now a crown, +Irreverently happy. While I thought +How confident they were, what careless hearts +Flew on those lightsome wings and shared the sun, +A larger shadow crossed; and looking up, +I saw where, nesting in the hoary towers, +The sparrow-hawk slid forth on noiseless air, +With sidelong head that watched the joy below, +Grim Norman baron o'er this clan of Kelts. +Enduring Nature, force conservative, 750 +Indifferent to our noisy whims! Men prate +Of all heads to an equal grade cashiered +On level with the dullest, and expect +(Sick of no worse distemper than themselves) +A wondrous cure-all in equality; +They reason that To-morrow must be wise +Because To-day was not, nor Yesterday, +As if good days were shapen of themselves, +Not of the very lifeblood of men's souls; +Meanwhile, long-suffering, imperturbable, 760 +Thou quietly complet'st thy syllogism, +And from the premise sparrow here below +Draw'st sure conclusion of the hawk above, +Pleased with the soft-billed songster, pleased no less +With the fierce beak of natures aquiline. + +Thou beautiful Old Time, now hid away +In the Past's valley of Avilion, +Haply, like Arthur, till thy wound be healed, +Then to reclaim the sword and crown again! +Thrice beautiful to us; perchance less fair 770 +To who possessed thee, as a mountain seems +To dwellers round its bases but a heap +Of barren obstacle that lairs the storm +And the avalanche's silent bolt holds back +Leashed with a hair,--meanwhile some far-off clown, +Hereditary delver of the plain, +Sees it an unmoved vision of repose, +Nest of the morning, and conjectures there +The dance of streams to idle shepherds' pipes, +And fairer habitations softly hung 780 +On breezy slopes, or hid in valleys cool, +For happier men. No mortal ever dreams +That the scant isthmus he encamps upon +Between two oceans, one, the Stormy, passed, +And one, the Peaceful, yet to venture on, +Has been that future whereto prophets yearned +For the fulfilment of Earth's cheated hope, +Shall be that past which nerveless poets moan +As the lost opportunity of song. + +O Power, more near my life than life itself 790 +(Or what seems life to us in sense immured), +Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth, +Share in the tree-top's joyance, and conceive +Of sunshine and wide air and wingèd things +By sympathy of nature, so do I +Have evidence of Thee so far above, +Yet in and of me! Rather Thou the root +Invisibly sustaining, hid in light, +Not darkness, or in darkness made by us. +If sometimes I must hear good men debate 800 +Of other witness of Thyself than Thou, +As if there needed any help of ours +To nurse Thy flickering life, that else must cease, +Blown out, as 'twere a candle, by men's breath, +My soul shall not be taken in their snare, +To change her inward surety for their doubt +Muffled from sight in formal robes of proof: +While she can only feel herself through Thee, +I fear not Thy withdrawal; more I fear, +Seeing, to know Thee not, hoodwinked with dreams 810 +Of signs and wonders, while, unnoticed, Thou, +Walking Thy garden still, commun'st with men, +Missed in the commonplace of miracle. + + + +THREE MEMORIAL POEMS + + + 'Coscienza fusca + O della propria o dell' altrui vergogna + Pur sentirà la tua parola brusca.' + + +If I let fall a word of bitter mirth +When public shames more shameful pardon won, +Some have misjudged me, and my service done, +If small, yet faithful, deemed of little worth: +Through veins that drew their life from Western earth +Two hundred years and more my blood hath run +In no polluted course from sire to son; +And thus was I predestined ere my birth +To love the soil wherewith my fibres own +Instinctive sympathies; yet love it so +As honor would, nor lightly to dethrone +Judgment, the stamp of manhood, nor forego +The son's right to a mother dearer grown +With growing knowledge and more chaste than snow. + + * * * * * + +To + +E.L. GODKIN, + +IN CORDIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS EMINENT SERVICE IN HEIGHTENING AND +PURIFYING THE TONE OF OUR POLITICAL THOUGHT, + +These Three Poems + +ARE DEDICATED. + + * * * * * + +*** Readers, it is hoped, will remember that, by his Ode at the Harvard +Commemoration, the author had precluded himself from many of the natural +outlets of thought and feeling common to such occasions as are +celebrated in these poems. + + + +ODE + +READ AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIGHT AT CONCORD BRIDGE + +19TH APRIL, 1875 + + +I + +Who cometh over the hills, +Her garments with morning sweet, +The dance of a thousand rills +Making music before her feet? +Her presence freshens the air; +Sunshine steals light from her face; +The leaden footstep of Care +Leaps to the tune of her pace, +Fairness of all that is fair, +Grace at the heart of all grace, 10 +Sweetener of hut and of hall, +Bringer of life out of naught, +Freedom, oh, fairest of all +The daughters of Time and Thought! + + +II + +She cometh, cometh to-day: +Hark! hear ye not her tread, +Sending a thrill through your clay, +Under the sod there, ye dead, +Her nurslings and champions? +Do ye not hear, as she comes, 20 +The bay of the deep-mouthed guns, +The gathering rote of the drums? +The belts that called ye to prayer, +How wildly they clamor on her, +Crying, 'She cometh! prepare +Her to praise and her to honor, +That a hundred years ago +Scattered here in blood and tears +Potent seeds wherefrom should grow +Gladness for a hundred years!' 30 + + +III + +Tell me, young men, have ye seen +Creature of diviner mien +For true hearts to long and cry for, +Manly hearts to live and die for? +What hath she that others want? +Brows that all endearments haunt, +Eyes that make it sweet to dare, +Smiles that cheer untimely death, +Looks that fortify despair, +Tones more brave than trumpet's breath; 40 +Tell me, maidens, have ye known +Household charm more sweetly rare, +Grace of woman ampler blown, +Modesty more debonair, +Younger heart with wit full grown? +Oh for an hour of my prime, +The pulse of my hotter years, +That I might praise her in rhyme +Would tingle your eyelids to tears, +Our sweetness, our strength, and our star, 50 +Our hope, our joy, and our trust, +Who lifted us out of the dust, +And made us whatever we are! + + +IV + +Whiter than moonshine upon snow +Her raiment is, but round the hem +Crimson stained; and, as to and fro +Her sandals flash, we see on them, +And on her instep veined with blue, +Flecks of crimson, on those fair feet, +High-arched, Diana-like, and fleet, 60 +Fit for no grosser stain than dew: +Oh, call them rather chrisms than stains, +Sacred and from heroic veins! +For, in the glory-guarded pass, +Her haughty and far-shining head +She bowed to shrive Leonidas +With his imperishable dead; +Her, too, Morgarten saw, +Where the Swiss lion fleshed his icy paw; +She followed Cromwell's quenchless star 70 +Where the grim Puritan tread +Shook Marston, Naseby, and Dunbar: +Yea, on her feet are dearer dyes +Yet fresh, nor looked on with untearful eyes. + + +V + +Our fathers found her in the woods +Where Nature meditates and broods, +The seeds of unexampled things +Which Time to consummation brings +Through life and death and man's unstable moods; +They met her here, not recognized, 80 +A sylvan huntress clothed in furs, +To whose chaste wants her bow sufficed, +Nor dreamed what destinies were hers: +She taught them bee-like to create +Their simpler forms of Church and State; +She taught them to endue +The past with other functions than it knew, +And turn in channels strange the uncertain stream of Fate; +Better than all, she fenced them in their need +With iron-handed Duty's sternest creed, 90 +'Gainst Self's lean wolf that ravens word and deed. + + +VI + +Why cometh she hither to-day +To this low village of the plain +Far from the Present's loud highway, +From Trade's cool heart and seething brain? +Why cometh she? She was not far away. +Since the soul touched it, not in vain, +With pathos of Immortal gain, +'Tis here her fondest memories stay. +She loves yon pine-bemurmured ridge 100 +Where now our broad-browed poet sleeps, +Dear to both Englands; near him he +Who wore the ring of Canace; +But most her heart to rapture leaps +Where stood that era-parting bridge, +O'er which, with footfall still as dew, +The Old Time passed into the New; +Where, as your stealthy river creeps, +He whispers to his listening weeds +Tales of sublimest homespun deeds. 110 +Here English law and English thought +'Gainst the self-will of England fought; +And here were men (coequal with their fate), +Who did great things, unconscious they were great. +They dreamed not what a die was cast +With that first answering shot; what then? +There was their duty; they were men +Schooled the soul's inward gospel to obey, +Though leading to the lion's den. +They felt the habit-hallowed world give way 120 +Beneath their lives, and on went they, +Unhappy who was last. +When Buttrick gave the word, +That awful idol of the unchallenged Past, +Strong in their love, and in their lineage strong, +Fell crashing; if they heard it not, +Yet the earth heard, +Nor ever hath forgot, +As on from startled throne to throne, +Where Superstition sate or conscious Wrong, 130 +A shudder ran of some dread birth unknown. +Thrice venerable spot! +River more fateful than the Rubicon! +O'er those red planks, to snatch her diadem, +Man's Hope, star-girdled, sprang with them, +And over ways untried the feet of Doom strode on. + + +VII + +Think you these felt no charms +In their gray homesteads and embowered farms? +In household faces waiting at the door +Their evening step should lighten up no more? 140 +In fields their boyish feet had known? +In trees their fathers' hands had set, +And which with them had grown, +Widening each year their leafy coronet? +Felt they no pang of passionate regret +For those unsolid goods that seem so much our own? +These things are dear to every man that lives, +And life prized more for what it lends than gives. +Yea, many a tie, through iteration sweet, +Strove to detain their fatal feet; +And yet the enduring half they chose, 151 +Whose choice decides a man life's slave or king, +The invisible things of God before the seen and known: +Therefore their memory inspiration blows +With echoes gathering on from zone to zone; +For manhood is the one immortal thing +Beneath Time's changeful sky, +And, where it lightened once, from age to age, +Men come to learn, in grateful pilgrimage, +That length of days is knowing when to die. 160 + + +VIII + +What marvellous change of things and men! +She, a world-wandering orphan then, +So mighty now! Those are her streams +That whirl the myriad, myriad wheels +Of all that does, and all that dreams, +Of all that thinks, and all that feels, +Through spaces stretched from sea to sea; +By idle tongues and busy brains, +By who doth right, and who refrains, +Here are our losses and our gains; 170 +Our maker and our victim she. + + +IX + +Maiden half mortal, half divine, +We triumphed in thy coming; to the brinks +Our hearts were filled with pride's tumultuous wine; +Better to-day who rather feels than thinks. +Yet will some graver thoughts intrude, +And cares of sterner mood; +They won thee: who shall keep thee? From the deeps +Where discrowned empires o'er their ruins brood, 179 +And many a thwarted hope wrings its weak hands and weeps, +I hear the voice as of a mighty wind +From all heaven's caverns rushing unconfined, +'I, Freedom, dwell with Knowledge: I abide +With men whom dust of faction cannot blind +To the slow tracings of the Eternal Mind; +With men by culture trained and fortified, +Who bitter duty to sweet lusts prefer, +Fearless to counsel and obey. +Conscience my sceptre is, and law my sword, +Not to be drawn in passion or in play, 190 +But terrible to punish and deter; +Implacable as God's word, +Like it, a shepherd's crook to them that blindly err. +Your firm-pulsed sires, my martyrs and my saints, +Offshoots of that one stock whose patient sense +Hath known to mingle flux with permanence, +Rated my chaste denials and restraints +Above the moment's dear-paid paradise: +Beware lest, shifting with Time's gradual creep, +The light that guided shine into your eyes. 200 +The envious Powers of ill nor wink nor sleep; +Be therefore timely wise, +Nor laugh when this one steals, and that one lies, +As if your luck could cheat those sleepless spies, +Till the deaf Fury comes your house to sweep!' +I hear the voice, and unaffrighted bow; +Ye shall not be prophetic now, +Heralds of ill, that darkening fly +Between my vision and the rainbowed sky, +Or on the left your hoarse forebodings croak 210 +From many a blasted bough +On Yggdrasil's storm-sinewed oak, +That once was green, Hope of the West, as thou; +Yet pardon if I tremble while I boast; +For I have loved as those who pardon most. + + +X + +Away, ungrateful doubt, away! +At least she is our own to-day. +Break into rapture, my song, +Verses, leap forth in the sun, +Bearing the joyance along 220 +Like a train of fire as ye run! +Pause not for choosing of words, +Let them but blossom and sing +Blithe as the orchards and birds +With the new coming of spring! +Dance in your jollity, bells; +Shout, cannon; cease not, ye drums; +Answer, ye hillside and dells; +Bow, all ye people! She comes, +Radiant, calm-fronted, as when 230 +She hallowed that April day. +Stay with us! Yes, thou shalt stay. +Softener and strengthener of men, +Freedom, not won by the vain, +Not to be courted in play, +Not to be kept without pain. +Stay with us! Yes, thou wilt stay, +Handmaid and mistress of all, +Kindler of deed and of thought, +Thou that to hut and to hall 240 +Equal deliverance brought! +Souls of her martyrs, draw near, +Touch our dull lips with your fire, +That we may praise without fear +Her our delight, our desire, +Our faith's inextinguishable star, +Our hope, our remembrance, our trust, +Our present, our past, our to be, +Who will mingle her life with our dust 249 +And makes us deserve to be free! + + + +UNDER THE OLD ELM + +POEM READ AT CAMBRIDGE ON THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF WASHINGTON'S +TAKING COMMAND OF THE AMERICAN ARMY, 3D JULY, 1775 + + +I + +1. + +Words pass as wind, but where great deeds were done +A power abides transfused from sire to son: +The boy feels deeper meanings thrill his ear, +That tingling through his pulse life-long shall run, +With sure impulsion to keep honor clear. +When, pointing down, his father whispers, 'Here, +Here, where we stand, stood he, the purely great, +Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, +Then nameless, now a power and mixed with fate.' +Historic town, thou holdest sacred dust, 10 +Once known to men as pious, learnèd, just, +And one memorial pile that dares to last: +But Memory greets with reverential kiss +No spot in all thy circuit sweet as this, +Touched by that modest glory as it past, +O'er which yon elm hath piously displayed +These hundred years its monumental shade. + +2. + +Of our swift passage through this scenery +Of life and death, more durable than we, +What landmark so congenial as a tree 20 +Repeating its green legend every spring, +And, with a yearly ring, +Recording the fair seasons as they flee, +Type of our brief but still-renewed mortality? +We fall as leaves: the immortal trunk remains, +Builded with costly juice of hearts and brains +Gone to the mould now, whither all that be +Vanish returnless, yet are procreant still +In human lives to come of good or ill, +And feed unseen the roots of Destiny. 30 + + +II + +1. + +Men's monuments, grown old, forget their names +They should eternize, but the place +Where shining souls have passed imbibes a grace +Beyond mere earth; some sweetness of their fames +Leaves in the soil its unextinguished trace, +Pungent, pathetic, sad with nobler aims, +That penetrates our lives and heightens them or shames. +This insubstantial world and fleet +Seems solid for a moment when we stand +On dust ennobled by heroic feet 40 +Once mighty to sustain a tottering land, +And mighty still such burthen to upbear, +Nor doomed to tread the path of things that merely were: +Our sense, refined with virtue of the spot, +Across the mists of Lethe's sleepy stream +Recalls him, the sole chief without a blot, +No more a pallid image and a dream, +But as he dwelt with men decorously supreme. + +2. + +Our grosser minds need this terrestrial hint +To raise long-buried days from tombs of print; 50 +'Here stood he,' softly we repeat, +And lo, the statue shrined and still +In that gray minster-front we call the Past, +Feels in its frozen veins our pulses thrill, +Breathes living air and mocks at Death's deceit. +It warms, it stirs, comes down to us at last, +Its features human with familiar light, +A man, beyond the historian's art to kill, +Or sculptor's to efface with patient chisel-blight. + +3. + +Sure the dumb earth hath memory, nor for naught 60 +Was Fancy given, on whose enchanted loom +Present and Past commingle, fruit and bloom +Of one fair bough, inseparably wrought +Into the seamless tapestry of thought. +So charmed, with undeluded eye we see +In history's fragmentary tale +Bright clues of continuity, +Learn that high natures over Time prevail, +And feel ourselves a link in that entail +That binds all ages past with all that are to be. 70 + + +III + +1. + +Beneath our consecrated elm +A century ago he stood, +Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood +Whose red surge sought, but could not overwhelm +The life foredoomed to wield our rough-hewn helm:-- +From colleges, where now the gown +To arms had yielded, from the town, +Our rude self-summoned levies flocked to see +The new-come chiefs and wonder which was he. +No need to question long; close-lipped and tall, 80 +Long trained in murder-brooding forests lone +To bridle others' clamors and his own, +Firmly erect, he towered above them all, +The incarnate discipline that was to free +With iron curb that armed democracy. + +2. + +A motley rout was that which came to stare, +In raiment tanned by years of sun and storm, +Of every shape that was not uniform, +Dotted with regimentals here and there; +An array all of captains, used to pray 90 +And stiff in fight, but serious drill's despair, +Skilled to debate their orders, not obey; +Deacons were there, selectmen, men of note +In half-tamed hamlets ambushed round with woods, +Ready to settle Freewill by a vote, +But largely liberal to its private moods; +Prompt to assert by manners, voice, or pen, +Or ruder arms, their rights as Englishmen, +Nor much fastidious as to how and when: +Yet seasoned stuff and fittest to create 100 +A thought-staid army or a lasting state: +Haughty they said he was, at first; severe; +But owned, as all men own, the steady hand +Upon the bridle, patient to command, +Prized, as all prize, the justice pure from fear, +And learned to honor first, then love him, then revere. +Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint +And purpose clean as light from every selfish taint. + +3. + +Musing beneath the legendary tree, +The years between furl off: I seem to see 110 +The sun-flecks, shaken the stirred foliage through, +Dapple with gold his sober buff and blue +And weave prophetic aureoles round the head +That shines our beacon now nor darkens with the dead. +O man of silent mood, +A stranger among strangers then, +How art thou since renowned the Great, the Good, +Familiar as the day in an the homes of men! +The winged years, that winnow praise and blame, +Blow many names out: they but fan to flame 120 +The self-renewing splendors of thy fame. + + +IV + +1. + +How many subtlest influences unite, +With spiritual touch of Joy or pain, +Invisible as air and soft as light, +To body forth that image of the brain +We call our Country, visionary shape, +Loved more than woman, fuller of fire than wine, +Whose charm can none define, +Nor any, though he flee it, can escape! +All party-colored threads the weaver Time 130 +Sets in his web, now trivial, now sublime, +All memories, all forebodings, hopes and fears, +Mountain and river, forest, prairie, sea, +A hill, a rock, a homestead, field, or tree, +The casual gleanings of unreckoned years, +Take goddess-shape at last and there is She, +Old at our birth, new as the springing hours, +Shrine of our weakness, fortress of our powers, +Consoler, kindler, peerless 'mid her peers, +A force that 'neath our conscious being stirs, 140 +A life to give ours permanence, when we +Are borne to mingle our poor earth with hers, +And all this glowing world goes with us on our biers. + +2. + +Nations are long results, by ruder ways +Gathering the might that warrants length of days; +They may be pieced of half-reluctant shares +Welded by hammer-strokes of broad-brained kings, +Or from a doughty people grow, the heirs +Of wise traditions widening cautious rings; +At best they are computable things, 150 +A strength behind us making us feel bold +In right, or, as may chance, in wrong; +Whose force by figures may be summed and told, +So many soldiers, ships, and dollars strong, +And we but drops that bear compulsory part +In the dumb throb of a mechanic heart; +But Country is a shape of each man's mind +Sacred from definition, unconfined +By the cramped walls where daily drudgeries grind; +An inward vision, yet an outward birth 160 +Of sweet familiar heaven and earth; +A brooding Presence that stirs motions blind +Of wings within our embryo being's shell +That wait but her completer spell +To make us eagle-natured, fit to dare +Life's nobler spaces and untarnished air. + +3. + +You, who hold dear this self-conceived ideal, +Whose faith and works alone can make it real, +Bring all your fairest gifts to deck her shrine +Who lifts our lives away from Thine and Mine 170 +And feeds the lamp of manhood more divine +With fragrant oils of quenchless constancy. +When all have done their utmost, surely he +Hath given the best who gives a character +Erect and constant, which nor any shock +Of loosened elements, nor the forceful sea +Of flowing or of ebbing fates, can stir +From its deep bases in the living rock +Of ancient manhood's sweet security: +And this he gave, serenely far from pride 180 +As baseness, boon with prosperous stars allied, +Part of what nobler seed shall in our loins abide. + +4. + +No bond of men as common pride so strong, +In names time-filtered for the lips of song, +Still operant, with the primal Forces bound +Whose currents, on their spiritual round, +Transfuse our mortal will nor are gainsaid: +These are their arsenals, these the exhaustless mines +That give a constant heart in great designs; +These are the stuff whereof such dreams are made 190 +As make heroic men: thus surely he +Still holds in place the massy blocks he laid +'Neath our new frame, enforcing soberly +The self-control that makes and keeps a people free. + + +V + +1. + +Oh, for a drop of that Cornelian ink +Which gave Agricola dateless length of days, +To celebrate him fitly, neither swerve +To phrase unkempt, nor pass discretion's brink, +With him so statue-like in sad reserve, +So diffident to claim, so forward to deserve! 200 +Nor need I shun due influence of his fame +Who, mortal among mortals, seemed as now +The equestrian shape with unimpassioned brow, +That paces silent on through vistas of acclaim. + +2. + +What figure more immovably august +Than that grave strength so patient and so pure, +Calm in good fortune, when it wavered, sure, +That mind serene, impenetrably just, +Modelled on classic lines so simple they endure? +That soul so softly radiant and so white 210 +The track it left seems less of fire than light, +Cold but to such as love distemperature? +And if pure light, as some deem, be the force +That drives rejoicing planets on their course, +Why for his power benign seek an impurer source? +His was the true enthusiasm that burns long, +Domestically bright, +Fed from itself and shy of human sight, +The hidden force that makes a lifetime strong, +And not the short-lived fuel of a song. 220 +Passionless, say you? What is passion for +But to sublime our natures and control, +To front heroic toils with late return, +Or none, or such as shames the conqueror? +That fire was fed with substance of the soul +And not with holiday stubble, that could burn, +Unpraised of men who after bonfires run, +Through seven slow years of unadvancing war, +Equal when fields were lost or fields were won, +With breath of popular applause or blame, 230 +Nor fanned nor damped, unquenchably the same, +Too inward to be reached by flaws of idle fame. + +3. + +Soldier and statesman, rarest unison; +High-poised example of great duties done +Simply as breathing, a world's honors worn +As life's indifferent gifts to all men born; +Dumb for himself, unless it were to God, +But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent, +Tramping the snow to coral where they trod, +Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content; 240 +Modest, yet firm as Nature's self; unblamed +Save by the men his nobler temper shamed; +Never seduced through show of present good +By other than unsetting lights to steer +New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his steadfast mood +More steadfast, far from rashness as from fear; +Rigid, but with himself first, grasping still +In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will; +Not honored then or now because he wooed +The popular voice, but that he still withstood; 250 +Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is but one +Who was all this and ours, and all men's,--WASHINGTON. + +4. + +Minds strong by fits, irregularly great, +That flash and darken like revolving lights, +Catch more the vulgar eye unschooled to wait +On the long curve of patient days and nights +Bounding a whole life to the circle fair +Of orbed fulfilment; and this balanced soul, +So simple in its grandeur, coldly bare +Of draperies theatric, standing there 260 +In perfect symmetry of self-control, +Seems not so great at first, but greater grows +Still as we look, and by experience learn +How grand this quiet is, how nobly stern +The discipline that wrought through life-long throes +That energetic passion of repose. + +5. + +A nature too decorous and severe, +Too self-respectful in its griefs and joys, +For ardent girls and boys +Who find no genius in a mind so clear 270 +That its grave depths seem obvious and near, +Nor a soul great that made so little noise. +They feel no force in that calm-cadenced phrase, +The habitual full-dress of his well-bred mind, +That seems to pace the minuet's courtly maze +And tell of ampler leisures, roomier length of days, +His firm-based brain, to self so little kind +That no tumultuary blood could blind, +Formed to control men, not amaze, +Looms not like those that borrow height of haze: 280 +It was a world of statelier movement then +Than this we fret in, he a denizen +Of that ideal Rome that made a man for men. + + +VI + +1. + +The longer on this earth we live +And weigh the various Qualities of men, +Seeing how most are fugitive, +Or fitful gifts, at best, of now and then, +Wind-wavered corpse-lights, daughters of the fen, +The more we feel the high stern-featured beauty +Of plain devotedness to duty, 290 +Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal praise, +But finding amplest recompense +For life's ungarlanded expense +In work done squarely and unwasted days. +For this we honor him, that he could know +How sweet the service and how free +Of her, God's eldest daughter here below, +And choose in meanest raiment which was she. + +2. + +Placid completeness, life without a fall +From faith or highest aims, truth's breachless wall, 300 +Surely if any fame can bear the touch, +His will say 'Here!' at the last trumpet's call, +The unexpressive man whose life expressed so much. + + +VII + +1. + +Never to see a nation born +Hath been given to mortal man, +Unless to those who, on that summer morn, +Gazed silent when the great Virginian +Unsheathed the sword whose fatal flash +Shot union through the incoherent clash +Of our loose atoms, crystallizing them 310 +Around a single will's unpliant stem, +And making purpose of emotion rash. +Out of that scabbard sprang, as from its womb, +Nebulous at first but hardening to a star. +Through mutual share of sunburst and of gloom, +The common faith that made us what we are. + +2. + +That lifted blade transformed our jangling clans, +Till then provincial, to Americans, +And made a unity of wildering plans; +Here was the doom fixed: here is marked the date 320 +When this New World awoke to man's estate, +Burnt its last ship and ceased to look behind: +Nor thoughtless was the choice; no love or hate +Could from its poise move that deliberate mind, +Weighing between too early and too late, +Those pitfalls of the man refused by Fate: +His was the impartial vision of the great +Who see not as they wish, but as they find. +He saw the dangers of defeat, nor less +The incomputable perils of success; 330 +The sacred past thrown by, an empty rind; +The future, cloud-land, snare of prophets blind; +The waste of war, the ignominy of peace; +On either hand a sullen rear of woes, +Whose garnered lightnings none could guess, +Piling its thunder-heads and muttering 'Cease!' +Yet drew not back his hand, but gravely chose +The seeming-desperate task whence our new nation rose. + +3. + +A noble choice and of immortal seed! +Nor deem that acts heroic wait on chance 340 +Or easy were as in a boy's romance; +The man's whole life preludes the single deed +That shall decide if his inheritance +Be with the sifted few of matchless breed, +Our race's sap and sustenance, +Or with the unmotived herd that only sleep and feed. +Choice seems a thing indifferent: thus or so, +What matters it? The Fates with mocking face +Look on inexorable, nor seem to know +Where the lot lurks that gives life's foremost place. 350 +Yet Duty's leaden casket holds it still, +And but two ways are offered to our will, +Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace, +The problem still for us and all of human race. +He chose, as men choose, where most danger showed, +Nor ever faltered 'neath the load +Of petty cares, that gall great hearts the most, +But kept right on the strenuous up-hill road, +Strong to the end, above complaint or boast: +The popular tempest on his rock-mailed coast 360 +Wasted its wind-borne spray, +The noisy marvel of a day; +His soul sate still in its unstormed abode. + + +VIII + +Virginia gave us this imperial man +Cast in the massive mould +Of those high-statured ages old +Which into grander forms our mortal metal ran; +She gave us this unblemished gentleman: +What shall we give her back but love and praise +As in the dear old unestrangèd days 370 +Before the inevitable wrong began? +Mother of States and undiminished men, +Thou gavest us a country, giving him, +And we owe alway what we owed thee then: +The boon thou wouldst have snatched from us agen +Shines as before with no abatement dim, +A great man's memory is the only thing +With influence to outlast the present whim +And bind us as when here he knit our golden ring. +All of him that was subject to the hours 380 +Lies in thy soil and makes it part of ours: +Across more recent graves, +Where unresentful Nature waves +Her pennons o'er the shot-ploughed sod, +Proclaiming the sweet Truce of God, +We from this consecrated plain stretch out +Our hands as free from afterthought or doubt +As here the united North +Poured her embrownèd manhood forth +In welcome of our savior and thy son. 390 +Through battle we have better learned thy worth, +The long-breathed valor and undaunted will, +Which, like his own, the day's disaster done, +Could, safe in manhood, suffer and be still. +Both thine and ours the victory hardly won; +If ever with distempered voice or pen +We have misdeemed thee, here we take it back, +And for the dead of both don common black. +Be to us evermore as thou wast then, +As we forget thou hast not always been, 400 +Mother of States and unpolluted men, +Virginia, fitly named from England's manly queen! + + + +AN ODE + +FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876 + + +I + +1. + +Entranced I saw a vision in the cloud +That loitered dreaming in yon sunset sky, +Full of fair shapes, half creatures of the eye, +Half chance-evoked by the wind's fantasy +In golden mist, an ever-shifting crowd: +There, 'mid unreal forms that came and went +In air-spun robes, of evanescent dye, +A woman's semblance shone preeminent; +Not armed like Pallas, not like Hera proud, +But, as on household diligence intent, 10 +Beside her visionary wheel she bent +Like Aretë or Bertha, nor than they +Less queenly in her port; about her knee +Glad children clustered confident in play: +Placid her pose, the calm of energy; +And over her broad brow in many a round +(That loosened would have gilt her garment's hem), +Succinct, as toil prescribes, the hair was wound +In lustrous coils, a natural diadem. +The cloud changed shape, obsequious to the whim 20 +Of some transmuting influence felt in me, +And, looking now, a wolf I seemed to see +Limned in that vapor, gaunt and hunger-bold, +Threatening her charge; resolve in every limb, +Erect she flamed in mail of sun-wove gold, +Penthesilea's self for battle dight; +One arm uplifted braced a flickering spear, +And one her adamantine shield made light; +Her face, helm-shadowed, grew a thing to fear, +And her fierce eyes, by danger challenged, took 30 +Her trident-sceptred mother's dauntless look. +'I know thee now, O goddess-born!' I cried, +And turned with loftier brow and firmer stride; +For in that spectral cloud-work I had seen +Her image, bodied forth by love and pride, +The fearless, the benign, the mother-eyed, +The fairer world's toil-consecrated queen. + +2. + +What shape by exile dreamed elates the mind +Like hers whose hand, a fortress of the poor, +No blood in vengeance spilt, though lawful, stains? 40 +Who never turned a suppliant from her door? +Whose conquests are the gains of all mankind? +To-day her thanks shall fly on every wind, +Unstinted, unrebuked, from shore to shore, +One love, one hope, and not a doubt behind! +Cannon to cannon shall repeat her praise, +Banner to banner flap it forth in flame; +Her children shall rise up to bless her name, +And wish her harmless length of days, +The mighty mother of a mighty brood, 50 +Blessed in all tongues and dear to every blood, +The beautiful, the strong, and, best of all, the good. + +3. + +Seven years long was the bow +Of battle bent, and the heightening +Storm-heaps convulsed with the throe +Of their uncontainable lightning; +Seven years long heard the sea +Crash of navies and wave-borne thunder; +Then drifted the cloud-rack a-lee, +And new stars were seen, a world's wonder; 60 +Each by her sisters made bright, +All binding all to their stations, +Cluster of manifold light +Startling the old constellations: +Men looked up and grew pale: +Was it a comet or star, +Omen of blessing or bale. +Hung o'er the ocean afar? + +4. + +Stormy the day of her birth: 69 +Was she not born of the strong. +She, the last ripeness of earth, +Beautiful, prophesied long? +Stormy the days of her prime: +Hers are the pulses that beat +Higher for perils sublime, +Making them fawn at her feet. +Was she not born of the strong? +Was she not born of the wise? +Daring and counsel belong +Of right to her confident eyes: +Human and motherly they, 81 +Careless of station or race: +Hearken! her children to-day +Shout for the joy of her face. + + +II + +1. + +No praises of the past are hers, +No fanes by hallowing time caressed, +No broken arch that ministers +To Time's sad instinct in the breast; +She has not gathered from the years +Grandeur of tragedies and tears, 90 +Nor from long leisure the unrest +That finds repose in forms of classic grace: +These may delight the coming race +Who haply shall not count it to our crime +That we who fain would sing are here before our time. +She also hath her monuments; +Not such as stand decrepitly resigned +To ruin-mark the path of dead events +That left no seed of better days behind, +The tourist's pensioners that show their scars 100 +And maunder of forgotten wars; +She builds not on the ground, but in the mind, +Her open-hearted palaces +For larger-thoughted men with heaven and earth at ease: +Her march the plump mow marks, the sleepless wheel, +The golden sheaf, the self-swayed commonweal; +The happy homesteads hid in orchard trees +Whose sacrificial smokes through peaceful air +Rise lost in heaven, the household's silent prayer; +What architect hath bettered these? 110 +With softened eye the westward traveller sees +A thousand miles of neighbors side by side, +Holding by toil-won titles fresh from God +The lands no serf or seigneur ever trod, +With manhood latent in the very sod, +Where the long billow of the wheatfield's tide +Flows to the sky across the prairie wide, +A sweeter vision than the castled Rhine, +Kindly with thoughts of Ruth and Bible-days benign. + +2. + +O ancient commonwealths, that we revere 120 +Haply because we could not know you near, +Your deeds like statues down the aisles of Time +Shine peerless in memorial calm sublime, +And Athens is a trumpet still, and Rome; +Yet which of your achievements is not foam +Weighed with this one of hers (below you far +In fame, and born beneath a milder star), +That to Earth's orphans, far as curves the dome +Of death-deaf sky, the bounteous West means home, +With dear precedency of natural ties 130 +That stretch from roof to roof and make men gently wise? +And if the nobler passions wane, +Distorted to base use, if the near goal +Of insubstantial gain +Tempt from the proper race-course of the soul +That crowns their patient breath +Whose feet, song-sandalled, are too fleet for Death, +Yet may she claim one privilege urbane +And haply first upon the civic roll, +That none can breathe her air nor grow humane. 140 + +3. + +Oh, better far the briefest hour +Of Athens self-consumed, whose plastic power +Hid Beauty safe from Death in words or stone; +Of Rome, fair quarry where those eagles crowd +Whose fulgurous vans about the world had blown +Triumphant storm and seeds of polity; +Of Venice, fading o'er her shipless sea, +Last iridescence of a sunset cloud; +Than this inert prosperity, +This bovine comfort in the sense alone! 150 +Yet art came slowly even to such as those. +Whom no past genius cheated of their own +With prudence of o'ermastering precedent; +Petal by petal spreads the perfect rose, +Secure of the divine event; +And only children rend the bud half-blown +To forestall Nature in her calm intent: +Time hath a quiver full of purposes +Which miss not of their aim, to us unknown, +And brings about the impossible with ease: 160 +Haply for us the ideal dawn shall break +From where in legend-tinted line +The peaks of Hellas drink the morning's wine, +To tremble on our lids with mystic sign +Till the drowsed ichor in our veins awake +And set our pulse in time with moods divine: +Long the day lingered in its sea-fringed nest, +Then touched the Tuscan hills with golden lance +And paused; then on to Spain and France +The splendor flew, and Albion's misty crest: 170 +Shall Ocean bar him from his destined West? +Or are we, then, arrived too late, +Doomed with the rest to grope disconsolate, +Foreclosed of Beauty by our modern date? + + +III + +1. + +Poets, as their heads grow gray, +Look from too far behind the eyes, +Too long-experienced to be wise +In guileless youth's diviner way; +Life sings not now, but prophesies; +Time's shadows they no more behold, 180 +But, under them, the riddle old +That mocks, bewilders, and defies: +In childhood's face the seed of shame, +In the green tree an ambushed flame, +In Phosphor a vaunt-guard of Night, +They, though against their will, divine, +And dread the care-dispelling wine +Stored from the Muse's mintage bright, +By age imbued with second-sight. +From Faith's own eyelids there peeps out, 190 +Even as they look, the leer of doubt; +The festal wreath their fancy loads +With care that whispers and forebodes: +Nor this our triumph-day can blunt Megæra's goads. + +2. + +Murmur of many voices in the air +Denounces us degenerate, +Unfaithful guardians of a noble fate, +And prompts indifference or despair: +Is this the country that we dreamed in youth, +Where wisdom and not numbers should have weight, 200 +Seed-field of simpler manners, braver truth, +Where shams should cease to dominate +In household, church, and state? +Is this Atlantis? This the unpoisoned soil, +Sea-whelmed for ages and recovered late, +Where parasitic greed no more should coil +Bound Freedom's stem to bend awry and blight +What grew so fair, sole plant of love and light? +Who sit where once in crowned seclusion sate +The long-proved athletes of debate 210 +Trained from their youth, as none thinks needful now? +Is this debating club where boys dispute, +And wrangle o'er their stolen fruit, +The Senate, erewhile cloister of the few, +Where Clay once flashed and Webster's cloudy brow +Brooded those bolts of thought that all the horizon knew? + +3. + +Oh, as this pensive moonlight blurs my pines, +Here while I sit and meditate these lines, +To gray-green dreams of what they are by day, +So would some light, not reason's sharp-edged ray, 220 +Trance me in moonshine as before the flight +Of years had won me this unwelcome right +To see things as they are, or shall he soon, +In the frank prose of undissembling noon! + +4. + +Back to my breast, ungrateful sigh! +Whoever fails, whoever errs, +The penalty be ours, not hers! +The present still seems vulgar, seen too nigh; +The golden age is still the age that's past: +I ask no drowsy opiate 230 +To dull my vision of that only state +Founded on faith in man, and therefore sure to last. +For, O my country, touched by thee, +The gray hairs gather back their gold; +Thy thought sets all my pulses free; +The heart refuses to be old; +The love is all that I can see. +Not to thy natal-day belong +Time's prudent doubt or age's wrong, +But gifts of gratitude and song: +Unsummoned crowd the thankful words, 241 +As sap in spring-time floods the tree. +Foreboding the return of birds, +For all that thou hast been to me! + + +IV + +1. + +Flawless his heart and tempered to the core +Who, beckoned by the forward-leaning wave, +First left behind him the firm-footed shore, +And, urged by every nerve of sail and oar, +Steered for the Unknown which gods to mortals gave. +Of thought and action the mysterious door, 250 +Bugbear of fools, a summons to the brave: +Strength found he in the unsympathizing sun, +And strange stars from beneath the horizon won, +And the dumb ocean pitilessly grave: +High-hearted surely he; +But bolder they who first off-cast +Their moorings from the habitable Past +And ventured chartless on the sea +Of storm-engendering Liberty: +For all earth's width of waters is a span, 260 +And their convulsed existence mere repose, +Matched with the unstable heart of man, +Shoreless in wants, mist-girt in all it knows, +Open to every wind of sect or clan, +And sudden-passionate in ebbs and flows. + +2. + +They steered by stars the elder shipmen knew, +And laid their courses where the currents draw +Of ancient wisdom channelled deep in law. +The undaunted few +Who changed the Old World for the New, 270 +And more devoutly prized +Than all perfection theorized +The more imperfect that had roots and grew. +They founded deep and well, +Those danger-chosen chiefs of men +Who still believed in Heaven and Hell, +Nor hoped to find a spell, +In some fine flourish of a pen, +To make a better man +Than long-considering Nature will or can, 280 +Secure against his own mistakes, +Content with what life gives or takes, +And acting still on some fore-ordered plan, +A cog of iron in an iron wheel, +Too nicely poised to think or feel, +Dumb motor in a clock-like commonweal. +They wasted not their brain in schemes +Of what man might be in some bubble-sphere, +As if he must be other than he seems +Because he was not what he should be here, 290 +Postponing Time's slow proof to petulant dreams: +Yet herein they were great +Beyond the incredulous lawgivers of yore, +And wiser than the wisdom of the shelf, +That they conceived a deeper-rooted state, +Of hardier growth, alive from rind to core, +By making man sole sponsor of himself. + +3. + +God of our fathers, Thou who wast, +Art, and shalt be when those eye-wise who flout +Thy secret presence shall be lost +In the great light that dazzles them to doubt, 301 +We, sprung from loins of stalwart men +Whose strength was in their trust +That Thou woudst make thy dwelling in their dust +And walk with those a fellow-citizen +Who build a city of the just, +We, who believe Life's bases rest +Beyond the probe of chemic test, +Still, like our fathers, feel Thee near, +Sure that, while lasts the immutable decree, 310 +The land to Human Nature dear +Shall not be unbeloved of Thee. + + + + +HEARTSEASE AND RUE + + + +I. FRIENDSHIP + + +AGASSIZ + + Come +Dicesti _egli ebbe?_ non viv' egli ancora? +Non fiere gli occhi suoi lo dolce lome? + + +I + +1. + +The electric nerve, whose instantaneous thrill +Makes next-door gossips of the antipodes, +Confutes poor Hope's last fallacy of ease,-- +The distance that divided her from ill: +Earth sentient seems again as when of old + The horny foot of Pan +Stamped, and the conscious horror ran +Beneath men's feet through all her fibres cold: +Space's blue walls are mined; we feel the throe +From underground of our night-mantled foe: 10 + The flame-winged feet +Of Trade's new Mercury, that dry-shod run +Through briny abysses dreamless of the sun, + Are mercilessly fleet, + And at a bound annihilate +Ocean's prerogative of short reprieve; + Surely ill news might wait, +And man be patient of delay to grieve: + Letters have sympathies + And tell-tale faces that reveal, 20 + To senses finer than the eyes. +Their errand's purport ere we break the seal; +They wind a sorrow round with circumstance +To stay its feet, nor all unwarned displace +The veil that darkened from our sidelong glance + The inexorable face: + But now Fate stuns as with a mace; +The savage of the skies, that men have caught + And some scant use of language taught, + Tells only what he must,-- 30 +The steel-cold fact in one laconic thrust. + +2. + +So thought I, as, with vague, mechanic eyes, +I scanned the festering news we half despise + Yet scramble for no less, +And read of public scandal, private fraud, +Crime flaunting scot-free while the mob applaud, +Office made vile to bribe unworthiness, + And all the unwholesome mess +The Land of Honest Abraham serves of late + To teach the Old World how to wait, 40 + When suddenly, +As happens if the brain, from overweight + Of blood, infect the eye, +Three tiny words grew lurid as I read, +And reeled commingling: _Agassiz is dead_. +As when, beneath the street's familiar jar, +An earthquake's alien omen rumbles far, +Men listen and forebode, I hung my head, + And strove the present to recall, +As if the blow that stunned were yet to fall. 50 + +3. + + Uprooted is our mountain oak, +That promised long security of shade +And brooding-place for many a wingèd thought; + Not by Time's softly cadenced stroke +With pauses of relenting pity stayed, +But ere a root seemed sapt, a bough decayed, +From sudden ambush by the whirlwind caught +And in his broad maturity betrayed! + +4. + +Well might I, as of old, appeal to you, + O mountains, woods, and streams, 60 +To help us mourn him, for ye loved him too; + But simpler moods befit our modern themes, +And no less perfect birth of nature can, +Though they yearn tow'rd him, sympathize with man. +Save as dumb fellow-prisoners through a wall; + Answer ye rather to my call, +Strong poets of a more unconscious day, +When Nature spake nor sought nice reasons why, +Too much for softer arts forgotten since +That teach our forthright tongue to lisp and mince, 70 +And drown in music the heart's bitter cry! +Lead me some steps in your directer way, +Teach me those words that strike a solid root + Within the ears of men; +Ye chiefly, virile both to think and feel, +Deep-chested Chapman and firm-footed Ben, +For he was masculine from head to heel. +Nay, let himself stand undiminished by +With those clear parts of him that will not die. +Himself from out the recent dark I claim 80 +To hear, and, if I flatter him, to blame; +To show himself, as still I seem to see, +A mortal, built upon the antique plan, +Brimful of lusty blood as ever ran, +And taking life as simply as a tree! +To claim my foiled good-by let him appear, +Large-limbed and human as I saw him near, +Loosed from the stiffening uniform of fame: +And let me treat him largely; I should fear, +(If with too prying lens I chanced to err, 90 +Mistaking catalogue for character,) +His wise forefinger raised in smiling blame. +Nor would I scant him with judicial breath +And turn mere critic in an epitaph; +I choose the wheat, incurious of the chaff +That swells fame living, chokes it after death, +And would but memorize the shining half +Of his large nature that was turned to me: +Fain had I joined with those that honored him +With eyes that darkened because his were dim, 100 +And now been silent: but it might not be. + + +II + +1. + +In some the genius is a thing apart, + A pillared hermit of the brain, +Hoarding with incommunicable art + Its intellectual gain; + Man's web of circumstance and fate + They from their perch of self observe, +Indifferent as the figures on a slate + Are to the planet's sun-swung curve + Whose bright returns they calculate; 110 + Their nice adjustment, part to part, +Were shaken from its serviceable mood +By unpremeditated stirs of heart + Or jar of human neighborhood: +Some find their natural selves, and only then, +In furloughs of divine escape from men, +And when, by that brief ecstasy left bare, + Driven by some instinct of desire, +They wander worldward, 'tis to blink and stare, +Like wild things of the wood about a fire, 120 +Dazed by the social glow they cannot share; + His nature brooked no lonely lair, +But basked and bourgeoned in co-partnery, +Companionship, and open-windowed glee: + He knew, for he had tried, + Those speculative heights that lure +The unpractised foot, impatient of a guide, + Tow'rd ether too attenuately pure +For sweet unconscious breath, though dear to pride, + But better loved the foothold sure 130 +Of paths that wind by old abodes of men +Who hope at last the churchyard's peace secure, +And follow time-worn rules, that them suffice, +Learned from their sires, traditionally wise, +Careful of honest custom's how and when; +His mind, too brave to look on Truth askance, +No more those habitudes of faith could share, +But, tinged with sweetness of the old Swiss manse, +Lingered around them still and fain would spare. +Patient to spy a sullen egg for weeks, 140 +The enigma of creation to surprise, +His truer instinct sought the life that speaks +Without a mystery from kindly eyes; +In no self-spun cocoon of prudence wound, +He by the touch of men was best inspired, +And caught his native greatness at rebound +From generosities itself had fired; +Then how the heat through every fibre ran, +Felt in the gathering presence of the man, +While the apt word and gesture came unbid! 150 +Virtues and faults it to one metal wrought, + Fined all his blood to thought, +And ran the molten man in all he said or did. +All Tully's rules and all Quintilian's too +He by the light of listening faces knew, +And his rapt audience all unconscious lent +Their own roused force to make him eloquent; +Persuasion fondled in his look and tone; +Our speech (with strangers prudish) he could bring +To find new charm in accents not her own; 160 +Her coy constraints and icy hindrances +Melted upon his lips to natural ease, +As a brook's fetters swell the dance of spring. +Nor yet all sweetness: not in vain he wore, +Nor in the sheath of ceremony, controlled +By velvet courtesy or caution cold, +That sword of honest anger prized of old, + But, with two-handed wrath, +If baseness or pretension crossed his path, + Struck once nor needed to strike more. 170 + +2. + + His magic was not far to seek.-- +He was so human! Whether strong or weak, +Far from his kind he neither sank nor soared, +But sate an equal guest at every board: +No beggar ever felt him condescend, +No prince presume; for still himself he bare +At manhood's simple level, and where'er +He met a stranger, there he left a friend. +How large an aspect! nobly un-severe, +With freshness round him of Olympian cheer, 180 +Like visits of those earthly gods he came; +His look, wherever its good-fortune fell, +Doubled the feast without a miracle, +And on the hearthstone danced a happier flame; +Philemon's crabbed vintage grew benign; +Amphitryon's gold-juice humanized to wine. + + +III + +1. + + The garrulous memories +Gather again from all their far-flown nooks, +Singly at first, and then by twos and threes, +Then in a throng innumerable, as the rooks 190 + Thicken their twilight files +Tow'rd Tintern's gray repose of roofless aisles: +Once more I see him at the table's head +When Saturday her monthly banquet spread + To scholars, poets, wits, +All choice, some famous, loving things, not names, +And so without a twinge at others' fames; +Such company as wisest moods befits, +Yet with no pedant blindness to the worth + Of undeliberate mirth, 200 + +Natures benignly mixed of air and earth, +Now with the stars and now with equal zest +Tracing the eccentric orbit of a jest. + +2. + +I see in vision the warm-lighted hall, +The living and the dead I see again, +And but my chair is empty; 'mid them all +'Tis I that seem the dead: they all remain +Immortal, changeless creatures of the brain: +Wellnigh I doubt which world is real most, +Of sense or spirit to the truly sane; 210 +In this abstraction it were light to deem +Myself the figment of some stronger dream; +They are the real things, and I the ghost +That glide unhindered through the solid door, +Vainly for recognition seek from chair to chair, +And strive to speak and am but futile air, +As truly most of us are little more. + +3. + +Him most I see whom we most dearly miss, + The latest parted thence, +His features poised in genial armistice 220 +And armed neutrality of self-defence +Beneath the forehead's walled preeminence, +While Tyro, plucking facts with careless reach, +Settles off-hand our human how and whence; +The long-trained veteran scarcely wincing hears +The infallible strategy of volunteers +Making through Nature's walls its easy breach, +And seems to learn where he alone could teach. +Ample and ruddy, the board's end he fills +As he our fireside were, our light and heat, 230 +Centre where minds diverse and various skills +Find their warm nook and stretch unhampered feet; +I see the firm benignity of face, +Wide-smiling champaign, without tameness sweet, +The mass Teutonic toned to Gallic grace, +The eyes whose sunshine runs before the lips +While Holmes's rockets, curve their long ellipse, + And burst in seeds of fire that burst again + To drop in scintillating rain. + +4. + + There too the face half-rustic, half-divine, 240 + Self-poised, sagacious, freaked with humor fine, + Of him who taught us not to mow and mope + About our fancied selves, but seek our scope +In Nature's world and Man's, nor fade to hollow trope, +Content with our New World and timely bold +To challenge the o'ermastery of the Old; +Listening with eyes averse I see him sit +Pricked with the cider of the Judge's wit +(Ripe-hearted homebrew, fresh and fresh again), +While the wise nose's firm-built aquiline 250 + Curves sharper to restrain +The merriment whose most unruly moods +Pass not the dumb laugh learned in listening woods + Of silence-shedding pine: +Hard by is he whose art's consoling spell +Hath given both worlds a whiff of asphodel, +His look still vernal 'mid the wintry ring +Of petals that remember, not foretell, +The paler primrose of a second spring. + +5. + +And more there are: but other forms arise 260 +And seen as clear, albeit with dimmer eyes: +First he from sympathy still held apart +By shrinking over-eagerness of heart, +Cloud charged with searching fire, whose shadow's sweep +Heightened mean things with sense of brooding ill, +And steeped in doom familiar field and hill,-- +New England's poet, soul reserved and deep, +November nature with a name of May, +Whom high o'er Concord plains we laid to sleep, +While the orchards mocked us in their white array 270 +And building robins wondered at our tears, +Snatched in his prime, the shape august +That should have stood unbent 'neath fourscore years, +The noble head, the eyes of furtive trust, + All gone to speechless dust. + And he our passing guest, +Shy nature, too, and stung with life's unrest, +Whom we too briefly had but could not hold, +Who brought ripe Oxford's culture to our board, + The Past's incalculable hoard, 280 +Mellowed by scutcheoned panes in cloisters old, +Seclusions ivy-hushed, and pavements sweet +With immemorial lisp of musing feet; +Young head time-tonsured smoother than a friar's, +Boy face, but grave with answerless desires, +Poet in all that poets have of best, +But foiled with riddles dark and cloudy aims, + Who now hath found sure rest, +Not by still Isis or historic Thames, +Nor by the Charles he tried to love with me, 290 +But, not misplaced, by Arno's hallowed brim, +Nor scorned by Santa Croce's neighboring fames, + Haply not mindless, wheresoe'er he be, +Of violets that to-day I scattered over him, + He, too, is there, +After the good centurion fitly named, +Whom learning dulled not, nor convention tamed, +Shaking with burly mirth his hyacinthine hair, +Our hearty Grecian of Homeric ways, +Still found the surer friend where least he hoped the praise. + +6. + + Yea truly, as the sallowing years 301 +Fall from us faster, like frost-loosened leaves +Pushed by the misty touch of shortening days, + And that unwakened winter nears, +'Tis the void chair our surest guest receives, +'Tis lips long cold that give the warmest kiss, +'Tis the lost voice comes oftenest to our ears; +We count our rosary by the beads we miss: + To me, at least, it seemeth so, +An exile in the land once found divine, 310 + While my starved fire burns low, +And homeless winds at the loose casement whine +Shrill ditties of the snow-roofed Apennine. + + +IV + +1. + +Now forth into the darkness all are gone, +But memory, still unsated, follows on, +Retracing step by step our homeward walk, +With many a laugh among our serious talk, +Across the bridge where, on the dimpling tide, +The long red streamers from the windows glide, + Or the dim western moon +Rocks her skiff's image on the broad lagoon, 321 +And Boston shows a soft Venetian side +In that Arcadian light when roof and tree, +Hard prose by daylight, dream in Italy; +Or haply in the sky's cold chambers wide +Shivered the winter stars, while all below, +As if an end were come of human ill, +The world was wrapt in innocence of snow +And the cast-iron bay was blind and still; +These were our poetry; in him perhaps 330 +Science had barred the gate that lets in dream, +And he would rather count the perch and bream +Than with the current's idle fancy lapse; +And yet he had the poet's open eye +That takes a frank delight in all it sees, +Nor was earth voiceless, nor the mystic sky, +To him the life-long friend of fields and trees: +Then came the prose of the suburban street, +Its silence deepened by our echoing feet, +And converse such as rambling hazard finds; 340 +Then he who many cities knew and many minds, +And men once world-noised, now mere Ossian forms +Of misty memory, bade them live anew +As when they shared earth's manifold delight, +In shape, in gait, in voice, in gesture true, +And, with an accent heightening as he warms, +Would stop forgetful of the shortening night, +Drop my confining arm, and pour profuse +Much worldly wisdom kept for others' use, +Not for his own, for he was rash and free, 350 +His purse or knowledge all men's, like the sea. +Still can I hear his voice's shrilling might +(With pauses broken, while the fitful spark +He blew more hotly rounded on the dark +To hint his features with a Rembrandt light) +Call Oken back, or Humboldt, or Lamarck, +Or Cuvier's taller shade, and many more +Whom he had seen, or knew from others' sight, +And make them men to me as ne'er before: +Not seldom, as the undeadened fibre stirred 360 +Of noble friendships knit beyond the sea, +German or French thrust by the lagging word, +For a good leash of mother-tongues had he. +At last, arrived at where our paths divide, +'Good night!' and, ere the distance grew too wide, +'Good night!' again; and now with cheated ear +I half hear his who mine shall never hear. + +2. + + Sometimes it seemed as if New England air + For his large lungs too parsimonious were, + As if those empty rooms of dogma drear 370 + Where the ghost shivers of a faith austere + Counting the horns o'er of the Beast, +Still scaring those whose faith to it is least, + As if those snaps o' th' moral atmosphere + That sharpen all the needles of the East, + Had been to him like death, + Accustomed to draw Europe's freer breath + In a more stable element; + Nay, even our landscape, half the year morose, + Our practical horizon, grimly pent, 380 + Our air, sincere of ceremonious haze, + Forcing hard outlines mercilessly close, + Our social monotone of level days, + Might make our best seem banishment; + But it was nothing so; + Haply this instinct might divine, + Beneath our drift of puritanic snow, + The marvel sensitive and fine + Of sanguinaria over-rash to blow + And trust its shyness to an air malign; 390 + Well might he prize truth's warranty and pledge + In the grim outcrop of our granite edge, + Or Hebrew fervor flashing forth at need + In the gaunt sons of Calvin's iron breed, + As prompt to give as skilled to win and keep; + But, though such intuitions might not cheer, + Yet life was good to him, and, there or here, +With that sufficing joy, the day was never cheap; + Thereto his mind was its own ample sphere, + And, like those buildings great that through the year 400 + Carry one temperature, his nature large + Made its own climate, nor could any marge + Traced by convention stay him from his bent: + He had a habitude of mountain air; + He brought wide outlook where he went, + And could on sunny uplands dwell + Of prospect sweeter than the pastures fair + High-hung of viny Neufchâtel; + Nor, surely, did he miss + Some pale, imaginary bliss +Of earlier sights whose inner landscape still was Swiss. 411 + + +V + +1. + + I cannot think he wished so soon to die + With all his senses full of eager heat, + And rosy years that stood expectant by + To buckle the winged sandals on their feet, + He that was friends with Earth, and all her sweet + Took with both hands unsparingly: + Truly this life is precious to the root, + And good the feel of grass beneath the foot; + To lie in buttercups and clover-bloom, 420 + Tenants in common with the bees, + And watch the white clouds drift through gulfs of trees, + Is better than long waiting in the tomb; + Only once more to feel the coming spring + As the birds feel it, when it bids them sing, + Only once more to see the moon + Through leaf-fringed abbey-arches of the elms + Curve her mild sickle in the West + Sweet with the breath of haycocks, were a boon + Worth any promise of soothsayer realms 430 + Or casual hope of being elsewhere blest; + To take December by the beard + And crush the creaking snow with springy foot, + While overhead the North's dumb streamers shoot, + Till Winter fawn upon the cheek endeared, + Then the long evening-ends + Lingered by cosy chimney-nooks, + With high companionship of books + Or slippered talk of friends + And sweet habitual looks, +Is better than to stop the ears with dust: 441 +Too soon the spectre comes to say, 'Thou must!' + +2. + + When toil-crooked hands are crost upon the breast, + They comfort us with sense of rest; + They must be glad to lie forever still; + Their work is ended with their day; +Another fills their room; 't is the World's ancient way, + Whether for good or ill; + But the deft spinners of the brain, + Who love each added day and find it gain, 450 + Them overtakes the doom + To snap the half-grown flower upon the loom + (Trophy that was to be of life long pain), + The thread no other skill can ever knit again. + 'Twas so with him, for he was glad to live, + 'Twas doubly so, for he left work begun; + Could not this eagerness of Fate forgive + Till all the allotted flax were spun? + It matters not; for, go at night or noon, + A friend, whene'er he dies, has died too soon, 460 + And, once we hear the hopeless _He is dead,_ + So far as flesh hath knowledge, all is said. + + +VI + +1. + + I seem to see the black procession go: + That crawling prose of death too well I know, + The vulgar paraphrase of glorious woe; + I see it wind through that unsightly grove, + Once beautiful, but long defaced + With granite permanence of cockney taste + And all those grim disfigurements we love: + There, then, we leave him: Him? such costly waste 470 + Nature rebels at: and it is not true +Of those most precious parts of him we knew: + Could we be conscious but as dreamers be, + 'Twere sweet to leave this shifting life of tents + Sunk in the changeless calm of Deity; + Nay, to be mingled with the elements, + The fellow-servants of creative powers, + Partaker in the solemn year's events, + To share the work of busy-fingered hours, + To be night's silent almoner of dew, 480 + To rise again in plants and breathe and grow, + To stream as tides the ocean caverns through, + Or with the rapture of great winds to blow + About earth's shaken coignes, were not a fate + To leave us all-disconsolate; +Even endless slumber in the sweetening sod + Of charitable earth + That takes out all our mortal stains, +And makes us cleanlier neighbors of the clod, + Methinks were better worth +Than the poor fruit of most men's wakeful pains, 491 + The heart's insatiable ache: + But such was not his faith, + Nor mine: it may be he had trod +Outside the plain old path of _God thus spake_, + But God to him was very God + And not a visionary wraith + Skulking in murky corners of the mind, + And he was sure to be +Somehow, somewhere, imperishable as He, 500 +Not with His essence mystically combined, +As some high spirits long, but whole and free, + A perfected and conscious Agassiz. +And such I figure him: the wise of old +Welcome and own him of their peaceful fold, + Not truly with the guild enrolled + Of him who seeking inward guessed + Diviner riddles than the rest, + And groping in the darks of thought + Touched the Great Hand and knew it not; 510 + Rather he shares the daily light, + From reason's charier fountains won, +Of his great chief, the slow-paced Stagyrite, +And Cuvier clasps once more his long-lost son. + +2. + +The shape erect is prone: forever stilled +The winning tongue; the forehead's high-piled heap, +A cairn which every science helped to build, +Unvalued will its golden secrets keep: +He knows at last if Life or Death be best: +Wherever he be flown, whatever vest 520 +The being hath put on which lately here +So many-friended was, so full of cheer +To make men feel the Seeker's noble zest, +We have not lost him all; he is not gone +To the dumb herd of them that wholly die; +The beauty of his better self lives on +In minds he touched with fire, in many an eye +He trained to Truth's exact severity; +He was a Teacher: why be grieved for him +Whose living word still stimulates the air? 530 +In endless file shall loving scholars come +The glow of his transmitted touch to share, +And trace his features with an eye less dim +Than ours whose sense familiar wont makes dumb. + + + +TO HOLMES + +ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY + + +Dear Wendell, why need count the years + Since first your genius made me thrill, +If what moved then to smiles or tears, + Or both contending, move me still? + +What has the Calendar to do + With poets? What Time's fruitless tooth +With gay immortals such as you + Whose years but emphasize your youth? + +One air gave both their lease of breath; + The same paths lured our boyish feet; +One earth will hold us safe in death + With dust of saints and scholars sweet. + +Our legends from one source were drawn, + I scarce distinguish yours from mine, +And _don't_ we make the Gentiles yawn + With 'You remembers?' o'er our wine! + +If I, with too senescent air, + Invade your elder memory's pale, +You snub me with a pitying 'Where + Were you in the September Gale?' + +Both stared entranced at Lafayette, + Saw Jackson dubbed with LL.D. +What Cambridge saw not strikes us yet + As scarcely worth one's while to see. + +Ten years my senior, when my name + In Harvard's entrance-book was writ, +Her halls still echoed with the fame + Of you, her poet and her wit. + +'Tis fifty years from then to now; + But your Last Leaf renews its green, +Though, for the laurels on your brow + (So thick they crowd), 'tis hardly seen. + +The oriole's fledglings fifty times + Have flown from our familiar elms; +As many poets with their rhymes + Oblivion's darkling dust o'erwhelms. + +The birds are hushed, the poets gone + Where no harsh critic's lash can reach, +And still your wingèd brood sing on + To all who love our English speech. + +Nay, let the foolish records he + That make believe you're seventy-five: +You're the old Wendell still to me,-- + And that's the youngest man alive. + +The gray-blue eyes, I see them still, + The gallant front with brown o'erhung, +The shape alert, the wit at will, + The phrase that stuck, but never stung. + +You keep your youth as yon Scotch firs, + Whose gaunt line my horizon hems, +Though twilight all the lowland blurs, + Hold sunset in their ruddy stems. + +_You_ with the elders? Yes, 'tis true, + But in no sadly literal sense, +With elders and coevals too, + Whose verb admits no preterite tense. + +Master alike in speech and song + Of fame's great antiseptic--Style, +You with the classic few belong + Who tempered wisdom with a smile. + +Outlive us all! Who else like you + Could sift the seedcorn from our chaff, +And make us with the pen we knew + Deathless at least in epitaph? + + + +IN A COPY OF OMAR KHAYYÁM + + +These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, +Each softly lucent as a rounded moon; +The diver Omar plucked them from their bed, +Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread. + +Fit rosary for a queen, in shape and hue, +When Contemplation tells her pensive beads +Of mortal thoughts, forever old and new. +Fit for a queen? Why, surely then for you! + +The moral? Where Doubt's eddies toss and twirl +Faith's slender shallop till her footing reel, +Plunge: if you find not peace beneath the whirl, +Groping, you may like Omar grasp a pearl. + + + +ON RECEIVING A COPY OF MR. AUSTIN DOBSON'S 'OLD WORLD IDYLLS' + + +I + +At length arrived, your book I take +To read in for the author's sake; +Too gray for new sensations grown, +Can charm to Art or Nature known +This torpor from my senses shake? + +Hush! my parched ears what runnels slake? +Is a thrush gurgling from the brake? +Has Spring, on all the breezes blown, +At length arrived? + +Long may you live such songs to make, +And I to listen while you wake, +With skill of late disused, each tone +Of the _Lesboum, barbiton_, +At mastery, through long finger-ache, +At length arrived. + + +II + +As I read on, what changes steal +O'er me and through, from head to heel? +A rapier thrusts coat-skirt aside, +My rough Tweeds bloom to silken pride,-- +Who was it laughed? Your hand, Dick Steele! + +Down vistas long of clipt _charmille_ +Watteau as Pierrot leads the reel; +Tabor and pipe the dancers guide +As I read on. + +While in and out the verses wheel +The wind-caught robes trim feet reveal, +Lithe ankles that to music glide, +But chastely and by chance descried; +Art? Nature? Which do I most feel +As I read on? + + + +TO C.F. BRADFORD + +ON THE GIFT OF A MEERSCHAUM PIPE + + +The pipe came safe, and welcome too, +As anything must be from you; +A meerschaum pure, 'twould float as light +As she the girls call Amphitrite. +Mixture divine of foam and clay, +From both it stole the best away: +Its foam is such as crowns the glow +Of beakers brimmed by Veuve Clicquot; +Its clay is but congested lymph +Jove chose to make some choicer nymph; +And here combined,--why, this must be +The birth of some enchanted sea, +Shaped to immortal form, the type +And very Venus of a pipe. + +When high I heap it with the weed +From Lethe wharf, whose potent seed +Nicotia, big from Bacchus, bore +And cast upon Virginia's shore, +I'll think,--So fill the fairer bowl +And wise alembic of thy soul, +With herbs far-sought that shall distil, +Not fumes to slacken thought and will, +But bracing essences that nerve +To wait, to dare, to strive, to serve. + +When curls the smoke in eddies soft, +And hangs a shifting dream aloft, +That gives and takes, though chance-designed, +The impress of the dreamer's mind, +I'll think,--So let the vapors bred +By Passion, in the heart or head, +Pass off and upward into space, +Waving farewells of tenderest grace, +Remembered in some happier time, +To blend their beauty with my rhyme. + +While slowly o'er its candid bowl +The color deepens (as the soul +That burns in mortals leaves its trace +Of bale or beauty on the face), +I'll think,--So let the essence rare +Of years consuming make me fair; +So, 'gainst the ills of life profuse, +Steep me in some narcotic juice; +And if my soul must part with all +That whiteness which we greenness call, +Smooth back, O Fortune, half thy frown, +And make me beautifully brown! + +Dream-forger, I refill thy cup +With reverie's wasteful pittance up, +And while the fire burns slow away, +Hiding itself in ashes gray, +I'll think,--As inward Youth retreats, +Compelled to spare his wasting heats, +When Life's Ash-Wednesday comes about, +And my head's gray with fires burnt out, +While stays one spark to light the eye, +With the last flash of memory, +'Twill leap to welcome C.F.B., +Who sent my favorite pipe to me. + + + +BANKSIDE + +(HOME OF EDMUND QUINCY) + +DEDHAM, MAY 21, 1877 + + +I + +I christened you in happier days, before +These gray forebodings on my brow were seen; +You are still lovely in your new-leaved green; +The brimming river soothes his grassy shore; +The bridge is there; the rock with lichens hoar; +And the same shadows on the water lean, +Outlasting us. How many graves between +That day and this! How many shadows more +Darken my heart, their substance from these eyes +Hidden forever! So our world is made +Of life and death commingled; and the sighs +Outweigh the smiles, in equal balance laid: +What compensation? None, save that the Allwise +So schools us to love things that cannot fade. + + +II + +Thank God, he saw you last in pomp of May, +Ere any leaf had felt the year's regret; +Your latest image in his memory set +Was fair as when your landscape's peaceful sway +Charmed dearer eyes with his to make delay +On Hope's long prospect,--as if They forget +The happy, They, the unspeakable Three, whose debt, +Like the hawk's shadow, blots our brightest day: +Better it is that ye should look so fair. +Slopes that he loved, and ever-murmuring pines +That make a music out of silent air, +And bloom-heaped orchard-trees in prosperous lines; +In you the heart some sweeter hints divines, +And wiser, than in winter's dull despair. + + +III + +Old Friend, farewell! Your kindly door again +I enter, but the master's hand in mine +No more clasps welcome, and the temperate wine, +That cheered our long nights, other lips must stain: +All is unchanged, but I expect in vain +The face alert, the manners free and fine, +The seventy years borne lightly as the pine +Wears its first down of snow in green disdain: +Much did he, and much well; yet most of all +I prized his skill in leisure and the ease +Of a life flowing full without a plan; +For most are idly busy; him I call +Thrice fortunate who knew himself to please, +Learned in those arts that make a gentleman. + + +IV + +Nor deem he lived unto himself alone; +His was the public spirit of his sire, +And in those eyes, soft with domestic fire, +A quenchless light of fiercer temper shone +What time about, the world our shame was blown +On every wind; his soul would not conspire +With selfish men to soothe the mob's desire, +Veiling with garlands Moloch's bloody stone; +The high-bred instincts of a better day +Ruled in his blood, when to be citizen +Rang Roman yet, and a Free People's sway +Was not the exchequer of impoverished men, +Nor statesmanship with loaded votes to play, +Nor public office a tramps' boosing-ken. + + + +JOSEPH WINLOCK + +DIED JUNE 11, 1875 + + +Shy soul and stalwart, man of patient will +Through years one hair's-breadth on our Dark to gain, +Who, from the stars he studied not in vain, +Had learned their secret to be strong and still, +Careless of fames that earth's tin trumpets fill; +Born under Leo, broad of build and brain, +While others slept, he watched in that hushed fane +Of Science, only witness of his skill: +Sudden as falls a shooting-star he fell, +But inextinguishable his luminous trace +In mind and heart of all that knew him well. +Happy man's doom! To him the Fates were known +Of orbs dim hovering on the skirts of space, +Unprescient, through God's mercy, of his own! + + + +SONNET + +TO FANNY ALEXANDER + + +Unconscious as the sunshine, simply sweet +And generous as that, thou dost not close +Thyself in art, as life were but a rose +To rumple bee-like with luxurious feet; +Thy higher mind therein finds sure retreat, +But not from care of common hopes and woes; +Thee the dark chamber, thee the unfriended, knows, +Although no babbling crowds thy praise repeat: +Consummate artist, who life's landscape bleak +Hast brimmed with sun to many a clouded eye, +Touched to a brighter hue the beggar's cheek, +Hung over orphaned lives a gracious sky, +And traced for eyes, that else would vainly seek, +Fair pictures of an angel drawing nigh! + + + +JEFFRIES WYMAN + +DIED SEPTEMBER 4, 1874 + + +The wisest man could ask no more of Fate +Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, +Safe from the Many, honored by the Few; +To count as naught in World, or Church, or State, +But, inwardly in secret to be great; +To feel mysterious Nature ever new; +To touch, if not to grasp, her endless clue, +And learn by each discovery how to wait. +He widened knowledge and escaped the praise; +He wisely taught, because more wise to learn; +He toiled for Science, not to draw men's gaze, +But for her lore of self-denial stern. +That such a man could spring from our decays +Fans the soul's nobler faith until it burn. + + + +TO A FRIEND + +WHO GAVE ME A GROUP OF WEEDS AND GRASSES, AFTER A DRAWING OF DÜRER + + +True as the sun's own work, but more refined, +It tells of love behind the artist's eye, +Of sweet companionships with earth and sky, +And summers stored, the sunshine of the mind. +What peace! Sure, ere you breathe, the fickle wind +Will break its truce and bend that grass-plume high, +Scarcely yet quiet from the gilded fly +That flits a more luxurious perch to find. +Thanks for a pleasure that can never pall, +A serene moment, deftly caught and kept +To make immortal summer on my wall. +Had he who drew such gladness ever wept? +Ask rather could he else have seen at all, +Or grown in Nature's mysteries an adept? + + + +WITH AN ARMCHAIR + + +1. + +About the oak that framed this chair, of old +The seasons danced their round; delighted wings +Brought music to its boughs; shy woodland things +Shared its broad roof, 'neath whose green glooms grown bold, +Lovers, more shy than they, their secret told; +The resurrection of a thousand springs +Swelled in its veins, and dim imaginings +Teased them, perchance, of life more manifold. +Such shall it know when its proud arms enclose +My Lady Goshawk, musing here at rest, +Careless of him who into exile goes, +Yet, while his gift by those fair limbs is prest, +Through some fine sympathy of nature knows +That, seas between us, she is still his guest. + +2. + +Yet sometimes, let me dream, the conscious wood +A momentary vision may renew +Of him who counts it treasure that he knew, +Though but in passing, such a priceless good, +And, like an elder brother, felt his mood +Uplifted by the spell that kept her true, +Amid her lightsome compeers, to the few +That wear the crown of serious womanhood: +Were he so happy, think of him as one +Who in the Louvre or Pitti feels his soul +Rapt by some dead face which, till then unseen, +Moves like a memory, and, till life outrun, +Is vexed with vague misgiving past control, +Of nameless loss and thwarted might-have-been. + + + +E.G. DE R. + + +Why should I seek her spell to decompose +Or to its source each rill of influence trace +That feeds the brimming river of her grace? +The petals numbered but degrade to prose +Summer's triumphant poem of the rose: +Enough for me to watch the wavering chase, +Like wind o'er grass, of moods across her face, +Fairest in motion, fairer in repose. +Steeped in her sunshine, let me, while I may, +Partake the bounty; ample 'tis for me +That her mirth cheats my temples of their gray, +Her charm makes years long spent seem yet to be. +Wit, goodness, grace, swift flash from grave to gay,-- +All these are good, but better far is she. + + + +BON VOYAGE + + +Ship, blest to bear such freight across the blue, +May stormless stars control thy horoscope; +In keel and hull, in every spar and rope, +Be night and day to thy dear office true! +Ocean, men's path and their divider too, +No fairer shrine of memory and hope +To the underworld adown thy westering slope +E'er vanished, or whom such regrets pursue: +Smooth all thy surges as when Jove to Crete +Swam with less costly burthen, and prepare +A pathway meet for her home-coming soon +With golden undulations such as greet +The printless summer-sandals of the moon +And tempt the Nautilus his cruise to dare! + + + +TO WHITTIER + +ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY + + +New England's poet, rich in love as years, +Her hills and valleys praise thee, her swift brooks +Dance in thy verse; to her grave sylvan nooks +Thy steps allure us, which the wood-thrush hears +As maids their lovers', and no treason fears; +Through thee her Merrimacs and Agiochooks +And many a name uncouth win gracious looks, +Sweetly familiar to both Englands' ears: +Peaceful by birthright, as a virgin lake, +The lily's anchorage, which no eyes behold +Save those of stars, yet for thy brother's sake +That lay in bonds, thou blewst a blast as bold +As that wherewith the heart of Roland brake, +Far heard across the New World and the Old. + + + +ON AN AUTUMN SKETCH OF H.G. WILD + + +Thanks to the artist, ever on my wall +The sunset stays: that hill in glory rolled, +Those trees and clouds in crimson and in gold, +Burn on, nor cool when evening's shadows fall. +Not round _these_ splendors Midnight wraps her pall; +_These_ leaves the flush of Autumn's vintage hold +In Winter's spite, nor can the Northwind bold +Deface my chapel's western window small: +On one, ah me! October struck his frost, +But not repaid him with those Tyrian hues; +His naked boughs but tell him what is lost, +And parting comforts of the sun refuse: +His heaven is bare,--ah, were its hollow crost +Even with a cloud whose light were yet to lose! + + + +TO MISS D.T. + +ON HER GIVING ME A DRAWING OF LITTLE STREET ARABS + + +As, cleansed of Tiber's and Oblivion's slime, +Glow Farnesina's vaults with shapes again +That dreamed some exiled artist from his pain +Back to his Athens and the Muse's clime, +So these world-orphaned waifs of Want and Crime, +Purged by Art's absolution from the stain +Of the polluting city-flood, regain +Ideal grace secure from taint of time. +An Attic frieze you give, a pictured song; +For as with words the poet paints, for you +The happy pencil at its labor sings, +Stealing his privilege, nor does him wrong, +Beneath the false discovering the true, +And Beauty's best in unregarded things. + + + +WITH A COPY OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE + + +Leaves fit to have been poor Juliet's cradle-rhyme, +With gladness of a heart long quenched in mould +They vibrate still, a nest not yet grown cold +From its fledged burthen. The numb hand of Time +Vainly his glass turns; here is endless prime; +Here lips their roses keep and locks their gold; +Here Love in pristine innocency bold +Speaks what our grosser conscience makes a crime. +Because it tells the dream that all have known +Once in their lives, and to life's end the few; +Because its seeds o'er Memory's desert blown +Spring up in heartsease such as Eden knew; +Because it hath a beauty all its own, +Dear Friend, I plucked this herb of grace for you. + + + +ON PLANTING A TREE AT INVERARAY + + +Who does his duty is a question + Too complex to be solved by me, +But he, I venture the suggestion, + Does part of his that plants a tree. + +For after he is dead and buried, + And epitaphed, and well forgot, +Nay, even his shade by Charon ferried + To--let us not inquire to what, + +His deed, its author long outliving, + By Nature's mother-care increased, +Shall stand, his verdant almoner, giving + A kindly dole to man and beast. + +The wayfarer, at noon reposing, + Shall bless its shadow on the grass, +Or sheep beneath it huddle, dozing + Until the thundergust o'erpass. + +The owl, belated in his plundering, + Shall here await the friendly night, +Blinking whene'er he wakes, and wondering + What fool it was invented light. + +Hither the busy birds shall flutter, + With the light timber for their nests, +And, pausing from their labor, utter + The morning sunshine in their breasts. + +What though his memory shall have vanished, + Since the good deed he did survives? +It is not wholly to be banished + Thus to be part of many lives. + +Grow, then, my foster-child, and strengthen, + Bough over bough, a murmurous pile, +And, as your stately stem shall lengthen, + So may the statelier of Argyll! + + + +AN EPISTLE TO GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS + + + 'De prodome, +Des qu'il s'atorne a grant bonte +Ja n'iert tot dit ne tot conte, +Que leingue ne puet pas retraire +Tant d'enor com prodom set faire.' + + CRESTIEN DE TROIES, _Li Romans dou + Chevalier au Lyon_, 784-788. + +1874 + +Curtis, whose Wit, with Fancy arm in arm, +Masks half its muscle in its skill to charm, +And who so gently can the Wrong expose +As sometimes to make converts, never foes, +Or only such as good men must expect, +Knaves sore with conscience of their own defect, +I come with mild remonstrance. Ere I start, +A kindlier errand interrupts my heart, +And I must utter, though it vex your ears, +The love, the honor, felt so many years. 10 +Curtis, skilled equally with voice and pen +To stir the hearts or mould the minds of men,-- +That voice whose music, for I've heard you sing +Sweet as Casella, can with passion ring, +That pen whose rapid ease ne'er trips with haste, +Nor scrapes nor sputters, pointed with good taste, +First Steele's, then Goldsmith's, next it came to you, +Whom Thackeray rated best of all our crew,-- +Had letters kept you, every wreath were yours; +Had the World tempted, all its chariest doors 20 +Had swung on flattered hinges to admit +Such high-bred manners, such good-natured wit; +At courts, in senates, who so fit to serve? +And both invited, but you would not swerve, +All meaner prizes waiving that you might +In civic duty spend your heat and light, +Unpaid, untrammelled, with a sweet disdain +Refusing posts men grovel to attain. +Good Man all own you; what is left me, then, +To heighten praise with but Good Citizen? 30 + +But why this praise to make you blush and stare, +And give a backache to your Easy-Chair? +Old Crestien rightly says no language can +Express the worth of a true Gentleman, +And I agree; but other thoughts deride +My first intent, and lure my pen aside. +Thinking of you, I see my firelight glow +On other faces, loved from long ago, +Dear to us both, and all these loves combine +With this I send and crowd in every line; 40 +Fortune with me was in such generous mood +That all my friends were yours, and all were good; +Three generations come when one I call, +And the fair grandame, youngest of them all, +In her own Florida who found and sips +The fount that fled from Ponce's longing lips. +How bright they rise and wreathe my hearthstone round, +Divine my thoughts, reply without a sound, +And with them many a shape that memory sees, +As dear as they, but crowned with aureoles these! 50 +What wonder if, with protest in my thought, +Arrived, I find 'twas only love I brought? +I came with protest; Memory barred the road +Till I repaid you half the debt I owed. + +No, 'twas not to bring laurels that I came, +Nor would you wish it, daily seeing fame, +(Or our cheap substitute, unknown of yore,) +Dumped like a load of coal at every door, +Mime and hetæra getting equal weight +With him whose toils heroic saved the State. 60 +But praise can harm not who so calmly met +Slander's worst word, nor treasured up the debt, +Knowing, what all experience serves to show, +No mud can soil us but the mud we throw. +You have heard harsher voices and more loud, +As all must, not sworn liegemen of the crowd, +And far aloof your silent mind could keep +As when, in heavens with winter-midnight deep, +The perfect moon hangs thoughtful, nor can know +What hounds her lucent calm drives mad below. 70 +But to my business, while you rub your eyes +And wonder how you ever thought me wise. +Dear friend and old, they say you shake your head +And wish some bitter words of mine unsaid: +I wish they might be,--there we are agreed; +I hate to speak, still more what makes the need; +But I must utter what the voice within +Dictates, for acquiescence dumb were sin; +I blurt ungrateful truths, if so they be, +That none may need to say them after me. 80 +'Twere my felicity could I attain +The temperate zeal that balances your brain; +But nature still o'erleaps reflection's plan, +And one must do his service as he can. +Think you it were not pleasanter to speak +Smooth words that leave unflushed the brow and cheek? +To sit, well-dined, with cynic smile, unseen +In private box, spectator of the scene +Where men the comedy of life rehearse, +Idly to judge which better and which worse 90 +Each hireling actor spoiled his worthless part? +Were it not sweeter with a careless heart, +In happy commune with the untainted brooks, +To dream all day, or, walled with silent books, +To hear nor heed the World's unmeaning noise, +Safe in my fortress stored with lifelong joys? +I love too well the pleasures of retreat +Safe from the crowd and cloistered from the street; +The fire that whispers its domestic joy, +Flickering on walls that knew me still a boy, 100 +And knew my saintly father; the full days, +Not careworn from the world's soul-squandering ways, +Calm days that loiter with snow-silent tread, +Nor break my commune with the undying dead; +Truants of Time, to-morrow like to-day, +That come unbid, and claimless glide away +By shelves that sun them in the indulgent Past, +Where Spanish castles, even, were built to last, +Where saint and sage their silent vigil keep, +And wrong hath ceased or sung itself to sleep. 110 +Dear were my walks, too, gathering fragrant store +Of Mother Nature's simple-minded lore: +I learned all weather-signs of day or night; +No bird but I could name him by his flight, +No distant tree but by his shape was known, +Or, near at hand, by leaf or bark alone. +This learning won by loving looks I hived +As sweeter lore than all from books derived. +I know the charm of hillside, field, and wood, +Of lake and stream, and the sky's downy brood, 120 +Of roads sequestered rimmed with sallow sod, +But friends with hardhack, aster, goldenrod, +Or succory keeping summer long its trust +Of heaven-blue fleckless from the eddying dust: +These were my earliest friends, and latest too, +Still unestranged, whatever fate may do. +For years I had these treasures, knew their worth, +Estate most real man can have on earth. +I sank too deep in this soft-stuffed repose +That hears but rumors of earth's wrongs and woes; 130 +Too well these Capuas could my muscles waste, +Not void of toils, but toils of choice and taste; +These still had kept me could I but have quelled +The Puritan drop that in my veins rebelled. +But there were times when silent were my books +As jailers are, and gave me sullen looks, +When verses palled, and even the woodland path, +By innocent contrast, fed my heart with wrath, +And I must twist my little gift of words +Into a scourge of rough and knotted cords 140 +Unmusical, that whistle as they swing +To leave on shameless backs their purple sting. + +How slow Time comes! Gone who so swift as he? +Add but a year, 'tis half a century +Since the slave's stifled moaning broke my sleep, +Heard 'gainst my will in that seclusion deep, +Haply heard louder for the silence there, +And so my fancied safeguard made my snare. +After that moan had sharpened to a cry, +And a cloud, hand-broad then, heaped all our sky 150 +With its stored vengeance, and such thunders stirred +As heaven's and earth's remotest chambers heard, +I looked to see an ampler atmosphere +By that electric passion-gust blown clear. +I looked for this; consider what I see-- +But I forbear, 'twould please nor you nor me +To check the items in the bitter list +Of all I counted on and all I mist. +Only three instances I choose from all, +And each enough to stir a pigeon's gall: 160 +Office a fund for ballot-brokers made +To pay the drudges of their gainful trade; +Our cities taught what conquered cities feel +By ædiles chosen that they might safely steal; +And gold, however got, a title fair +To such respect as only gold can bear. +I seem to see this; how shall I gainsay +What all our journals tell me every day? +Poured our young martyrs their high-hearted blood +That we might trample to congenial mud 170 +The soil with such a legacy sublimed? +Methinks an angry scorn is here well-timed: +Where find retreat? How keep reproach at bay? +Where'er I turn some scandal fouls the way. + +Dear friend, if any man I wished to please, +'Twere surely you whose humor's honied ease +Flows flecked with gold of thought, whose generous mind +Sees Paradise regained by all mankind, +Whose brave example still to vanward shines, +Cheeks the retreat, and spurs our lagging lines. 180 +Was I too bitter? Who his phrase can choose +That sees the life-blood of his dearest ooze? +I loved my Country so as only they +Who love a mother fit to die for may; +I loved her old renown, her stainless fame,-- +What better proof than that I loathed her shame? +That many blamed me could not irk me long, +But, if you doubted, must I not be wrong? +'Tis not for me to answer; this I know. +That man or race so prosperously low 190 +Sunk in success that wrath they cannot feel, +Shall taste the spurn of parting Fortune's heel; +For never land long lease of empire won +Whose sons sate silent when base deeds were done. + + + +POSTSCRIPT, 1887 + +Curtis, so wrote I thirteen years ago, +Tost it unfinished by, and left it so; +Found lately, I have pieced it out, or tried, +Since time for callid juncture was denied. +Some of the verses pleased me, it is true, +And still were pertinent,--those honoring you. 200 +These now I offer: take them, if you will, +Like the old hand-grasp, when at Shady Hill +We met, or Staten Island, in the days +When life was its own spur, nor needed praise. +If once you thought me rash, no longer fear; +Past my next milestone waits my seventieth year. +I mount no longer when the trumpets call; +My battle-harness idles on the wall, +The spider's castle, camping-ground of dust, +Not without dints, and all in front, I trust. 210 +Shivering sometimes it calls me as it hears +Afar the charge's tramp and clash of spears; +But 'tis such murmur only as might be +The sea-shell's lost tradition of the sea, +That makes me muse and wonder Where? and When? +While from my cliff I watch the waves of men +That climb to break midway their seeming gain, +And think it triumph if they shake their chain. +Little I ask of Fate; will she refuse +Some days of reconcilement with the Muse? 220 +I take my reed again and blow it free +Of dusty silence, murmuring, 'Sing to me!' +And, as its stops my curious touch retries, +The stir of earlier instincts I surprise,-- +Instincts, if less imperious, yet more strong, +And happy in the toil that ends with song. + +Home am I come: not, as I hoped might be, +To the old haunts, too full of ghosts for me, +But to the olden dreams that time endears, +And the loved books that younger grow with years; 230 +To country rambles, timing with my tread +Some happier verse that carols in my head, +Yet all with sense of something vainly mist, +Of something lost, but when I never wist. +How empty seems to me the populous street, +One figure gone I daily loved to meet,-- +The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow +Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below! +And, ah, what absence feel I at my side, +Like Dante when he missed his laurelled guide, 240 +What sense of diminution in the air +Once so inspiring, Emerson not there! +But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet +Lessen like sound of friends' departing feet, +And Death is beautiful as feet of friend +Coming with welcome at our journey's end; +For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied, +A nature sloping to the southern side; +I thank her for it, though when clouds arise +Such natures double-darken gloomy skies. 250 +I muse upon the margin of the sea, +Our common pathway to the new To Be, +Watching the sails, that lessen more and more, +Of good and beautiful embarked before; +With bits of wreck I patch the boat shall bear +Me to that unexhausted Otherwhere, +Whose friendly-peopled shore I sometimes see, +By soft mirage uplifted, beckon me, +Nor sadly hear, as lower sinks the sun, +My moorings to the past snap one by one. 260 + + + +II. SENTIMENT + + +ENDYMION + +A MYSTICAL COMMENT ON TITIAN'S 'SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE' + + +I + +My day began not till the twilight fell, +And, lo, in ether from heaven's sweetest well, +The New Moon swam divinely isolate +In maiden silence, she that makes my fate +Haply not knowing it, or only so +As I the secrets of my sheep may know; +Nor ask I more, entirely blest if she, +In letting me adore, ennoble me +To height of what the Gods meant making man, +As only she and her best beauty can. 10 +Mine be the love that in itself can find +Seed of white thoughts, the lilies of the mind, +Seed of that glad surrender of the will +That finds in service self's true purpose still: +Love that in outward fairness sees the tent +Pitched for an inmate far more excellent; +Love with a light irradiate to the core, +Lit at her lamp, but fed from inborn store; +Love thrice-requited with the single joy +Of an immaculate vision naught could cloy, 20 +Dearer because, so high beyond my scope, +My life grew rich with her, unbribed by hope +Of other guerdon save to think she knew +One grateful votary paid her all her due; +Happy if she, high-radiant there, resigned +To his sure trust her image in his mind. +O fairer even than Peace is when she comes +Hushing War's tumult, and retreating drums +Fade to a murmur like the sough of bees +Hidden among the noon-stilled linden-trees, 30 +Bringer of quiet, thou that canst allay +The dust and din and travail of the day, +Strewer of Silence, Giver of the dew +That doth our pastures and our souls renew, +Still dwell remote, still on thy shoreless sea +Float unattained in silent empery, +Still light my thoughts, nor listen to a prayer +Would make thee less imperishably fair! + + +II + +Can, then, my twofold nature find content +In vain conceits of airy blandishment? 40 +Ask I no more? Since yesterday I task +My storm-strewn thoughts to tell me what I ask: +Faint premenitions of mutation strange +Steal o'er my perfect orb, and, with the change, +Myself am changed; the shadow of my earth +Darkens the disk of that celestial worth +Which only yesterday could still suffice +Upwards to waft my thoughts in sacrifice; +My heightened fancy with its touches warm +Moulds to a woman's that ideal form; 50 +Nor yet a woman's wholly, but divine +With awe her purer essence bred in mine. +Was it long brooding on their own surmise, +Which, of the eyes engendered, fools the eyes, +Or have I seen through that translucent air +A Presence shaped in its seclusions bare, +My Goddess looking on me from above +As look our russet maidens when they love, +But high-uplifted, o'er our human heat +And passion-paths too rough for her pearl feet? 60 + +Slowly the Shape took outline as I gazed +At her full-orbed or crescent, till, bedazed +With wonder-working light that subtly wrought +My brain to its own substance, steeping thought +In trances such as poppies give, I saw +Things shut from vision by sight's sober law, +Amorphous, changeful, but defined at last +Into the peerless Shape mine eyes hold fast. +This, too, at first I worshipt: soon, like wine, +Her eyes, in mine poured, frenzy-philtred mine; 70 +Passion put Worship's priestly raiment on +And to the woman knelt, the Goddess gone. +Was I, then, more than mortal made? or she +Less than divine that she might mate with me? +If mortal merely, could my nature cope +With such o'ermastery of maddening hope? +If Goddess, could she feel the blissful woe +That women in their self-surrender know? + + +III + +Long she abode aloof there in her heaven, +Far as the grape-bunch of the Pleiad seven 80 +Beyond my madness' utmost leap; but here +Mine eyes have feigned of late her rapture near, +Moulded of mind-mist that broad day dispels, +Here in these shadowy woods and brook-lulled dells. + +Have no heaven-habitants e'er felt a void +In hearts sublimed with ichor unalloyed? +E'er longed to mingle with a mortal fate +Intense with pathos of its briefer date? +Could she partake, and live, our human stains? +Even with the thought there tingles through my veins 90 +Sense of unwarned renewal; I, the dead, +Receive and house again the ardor fled, +As once Alcestis; to the ruddy brim +Feel masculine virtue flooding every limb, +And life, like Spring returning, brings the key +That sets my senses from their winter free, +Dancing like naked fauns too glad for shame. +Her passion, purified to palest flame, +Can it thus kindle? Is her purpose this? +I will not argue, lest I lose a bliss 100 +That makes me dream Tithonus' fortune mine, +(Or what of it was palpably divine +Ere came the fruitlessly immortal gift;) +I cannot curb my hope's imperious drift +That wings with fire my dull mortality; +Though fancy-forged, 'tis all I feel or see. + + +IV + +My Goddess sinks; round Latmos' darkening brow +Trembles the parting of her presence now, +Faint as the perfume left upon the grass +By her limbs' pressure or her feet that pass 110 +By me conjectured, but conjectured so +As things I touch far fainter substance show. +Was it mine eyes' imposture I have seen +Flit with the moonbeams on from shade to sheen +Through the wood-openings? Nay, I see her now +Out of her heaven new-lighted, from her brow +The hair breeze-scattered, like loose mists that blow +Across her crescent, goldening as they go +High-kirtled for the chase, and what was shown, +Of maiden rondure, like the rose half-blown. 120 +If dream, turn real! If a vision, stay! +Take mortal shape, my philtre's spell obey! +If hags compel thee from thy secret sky +With gruesome incantations, why not I, +Whose only magic is that I distil +A potion, blent of passion, thought, and will, +Deeper in reach, in force of fate more rich, +Than e'er was juice wrung by Thessalian witch +From moon-enchanted herbs,--a potion brewed +Of my best life in each diviner mood? 130 +Myself the elixir am, myself the bowl +Seething and mantling with my soul of soul. +Taste and be humanized: what though the cup, +With thy lips frenzied, shatter? Drink it up! +If but these arms may clasp, o'erquited so, +My world, thy heaven, all life means I shall know. + + +V + +Sure she hath heard my prayer and granted half, +As Gods do who at mortal madness laugh. +Yet if life's solid things illusion seem, +Why may not substance wear the mask of dream? 140 +In sleep she comes; she visits me in dreams, +And, as her image in a thousand streams, +So in my veins, that her obey, she sees, +Floating and flaming there, her images +Bear to my little world's remotest zone +Glad messages of her, and her alone. +With silence-sandalled Sleep she comes to me, +(But softer-footed, sweeter-browed, than she,) +In motion gracious as a seagull's wing, +And all her bright limbs, moving, seem to sing. 150 +Let me believe so, then, if so I may +With the night's bounty feed my beggared day. +In dreams I see her lay the goddess down +With bow and quiver, and her crescent-crown +Flicker and fade away to dull eclipse +As down to mine she deigns her longed-for lips; +And as her neck my happy arms enfold, +Flooded and lustred with her loosened gold, +She whispers words each sweeter than a kiss: +Then, wakened with the shock of sudden bliss, 160 +My arms are empty, my awakener fled, +And, silent in the silent sky o'erhead, +But coldly as on ice-plated snow, she gleams, +Herself the mother and the child of dreams. + + +VI + +Gone is the time when phantasms could appease +My quest phantasmal and bring cheated ease; +When, if she glorified my dreams, I felt +Through all my limbs a change immortal melt +At touch of hers illuminate with soul. +Not long could I be stilled with Fancy's dole; 170 +Too soon the mortal mixture in me caught +Red fire from her celestial flame, and fought +For tyrannous control in all my veins: +My fool's prayer was accepted; what remains? +Or was it some eidolon merely, sent +By her who rules the shades in banishment, +To mock me with her semblance? Were it thus, +How 'scape I shame, whose will was traitorous? +What shall compensate an ideal dimmed? +How blanch again my statue virgin-limbed, 180 +Soiled with the incense-smoke her chosen priest +Poured more profusely as within decreased +The fire unearthly, fed with coals from far +Within the soul's shrine? Could my fallen star +Be set in heaven again by prayers and tears +And quenchless sacrifice of all my years, +How would the victim to the flamen leap, +And life for life's redemption paid hold cheap! + +But what resource when she herself descends +From her blue throne, and o'er her vassal bends 190 +That shape thrice-deified by love, those eyes +Wherein the Lethe of all others lies? +When my white queen of heaven's remoteness tires, +Herself against her other self conspires, +Takes woman's nature, walks in mortal ways, +And finds in my remorse her beauty's praise? +Yet all would I renounce to dream again +The dream in dreams fulfilled that made my pain, +My noble pain that heightened all my years +With crowns to win and prowess-breeding tears; 200 +Nay, would that dream renounce once more to see +Her from her sky there looking down at me! + + +VII + +Goddess, reclimb thy heaven, and be once more +An inaccessible splendor to adore, +A faith, a hope of such transcendent worth +As bred ennobling discontent with earth; +Give back the longing, back the elated mood +That, fed with thee, spurned every meaner good; +Give even the spur of impotent despair +That, without hope, still bade aspire and dare; 210 +Give back the need to worship, that still pours +Down to the soul the virtue it adores! + +Nay, brightest and most beautiful, deem naught +These frantic words, the reckless wind of thought; +Still stoop, still grant,--I live but in thy will; +Be what thou wilt, but be a woman still! +Vainly I cried, nor could myself believe +That what I prayed for I would fain receive; +My moon is set; my vision set with her; +No more can worship vain my pulses stir. 220 +Goddess Triform, I own thy triple spell, +My heaven's queen,--queen, too, of my earth and hell! + + + +THE BLACK PREACHER + +A BRETON LEGEND + + +At Carnac in Brittany, close on the bay, +They show you a church, or rather the gray +Ribs of a dead one, left there to bleach +With the wreck lying near on the crest of the beach, +Roofless and splintered with thunder-stone, +'Mid lichen-blurred gravestones all alone; +'Tis the kind of ruin strange sights to see +That may have their teaching for you and me. + +Something like this, then, my guide had to tell, +Perched on a saint cracked across when he fell; 10 +But since I might chance give his meaning a wrench, +He talking his _patois_ and I English-French, +I'll put what he told me, preserving the tone, +In a rhymed prose that makes it half his, half my own. + +An abbey-church stood here, once on a time, +Built as a death-bed atonement for crime: +'Twas for somebody's sins, I know not whose; +But sinners are plenty, and you can choose. +Though a cloister now of the dusk-winged bat, +'Twas rich enough once, and the brothers grew fat, 20 +Looser in girdle and purpler in jowl, +Singing good rest to the founder's lost soul. + +But one day came Northmen, and lithe tongues of fire +Lapped up the chapter-house, licked off the spire, +And left all a rubbish-heap, black and dreary, +Where only the wind sings _miserere_. + +No priest has kneeled since at the altar's foot, +Whose crannies are searched by the nightshade's root, +Nor sound of service is ever heard, +Except from throat of the unclean bird, 30 +Hooting to unassoiled shapes as they pass +In midnights unholy his witches' mass, +Or shouting 'Ho! ho!' from the belfry high +As the Devil's sabbath-train whirls by. + +But once a year, on the eve of All-Souls, +Through these arches dishallowed the organ rolls, +Fingers long fleshless the bell-ropes work, +The chimes peal muffled with sea-mists mirk, +The skeleton windows are traced anew +On the baleful nicker of corpse-lights blue, 40 +And the ghosts must come, so the legend saith, +To a preaching of Reverend Doctor Death. + +Abbots, monks, barons, and ladies fair +Hear the dull summons and gather there: +No rustle of silk now, no clink of mail, +Nor ever a one greets his church-mate pale; +No knight whispers love in the _châtelaine's_ ear, +His next-door neighbor this five-hundred year; +No monk has a sleek _benedicite_ +For the great lord shadowy now as he; 50 +Nor needeth any to hold his breath, +Lest he lose the least word of Doctor Death. + +He chooses his text in the Book Divine, +Tenth verse of the Preacher in chapter nine: +'"Whatsoever thy hand shall find thee to do, +That do with thy whole might, or thou shalt rue; +For no man is wealthy, or wise, or brave, +In that quencher of might-be's and would-be's, the grave." +Bid by the Bridegroom, "To-morrow," ye said, +And To-morrow was digging a trench for your bed; 60 +Ye said, "God can wait; let us finish our wine;" +Ye had wearied Him, fools, and that last knock was mine!' + +But I can't pretend to give you the sermon, +Or say if the tongue were French, Latin, or German; +Whatever he preached in, I give you my word +The meaning was easy to all that heard; +Famous preachers there have been and be, +But never was one so convincing as he; +So blunt was never a begging friar, +No Jesuit's tongue so barbed with fire, 70 +Cameronian never, nor Methodist, +Wrung gall out of Scripture with such a twist. + +And would you know who his hearers must be? +I tell you just what my guide told me: +Excellent teaching men have, day and night, +From two earnest friars, a black and a white, +The Dominican Death and the Carmelite Life; +And between these two there is never strife, +For each has his separate office and station, +And each his own work in the congregation; 80 +Whoso to the white brother deafens his ears, +And cannot be wrought on by blessings or tears, +Awake In his coffin must wait and wait, +In that blackness of darkness that means _too late_, +And come once a year, when the ghost-bell tolls, +As till Doomsday it shall on the eve of All-Souls, +To hear Doctor Death, whose words smart with the brine +Of the Preacher, the tenth verse of chapter nine. + + + +ARCADIA REDIVIVA + +I, walking the familiar street, + While a crammed horse-car jingled through it, +Was lifted from my prosy feet + And in Arcadia ere I knew it. + +Fresh sward for gravel soothed my tread, + And shepherd's pipes my ear delighted; +The riddle may be lightly read: + I met two lovers newly plighted. + +They murmured by in happy care, + New plans for paradise devising, 10 +Just as the moon, with pensive stare, + O'er Mistress Craigie's pines was rising. + +Astarte, known nigh threescore years, + Me to no speechless rapture urges; +Them in Elysium she enspheres, + Queen, from of old, of thaumaturges. + +The railings put forth bud and bloom, + The house-fronts all with myrtles twine them, +And light-winged Loves in every room + Make nests, and then with kisses line them. 20 + +O sweetness of untasted life! + O dream, its own supreme fulfillment! +O hours with all illusion rife, + As ere the heart divined what ill meant! + +'_Et ego_', sighed I to myself, + And strove some vain regrets to bridle, +'Though now laid dusty on the shelf, + Was hero once of such an idyl! + +'An idyl ever newly sweet, + Although since Adam's day recited, 30 +Whose measures time them to Love's feet, + Whose sense is every ill requited.' + +Maiden, if I may counsel, drain + Each drop of this enchanted season, +For even our honeymoons must wane, + Convicted of green cheese by Reason. + +And none will seem so safe from change, + Nor in such skies benignant hover, +As this, beneath whose witchery strange + You tread on rose-leaves with your lover. 40 + +The glass unfilled all tastes can fit, + As round its brim Conjecture dances; +For not Mephisto's self hath wit + To draw such vintages as Fancy's. + +When our pulse beats its minor key, + When play-time halves and school-time doubles, +Age fills the cup with serious tea, + Which once Dame Clicquot starred with bubbles. + +'Fie, Mr. Graybeard! Is this wise? + Is this the moral of a poet, 50 +Who, when the plant of Eden dies, + Is privileged once more to sow it! + +'That herb of clay-disdaining root, + From stars secreting what it feeds on, +Is burnt-out passion's slag and soot + Fit soil to strew its dainty seeds on? + +'Pray, why, if in Arcadia once, + Need one so soon forget the way there? +Or why, once there, be such a dunce + As not contentedly to stay there?' 60 + +Dear child, 'twas but a sorry jest, + And from my heart I hate the cynic +Who makes the Book of Life a nest + For comments staler than rabbinic. + +If Love his simple spell but keep, + Life with ideal eyes to flatter, +The Grail itself were crockery cheap + To Every-day's communion-platter. + +One Darby is to me well known, + Who, as the hearth between them blazes, 70 +Sees the old moonlight shine on Joan, + And float her youthward in its hazes. + +He rubs his spectacles, he stares,-- + 'Tis the same face that witched him early! +He gropes for his remaining hairs,-- + Is this a fleece that feels so curly? + +'Good heavens! but now 'twas winter gray, + And I of years had more than plenty; +The almanac's a fool! 'Tis May! + Hang family Bibles! I am twenty! 80 + +'Come, Joan, your arm; we'll walk the room-- + The lane, I mean--do you remember? +How confident the roses bloom, + As if it ne'er could be December! + +'Nor more it shall, while in your eyes + My heart its summer heat recovers, +And you, howe'er your mirror lies, + Find your old beauty in your lover's.' + + + +THE NEST + +MAY + +When oaken woods with buds are pink, + And new-come birds each morning sing, +When fickle May on Summer's brink + Pauses, and knows not which to fling, +Whether fresh bud and bloom again, +Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain, + +Then from the honeysuckle gray + The oriole with experienced quest +Twitches the fibrous bark away, + The cordage of his hammock-nest. +Cheering his labor with a note +Rich as the orange of his throat. + +High o'er the loud and dusty road + The soft gray cup in safety swings, +To brim ere August with its load + Of downy breasts and throbbing wings, +O'er which the friendly elm-tree heaves +An emerald roof with sculptured eaves. + +Below, the noisy World drags by + In the old way, because it must, +The bride with heartbreak in her eye, + The mourner following hated dust: +Thy duty, wingèd flame of Spring, +Is but to love, and fly, and sing. + +Oh, happy life, to soar and sway + Above the life by mortals led, +Singing the merry months away, + Master, not slave of daily bread, +And, when the Autumn comes, to flee +Wherever sunshine beckons thee! + + + +PALINODE--DECEMBER + +Like some lorn abbey now, the wood + Stands roofless in the bitter air; +In ruins on its floor is strewed + The carven foliage quaint and rare, +And homeless winds complain along +The columned choir once thrilled with song. + +And thou, dear nest, whence joy and praise + The thankful oriole used to pour, +Swing'st empty while the north winds chase + Their snowy swarms from Labrador: +But, loyal to the happy past, +I love thee still for what thou wast. + +Ah, when the Summer graces flee + From other nests more dear than thou, +And, where June crowded once, I see + Only bare trunk and disleaved bough; +When springs of life that gleamed and gushed +Run chilled, and slower, and are hushed; + +When our own branches, naked long, + The vacant nests of Spring betray, +Nurseries of passion, love, and song + That vanished as our year grew gray; +When Life drones o'er a tale twice told +O'er embers pleading with the cold,-- + +I'll trust, that, like the birds of Spring, + Our good goes not without repair, +But only flies to soar and sing + Far off in some diviner air, +Where we shall find it in the calms +Of that fair garden 'neath the palms. + + + + +A YOUTHFUL EXPERIMENT IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS + +IMPRESSIONS OF HOMER + +Sometimes come pauses of calm, when the rapt bard, holding his heart back, +Over his deep mind muses, as when o'er awe-stricken ocean +Poises a heapt cloud luridly, ripening the gale and the thunder; +Slow rolls onward the verse with a long swell heaving and swinging, +Seeming to wait till, gradually wid'ning from far-off horizons, +Piling the deeps up, heaping the glad-hearted surges before it, +Gathers the thought as a strong wind darkening and cresting the tumult. +Then every pause, every heave, each trough in the waves, has its meaning; +Full-sailed, forth like a tall ship steadies the theme, and around it, +Leaping beside it in glad strength, running in wild glee beyond it, +Harmonies billow exulting and floating the soul where it lists them, +Swaying the listener's fantasy hither and thither like drift-weed. + + + +BIRTHDAY VERSES + +WRITTEN IN A CHILD'S ALBUM + +'Twas sung of old in hut and hall +How once a king in evil hour +Hung musing o'er his castle wall, +And, lost in idle dreams, let fall +Into the sea his ring of power. + +Then, let him sorrow as he might, +And pledge his daughter and his throne +To who restored the jewel bright, +The broken spell would ne'er unite; +The grim old ocean held its own. + +Those awful powers on man that wait, +On man, the beggar or the king, +To hovel bare or hall of state +A magic ring that masters fate +With each succeeding birthday bring. + +Therein are set four jewels rare: +Pearl winter, summer's ruby blaze, +Spring's emerald, and, than all more fair, +Fall's pensive opal, doomed to bear +A heart of fire bedreamed with haze. + +To him the simple spell who knows +The spirits of the ring to sway, +Fresh power with every sunrise flows, +And royal pursuivants are those +That fly his mandates to obey. + +But he that with a slackened will +Dreams of things past or things to be, +From him the charm is slipping still, +And drops, ere he suspect the ill, +Into the inexorable sea. + + + +ESTRANGEMENT + +The path from me to you that led, + Untrodden long, with grass is grown, +Mute carpet that his lieges spread + Before the Prince Oblivion +When he goes visiting the dead. + +And who are they but who forget? + You, who my coming could surmise +Ere any hint of me as yet + Warned other ears and other eyes, +See the path blurred without regret. + +But when I trace its windings sweet + With saddened steps, at every spot +That feels the memory in my feet, + Each grass-blade turns forget-me-not, +Where murmuring bees your name repeat. + + + +PHŒBE + +Ere pales in Heaven the morning star, + A bird, the loneliest of its kind, +Hears Dawn's faint footfall from afar + While all its mates are dumb and blind. + +It is a wee sad-colored thing, + As shy and secret as a maid, +That, ere in choir the robins sing, + Pipes its own name like one afraid. + +It seems pain-prompted to repeat + The story of some ancient ill, +But _Phoebe! Phoebe!_ sadly sweet + Is all it says, and then is still. + +It calls and listens. Earth and sky, + Hushed by the pathos of its fate, +Listen: no whisper of reply + Comes from its doom-dissevered mate. + +_Phoebe!_ it calls and calls again, + And Ovid, could he but have heard, +Had hung a legendary pain + About the memory of the bird; + +A pain articulate so long, + In penance of some mouldered crime +Whose ghost still flies the Furies' thong + Down the waste solitudes of time. + +Waif of the young World's wonder-hour, + When gods found mortal maidens fair, +And will malign was joined with power + Love's kindly laws to overbear, + +Like Progne, did it feel the stress + And coil of the prevailing words +Close round its being, and compress + Man's ampler nature to a bird's? + +One only memory left of all + The motley crowd of vanished scenes, +Hers, and vain impulse to recall + By repetition what it means. + +_Phoebe!_ is all it has to say + In plaintive cadence o'er and o'er, +Like children that have lost their way, + And know their names, but nothing more. + +Is it a type, since Nature's Lyre + Vibrates to every note in man, +Of that insatiable desire, + Meant to be so since life began? + +I, in strange lands at gray of dawn, + Wakeful, have heard that fruitless plaint +Through Memory's chambers deep withdrawn + Renew its iterations faint. + +So nigh! yet from remotest years + It summons back its magic, rife +With longings unappeased, and tears + Drawn from the very source of life. + + + +DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE + +How was I worthy so divine a loss, + Deepening my midnights, kindling all my morns? +Why waste such precious wood to make my cross, + Such far-sought roses for my crown of thorns? + +And when she came, how earned I such a gift? + Why spend on me, a poor earth-delving mole, +The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward lift, + The hourly mercy, of a woman's soul? + +Ah, did we know to give her all her right, + What wonders even in our poor clay were done! +It is not Woman leaves us to our night, + But our brute earth that grovels from her sun. + +Our nobler cultured fields and gracious domes + We whirl too oft from her who still shines on +To light in vain our caves and clefts, the homes + Of night-bird instincts pained till she be gone. + +Still must this body starve our souls with shade; + But when Death makes us what we were before, +Then shall her sunshine all our depths invade, + And not a shadow stain heaven's crystal floor. + + + +THE RECALL + +Come back before the birds are flown, +Before the leaves desert the tree, +And, through the lonely alleys blown, +Whisper their vain regrets to me +Who drive before a blast more rude, +The plaything of my gusty mood, +In vain pursuing and pursued! + +Nay, come although the boughs be bare, +Though snowflakes fledge the summer's nest, +And in some far Ausonian air +The thrush, your minstrel, warm his breast. +Come, sunshine's treasurer, and bring +To doubting flowers their faith in spring, +To birds and me the need to sing! + + + +ABSENCE + +Sleep is Death's image,--poets tell us so; +But Absence is the bitter self of Death, +And, you away, Life's lips their red forego, +Parched in an air unfreshened by your breath. + +Light of those eyes that made the light of mine, +Where shine you? On what happier fields and flowers? +Heaven's lamps renew their lustre less divine, +But only serve to count my darkened hours. + +If with your presence went your image too, +That brain-born ghost my path would never cross +Which meets me now where'er I once met you, +Then vanishes, to multiply my loss. + + + +MONNA LISA + +She gave me all that woman can, +Nor her soul's nunnery forego, +A confidence that man to man +Without remorse can never show. + +Rare art, that can the sense refine +Till not a pulse rebellious stirs, +And, since she never can be mine, +Makes it seem sweeter to be hers! + + + +THE OPTIMIST + +Turbid from London's noise and smoke, +Here I find air and quiet too; +Air filtered through the beech and oak, +Quiet by nothing harsher broke +Than wood-dove's meditative coo. + +The Truce of God is here; the breeze +Sighs as men sigh relieved from care, +Or tilts as lightly in the trees +As might a robin: all is ease, +With pledge of ampler ease to spare. + +Time, leaning on his scythe, forgets +To turn the hour-glass in his hand, +And all life's petty cares and frets, +Its teasing hopes and weak regrets, +Are still as that oblivious sand. + +Repose fills all the generous space +Of undulant plain; the rook and crow +Hush; 'tis as if a silent grace, +By Nature murmured, calmed the face +Of Heaven above and Earth below. + +From past and future toils I rest, +One Sabbath pacifies my year; +I am the halcyon, this my nest; +And all is safely for the best +While the World's there and I am here. + +So I turn tory for the nonce, +And think the radical a bore, +Who cannot see, thick-witted dunce, +That what was good for people once +Must be as good forevermore. + +Sun, sink no deeper down the sky; +Earth, never change this summer mood; +Breeze, loiter thus forever by, +Stir the dead leaf or let it lie; +Since I am happy, all is good. + + + +ON BURNING SOME OLD LETTERS + +With what odorous woods and spices +Spared for royal sacrifices, +With what costly gums seld-seen, +Hoarded to embalm a queen, +With what frankincense and myrrh, +Burn these precious parts of her, +Full of life and light and sweetness +As a summer day's completeness, +Joy of sun and song of bird +Running wild in every word, +Full of all the superhuman +Grace and winsomeness of woman? + +O'er these leaves her wrist has slid, +Thrilled with veins where fire is hid +'Neath the skin's pellucid veil, +Like the opal's passion pale; +This her breath has sweetened; this +Still seems trembling with the kiss +She half-ventured on my name, +Brow and cheek and throat aflame; +Over all caressing lies +Sunshine left there by her eyes; +From them all an effluence rare +With her nearness fills the air, +Till the murmur I half-hear +Of her light feet drawing near. + +Rarest woods were coarse and rough, +Sweetest spice not sweet enough, +Too impure all earthly fire +For this sacred funeral-pyre; +These rich relics must suffice +For their own dear sacrifice. + +Seek we first an altar fit +For such victims laid on it: +It shall be this slab brought home +In old happy days from Rome,-- +Lazuli, once blest to line +Dian's inmost cell and shrine. +Gently now I lay them there. +Pure as Dian's forehead bare, +Yet suffused with warmer hue, +Such as only Latmos knew. + +Fire I gather from the sun +In a virgin lens; 'tis done! +Mount the flames, red, yellow, blue, +As her moods were shining through, +Of the moment's impulse born,-- +Moods of sweetness, playful scorn, +Half defiance, half surrender, +More than cruel, more than tender, +Flouts, caresses, sunshine, shade, +Gracious doublings of a maid +Infinite in guileless art, +Playing hide-seek with her heart. + +On the altar now, alas, +There they lie a crinkling mass, +Writhing still, as if with grief +Went the life from every leaf; +Then (heart-breaking palimpsest!) +Vanishing ere wholly guessed, +Suddenly some lines flash back, +Traced in lightning on the black, +And confess, till now denied, +All the fire they strove to hide. +What they told me, sacred trust, +Stays to glorify my dust, +There to burn through dust and damp +Like a mage's deathless lamp, +While an atom of this frame +Lasts to feed the dainty flame. + +All is ashes now, but they +In my soul are laid away, +And their radiance round me hovers +Soft as moonlight over lovers, +Shutting her and me alone +In dream-Edens of our own; +First of lovers to invent +Love, and teach men what it meant. + + + +THE PROTEST + +I could not bear to see those eyes +On all with wasteful largess shine, +And that delight of welcome rise +Like sunshine strained through amber wine, +But that a glow from deeper skies, +From conscious fountains more divine, +Is (is it?) mine. + +Be beautiful to all mankind, +As Nature fashioned thee to be; +'Twould anger me did all not find +The sweet perfection that's in thee: +Yet keep one charm of charms behind,-- +Nay, thou'rt so rich, keep two or three +For (is it?) me! + + + +THE PETITION + +Oh, tell me less or tell me more, +Soft eyes with mystery at the core, +That always seem to melt my own +Frankly as pansies fully grown, +Yet waver still 'tween no and yes! + +So swift to cavil and deny, +Then parley with concessions shy, +Dear eyes, that make their youth be mine +And through my inmost shadows shine, +Oh, tell me more or tell me less! + + + +FACT OR FANCY? + +In town I hear, scarce wakened yet, + My neighbor's clock behind the wall +Record the day's increasing debt, + And _Cuckoo! Cuckoo!_ faintly call. + +Our senses run in deepening grooves, + Thrown out of which they lose their tact, +And consciousness with effort moves + From habit past to present fact. + +So, in the country waked to-day, + I hear, unwitting of the change, +A cuckoo's throb from far away + Begin to strike, nor think it strange. + +The sound creates its wonted frame: + My bed at home, the songster hid +Behind the wainscoting,--all came + As long association bid. + +Then, half aroused, ere yet Sleep's mist + From the mind's uplands furl away, +To the familiar sound I list, + Disputed for by Night and Day. + +I count to learn how late it is, + Until, arrived at thirty-four, +I question, 'What strange world is this + Whose lavish hours would make me poor?' + +_Cuckoo! Cuckoo!_ Still on it went, + With hints of mockery in its tone; +How could such hoards of time be spent + By one poor mortal's wit alone? + +I have it! Grant, ye kindly Powers, + I from this spot may never stir, +If only these uncounted hours + May pass, and seem too short, with Her! + +But who She is, her form and face, + These to the world of dream belong; +She moves through fancy's visioned space, + Unbodied, like the cuckoo's song. + + + +AGRO-DOLCE + +One kiss from all others prevents me, + And sets all my pulses astir, +And burns on my lips and torments me: + 'Tis the kiss that I fain would give her. + +One kiss for all others requites me, + Although it is never to be, +And sweetens my dreams and invites me: + 'Tis the kiss that she dare not give me. + +Ah, could it he mine, it were sweeter + Than honey bees garner in dream, +Though its bliss on my lips were fleeter + Than a swallow's dip to the stream. + +And yet, thus denied, it can never + In the prose of life vanish away; +O'er my lips it must hover forever, + The sunshine and shade of my day. + + + +THE BROKEN TRYST + +Walking alone where we walked together, + When June was breezy and blue, +I watch in the gray autumnal weather + The leaves fall inconstant as you. + +If a dead leaf startle behind me, + I think 'tis your garment's hem, +And, oh, where no memory could find me, + Might I whirl away with them! + + + +CASA SIN ALMA + +RECUERDO DE MADRID + +Silencioso por la puerta +Voy de su casa desierta +Do siempre feliz entré, +Y la encuentro en vano abierta +Cual la boca de una muerta +Despues que el alma se fué. + + + +A CHRISTMAS CAROL + +FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES + +'What means this glory round our feet,' + The Magi mused, 'more bright than morn?' +And voices chanted clear and sweet, + 'To-day the Prince of Peace is born!' + +'What means that star,' the Shepherds said, + 'That brightens through the rocky glen?' +And angels, answering overhead, + Sang, 'Peace on earth, good-will to men!' + +'Tis eighteen hundred years and more + Since those sweet oracles were dumb; +We wait for Him, like them of yore; + Alas, He seems so slow to come! + +But it was said, in words of gold + No time or sorrow e'er shall dim, +That little children might be bold + In perfect trust to come to Him. + +All round about our feet shall shine + A light like that the wise men saw, +If we our loving wills incline + To that sweet Life which is the Law. + +So shall we learn to understand + The simple faith of shepherds then, +And, clasping kindly hand in hand, + Sing, 'Peace on earth, good-will to men!' + +And they who do their souls no wrong, + But keep at eve the faith of morn, +Shall daily hear the angel-song, + 'To-day the Prince of Peace is born!' + + + +MY PORTRAIT GALLERY + +Oft round my hall of portraiture I gaze, +By Memory reared, the artist wise and holy, +From stainless quarries of deep-buried days. +There, as I muse in soothing melancholy, +Your faces glow in more than mortal youth, +Companions of my prime, now vanished wholly, +The loud, impetuous boy, the low-voiced maiden, +Now for the first time seen in flawless truth. +Ah, never master that drew mortal breath +Can match thy portraits, just and generous Death, +Whose brush with sweet regretful tints is laden! +Thou paintest that which struggled here below +Half understood, or understood for woe, +And with a sweet forewarning +Mak'st round the sacred front an aureole glow +Woven of that light that rose on Easter morning. + + + +PAOLO TO FRANCESCA + +I was with thee in Heaven: I cannot tell +If years or moments, so the sudden bliss, +When first we found, then lost, us in a kiss. +Abolished Time, abolished Earth and Hell, +Left only Heaven. Then from our blue there fell +The dagger's flash, and did not fall amiss, +For nothing now can rob my life of this,-- +That once with thee in Heaven, all else is well. +Us, undivided when man's vengeance came, +God's half-forgives that doth not here divide; +And, were this bitter whirl-blast fanged with flame, +To me 'twere summer, we being side by side: +This granted, I God's mercy will not blame, +For, given thy nearness, nothing is denied. + + + +SONNET + +SCOTTISH BORDER + +As sinks the sun behind yon alien hills +Whose heather-purple slopes, in glory rolled, +Flush all my thought with momentary gold, +What pang of vague regret my fancy thrills? +Here 'tis enchanted ground the peasant tills, +Where the shy ballad dared its blooms unfold, +And memory's glamour makes new sights seem old, +As when our life some vanished dream fulfils. +Yet not to thee belong these painless tears, +Land loved ere seen: before my darkened eyes, +From far beyond the waters and the years, +Horizons mute that wait their poet rise; +The stream before me fades and disappears, +And in the Charles the western splendor dies. + + + +SONNET + +ON BEING ASKED FOR AN AUTOGRAPH IN VENICE + +Amid these fragments of heroic days +When thought met deed with mutual passion's leap, +There sits a Fame whose silent trump makes cheap +What short-lived rumor of ourselves we raise. +They had far other estimate of praise +Who stamped the signet of their souls so deep +In art and action, and whose memories keep +Their height like stars above our misty ways: +In this grave presence to record my name +Something within me hangs the head and shrinks. +Dull were the soul without some joy in fame; +Yet here to claim remembrance were, methinks, +Like him who, in the desert's awful frame, +Notches his cockney initials on the Sphinx. + + + +THE DANCING BEAR + +Far over Elf-land poets stretch their sway, +And win their dearest crowns beyond the goal +Of their own conscious purpose; they control +With gossamer threads wide-flown our fancy's play, +And so our action. On my walk to-day, +A wallowing bear begged clumsily his toll, +When straight a vision rose of Atta Troll, +And scenes ideal witched mine eyes away. +'_Merci, Mossieu!_' the astonished bear-ward cried, +Grateful for thrice his hope to me, the slave +Of partial memory, seeing at his side +A bear immortal. The glad dole I gave +Was none of mine; poor Heine o'er the wide +Atlantic welter stretched it from his grave. + + + +THE MAPLE + +The Maple puts her corals on in May, +While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling, +To be in tune with what the robins sing, +Plastering new log-huts 'mid her branches gray; +But when the Autumn southward turns away, +Then in her veins burns most the blood of Spring. +And every leaf, intensely blossoming, +Makes the year's sunset pale the set of day. +O Youth unprescient, were it only so +With trees you plant, and in whose shade reclined, +Thinking their drifting blooms Fate's coldest snow, +You carve dear names upon the faithful rind, +Nor in that vernal stem the cross foreknow +That Age shall bear, silent, yet unresigned! + + + +NIGHTWATCHES + +While the slow clock, as they were miser's gold, +Counts and recounts the mornward steps of Time, +The darkness thrills with conscience of each crime +By Death committed, daily grown more bold. +Once more the list of all my wrongs is told, +And ghostly hands stretch to me from my prime +Helpless farewells, as from an alien clime; +For each new loss redoubles all the old. +This morn 'twas May; the blossoms were astir +With southern wind; but now the boughs are bent +With snow instead of birds, and all things freeze. +How much of all my past is dumb with her, +And of my future, too, for with her went +Half of that world I ever cared to please! + + + +DEATH OF QUEEN MERCEDES + +Hers all that Earth could promise or bestow,-- +Youth, Beauty, Love, a crown, the beckoning years, +Lids never wet, unless with joyous tears, +A life remote from every sordid woe, +And by a nation's swelled to lordlier flow. +What lurking-place, thought we, for doubts or fears, +When, the day's swan, she swam along the cheers +Of the Alcalá, five happy months ago? +The guns were shouting Io Hymen then +That, on her birthday, now denounce her doom; +The same white steeds that tossed their scorn of men +To-day as proudly drag her to the tomb. +Grim jest of fate! Yet who dare call it blind, +Knowing what life is, what our human-kind? + + + +PRISON OF CERVANTES + +Seat of all woes? Though Nature's firm decree +The narrowing soul with narrowing dungeon bind, +Yet was his free of motion as the wind, +And held both worlds, of spirit and sense, in fee. +In charmed communion with his dual mind +He wandered Spain, himself both knight and hind, +Redressing wrongs he knew must ever be. +His humor wise could see life's long deceit, +Man's baffled aims, nor therefore both despise; +His knightly nature could ill fortune greet +Like an old friend. Whose ever such kind eyes +That pierced so deep, such scope, save his whose feet +By Avon ceased 'neath the same April's skies? + + + +TO A LADY PLAYING ON THE CITHERN + +So dreamy-soft the notes, so far away +They seem to fall, the horns of Oberon +Blow their faint Hunt's-up from the good-time gone; +Or, on a morning of long-withered May, +Larks tinkle unseen o'er Claudian arches gray, +That Romeward crawl from Dreamland; and anon +My fancy flings her cloak of Darkness on, +To vanish from the dungeon of To-day. +In happier times and scenes I seem to be, +And, as her fingers flutter o'er the strings, +The days return when I was young as she, +And my fledged thoughts began to feel their wings +With all Heaven's blue before them: Memory +Or Music is it such enchantment sings? + + + +THE EYE'S TREASURY + +Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown +In largess on my tall paternal trees, +Thou with false hope or fear didst never tease +His heart that hoards thee; nor is childhood flown +From him whose life no fairer boon hath known +Than that what pleased him earliest still should please: +And who hath incomes safe from chance as these, +Gone in a moment, yet for life his own? +All other gold is slave of earthward laws; +This to the deeps of ether takes its flight, +And on the topmost leaves makes glorious pause +Of parting pathos ere it yield to night: +So linger, as from me earth's light withdraws, +Dear touch of Nature, tremulously bright! + + + +PESSIMOPTIMISM + +Ye little think what toil it was to build +A world of men imperfect even as this, +Where we conceive of Good by what we miss, +Of ill by that wherewith best days are filled; +A world whose every atom is self-willed, +Whose corner-stone is propt on artifice, +Whose joy is shorter-lived than woman's kiss, +Whose wisdom hoarded is but to be spilled. +Yet this is better than a life of caves, +Whose highest art was scratching on a bone, +Or chipping toilsome arrowheads of flint; +Better, though doomed to hear while Cleon raves, +To see wit's want eterned in paint or stone, +And wade the drain-drenched shoals of daily print. + + + +THE BRAKES + +What countless years and wealth of brain were spent +To bring us hither from our caves and huts, +And trace through pathless wilds the deep-worn ruts +Of faith and habit, by whose deep indent +Prudence may guide if genius be not lent, +Genius, not always happy when it shuts +Its ears against the plodder's ifs and buts, +Hoping in one rash leap to snatch the event. +The coursers of the sun, whose hoofs of flame +Consume morn's misty threshold, are exact +As bankers' clerks, and all this star-poised frame, +One swerve allowed, were with convulsion rackt; +This world were doomed, should Dulness fail, to tame +Wit's feathered heels in the stern stocks of fact. + + + +A FOREBODING + +What were the whole void world, if thou wert dead, +Whose briefest absence can eclipse my day, +And make the hours that danced with Time away +Drag their funereal steps with muffled head? +Through thee, meseems, the very rose is red, +From thee the violet steals its breath in May, +From thee draw life all things that grow not gray, +And by thy force the happy stars are sped. +Thou near, the hope of thee to overflow +Fills all my earth and heaven, as when in Spring, +Ere April come, the birds and blossoms know, +And grasses brighten round her feet to cling; +Nay, and this hope delights all nature so +That the dumb turf I tread on seems to sing. + + + + +III. FANCY + + + +UNDER THE OCTOBER MAPLES + +What mean these banners spread, +These paths with royal red +So gaily carpeted? +Comes there a prince to-day? +Such footing were too fine +For feet less argentine +Than Dian's own or thine, +Queen whom my tides obey. + +Surely for thee are meant +These hues so orient +That with a sultan's tent +Each tree invites the sun; +Our Earth such homage pays, +So decks her dusty ways, +And keeps such holidays, +For one and only one. + +My brain shapes form and face, +Throbs with the rhythmic grace +And cadence of her pace +To all fine instincts true; +Her footsteps, as they pass, +Than moonbeams over grass +Fall lighter,--but, alas, +More insubstantial too! + + + +LOVE'S CLOCK + +A PASTORAL + +DAPHNIS _waiting_ + +'O Dryad feet, +Be doubly fleet, +Timed to my heart's expectant beat +While I await her! +"At four," vowed she; +'Tis scarcely three, +Yet by _my_ time it seems to be +A good hour later!' + +CHLOE + +'Bid me not stay! +Hear reason, pray! +'Tis striking six! Sure never day +Was short as this is!' + +DAPHNIS + +'Reason nor rhyme +Is in the chime! +It can't be five; I've scarce had time +To beg two kisses!' + +BOTH + +'Early or late, +When lovers wait, +And Love's watch gains, if Time a gait +So snail-like chooses, +Why should his feet +Become more fleet +Than cowards' are, when lovers meet +And Love's watch loses?' + + + +ELEANOR MAKES MACAROONS + +Light of triumph in her eyes, +Eleanor her apron ties; +As she pushes back her sleeves, +High resolve her bosom heaves. +Hasten, cook! impel the fire +To the pace of her desire; +As you hope to save your soul, +Bring a virgin casserole, +Brightest bring of silver spoons,-- +Eleanor makes macaroons! + +Almond-blossoms, now adance +In the smile of Southern France, +Leave your sport with sun and breeze, +Think of duty, not of ease; +Fashion, 'neath their jerkins brown, +Kernels white as thistle-down, +Tiny cheeses made with cream +From the Galaxy's mid-stream, +Blanched in light of honeymoons,-- +Eleanor makes macaroons! + +Now for sugar,--nay, our plan +Tolerates no work of man. +Hurry, then, ye golden bees; +Fetch your clearest honey, please, +Garnered on a Yorkshire moor, +While the last larks sing and soar, +From the heather-blossoms sweet +Where sea-breeze and sunshine meet, +And the Augusts mask as Junes,-- +Eleanor makes macaroons! + +Next the pestle and mortar find. +Pure rock-crystal,--these to grind +Into paste more smooth than silk, +Whiter than the milkweed's milk: +Spread it on a rose-leaf, thus, +Cate to please Theocritus; +Then the fire with spices swell, +While, for her completer spell, +Mystic canticles she croons,-- +Eleanor makes macaroons! + +Perfect! and all this to waste +On a graybeard's palsied taste! +Poets so their verses write, +Heap them full of life and light, +And then fling them to the rude +Mumbling of the multitude. +Not so dire her fate as theirs, +Since her friend this gift declares +Choicest of his birthday boons,-- +Eleanor's dear macaroons! + +_February_ 22, 1884. + + + +TELEPATHY + +'And how could you dream of meeting?' + Nay, how can you ask me, sweet? +All day my pulse had been beating + The tune of your coming feet. + +And as nearer and ever nearer + I felt the throb of your tread, +To be in the world grew clearer, + And my blood ran rosier red. + +Love called, and I could not linger, + But sought the forbidden tryst, +As music follows the finger + Of the dreaming lutanist + +And though you had said it and said it, + 'We must not be happy to-day,' +Was I not wiser to credit + The fire in my feet than your Nay? + + + +SCHERZO + +When the down is on the chin +And the gold-gleam in the hair, +When the birds their sweethearts win +And champagne is in the air, +Love is here, and Love is there, +Love is welcome everywhere. + +Summer's cheek too soon turns thin, +Days grow briefer, sunshine rare; +Autumn from his cannekin +Blows the froth to chase Despair: +Love is met with frosty stare, +Cannot house 'neath branches bare. + +When new life is in the leaf +And new red is in the rose, +Though Love's Maytlme be as brief +As a dragon-fly's repose, +Never moments come like those, +Be they Heaven or Hell: who knows? + +All too soon comes Winter's grief, +Spendthrift Love's false friends turn foes; +Softly comes Old Age, the thief, +Steals the rapture, leaves the throes: +Love his mantle round him throws,-- +'Time to say Good-by; it snows.' + + + +'FRANCISCUS DE VERULAMIO SIC COGITAVIT' + +That's a rather bold speech, my Lord Bacon, + For, indeed, is't so easy to know +Just how much we from others have taken, + And how much our own natural flow? + +Since your mind bubbled up at its fountain, + How many streams made it elate, +While it calmed to the plain from the mountain, + As every mind must that grows great? + +While you thought 'twas You thinking as newly + As Adam still wet with God's dew, +You forgot in your self-pride that truly + The whole Past was thinking through you. + +Greece, Rome, nay, your namesake, old Roger, + With Truth's nameless delvers who wrought +In the dark mines of Truth, helped to prod your + Fine brain with the goad of their thought. + +As mummy was prized for a rich hue + The painter no elsewhere could find, +So 'twas buried men's thinking with which you + Gave the ripe mellow tone to your mind. + +I heard the proud strawberry saying, + 'Only look what a ruby I've made!' +It forgot how the bees in their maying + Had brought it the stuff for its trade. + +And yet there's the half of a truth in it, + And my Lord might his copyright sue; +For a thought's his who kindles new youth in it, + Or so puts it as makes it more true. + +The birds but repeat without ending + The same old traditional notes, +Which some, by more happily blending, + Seem to make over new in their throats; + +And we men through our old bit of song run, + Until one just improves on the rest, +And we call a thing his, in the long run, + Who utters it clearest and best. + + + +AUSPEX + +My heart, I cannot still it, +Nest that had song-birds in it; +And when the last shall go, +The dreary days, to fill it, +Instead of lark or linnet, +Shall whirl dead leaves and snow. + +Had they been swallows only, +Without the passion stronger +That skyward longs and sings,-- +Woe's me, I shall be lonely +When I can feel no longer +The impatience of their wings! + +A moment, sweet delusion, +Like birds the brown leaves hover; +But it will not be long +Before their wild confusion +Fall wavering down to cover +The poet and his song. + + + +THE PREGNANT COMMENT + +Opening one day a book of mine, +I absent, Hester found a line +Praised with a pencil-mark, and this +She left transfigured with a kiss. + +When next upon the page I chance, +Like Poussin's nymphs my pulses dance, +And whirl my fancy where it sees +Pan piping 'neath Arcadian trees, +Whose leaves no winter-scenes rehearse, +Still young and glad as Homer's verse. +'What mean,' I ask, 'these sudden joys? +This feeling fresher than a boy's? +What makes this line, familiar long, +New as the first bird's April song? +I could, with sense illumined thus, +Clear doubtful texts in Æeschylus!' + +Laughing, one day she gave the key, +My riddle's open-sesame; +Then added, with a smile demure, +Whose downcast lids veiled triumph sure, +'If what I left there give you pain, +You--you--can take it off again; +'Twas for _my_ poet, not for him, +Your Doctor Donne there!' + + Earth grew dim +And wavered in a golden mist, +As rose, not paper, leaves I kissed. +Donne, you forgive? I let you keep +Her precious comment, poet deep. + + + +THE LESSON + +I sat and watched the walls of night + With cracks of sudden lightning glow, +And listened while with clumsy might + The thunder wallowed to and fro. + +The rain fell softly now; the squall, + That to a torrent drove the trees, +Had whirled beyond us to let fall + Its tumult on the whitening seas. + +But still the lightning crinkled keen, + Or fluttered fitful from behind +The leaden drifts, then only seen, + That rumbled eastward on the wind. + +Still as gloom followed after glare, + While bated breath the pine-trees drew, +Tiny Salmoneus of the air, + His mimic bolts the firefly threw. + +He thought, no doubt, 'Those flashes grand, + That light for leagues the shuddering sky, +Are made, a fool could understand, + By some superior kind of fly. + +'He's of our race's elder branch, + His family-arms the same as ours. +Both born the twy-forked flame to launch, + Of kindred, if unequal, powers.' + +And is man wiser? Man who takes + His consciousness the law to be +Of all beyond his ken, and makes + God but a bigger kind of Me? + + + +SCIENCE AND POETRY + +He who first stretched his nerves of subtile wire +Over the land and through the sea-depths still, +Thought only of the flame-winged messenger +As a dull drudge that should encircle earth +With sordid messages of Trade, and tame +Blithe Ariel to a bagman. But the Muse +Not long will be defrauded. From her foe +Her misused wand she snatches; at a touch, +The Age of Wonder is renewed again, +And to our disenchanted day restores +The Shoes of Swiftness that give odds to Thought, +The Cloak that makes invisible; and with these +I glide, an airy fire, from shore to shore, +Or from my Cambridge whisper to Cathay. + + + +A NEW YEAR'S GREETING + +The century numbers fourscore years; + You, fortressed in your teens, +To Time's alarums close your ears, +And, while he devastates your peers, + Conceive not what he means. + +If e'er life's winter fleck with snow + Your hair's deep shadowed bowers, +That winsome head an art would know +To make it charm, and wear it so + As 'twere a wreath of flowers. + +If to such fairies years must come, + May yours fall soft and slow +As, shaken by a bee's low hum, +The rose-leaves waver, sweetly dumb, + Down to their mates below! + + + +THE DISCOVERY + +I watched a moorland torrent run + Down through the rift itself had made, +Golden as honey in the sun, + Of darkest amber in the shade. + +In this wild glen at last, methought, + The magic's secret I surprise; +Here Celia's guardian fairy caught + The changeful splendors of her eyes. + +All else grows tame, the sky's one blue, + The one long languish of the rose, +But these, beyond prevision new, + Shall charm and startle to the close. + + + +WITH A SEASHELL + +Shell, whose lips, than mine more cold, +Might with Dian's ear make bold, +Seek my Lady's; if thou win +To that portal, shut from sin, +Where commissioned angels' swords +Startle back unholy words, +Thou a miracle shalt see +Wrought by it and wrought in thee; +Thou, the dumb one, shalt recover +Speech of poet, speech of lover. +If she deign to lift you there, +Murmur what I may not dare; +In that archway, pearly-pink +As the Dawn's untrodden brink, +Murmur, 'Excellent and good, +Beauty's best in every mood, +Never common, never tame, +Changeful fair as windwaved flame'-- +Nay, I maunder; this she hears +Every day with mocking ears, +With a brow not sudden-stained +With the flush of bliss restrained, +With no tremor of the pulse +More than feels the dreaming dulse +In the midmost ocean's caves, +When a tempest heaps the waves. +Thou must woo her in a phrase +Mystic as the opal's blaze, +Which pure maids alone can see +When their lovers constant be. +I with thee a secret share, +Half a hope, and half a prayer, +Though no reach of mortal skill +Ever told it all, or will; +Say, 'He bids me--nothing more-- +Tell you what you guessed before!' + + + +THE SECRET + +I have a fancy: how shall I bring it +Home to all mortals wherever they be? +Say it or sing it? Shoe it or wing it, +So it may outrun or outfly ME, +Merest cocoon-web whence it broke free? + +Only one secret can save from disaster, +Only one magic is that of the Master: +Set it to music; give it a tune,-- +Tune the brook sings you, tune the breeze brings you, +Tune the wild columbines nod to in June! + +This is the secret: so simple, you see! +Easy as loving, easy as kissing, +Easy as--well, let me ponder--as missing, +Known, since the world was, by scarce two or three. + + + + +IV. HUMOR AND SATIRE + + + +FITZ ADAM'S STORY + +The next whose fortune 'twas a tale to tell +Was one whom men, before they thought, loved well, +And after thinking wondered why they did, +For half he seemed to let them, half forbid, +And wrapped him so in humors, sheath on sheath, +'Twas hard to guess the mellow soul beneath: +But, once divined, you took him to your heart, +While he appeared to bear with you as part +Of life's impertinence, and once a year +Betrayed his true self by a smile or tear, 10 +Or rather something sweetly shy and loath, +Withdrawn ere fully shown, and mixed of both. +A cynic? Not precisely: one who thrust +Against a heart too prone to love and trust, +Who so despised false sentiment he knew +Scarce in himself to part the false and true, +And strove to hide, by roughening-o'er the skin, +Those cobweb nerves he could not dull within. +Gentle by birth, but of a stem decayed, +He shunned life's rivalries and hated trade; 20 +On a small patrimony and larger pride, +He lived uneaseful on the Other Side +(So he called Europe), only coming West +To give his Old-World appetite new zest; +Yet still the New World spooked it in his veins, +A ghost he could not lay with all his pains; +For never Pilgrims' offshoot scapes control +Of those old instincts that have shaped his soul. +A radical in thought, he puffed away +With shrewd contempt the dust of usage gray, 30 +Yet loathed democracy as one who saw, +In what he longed to love, some vulgar flaw, +And, shocked through all his delicate reserves, +Remained a Tory by his taste and nerves, +His fancy's thrall, he drew all ergoes thence, +And thought himself the type of common sense; +Misliking women, not from cross or whim, +But that his mother shared too much in him, +And he half felt that what in them was grace +Made the unlucky weakness of his race. 40 +What powers he had he hardly cared to know, +But sauntered through the world as through a show; +A critic fine in his haphazard way, +A sort of mild La Bruyère on half-pay. +For comic weaknesses he had an eye +Keen as an acid for an alkali, +Yet you could feel, through his sardonic tone, +He loved them all, unless they were his own. +You might have called him, with his humorous twist, +A kind of human entomologist; 50 +As these bring home, from every walk they take, +Their hat-crowns stuck with bugs of curious make, +So he filled all the lining of his head +With characters impaled and ticketed, +And had a cabinet behind his eyes +For all they caught of mortal oddities. +He might have been a poet--many worse-- +But that he had, or feigned, contempt of verse; +Called it tattooing language, and held rhymes +The young world's lullaby of ruder times. 60 +Bitter in words, too indolent for gall, +He satirized himself the first of all, +In men and their affairs could find no law, +And was the ill logic that he thought he saw. + +Scratching a match to light his pipe anew, +With eyes half shut some musing whiffs he drew +And thus began: 'I give you all my word, +I think this mock-Decameron absurd; +Boccaccio's garden! how bring that to pass +In our bleak clime save under double glass? 70 +The moral east-wind of New England life +Would snip its gay luxuriance like a knife; +Mile-deep the glaciers brooded here, they say, +Through æons numb; we feel their chill to-day. +These foreign plants are but half-hardy still, +Die on a south, and on a north wall chill. +Had we stayed Puritans! _They_ had some heat, +(Though whence derived I have my own conceit,) +But you have long ago raked up their fires; +Where they had faith, you've ten sham-Gothic spires. 80 +Why more exotics? Try your native vines, +And in some thousand years you _may_ have wines; +Your present grapes are harsh, all pulps and skins, +And want traditions of ancestral bins +That saved for evenings round the polished board +Old lava fires, the sun-steeped hillside's hoard. +Without a Past, you lack that southern wall +O'er which the vines of Poesy should crawl; +Still they're your only hope: no midnight oil +Makes up for virtue wanting in the soil; 90 +Manure them well and prune them; 'twon't be France, +Nor Spain, nor Italy, but there's your chance. +You have one story-teller worth a score +Of dead Boccaccios,--nay, add twenty more,-- +A hawthorn asking spring's most dainty breath, +And him you're freezing pretty well to death. +However, since you say so, I will tease +My memory to a story by degrees, +Though you will cry, "Enough!" I'm wellnigh sure, +Ere I have dreamed through half my overture. 100 +Stories were good for men who had no books, +(Fortunate race!) and built their nests like rooks +In lonely towers, to which the Jongleur brought +His pedler's-box of cheap and tawdry thought, +With here and there a fancy fit to see +Wrought in quaint grace in golden filigree,-- +Some ring that with the Muse's finger yet +Is warm, like Aucassin and Nicolete; +The morning newspaper has spoilt his trade, +(For better or for worse, I leave unsaid,) 110 +And stories now, to suit a public nice, +Must be half epigram, half pleasant vice. + +'All tourists know Shebagog County: there +The summer idlers take their yearly stare, +Dress to see Nature in a well-bred way, +As 'twere Italian opera, or play, +Encore the sunrise (if they're out of bed). +And pat the Mighty Mother on the head: +These have I seen,--all things are good to see.-- +And wondered much at their complacency. 120 +This world's great show, that took in getting-up +Millions of years, they finish ere they sup; +Sights that God gleams through with soul-tingling force +They glance approvingly as things of course. +Say, "That's a grand rock," "This a pretty fall." +Not thinking, "Are we worthy?" What if all +The scornful landscape should turn round and say, +"This is a fool, and that a popinjay"? +I often wonder what the Mountain thinks +Of French boots creaking o'er his breathless brinks, 130 +Or how the Sun would scare the chattering crowd, +If some fine day he chanced to think aloud. +I, who love Nature much as sinners can, +Love her where she most grandeur shows,--in man: +Here find I mountain, forest, cloud, and sun, +River and sea, and glows when day is done; +Nay, where she makes grotesques, and moulds in jest +The clown's cheap clay, I find unfading zest. +The natural instincts year by year retire, +As deer shrink northward from the settler's fire, 140 +And he who loves the wild game-flavor more +Than city-feasts, where every man's a bore +To every other man, must seek it where +The steamer's throb and railway's iron blare +Have not yet startled with their punctual stir +The shy, wood-wandering brood of Character. + +'There is a village, once the county town, +Through which the weekly mail rolled dustily down, +Where the courts sat, it may be, twice a year, +And the one tavern reeked with rustic cheer; 150 +Cheeshogquesumscot erst, now Jethro hight, +Red-man and pale-face bore it equal spite. +The railway ruined it, the natives say, +That passed unwisely fifteen miles away, +And made a drain to which, with steady ooze, +Filtered away law, stage-coach, trade, and news. +The railway saved it: so at least think those +Who love old ways, old houses, old repose. +Of course the Tavern stayed: its genial host +Thought not of flitting more than did the post 160 +On which high-hung the fading signboard creaks, +Inscribed, "The Eagle Inn, by Ezra Weeks." + +'If in life's journey you should ever find +An inn medicinal for body and mind, +'Tis sure to be some drowsy-looking house +Whose easy landlord has a bustling spouse: +He, if he like you, will not long forego +Some bottle deep in cobwebbed dust laid low, +That, since the War we used to call the "Last," +Has dozed and held its lang-syne memories fast: 170 +From him exhales that Indian-summer air +Of hazy, lazy welcome everywhere, +While with her toil the napery is white, +The china dustless, the keen knife-blades bright, +Salt dry as sand, and bread that seems as though +'Twere rather sea-foam baked than vulgar dough. + +'In our swift country, houses trim and white +Are pitched like tents, the lodging of a night; +Each on its bank of baked turf mounted high +Perches impatient o'er the roadside dry, 180 +While the wronged landscape coldly stands aloof, +Refusing friendship with the upstart roof. +Not so the Eagle; on a grass-green swell +That toward the south with sweet concessions fell +It dwelt retired, and half had grown to be +As aboriginal as rock or tree. +It nestled close to earth, and seemed to brood +O'er homely thoughts in a half-conscious mood, +As by the peat that rather fades than burns +The smouldering grandam nods and knits by turns, 190 +Happy, although her newest news were old +Ere the first hostile drum at Concord rolled. +If paint it e'er had known, it knew no more +Than yellow lichens spattered thickly o'er +That soft lead-gray, less dark beneath the eaves +Which the slow brush of wind and weather leaves. +The ample roof sloped backward to the ground, +And vassal lean-tos gathered thickly round, +Patched on, as sire or son had felt the need, +Like chance growths sprouting from the old roofs seed, 200 +Just as about a yellow-pine-tree spring +Its rough-barked darlings in a filial ring. +But the great chimney was the central thought +Whose gravitation through the cluster wrought; +For 'tis not styles far-fetched from Greece or Rome, +But just the Fireside, that can make a home; +None of your spindling things of modern style, +Like pins stuck through to stay the card-built pile, +It rose broad-shouldered, kindly, debonair, +Its warm breath whitening in the October air, 210 +While on its front a heart in outline showed +The place it filled in that serene abode. + +'When first I chanced the Eagle to explore. +Ezra sat listless by the open door; +One chair careened him at an angle meet, +Another nursed his hugely slippered feet; +Upon a third reposed a shirt-sleeved arm, +And the whole man diffused tobacco's charm. +"Are you the landlord?" "Wahl, I guess I be," +Watching the smoke he answered leisurely. 220 +He was a stoutish man, and through the breast +Of his loose shirt there showed a brambly chest; +Streaked redly as a wind-foreboding morn, +His tanned cheeks curved to temples closely shorn; +Clean-shaved he was, save where a hedge of gray +Upon his brawny throat leaned every way +About an Adam's-apple, that beneath +Bulged like a boulder from a brambly heath. +The Western World's true child and nursling he, +Equipt with aptitudes enough for three: 230 +No eye like his to value horse or cow, +Or gauge the contents of a stack or mow; +He could foretell the weather at a word, +He knew the haunt of every beast and bird, +Or where a two-pound trout was sure to lie, +Waiting the flutter of his homemade fly; +Nay, once in autumns five, he had the luck +To drop at fair-play range a ten-tined buck; +Of sportsmen true he favored every whim, +But never cockney found a guide in him; 240 +A natural man, with all his instincts fresh, +Not buzzing helpless in Reflection's mesh, +Firm on its feet stood his broad-shouldered mind, +As bluffly honest as a northwest wind; +Hard-headed and soft-hearted, you'd scarce meet +A kindlier mixture of the shrewd and sweet; +Generous by birth, and ill at saying "No," +Yet in a bargain he was all men's foe, +Would yield no inch of vantage in a trade, +And give away ere nightfall all he made. 250 + +"Can I have lodging here?" once more I said. +He blew a whiff, and, leaning back his head, +"You come a piece through Bailey's woods, I s'pose, +Acrost a bridge where a big swamp-oak grows? +It don't grow, neither; it's ben dead ten year, +Nor th' ain't a livin' creetur, fur nor near, +Can tell wut killed it; but I some misdoubt +'Twas borers, there's sech heaps on 'em about. +You didn' chance to run ag'inst my son, +A long, slab-sided youngster with a gun? 260 +He'd oughto ben back more 'n an hour ago, +An' brought some birds to dress for supper--sho! +There he comes now. 'Say, Obed, wut ye got? +(He'll hev some upland plover like as not.) +Wal, them's real nice uns, an'll eat A 1, +Ef I can stop their bein' overdone; +Nothin' riles _me_ (I pledge my fastin' word) +Like cookin' out the natur' of a bird; +(Obed, you pick 'em out o' sight an' sound, +Your ma'am don't love no feathers cluttrin' round;) 270 +Jes' scare 'em with the coals,--thet's _my_ idee." +Then, turning suddenly about on me, +"Wal, Square, I guess so. Callilate to stay? +I'll ask Mis' Weeks; 'bout _thet_ it's hern to say." + +'Well, there I lingered all October through, +In that sweet atmosphere of hazy blue, +So leisurely, so soothing, so forgiving, +That sometimes makes New England fit for living. +I watched the landscape, erst so granite glum, +Bloom like the south side of a ripening plum, 280 +And each rock-maple on the hillside make +His ten days' sunset doubled in the lake; +The very stone walls draggling up the hills +Seemed touched, and wavered in their roundhead wills. +Ah! there's a deal of sugar in the sun! +Tap me in Indian summer, I should run +A juice to make rock-candy of,--but then +We get such weather scarce one year in ten. + +'There was a parlor in the house, a room +To make you shudder with its prudish gloom. 290 +The furniture stood round with such an air, +There seemed an old maid's ghost in every chair, +Which looked as it had scuttled to its place +And pulled extempore a Sunday face, +Too smugly proper for a world of sin, +Like boys on whom the minister comes in. +The table, fronting you with icy stare, +Strove to look witless that its legs were bare, +While the black sofa with its horse-hair pall +Gloomed like a bier for Comfort's funeral. 300 +Each piece appeared to do its chilly best +To seem an utter stranger to the rest, +As if acquaintanceship were deadly sin, +Like Britons meeting in a foreign inn. +Two portraits graced the wall in grimmest truth, +Mister and Mistress W. in their youth,-- +New England youth, that seems a sort of pill, +Half wish-I-dared, half Edwards on the Will, +Bitter to swallow, and which leaves a trace +Of Calvinistic colic on the face. 310 +Between them, o'er the mantel, hung in state +Solomon's temple, done in copperplate; +Invention pure, but meant, we may presume, +To give some Scripture sanction to the room. +Facing this last, two samplers you might see, +Each, with its urn and stiffly weeping tree, +Devoted to some memory long ago +More faded than their lines of worsted woe; +Cut paper decked their frames against the flies, +Though none e'er dared an entrance who were wise, 320 +And bushed asparagus in fading green +Added its shiver to the franklin clean. + +'When first arrived, I chilled a half-hour there, +Nor dared deflower with use a single chair; +I caught no cold, yet flying pains could find +For weeks in me,--a rheumatism of mind. +One thing alone imprisoned there had power +To hold me in the place that long half-hour: +A scutcheon this, a helm-surmounted shield, +Three griffins argent on a sable field; 330 +A relic of the shipwrecked past was here, +And Ezra held some Old-World lumber dear. +Nay, do not smile; I love this kind of thing, +These cooped traditions with a broken wing, +This freehold nook in Fancy's pipe-blown ball, +This less than nothing that is more than all! +Have I not seen sweet natures kept alive +Amid the humdrum of your business hive, +Undowered spinsters shielded from all harms, +By airy incomes from a coat of arms?' 340 + +He paused a moment, and his features took +The flitting sweetness of that inward look +I hinted at before; but, scarcely seen, +It shrank for shelter 'neath his harder mien, +And, rapping his black pipe of ashes clear, +He went on with a self-derisive sneer: +'No doubt we make a part of God's design, +And break the forest-path for feet divine; +To furnish foothold for this grand prevision +Is good, and yet--to be the mere transition, 350 +That, you will say, is also good, though I +Scarce like to feed the ogre By-and-By. +Raw edges rasp my nerves; my taste is wooed +By things that are, not going to be, good, +Though were I what I dreamed two lustres gone, +I'd stay to help the Consummation on, +Whether a new Rome than the old more fair, +Or a deadflat of rascal-ruled despair; +But _my_ skull somehow never closed the suture +That seems to knit yours firmly with the future, 360 +So you'll excuse me if I'm sometimes fain +To tie the Past's warm nightcap o'er my brain; +I'm quite aware 'tis not in fashion here, +But then your northeast winds are _so_ severe! + +'But to my story: though 'tis truly naught +But a few hints in Memory's sketchbook caught, +And which may claim a value on the score +Of calling back some scenery now no more. +Shall I confess? The tavern's only Lar +Seemed (be not shocked!) its homely-featured bar. 370 +Here dozed a fire of beechen logs, that bred +Strange fancies in its embers golden-red, +And nursed the loggerhead whose hissing dip, +Timed by nice instinct, creamed the mug of flip +That made from mouth to mouth its genial round, +Nor left one nature wholly winter-bound; +Hence dropt the tinkling coal all mellow-ripe +For Uncle Reuben's talk-extinguished pipe; +Hence rayed the heat, as from an indoor sun, +That wooed forth many a shoot of rustic fun. 380 +Here Ezra ruled as king by right divine; +No other face had such a wholesome shine, +No laugh like his so full of honest cheer; +Above the rest it crowed like Chanticleer. + +'In this one room his dame you never saw, +Where reigned by custom old a Salic law; +Here coatless lolled he on his throne of oak, +And every tongue paused midway if he spoke. +Due mirth he loved, yet was his sway severe; +No blear-eyed driveller got his stagger here; 390 +"Measure was happiness; who wanted more, +Must buy his ruin at the Deacon's store;" +None but his lodgers after ten could stay, +Nor after nine on eves of Sabbath-day. +He had his favorites and his pensioners, +The same that gypsy Nature owns for hers: +Loose-ended souls, whose skills bring scanty gold, +And whom the poor-house catches when they're old; +Rude country-minstrels, men who doctor kine, +Or graft, and, out of scions ten, save nine; 400 +Creatures of genius they, but never meant +To keep step with the civic regiment, +These Ezra welcomed, feeling in his mind +Perhaps some motions of the vagrant kind; +These paid no money, yet for them he drew +Special Jamaica from a tap they knew, +And, for their feelings, chalked behind the door +With solemn face a visionary score. +This thawed to life in Uncle Reuben's throat +A torpid shoal of jest and anecdote, 410 +Like those queer fish that doze the droughts away, +And wait for moisture, wrapped in sun-baked clay; +This warmed the one-eyed fiddler to his task, +Perched in the corner on an empty cask, +By whose shrill art rapt suddenly, some boor +Rattled a double-shuffle on the floor; +"Hull's Victory" was, indeed, the favorite air, +Though "Yankee Doodle" claimed its proper share. + +''Twas there I caught from Uncle Reuben's lips, +In dribbling monologue 'twixt whiffs and sips, 420 +The story I so long have tried to tell; +The humor coarse, the persons common,--well, +From Nature only do I love to paint, +Whether she send a satyr or a saint; +To me Sincerity's the one thing good, +Soiled though she be and lost to maidenhood. +Quompegan is a town some ten miles south +From Jethro, at Nagumscot river-mouth, +A seaport town, and makes its title good +With lumber and dried fish and eastern wood. 430 +Here Deacon Bitters dwelt and kept the Store, +The richest man for many a mile of shore; +In little less than everything dealt he, +From meeting-houses to a chest of tea; +So dextrous therewithal a flint to skin, +He could make profit on a single pin; +In business strict, to bring the balance true +He had been known to bite a fig in two, +And change a board-nail for a shingle-nail. +All that he had he ready held for sale, 440 +His house, his tomb, whate'er the law allows, +And he had gladly parted with his spouse. +His one ambition still to get and get, +He would arrest your very ghost for debt. +His store looked righteous, should the Parson come, +But in a dark back-room he peddled rum, +And eased Ma'am Conscience, if she e'er would scold, +By christening it with water ere he sold. +A small, dry man he was, who wore a queue, +And one white neckcloth all the week-days through,-- 450 +On Monday white, by Saturday as dun +As that worn homeward by the prodigal son. +His frosted earlocks, striped with foxy brown, +Were braided up to hide a desert crown; +His coat was brownish, black perhaps of yore; +In summer-time a banyan loose he wore; +His trousers short, through many a season true, +Made no pretence to hide his stockings blue; +A waistcoat buff his chief adornment was, +Its porcelain buttons rimmed with dusky brass. 460 +A deacon he, you saw it in each limb, +And well he knew to deacon-off a hymn, +Or lead the choir through all its wandering woes +With voice that gathered unction in his nose, +Wherein a constant snuffle you might hear, +As if with him 'twere winter all the year. +At pew-head sat he with decorous pains, +In sermon-time could foot his weekly gains, +Or, with closed eyes and heaven-abstracted air, +Could plan a new investment in long-prayer. 470 +A pious man, and thrifty too, he made +The psalms and prophets partners in his trade, +And in his orthodoxy straitened more +As it enlarged the business at his store; +He honored Moses, but, when gain he planned, +Had his own notion of the Promised Land. + +'Soon as the winter made the sledding good, +From far around the farmers hauled him wood, +For all the trade had gathered 'neath his thumb. +He paid in groceries and New England rum, 480 +Making two profits with a conscience clear,-- +Cheap all he bought, and all he paid with dear. +With his own mete-wand measuring every load, +Each somehow had diminished on the road; +An honest cord in Jethro still would fail +By a good foot upon the Deacon's scale, +And, more to abate the price, his gimlet eye +Would pierce to cat-sticks that none else could spy; +Yet none dared grumble, for no farmer yet +But New Year found him in the Deacon's debt. 490 + +'While the first snow was mealy under feet, +A team drawled creaking down Quompegan street. +Two cords of oak weighed down the grinding sled, +And cornstalk fodder rustled overhead; +The oxen's muzzles, as they shouldered through, +Were silver-fringed; the driver's own was blue +As the coarse frock that swung below his knee. +Behind his load for shelter waded he; +His mittened hands now on his chest he beat, +Now stamped the stiffened cowhides of his feet, 500 +Hushed as a ghost's; his armpit scarce could hold +The walnut whipstock slippery-bright with cold. +What wonder if, the tavern as he past, +He looked and longed, and stayed his beasts at last, +Who patient stood and veiled themselves in steam +While he explored the bar-room's ruddy gleam? + +'Before the fire, in want of thought profound, +There sat a brother-townsman weather-bound: +A sturdy churl, crisp-headed, bristly-eared, +Red as a pepper; 'twixt coarse brows and beard 510 +His eyes lay ambushed, on the watch for fools, +Clear, gray, and glittering like two bay-edged pools; +A shifty creature, with a turn for fun, +Could swap a poor horse for a better one,-- +He'd a high-stepper always in his stall; +Liked far and near, and dreaded therewithal. +To him the in-comer, "Perez, how d' ye do?" +"Jest as I'm mind to, Obed; how do you?" +Then, his eyes twinkling such swift gleams as run +Along the levelled barrel of a gun 520 +Brought to his shoulder by a man you know +Will bring his game down, he continued, "So, +I s'pose you're haulin' wood? But you're too late; +The Deacon's off; Old Splitfoot couldn't wait; +He made a bee-line las' night in the storm +To where he won't need wood to keep him warm. +'Fore this he's treasurer of a fund to train +Young imps as missionaries; hopes to gain +That way a contract that he has in view +For fireproof pitchforks of a pattern new, 530 +It must have tickled him, all drawbacks weighed, +To think he stuck the Old One in a trade; +His soul, to start with, wasn't worth a carrot. +And all he'd left 'ould hardly serve to swear at." + +'By this time Obed had his wits thawed out, +And, looking at the other half in doubt, +Took off his fox-skin cap to scratch his head, +Donned it again, and drawled forth, "Mean he's dead?" +"Jesso; he's dead and t'other _d_ that follers +With folks that never love a thing but dollars. 540 +He pulled up stakes last evening, fair and square, +And ever since there's been a row Down There. +The minute the old chap arrived, you see, +Comes the Boss-devil to him, and says he, +'What are you good at? Little enough, I fear; +We callilate to make folks useful here.' +'Well,' says old Bitters, 'I expect I can +Scale a fair load of wood with e'er a man.' +'Wood we don't deal in; but perhaps you'll suit, +Because we buy our brimstone by the foot: 550 +Here, take this measurin'-rod, as smooth as sin, +And keep a reckonin' of what loads comes in. +You'll not want business, for we need a lot +To keep the Yankees that you send us hot; +At firin' up they're barely half as spry +As Spaniards or Italians, though they're dry; +At first we have to let the draught on stronger, +But, heat 'em through, they seem to hold it longer.' + +'"Bitters he took the rod, and pretty soon +A teamster comes, whistling an ex-psalm tune. 560 +A likelier chap you wouldn't ask to see, +No different, but his limp, from you or me"-- +"No different, Perez! Don't your memory fail? +Why, where in thunder was his horns and tail?" +"They're only worn by some old-fashioned pokes; +They mostly aim at looking just like folks. +Sech things are scarce as queues and top-boots here; +'Twould spoil their usefulness to look too queer. +Ef you could always know 'em when they come, +They'd get no purchase on you: now be mum. 570 +On come the teamster, smart as Davy Crockett, +Jinglin' the red-hot coppers in his pocket, +And clost behind, ('twas gold-dust, you'd ha' sworn,) +A load of sulphur yallower 'n seed-corn; +To see it wasted as it is Down There +Would make a Friction-Match Co. tear its hair! +'Hold on!' says Bitters, 'stop right where you be; +You can't go in athout a pass from me.' +'All right,' says t'other, 'only step round smart; +I must be home by noon-time with the cart.' 580 +Bitters goes round it sharp-eyed as a rat, +Then with a scrap of paper on his hat +Pretends to cipher. 'By the public staff, +That load scarce rises twelve foot and a half.' +'There's fourteen foot and over,' says the driver, +'Worth twenty dollars, ef it's worth a stiver; +Good fourth-proof brimstone, that'll make 'em squirm,-- +I leave it to the Headman of the Firm; +After we masure it, we always lay +Some on to allow for settlin' by the way. 590 +Imp and full-grown, I've carted sulphur here, +And gi'n fair satisfaction, thirty year.' +With that they fell to quarrellin' so loud +That in five minutes they had drawed a crowd, +And afore long the Boss, who heard the row, +Comes elbowin' in with 'What's to pay here now?' +Both parties heard, the measurin'-rod he takes, +And of the load a careful survey makes. +'Sence I have bossed the business here,' says he, +'No fairer load was ever seen by me.' 600 +Then, turnin' to the Deacon, 'You mean cus. +None of your old Quompegan tricks with us! +They won't do here: we're plain old-fashioned folks, +And don't quite understand that kind o' jokes. +I know this teamster, and his pa afore him, +And the hard-working Mrs. D. that bore him; +He wouldn't soil his conscience with a lie, +Though he might get the custom-house thereby. +Here, constable, take Bitters by the queue. +And clap him into furnace ninety-two, 610 +And try this brimstone on him; if he's bright, +He'll find the masure honest afore night. +He isn't worth his fuel, and I'll bet +The parish oven has to take him yet!'" + +'This is my tale, heard twenty years ago +From Uncle Reuben, as the logs burned low, +Touching the walls and ceiling with that bloom +That makes a rose's calyx of a room. +I could not give his language, wherethrough ran +The gamy flavor of the bookless man 620 +Who shapes a word before the fancy cools, +As lonely Crusoe improvised his tools. +I liked the tale,--'twas like so many told +By Rutebeuf and his Brother Trouvères bold; +Nor were the hearers much unlike to theirs, +Men unsophisticate, rude-nerved as bears. +Ezra is gone and his large-hearted kind, +The landlords of the hospitable mind; +Good Warriner of Springfield was the last; +An inn is now a vision of the past; 630 +One yet-surviving host my mind recalls,-- +You'll find him if you go to Trenton Falls.' + + + +THE ORIGIN OF DIDACTIC POETRY + +When wise Minerva still was young + And just the least romantic, +Soon after from Jove's head she flung + That preternatural antic, +'Tis said, to keep from idleness + Or flirting, those twin curses, +She spent her leisure, more or less, + In writing po----, no, verses. + +How nice they were! to rhyme with _far_ + A kind _star_ did not tarry; +The metre, too, was regular + As schoolboy's dot and carry; +And full they were of pious plums, + So extra-super-moral,-- +For sucking Virtue's tender gums + Most tooth-enticing coral. + +A clean, fair copy she prepares, + Makes sure of moods and tenses, +With her own hand,--for prudence spares + A man-(or woman-)-uensis; +Complete, and tied with ribbons proud, + She hinted soon how cosy a +Treat it would be to read them loud + After next day's Ambrosia. + +The Gods thought not it would amuse + So much as Homer's Odyssees, +But could not very well refuse + The properest of Goddesses; +So all sat round in attitudes + Of various dejection, +As with a _hem!_ the queen of prudes + Began her grave prelection. + +At the first pause Zeus said, 'Well sung!-- + I mean--ask Phoebus,--_he_ knows.' +Says Phoebus, 'Zounds! a wolf's among + Admetus's merinos! +Fine! very fine! but I must go; + They stand in need of me there; +Excuse me!' snatched his stick, and so + Plunged down the gladdened ether. + +With the next gap, Mars said, 'For me + Don't wait,--naught could be finer, +But I'm engaged at half past three,-- + A fight in Asia Minor!' +Then Venus lisped, 'I'm sorely tried, + These duty-calls are vip'rous; +But I _must_ go; I have a bride + To see about in Cyprus.' + +Then Bacchus,--'I must say good-by, + Although my peace it jeopards; +I meet a man at four, to try + A well-broke pair of leopards.' +His words woke Hermes. 'Ah!' he said, + 'I _so_ love moral theses!' +Then winked at Hebe, who turned red, + And smoothed her apron's creases. + +Just then Zeus snored,--the Eagle drew + His head the wing from under; +Zeus snored,--o'er startled Greece there flew + The many-volumed thunder. +Some augurs counted nine, some, ten; + Some said 'twas war, some, famine; +And all, that other-minded men + Would get a precious----. + +Proud Pallas sighed, 'It will not do; + Against the Muse I've sinned, oh!' +And her torn rhymes sent flying through + Olympus's back window. +Then, packing up a peplus clean, + She took the shortest path thence, +And opened, with a mind serene, + A Sunday-school in Athens. + +The verses? Some in ocean swilled, + Killed every fish that bit to 'em; +Some Galen caught, and, when distilled, + Found morphine the residuum; +But some that rotted on the earth + Sprang up again in copies, +And gave two strong narcotics birth, + Didactic verse and poppies. + +Years after, when a poet asked + The Goddess's opinion, +As one whose soul its wings had tasked + In Art's clear-aired dominion, +'Discriminate,' she said, 'betimes; + The Muse is unforgiving; +Put all your beauty in your rhymes, + Your morals in your living.' + + + +THE FLYING DUTCHMAN + +Don't believe in the Flying Dutchman? + I've known the fellow for years; +My button I've wrenched from his clutch, man: + I shudder whenever he nears! + +He's a Rip van Winkle skipper, + A Wandering Jew of the sea, +Who sails his bedevilled old clipper + In the wind's eye, straight as a bee. + +Back topsails! you can't escape him; + The man-ropes stretch with his weight, +And the queerest old toggeries drape him, + The Lord knows how long out of date! + +Like a long-disembodied idea, + (A kind of ghost plentiful now,) +He stands there; you fancy you see a + Coeval of Teniers or Douw. + +He greets you; would have you take letters: + You scan the addresses with dread, +While he mutters his _donners_ and _wetters_,-- + They're all from the dead to the dead! + +You seem taking time for reflection, + But the heart fills your throat with a jam, +As you spell in each faded direction + An ominous ending in _dam_. + +Am I tagging my rhymes to a legend? + That were changing green turtle to mock: +No, thank you! I've found out which wedge-end + Is meant for the head of a block. + +The fellow I have in my mind's eye + Plays the old Skipper's part here on shore, +And sticks like a burr, till he finds I + Have got just the gauge of his bore. + +This postman 'twist one ghost and t'other, + With last dates that smell of the mould, +I have met him (O man and brother, + Forgive me!) in azure and gold. + +In the pulpit I've known of his preaching, + Out of hearing behind the time, +Some statement of Balaam's impeaching, + Giving Eve a due sense of her crime. + +I have seen him some poor ancient thrashing + Into something (God save us!) more dry, +With the Water of Life itself washing + The life out of earth, sea, and sky. + +O dread fellow-mortal, get newer + Despatches to carry, or none! +We're as quick as the Greek and the Jew were + At knowing a loaf from a stone. + +Till the couriers of God fail in duty, + We sha'n't ask a mummy for news, +Nor sate the soul's hunger for beauty + With your drawings from casts of a Muse. + + + +CREDIDIMUS JOVEM REGNARE + +O days endeared to every Muse, +When nobody had any Views, +Nor, while the cloudscape of his mind +By every breeze was new designed, +Insisted all the world should see +Camels or whales where none there be! +O happy days, when men received +From sire to son what all believed, +And left the other world in bliss, +Too busy with bedevilling this! 10 + +Beset by doubts of every breed +In the last bastion of my creed, +With shot and shell for Sabbath-chime, +I watch the storming-party climb, +Panting (their prey in easy reach), +To pour triumphant through the breach +In walls that shed like snowflakes tons +Of missiles from old-fashioned guns, +But crumble 'neath the storm that pours +All day and night from bigger bores. 20 +There, as I hopeless watch and wait +The last life-crushing coil of Fate, +Despair finds solace in the praise +Of those serene dawn-rosy days +Ere microscopes had made us heirs +To large estates of doubts and snares, +By proving that the title-deeds, +Once all-sufficient for men's needs, +Are palimpsests that scarce disguise +The tracings of still earlier lies, 30 +Themselves as surely written o'er +An older fib erased before. + +So from these days I fly to those +That in the landlocked Past repose, +Where no rude wind of doctrine shakes +From bloom-flushed boughs untimely flakes; +Where morning's eyes see nothing strange, +No crude perplexity of change, +And morrows trip along their ways +Secure as happy yesterdays. 40 +Then there were rulers who could trace +Through heroes up to gods their race, +Pledged to fair fame and noble use +By veins from Odin filled or Zeus, +And under bonds to keep divine +The praise of a celestial line. +Then priests could pile the altar's sods, +With whom gods spake as they with gods, +And everywhere from haunted earth +Broke springs of wonder, that had birth 50 +In depths divine beyond the ken +And fatal scrutiny of men; +Then hills and groves and streams and seas +Thrilled with immortal presences, +Not too ethereal for the scope +Of human passion's dream or hope. + +Now Pan at last is surely dead, +And King No-Credit reigns instead, +Whose officers, morosely strict, +Poor Fancy's tenantry evict, 60 +Chase the last Genius from the door, +And nothing dances any more. +Nothing? Ah, yes, our tables do, +Dramming the Old One's own tattoo, +And, if the oracles are dumb, +Have we not mediums! Why be glum? + +Fly thither? Why, the very air +Is full of hindrance and despair! +Fly thither? But I cannot fly; +My doubts enmesh me if I try, 70 +Each Liliputian, but, combined, +Potent a giant's limbs to bind. +This world and that are growing dark; +A huge interrogation mark, +The Devil's crook episcopal. +Still borne before him since the Fall, +Blackens with its ill-omened sign +The old blue heaven of faith benign. +Whence? Whither? Wherefore? How? Which? Why? +All ask at once, all wait reply. 80 +Men feel old systems cracking under 'em; +Life saddens to a mere conundrum +Which once Religion solved, but she +Has lost--has Science found?--the key. + +What was snow-bearded Odin, trow, +The mighty hunter long ago, +Whose horn and hounds the peasant hears +Still when the Northlights shake their spears? +Science hath answers twain, I've heard; +Choose which you will, nor hope a third; 90 +Whichever box the truth be stowed in, +There's not a sliver left of Odin. +Either he was a pinchbrowed thing, +With scarcely wit a stone to fling, +A creature both in size and shape +Nearer than we are to the ape, +Who hung sublime with brat and spouse +By tail prehensile from the boughs, +And, happier than his maimed descendants, +The culture-curtailed _in_dependents, 100 +Could pluck his cherries with both paws, +And stuff with both his big-boned jaws; +Or else the core his name enveloped +Was from a solar myth developed, +Which, hunted to its primal shoot, +Takes refuge in a Sanskrit root, +Thereby to instant death explaining +The little poetry remaining. + +Try it with Zeus, 'tis just the same; +The thing evades, we hug a name; 110 +Nay, scarcely that,--perhaps a vapor +Born of some atmospheric caper. +All Lempriere's fables blur together +In cloudy symbols of the weather, +And Aphrodite rose from frothy seas +But to illustrate such hypotheses. +With years enough behind his back, +Lincoln will take the selfsame track, +And prove, hulled fairly to the cob, +A mere vagary of Old Prob. 120 +Give the right man a solar myth, +And he'll confute the sun therewith. + +They make things admirably plain, +But one hard question _will_ remain: +If one hypothesis you lose, +Another in its place you choose, +But, your faith gone, O man and brother, +Whose shop shall furnish you another? +One that will wash, I mean, and wear, +And wrap us warmly from despair? 130 +While they are clearing up our puzzles, +And clapping prophylactic muzzles +On the Actæon's hounds that sniff +Our devious track through But and If, +Would they'd explain away the Devil +And other facts that won't keep level, +But rise beneath our feet or fail, +A reeling ship's deck in a gale! +God vanished long ago, iwis, +A mere subjective synthesis; 140 +A doll, stuffed out with hopes and fears, +Too homely for us pretty dears, +Who want one that conviction carries, +Last make of London or of Paris. +He gone, I felt a moment's spasm, +But calmed myself, with Protoplasm, +A finer name, and, what is more, +As enigmatic as before; +Greek, too, and sure to fill with ease +Minds caught in the Symplegades 150 +Of soul and sense, life's two conditions, +Each baffled with its own omniscience. +The men who labor to revise +Our Bibles will, I hope, be wise, +And print it without foolish qualms +Instead of God in David's psalms: +Noll had been more effective far +Could he have shouted at Dunbar, +'Rise, Protoplasm!' No dourest Scot +Had waited for another shot. 160 + +And yet I frankly must confess +A secret unforgivingness, +And shudder at the saving chrism +Whose best New Birth is Pessimism; +My soul--I mean the bit of phosphorus +That fills the place of what that was for us-- +Can't bid its inward bores defiance +With the new nursery-tales of science. +What profits me, though doubt by doubt, +As nail by nail, be driven out, 170 +When every new one, like the last, +Still holds my coffin-lid as fast? +Would I find thought a moment's truce, +Give me the young world's Mother Goose +With life and joy in every limb, +The chimney-corner tales of Grimm! + +Our dear and admirable Huxley +Cannot explain to me why ducks lay, +Or, rather, how into their eggs +Blunder potential wings and legs 180 +With will to move them and decide +Whether in air or lymph to glide. +Who gets a hair's-breadth on by showing +That Something Else set all agoing? +Farther and farther back we push +From Moses and his burning bush; +Cry, 'Art Thou there?' Above, below, +All Nature mutters _yes_ and _no!_ +'Tis the old answer: we're agreed +Being from Being must proceed, 190 +Life be Life's source. I might as well +Obey the meeting-house's bell, +And listen while Old Hundred pours +Forth through the summer-opened doors, +From old and young. I hear it yet, +Swelled by bass-viol and clarinet, +While the gray minister, with face +Radiant, let loose his noble bass. +If Heaven it reached not, yet its roll +Waked all the echoes of the soul, 200 +And in it many a life found wings +To soar away from sordid things. +Church gone and singers too, the song +Sings to me voiceless all night long, +Till my soul beckons me afar, +Glowing and trembling like a star. +Will any scientific touch +With my worn strings achieve as much? + +I don't object, not I, to know +My sires were monkeys, if 'twas so; 210 +I touch my ear's collusive tip +And own the poor-relationship. +That apes of various shapes and sizes +Contained their germs that all the prizes +Of senate, pulpit, camp, and bar win +May give us hopes that sweeten Darwin. +Who knows but from our loins may spring +(Long hence) some winged sweet-throated thing +As much superior to us +As we to Cynocephalus? 220 + +This is consoling, but, alas, +It wipes no dimness from the glass +Where I am flattening my poor nose, +In hope to see beyond my toes, +Though I accept my pedigree, +Yet where, pray tell me, is the key +That should unlock a private door +To the Great Mystery, such no more? +Each offers his, but one nor all +Are much persuasive with the wall 230 +That rises now as long ago, +Between I wonder and I know, +Nor will vouchsafe a pin-hole peep +At the veiled Isis in its keep. +Where is no door, I but produce +My key to find it of no use. +Yet better keep it, after all, +Since Nature's economical, +And who can tell but some fine day +(If it occur to her) she may, 240 +In her good-will to you and me, +_Make_ door and lock to match the key? + + + +TEMPORA MUTANTUR + +The world turns mild; democracy, they say, +Rounds the sharp knobs of character away, +And no great harm, unless at grave expense +Of what needs edge of proof, the moral sense; +For man or race is on the downward path +Whose fibre grows too soft for honest wrath, +And there's a subtle influence that springs +From words to modify our sense of things. +A plain distinction grows obscure of late: +Man, if he will, may pardon; but the State 10 +Forgets its function if not fixed as Fate. +So thought our sires: a hundred years ago, +If men were knaves, why, people called them so, +And crime could see the prison-portal bend +Its brow severe at no long vista's end. +In those days for plain things plain words would serve; +Men had not learned to admire the graceful swerve +Wherewith the Æsthetic Nature's genial mood +Makes public duty slope to private good; +No muddled conscience raised the saving doubt; 20 +A soldier proved unworthy was drummed out, +An officer cashiered, a civil servant +(No matter though his piety were fervent) +Disgracefully dismissed, and through the land +Each bore for life a stigma from the brand +Whose far-heard hiss made others more averse +To take the facile step from bad to worse. +The Ten Commandments had a meaning then, +Felt in their bones by least considerate men, +Because behind them Public Conscience stood, 30 +And without wincing made their mandates good. +But now that 'Statesmanship' is just a way +To dodge the primal curse and make it pay, +Since office means a kind of patent drill +To force an entrance to the Nation's till, +And peculation something rather less +Risky than if you spelt it with an _s_; +Now that to steal by law is grown an art, +Whom rogues the sires, their milder sons call smart, +And 'slightly irregular' dilutes the shame 40 +Of what had once a somewhat blunter name. +With generous curve we draw the moral line: +Our swindlers are permitted to resign; +Their guilt is wrapped in deferential names, +And twenty sympathize for one that blames. +Add national disgrace to private crime, +Confront mankind with brazen front sublime, +Steal but enough, the world is un-severe,-- +Tweed is a statesman, Fisk a financier; +Invent a mine, and he--the Lord knows what; 50 +Secure, at any rate, with what you've got. +The public servant who has stolen or lied, +If called on, may resign with honest pride: +As unjust favor put him in, why doubt +Disfavor as unjust has turned him out? +Even it indicted, what is that but fudge +To him who counted-in the elective judge? +Whitewashed, he quits the politician's strife +At ease in mind, with pockets filled for life; +His 'lady' glares with gems whose vulgar blaze 60 +The poor man through his heightened taxes pays, +Himself content if one huge Kohinoor +Bulge from a shirt-front ampler than before, +But not too candid, lest it haply tend +To rouse suspicion of the People's Friend. +A public meeting, treated at his cost, +Resolves him back more virtue than he lost; +With character regilt he counts his gains; +What's gone was air, the solid good remains; +For what is good, except what friend and foe 70 +Seem quite unanimous in thinking so, +The stocks and bonds which, in our age of loans, +Replace the stupid pagan's stocks and stones? +With choker white, wherein no cynic eye +Dares see idealized a hempen tie, +At parish-meetings he conducts in prayer, +And pays for missions to be sent elsewhere; +On 'Change respected, to his friends endeared, +Add but a Sunday-school class, he's revered, +And his too early tomb will not be dumb 80 +To point a moral for our youth to come. + + + +IN THE HALF-WAY HOUSE + +I + +At twenty we fancied the blest Middle Ages + A spirited cross of romantic and grand, +All templars and minstrels and ladies and pages, + And love and adventure in Outre-Mer land; +But ah, where the youth dreamed of building a minster, + The man takes a pew and sits reckoning his pelf, +And the Graces wear fronts, the Muse thins to a spinster, + When Middle-Age stares from one's glass at oneself! + + +II + +Do you twit me with days when I had an Ideal, + And saw the sear future through spectacles green? +Then find me some charm, while I look round and see all + These fat friends of forty, shall keep me nineteen; +Should we go on pining for chaplets of laurel + Who've paid a perruquier for mending our thatch, +Or, our feet swathed in baize, with our Fate pick a quarrel, + If, instead of cheap bay-leaves, she sent a dear scratch? + + +III + +We called it our Eden, that small patent-baker, + When life was half moonshine and half Mary Jane; +But the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker!-- + Did Adam have duns and slip down a back-lane? +Nay, after the Fall did the modiste keep coming + With the last styles of fig-leaf to Madam Eve's bower? +Did Jubal, or whoever taught the girls thrumming, + Make the patriarchs deaf at a dollar the hour? + + +IV + +As I think what I was, I sigh _Desunt nonnulla!_ + Years are creditors Sheridan's self could not bilk; +But then, as my boy says, 'What right has a fullah + To ask for the cream, when himself spilt the milk?' +Perhaps when you're older, my lad, you'll discover + The secret with which Auld Lang Syne there is gilt,-- +Superstition of old man, maid, poet, and lover,-- + That cream rises thickest on milk that was spilt! + + +V + +We sailed for the moon, but, in sad disillusion, + Snug under Point Comfort are glad to make fast, +And strive (sans our glasses) to make a confusion + 'Twixt our rind of green cheese and the moon of the past. +Ah, Might-have-been, Could-have-been, Would-have-been! rascals, + He's a genius or fool whom ye cheat at two-score, +And the man whose boy-promise was likened to Pascal's + Is thankful at forty they don't call him bore! + + +VI + +With what fumes of fame was each confident pate full! + How rates of insurance should rise on the Charles! +And which of us now would not feel wisely grateful, + If his rhymes sold as fast as the Emblems of Quarles? +E'en if won, what's the good of Life's medals and prizes? + The rapture's in what never was or is gone; +That we missed them makes Helens of plain Ann Elizys, + For the goose of To-day still is Memory's swan. + + +VII + +And yet who would change the old dream for new treasure? + Make not youth's sourest grapes the best wine of our life? +Need he reckon his date by the Almanac's measure + Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife? +Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian, + Let me still take Hope's frail I.O.U.'s upon trust, +Still talk of a trip to the Islands Macarian, + And still climb the dream-tree for--ashes and dust! + + + +AT THE BURNS CENTENNIAL + +JANUARY, 1859 + +I + +A hundred years! they're quickly fled, + With all their joy and sorrow; +Their dead leaves shed upon the dead, + Their fresh ones sprung by morrow! +And still the patient seasons bring + Their change of sun and shadow; +New birds still sing with every spring, + New violets spot the meadow. + + +II + +A hundred years! and Nature's powers + No greater grown nor lessened! 10 +They saw no flowers more sweet than ours, + No fairer new moon's crescent. +Would she but treat us poets so, + So from our winter free us, +And set our slow old sap aflow + To sprout in fresh ideas! + + +III + +Alas, think I, what worth or parts + Have brought me here competing, +To speak what starts in myriad hearts + With Burns's memory beating! 20 +Himself had loved a theme like this; + Must I be its entomber? +No pen save his but's sure to miss + Its pathos or its humor. + + +IV + +As I sat musing what to say, + And how my verse to number, +Some elf in play passed by that way, + And sank my lids in slumber; +And on my sleep a vision stole. + Which I will put in metre, 30 +Of Burns's soul at the wicket-hole + Where sits the good Saint Peter. + + +V + +The saint, methought, had left his post + That day to Holy Willie, +Who swore, 'Each ghost that comes shall toast + In brunstane, will he, nill he; +There's nane need hope with phrases fine + Their score to wipe a sin frae; +I'll chalk a sign, to save their tryin',-- + A hand ([Illustration of a hand]) and "_Vide infra!_"' 40 + + +VI + +Alas! no soil's too cold or dry + For spiritual small potatoes, +Scrimped natures, spry the trade to ply + Of _diaboli advocatus_; +Who lay bent pins in the penance-stool + Where Mercy plumps a cushion, +Who've just one rule for knave and fool, + It saves so much confusion! + + +VII + +So when Burns knocked, Will knit his brows, + His window gap made scanter, 50 +And said, 'Go rouse the other house; + We lodge no Tam O'Shanter!' +'_We_ lodge!' laughed Burns. 'Now well I see + Death cannot kill old nature; +No human flea but thinks that he + May speak for his Creator! + + +VIII + +'But, Willie, friend, don't turn me forth, + Auld Clootie needs no gauger; +And if on earth I had small worth, + You've let in worse I'se wager!' 60 +'Na, nane has knockit at the yett + But found me hard as whunstane; +There's chances yet your bread to get + Wi Auld Nick, gaugin' brunstane.' + + +IX + +Meanwhile, the Unco' Guid had ta'en + Their place to watch the process, +Flattening in vain on many a pane + Their disembodied noses. +Remember, please, 'tis all a dream; + One can't control the fancies 70 +Through sleep that stream with wayward gleam, + Like midnight's boreal dances. + + +X + +Old Willie's tone grew sharp 's a knife: + '_In primis_, I indite ye, +For makin' strife wi' the water o' life, + And preferrin' _aqua vitæ!_' +Then roared a voice with lusty din, + Like a skipper's when 'tis blowy, +'If _that's_ a sin, _I_'d ne'er got in, + As sure as my name's Noah!' 80 + + +XI + +Baulked, Willie turned another leaf,-- + 'There's many here have heard ye, +To the pain and grief o' true belief, + Say hard things o' the clergy!' +Then rang a clear tone over all,-- + 'One plea for him allow me: +I once heard call from o'er me, "Saul, + Why persecutest thou me?"' + + +XII + +To the next charge vexed Willie turned, + And, sighing, wiped his glasses: 90 +'I'm much concerned to find ye yearned + O'er-warmly tow'rd the lasses!' +Here David sighed; poor Willie's face + Lost all its self-possession: +'I leave this case to God's own grace; + It baffles _my_ discretion!' + + +XIII + +Then sudden glory round me broke, + And low melodious surges +Of wings whose stroke to splendor woke + Creation's farthest verges; 100 +A cross stretched, ladder-like, secure + From earth to heaven's own portal, +Whereby God's poor, with footing sure, + Climbed up to peace immortal. + + +XIV + +I heard a voice serene and low + (With my heart I seemed to hear it,) +Fall soft and slow as snow on snow, + Like grace of the heavenly spirit; +As sweet as over new-born son + The croon of new-made mother, 110 +The voice begun, 'Sore tempted one!' + Then, pausing, sighed, 'Our brother! + + +XV + +'If not a sparrow fall, unless + The Father sees and knows it, +Think! recks He less his form express, + The soul his own deposit? +If only dear to Him the strong, + That never trip nor wander, +Where were the throng whose morning song + Thrills his blue arches yonder? 120 + + +XVI + +'Do souls alone clear-eyed, strong-kneed, + To Him true service render, +And they who need his hand to lead, + Find they his heart untender? +Through all your various ranks and fates + He opens doors to duty, +And he that waits there at your gates + Was servant of his Beauty. + + +XVII + +'The Earth must richer sap secrete, + (Could ye in time but know it!) 130 +Must juice concrete with fiercer heat, + Ere she can make her poet; +Long generations go and come, + At last she bears a singer, +For ages dumb of senses numb + The compensation-bringer! + + +XVIII + +'Her cheaper broods in palaces + She raises under glasses, +But souls like these, heav'n's hostages, + Spring shelterless as grasses: 140 +They share Earth's blessing and her bane, + The common sun and shower; +What makes your pain to them is gain, + Your weakness is their power. + + +XIX + +'These larger hearts must feel the rolls + Of stormier-waved temptation; +These star-wide souls between their poles + Bear zones of tropic passion. +He loved much!--that is gospel good, + Howe'er the text you handle; 150 +From common wood the cross was hewed, + By love turned priceless sandal. + + +XX + +'If scant his service at the kirk, + He _paters_ heard and _aves_ +From choirs that lurk in hedge and birk, + From blackbird and from mavis; +The cowering mouse, poor unroofed thing, + In him found Mercy's angel; +The daisy's ring brought every spring + To him love's fresh evangel! 160 + + +XXI + +'Not he the threatening texts who deals + Is highest 'mong the preachers, +But he who feels the woes and weals + Of all God's wandering creatures. +He doth good work whose heart can find + The spirit 'neath the letter; +Who makes his kind of happier mind, + Leaves wiser men and better. + + +XXII + +'They make Religion be abhorred + Who round with darkness gulf her, 170 +And think no word can please the Lord + Unless it smell of sulphur, +Dear Poet-heart, that childlike guessed + The Father's loving kindness, +Come now to rest! Thou didst his hest, + If haply 'twas in blindness!' + + +XXIII + +Then leapt heaven's portals wide apart, + And at their golden thunder +With sudden start I woke, my heart + Still throbbing-full of wonder. 180 +'Father,' I said, ''tis known to Thee + How Thou thy Saints preparest; +But this I see,--Saint Charity + Is still the first and fairest!' + + +XXIV + +Dear Bard and Brother! let who may + Against thy faults be railing, +(Though far, I pray, from us be they + That never had a failing!) +One toast I'll give, and that not long, + Which thou wouldst pledge if present, 190 +To him whose song, in nature strong, + Makes man of prince and peasant! + + + +IN AN ALBUM + +The misspelt scrawl, upon the wall +By some Pompeian idler traced, +In ashes packed (ironic fact!) +Lies eighteen centuries uneffaced, +While many a page of bard and sage, +Deemed once mankind's immortal gain, +Lost from Time's ark, leaves no more mark +Than a keel's furrow through the main. + +O Chance and Change! our buzz's range +Is scarcely wider than a fly's; +Then let us play at fame to-day, +To-morrow be unknown and wise; +And while the fair beg locks of hair, +And autographs, and Lord knows what, +Quick! let us scratch our moment's match, +Make our brief blaze, and be forgot! + +Too pressed to wait, upon her slate +Fame writes a name or two in doubt; +Scarce written, these no longer please, +And her own finger rubs them out: +It may ensue, fair girl, that you +Years hence this yellowing leaf may see, +And put to task, your memory ask +In vain, 'This Lowell, who was he?' + + + +AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER, 1866 + +IN ACKNOWLEDGING A TOAST TO THE SMITH PROFESSOR + +I rise, Mr. Chairman, as both of us know, +With the impromptu I promised you three weeks ago, +Dragged up to my doom by your might and my mane, +To do what I vowed I'd do never again: +And I feel like your good honest dough when possest +By a stirring, impertinent devil of yeast. +'You must rise,' says the leaven. 'I can't,' says the dough; +'Just examine my bumps, and you'll see it's no go.' +'But you must,' the tormentor insists, ''tis all right; +You must rise when I bid you, and, what's more, be light.' 10 + +'Tis a dreadful oppression, this making men speak +What they're sure to be sorry for all the next week; +Some poor stick requesting, like Aaron's, to bud +Into eloquence, pathos, or wit in cold blood, +As if the dull brain that you vented your spite on +Could be got, like an ox, by mere poking, to Brighton. + +They say it is wholesome to rise with the sun, +And I dare say it may be if not overdone; +(I think it was Thomson who made the remark +'Twas an excellent thing in its way--for a lark;) 20 +But to rise after dinner and look down the meeting +On a distant (as Gray calls it) prospect of Eating, +With a stomach half full and a cerebrum hollow +As the tortoise-shell ere it was strung for Apollo, +Undercontract to raise anerithmon gelasma +With rhymes so hard hunted they gasp with the asthma, +And jokes not much younger than Jethro's phylacteries, +Is something I leave you yourselves to characterize. + +I've a notion, I think, of a good dinner speech, +Tripping light as a sandpiper over the beach, 30 +Swerving this way and that as the wave of the moment +Washes out its slight trace with a dash of whim's foam on 't, +And leaving on memory's rim just a sense +Something graceful had gone by, a live present tense; +Not poetry,--no, not quite that, but as good, +A kind of winged prose that could fly if it would. +'Tis a time for gay fancies as fleeting and vain +As the whisper of foam-beads on fresh-poured champagne, +Since dinners were not perhaps strictly designed +For manoeuvring the heavy dragoons of the mind. 40 +When I hear your set speeches that start with a pop, +Then wander and maunder, too feeble to stop, +With a vague apprehension from popular rumor +There used to be something by mortals called humor, +Beginning again when you thought they were done, +Respectable, sensible, weighing a ton, +And as near to the present occasions of men +As a Fast Day discourse of the year eighteen ten, +I--well, I sit still, and my sentiments smother, +For am I not also a bore and a brother? 50 + +And a toast,--what should that, be? Light, airy, and free, +The foam-Aphrodite of Bacchus's sea, +A fancy-tinged bubble, an orbed rainbow-stain, +That floats for an instant 'twixt goblet and brain; +A breath-born perfection, half something, half naught, +And breaks if it strike the hard edge of a thought. +Do you ask me to make such? Ah no, not so simple; +Ask Apelles to paint you the ravishing dimple +Whose shifting enchantment lights Venus's cheek, +And the artist will tell you his skill is to seek; 60 +Once fix it, 'tis naught, for the charm of it rises +From the sudden bopeeps of its smiling surprises. + +I've tried to define it, but what mother's son +Could ever yet do what he knows should be done? +My rocket has burst, and I watch in the air +Its fast-fading heart's-blood drop back in despair; +Yet one chance is left me, and, if I am quick, +I can palm off, before you suspect me, the stick. + +Now since I've succeeded--I pray do not frown-- +To Ticknor's and Longfellow's classical gown, 70 +And profess four strange languages, which, luckless elf, +I speak like a native (of Cambridge) myself, +Let me beg, Mr. President, leave to propose +A sentiment treading on nobody's toes, +And give, in such ale as with pump-handles _we_ brew, +Their memory who saved us from all talking Hebrew,-- +A toast that to deluge with water is good, +For in Scripture they come in just after the flood: +I give you the men but for whom, as I guess, sir, +Modern languages ne'er could have had a professor, 80 +The builders of Babel, to whose zeal the lungs +Of the children of men owe confusion of tongues; +And a name all-embracing I couple therewith, +Which is that of my founder--the late Mr. Smith. + + + +A PARABLE + +An ass munched thistles, while a nightingale +From passion's fountain flooded all the vale. +'Hee-haw!' cried he, 'I hearken,' as who knew +For such ear-largess humble thanks were due. +'Friend,' said the wingèd pain, 'in vain you bray, +Who tunnels bring, not cisterns, for my lay; +None but his peers the poet rightly hear, +Nor mete we listeners by their length of ear.' + + + + +V. EPIGRAMS + + + +SAYINGS + +1. + +In life's small things be resolute and great +To keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when Fate +Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee, +'I find thee worthy; do this deed for me'? + +2. + +A camel-driver, angry with his drudge, +Beating him, called him hunchback; to the hind +Thus spake a dervish: 'Friend, the Eternal Judge +Dooms not his work, but ours, the crooked mind.' + +3. + +Swiftly the politic goes: is it dark?--he borrows a lantern; +Slowly the statesman and sure, guiding his steps by the stars. + +4. + +'Where lies the capital, pilgrim, seat of who governs the Faithful?' +'Thither my footsteps are bent: it is where Saadi is lodged.' + + + +INSCRIPTIONS + +FOR A BELL AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY + +I call as fly the irrevocable hours, + Futile as air or strong as fate to make +Your lives of sand or granite; awful powers, + Even as men choose, they either give or take. + + + +FOR A MEMORIAL WINDOW TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH, SET UP IN ST. MARGARET'S, +WESTMINSTER, BY AMERICAN CONTRIBUTORS + +The New World's sons, from England's breasts we drew + Such milk as bids remember whence we came; +Proud of her Past, wherefrom our Present grew, + This window we inscribe with Raleigh's name. + + + +PROPOSED FOR A SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT IN BOSTON + +To those who died for her on land and sea, +That she might have a country great and free, +Boston builds this: build ye her monument +In lives like theirs, at duty's summons spent. + + + +A MISCONCEPTION + +B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth, +'Twixt participle and noun no difference feeling, +In office placed to serve the Commonwealth, +Does himself all the good he can by stealing. + + + +THE BOSS + +Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature's hope, +Who sure intended him to stretch a rope. + + + +SUN-WORSHIP + +If I were the rose at your window, +Happiest rose of its crew, +Every blossom I bore would bend inward, +_They'd_ know where the sunshine grew. + + + +CHANGED PERSPECTIVE + +Full oft the pathway to her door +I've measured by the selfsame track, +Yet doubt the distance more and more, +'Tis so much longer coming back! + + + +WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES LOST IN A WAGER + +We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain, +And I should hint sharp practice if I dared; +For was not she beforehand sure to gain +Who made the sunshine we together shared? + + + +SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY + +As life runs on, the road grows strange +With faces new, and near the end +The milestones into headstones change, +'Neath every one a friend. + + + +INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT + +In vain we call old notions fudge, + And bend our conscience to our dealing; +The Ten Commandments will not budge, + And stealing will continue stealing. + + + + +LAST POEMS + + + +HOW I CONSULTED THE ORACLE OF THE GOLDFISHES + +What know we of the world immense +Beyond the narrow ring of sense? +What should we know, who lounge about +The house we dwell in, nor find out, +Masked by a wall, the secret cell +Where the soul's priests in hiding dwell? +The winding stair that steals aloof +To chapel-mysteries 'neath the roof? + +It lies about us, yet as far +From sense sequestered as a star 10 +New launched its wake of fire to trace +In secrecies of unprobed space, +Whose beacon's lightning-pinioned spears +Might earthward haste a thousand years +Nor reach it. So remote seems this +World undiscovered, yet it is +A neighbor near and dumb as death, +So near, we seem to feel the breath +Of its hushed habitants as they +Pass us unchallenged, night and day. 20 + +Never could mortal ear nor eye +By sound or sign suspect them nigh, +Yet why may not some subtler sense +Than those poor two give evidence? +Transfuse the ferment of their being +Into our own, past hearing, seeing, +As men, if once attempered so, +Far off each other's thought can know? +As horses with an instant thrill +Measure their rider's strength of will? 30 +Comes not to all some glimpse that brings +Strange sense of sense-escaping things? +Wraiths some transfigured nerve divines? +Approaches, premonitions, signs, +Voices of Ariel that die out +In the dim No Man's Land of Doubt? + +Are these Night's dusky birds? Are these +Phantasmas of the silences +Outer or inner?--rude heirlooms +From grovellers in the cavern-glooms, 40 +Who in unhuman Nature saw +Misshapen foes with tusk and claw, +And with those night-fears brute and blind +Peopled the chaos of their mind, +Which, in ungovernable hours, +Still make their bestial lair in ours? + +Were they, or were they not? Yes; no; +Uncalled they come, unbid they go, +And leave us fumbling in a doubt +Whether within us or without 50 +The spell of this illusion be +That witches us to hear and see +As in a twi-life what it will, +And hath such wonder-working skill +That what we deemed most solid-wrought +Turns a mere figment of our thought, +Which when we grasp at in despair +Our fingers find vain semblance there, +For Psyche seeks a corner-stone +Firmer than aught to matter known. 60 + +Is it illusion? Dream-stuff? Show +Made of the wish to have it so? +'Twere something, even though this were all: +So the poor prisoner, on his wall +Long gazing, from the chance designs +Of crack, mould, weather-stain, refines +New and new pictures without cease, +Landscape, or saint, or altar-piece: +But these are Fancy's common brood +Hatched in the nest of solitude; 70 +This is Dame Wish's hourly trade, +By our rude sires a goddess made. +Could longing, though its heart broke, give +Trances in which we chiefly live? +Moments that darken all beside, +Tearfully radiant as a bride? +Beckonings of bright escape, of wings +Purchased with loss of baser things? +Blithe truancies from all control +Of Hylë, outings of the soul? 80 + +The worm, by trustful instinct led, +Draws from its womb a slender thread, +And drops, confiding that the breeze +Will waft it to unpastured trees: +So the brain spins itself, and so +Swings boldly off in hope to blow +Across some tree of knowledge, fair +With fruitage new, none else shall share: +Sated with wavering in the Void, +It backward climbs, so best employed, 90 +And, where no proof is nor can be, +Seeks refuge with Analogy; +Truth's soft half-sister, she may tell +Where lurks, seld-sought, the other's well, +With metaphysic midges sore, +My Thought seeks comfort at her door, +And, at her feet a suppliant cast, +Evokes a spectre of the past. +Not such as shook the knees of Saul, +But winsome, golden-gay withal,-- 100 +Two fishes in a globe of glass, +That pass, and waver, and re-pass, +And lighten that way, and then this, +Silent as meditation is. +With a half-humorous smile I see +In this their aimless industry, +These errands nowhere and returns +Grave as a pair of funeral urns, +This ever-seek and never-find, +A mocking image of my mind. 110 +But not for this I bade you climb +Up from the darkening deeps of time: +Help me to tame these wild day-mares +That sudden on me unawares. +Fish, do your duty, as did they +Of the Black Island far away +In life's safe places,--far as you +From all that now I see or do. +You come, embodied flames, as when +I knew you first, nor yet knew men; 120 +Your gold renews my golden days, +Your splendor all my loss repays. +'Tis more than sixty years ago +Since first I watched your to-and-fro; +Two generations come and gone +From silence to oblivion, +With all their noisy strife and stress +Lulled in the grave's forgivingness, +While you unquenchably survive +Immortal, almost more alive. 130 +I watched you then a curious boy, +Who in your beauty found full joy, +And, by no problem-debts distrest, +Sate at life's board a welcome guest. +You were my sister's pets, not mine; +But Property's dividing line +No hint of dispossession drew +On any map my simplesse knew; +O golden age, not yet dethroned! +What made me happy, that I owned; 140 +You were my wonders, you my Lars, +In darkling days my sun and stars, +And over you entranced I hung, +Too young to know that I was young. +Gazing with still unsated bliss, +My fancies took some shape like this: +'I have my world, and so have you, +A tiny universe for two, +A bubble by the artist blown, +Scarcely more fragile than our own, 150 +Where you have all a whale could wish, +Happy as Eden's primal fish. +Manna is dropt you thrice a day +From some kind heaven not far away, +And still you snatch its softening crumbs, +Nor, more than we, think whence it comes. +No toil seems yours but to explore +Your cloistered realm from shore to shore; +Sometimes you trace its limits round, +Sometimes its limpid depths you sound, 160 +Or hover motionless midway, +Like gold-red clouds at set of day; +Erelong you whirl with sudden whim +Off to your globe's most distant rim, +Where, greatened by the watery lens, +Methinks no dragon of the fens +Flashed huger scales against the sky, +Roused by Sir Bevis or Sir Guy, +And the one eye that meets my view, +Lidless and strangely largening, too, 170 +Like that of conscience in the dark, +Seems to make me its single mark. +What a benignant lot is yours +That have an own All-out-of-doors, +No words to spell, no sums to do, +No Nepos and no parlyvoo! +How happy you without a thought +Of such cross things as Must and Ought,-- +I too the happiest of boys +To see and share your golden joys!' 180 + +So thought the child, in simpler words, +Of you his finny flocks and herds; +Now, an old man, I bid you rise +To the fine sight behind the eyes, +And, lo, you float and flash again +In the dark cistern of my brain. +But o'er your visioned flames I brood +With other mien, in other mood; +You are no longer there to please, +But to stir argument, and tease 190 +My thought with all the ghostly shapes +From which no moody man escapes. +Diminished creature, I no more +Find Fairyland beside my door, +But for each moment's pleasure pay +With the _quart d'heure_ of Rabelais! + +I watch you in your crystal sphere, +And wonder if you see and hear +Those shapes and sounds that stir the wide +Conjecture of the world outside; 200 +In your pent lives, as we in ours, +Have you surmises dim of powers, +Of presences obscurely shown, +Of lives a riddle to your own, +Just on the senses' outer verge, +Where sense-nerves into soul-nerves merge, +Where we conspire our own deceit +Confederate in deft Fancy's feat, +And the fooled brain befools the eyes +With pageants woven of its own lies? 210 +But _are_ they lies? Why more than those +Phantoms that startle your repose, +Half seen, half heard, then flit away, +And leave you your prose-bounded day? + +The things ye see as shadows I +Know to be substance; tell me why +My visions, like those haunting you, +May not be as substantial too. +Alas, who ever answer heard +From fish, and dream-fish too? Absurd! 220 +Your consciousness I half divine, +But you are wholly deaf to mine. +Go, I dismiss you; ye have done +All that ye could; our silk is spun: +Dive back into the deep of dreams, +Where what is real is what, seems! +Yet I shall fancy till my grave +Your lives to mine a lesson gave; +If lesson none, an image, then, +Impeaching self-conceit in men 230 +Who put their confidence alone +In what they call the Seen and Known. +How seen? How known? As through your glass +Our wavering apparitions pass +Perplexingly, then subtly wrought +To some quite other thing by thought. +Here shall my resolution be: +The shadow of the mystery +Is haply wholesomer for eyes +That cheat us to be overwise, 240 +And I am happy in my right +To love God's darkness as His light. + + + +TURNER'S OLD TÉMÉRAIRE + +UNDER A FIGURE SYMBOLIZING THE CHURCH + +Thou wast the fairest of all man-made things; +The breath of heaven bore up thy cloudy wings, +And, patient in their triple rank, +The thunders crouched about thy flank, +Their black lips silent with the doom of kings. + +The storm-wind loved to rock him in thy pines, +And swell thy vans with breath of great designs; +Long-wildered pilgrims of the main +By thee relaid their course again, +Whose prow was guided by celestial signs. + +How didst thou trample on tumultuous seas, +Or, like some basking sea-beast stretched at ease, +Let the bull-fronted surges glide +Caressingly along thy side, +Like glad hounds leaping by the huntsman's knees! + +Heroic feet, with fire of genius shod, +In battle's ecstasy thy deck have trod, +While from their touch a fulgor ran +Through plank and spar, from man to man, +Welding thee to a thunderbolt of God. + +Now a black demon, belching fire and steam, +Drags thee away, a pale, dismantled dream, +And all thy desecrated bulk +Must landlocked lie, a helpless hulk, +To gather weeds in the regardless stream. + +Woe's me, from Ocean's sky-horizoned air +To this! Better, the flame-cross still aflare, +Shot-shattered to have met thy doom +Where thy last lightnings cheered the gloom, +Than here be safe in dangerless despair. + +Thy drooping symbol to the flag-staff clings, +Thy rudder soothes the tide to lazy rings, +Thy thunders now but birthdays greet, +Thy planks forget the martyrs' feet, +Thy masts what challenges the sea-wind brings. + +Thou a mere hospital, where human wrecks, +Like winter-flies, crawl, those renowned decks, +Ne'er trodden save by captive foes, +And wonted sternly to impose +God's will and thine on bowed imperial necks! + +Shall nevermore, engendered of thy fame, +A new sea-eagle heir thy conqueror name. +And with commissioned talons wrench +From thy supplanter's grimy clench +His sheath of steel, his wings of smoke and flame? + +This shall the pleased eyes of our children see; +For this the stars of God long even as we; +Earth listens for his wings; the Fates +Expectant lean; Faith cross-propt waits, +And the tired waves of Thought's insurgent sea. + + + +ST. MICHAEL THE WEIGHER + +Stood the tall Archangel weighing +All man's dreaming, doing, saying, +All the failure and the pain, +All the triumph and the gain, +In the unimagined years, +Full of hopes, more full of tears, +Since old Adam's hopeless eyes +Backward searched for Paradise, +And, instead, the flame-blade saw +Of inexorable Law. + +Waking, I beheld him there, +With his fire-gold, flickering hair, +In his blinding armor stand, +And the scales were in his hand: +Mighty were they, and full well +They could poise both heaven and hell. +'Angel,' asked I humbly then, +'Weighest thou the souls of men? +That thine office is, I know.' +'Nay,' he answered me, 'not so; +But I weigh the hope of Man +Since the power of choice began, +In the world, of good or ill.' +Then I waited and was still. + +In one scale I saw him place +All the glories of our race, +Cups that lit Belsbazzar's feast, +Gems, the lightning of the East, +Kublai's sceptre, Cæsar's sword, +Many a poet's golden word, +Many a skill of science, vain +To make men as gods again. + +In the other scale he threw +Things regardless, outcast, few, +Martyr-ash, arena sand, +Of St Francis' cord a strand, +Beechen cups of men whose need +Fasted that the poor might feed, +Disillusions and despairs +Of young saints with, grief-grayed hairs, +Broken hearts that brake for Man. + +Marvel through my pulses ran +Seeing then the beam divine +Swiftly on this hand decline, +While Earth's splendor and renown +Mounted light as thistle-down. + + + +A VALENTINE + +Let others wonder what fair face + Upon their path shall shine, +And, fancying half, half hoping, trace + Some maiden shape of tenderest grace + To be their Valentine. + +Let other hearts with tremor sweet + One secret wish enshrine +That Fate may lead their happy feet + Fair Julia in the lane to meet + To be their Valentine. + +But I, far happier, am secure; + I know the eyes benign, +The face more beautiful and pure + Than fancy's fairest portraiture + That mark my Valentine. + +More than when first I singled, thee, + This only prayer is mine,-- +That, in the years I yet shall see. + As, darling, in the past, thou'll be + My happy Valentine. + + + +AN APRIL BIRTHDAY--AT SEA + +On this wild waste, where never blossom came, + Save the white wind-flower to the billow's cap, +Or those pale disks of momentary flame, + Loose petals dropped from Dian's careless lap, + What far fetched influence all my fancy fills, + With singing birds and dancing daffodils? + +Why, 'tis her day whom jocund April brought, + And who brings April with her in her eyes; +It is her vision lights my lonely thought, + Even as a rose that opes its hushed surprise + In sick men's chambers, with its glowing breath + Plants Summer at the glacier edge of Death. + +Gray sky, sea gray as mossy stones on graves;-- + Anon comes April in her jollity; +And dancing down the bleak vales 'tween the waves, + Makes them green glades for all her flowers and me. + The gulls turn thrushes, charmed are sea and sky + By magic of my thought, and know not why. + +Ah, but I know, for never April's shine, + Nor passion gust of rain, nor all her flowers +Scattered in haste, were seen so sudden fine + As she in various mood, on whom the powers + Of happiest stars in fair conjunction smiled + To bless the birth, of April's darling child. + + + +LOVE AND THOUGHT + +What hath Love with Thought to do? +Still at variance are the two. +Love is sudden, Love is rash, +Love is like the levin flash, +Comes as swift, as swiftly goes, +And his mark as surely knows. + +Thought is lumpish, Thought is slow, +Weighing long 'tween yes and no; +When dear Love is dead and gone, +Thought comes creeping in anon, +And, in his deserted nest, +Sits to hold the crowner's quest. + +Since we love, what need to think? +Happiness stands on a brink +Whence too easy 'tis to fall +Whither's no return at all; +Have a care, half-hearted lover, +Thought would only push her over! + + + +THE NOBLER LOVER + +If he be a nobler lover, take him! + You in you I seek, and not myself; +Love with men's what women choose to make him, + Seraph strong to soar, or fawn-eyed elf: +All I am or can, your beauty gave it, + Lifting me a moment nigh to you, +And my bit of heaven, I fain would save it-- + Mine I thought it was, I never knew. + +What you take of me is yours to serve you, + All I give, you gave to me before; +Let him win you! If I but deserve you, + I keep all you grant to him and more: +You shall make me dare what others dare not, + You shall keep my nature pure as snow, +And a light from you that others share not + Shall transfigure me where'er I go. + +Let me be your thrall! However lowly + Be the bondsman's service I can do, +Loyalty shall make it high and holy; + Naught can be unworthy, done for you. +Men shall say, 'A lover of this fashion + Such an icy mistress well beseems.' +Women say, 'Could we deserve such passion, + We might be the marvel that he dreams.' + + + +ON HEARING A SONATA OF BEETHOVEN'S PLAYED IN THE NEXT ROOM + +Unseen Musician, thou art sure to please, + For those same notes in happier days I heard +Poured by dear hands that long have never stirred + Yet now again for me delight the keys: +Ah me, to strong illusions such as these + What are Life's solid things? The walls that gird +Our senses, lo, a casual scent or word + Levels, and it is the soul that hears and sees! +Play on, dear girl, and many be the years + Ere some grayhaired survivor sit like me +And, for thy largess pay a meed of tears + Unto another who, beyond the sea +Of Time and Change, perhaps not sadly hears + A music in this verse undreamed by thee! + + + +VERSES + +INTENDED TO GO WITH A POSSET DISH TO MY DEAR LITTLE GODDAUGHTER, 1882 + +In good old times, which means, you know, +The time men wasted long ago, +And we must blame our brains or mood +If that we squander seems less good, +In those blest days when wish was act +And fancy dreamed itself to fact, +Godfathers used to fill with guineas +The cups they gave their pickaninnies, +Performing functions at the chrism +Not mentioned in the Catechism. +No millioner, poor I fill up +With wishes my more modest cup, +Though had I Amalthea's horn +It should be hers the newly born. +Nay, shudder not! I should bestow it +So brimming full she couldn't blow it. +Wishes aren't horses: true, but still +There are worse roadsters than goodwill. +And so I wish my darling health, +And just to round my couplet, wealth, +With faith enough to bridge the chasm +'Twixt Genesis and Protoplasm, +And bear her o'er life's current vext +From this world to a better next, +Where the full glow of God puts out +Poor reason's farthing candle, Doubt. +I've wished her healthy, wealthy, wise, +What more can godfather devise? +But since there's room for countless wishes +In these old-fashioned posset dishes, +I'll wish her from my plenteous store +Of those commodities two more, +Her father's wit, veined through and through +With tenderness that Watts (but whew! +Celia's aflame, I mean no stricture +On his Sir Josh-surpassing picture)-- +I wish her next, and 'tis the soul +Of all I've dropt into the bowl, +Her mother's beauty--nay, but two +So fair at once would never do. +Then let her but the half possess, +Troy was besieged ten years for less. +Now if there's any truth in Darwin, +And we from what was, all we are win, +I simply wish the child to be +A sample of Heredity, +Enjoying to the full extent +Life's best, the Unearned Increment +Which Fate her Godfather to flout +Gave _him_ in legacies of gout. +Thus, then, the cup is duly filled; +Walk steady, dear, lest all be spilled. + + + +ON A BUST OF GENERAL GRANT + +Strong, simple, silent are the [steadfast] laws +That sway this universe, of none withstood, +Unconscious of man's outcries or applause, +Or what man deems his evil or his good; +And when the Fates ally them with a cause +That wallows in the sea-trough and seems lost, +Drifting in danger of the reefs and sands +Of shallow counsels, this way, that way, tost, +Strength, silence, simpleness, of these three strands +They twist the cable shall the world hold fast +To where its anchors clutch the bed-rock of the Past. + +Strong, simple, silent, therefore such was he +Who helped us in our need; the eternal law +That who can saddle Opportunity +Is God's elect, though many a mortal flaw +May minish him in eyes that closely see, +Was verified in him: what need we say +Of one who made success where others failed, +Who, with no light save that of common day, +Struck hard, and still struck on till Fortune quailed, +But that (so sift the Norns) a desperate van +Ne'er fell at last to one who was not wholly man. + +A face all prose where Time's [benignant] haze +Softens no raw edge yet, nor makes all fair +With the beguiling light of vanished days; +This is relentless granite, bleak and bare, +Roughhewn, and scornful of æsthetic phrase; +Nothing is here for fancy, naught for dreams, +The Present's hard uncompromising light +Accents all vulgar outlines, flaws, and seams, +Yet vindicates some pristine natural right +O'ertopping that hereditary grace +Which marks the gain or loss of some time-fondled race. + +So Marius looked, methinks, and Cromwell so, +Not in the purple born, to those they led +Nearer for that and costlier to the foe, +New moulders of old forms, by nature bred +The exhaustless life of manhood's seeds to show, +Let but the ploughshare of portentous times +Strike deep enough to reach them where they lie; +Despair and danger are their fostering climes, +And their best sun bursts from a stormy sky: +He was our man of men, nor would abate +The utmost due manhood could claim of fate. + +Nothing Ideal, a plain-people's man +At the first glance, a more deliberate ken +Finds type primeval, theirs in whose veins ran +Such blood as quelled the dragon In his den, +Made harmless fields, and better worlds began: +He came grim-silent, saw and did the deed +That was to do; in his master-grip +Our sword flashed joy; no skill of words could breed +Such sure conviction as that close-clamped lip; +He slew our dragon, nor, so seemed it, knew +He had done more than any simplest man might do. +Yet did this man, war-tempered, stern as steel +Where steel opposed, prove soft in civil sway; +The hand hilt-hardened had lost tact to feel +The world's base coin, and glozing knaves made prey +Of him and of the entrusted Commonweal; +So Truth insists and will not be denied. +We turn our eyes away, and so will Fame, +As if in his last battle he had died +Victor for us and spotless of all blame, +Doer of hopeless tasks which praters shirk, +One of those still plain men that do the world's rough work. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +I. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND SERIES OF BIGLOW PAPERS + +[Lowell took occasion, when collecting in a book the several numbers of +the second series of 'Biglow Papers,' which had appeared In the +'Atlantic Monthly,' to prefix an essay which not only gave a personal +narrative of the origin of the whole scheme, but particularly dwelt upon +the use in literature of the homely dialect in which the poems were +couched. In this Cabinet Edition it has seemed expedient to print the +Introduction here rather than in immediate connection with the poems +themselves.] + +Though prefaces seem of late to have fallen under some reproach, they +have at least this advantage, that they set us again on the feet of our +personal consciousness and rescue us from the gregarious mock-modesty or +cowardice of that _we_ which shrills feebly throughout modern literature +like the shrieking of mice in the walls of a house that has passed its +prime. Having a few words to say to the many friends whom the 'Biglow +Papers' have won me, I shall accordingly take the freedom of the first +person singular of the personal pronoun. Let each of the good-natured +unknown who have cheered me by the written communication of their +sympathy look upon this Introduction as a private letter to himself. + +When, more than twenty years ago, I wrote the first of the series, I had +no definite plan and no intention of ever writing another. Thinking the +Mexican war, as I think it still, a national crime committed in behoof +of Slavery, our common sin, and wishing to put the feeling of those who +thought as I did in a way that would tell, I imagined to myself such an +up-country man as I had often seen at antislavery gatherings capable of +district-school English, but always instinctively falling back into the +natural stronghold of his homely dialect when heated to the point of +self-forgetfulness. When I began to carry out my conception and to write +in my assumed character, I found myself in a strait between two perils. +On the one hand, I was in danger of being carried beyond the limit of my +own opinions, or at least of that temper with which every man should +speak his mind in print, and on the other I feared the risk of seeming +to vulgarize a deep and sacred conviction. I needed on occasion to rise +above the level of mere _patois_, and for this purpose conceived the +Rev. Mr. Wilbur, who should express the more cautious element of the New +England character and its pedantry, as Mr. Biglow should serve for its +homely common-sense vivified and heated by conscience. The parson was to +be the complement rather than the antithesis of his parishioner, and I +felt or fancied a certain humorous element in the real identity of the +two under a seeming incongruity. Mr. Wilbur's fondness for scraps of +Latin, though drawn from the life, I adopted deliberately to heighten +the contrast. Finding soon after that I needed some one as a mouth-piece +of the mere drollery, for I conceive that true humor is never divorced +from moral conviction, I invented Mr. Sawin for the clown of my little +puppet-show. I meant to embody in him that half-conscious _un_morality +which I had noticed as the recoil in gross natures from a puritanism +that still strove to keep in its creed the intense savor which had long +gone out of its faith and life. In the three I thought I should find +room enough to express, as it was my plan to do, the popular feeling and +opinion of the time. For the names of two of my characters, since I have +received some remonstrances from very worthy persons who happen to bear +them, I would say that they were purely fortuitous, probably mere +unconscious memories of sign-boards or directories. Mr. Sawin's sprang +from the accident of a rhyme at the end of his first epistle, and I +purposely christened him by the impossible surname of Birdofredum not +more to stigmatize him as the incarnation of 'Manifest Destiny,' in +other words, of national recklessness as to right and wrong, than to +avoid the chance of wounding any private sensitiveness. + +The success of my experiment soon began not only to astonish me, but to +make me feel the responsibility of knowing that I held in my hand a +weapon instead of the mere fencing-stick I had supposed. Very far from +being a popular author under my own name, so far, indeed, as to be +almost unread, I found the verses of my pseudonym copied everywhere; saw +them pinned up in workshops; I heard them quoted and their authorship +debated; I once even, when rumor had at length caught up my name in one +of its eddies, had the satisfaction of overhearing it demonstrated, in +the pauses of a concert, that _I_ was utterly incompetent to have +written anything of the kind. I had read too much not to know the utter +worthlessness of contemporary reputation, especially as regards satire, +but I knew also that by giving a certain amount of influence it also had +its worth, if that influence were used on the right side. I had learned, +too, that the first requisite of good writing is to have an earnest and +definite purpose, whether æsthetic or moral, and that even good +writing, to please long, must have more than an average amount either of +imagination or common-sense. The first of these falls to the lot of +scarcely one in several generations; the last is within the reach of +many in every one that passes; and of this an author may fairly hope to +become in part the mouthpiece. If I put on the cap and bells and made +myself one of the court-fools of King Demos, it was less to make his +majesty laugh than to win a passage to his royal ears for certain +serious things which I had deeply at heart. I say this because there is +no imputation that could be more galling to any man's self-respect than +that of being a mere jester. I endeavored, by generalising my satire, to +give it what value _I_ could beyond the passing moment and the immediate +application. How far I have succeeded I cannot tell, but I have had +better luck than I ever looked for in seeing my verses survive to pass +beyond their nonage. + +In choosing the Yankee dialect, I did not act without forethought. It +had long seemed to me that the great vice of American writing and +speaking was a studied want of simplicity, that we were in danger of +coming to look on our mother-tongue as a dead language, to be sought in +the grammar and dictionary rather than in the heart, and that our only +chance of escape was by seeking it at its living sources among those who +were, as Scottowe says of Major-General Gibbons, 'divinely illiterate.' +President Lincoln, the only really great public man whom these latter +days have seen, was great also in this, that he was master--witness his +speech at Gettysburg--of a truly masculine English, classic, because it +was of no special period, and level at once to the highest and lowest of +his countrymen. I learn from the highest authority that his favorite +reading was in Shakespeare and Milton, to which, of course, the Bible +should be added. But whoever should read the debates in Congress might +fancy himself present at a meeting of the city council of some city of +Southern Gaul in the decline of the Empire, where barbarians with a +Latin varnish emulated each other in being more than Ciceronian. Whether +it be want of culture, for the highest outcome of that is simplicity, or +for whatever reason, it is certain that very few American writers or +speakers wield their native language with the directness, precision, and +force that are common as the day in the mother country. We use it like +Scotsmen, not as if it belonged to us, but as if we wished to prove that +we belonged to it, by showing our intimacy with its written rather than +with its spoken dialect. And yet all the while our popular idiom is racy +with life and vigor and originality, bucksome (as Milton used the word) +to our new occasions, and proves itself no mere graft by sending up new +suckers from the old root in spite of us. It is only from its roots in +the living generations of men that a language can be reinforced with +fresh vigor for its needs; what may be called a literate dialect grows +ever more and more pedantic and foreign, till it becomes at last as +unfitting a vehicle for living thought as monkish Latin. That we should +all be made to talk like books is the danger with which we are +threatened by the Universal Schoolmaster, who does his best to enslave +the minds and memories of his victims to what he esteems the best models +of English composition, that is to say, to the writers whose style is +faultily correct and has no blood-warmth in it. No language after it has +faded into _diction_, none that cannot suck up the feeding juices +secreted for it in the rich mother-earth of common folk, can bring forth +a sound and lusty book. True vigor and heartiness of phrase do not pass +from page to page, but from man to man, where the brain is kindled and +the lips suppled by downright living interests and by passion in its +very throe. Language is the soil of thought, and our own especially is a +rich leaf-mould, the slow deposit of ages, the shed foliage of feeling, +fancy, and imagination, which has suffered an earth-change, that the +vocal forest, as Howell called it, may clothe itself anew with living +green. There is death in the dictionary; and, where language is too +strictly limited by convention, the ground for expression to grow in is +limited also; and we get a _potted_ literature, Chinese dwarfs +instead of healthy trees. + +But while the schoolmaster has been busy starching our language and +smoothing it flat with the mangle of a supposed classical authority, the +newspaper reporter has been doing even more harm by stretching and +swelling it to suit his occasions. A dozen years ago I began a list, +which I have added to from time to time, of some of the changes which +may be fairly laid at his door. I give a few of them as showing their +tendency, all the more dangerous that their effect, like that of some +poisons, is insensibly cumulative, and that they are sure at last of +effect among a people whose chief reading is the daily paper. I give in +two columns the old style and its modern equivalent. + +_Old Style._ _New Style._ + +Was hanged. Was launched into + eternity. + +When the halter When the fatal +was put round noose was adjusted +his neck. about the + neck of the unfortunate + victim + of his own unbridled + passions. + +A great crowd A vast concourse +came to see. was assembled to + witness. + +Great fire. Disastrous conflagration. + +The fire spread. The conflagration + extended its devastating + career. + +House burned. Edifice consumed. + +The fire was got The progress of +under. the devouring + element was arrested. + +Man fell. Individual was + precipitated. + +A horse and wagon A valuable horse +ran against. attached to a vehicle driven by + J.S., in the employment of J.B., + collided with. + +The frightened The infuriated animal. +horse. + +Sent for the doctor. Called into requisition + the services of the family + physician. + +The mayor of the The chief magistrate +city in a short of the metropolis, in well- +speech welcomed. chosen and eloquent + language, frequently + interrupted by the + plaudits of the + surging multitude, + officially tendered the + hospitalities. + +I shall say a few I shall, with your +words. permission, beg + leave to offer + some brief observations. + +Began his answer. Commenced his rejoinder. + +Asked him to dine. Tendered him a banquet. + +A bystander advised. One of those omnipresent + characters who, as if + in pursuance of some + previous arrangement, + are certain to be + encountered in the + vicinity when an accident + occurs, ventured + the suggestion. + +He died. He deceased, he passed + out of existence, his + spirit quitted its + earthly habitation, + winged its way to + eternity, shook off + its burden, etc. + +In one sense this is nothing new. The school of Pope in verse ended by +wire-drawing its phrase to such thinness that it could bear no weight of +meaning whatever. Nor is fine writing by any means confined to America. +All writers without imagination fall into it of necessity whenever they +attempt the figurative. I take two examples from Mr. Merivale's 'History +of the Romans under the Empire,' which, indeed, is full of such. 'The +last years of the age familiarly styled the Augustan were singularly +barren of the literary glories from which its celebrity was chiefly +derived. One by one the stars in its firmament had been lost to the +world; Virgil and Horace, etc., had long since died; the charm which the +imagination of Livy had thrown over the earlier annals of Rome had +ceased to shine on the details of almost contemporary history; and if +the flood of his eloquence still continued flowing, we can hardly +suppose that the stream was as rapid, as fresh, and as clear as ever.' I +will not waste time in criticising the bad English or the mixture of +metaphor in these sentences, but will simply cite another from the same +author which is even worse. 'The shadowy phantom of the Republic +continued to flit before the eyes of the Cæsar. There was still, he +apprehended, a germ of sentiment existing, on which a scion of his own +house, or even a stranger, might boldly throw himself and raise the +standard of patrician independence.' Now a ghost may haunt a murderer, +but hardly, I should think, to scare him with the threat of taking a new +lease of its old tenement. And fancy the _scion_ of a _house_ in the act +of _throwing itself_ upon a _germ of sentiment_ to _raise a standard!_ I +am glad, since we have so much in the same kind to answer for, that this +bit of horticultural rhetoric is from beyond sea. I would not be +supposed to condemn truly imaginative prose. There is a simplicity of +splendor, no less than of plainness, and prose would be poor indeed if +it could not find a tongue for that meaning of the mind which is behind +the meaning of the words. It has sometimes seemed to me that in England +there was a growing tendency to curtail language into a mere +convenience, and to defecate it of all emotion as thoroughly as +algebraic signs. This has arisen, no doubt, in part from that healthy +national contempt of humbug which is characteristic of Englishmen, in +part from that sensitiveness to the ludicrous which makes them so shy of +expressing feeling, but in part also, it is to be feared, from a growing +distrust, one might almost say hatred, of whatever is super-material. +There is something sad in the scorn with which their journalists treat +the notion of there being such a thing as a national ideal, seeming +utterly to have forgotten that even in the affairs of this world the +imagination is as much matter-of-fact as the understanding. If we were +to trust the impression made on us by some of the cleverest and most +characteristic of their periodical literature, we should think England +hopelessly stranded on the good-humored cynicism of well-to-do +middle-age, and should fancy it an enchanted nation, doomed to sit +forever with its feet under the mahogany in that after-dinner mood which +follows conscientious repletion, and which it is ill-manners to disturb +with any topics more exciting than the quality of the wines. But there +are already symptoms that a large class of Englishmen are getting weary +of the dominion of consols and divine common-sense, and to believe that +eternal three per cent. is not the chief end of man, nor the highest and +only kind of interest to which the powers and opportunities of England +are entitled. + +The quality of exaggeration has often been remarked on as typical of +American character, and especially o£ American humor. In Dr. Petri's +_Gedrängtes Handbuch der Fremdwörter_, we are told that the word +_humbug_ is commonly used for the exaggerations of the North-Americans. +To be sure, one would be tempted to think the dream of Columbus half +fulfilled, and that Europe had found in the West a nearer way to +Orientalism, at least in diction. But it seems to me that a great deal +of what is set down as mere extravagance is more fitly to be called +intensity and picturesqueness, symptoms ol the imaginative faculty in +full health and strength, though producing, as yet, only the raw and +formless material in which poetry is to work. By and by, perhaps, the +world will see it fashioned into poem and picture, and Europe, which +will be hard pushed for originality erelong, may have to thank us for a +new sensation. The French continue to find Shakespeare exaggerated +because he treated English just as our country-folk do when they speak +of a 'steep price,' or say that they 'freeze to' a thing. The first +postulate of an original literature is that a people should use their +language instinctively and unconsciously, as if it were a lively part of +their growth and personality, not as the mere torpid boon of education +or inheritance. Even Burns contrived to write very poor verse and prose +in English. Vulgarisms are often only poetry in the egg. The late Mr. +Horace Mann, in one of his public addresses, commented at some length on +the beauty and moral significance ol the French phrase _s'orienter_ and +called on his young friends to practise upon it in life. There was not a +Yankee in his audience whose problem had not always been to find out +what was _about east_, and to shape his course accordingly. This charm +which a familiar expression gains by being commented, as it were, and. +set in a new light by a foreign language, is curious and instructive. I +cannot help thinking that Mr. Matthew Arnold forgets this a little too +much sometimes when he writes of the beauties of French style. It would +not be hard to find in the works of French Academicians phrases as +coarse as those he cites from Burke, only they are veiled by the +unfamiliarity of the language. But, however this may be, it is certain +that poets and peasants please us in the same way by translating words +back again to their primal freshness, and infusing them with a +delightful strangeness which is anything but alienation. What, for +example, is Milton's '_edge_ of battle' but a doing into English of the +Latin _acies? Was die Gans gedacht das der Schwan vollbracht_, what the +goose but thought, that the swan full brought (or, to de-Saxonize it a +little, what the goose conceived, that the swan achieved), and it may +well be that the life, invention, and vigor shown by our popular speech, +and the freedom with which it is shaped to the instant want of those who +use it, are of the best omen for our having a swan at last. The part I +have taken on myself is that of the humbler bird. + +But it is affirmed that there is something innately vulgar in the Yankee +dialect. M. Sainte-Beuve says, with his usual neatness: '_Je définis un +patois une ancienne langue qui a eu des malheurs, ou encore une langue +toute jeune st qui n'a pas fait fortune._' The first part of his +definition applies to a dialect like the Provençal, the last to the +Tuscan before Dante had lifted it into a classic, and neither, it seems +to me, will quite fit a _patois/_, which is not properly a dialect, but +rather certain archaisms, proverbial phrases, and modes of +pronunciation, which maintain themselves among the uneducated side by +side with the finished and universally accepted language. Norman French, +for example, or Scotch down to the time of James VI., could hardly be +called _patois_, while I should be half inclined to name the Yankee a +_lingo_ rather than a dialect. It has retained a few words now fallen +into disuse in the mother country, like to _tarry_, to _progress_, +_fleshy_, _fall_, and some others; it has changed the meaning of some, +as in _freshet_; and it has clung to what I suspect to have been the +broad Norman pronunciation of _e_ (which Molière puts into the mouth of +his rustics) in such words as _sarvant_, _parfect_, _vartoo_, and the +like. It maintains something of the French sound of _a_ also in words +like _chămber_, _dănger_ (though the latter had certainly begun to +take its present sound so early as 1636, when I find it sometimes spelt +_dainger_). But in general it may be said that nothing can be found in +it which does not still survive in some one or other of the English +provincial dialects. There is, perhaps, a single exception in the verb +to _sleeve_. To _sleeve_ silk means to divide or ravel out a thread of +silk with the point of a needle till it becomes _floss_. (A.S. _sléfan_, +to _cleave_=divide.) This, I think, explains the '_sleeveless_ errand' +in 'Troilus and Cressida' so inadequately, sometimes so ludicrously +darkened by the commentators. Is not a 'sleeveless errand' one that +cannot be unravelled, incomprehensible, and therefore bootless? + +I am not speaking now of Americanisms properly so called, that is, of +words or phrases which have grown into use here either through +necessity, invention, or accident, such as a _carry_, a _one-horse +affair_, a _prairie_, to _vamose_. Even these are fewer than is +sometimes taken for granted. But I think some fair defence may be made +against the charge of vulgarity. Properly speaking, vulgarity is in the +thought, and not in the word or the way of pronouncing it. Modern +French, the most polite of languages, is barbarously vulgar if compared +with the Latin out of which it has been corrupted, or even with Italian. +There is a wider gap, and one implying greater boorishness, between +_ministerium_ and _métier_, or _sapiens_ and _sachant_, than between +_druv_ and _drove_ or _agin_ and _against_, which last is plainly an +arrant superlative. Our rustic _coverlid_ is nearer its French original +than the diminutive cover_let_, into which it has been ignorantly +corrupted in politer speech. I obtained from three cultivated Englishmen +at different times three diverse pronunciations of a single +word,--_cowcumber_, _coocumber_, and _cucumber_. Of these the first, +which is Yankee also, comes nearest to the nasality of _concombre_. Lord +Ossory assures us that Voltaire saw the best society in England, and +Voltaire tells his countrymen that _handkerchief_ was pronounced +_hankercher_. I find it so spelt in Hakluyt and elsewhere. This enormity +the Yankee still persists in, and as there is always a reason for such +deviations from the sound as represented by the spelling, may we not +suspect two sources of derivation, and find an ancestor for _kercher_ +in _couverture_ rather than in _couvrechef_? And what greater phonetic +vagary (which Dryden, by the way, called _fegary_) in our _lingua +rustica_ than this _ker_ for _couvre_? I copy from the fly-leaves of my +books, where I have noted them from time to time, a few examples of +pronunciation and phrase which will show that the Yankee often has +antiquity and very respectable literary authority on his side. My list +might be largely increased by referring to glossaries, but to them every +one can go for himself, and I have gathered enough for my purpose. + +I will take first those cases in which something like the French sound +has been preserved in certain single letters and diphthongs. And this +opens a curious question as to how long this Gallicism maintained itself +in England. Sometimes a divergence in pronunciation has given as two +words with different meanings, as in _genteel_ and _jaunty_, which I +find coming in toward the close of the seventeenth century, and wavering +between _genteel_ and _jantee_. It is usual in America to drop the _u_ +in words ending in _our_--a very proper change recommended by Howell two +centuries ago, and carried out by him so far as his printers would +allow. This and the corresponding changes in _musique_, _musick_, and +the like, which he also advocated, show that in his time the French +accent indicated by the superfluous letters (for French had once nearly +as strong an accent as Italian) had gone out of use. There is plenty of +French accent down to the end of Elizabeth's reign. In Daniel we have +_riches'_ and _counsel'_, in Bishop Hall _comet'_, _chapëlain_, in Donne +_pictures'_, _virtue'_, _presence'_, _mortal'_, _merit'_, _hainous'_, +_giant'_, with many more, and Marston's satires are full of them. The +two latter, however, are not to be relied on, as they may be suspected +of Chaucerizing. Herrick writes _baptime_. The tendency to throw the +accent backward began early. But the incongruities are perplexing, and +perhaps mark the period of transition. In Warner's 'Albion's England' we +have _creator'_ and _crëature'_ side by side with the modern _creator_ +and _creature_. _E'nvy_ and _e'nvying_ occur in Campion (1602), and yet +_envy'_ survived Milton. In some cases we have gone back again nearer to +the French, as in _rev'enue_ for _reven'ue_, I had been so used to +hearing _imbecile_ pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, +which is in accordance with the general tendency in such matters, that I +was surprised to find _imbec'ile_ in a verse of Wordsworth. The +dictionaries all give it so. I asked a highly cultivated Englishman, and +he declared for _imbeceel'_. In general it may be assumed that accent +will finally settle on the syllable dictated by greater ease and +therefore quickness of utterance. _Blas'-phemous_, for example, is more +rapidly pronounced than _blasphem'ous_, to which our Yankee clings, +following in this the usage of many of the older poets. _Amer'ican_ is +easier than _Ameri'can_, and therefore the false quantity has carried +the day, though the true one may be found in George Herbert, and even so +late as Cowley. + +To come back to the matter in hand. Our 'uplandish man' retains the soft +or thin sound of the _u_ in some words, such as _rule_, _truth_ +(sometimes also pronounced _trŭth_, not _trooth_), while he says +_noo_ for _new_, and gives to _view_ and _few_ so indescribable a +mixture of the two sounds with a slight nasal tincture that it may be +called the Yankee shibboleth. Voltaire says that the English pronounce +_true_ as if it rhymed with _view_, and this is the sound our rustics +give to it. Spenser writes _deow_ (_dew_) which can only be pronounced +with the Yankee nasality. In _rule_ the least sound of _a_ precedes the +_u_. I find _reule_ in Pecock's 'Repressor.' He probably pronounced it +_rayoolë_, as the old French word from which it is derived was very +likely to be sounded at first, with a reminiscence of its original +_regula_. Tindal has _reuler_, and the Coventry Plays have _preudent_. +In the 'Parlyament of Byrdes' I find _reule_. As for _noo_, may it not +claim some sanction in its derivation, whether from _nouveau_ or _neuf_, +the ancient sound of which may very well have been _noof_, as nearer +_novus_? _Beef_ would seem more like to have come from _buffe_ than from +_boeuf_, unless the two were mere varieties of spelling. The Saxon _few_ +may have caught enough from its French cousin _peu_ to claim the benefit +of the same doubt as to sound; and our slang phrase _a few_ (as 'I +licked him a few') may well appeal to _un peu_ for sense and authority. +Nay, might not _lick_ itself turn out to be the good old word _lam_ in +an English disguise, it the latter should claim descent as, perhaps, he +fairly might, from the Latin _lambere_? The New England _ferce_ for +_fierce_, and _perce_ for _pierce_ (sometimes heard as _fairce_ and +_pairce_), are also Norman. For its antiquity I cite the rhyme of _verse +and pierce_ in Chapman and Donne, and in some commendatory verses by a +Mr. Berkenhead before the poems of Francis Beaumont. Our _pairlous_ for +_perilous_ is of the same kind, and is nearer Shakespeare's _parlous_ +than the modern pronunciation. One other Gallicism survives in our +pronunciation. Perhaps I should rather call it a semi-Gallicism, for it +is the result of a futile effort to reproduce a French sound with +English lips. Thus for _joint_, _employ_, _royal_, we have _jynt_, +_emply_, _r[)y]le_, the last differing only from _rile_ (_roil_) in a +prolongation of the _y_ sound. I find _royal_ so pronounced in the +'Mirror for Magistrates.' In Walter de Biblesworth I find _solives_ +Englished by _gistes_. This, it is true, may have been pronounced +_jeests_, but the pronunciation _jystes_ must have preceded the present +spelling, which was no doubt adopted after the radical meaning was +forgotten, as analogical with other words in _oi_. In the same way after +Norman-French influence had softened the _l_ out of _would_ (we already +find _woud_ for _veut_ in N.F. poems), _should_ followed the example, +and then an _l_ was foisted into _could_, where it does not belong, to +satisfy the logic of the eye, which has affected the pronunciation and +even the spelling of English more than is commonly supposed. I meet with +_eyster_ for _oyster_ as early as the fourteenth century. I find _viage_ +in Bishop Hall and Middleton the dramatist, _bile_ for _boil_ in Donne +and Chrononhotonthologos, _line_ for _loin_ in Hall, _ryall_ and _chyse_ +(for choice) _dystrye_ for _destroy_, in the Coventry Plays. In +Chapman's 'All Fools' is the misprint of _employ_ for _imply_, fairly +inferring an identity of sound in the last syllable. Indeed, this +pronunciation was habitual till after Pope, and Rogers tells us that the +elegant Gray said _naise_ for _noise_ just as our rustics still do. Our +_cornish_ (which I find also in Herrick) remembers the French better +than _cornice_ does. While clinging more closely to the Anglo-Saxon in +dropping the _g_ from the end of the present participle, the Yankee now +and then pleases himself with an experiment in French nasality in words +ending in _n_. It is not, so far as my experience goes, very common, +though it may formerly have been more so. _Capting_, for instance, I +never heard save in jest, the habitual form being _kepp'n_. But at any +rate it is no invention of ours. In that delightful old volume, 'Ane +Compendious Buke of Godly and Spirituall Songs,' in which I know not +whether the piety itself or the simplicity of its expression be more +charming, I find _burding_, _garding_, and _cousing_, and in the State +Trials _uncerting_ used by a gentleman. I confess that I like the _n_ +better than _ng_. + +Of Yankee preterites I find _risse_ and _rize_ for _rose_ in Beaumont +and Fletcher, Middleton and Dryden, _clim_ in Spenser, _chees_ (_chose_) +in Sir John Mandevil, _give_ (_gave_) in the Coventry Plays, _shet_ +(_shut_) in Golding's Ovid, _het_ in Chapman and in Weever's Epitaphs, +_thriv_ and _smit_ in Drayton, _quit_ in Ben Jonson and Henry More, and +_pled_ in the Paston Letters, nay, even in the fastidious Landor. _Rid_ +for _rode_ was anciently common. So likewise was _see_ for _saw_, but I +find it in no writer of authority (except Golding), unless Chaucer's +_seie_ and Gower's _sigh_ were, as I am inclined to think, so sounded. +_Shew_ is used by Hector Boece, Giles Fletcher, Drummond of Hawthornden, +and in the Paston Letters. Similar strong preterites, like _snew_, +_thew_, and even _mew_, are not without example. I find _sew_ for +_sewed_ in 'Piers Ploughman.' Indeed, the anomalies in English +preterites are perplexing. We have probably transferred _flew_ from +_flow_ (as the preterite of which I have heard it) to _fly_ because we +had another preterite in _fled_. Of weak preterites the Yankee retains +_growed_, _blowed_, for which he has good authority, and less often +_knowed_. His _sot_ is merely a broad sounding of _sat_, no more +inelegant than the common _got_ for _gat_, which he further degrades +into _gut_. When he says _darst_, he uses a form as old as Chaucer. + +The Yankee has retained something of the long sound of the _a_ in such +words as _axe_, _wax_, pronouncing them _exe_, _wex_ (shortened from +_aix_, _waix_). He also says _hev_ and _hed_ (_hāve_, _hād_ for +_have_ and _had_). In most cases he follows an Anglo-Saxon usage. In +_aix_ for _axle_ he certainly does. I find _wex_ and _aisches_ (_ashes_) +in Pecock, and _exe_ in the Paston Letters. Golding rhymes _wax_ with +_wexe_ and spells _challenge_ _chelenge_. Chaucer wrote _hendy_. Dryden +rhymes _can_ with _men_, as Mr. Biglow would. Alexander Gill, Milton's +teacher, in his 'Logonomia' cites _hez_ for _hath_ as peculiar to +Lincolnshire. I find _hayth_ in Collier's 'Bibliographical Account of +Early English Literature' under the date 1584, and Lord Cromwell so +wrote it. Sir Christopher Wren wrote _belcony_. Our _fect_ is only the +O.F. _faict_. _Thaim_ for _them_ was common in the sixteenth century. We +have an example of the same thing in the double form of the verb +_thrash_, _thresh_. While the New Englander cannot be brought to say +_instead_ for _instid_ (commonly _'stid_ where not the last word in a +sentence), he changes the _i_ into _e_ in _red_ for _rid_, _tell_ for +_till_, _hender_ for _hinder_, _rense_ for _rinse_. I find _red_ in the +old interlude of 'Thersytes,' _tell_ in a letter of Daborne to +Henslowe, and also, I shudder to mention it, in a letter of the great +Duchess of Marlborough, Atossa herself! It occurs twice in a single +verse of the Chester Plays, + +'_Tell_ the day of dome, _tell_ the beames blow.' + +From the word _blow_ (in another sense) is formed _blowth_, which I +heard again this summer after a long interval. Mr. Wright[24] explains it +as meaning 'a blossom.' With us a single blossom is a _blow_, while +_blowth_ means the blossoming in general. A farmer would say that there +was a good blowth on his fruit-trees. The word retreats farther inland +and away from the railways, year by year. Wither rhymes _hinder_ with +_slender_, and Shakespeare and Lovelace have _renched_ for _rinsed_. In +'Gammer Gurton' and 'Mirror for Magistrates' is _sence_ for _since_; +Marlborough's Duchess so writes it, and Donne rhymes _since_ with +_Amiens_ and _patïence_, Bishop Hall and Otway with _pretence_, Chapman +with _citizens_, Dryden with _providence_. Indeed, why should not +_sithence_ take that form? Dryden's wife (an earl's daughter) has _tell_ +for _till_, Margaret, mother of Henry VII., writes _seche_ for _such_, +and our _ef_ finds authority in the old form _yeffe_. + +_E_ sometimes takes the place of _u_, as _jedge, tredge, bresh_. I find +_tredge_ in the interlude of 'Jack Jugler,' _bresh_ in a citation by +Collier from 'London Cries' of the middle of the seventeenth century, +and _resche_ for _rush_ (fifteenth century) in the very valuable 'Volume +of Vocabularies' edited by Mr. Wright. _Resce_ is one of the Anglo-Saxon +forms of the word in Bosworth's A.-S. Dictionary. Golding has _shet_. +The Yankee always shortens the _u_ in the ending _ture_, making _ventur, +natur, pictur_, and so on. This was common, also, among the educated of +the last generation. I am inclined to think it may have been once +universal, and I certainly think it more elegant than the vile _vencher, +naycher, pickcher_, that have taken its place, sounding like the +invention of a lexicographer to mitigate a sneeze. Nash in his 'Pierce +Penniless' has _ventur_, and so spells it, and I meet it also in +Spenser, Drayton, Ben Jonson, Herrick, and Prior. Spenser has +_tort'rest_, which can be contracted only from _tortur_ and not from +_torcher_. Quarles rhymes _nature_ with _creator_, and Dryden with +_satire_, which he doubtless pronounced according to its older form of +_satyr_. Quarles has also _torture_ and _mortar_. Mary Boleyn writes +_kreatur_. I find _pikter_ in Izaak Walton's autograph will. + +I shall now give some examples which cannot so easily be ranked under +any special head. Gill charges the Eastern counties with _kiver_ for +_cover_, and _ta_, for _to_. The Yankee pronounces both _too_ and _to_ +like _ta_ (like the _tou_ in _touch_) where they are not emphatic. When +they are, both become _tu_. In old spelling, _to_ is the common (and +indeed correct) form of _too_, which is only _to_ with the sense of _in +addition_. I suspect that the sound of our _too_ has caught something +from the French _tout_, and it is possible that the old _too too_ is not +a reduplication, but a reminiscence of the feminine form of the same +word (_toute_) as anciently pronounced, with the _e_ not yet silenced. +Gill gives a Northern origin to _geaun_ for _gown_ and _waund_ for +_wound_ (_vulnus_). Lovelace has _waund_, but +there is something too dreadful in suspecting Spenser (who _borealised_ +in his pastorals) of having ever been guilty of _geaun!_ And yet some +delicate mouths even now are careful to observe the Hibernicism of +_ge-ard_ for _guard_, and _ge-url_ for _girl_. Sir Philip Sidney +(_credite posteri!_) wrote _furr_ for _far_. I would hardly have +believed it had I not seen it in _facsimile_. As some consolation, I +find _furder_ in Lord Bacon and Donne, and Wittier rhymes _far_ with +_cur_. The Yankee, who omits the final _d_ in many words, as do the +Scotch, makes up for it by adding one in _geound_. The purist does not +feel the loss of the _d_ sensibly in _lawn_ and _yon_, from the former +of which it has dropped again after a wrongful adoption (retained in +_laundry_), while it properly belongs to the latter. But what shall we +make of _git, yit_, and _yis_? I find _yis_ and _git_ in Warner's +'Albion's England,' _yet_ rhyming with _wit, admit_, and _fit_ in Donne, +with _wit_ in the 'Revenger's Tragedy,' Beaumont, and Suckling, with +_writ_ in Dryden, and latest of all with _wit_ in Sir Hanbury Williams. +Prior rhymes _fitting_ and _begetting_. Worse is to come. Among others, +Donne rhymes _again_ with _sin_, and Quarles repeatedly with _in_. _Ben_ +for _been_, of which our dear Whittier is so fond, has the authority of +Sackville, 'Gammer Gurton' (the work of a bishop), Chapman, Dryden, and +many more, though _bin_ seems to have been the common form. Whittier's +accenting the first syllable of _rom'ance_ finds an accomplice in +Drayton among others, and, though manifestly wrong, is analogous with +_Rom'ans_. Of other Yankeeisms, whether of form or pronunciation, which +I have met with I add a few at random. Pecock writes _sowdiers (sogers, +soudoyers)_, and Chapman and Gill _sodder_. This absorption of the _l_ +is common in various dialects, especially in the Scottish. Pecock writes +also _biyende_, and the authors of 'Jack Jugler' and 'Gammer Gurton' +_yender_. The Yankee includes '_yon_' in the same catagory, and says +'hither an' yen,' for 'to and fro.' (Cf. German _jenseits_.) Pecock and +plenty more have _wrastle_. Tindal has _agynste, gretter, shett, ondone, +debyte_, and _scace_. 'Jack Jugler' has _scacely_ (which I have often +heard, though _skurce_ is the common form), and Donne and Dryden make +_great_ rhyme with _set_. In the inscription on Caxton's tomb I find +_ynd_ for _end_, which the Yankee more often makes _eend_, still using +familiarly the old phrase 'right anend' for 'continuously.' His 'stret +(straight) along' in the same sense, which I thought peculiar to him, I +find in Pecock. Tindal's _debytë_ for _deputy_ is so perfectly Yankee +that I could almost fancy the brave martyr to have been deacon of the +First Parish at Jaalam Centre. 'Jack Jugler' further gives us _playsent_ +and _sartayne_. Dryden rhymes _certain_ with _parting_, and Chapman and +Ben Jonson use _certain_, as the Yankee always does, for _certainly_. +The 'Coventry Mysteries' have _occapied, massage, nateralle, materal +(material),_ and _meracles_,--all excellent Yankeeisms. In the 'Quatre +fils, Aymon' (1504),[25] is _vertus_ for _virtuous_. Thomas Fuller called +_volume vollum_, I suspect, for he spells it _volumne_. However, _per +contra_, Yankees habitually say _colume_ for _column_. Indeed, to +prove that our ancestors brought their pronunciation with them from the +Old Country, and have not wantonly debased their mother tongue, I need +only to cite the words _scriptur_, _Israll_, _athists_, and +_cherfulness_ from Governor Bradford's 'History.' So the good man wrote +them, and so the good descendants of his fellow-exiles still pronounce +them. Brampton Gurdon writes _shet_ in a letter to Winthrop. _Purtend_ +(_pretend_) has crept like a serpent into the 'Paradise Of Dainty +Devices;' _purvide_, which is not so bad, is in Chaucer. These, of +course, are universal vulgarisms, and not peculiar to the Yankee. Butler +has a Yankee phrase, and pronunciation too, in 'To which these +_carr'ings-on_ did tend.' Langham or Laneham, who wrote an account of +the festivities at Kenilworth in honor of Queen Bess, and who evidently +tried to spell phonetically, makes _sorrows_ into _sororz_. Herrick +writes _hollow_ for _halloo_, and perhaps pronounced it (_horresco +suggerens_!) _holló_, as Yankees do. Why not, when it comes from _holà_? +I find _ffelaschyppe_ (fellowship) in the Coventry Plays. Spenser and +his queen neither of them scrupled to write _afore_, and the former +feels no inelegance even in _chaw_ and _idee_. _'Fore_ was common till +after Herrick. Dryden has _do's_ for _does_, and his wife spells _worse_ +_wosce_. _Afeared_ was once universal. Warner has _ery_ for _ever a_; +nay, he also has illy, with which we were once ignorantly reproached by +persons more familiar with Murray's Grammar than with English +literature. And why not _illy_? Mr. Bartlett says it is 'a word used by +writers of an inferior class, who do not seem to perceive that _ill_ is +itself an adverb, without the termination _ly_,' and quotes Dr. Mosser, +President of Brown University, as asking triumphantly, 'Why don't you +say '_welly_?' I should like to have had Dr. Messer answer his own +question. It would be truer to say that it was used by people who still +remembered that _ill_ was an adjective, the shortened form of _evil_, +out of which Shakespeare and the translators of the Bible ventured to +make _evilly_. This slurred _evil_ is 'the dram of _eale_' in 'Hamlet.' +I find, _illy_ in Warner. The objection to _illy_ is not an etymological +one, but simply that it is contrary to good usage,--a very sufficient +reason. _Ill_ as an adverb was at first a vulgarism, precisely like the +rustic's when he says, 'I was treated _bad_.' May not the reason of this +exceptional form be looked for in that tendency to dodge what is hard to +pronounce, to which I have already alluded? If the letters were +distinctly uttered, as they should be, it would take too much time to +say _ill-ly_, _well-ly_, and it is to be observed that we have avoided +_smally_[26] and _tally_ in the same way, though we add _ish_ to them +without hesitation in _smallish_ and _tallish_. We have, to be sure, +_dully_ and _fully_, but for the one we prefer _stupidly_, and the other +(though this may have come from eliding the _y_ before _a_s) is giving +way to _full_. The uneducated, whose utterance is slower, still make +adverbs when they will by adding _like_ to all manner of adjectives. We +have had _big_ charged upon us, because we use it where an Englishman +would now use _great_. I fully admit that it were better to distinguish +between them, allowing to _big_ a certain contemptuous quality; but as +for authority, I want none better than that of Jeremy Taylor, who, in +his noble sermon 'On the Return of Prayer,' speaks of 'Jesus, whose +spirit was meek and gentle up to the greatness of the _biggest_ +example.' As for our double negative, I shall waste no time in quoting +instances of it, because it was once as universal in English as it still +is in the neo-Latin languages, where it does not strike us as vulgar. I +am not sure that the loss of it is not to be regretted. But surely I +shall admit the vulgarity of slurring or altogether eliding certain +terminal consonants? I admit that a clear and sharp-cut enunciation is +one of the crowning charms and elegances of speech. Words so uttered are +like coins fresh from the mint, compared with the worn and dingy drudges +of long service,--I do not mean American coins, for those look less +badly the more they lose of their original ugliness. No one is more +painfully conscious than I of the contrast between the rifle-crack of an +Englishman's _yes_ and _no_, and the wet-fuse drawl of the same +monosyllables in the mouths of my countrymen. But I do not find the +dropping of final consonants disagreeable in Allan Ramsay or Burns, nor +do I believe that our literary ancestors were sensible of that +inelegance in the fusing them together of which we are conscious. How +many educated men pronounce the _t_ in _chestnut_? how many say +_pentise_ for _penthouse_, as they should. When a Yankee skipper says +that he is "boun' for Gloster" (not Gloucester, with the leave of the +Universal Schoolmaster),[27] he but speaks like Chaucer or an old +ballad-singer, though they would have pronounced it _boon_. This is one +of the cases where the _d_ is surreptitious, and has been added in +compliment to the verb _bind_, with which it has nothing to do. If we +consider the root of the word (though of course I grant that every race +has a right to do what it will with what is so peculiarly its own as its +speech), the _d_ has no more right there than at the end of _gone_, +where it is often put by children, who are our best guides to the +sources of linguistic corruption, and the best teachers of its +processes. Cromwell, minister of Henry VIII., writes _worle_ for world. +Chapman has _wan_ for _wand_, and _lawn_ has rightfully displaced +_laund_, though with no thought, I suspect, of etymology. Rogers tells +us that Lady Bathurst sent him some letters written to William III. by +Queen Mary, in which she addresses him as '_Dear Husban_.' The old form +_expoun'_, which our farmers use, is more correct than the form with a +barbarous _d_ tacked on which has taken its place. Of the kind opposite +to this, like our _gownd_ for _gown_, and the London cockney's _wind_ +for _wine_, I find _drownd_ for _drown_ in the 'Misfortunes of Arthur' +(1584) and in Swift. And, by the way, whence came the long sound of wind +which our poets still retain, and which survives in 'winding' a horn, a +totally different word from 'winding' a kite-string? We say _behīnd_ +and _hīnder_ (comparative) and yet to _hĭnder_. Shakespeare +pronounced _kind_ _kĭnd_, or what becomes of his play on that word +and _kin_ in 'Hamlet'? Nay, did he not even (shall I dare to hint it?) +drop the final _d_ as the Yankee still does? John Lilly plays in the +same way on _kindred_ and _kindness_. + +But to come to some other ancient instances. Warner rhymes _bounds_ with +_crowns_, _grounds_ with _towns_, _text_ with _sex_, _worst_ with +_crust_, _interrupts_ with _cups_; Drayton, _defects_ with _sex_; +Chapman, _amends_ with _cleanse_; Webster, _defects_ with _checks_; Ben +Jonson, _minds_ with _combines_; Marston, _trust_ and _obsequious_, +_clothes_ and _shows_; Dryden gives the same sound to _clothes_, and has +also _minds_ with _designs_. Of course, I do not affirm that their ears +may not have told them that these were imperfect rhymes (though I am by +no means sure even of that), but they surely would never have tolerated +any such had they suspected the least vulgarity in them. Prior has the +rhyme _first_ and _trust_, but puts it into the mouth of a landlady. +Swift has _stunted_ and _burnt_ it, an intentionally imperfect rhyme, no +doubt, but which I cite as giving precisely the Yankee pronunciation of +_burned_. Donne couples in unhallowed wedlock _after_ and _matter_, thus +seeming to give to both the true Yankee sound; and it is not uncommon to +find _after_ and _daughter_. Worse than all, in one of Dodsley's Old +Plays we have _onions_ rhyming with _minions_,--I have tears in my eyes +while I record it. And yet what is viler than the universal _Misses_ +(_Mrs._) for _Mistress_? This was once a vulgarism, and in 'The Miseries +of Inforced Marriage' the rhyme (printed as prose in Dodsley's Old Plays +by Collier), + +'To make my young _mistress_ +Delighting in _kisses_,' + +is put into the mouth of the clown. Our people say _Injun_ for _Indian_. +The tendency to make this change where _i_ follows _d_ is common. The +Italian _giorno_ and French _jour_ from _diurnus_ are familiar examples. +And yet _Injun_ is one of those depravations which the taste challenges +peremptorily, though it have the authority of Charles Cotton--who rhymes +'_Indies_' with '_cringes_'--and four English lexicographers, beginning +with Dr. Sheridan, bid us say _invidgeous_. Yet after all it is no worse +than the debasement which all our terminations in _tion_ and _tience_ +have undergone, which yet we hear with _resignashun_ and _payshunce_, +though it might have aroused both _impat-i-ence_ and _in-dig-na-ti-on_ +in Shakespeare's time. When George Herbert tells us that if the sermon +be dull, + +'God takes a text and preacheth patience,' + +the prolongation of the word seems to convey some hint at the +longanimity of the virtue. Consider what a poor curtal we have made of +Ocean. There was something of his heave and expanse in _o-ce-an_, and +Fletcher knew how to use it when he wrote so fine a verse as the second +of these, the best deep-sea verse I know,-- + + 'In desperate storms stem with a little rudder + The tumbling ruins of the oceän.' + +Oceanus was not then wholly shorn of his divine proportions, and our +modern _oshun_ sounds like the gush of small-beer in comparison. Some +other contractions of ours have a vulgar air about them. _More 'n_ for +_more than_, as one of the worst, may stand for a type of such. Yet our +old dramatists are full of such obscurations (elisions they can hardly +be called) of the _th_, making _whe'r_ of _whether_, _where_ of +_whither_, _here_ of _hither_, _bro'r_ of _brother_, _smo'r_ of +_smother_, _mo'r_ of _mother_, and so on. And dear Brer Rabbit, can I +forget him? Indeed, it is this that explains the word _rare_ (which has +Dryden's support), and which we say of meat where an Englishman would +use _underdone_. I do not believe, with the dictionaries, that it had +ever anything to do with the Icelandic _hrar_ (_raw_), as it plainly has +not in _rareripe_, which means earlier ripe,--President Lincoln said of +a precocious boy that 'he was a _rareripe_.' And I do not believe it, +for this reason, that the earliest form of the word with us was, and the +commoner now in the inland parts still is, so far as I can discover, +_raredone_. Golding has 'egs reere-rosted,' which, whatever else it +mean, cannot mean _raw_-roasted, I find _rather_ as a monosyllable in +Donne, and still better, as giving the sound, rhyming with _fair_ in +Warner. There is an epigram of Sir Thomas Browne in which the words +_rather than_ make a monosyllable;-- + + 'What furie is't to take Death's part + And rather than by Nature, die by Art!' + +The contraction _more'n_ I find in the old play 'Fuimus Troes,' in a +verse where the measure is so strongly accented as to leave it beyond +doubt,-- + + 'A golden crown whose heirs + More than half the world subdue.' + +It may be, however, that the contraction is in 'th'orld.' It is +unmistakable in the 'Second Maiden's Tragedy:'-- + + 'It were but folly, + Dear soul, to boast of _more than_ I can perform.' + +Is our _gin_ for _given_ more violent than _mar'l_ for _marvel_, which +was once common, and which I find as late as Herrick? Nay, Herrick has +_gin_ (spelling it _gen_), too, as do the Scotch, who agree with us +likewise in preferring _chimly_ to _chimney_. + +I will now leave pronunciation and turn to words or phrases which have +been supposed peculiar to us, only pausing to pick up a single dropped +stitch, in the pronunciation of the word _súpreme_, which I had thought +native till I found it in the well-languaged Daniel. I will begin with a +word of which I have never met with any example in any English writer of +authority. We express the first stage of withering in a green plant +suddenly cut down by the verb _to wilt_. It is, of course, own cousin of +the German _welken_, but I have never come upon it in literary use, and +my own books of reference give me faint help. Graff gives _welhèn_, +_marcescere_, and refers to _weih_ (_weak_), and conjecturally to A.-S, +_hvelan_. The A.-S. _wealwian_ (_to wither_) is nearer, but not so near +as two words in the Icelandic, which perhaps put us on the track of its +ancestry,--_velgi_, _tepefacere_, (and _velki_, with the derivative) +meaning _contaminare_. _Wilt_, at any rate, is a good word, filling, as +it does, a sensible gap between drooping and withering, and the +imaginative phrase 'he wilted right down,' like 'he caved right in,' is +a true Americanism. _Wilt_ occurs in English provincial glossaries, but +is explained by _wither_, which with us it does not mean. We have a few +words such as _cache_, _cohog_, _carry_ (_portage_), _shoot_ (_chute_), +_timber_ (_forest_), _bushwhack_ (to pull a boat along by the bushes on +the edge of a stream), _buckeye_ (a picturesque word for the +horse-chestnut); but how many can we be said to have fairly brought into +the language, as Alexander Gill, who first mentions Americanisms, meant +it when he said, '_Sed et ab Americanis nonnulla mutuamur ut_ MAIZ _et_ +CANOA'? Very few, I suspect, and those mostly by borrowing from the +French, German, Spanish, or Indian.[28] 'The Dipper,' for the 'Great +Bear,' strikes me as having a native air. _Bogus_, in the sense of +_worthless_, is undoubtedly ours, but is, I more than suspect, a +corruption of the French _bagasse_ (from low Latin _bagasea_), which +travelled up the Mississippi from New Orleans, where it was used for the +refuse of the sugar-cane. It is true, we have modified the meaning of +some words. We use _freshet_ in the sense of _flood_, for which I have +not chanced upon any authority. Our New England cross between Ancient +Pistol and Dugald Dalgetty, Captain Underhill, uses the word (1638) to +mean a _current_, and I do not recollect it elsewhere in that sense. I +therefore leave it with a? for future explorers. _Crick_ for _creek_ I +find in Captain John Smith and in the dedication of Fuller's 'Holy +Warre,' and _run_, meaning a _small stream_, in Waymouth's 'Voyage' +(1605). _Humans_ for _men_, which Mr. Bartlett includes in his +'Dictionary of Americanisms,' is Chapman's habitual phrase in his +translation of Homer. I find it also in the old play of 'The Hog hath +lost his Pearl.' _Dogs_ for _andirons_ is still current in New England, +and in Walter de Biblesworth I find _chiens_ glossed in the margin by +_andirons_. _Gunning_ for _shooting_ is in Drayton. We once got credit +for the poetical word _fall_ for _autumn_, but Mr. Bartlett and the last +edition of Webster's Dictionary refer us to Dryden. It is even older, +for I find it in Drayton, and Bishop Hall has _autumn fall_. Middleton +plays upon the word: 'May'st thou have a reasonable good _spring_, for +thou art like to have many dangerous foul _falls_.' Daniel does the +same, and Coleridge uses it as we do. Gray uses the archaism _picked_ +for _peaked_, and the word _smudge_ (as our backwoodsmen do) for a +smothered fire. Lord Herbert of Cherbury (more properly perhaps than +even Sidney, the last _preux chevalier_) has 'the Emperor's folks' just +as a Yankee would say it. _Loan_ for _lend_, with which we have hitherto +been blackened, I must retort upon the mother island, for it appears so +long ago as in 'Albion's England.' _Fleshy_, in the sense of _stout_, +may claim Ben Jonson's warrant, and I find it also so lately as in +Francklin's 'Lucian.' _Chore_ is also Jonson's word, and I am inclined +to prefer it to _chare_ and _char_, because I think that I see a more +natural origin for it in the French _jour_--whence it might come to mean +a day's work, and thence a job--than anywhere else.[29] _At onst_ for _at +once_ I thought a corruption of our own, till I found it in the Chester +Plays. I am now inclined to suspect it no corruption at all, but only an +erratic and obsolete superlative _at onest_. _To progress_ was flung in +our teeth till Mr. Pickering retorted with Shakespeare's 'doth prógress +down thy cheeks.' I confess that I was never satisfied with this answer, +because the accent was different, and because the word might here be +reckoned a substantive quite as well as a verb. Mr. Bartlett (in his +dictionary above cited) adds a surrebutter in a verse from Ford's +'Broken Heart.' Here the word is clearly a verb, but with the accent +unhappily still on the first syllable. Mr. Bartlett says that he +'cannot say whether the word was used in Bacon's time or not.' It +certainly was, and with the accent we give to it. Ben Jonson, in the +'Alchemist,' had this verse, + + 'Progress so from extreme unto extreme,' + +and Sir Philip Sidney, + + 'Progressing then from fair Turias' golden place.' + +Surely we may now sleep in peace, and our English cousins will forgive +us, since we have cleared ourselves from any suspicion of originality in +the matter! Even after I had convinced myself that the chances were +desperately against our having invented any of the _Americanisms_ with +which we are _faulted_ and which we are in the habit of _voicing_, there +were one or two which had so prevailingly indigenous an accent as to +stagger me a little. One of these was 'the biggest _thing out_.' Alas, +even this slender comfort is denied me. Old Gower has + + + 'So harde an herte was none _oute_,' + +and + + 'That such merveile was none _oute_.' + +He also, by the way, says 'a _sighte_ of flowres' as naturally as our +up-country folk would say it. _Poor_ for _lean_, _thirds_ for _dower_, +and _dry_ for _thirsty_ I find in Middleton's plays. _Dry_ is also in +Skelton and in the 'World' (1754). In a note on Middleton, Mr. Dyce +thinks it needful to explain the phrase _I can't tell_ (universal in +America) by the gloss _I could not say_. Middleton also uses _sneeked_, +which I had believed an Americanism till I saw it there. It is, of +course, only another form of _snatch_, analogous to _theek_ and _thatch_ +(cf. the proper names Dekker and Thacher), _break_ (_brack_) and +_breach_, _make_ (still common with us) and _match_. _'Long on_ for +_occasioned by_ ('who is this 'long on?') occurs constantly in Gower and +likewise in Middleton. _'Cause why_ is in Chaucer. _Raising_ (an English +version of the French _leaven_) for _yeast_ is employed by Gayton in his +'Festivous Notes on Don Quixote.' I have never seen an instance of our +New England word _emptins_ in the same sense, nor can I divine its +original. Gayton has _limekill_; also _shuts_ for _shutters_, and the +latter is used by Mrs. Hutchinson in her 'Life of Colonel Hutchinson.' +Bishop Hall, and Purchas in his 'Pilgrims,' have _chist_ for _chest_, +and it is certainly nearer _cista_, as well as to its form in the +Teutonic languages, whence probably we got it. We retain the old sound +from _cist_, but _chest_ is as old as Chaucer. Lovelace says _wropt_ for +_wrapt_. 'Musicianer' I had always associated with the militia-musters +of my boyhood, and too hastily concluded it an abomination of our own, +but Mr. Wright calls it a Norfolk word, and I find it to be as old as +1642 by an extract in Collier. 'Not worth the time of day,' had passed +with me for native till I saw it in Shakespeare's 'Pericles.' For +_slick_ (which is only a shorter sound of _sleek_, like _crick_ and the +now universal _britches_ for _breeches_) I will only call Chapman and +Jonson. 'That's a sure card!' and 'That's a stinger!' both sound like +modern slang, but you will find the one in the old interlude of +'Thersytes' (1537), and the other in Middleton. 'Right here,' a favorite +phrase with our orators and with a certain class of our editors, turns +up _passim_ in the Chester and Coventry plays. Mr. Dickens found +something very ludicrous in what he considered our neologism _right +away_. But I find a phrase very like it, and which I would gladly +suspect to be a misprint for it, in 'Gammer Gurton:'-- + + 'Lyght it and bring it _tite away_.' + +But _tite_ is the true word in this case. After all, what is it but +another form of _straightway_? _Cussedness_, meaning _wickedness, +malignity_, and _cuss_, a sneaking, ill-natured fellow, in such phrases +as 'He done it out o' pure cussedness,' and 'He is a nateral cuss,' have +been commonly thought Yankeeisms. To vent certain contemptuously +indignant moods they are admirable in their rough-and-ready way. But +neither is our own. _Cursydnesse_, in the same sense of malignant +wickedness, occurs in the Coventry Plays, and _cuss_ may perhaps claim +to have come in with the Conqueror. At least the term is also French. +Saint Simon uses it and confesses its usefulness. Speaking of the Abbé +Dubois, he says, 'Qui étoit en plein ce qu'un mauvais françois appelle +un _sacre_, mais qui ne se peut guere exprimer autrement.' 'Not worth a +cuss,' though supported by 'not worth a damn,' may be a mere corruption, +since 'not worth a _cress_' is in 'Piers Ploughman.' 'I don't see it,' +was the popular slang a year or two ago, and seemed to spring from the +soil; but no, it is in Cibber's 'Careless Husband.' _Green sauce_ for +_vegetables_ I meet in Beaumont and Fletcher, Gayton, and elsewhere. Our +rustic pronunciation _sahce_ (for either the diphthong _au_ was +anciently pronounced _ah_, or else we have followed abundant analogy in +changing it to the latter sound, as we have in _chance, dance_, and so +many more) may be the older one, and at least gives some hint at its +ancestor _salsa_. _Warn_, in the sense of _notify_, is, I believe, now +peculiar to us, but Pecock so employs it. I find _primmer_ (_primer_, as +we pronounce it) in Beaumont and Fletcher, and a 'square eater' too +(compare our '_square_ meal'), _heft_ for _weight_, and 'muchness' in +the 'Mirror for Magistrates,' _bankbill_ in Swift and Fielding, and _as_ +for _that_ I might say _passim_. _To cotton to_ is, I rather think, an +Americanism. The nearest approach to it I have found is _cotton +together_, in Congreve's 'Love for Love.' To _cotton_ or _cotten_, in +another sense, is old and common. Our word means to _cling_, and its +origin, possibly, is to be sought in another direction, perhaps in A.S. +_cvead_, which means _mud, clay_ (both proverbially clinging), or better +yet, in the Icelandic _qvoda_ (otherwise _kód_), meaning _resin_ and +_glue_, which are [Greek: kat' exochaen], sticky substances. To _spit +cotton_ is, I think, American, and also, perhaps, to _flax_ for to +_beat_. _To the halves_ still survives among us, though apparently +obsolete in England. It means either to let or to hire a piece of land, +receiving half the profit in money or in kind (_partibus locare_). I +mention it because in a note by some English editor, to which I have +lost my reference, I have seen it wrongly explained. The editors of +Nares cite Burton. _To put_, in the sense of _to go_, as _Put!_ for +_Begone!_ would seem our own, and yet it is strictly analogous to the +French _se mettre à la voie_, and the Italian _mettersi in via_. Indeed, +Dante has a verse, + + '_Io sarei_ [for _mi sarei_] _già messo per lo sentiero_,' + +which, but for the indignity, might be translated, + + 'I should, ere this, have _put_ along the way,' + +I deprecate in advance any share in General Banks's notions of +international law, but we may all take a just pride in his exuberant +eloquence as something distinctively American. When he spoke a few years +ago of 'letting the Union slide,' even those who, for political +purposes, reproached him with the sentiment, admired the indigenous +virtue of his phrase. Yet I find 'let the world slide' in Heywood's +Edward IV.;' and in Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Wit without Money,' +Valentine says, + + 'Will you go drink, + And let the world slide?' + +So also in Sidney's 'Arcadia,' + + 'Let his dominion slide.' + +In the one case it is put into the mouth of a clown, in the other, of a +gentleman, and was evidently proverbial. It has even higher sanction, +for Chaucer writes, + + 'Well nigh all other curës _let he slide_.' + +Mr. Bartlett gives 'above one's bend' as an Americanism; but compare +Hamlet's 'to the top of my bent.' _In his tracks_ for _immediately_ has +acquired an American accent, and passes where he can for a native, but +is an importation nevertheless; for what is he but the Latin _e +vestigio_, or at best the Norman French _eneslespas_, both which have +the same meaning? _Hotfoot_ (provincial also in England), I find in the +old romance of 'Tristan,' + + '_Si s'en parti_ CHAUT PAS' + +_Like_ for _as_ is never used in New England, but is universal in the +South and West. It has on its side the authority of two kings (_ego sum +rex Romanorum et supra grammaticam_), Henry VIII. and Charles I. This +were ample, without throwing into the scale the scholar and poet Daniel. +_Them_ was used as a nominative by the majesty of Edward VI., by Sir P. +Hoby, and by Lord Paget (in Froude's 'History'). I have never seen any +passage adduced where _guess_ was used as the Yankee uses it. The word +was familiar in the mouths of our ancestors, but with a different shade +of meaning from that we have given it, which is something like _rather +think_, though the Yankee implies a confident certainty by it when he +says, 'I guess I _du!_' There are two examples in Otway, one of which +('So in the struggle, I guess the note was lost') perhaps might serve +our purpose, and Coleridge's + + 'I guess 'twas fearful there to see' + +certainly comes very near. But I have a higher authority than either in +Selden, who, in one of his notes to the 'Polyolbion,' writes, 'The first +inventor of them (I _guess_ you dislike not the addition) was one +Berthold Swartz.' Here he must mean by it, 'I take it for granted.' +Robert Greene, in his 'Quip for an Upstart Courtier,' makes +Cloth-breeches say, 'but I _gesse_ your maistership never tried what +true honor meant.' In this case the word seems to be used with a meaning +precisely like that which we give it. Another peculiarity almost as +prominent is the beginning sentences, especially in answer to questions, +with 'well.' Put before such a phrase as 'How d'e do?' it is commonly +short, and has the sound of it _wul_, but in reply it is deliberative, +and the various shades of meaning which can be conveyed by difference of +intonation, and by prolonging or abbreviating, I should vainly attempt +to describe. I have heard _ooa-ahl_, _wahl_, _ahl_, _wal_ and something +nearly approaching the sound of +the _le_ in _able_. Sometimes before 'I' it dwindles to a mere _l_, as +''l _I_ dunno.' A friend of mine (why should I not please myself, though +I displease him, by brightening my page with the initials of the most +exquisite of humorists, J.H.?) told me that he once heard five 'wells,' +like pioneers, precede the answer to an inquiry about the price of land. +The first was the ordinary _wul_, in deference to custom; the second, +the long, perpending _ooahl_, with a falling inflection of the voice; +the third, the same, but with the voice rising, as if in despair of a +conclusion, into a plaintively nasal whine; the fourth, _wulh_, ending +in the aspirate of a sigh; and then, fifth, came a short, sharp _wal_, +showing that a conclusion had been reached. I have used this latter form +in the 'Biglow Papers,' because, if enough nasality be added, it +represents most nearly the average sound of what I may call the +interjection. + +A locution prevails in the Southern and Middle States which is so +curious that, though never heard in New England, I will give a few lines +to its discussion, the more readily because it is extinct elsewhere. I +mean the use of _allow_ in the sense of _affirm_, as 'I allow that's a +good horse.' I find the word so used in 1558 by Anthony Jenkinson in +Hakluyt: 'Corne they sowe not, neither doe eate any bread, mocking the +Christians for the same, and disabling our strengthe, saying we live by +eating the toppe of a weede, and drinke a drinke made of the same, +_allowing_ theyr great devouring of flesh and drinking of milke to be +the increase of theyr strength.' That is, they undervalued our strength, +and affirmed their own to be the result of a certain diet. In another +passage of the same narrative the word has its more common meaning of +approving or praising: 'The said king, much allowing this declaration, +said.' Ducange quotes Bracton _sub voce_ ADLOCARE for the meaning 'to +admit as proved,' and the transition from this to 'affirm,' is by no +means violent. Izaak Walton has 'Lebault _allows_ waterfrogs to be good +meat,' and here the word is equivalent to _affirms_. At the same time, +when we consider some of the meanings of _allow_ in old English, and of +_allouer_ in old French, and also remember that the verbs _prize_ and +_praise_ are from one root, I think we must admit _allaudare_ to a share +in the paternity of _allow_. The sentence from Hakluyt would read +equally well, 'contemning our strengthe, ... and praising (or valuing) +their great eating of flesh as the cause of their increase in strength.' +After all, if we confine ourselves to _allocare_, it may turn out that +the word was somewhere and somewhen used for _to bet_, analogously to +_put up, put down, post_ (cf. Spanish _apostar_), and the like. I hear +boys in the street continually saying, 'I bet that's a good horse,' or +what not, meaning by no means to risk anything beyond their opinion in +the matter. + +The word _improve_, in the sense of to 'occupy, make use of, employ,' as +Dr. Pickering defines it, he long ago proved to be no neologism. He +would have done better, I think, had he substituted _profit by_ for +_employ_. He cites Dr. Franklin as saying that the word had never, so +far as he knew, been used in New England before he left it in 1723, +except in Dr. Mather's 'Bemarkable Providences,' which he oddly calls a +'very old book.' Franklin, as Dr. Pickering goes on to show, was +mistaken. + +Mr. Bartlett in his 'Dictionary' merely abridges Pickering. Both of them +should have confined the application of the word to material things, its +extension to which is all that is peculiar in the supposed American use +of it. For surely 'Complete Letter-Writers' have been '_improving_ this +opportunity' time out of mind. I will illustrate the word a little +further, because Pickering cites no English authorities. Skelton has a +passage in his 'Phyllyp Sparowe,' which I quote the rather as it +contains also the word _allowed_ and as it distinguishes _improve_ from +_employ:_-- + + 'His [Chaucer's] Englysh well alowed, + So as it is _emprowed_ + For as it is employd, + There is no English voyd.' + +Here the meaning is to _profit by_. In Fuller's 'Holy Warre' (1647), we +have 'The Egyptians standing on the firm ground, were thereby enabled to +_improve_ and enforce their darts to the utmost.' Here the word might +certainly mean _to make use of_. Mrs. Hutchison (Life of Colonel H.) +uses the word in the same way: 'And therefore did not _emproove_ his +interest to engage the country in the quarrel.' Swift in one of his +letters says: 'There is not an acre of land in Ireland turned to half +its advantage; yet it is better _improved_ than the people.' I find it +also in 'Strength out of Weakness' (1652), and Plutarch's +'Morals'(1714), but I know of only one example of its use in the purely +American sense, and that is 'a very good _improvement_ for a mill' in +the 'State Trials' (Speech of the Attorney. General in the Lady Ivy's +case, 1864). In the sense of _employ_, I could cite a dozen old English +authorities. + +In running over the fly-leaves of those delightful folios for this +reference, I find a note which reminds me of another word, for our abuse +of which we have been deservedly ridiculed. I mean _lady,_ It is true I +might cite the example of the Italian _donna_[30] (_domina_), which has +been treated in the same way by a whole nation, and not, as _lady_ among +us, by the uncultivated only. It perhaps grew into use in the +half-democratic republics of Italy in the same way and for the same +reasons as with us. But I admit that our abuse of the word is +villainous. I know of an orator who once said in a public meeting where +bonnets preponderated, that 'the ladies were last at the cross and first +at the tomb'! But similar sins were committed before our day and in the +mother country. In the 'Harleian Miscellany' (vol. v. p. 455) I find +'this _lady_ is my servant; the hedger's daughter Ioan.' in the 'State +Trials' I learn of 'a _gentlewoman_ that lives cook with' such a one, +and I hear the Lord High Steward speaking of the wife of a waiter at a +bagnio as a _gentlewoman_! From the same authority, by the way, I can +state that our vile habit of chewing tobacco had the somewhat unsavory +example of Titus Oates, and I know by tradition from an eye-witness that +the elegant General Burgoyne partook of the same vice. Howell, in one of +his letters (dated 26 August, 1623), speaks thus of another +'institution' which many have thought American: 'They speak much of that +boisterous Bishop of Halverstadt (for so they term him here), that, +having taken a place where ther were two Monasteries of Nuns and Friers, +he caus'd divers feather-beds to be rip'd, and all the feathers to be +thrown in a great Hall, whither the Nuns and Friers were thrust naked +with their bodies oil'd and pitch'd, and to tumble among the feathers.' +Howell speaks as if the thing were new to him, and I know not if the +'boisterous' Bishop was the inventor of it, but I find it practised in +England before our Revolution. + +Before leaving the subject, I will add a few comments made from time to +time on the margin of Mr. Bartlett's excellent 'Dictionary,' to which I +am glad thus publicly to acknowledge my many obligations. 'Avails' is +good old English, and the _vails_ of Sir Joshua Reynolds's porter are +famous. Averse _from_, averse _to_, and in connection with them the +English vulgarism 'different _to_;' the corrupt use of _to_ in these +cases, as well as in the Yankee 'he lives to Salem,' 'to home,' and +others, must be a very old one, for in the one case it plainly arose +from confounding the two French prepositions _à_, (from Latin _ad_ and +_ab_), and in the other from translating the first of them. I once +thought 'different to' a modern vulgarism, and Mr. Thackeray, on my +pointing it out to him in 'Henry Esmond,' confessed it to be an +anachronism. Mr. Bartlett refers to 'the old writers quoted in +Richardson's Dictionary' for 'different to,' though in my edition of +that work all the examples are with _from_. But I find _to_ used +invariably by Sir R. Hawkins in Hakluyt. _Banjo_ is a negro corruption +of O.E. _bandore_. _Bind-weed_ can hardly be modern, for _wood-bind_ is +old and radically right, intertwining itself through _bindan_ and +_windan_ with classic stems. _Bobolink_: is this a contraction for Bob +o' Lincoln? I find _bobolynes_, in one of the poems attributed to +Skelton, where it may be rendered _giddy-pate_, a term very fit for the +bird in his ecstasies. _Cruel_ for _great_ is in Hakluyt. +_Bowling-alley_ is in Nash's 'Pierce Pennilesse.' _Curious_, meaning +_nice_, occurs continually in old writers, and is as old as Pecock's +'Repressor.' _Droger_ is O.E. _drugger_. _Educational_ is in Burke. +_Feeze_ is only a form of _fizz_. _To fix_, in the American sense, I +find used by the Commissioners of the United Colonies so early as 1675, +'their arms well _fixed_ and fit for service.' _To take the foot in the +hand_ is German; so is to _go under_. _Gundalow_ is old; I find +_gundelo_ in Hakluyt, and _gundello_ in Booth's reprint of the folio +Shakespeare of 1623. _Gonoff_ is O.E. _gnoffe_. _Heap_ is in 'Piers +Ploughman' ('and other names _an heep_'), and in Hakluyt ('seeing such a +_heap_ of their enemies ready to devour them'). _To liquor_ is in the +'Puritan' ('call 'em in, and liquor 'em a little'). _To loaf_: this, I +think, is unquestionably German. _Laufen_ is pronounced _lofen_ in some +parts of Germany, and I once heard one German student say to another, +_Ich lauf_ (lofe) _hier bis du wiederkehrest_, and he began accordingly +to saunter up and down, in short, to _loaf_. _To mull_, Mr. Bartlett +says, means 'to soften, to dispirit,' and quotes from +'Margaret,'--'There has been a pretty considerable _mullin_ going on +among the doctors,'--where it surely cannot mean what he says it does. +We have always heard _mulling_ used for _stirring, bustling_, sometimes +in an underhand way. It is a metaphor derived probably from _mulling_ +wine, and the word itself must be a corruption of _mell_, from O.F. +_mesler_. _Pair_ of stairs is in Hakluyt. _To pull up stakes_ is in +Curwen's Journal, and therefore pre-Revolutionary. I think I have met +with it earlier. _Raise_: under this word Mr. Bartlett omits 'to raise a +house,' that is, the frame of a wooden one, and also the substantive +formed from it, a _raisin'_. _Retire_ for _go to bed_ is in Fielding's +'Amelia.' _Setting-poles_ cannot be new, for I find 'some _set_ [the +boats] with long _poles_' in Hakluyt. _Shoulder-hitters_: I find that +_shoulder-striker_ is old, though I have lost the reference to my +authority. _Snag_ is no new word, though perhaps the Western application +of it is so; but I find in Gill the proverb, 'A bird in the bag is worth +two on the snag.' Dryden has _swop_ and _to rights_. _Trail_: Hakluyt +has 'many wayes _traled_ by the wilde beastes.' + +I subjoin a few phrases not in Mr. Bartlett's book which I have heard. +_Bald-headed_: 'to go it bald-beaded;' in great haste, as where one +rushes out without his hat. _Bogue_: 'I don't git much done 'thout I +_bogue_ right in along 'th my men.' _Carry_: a _portage_. _Cat-nap_: a +short doze. _Cat-stick_: a small stick. _Chowder-head_: a muddle-brain. +_Cling-john_: a soft cake of rye. _Cocoanut_; the head. _Cohees_: +applied to the people of certain settlements in Western Pennsylvania, +from their use of the archaic form _Quo' he_. _Dunnow'z I know_: the +nearest your true Yankee ever comes to acknowledging ignorance. +_Essence-pedler_: a skunk. _First-rate and a half_. _Fish flakes_, for +drying fish: O.E. _fleck_ (_cratis_). _Gander-party_: a social gathering +of men only. _Gawnicus_: a dolt. _Hawkin's whetstone_: rum; in derision +of one Hawkins, a well-known temperance-lecturer. _Hyper_: to bustle: 'I +mus' _hyper_ about an' git tea.' _Keeler-tub_: one in which dishes are +washed. ('And Greasy Joan doth _keel_ the pot.') _Lap-tea_: where the +guests are too many to sit at table. _Last of pea-time_: to be hard-up. +_Lose-laid_ (_loose-laid_): a weaver's term, and probably English; +weak-willed. _Malahack_: to cut up hastily or awkwardly. _Moonglade_: a +beautiful word: for the track of moonlight on the water. _Off-ox_: an +unmanageable, cross-grained fellow. _Old Driver, Old Splitfoot_: the +Devil. _On-hitch_: to pull trigger (cf. Spanish _disparar_). _Popular_: +conceited, _Rote_: sound of surf before a storm. _Rot-gut_: cheap +whiskey; the word occurs in Heywood's 'English Traveller' and Addison's +'Drummer,' for a poor kind of drink. _Seem_: it is habitual with the +New-Englander to put this verb to strange uses, as 'I can't _seem_ to be +suited,' 'I couldn't _seem_ to know him.' _Sidehill_, for _hillside_. +_State-house_: this seems an Americanism, whether invented or derived +from the Dutch _Stad-huys_, I know not. _Strike_ and _string_; from the +game of ninepins; to make a _strike_ is to knock down all the pins with +one ball, hence it has come to mean fortunate, successful. _Swampers_: +men who break out roads for lumberers. _Tormented_: euphemism for +damned, as, 'not a tormented cent.' _Virginia fence, to make a_: to walk +like a drunken man. + +It is always worth while to note down the erratic words or phrases which +one meets with in any dialect. They may throw light on the meaning of +other words, on the relationship of languages, or even on history +itself. In so composite a language as ours they often supply a different +form to express a different shade of meaning, as in _viol_ and _fiddle_, +_thrid_ and _thread_, _smother_ and _smoulder_, where the _l_ has crept +in by a false analogy with _would_. We have given back to England the +excellent adjective _lengthy_, formed honestly like _earthy, drouthy_, +and others, thus enabling their journalists to characterize our +President's messages by a word civilly compromising between _long_ and +_tedious_, so as not to endanger the peace of the two countries by +wounding our national sensitiveness to British criticism. Let me give +two curious examples of the antiseptic property of dialects at which I +have already glanced. Dante has _dindi_ as a childish or low word for +_danari_ (money), and in Shropshire small Roman coins are still dug up +which the peasants call _dinders_. This can hardly be a chance +coincidence, but seems rather to carry the word back to the Roman +soldiery. So our farmers say _chuk, chuk_, to their pigs, and _ciacco_ +is one of the Italian words for _hog_. When a countryman tells us that +he 'fell _all of a heap_,' I cannot help thinking that he unconsciously +points to an affinity between our word _tumble_, and the Latin +_tumulus_, that is older than most others. I believe that words, or even +the mere intonation of them, have an astonishing vitality and power of +propagation by the root, like the gardener's pest, quitch-grass,[31] +while the application or combination of them may be new. It is in these +last that my countrymen seem to me full of humor, invention, quickness +of wit, and that sense of subtle analogy which needs only refining to +become fancy and imagination. Prosaic as American life seems in many of +its aspects to a European, bleak and bare as it is on the side of +tradition, and utterly orphaned of the solemn inspiration of antiquity, +I cannot help thinking that the ordinary talk of unlettered men among us +is fuller of metaphor and of phrases that suggest lively images than +that of any other people I have seen. Very many such will be found in +Mr. Bartlett's book, though his short list of proverbs at the end seem +to me, with one or two exceptions, as un-American as possible. Most of +them have no character at all but coarseness, and are quite too +long-skirted for working proverbs, in which language always 'takes off +its coat to it,' as a Yankee would say. There are plenty that have a +more native and puckery flavor, seedlings from the old stock often, and +yet new varieties. One hears such not seldom among us Easterners, and +the West would yield many more. 'Mean enough to steal acorns from a +blind hog;' 'Cold as the north side of a Jenooary gravestone by +starlight;' 'Hungry as a graven image;' 'Pop'lar as a hen with one +chicken;' 'A hen's time ain't much;' 'Quicker 'n greased lightnin';' +'Ther's sech a thing ez bein' _tu_' (our Yankee paraphrase of [Greek: +maeden agan]); hence the phrase _tooin' round_, meaning a supererogatory +activity like that of flies; 'Stingy enough to skim his milk at both +eends;' 'Hot as the Devil's kitchen;' 'Handy as a pocket in a shirt;' +'He's a whole team and the dog under the wagon;' 'All deacons are good, +but there's odds in deacons' (to _deacon_ berries is to put the largest +atop); 'So thievish they hev to take in their stone walls nights;'[32] +may serve as specimens. 'I take my tea _barfoot_,' said a backwoodsman +when asked if he would have cream and sugar. (I find _barfoot_, by the +way, in the Coventry Plays.) A man speaking to me once of a very rocky +clearing said, 'Stone's got a pretty heavy mortgage on that land,' and I +overheard a guide in the woods say to his companions who were urging him +to sing, 'Wal, I _did_ sing once, but toons gut invented, an' thet spilt +my trade.' Whoever has driven over a stream by a bridge made of _slabs_ +will feel the picturesque force of the epithet _slab-bridged_ applied to +a fellow of shaky character. Almost every county has some good +die-sinker in phrase, whose mintage passes into the currency of the +whole neighborhood. Such a one described the county jail (the one stone +building where all the dwellings are of wood) as 'the house whose +underpinnin' come up to the eaves,' and called hell 'the place where +they didn't rake up their fires nights.' I once asked a stage-driver if +the other side of a hill were as steep as the one we were climbing: +'Steep? chain lightnin' couldn' go down it 'thout puttin' the shoe on!' +And this brings me back to the exaggeration of which I spoke before. To +me there is something very taking in the negro 'so black that charcoal +made a chalk-mark on him,' and the wooden shingle 'painted so like +marble that it sank in water,' as if its very consciousness or its +vanity had been overpersuaded by the cunning of the painter. I heard a +man, in order to give a notion of some very cold weather, say to another +that a certain Joe, who had been taking mercury, found a lump of +quicksilver in each boot, when he went home to dinner. This power of +rapidly dramatizing a dry fact into flesh and blood and the vivid +conception of Joe as a human thermometer strike me as showing a poetic +sense that may be refined into faculty. At any rate there is humor here, +and not mere quickness of wit,--the deeper and not the shallower +quality. The _tendency_ of humor is always towards overplus of +expression, while the very essence of wit is its logical precision. +Captain Basil Hall denied that our people had any humor, deceived, +perhaps, by their gravity of manner. But this very seriousness is often +the outward sign of that humorous quality of the mind which delights in +finding an element of identity in things seemingly the most incongruous, +and then again in forcing an incongruity upon things identical. Perhaps +Captain Hall had no humor himself, and if so he would never find it. Did +he always feel the point of what was said to himself? I doubt it, +because I happen to know a chance he once had given him in vain. The +Captain was walking up and down the veranda of a country tavern in +Massachusetts while the coach changed horses. A thunder-storm was going +on, and, with that pleasant European air of indirect self-compliment in +condescending to be surprised by American merit, which we find so +conciliating, he said to a countryman lounging against the door, 'Pretty +heavy thunder you have here.' The other, who had divined at a glance his +feeling of generous concession to a new country, drawled gravely, 'Waal, +we _du_, considerin' the number of inhabitants.' This, the more I +analyze it, the more humorous does it seem. The same man was capable of +wit also, when he would. He was a cabinet-maker, and was once employed +to make some commandment-tables for the parish meeting-house. The +parson, a very old man, annoyed him by looking into his workshop every +morning, and cautioning him to be very sure to pick out 'clear mahogany +without any _knots_ in it.' At last, wearied out, he retorted one day: +'Wal, Dr. B., I guess ef I was to leave the _nots_ out o' some o' the +c'man'ments, 't'ould soot you full ez wal!' + +If I had taken the pains to write down the proverbial or pithy phrases I +have heard, or if I had sooner thought of noting the Yankeeisms I met +with in my reading, I might have been able to do more justice to my +theme. But I have done all I wished in respect to pronunciation, if I +have proved that where we are vulgar, we have the countenance of very +good company. For, as to the _jus et norma loquendi_, I agree with +Horace and those who have paraphrased or commented him, from Boileau to +Gray. I think that a good rule for style is Galiani's definition of +sublime oratory,--'l'art de tout dire sans être mis à la Bastille dans +un pays où il est defendu de rien dire.' I profess myself a fanatical +purist, but with a hearty contempt for the speech-gilders who affect +purism without any thorough, or even pedagogic knowledge of the +engendure, growth, and affinities of the noble language about whose +_mésalliances_ they profess (like Dean Alford) to be so solicitous. If +_they_ had their way--! 'Doch es sey,' says Lessing, 'dass jene +gotbische Höflichkeit eine unentbehrliche Tugend des heutigen Umganges +ist. Soll sie darum unsere Schriften eben so schaal und falsch machen +als unsern Umgang?' And Drayton was not far wrong in affirming that + + 'Tis possible to climb, + To kindle, or to slake, + Although in Skelton's rhyme.' + +Cumberland in his Memoirs tells us that when, in the midst of Admiral +Rodney's great sea-fight, Sir Charles Douglas said to him, 'Behold, Sir +George, the Greeks and Trojans contending for the body of Patroclus!' +the Admiral answered, peevishly, 'Damn the Greeks and damn the Trojans! +I have other things to think of.' After the battle was won, Rodney thus +to Sir Charles, 'Now, my dear friend, I am at the service of your Greeks +and Trojans, and the whole of Homer's Iliad, or as much of it as you +please!' I had some such feeling of the impertinence of our +pseudo-classicality when I chose our homely dialect to work in. Should +we be nothing, because somebody had contrived to be something (and that +perhaps in a provincial dialect) ages ago? and to be nothing by our very +attempt to be that something, which they had already been, and which +therefore nobody could be again without being a bore? Is there no way +left, then, I thought, of being natural, of being _naïf_, which means +nothing more than native, of belonging to the age and country in which +you are born? The Yankee, at least, is a new phenomenon; let us try to +be _that_. It is perhaps a _pis aller_, but is not _No Thoroughfare_ +written up everywhere else? In the literary world, things seemed to me +very much as they were in the latter half of the last century. Pope, +skimming the cream of good sense and expression wherever he could find +it, had made, not exactly poetry, but an honest, salable butter of +worldly wisdom which pleasantly lubricated some of the drier morsels of +life's daily bread, and, seeing this, scores of harmlessly insane people +went on for the next fifty years coaxing his buttermilk with the regular +up and down of the pentameter churn. And in our day do we not scent +everywhere, and even carry away in our clothes against our will, that +faint perfume of musk which Mr. Tennyson has left behind him, or worse, +of Heine's _patchouli_? And might it not be possible to escape them by +turning into one of our narrow New England lanes, shut in though it were +by bleak stone walls on either hand, and where no better flowers were to +be gathered than goldenrod and hardhack? + +Beside the advantage of getting out of the beaten track, our dialect +offered others hardly inferior. As I was about to make an endeavor to +state them, I remembered something that the clear-sighted Goethe had +said about Hebel's 'Allemannische Gedichte,' which, making proper +deduction for special reference to the book under review, expresses what +I would have said far better than I could hope to do: 'Allen diesen +innern guten Eigenschaften kommt die behagliche naive Sprache sehr zu +statten. Man findet mehrere sinnlich bedeutende and wohlklingende Worte +... von einem, zwei Buchstaben, Abbreviationen, Contractionen, viele +kurze, leichte Sylben, neue Reime, welches, mehr als man glaubt, ein +Vortheil für den Dichter ist. Diese Elemente werden durch glückliche +Constructionen und lebhafte Formen zu einem Styl zusammengedrängt der zu +diesem Zwecke vor unserer Büchersprache grosse Vorzüge hat.' Of course I +do not mean to imply that _I_ have come near achieving any such success +as the great critic here indicates, but I think the success is _there_, +and to be plucked by some more fortunate hand. + +Nevertheless, I was encouraged by the approval of many whose opinions I +valued. With a feeling too tender and grateful to be mixed with any +vanity, I mention as one of these the late A.H. Clough, who more than +any one of those I have known (no longer living), except Hawthorne, +impressed me with the constant presence of that indefinable thing we +call genius. He often suggested that I should try my hand at some Yankee +Pastorals, which would admit of more sentiment and a higher tone without +foregoing the advantage offered by the dialect. I have never completed +anything of the kind, but, in this Second Series, both my remembrance of +his counsel and the deeper feeling called up by the great interests at +stake, led me to venture some passages nearer to what is called poetical +than could have been admitted without incongruity into the former +series. The time seemed calling to me, with the old poet,-- + + 'Leave, then, your wonted prattle, + The oaten reed forbear; + For I hear a sound of battle, + And trumpets rend the air!' + +The only attempt I had ever made at anything like a pastoral (if that +may be called an attempt which was the result almost of pure accident) +was in 'The Courtin'.' While the introduction to the First Series was +going through the press, I received word from the printer that there was +a blank page left which must be filled. I sat down at once and +improvised another fictitious 'notice of the press,' in which, because +verse would fill up space more cheaply than prose, I inserted an extract +from a supposed ballad of Mr. Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the +printer, as directed, cut it off when the gap was filled. Presently I +began to receive letters asking for the rest of it, sometimes for the +_balance_ of it. I had none, but to answer such demands, I patched a +conclusion upon it in a later edition. Those who had only the first +continued to importune me. Afterward, being asked to write it out as an +autograph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commission Fair, I added other +verses, into some of which I fused a little more sentiment in a homely +way, and after a fashion completed it by sketching in the characters' +and making a connected story. Most likely I have spoiled it, but I shall +put it at the end of this Introduction, to answer once for all those +kindly importunings. + +As I have seen extracts from what purported to be writings of Mr. +Biglow, which were not genuine, I may properly take this opportunity to +say, that the two volumes now published contain every line I ever +printed under that pseudonyme, and that I have never, so far as I can +remember, written an anonymous article (elsewhere than in the 'North +American Review' and the 'Atlantic Monthly,' during my editorship of it) +except a review of Mrs. Stowe's 'Minister's Wooing,' and, some twenty +years ago, a sketch of the antislavery movement in America for an +English journal. + +A word more on pronunciation. I have endeavored to express this so far +as I could by the types, taking such pains as, I fear, may sometimes +make the reading harder than need be. At the same time, by studying +uniformity I have sometimes been obliged to sacrifice minute exactness. +The emphasis often modifies the habitual sound. For example, _for_ is +commonly _fer_ (a shorter sound than _fur_ for _far_), but when emphatic +it always becomes _for_, as 'wut _for!_' So _too_ is pronounced like +_to_ (as it was anciently spelt), and _to_ like _ta_ (the sound as in +the _tou_ of _touch_), but _too_, when emphatic, changes into _tue_, and +_to_, sometimes, in similar cases, into _toe_, as 'I didn' hardly know +wut _toe_ du!' Where vowels come together, or one precedes another +following an aspirate, the two melt together, as was common with the +older poets who formed their versification on French or Italian models. +Drayton is thoroughly Yankee when he says 'I 'xpect,' and Pope when he +says, 't' inspire.' _With_ becomes sometimes _'ith_, _'ŭth_, or +_'th_, or even disappears wholly where it comes before _the_, as, 'I +went along _th'_ Square' (along with the Squire), the _are_ sound being +an archaism which I have noticed also in _choir_, like the old Scottish +_quhair_.[33] (Herrick has, 'Of flowers ne'er sucked by th' theeving +bee.') _Without_ becomes _athout_ and _'thout_. _Afterwards_ always +retains its locative _s_, and is pronounced always _ahterwurds'_, with a +strong accent on the last syllable. This oddity has some support in the +erratic _towards'_ instead of _to'wards_, which we find in the poets and +sometimes hear. The sound given to the first syllable of _to'wards_, I +may remark, sustains the Yankee lengthening of the _o_ in _to_. At the +beginning of a sentence, _ahterwurds_ has the accent on the first +syllable; at the end of one, on the last; as, '_ah'terwurds_ he tol' +me,' 'he tol' me _ahterwurds'_.' The Yankee never makes a mistake in his +aspirates. _U_ changes in many words to _e_, always in _such, brush, +tush, hush, rush, blush_, seldom in _much_, oftener in _trust_ and +_crust_, never in _mush, gust, bust, tumble_, or (?) _flush_, in the +latter case probably to avoid confusion with _flesh_. I have heard +_flush_ with the _e_ sound, however. For the same reason, I suspect, +never in _gush_ (at least, I never heard it), because we have already +one _gesh_ for _gash_. _A_ and _i_ short frequently become _e_ short. +_U_ always becomes _o_ in the prefix _un_ (except _unto_), and _o_ in +return changes to _u_ short in _uv_ for _of_, and in some words +beginning with _om_. _T_ and _d_, _b_ and _p_, _v_ and _w_, remain +intact. So much occurs to me in addition to what I said on this head in +the preface to the former volume. + +Of course in what I have said I wish to be understood as keeping in mind +the difference between provincialisms properly so called and _slang_. +_Slang_ is always vulgar, because it is not a natural but an affected +way of talking, and all mere tricks of speech or writing are offensive. +I do not think that Mr. Biglow can be fairly charged with vulgarity, and +I should have entirely failed in my design, if I had not made it appear +that high and even refined sentiment may coexist with the shrewder and +more comic elements of the Yankee character. I believe that what is +essentially vulgar and mean-spirited in politics seldom has its source +in the body of the people, but much rather among those who are made +timid by their wealth or selfish by their love of power. A democracy can +_afford_ much better than an aristocracy to follow out its convictions, +and is perhaps better qualified to build those convictions on plain +principles of right and wrong, rather than on the shifting sands of +expediency. I had always thought 'Sam Slick' a libel on the Yankee +character, and a complete falsification of Yankee modes of speech, +though, for aught I know, it may be true in both respects so far as the +British provinces are concerned. To me the dialect was native, was +spoken all about me when a boy, at a time when an Irish day-laborer was +as rare as an American one now. Since then I have made a study of it so +far as opportunity allowed. But when I write in it, it is as in a mother +tongue, and I am carried back far beyond any studies of it to long-ago +noonings in my father's hay-fields, and to the talk of Sam and Job over +their jug of _blackstrap_ under the shadow of the ash-tree which still +dapples the grass whence they have been gone so long. + +But life is short, and prefaces should be. And so, my good friends, to +whom this introductory epistle is addressed, farewell. Though some of +you have remonstrated with me, I shall never write any more 'Biglow +Papers,' however great the temptation,--great especially at the present +time,--unless it be to complete the original plan of this Series by +bringing out Mr. Sawin as an 'original Union man.' The very favor with +which they have been received is a hindrance to me, by forcing on me a +self-consciousness from which I was entirely free when I wrote the First +Series. Moreover, I am no longer the same careless youth, with nothing +to do but live to myself, my books, and my friends, that I was then. I +always hated politics, in the ordinary sense of the word, and I am not +likely to grow, fonder of them, now that I have learned how rare it is +to find a man who can keep principle clear from party and personal +prejudice, or can conceive the possibility of another's doing so. I feel +as if I could in some sort claim to be an _emeritus_, and I am sure that +political satire will have full justice done it by that genuine and +delightful humorist, the Rev. Petroleum V. Nasby. I regret that I killed +off Mr. Wilbur so soon, for he would have enabled me to bring into this +preface a number of learned quotations, which must now go a-begging, and +also enabled me to dispersonalize myself into a vicarious egotism. He +would have helped me likewise in clearing myself from a charge which I +shall briefly touch on, because my friend Mr. Hughes has found it +needful to defend me in his preface to one of the English editions of +the 'Biglow Papers.' I thank Mr. Hughes heartily for his friendly care +of my good name, and were his Preface accessible to my readers here (as +I am glad it is not, for its partiality makes me blush), I should leave +the matter where he left it. The charge is of profanity, brought in by +persons who proclaimed African slavery of Divine institution, and is +based (so far as I have heard) on two passages in the First Series-- + + 'An' you've gut to git up airly, + Ef you want to take in God,' + +and, + + 'God'll send the bill to you,' + +and on some Scriptural illustrations by Mr. Sawin. + +Now, in the first place, I was writing under an assumed character, and +must talk as the person would whose mouthpiece I made myself. Will any +one familiar with the New England countryman venture to tell me that he +does _not_ speak of sacred things familiarly? that Biblical allusions +(allusions, that is, to the single book with whose language, from his +church-going habits, he is intimate) are _not_ frequent on his lips? If +so, he cannot have pursued his studies of the character on so many +long-ago muster-fields and at so many cattle-shows as I. But I scorn any +such line of defence, and will confess at once that one of the things I +am proud of in my countrymen is (I am not speaking now of such persons +as I have assumed Mr. Sawin to be) that they do not put their Maker away +far from them, or interpret the fear of God into being afraid of Him. +The Talmudists had conceived a deep truth when they said, that 'all +things were in the power of God, save the fear of God;' and when people +stand in great dread of an invisible power, I suspect they mistake quite +another personage for the Deity. I might justify myself for the passages +criticised by many parallel ones from Scripture, but I need not. The +Reverend Homer Wilbur's note-books supply me with three apposite +quotations. The first is from a Father of the Roman Church, the second +from a Father of the Anglican, and the third from a Father of Modern +English poetry. The Puritan divines would furnish me with many more +such. St. Bernard says, _Sapiens nummularius est Deus: nummum fictum non +recipiet_; 'A cunning money-changer is God: he will take in no base +coin.' Latimer says, 'You shall perceive that God, by this example, +shaketh us by the noses and taketh us by the ears.' Familiar enough, +both of them, one would say! But I should think Mr. Biglow had verily +stolen the last of the two maligned passages from Dryden's 'Don +Sebastian,' where I find + + 'And beg of Heaven to charge the bill on me!' + +And there I leave the matter, being willing to believe that the Saint, +the Martyr, and even the Poet, were as careful of God's honor as my +critics are ever likely to be. + + + + +II. GLOSSARY TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS + + +Act'lly, _actually_. +Air, _are_. +Airth, _earth_. +Airy, _area_. +Aree, _area_. +Arter, _after_. +Ax, _ask_. + +Beller, _bellow_. +Bellowses, _lungs_. +Ben, _been_. +Bile, _boil_. +Bimeby, _by and by_. +Blurt out, _to speak bluntly_. +Bust, _burst_. +Buster, _a roistering blade_; used also as a general superlative. + +Caird, _carried_. +Cairn, _carrying_. +Caleb, _a turncoat_. +Cal'late, _calculate_. +Cass, _a person with two lives_. +Close, _clothes_. +Cockerel, _a young cock_. +Cocktail, _a kind of drink_; also, _an ornament peculiar to + soldiers_. +Convention, _a place where people are imposed on; a juggler's show_. +Coons, _a cant term for a now defunct party_; derived, perhaps, from + the fact of their being commonly _up a tree_. +Cornwallis, _a sort of muster in masquerade_; supposed to have had + its origin soon after the Revolution, and to commemorate the surrender + of Lord Cornwallis. It took the place of the old Guy Fawkes procession. +Crooked stick, _a perverse, froward person_. +Cunnle, _a colonel_. +Cus, _a curse_; also, _a pitiful fellow_. + +Darsn't, used indiscriminately, either in singular or plural number, + for _dare not, dares not_, and _dared not_. +Deacon off, _to give the cue to_; derived from a custom, once + universal, but now extinct, in our New England Congregational churches. + An important part of the office of deacon was to read aloud the hymns + _given out_ by the minister, one line at a time, the congregation + singing each line as soon as read. +Demmercrat, leadin', _one in favor of extending slavery; a free-trade + lecturer maintained in the custom-house_. +Desput, _desperate_. +Dō', _don't_. +Doos, _does_. +Doughface, _a contented lick-spittle_; a common variety of Northern + politician. +Dror, _draw_. +Du, _do_. +Dunno, dno, _do not_ or _does not know_. +Dut, _dirt_. + +Eend, _end_. +Ef, _if_. +Emptins, _yeast_. +Env'y, _envoy_. +Everlasting, an intensive, without reference to duration. +Ev'y, _every_. +Ez, _as_. + +Fence, on the; said of one who halts between two opinions; a trimmer. +Fer, _for_. +Ferfle, ferful, _fearful_; also an intensive. +Fin', _find_. +Fish-skin, used in New England to clarify coffee. +Fix, _a difficulty, a nonplus_. +Foller, folly, _to follow_. +Forrerd, _forward_. +Frum, _from_. +Fur, _for_ +Furder, _farther_. +Furrer, _furrow_. Metaphorically, _to draw a straight furrow_ is to + live uprightly or decorously. +Fust, _first_. + +Gin, _gave_. +Git, _get_. +Gret, _great_. +Grit, _spirit, energy, pluck_. +Grout, _to sulk_. +Grouty, _crabbed, surly_. +Gum, _to impose on_. +Gump, _a foolish fellow, a dullard_. +Gut, _got_. + +Hed, _had_. +Heern, _heard_. +Hellum, _helm_. +Hendy, _handy_. +Het, _heated_. +Hev, _have_. +Hez, _has_. +Holl, _whole_. +Holt, _hold_. +Huf, _hoof_. +Hull, _whole_. +Hum, _home_. +Humbug, _General Taylor's antislavery_. +Hut, _hurt_. + +Idno, _I do not know_. +In'my, _enemy_. +Insines, _ensigns_; used to designate both the officer who carries the + standard, and the standard itself. +Inter, intu, _into_. + +Jedge, _judge_. +Jest, _just_. +Jine, _join_. +Jint, _joint_. +Junk, _a fragment of any solid substance_. + +Keer, _care_. +Kep', _kept_. +Killock, _a small anchor_. +Kin', kin' o', kinder, _kind, kind of_. + +Lawth, _loath_. +Less, _let's, let us_. +Let daylight into, _to shoot_. +Let on, _to hint, to confess, to own_. +Lick, _to beat, to overcome_. +Lights, _the bowels_. +Lily-pads, _leaves of the water-lily_. +Long-sweetening, _molasses_. + +Mash, _marsh_. +Mean, _stingy, ill-natured_. +Min', _mind_. + +Nimepunce, _ninepence, twelve and a half cents_. +Nowers, _nowhere_. + +Offen, _often_. +Ole, _old_. +Ollers, olluz, _always_. +On, _of_; used before _it_ or _them,_ or at the end of a + sentence, as _on 't, on 'em, nut ez ever I heerd on_. +On'y, _only_. +Ossifer, _officer_ (seldom heard). + +Peaked, _pointed_. +Peek, _to peep_. +Pickerel, _the pike, a fish_. +Pint, _point_. +Pocket full of rocks, _plenty of money_. +Pooty, _pretty_. +Pop'ler, _conceited, popular_. +Pus, _purse_. +Put out, _troubled, vexed_. + +Quarter, _a quarter-dollar_. +Queen's-arm, _a musket_. + +Resh, _rush_. +Revelee, _the réveille_. +Rile, _to trouble_. +Riled, _angry; disturbed,_ as the sediment in any liquid. +Riz, _risen_. +Row, a long row to hoe, _a difficult task_. +Rugged, _robust_. + +Sarse, _abuse, impertinence_. +Sartin, _certain_. +Saxon, _sacristan, sexton_. +Scaliest, _worst_. +Scringe, _cringe_. +Scrouge, _to crowd_. +Sech, _such_. +Set by, _valued_. +Shakes, great, _of considerable consequence_. +Shappoes, _chapeaux, cocked-hats_. +Sheer, _share_. +Shet, _shut_. +Shut, _shirt_. +Skeered, _scared_. +Skeeter, _mosquito_. +Skooting, _running,_ or _moving swiftly_. +Slarterin', _slaughtering_. +Slim, _contemptible_. +Snake, _crawled like a snake_; but _to snake any one out_ + is to track him to his hiding-place; _to snake a thing out_ is + to snatch it out. +Soffies, _sofas_. +Sogerin', _soldiering_; a barbarous amusement common among men + in the savage state. +Som'ers, _somewhere_. +So'st, _so as that_. +Sot, _set, obstinate, resolute_. +Spiles, _spoils; objects of political ambition_. +Spry, _active_. +Steddles, _stout stakes driven into the salt marshes_, on which the + hay-ricks are set, and thus raised out of the reach of high tides. +Streaked, _uncomfortable, discomfited_. +Suckle, _circle_. +Sutthin', _something_. +Suttin, _certain_. + +Take on, _to sorrow_. +Talents, _talons_. +Taters, _potatoes_. +Tell, _till_. +Tetch, _touch_. +Tetch tu, _to be able_; used always after a negative in this sense. +Tollable, _tolerable_. +Toot, used derisively for _playing on any wind instrument_. +Thru, _through_. +Thundering, a euphemism common in New England for the profane English + expression _devilish_. Perhaps derived from the belief, common + formerly, that thunder was caused by the Prince of the Air, for some + of whose accomplishments consult Cotton Mather. +Tu, _to, too_; commonly has this sound when used emphatically, + or at the end of a sentence. At other times it has the sound of _t_ + in _tough_, as _Ware ye gain' tu? Goin' ta Boston_. + +Ugly, _ill-tempered, intractable_. +Uncle Sam, _United States_; the largest boaster of liberty and + owner of slaves. +Unrizzest, applied to dough or bread; _heavy, most unrisen, or most + incapable of rising_. + +V-spot, _a five-dollar bill_. +Vally, _value_. + +Wake snakes, _to get into trouble_. +Wal, _well_; spoken with great deliberation, and sometimes with the + _a_ very much flattened, sometimes (but more seldom) very much + broadened. +Wannut, _walnut (hickory)_. +Ware, _where_. +Ware, _were_. +Whopper, _an uncommonly large lie_; as, that General Taylor is in + favor of the Wilmot Proviso. +Wig, _Whig_; a party now dissolved. +Wunt, _will not_. +Wus, _worse_. +Wut, _what_. +Wuth, _worth_; _as, Antislavery perfessions 'fore 'lection aint + wuth a Bungtown copper_. +Wuz, _was_, sometimes _were_. + +Yaller, _yellow_. +Yeller, _yellow_. +Yellers, _a disease of peach-trees_. + +Zack, Ole, _a second Washington, an antislavery slaveholder; a humane + buyer and seller of men and women, a Christian hero generally_. + + + + +III. INDEX TO BIGLOW PAPERS + + +A. + +A. wants his axe ground. +A.B., Information wanted concerning. +Abraham (Lincoln), his constitutional scruples. +Abuse, an, its usefulness. +Adam, eldest son of, + respected, + his fall, + how if he had bitten a sweet apple? +Adam, Grandfather, forged will of. +Æeneas goes to hell. +Æeolus, a seller of money, as is supposed by some. +Æeschylus, a saying of. +Alligator, a decent one conjectured to be, in some sort, humane. +Allsmash, the eternal. +Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal, tyrannical act of. +Ambrose, Saint, excellent (but rationalistic) sentiment of. +'American Citizen,' new compost so called. +American Eagle, + a source of inspiration, + hitherto wrongly classed, + long bill of. +Americans bebrothered. +Amos cited. +Anakim, that they formerly existed, shown. +Angels + providentially speak French, + conjectured to be skilled in all tongues. +Anglo-Saxondom, its idea, what. +Anglo-Saxon mask. +Anglo-Saxon race. +Anglo-Saxon verse, by whom carried to perfection. +Antiquaries, Royal Society of Northern. +Antonius, + a speech of, + by whom best reported. +Antony of Padua, Saint, happy in his hearers. +Apocalypse, beast in, magnetic to theologians. +Apollo, confessed mortal by his own oracle. +Apollyon, his tragedies popular. +Appian, an Alexandrian, not equal to Shakespeare as an orator. +Applause, popular, the _summum bonum_. +Ararat, ignorance of foreign tongues is an. +Arcadian background. +Ar c'houskezik, an evil spirit. +Ardennes, Wild Boar of, an ancestor of Rev. Mr. Wilbur. +Aristocracy, British, their natural sympathies. +Aristophanes. +Arms, profession of, once esteemed, especially that of gentlemen. +Arnold. +Ashland. +Astor, Jacob, a rich man. +Astræa, nineteenth century forsaken by. +Athenians, ancient, an institution of. +Atherton, Senator, envies the loon. +'Atlantic,' editors of. See _Neptune_. +Atropos, a lady skilful with the scissors. +Austin, Saint, prayer of. +Austrian eagle split. +Aye-aye, the, an African animal, America supposed to be settled by. + +B., a Congressman, _vide_ A. +Babel, + probably the first Congress, + gabble-mill. +Baby, a low-priced one. +Bacon, his rebellion. +Bacon, Lord, quoted. +Bagowind, Hon. Mr., whether to be damned. +Balcom, Elder Joash Q., 2d, founds a Baptist society in Jaalam, A.D. 1830. +Baldwin apples. +Baratarias, real or imaginary, which most pleasant. +Barnum, a great natural curiosity recommended to. +Barrels, an inference from seeing. +Bartlett, Mr., mistaken. +Bâton Rouge, + strange peculiarities of laborers at. +Baxter, R., a saying of, +Bay, Mattysqumscot. +Bay State, singular effect produced on military officers by leaving it. +Beast, in Apocalypse, + a loadstone for whom, + tenth horn of, applied to recent events. +Beaufort. +Beauregard real name Toutant. +Beaver brook. +Beelzebub, his rigadoon. +Behmen, his letters not letters. +Behn, Mrs. Aphra, quoted. +Sellers, + a saloon-keeper, + inhumanly refuses credit to a presidential candidate. +Belmont. See Woods. +Bentley, his heroic method with Milton. +Bible, not composed for use of colored persons. +Biglow, Ezekiel, + his letter to Hon. J.T. Buckingham, + never heard of any one named Mandishes, + nearly fourscore years old, + his aunt Keziah, a notable saying of. +Biglow, Hosea, Esquire, + excited by composition, + a poem by, + his opinion of war, + wanted at home by Nancy, + recommends a forcible enlistment of warlike editors, + would not wonder, if generally agreed with, + versifies letter of Mr. Sawin, + a letter from, + his opinion of Mr. Sawin, + does not deny fun at Cornwallis, + his idea of militia glory, + a pun of, + is uncertain in regard to people of Boston, + had never heard of Mr. John P. Robinson, + _aliquid sufflaminandus_, + his poems attributed to a Mr. Lowell, + is unskilled in Latin, + his poetry maligned by some, + his disinterestedness, + his deep share in commonweal, + his claim to the presidency, + his mowing, + resents being called Whig, + opposed to tariff, + obstinate, + infected with peculiar notions, + reports a speech, + emulates historians of antiquity, + his character sketched from a hostile point of view, + a request of his complied with, + appointed at a public meeting in Jaalam, + confesses ignorance, in one minute particular, of propriety, + his opinion of cocked hats, + letter to, + called 'Dear Sir,' by a general, + probably receives same compliment from two hundred and nine, + picks his apples, + his crop of Baldwins conjecturally large, + his labors in writing autographs, + visits the Judge and has a pleasant time, + born in Middlesex County, + his favorite walks, + his gifted pen, + born and bred in the country, + feels his sap start in spring, + is at times unsocial, + the school-house where he learned his a b c, + falls asleep, + his ancestor a Cromwellian colonel, + finds it harder to make up his mind as he grows older, + wishes he could write a song or two, + liable to moods, + loves nature and is loved in return, + describes some favorite haunts of his, + his slain kindred, + his speech in March meeting, + does not reckon on being sent to Congress, + has no eloquence, + his own reporter, + never abused the South, + advises Uncle Sam, + is not Boston-mad, + bids farewell. +Billings, Dea. Cephas. +_Billy, Extra, demagogus._ +Birch, virtue of, in instilling certain of the dead languages. +Bird of our country sings hosanna. +Bjarna Grímólfsson invents smoking. +Blind, to go it. +Blitz pulls ribbons from his mouth. +Bluenose potatoes, smell of, eagerly desired. +Bobolink, the. +Bobtail obtains a cardinal's hat. +Boggs, a Norman name. +Bogus Four-Corners Weekly Meridian. +Bolles, Mr. Secondary, + author of prize peace essay, + presents sword to Lieutenant-Colonel, + a fluent orator, + found to be in error. +Bonaparte, N., a usurper. +Bonds, Confederate, + their specie basis cutlery, + when payable (attention, British stockholders!). +Boot-trees, productive, where. +Boston, people of, + supposed educated, + has a good opinion of itself. +Bowers, Mr. Arphaxad, an ingenious photographic artist. +Brahmins, navel-contemplating. +Brains, poor substitute for. +Bread-trees. +Bream, their only business. +Brigadier-Generals in militia, devotion of. +Brigadiers, nursing ones, tendency in, to literary composition. +_Brigitta, viridis_. +Britannia, her trident. +Brotherhood, subsides after election. +Brown, Mr., engages in an unequal contest. +Browne, Sir T., a pious and wise sentiment of, cited and commended. +Brutus Four-Corners. +Buchanan, a wise and honest man. +Buckingham, Hon. J.T., editor of the Boston Courier, + letters to, + not afraid. +Buffalo, + a plan hatched there, + plaster, a prophecy in regard to. +Buffaloes, herd of, probable influence of tracts upon. +Bull, John, + prophetic allusion to, by Horace, + his 'Run,' + his mortgage, + unfortunate dip of, + wool pulled over his eyes. +Buncombe, + in the other world supposed, + mutual privilege, in. +Bung, the eternal, thought to be loose. +Bungtown Fencibles, dinner of. +Burke, Mr., his age of chivalry surpassed. +Burleigh, Lord, quoted for something said in Latin long before. +Burns, Robert, a Scottish poet. +Bushy Brook. +Butler, Bishop. +Butter in Irish bogs. + +C., General, + commended for parts, + for ubiquity, + for consistency, + for fidelity, + is in favor of war, + his curious valuation of principle. +Cabbage-heads, the, always in majority. +Cabinet, English, makes a blunder. +Cæsar, + tribute to, + his veni, vidi, vici, censured for undue prolixity. +Cainites, sect of, supposed still extant. +Caleb, a monopoly of his denied, + curious notions of, as to meaning of 'shelter,' + his definition of Anglo-Saxon, + charges Mexicans (not with bayonets but) with improprieties. +Calhoun, Hon. J.C., + his cow-bell curfew, light of the nineteenth century to be extinguished + at sound of, + cannot let go apron-string of the Past, + his unsuccessful tilt at Spirit of the Age, + the Sir Kay of modern chivalry, + his anchor made of a crooked pin, + mentioned. +_Calyboosus, carcer_. +Cambridge Platform, use discovered for. +Canaan in quarterly instalments. +Canary Islands. +Candidate, + presidential, letter from, + smells a rat, + against a bank, + takes a revolving position, + opinion of pledges, + is a periwig, + fronts south by north, + qualifications of, lessening, + wooden leg (and head) useful to. +Cape Cod clergyman, + what, + Sabbath-breakers, perhaps, reproved by. +Captains, choice of, important. +Carolina, foolish act of. +Caroline, case of. +Carpini, Father John de Piano, among the Tartars. +Cartier, Jacques, commendable zeal of. +Cass, + General, + clearness of his merit, + limited popularity at 'Bellers's.' +Castles, Spanish, comfortable accommodations in. +Cato, letters of, so called, suspended _naso adunco_. +C.D., friends of, can hear of him. +Century, nineteenth. +Chalk egg, we are proud of incubation of. +Chamberlayne, Doctor, consolatory citation from. +Chance, + an apothegm concerning, + is impatient. +Chaplain, a one-horse, stern-wheeled variety of. +Chappelow on Job, a copy of, lost. +Charles I., accident to his neck. +Charles II., his restoration, how brought about. +Cherubusco, news of, its effects on English royalty. +Chesterfield no letter-writer. +Chief Magistrate, dancing esteemed sinful by. +Children naturally speak Hebrew. +China-tree. +Chinese, whether they invented gunpowder before the Christian era + not considered. +Choate hired. +Christ, + shuffled into Apocrypha, + conjectured to disapprove of slaughter and pillage, + condemns a certain piece of barbarism. +Christianity, profession of, plebeian, whether. +Christian soldiers, perhaps inconsistent whether. +Cicero, + an opinion of, disputed. +Cilley, Ensign, author of nefarious sentiment. +_Cimex lectularius_. +Cincinnati, old, law and order party of. +Cincinnatus, a stock character in modern comedy. +Civilization, + progress of, an alias, + rides upon a powder-cart. +Clergymen, + their ill husbandry, + their place in processions, + some, cruelly banished for the soundness of their lungs. +Clotho, a Grecian lady. +Cocked-hat, advantages of being knocked into. +College of Cardinals, a strange one. +Colman, Dr. Benjamin, anecdote of. +Colored folks, curious national diversion of kicking. +Colquitt, + a remark of, + acquainted with some principles of aerostation. +Columbia, District of, + its peculiar climatic effects, + not certain that Martin is for abolishing it. +Columbiads, the true fifteen-inch ones. +Columbus, + a Paul Pry of genius, + will perhaps be remembered, + thought by some to have discovered America. +Columby. +Complete Letter-Writer, fatal gift of. +Compostella, Saint James of, seen. +Compromise system, the, illustrated. +Conciliation, its meaning. +Congress, + singular consequence of getting into, + a stumbling-block. +Congressional debates found instructive. +Constituents, useful for what, 194. +Constitution, + trampled on, + to stand upon what. +Convention, what. +Convention, Springfield. +Coon, old, pleasure in skinning. +Co-operation defined. +Coppers, _caste_ in picking up of. +Copres, a monk, his excellent method of arguing. +Corduroy-road, a novel one. +Corner-stone, patent safety. +Cornwallis, + a, + acknowledged entertaining. +Cotton loan, its imaginary nature. +Cotton Mather, summoned as witness. +Country, our, + its boundaries more exactly defined, + right or wrong, nonsense about, exposed, + lawyers, sent providentially. + Earth's biggest, gets a soul. +Courier, The Boston, an unsafe print. +Court, General, farmers sometimes attain seats in. +Court, Supreme. +Courts of law, English, their orthodoxy. +Cousins, British, our _ci-devant_. +Cowper, W., his letters commended. +Credit defined. +Creditors all on Lincoln's side. +Creed, a safe kind of. +Crockett, a good rule of. +Cruden, Alexander, his Concordance. +Crusade, first American. +Cuneiform script recommended. +Curiosity distinguishes man from brutes. +Currency, Ethiopian, inconveniences of. +Cynthia, her hide as a means of conversion. + +Dædalus first taught men to sit on fences. +Daniel in the lion's den. +Darkies dread freedom. +Davis, Captain Isaac, finds out something to his advantage. +Davis, Jefferson (a new species of martyr), + has the latest ideas on all subjects, + superior in financiering to patriarch Jacob, + is _some_, + carries Constitution in his hat, + knows how to deal with his Congress, + astonished at his own piety, + packed up for Nashville, + tempted to believe his own lies, + his snake egg, + blood on his hands. +Davis, Mr., of Mississippi, a remark of his. +Day and Martin, proverbially "on hand." +Death, rings down curtain. +De Bow (a famous political economist). +Delphi, oracle of, + surpassed, + alluded to. +Democracy, + false notion of, + its privileges. +Demosthenes. +Destiny, her account. +Devil, the, + unskilled in certain Indian tongues, + letters to and from. +Dey of Tripoli. +Didymus, a somewhat voluminous grammarian. +Dighton rock character might be usefully employed in some emergencies. +Dimitry Bruisgins, fresh supply of. +Diogenes, his zeal for propagating certain variety of olive. +Dioscuri, imps of the pit. +District-Attorney, contemptible conduct of one. +Ditchwater on brain, a too common ailing. +Dixie, the land of. +Doctor, the, a proverbial saying of. +Doe, Hon. Preserved, speech of. +Donatus, profane wish of. +Doughface, yeast-proof. +Downing Street. +Drayton, + a martyr, + north star, culpable for aiding, whether. +Dreams, something about. +Dwight, President, a hymn unjustly attributed to. +D.Y., letter of. + +Eagle, national, the late, his estate administered upon. +Earth, Dame, a peep at her housekeeping. +Eating words, habit of, convenient in time of famine. +Eavesdroppers. +Echetlæus. +Editor, + his position, + commanding pulpit of, + large congregation of, + name derived from what, + fondness for mutton, + a pious one, his creed, + a showman, + in danger of sudden arrest, without bail. +Editors, certain ones who crow like cockerels. +Edwards, Jonathan. +Eggs, bad, the worst sort of. +Egyptian darkness, phial of, use for. +Eldorado, Mr. Sawin sets sail for. +Elizabeth, Queen, mistake of her ambassador. +Emerson. +Emilius, Paulus. +Empedocles. +Employment, regular, a good thing. +Enfield's Speaker, abuse of. +England, late Mother-Country, + her want of tact, + merits as a lecturer, + her real greatness not to be forgotten, + not contented (unwisely) with her own stock of fools, + natural maker of international law, + her theory thereof, + makes a particularly disagreeable kind of sarse, + somewhat given to bullying, + has respectable relations, + ought to be Columbia's friend, + anxious to buy an elephant. +Epaulets, perhaps no badge of saintship. +Epimenides, the Cretan Rip Van Winkle. +Episcopius, his marvellous oratory. +Eric, king of Sweden, his cap. +Ericsson, his caloric engine. +Eriksson, Thorwald, slain by natives. +Essence-peddlers. +Ethiopian, the, his first need. +Evangelists, iron ones. +Eyelids, a divine shield against authors. +Ezekiel, text taken from. +Ezekiel would make a poor figure at a caucus. + +Faber, Johannes. +Factory-girls, expected rebellion of. +Facts, + their unamiability, + compared to an old-fashioned stage-coach. +_Falstaffii, legio_. +Family-trees, + fruit of jejune, + a primitive forest of. +Faneuil Hall, + a place where persons tap themselves for a species of hydrocephalus, + a bill of fare mendaciously advertised in. +Father of country, his shoes. +Female Papists, cut off in the midst of idolatry. +_Fenianorum, rixæ_. +Fergusson, his 'Mutual Complaint,' etc. +F.F., singular power of their looks. +Fire, we all like to play with it. +Fish, emblematic, but disregarded, where. +Fitz, Miss Parthenia Almira, a sheresiarch. +Flam, President, untrustworthy. +Flirt, Mrs. +Flirtilla, elegy on death of. +Floyd, a taking character. +_Floydus, furcifer_. +Fly-leaves, providential increase of. +Fool, a cursed, his inalienable rights. +Foote, Mr., his taste for field-sports. +Fourier, a squinting toward. +Fourth of July ought to know its place. +Fourth of Julys, boiling. +France, + a strange dance begun in, + about to put her foot in it. +Friar John. +Fuller, Dr. Thomas, a wise saying of. +Funnel, old, hurraing in. +Gabriel, his last trump, its pressing nature. +Gardiner, Lieutenant Lion. +Gawain, Sir, his amusements. +Gay, S.H., Esquire, editor of National Antislavery Standard, letter to. +Geese, how infallibly to make swans of. +Gentleman, high-toned Southern, scientifically classed. +Getting up early. +Ghosts, some, presumed fidgety, (but see Stilling's Pneumatology.) +Giants formerly stupid. +Gideon, his sword needed. +Gift of tongues, distressing case of. +Gilbert, Sir Humphrey. +Globe Theatre, cheap season-ticket to. +Glory, + a perquisite of officers, + her account with B. Sawin, Esq. +Goatsnose, the celebrated interview with. +God, the only honest dealer. +Goings, Mehetable, unfounded claim of, disproved. +Gomara, + has a vision, + his relationship to the Scarlet Woman. +Governor, our excellent. +Grandfather, Mr. Biglow's, safe advice of. +Grandfathers, the, knew something. +Grand jurors, Southern, their way of finding a true bill. +_Grantus, Dux_. +Gravestones, the evidence of Dissenting ones held doubtful. +Gray's letters are letters. +Great horn spoon, sworn by. +Greeks, ancient, whether they questioned candidates. +Green Man, sign of. + +Habeas corpus, new mode of suspending it. +Hail Columbia, raised. +Ham, + sandwich, an orthodox (but peculiar) one, + his seed, + their privilege in the Bible, + immoral justification of. +Hamlets, machine for making. +Hammon. +Hampton Roads, disaster in. +Hannegan, Mr., something said by. +Harrison, General, how preserved. +Hat, a leaky one. +Hat-trees in full bearing. +Hawkins, his whetstone. +Hawkins, Sir John, stout, something he saw. +Hawthorne. +Hay-rick, electrical experiments with. +Headlong, General. +Hell, + the opinion of some concerning, + breaks loose. +Henry the Fourth of England, a Parliament of, how named. +Hens, self-respect attributed to. +Herb, the Circean. +Herbert, George, next to David. +Hercules, his second labor probably what. +Hermon, fourth-proof dew of. +Herodotus, story from. +Hesperides, an inference from. +Hessians, native American soldiers. +Hickory, Old, his method. +Higgses, their natural aristocracy of feeling. +Hitchcock, Doctor. +Hitchcock, the Rev. Jeduthun, + colleague of Mr. Wilbur, + letter from, containing notices of Mr. Wilbur, + ditto, enclosing macaronic verses, + teacher of high-school. +Hogs, their dreams. +Holden, Mr. Shearjashub, + Preceptor of Jaalam Academy, + his knowledge of Greek limited, + a heresy of his, + leaves a fund to propagate it. +Holiday, blind man's. +Hollis, Ezra, goes to Cornwallis. +Hollow, why men providentially so constructed. +Holmes, Dr., author of 'Annals of America.,' +Homer, a phrase of, cited. +Homer, eldest son of Mr. Wilbur. +Homers, democratic ones, plums left for. +Hotels, big ones, humbugs. +House, a strange one described. +Howell, James, Esq., + story told by, + letters of, commended. +Huldah, her bonnet. +Human rights out of order on the floor of Congress. +Humbug, + ascription of praise to, + generally believed in. +Husbandry, instance of bad. + +Icarius, Penelope's father. +Icelander, a certain uncertain. +Idea, + the Southern, its natural foes, + the true American. +Ideas, friction ones unsafe. +Idyl defined. +Indecision, mole-blind. +Infants, prattlings of, curious observation concerning. +Information wanted (universally, but especially at page). +Ishmael, young. + +Jaalam, unjustly neglected by great events. +Jaalam Centre, + Anglo-Saxons unjustly suspected by the young ladies there + "Independent Blunderbuss," strange conduct of editor of, + public meeting at, + meeting-house ornamented with imaginary clock. +Jaalam, East Parish of. +Jaalam Point, lighthouse on, charge of, prospectively offered + to Mr. H. Biglow. +_Jacobus, rex_. +Jakes, Captain, reproved for avarice. +Jamaica. +James the Fourth, of Scots, experiment by. +Jarnagin, Mr., his opinion of the completeness of Northern education. +Jefferson, Thomas, well-meaning, but injudicious. +Jeremiah, hardly the best guide in modern politics. +Jerome, Saint, his list of sacred writers. +Jerusha, ex-Mrs. Sawin. +Job, + Book of, + Chappelow on. +Johnson, Andrew, + as he used to be, + as he is: see Arnold, Benedict. +Johnson, Mr., communicates some intelligence. +Jonah, + the inevitable destiny of, + probably studied internal economy of the cetacea, + his gourd, + his unanimity in the whale. +Jonathan to John. +Jortin, Dr., cited. +Journals, British, their brutal tone. +Juanito. +Judea, + everything not known there, + not identical with A.D. +Judge, the, + his garden, + his hat covers many things. +Juvenal, a saying of. + +Kay, Sir, the, of modern chivalry. +Key, brazen one. +Keziah, Aunt, profound observation of. +Kinderhook. +Kingdom Come, march to, easy. +Königsmark, Count. + +Lablache surpassed. +Lacedæmonians banish a great talker. +Lamb, Charles, his epistolary excellence. +Latimer, Bishop, episcopizes Satan. +Latin tongue, curious information concerning. +Launcelot, Sir, a trusser of giants formerly, perhaps would find less + sport therein now. +Laura, exploited. +Learning, three-story. +Letcher, _de la vieille roche_. +_Letcherus, nebulo_. +Letters, + classed, + their shape, + of candidates, + often fatal. +Lettres Cabalistiques, quoted. +Lewis, Dixon H., gives his view of slavery. +Lewis Philip, + a scourger of young native Americans, + commiserated (though not deserving it). +Lexington. +Liberator, a newspaper, condemned by implication. +Liberty, unwholesome for men of certain complexions. +Licking, when constitutional. +Lignum vitæ, a gift of this valuable wood proposed. +Lincoln, too shrewd to hang Mason and Slidell. +Literature, Southern, its abundance. +Little Big Boosy River. +Longinus recommends swearing, note (Fuseli did same thing). +Long-sweetening recommended. +Lord, inexpensive way of lending to. +Lords, Southern, prove _pur sang_ by ablution. +Lost arts, one sorrowfully added to list of. +Louis the Eleventh of France, some odd trees of his. +Lowell, Mr. J.R., unaccountable silence of. +Luther, Martin, his first appearance as Europa. +Lyæus. +Lyttelton, Lord, his letters an imposition. + +Macrobii, their diplomacy. +Magoffin, a name naturally noble. +Mahomet, got nearer Sinai than some. +Mahound, his filthy gobbets. +Mandeville, Sir John, quoted. +Mangum, Mr., speaks to the point. +Manichæan, excellently confuted. +Man-trees, grow where. +Maori chieftains. +Mapes, Walter, + quoted, + paraphrased. +Mares'-nests, finders of, benevolent. +Marius, quoted. +Marshfield. +Martin, Mr. Sawin used to vote for him. +Mason and Dixon's line, slaves north of. +Mason an F.F.V. +Mason and Slidell, how they might have been made at once useful and + ornamental. +Mass, the, its duty defined. +Massachusetts, + on her knees, + something mentioned in connection with, worthy the attention of + tailors, + citizen of, baked, boiled, and roasted (_nefandum!_). +Masses, the, used as butter by some. +Maury, an intellectual giant, twin birth with Simms (which see). +Mayday a humbug. +M.C., an invertebrate animal. +Me, Mister, a queer creature. +Mechanics' Fair, reflections suggested at. +_Medium, ardentispirituale_. +Mediums, spiritual, dreadful liars. +Memminger, old. +Mentor, letters of, dreary. +Mephistopheles at a nonplus. +Mexican blood, its effect in raising price of cloth. +Mexican polka. +Mexicans, + charged with various breaches of etiquette, + kind feelings beaten into them. +Mexico, no glory in overcoming. +Middleton, Thomas, quoted. +Military glory spoken disrespectfully of, + militia treated still worse. +Milk-trees, growing still. +Mill, Stuart, his low ideas. +Millenniums apt to miscarry. +Millspring. +Mills for manufacturing gabble, how driven. +Mills, Josiah's. +Milton, + an unconscious plagiary, + a Latin verse of, cited, + an English poet, + his 'Hymn of the Nativity.' +Missionaries, + useful to alligators, + culinary liabilities of. +Missions, a profitable kind of. +Monarch, a pagan, probably not favored in philosophical experiments. +Money-trees, + desirable, + that they once existed shown to be variously probable. +Montaigne. +Montaigne, a communicative old Gascon. +Monterey, battle of, its singular chromatic effect on a species of + two-headed eagle. +Montezuma, licked. +Moody, Seth, + his remarkable gun, + his brother Asaph. +Moquis Indians, praiseworthy custom of. +Moses, + held up vainly as an example, + construed by Joe Smith, + (not, A.J. Moses) prudent way of following. +Muse invoked. +Myths, how to interpret readily. + +Naboths, Popish ones, how distinguished. +Nana Sahib. +Nancy, presumably Mrs. Biglow. +Napoleon III., his new chairs. +Nation, + rights of, proportionate to size, + young, its first needs. +National pudding, its effect on the organs of speech, a curious + physiological fact. +Negroes, + their double usefulness, + getting too current. +Nephelim, not yet extinct. +New England, + overpoweringly honored, + wants no more speakers, + done brown by whom, + her experience in beans beyond Cicero's. +Newspaper, the, + wonderful, + a strolling theatre, + thoughts suggested by tearing wrapper of, + a vacant sheet, + a sheet in which a vision was let down, + wrapper to a bar of soap, + a cheap impromptu platter. +New World, apostrophe to. +New York, letters from, commended. +Next life, what. +Nicotiana Tabacum, a weed. +Niggers, + area of abusing, extended, + Mr. Sawin's opinions of. +Ninepence a day low for murder. +No, + a monosyllable, + hard to utter. +Noah enclosed letter in bottle, probably. +Noblemen, Nature's. +Nornas, Lapland, what. +North, the, + has no business, + bristling, crowded off roost, + its mind naturally unprincipled. +North Bend, + geese inhumanly treated at, + mentioned. +North star, a proposition to indict. +Northern Dagon. +Northmen, _gens inclytissima_. +Nôtre Dame de la Haine. +Now, its merits. +Nowhere, march to. + +O'Brien, Smith. +Off ox. +Officers, + miraculous transformation in character of, + Anglo-Saxon, come very near being anathematized. +Old age, an advantage of. +Old One, invoked. +Onesimus made to serve the cause of impiety. +O'Phace, Increase D., Esq., speech of. +Opinion, British, its worth to us. +Opinions, certain ones compared to winter flies. +Oracle of Fools, still respectfully consulted. +Orion becomes commonplace. +Orrery, Lord, his letters (lord!). +Ostracism, curious species of. +_Ovidii Nasonis, carmen supposititium_. + +Palestine. +Paley, his Evidences. +Palfrey, Hon. J.G., (a worthy representative of Massachusetts). +Pantagruel, recommends a popular oracle. +Panurge, + his interview with Goatsnose. +Paper, plausible-looking, wanted. +Papists, female, slain by zealous Protestant bomb-shell. +Paralipomenon, a man suspected of being. +Paris, liberal principles safe as far away as. +_Parliamentum Indoctorum_ sitting in permnence. +Past, the, a good nurse. +Patience, sister, quoted. +Patriarchs, the, illiterate. +_Patricius, brogipotens_. +Paynims, their throats propagandistically cut. +Penelope, her wise choice. +People, + soft enough, + want correct ideas, + the, decline to be Mexicanized. +Pepin, King. +Pepperell General, quoted. +Pequash Junction. +Periwig. +Perley, Mr. Asaph, has charge of bass-viol. +Perseus, King, his avarice. +Persius, a pithy saying of. +Pescara, Marquis, saying of. +Peter, Saint, a letter of (_post-mortem_). +Petrarch, exploited Laura. +Petronius. +Pettibone, Jabez, bursts up. +Pettus came over with Wilhelmus Conquistor. +Phaon. +Pharaoh, his lean kine. +Pharisees, opprobriously referred to. +Philippe, Louis, in pea-jacket. +Phillips, Wendell, catches a Tartar. +Phlegyas quoted. +Phrygian language, whether Adam spoke it. +Pickens, a Norman name. +Pilcoxes, genealogy of. +Pilgrim Father, apparition of. +Pilgrims, the. +Pillows, constitutional. +Pine-trees, their sympathy. +Pinto, Mr., some letters of his commended. +Pisgah, an impromptu one. +Platform, party, a convenient one. +Plato, + supped with, + his man. +Pleiades, the, not enough esteemed. +Pliny, his letters not admired. +Plotinus, a story of. +Plymouth Rock, Old, a Convention wrecked on. +Poets apt to become sophisticated. +Point Tribulation, Mr. Sawin wrecked on. +Poles, exile, whether crop of beans depends on. +Polk, _nomen gentile_. +Polk, President, + synonymous with our country, + censured, + in danger of being crushed. +Polka, Mexican. +Pomp, + a runaway slave, his nest, + hypocritically groans like white man, + blind to Christian privileges, + his society valued at fifty dollars, + his treachery, + takes Mr. Sawin prisoner, + cruelly makes him work, + puts himself illegally under his tuition, + dismisses him with contumelious epithets, + a negro. +Pontifical bull, a tamed one. +Pope, his verse excellent. +Pork, refractory in boiling. +Portico, the. +Portugal, Alphonso the Sixth of, a monster. +Post, Boston, + shaken visibly, + bad guide-post, + too swift, + edited by a colonel, + who is presumed officially in Mexico, + referred to. +Pot-hooks, death in. +Power, a first-class, elements of. +Preacher, + an ornamental symbol, + a breeder of dogmas, + earnestness of, important. +Present, + considered as an annalist, + not long wonderful. +President, + slaveholding natural to, + must be a Southern resident, + must own a nigger, + the, his policy, + his resemblance to Jackson. +Princes mix cocktails. +Principle, exposure spoils it. +Principles, bad, + when less harmful, + when useless. +Professor, Latin, in + College, + Scaliger. +Prophecies, fulfilment of. +Prophecy, a notable one. +Prospect Hill. +Providence has a natural life-preserver. +Proviso, bitterly spoken of. +Prudence, sister, her idiosyncratic teapot. +Psammeticus, an experiment of. +Psyche, poor. +Public opinion, + a blind and drunken guide, + nudges Mr. Wilbur's elbow, + ticklers of. +Punkin Falls 'Weekly Parallel.' +Putnam, General Israel, his lines. +Pythagoras a bean-hater, why. +Pythagoreans, fish reverenced by, why. + +_Quid, ingens nicotianum_. +Quixote, Don. + +Rafn, Professor. +Rag, one of sacred college. +Rantoul, Mr., + talks loudly, + pious reason for not enlisting. +Recruiting sergeant, Devil supposed the first. +Religion, Southern, its commercial advantages. +Representatives' Chamber. +Rhinothism, society for promoting. +Rhyme, whether natural not considered. +Rib, an infrangible one. +Richard the First of England, his Christian fervor. +Riches conjectured to have legs as well as wings. +Ricos Hombres. +Ringtail Rangers. +Roanoke Island. +Robinson, Mr. John P., his opinions fully stated. +Rocks, pocket full of. +Roosters in rainy weather, their misery. +Rotation insures mediocrity and inexperience. +Rough and ready, + a Wig, + a kind of scratch. +Royal Society, American fellows of. +Rum and water combine kindly. +Runes resemble bird-tracks. +Runic inscriptions, their different grades of unintelligibility and + consequent value. +Russell, Earl, is good enough to expound our Constitution for us. +Russian eagle turns Prussian blue. +_Ryeus, Bacchi epitheton_. + +Sabbath, breach of. +Sabellianism, one accused of. +Sailors, their rights how won. +Saltillo, unfavorable view of. +Salt-river, in Mexican, what. +_Samuel, avunculus_, 271. +Samuel, Uncle, + riotous, + yet has qualities demanding reverence, + a good provider for his family, + an exorbitant bill of, + makes some shrewd guesses, + expects his boots, 245. +Sansculottes, draw their wine before drinking. +Santa Anna, his expensive leg. +Sappho, some human nature in. +Sassycus, an impudent Indian. +Satan, + never wants attorneys, + an expert talker by signs, + a successful fisherman with little or no bait, + cunning fetch of, + dislikes ridicule, + ought not to have credit of ancient oracles, + his worst pitfall. +Satirist, incident to certain dangers. +Savages, Canadian, chance of redemption offered to. +Sawin, B., Esquire, + his letter not written in verse, + a native of Jaalam + not regular attendant on Rev. Mr. Wilbur's preaching, + a fool, + his statements trustworthy, + his ornithological tastes, + letters from, + his curious discovery in regard to bayonets, + displays proper family pride, + modestly confesses himself less wise than the Queen of Sheba, + the old Adam in, peeps out, + a _miles emeritus_, + is made text for a sermon, + loses a leg, + an eye, + left hand, + four fingers of right hand, + has six or more ribs broken, + a rib of his infrangible, + allows a certain amount of preterite greenness in himself, + his share of spoil limited, + his opinion of Mexican climate, + acquires property of a certain sort, + his experience of glory, + stands sentry, and puns thereupon, + undergoes martyrdom in some of its most painful forms, + enters the candidating business, + modestly states the (avail) abilities which qualify him for high + political station, + has no principles, + a peace-man, + unpledged, + has no objections to owning peculiar property, but would not like to + monopolize the truth, + his account with glory, + a selfish motive hinted in, + sails for Eldorado, + shipwrecked on a metaphorical promontory, + parallel between, and Rev. Mr. Wilbur (not Plutarchian), + conjectured to have bathed in river Selemnus, + loves plough wisely, but not too well, + a foreign mission probably expected by, + unanimously nominated for presidency, + his country's father-in-law, + nobly emulates Cincinnatus, + is not a crooked stick, + advises his adherents, + views of, on present state of politics, + popular enthusiasm for, at Bellers's, and its disagreeable consequences, + inhuman treatment of, by Bellers, + his opinion of the two parties, + agrees with Mr. Webster, + his antislavery zeal, + his proper self respect, + his unaffected piety, + his not intemperate temperance, + a thrilling adventure of, + his prudence and economy, + bound to Captain Jakes, but regains his freedom, + is taken prisoner, + ignominiously treated, + his consequent resolution. +Sawin, Honorable B. O'F., + a vein of humor suspected in, + gets into an enchanted castle, + finds a wooden leg better in some respects than a living one, + takes something hot, + his experience of Southern hospitality, + water-proof internally, + sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, + his liberal-handedness, + gets his arrears of pension, + marries the widow Shannon, + confiscated, + finds in himself a natural necessity of income, + his missionary zeal, + never a stated attendant on Mr. Wilbur's preaching, + sang bass in choir, + prudently avoided contribution toward bell, + abhors a covenant of works, + if saved at all, must be saved genteelly, + reports a sermon, + experiences religion, + would consent to a dukedom, + converted to unanimity, + sound views of, + makes himself an extempore marquis, + extract of letter from, + his opinion of Paddies, of Johnson. +Sayres, a martyr. +Scaliger, saying of. +_Scarabæus pilularius_. +Scott, General, his claims to the presidency. +Scrimgour, Rev. Shearjashub. +Scythians, their diplomacy commended. +Sea, the wormy. +Seamen, colored, sold. +_Secessia, licta_. +Secession, its legal nature defined. +Secret, a great military. +Selemnus, a sort of Lethean river. +Senate, debate in, made readable. +Seneca, + saying of, + another, + overrated by a saint (but see Lord Bolingbroke's opinion of, in a + letter to Dean Swift), + his letters not commended, + a son of Rev. Mr. Wilbur, + quoted. +Serbonian bog of literature. +Sermons, some pitched too high. +Seward, Mister, the late, + his gift of prophecy, + needs stiffening, + misunderstands parable of fatted calf. +Sextons, + demand for, + heroic official devotion of one. +Seymour, Governor. +Shakespeare, + a good reporter. +Shaking fever, considered as an employment. +Sham, President, honest. +Shannon, Mrs., + a widow, + her family and accomplishments, + has tantrums, + her religious views, + her notions of a moral and intellectual being, + her maidan name, + her blue blood. +Sheba, Queen of. +Sheep, none of Rev. Mr. Wilbur's turned wolves. +Shem, Scriptural curse of. +Shiraz Centre, lead-mine at. +Shirley, Governor. +Shoddy, poor covering for outer or inner man. +Shot at sight, privilege of being. +Show, natural to love it. +Silver spoon born in Democracy's mouth, what. +Simms, an intellectual giant, twin-birth with Maury (which see). +Sin, wilderness of, modern, what. +Sinai suffers outrages. +Skim-milk has its own opinions. +Skin, hole in, strange taste of some for. +Skippers, Yankee, busy in the slave-trade. +Slaughter, whether God strengthen us for. +Slaughterers and soldiers compared. +Slaughtering nowadays _is_ slaughtering. +Slavery, + of no color, + corner-stone of liberty, + also keystone, + last crumb of Eden, + a Jonah, + an institution, + a private State concern. +Slidell, New York trash. +Sloanshure, Habakkuk, Esquire, President of Jaalam Bank. +Smith, Joe, used as a translation. +Smith, John, an interesting character. +Smith, Mr., + fears entertained for, + dined with. +Smith, N.B., his magnanimity. +_Smithius, dux_. +Soandso, Mr., the great, defines his position. +Soft-heartedness, misplaced, is soft-headedness. +Sol, + the fisherman, + soundness of respiratory organs hypothetically attributed to. +Soldiers, British, ghosts of, insubordinate. +Solomon, Song of, portions of it done into Latin verse by Mr. Wilbur. +Solon, a saying of. +Soul, injurious properties of. +South, + its natural eloquence, + facts have a mean spite against. +South Carolina, + futile attempt to anchor, + her pedigrees. +Southern men, + their imperfect notions of labor, + of subscriptions, + too high pressure, + prima facie noble. +Spanish, to walk, what. +Speech-making, an abuse of gift of speech. +Spirit-rapping does not repay the spirits engaged in it. +Split-Foot, Old, made to squirm. +Spring, described. +Star, north, subject to indictment, whether. +Statesman, a genuine, defined. +Stearns, Othniel, fable by. +Stone Spike, the. +Store, cheap cash, a wicked fraud. +Strong, Governor Caleb, a patriot. +Style, the catalogue. +Sumter, shame of. +Sunday should mind its own business. +Swearing commended as a figure of speech. +Swett, Jethro C., his fall. +Swift, Dean, threadbare saying of. + +Tag, elevated to the Cardinalate. +Taney, C.J. +Tarandfeather, Rev. Mr. +Tarbox, Shearjashub, first white child born in Jaalam. +Tartars, Mongrel. +Taxes, direct, advantages of. +Taylor, General, greased by Mr. Choate. +Taylor zeal, its origin. +Teapots, how made dangerous. +Ten, the upper. +Tesephone, banished for long-windedness. +Thacker, Rev. Preserved, D.D. +Thanks get lodged. +Thanksgiving, Feejee. +Thaumaturgus, Saint Gregory, letter of, to the Devil. +Theleme, Abbey of. +Theocritus, the inventor of idyllic poetry +Theory, defined. +Thermopylæs, too many. +'They'll say' a notable bully. +Thirty-nine articles might be made serviceable. +Thor, a foolish attempt of. +Thoreau. +Thoughts, live ones characterized. +Thumb, General Thomas, a valuable member of society. +Thunder, supposed in easy circumstances. +Thynne, Mr., murdered. +Tibullus. +Time, + an innocent personage to swear by, + a scene-shifter. +Tinkham, Deacon Pelatiah, + story concerning, not told, + alluded to, + does a very sensible thing. +Toms, Peeping. +Toombs, a doleful sound from. +Trees, various kinds of extraordinary ones. +Trowbridge, William, mariner, adventure of. +Truth + and falsehood start from same point, + truth invulnerable to satire, + compared to a river, + of fiction sometimes truer than fact, + told plainly, _passim_. +Tuileries, + exciting scene at, + front parlor of. +Tully, a saying of. +Tunnel, Northwest-Passage, a poor investment. +Turkey-Buzzard Boost. +Tuscaloosa. +Tutchel, Rev. Jonas, a Sadducee. +Tweedledee, gospel according to. +Tweedledum, great principles of. + +_Tylerus, + juvenis insignis, + porphyrogenitus, + Iohanides, flito celeris, + bene titus_. +Tyrants, European, how made to tremble. + +Ulysses, + husband of Penelope, + borrows money, (for full particulars of, see Homer and Dante) + _rex_. +Unanimity, new ways of producing. +Union, + its hoops off, + its good old meaning. +Universe, its breeching. +University, triennial catalogue of. +Us, nobody to be compared with, and see _World, passim_. + +Van Buren, + fails of gaining Mr. Sawin's confidence, + his son John reproved. +Van, Old, plan to set up. +Vattel, as likely to fall on _your_ toes as on mine. +Venetians invented something once. +Vices, cardinal, sacred conclave of. +Victoria, Queen, + her natural terror, + her best carpets. +Vinland. +Virgin, the, letter of, to Magistrates of Messina. +_Virginia, descripta_. +Virginians, their false heraldry. +Voltaire, _esprit de_. +Vratz, Captain, a Pomeranian, singular views of. + +Wachuset Mountain. +Wait, General. +Wales, Prince of, + calls Brother Jonathan _consanguineus noster_, + but had not, apparently, consulted the Garter King at Arms. +Walpole, Horace, + classed, + his letters praised. +Waltham Plain, Cornwallis at. +Walton, punctilious in his intercourse with fishes. +War, + abstract, horrid, + its hoppers, grist of, what. +Warren, Fort. +Warton, Thomas, a story of. +Washington, charge brought against. +Washington, city of, + climatic influence of, on coats, + mentioned, + grand jury of. +Washingtons, two hatched at a time by improved machine. +_Watchmanus, noctivagus_. +Water, Taunton, proverbially weak. +Water-trees. +Weakwash, a name fatally typical. +Webster, his unabridged quarto, its deleteriousness. +Webster, some sentiments of, commended by Mr. Sawin. +Westcott, Mr., his horror. +Whig party + has a large throat, + but query as to swallowing spurs. +White-house. +Wickliffe, Robert, consequences of his bursting. +Wife-trees. +Wilbur, Mrs. Dorcas (Pilcox), + an invariable rule of, + her profile, + tribute to. +Wilbur, Rev. Homer, A.M., + consulted, + his instructions to his flock, + a proposition of his for Protestant bomb-shells, + his elbow nudged, + his notions of satire, + some opinions of his quoted with apparent approval by Mr. Biglow, + geographical speculations of, + a justice of the peace, + a letter of, + a Latin pun of, + runs against a post without injury, + does not seek notoriety (whatever some malignants may affirm), + fits youths for college, + a chaplain during late war with England, + a shrewd observation of, + some curious speculations of, + his Martello-tower, + forgets he is not in pulpit, + extracts from sermon of, + interested in John Smith, + his views concerning present state of letters, + a stratagem of, + ventures two hundred and fourth interpretation of Beast in Apocalypse, + christens Hon. B. Sawin, then an infant, + an addition to our _sylva_ proposed by, + curious and instructive adventure of, + his account with an unnatural uncle, + his uncomfortable imagination, + speculations concerning Cincinnatus, + confesses digressive tendency of mind, + goes to work on sermon (not without fear that his readers will dub + him with a reproachful epithet like that with which Isaac Allerton, + a Mayflower man, revenges himself on a delinquent debtor of his, + calling him in his will, and thus holding him up to posterity, as + 'John Peterson, THE BORE'), + his modesty, + disclaims sole authorship of Mr. Biglow's writings, + his low opinion of prepensive autographs, + a chaplain in 1812, + cites a heathen comedian, + his fondness for the Book of Job, + preaches a Fast-Day discourse, + is prevented from narrating a singular occurrence, + is presented with a pair of new spectacles, + his church services indecorously sketched by Mr. Sawin, + hopes to decipher a Runic inscription, + a fable by, + deciphers Runic inscription, + his method therein, + is ready to reconsider his opinion of tobacco, + his opinion of the Puritans, + his death, + born in Pigsgusset, + letter of Rev. Mr. Hitchcock concerning, + fond of Milton's Christmas hymn, + his monument (proposed), + his epitaph, + his last letter, + his supposed disembodied spirit, + table belonging to, + sometimes wrote Latin verses, + his table-talk, + his prejudices, + against Baptists, + his sweet nature, + his views of style, + a story of his. +Wildbore, a vernacular one, how to escape. +Wilkes, Captain, borrows rashly. +Wind, the, a good Samaritan. +Wingfield, his 'Memorial'. +Wooden leg, + remarkable for sobriety, + never eats pudding. +Woods, the. See _Belmont_. +Works, covenants of, condemned. +World, this, its unhappy temper. +Wright, Colonel, providentially rescued. +Writing, dangerous to reputation. +Wrong, abstract, safe to oppose. + +Yankees, their worst wooden nutmegs. + +Zack, Old. + + + + +INDEX OF FIRST LINES + + +A beggar through the world am I, +A camel-driver, angry with his drudge, +A heap of bare and splintery crags, +A hundred years! they're quickly fled, +A legend that grew in the forest's hush, +A lily thou wast when I saw thee first, +A poet cannot strive for despotism, +A presence both by night and day, +A race of nobles may die out, +A stranger came one night to Yussouf's tent, +About the oak that framed this chair, of old, +Alike I hate to be your debtor, +Along a river-side, I know not where, +Amid these fragments of heroic days, +An ass munched thistles, while a nightingale, +'And how could you dream of meeting?' +Another star 'neath Time's horizon dropped, +Are we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be, +As a twig trembles, which a bird, +As, cleansed of Tiber's and Oblivion's slime, +As, flake by flake, the beetling avalanches, +As life runs on, the road grows strange, +As sinks the sun behind yon alien hills, +As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth, +At Carnac in Brittany, close on the bay, +At length arrived, your book I take, +At twenty we fancied the blest Middle Ages, +Ay, pale and silent maiden, + +B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth, +Beauty on my hearth-stone blazing! +Beloved, in the noisy city here, +Beneath the trees, +Bowing thyself in dust before a Book, + +Can this be thou who, lean and pale, +Come back before the birds are flown, +'Come forth!' my catbird calls to me, +Curtis, whose Wit, with Fancy arm in arm, + +Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, +Dear M. ---- By way of saving time, +Dear Sir,--You wish to know my notions, +Dear Sir,--Your letter come to han', +Dear Wendell, why need count the years, +Death never came so nigh to me before, +Don't believe in the Flying Dutchman? +Down 'mid the tangled roots of things, + +Ef I a song or two could make, +Entranced I saw a vision in the cloud, +Ere pales in Heaven the morning star, + +Fair as a summer dream was Margaret, +Far over Elf-land poets stretch their sway, +Far through the memory shines a happy day, +Far up on Katahdin thou towerest, +Far 'yond this narrow parapet of Time, +Fit for an Abbot of Theleme, +For this true nobleness I seek in vain, +Frank-hearted hostess of the field and wood, +From the close-shut windows gleams no spark, +Full oft the pathway to her door, + +Giddings, far rougher names than thine have grown, +Go! leave me, Priest; my soul would be, +God! do not let my loved one die, +God makes sech nights, all white an' still, +God sends his teachers unto every age, +Godminster? Is it Fancy's play? +Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown, +Gone, gone from us! and shall we see, +Great soul, thou sittest with me in my room, +Great truths are portions of the soul of man, +Guvener B. is a sensible man, + +He came to Florence long ago, +He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough, +He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide, +He who first stretched his nerves of subtile wire, +Heaven's cup held down to me I drain, +Here once my step was quickened, +Here we stan' on the Constitution, by thunder! +Hers all that Earth could promise or bestow, +Hers is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear, +How strange are the freaks of memory! +How struggles with the tempest's swells, +How was I worthy so divine a loss, +Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill, + +I am a man of forty, sirs, a native of East Haddam, +I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leap, +I call as fly the irrevocable hours, +I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away, +I christened you in happier days, before, +I could not bear to see those eyes, +I did not praise thee when the crowd, +I do not come to weep above thy pall, +I don't much s'pose, hows'ever I should plen it, +I du believe in Freedom's cause, +I go to the ridge in the forest, +I grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away, +I had a little daughter, +I have a fancy: how shall I bring it, +I hed it on my min' las' time, when I to write ye started, +I know a falcon swift and peerless, +I love to start out arter night's begun, +I need not praise the sweetness of his song, +I rise, Mr. Chairman, as both of us know, +I sat and watched the walls of night, +I sat one evening in my room, +I saw a Sower walking slow, +I saw the twinkle of white feet, +I sent you a message, my friens, t'other day, +I spose you recollect thet I explained my gennle views, +I spose you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me, +I swam with undulation soft, +I thank ye, my frien's, for the warmth o' your greetin', +I thought our love at full, but I did err, +I treasure in secret some long, fine hair, +I, walking the familiar street, +I was with thee in Heaven: I cannot tell, +I watched a moorland torrent run, +I went to seek for Christ, +I would more natures were like thine, +I would not have this perfect love of ours, +If he be a nobler lover, take him! +If I let fall a word of bitter mirth, +If I were the rose at your window, +In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, +In good old times, which means, you know, +In his tower sat the poet, +In life's small things be resolute and great, +In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder, +In town I hear, scarce wakened yet, +In vain we call old notions fudge, +Into the sunshine, +It don't seem hardly right, John, +It is a mere wild rosebud, +It mounts athwart the windy hill, +It was past the hour of trysting, +It's some consid'ble of a spell sence I hain't writ no letters, + +Leaves fit to have been poor Juliet's cradle-rhyme, +Let others wonder what fair face, +Light of triumph in her eyes, +Look on who will in apathy, and stifle they who can, +Looms there the New Land, + +Maiden, when such a soul as thine is born, +Mary, since first I knew thee, to this hour, +Men say the sullen instrument, +Men! whose boast it is that ye, +My coachman, in the moonlight there, +My day began not till the twilight fell, +My heart, I cannot still it, +My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die, +My name is Water: I have sped, +My soul was like the sea, +My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott, + +Never, surely, was holier man, +New England's poet, rich in love as years, +Nine years have slipt like hour-glass sand, +No? Hez he? He haint, though? Wut? Voted agin him? +Nor deemed he lived unto himself alone, +Not always unimpeded can I pray, +Not as all other women are, +Now Biörn, the son of Heriulf, had ill days, + +O days endeared to every Muse, +'O Dryad feet,' +O dwellers in the valley-land, +O Land of Promise! from what Pisgah's height, +O moonlight deep and tender, +O wandering dim on the extremest edge, +Of all the myriad moods of mind, +Oft round my hall of portraiture I gaze, +Oh, tell me less or tell me more, +Old events have modern meanings; only that survives, +Old Friend, farewell! Your kindly door again, +On this wild waste, where never blossom came, +Once git a smell o' musk into a draw, +Once hardly in a cycle blossometh, +Once on a time there was a pool, +One after one the stars have risen and set, +One feast, of holy days the crest, +One kiss from all others prevents me, +Opening one day a book of mine, +Our love is not a fading, earthly flower, +Our ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, +Over his keys the musing organist, + +Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade, +Praisest Law, friend? We, too, love it much as they that love it best, +Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see, +Punctorum garretos colens et cellara Quinque, + +Rabbi Jehosha used to say, +Reader! Walk up at once (it will soon be too late), +Rippling through thy branches goes the sunshine, + +Said Christ our Lord, I will go and see, +Seat of all woes? Though Nature's firm decree, +She gave me all that woman can, +Shell, whose lips, than mine more cold, +Ship, blest to bear such freight across the blue, +Shy soul and stalwart, man of patient will, +Silencioso por la puerta, +Sisters two, all praise to you, +Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature's hope, +Sleep is Death's image,--poets tell us so, +So dreamy-soft the notes, so far away, +Some sort of heart I know is hers, +Sometimes come pauses of calm, when the rapt bard, holding his heart back, +Somewhere in India, upon a time, +Spirit, that rarely comest now, +Still thirteen years: 'tis autumn now, +Stood the tall Archangel weighing, +Strong, simple, silent are the [steadfast] laws, +Swiftly the politic goes: is it dark?--he borrows a lantern, + +Thank God, he saw you last in pomp of May, +Thanks to the artist, ever on my wall, +That's a rather bold speech, my Lord Bacon, +The Bardling came where by a river grew, +The century numbers fourscore years, +The cordage creaks and rattles in the wind, +The dandelions and buttercups, +The electric nerve, whose instantaneous thrill, +The fire is burning clear and blithely, +The hope of Truth grows stronger, day by day, +The little gate was reached at last, +The love of all things springs from love of one, +The Maple puts her corals on in May, +The misspelt scrawl, upon the wall, +The moon shines white and silent, +The New World's sons, from England's breasts we drew, +The next whose fortune 'twas a tale to tell, +The night is dark, the stinging sleet, +The old Chief, feeling now wellnigh his end, +The path from me to you that led, +The pipe came safe, and welcome too, +The rich man's son inherits lands, +The same good blood that now refills, +The sea is lonely, the sea is dreary, +The snow had begun in the gloaming, +The tower of old Saint Nicholas soared upward to the skies, +The wind is roistering out of doors, +The wisest man could ask no more of Fate, +The world turns mild; democracy, they say, +There are who triumph in a losing cause, +There came a youth upon the earth, +There lay upon the ocean's shore, +There never yet was flower fair in vain, +Therefore think not the Past is wise alone, +These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, +These rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear, +They pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds, +Thick-rushing, like an ocean vast, +This is the midnight of the century,--hark! +This kind o' sogerin' aint a mite like our October trainin', +This little blossom from afar, +Thou look'dst on me all yesternight, +Thou wast the fairest of all man-made things, +Though old the thought and oft exprest, +Thrash away, you'll _hev_ to rattle, +Through suffering and sorrow thou hast passed, +Thy love thou sentest oft to me, +Thy voice is like a fountain, +'Tis a woodland enchanted! +To those who died for her on land and sea, +True as the sun's own work but more refined, +True Love is a humble, low-born thing, +Turbid from London's noise and smoke, +'Twas sung of old in hut and hall, +'Twere no hard task, perchance, to win, +Two brothers once, an ill-matched pair, +Two fellers, Isrel named and Joe, + +Unconscious as the sunshine, simply sweet, +Unseen Musician, thou art sure to please, +Untremulous in the river clear, + +Violet! sweet violet! + +Wait a little: do _we_ not wait? +Walking alone where we walked together, +We see but half the causes of our deeds, +We, too, have autumns, when our leaves, +We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain, +Weak-winged is song, +What boot your houses and your lands? +What countless years and wealth of brain were spent, +'What fairings will ye that I bring?' +What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is his! +What hath Love with Thought to do? +What know we of the world immense, +What man would live coffined with brick and stone, +What mean these banners spread, +'What means this glory round our feet,' +What Nature makes in any mood, +What visionary tints the year puts on, +What were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee, +What were the whole void world, if thou wert dead, +When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast, +When I was a beggarly boy, +When oaken woods with buds are pink, +When Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand, +When the down is on the chin, +When wise Minerva still was young, +Where is the true man's fatherland? +'Where lies the capital, pilgrim, seat of who governs the Faithful?' +Whether my heart hath wiser grown or not, +Whether the idle prisoner through his grate, +While the slow clock, as they were miser's gold, +Whither? Albeit I follow fast, +Who cometh over the hills, +Who does his duty is a question, +Who hath not been a poet? Who hath not, +Why should I seek her spell to decompose, +With what odorous woods and spices, +Woe worth the hour when it is crime, +Wondrous and awful are thy silent halls, +Words pass as wind, but where great deeds were done, +Worn and footsore was the Prophet, + +Ye little think what toil it was to build, +Ye who, passing graves by night, +Yes, faith is a goodly anchor, + +Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown, + + + + +INDEX OF TITLES + +The titles of major works and of general divisions are set in SMALL +CAPITALS. + + +A.C.L., To. +Above and Below. +Absence. +After the Burial. +Agassiz. +Agro-Dolce. +Al Fresco. +Aladdin. +Alexander, Fanny, To. +All-Saints. +Allegra. +Ambrose. +Anti-Apis. +Appledore, Pictures from. +April Birthday, An--at Sea. +Arcadia Rediviva. +At the Burns Centennial. +At the Commencement Dinner, 1866. +Auf Wiedersehen. +Auspex. + +Bankside. +Bartlett, Mr. John, To. +Beaver Brook. +Beggar, The. +Bibliolatres. +Biglow, Mr. Hosea, to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly. +Biglow, Mr., Latest Views of. +BIGLOW PAPERS, THE. +Biglow's, Mr. Hosea, Speech in March Meeting. +Birch-Tree, The. +Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Biglow. +Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Biglow. +Birthday Verses. +Black Preacher, The. +Blondel, Two Scenes from the Life of. +Bon Voyage. +Boss, The. +Boston, Letter from. +Bradford, C.F., To. +Brakes, The. +Brittany, A Legend of. +Broken Tryst, The. +Burns Centennial, At the. + +Captive, The. +Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington, On the. +Casa sin Alma. +CATHEDRAL, THE. +Cervantes, Prison of. +Changed Perspective. +Changeling, The. +Channing, Dr., Elegy on the Death of. +Chippewa Legend, A. +Christmas Carol, A. +Cochituate Water, Ode written for the Celebration of the Introduction + of the, into the City of Boston. +Columbus. +Commemoration, Ode recited at the Harvard. +Concord Bridge, Ode read at the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Fight at. +Contrast, A. +Courtin', The. +Credidimus Jovem regnare. +Curtis, George William, An Epistle to. + +Dancing Bear, The. +Dandelion, To the. +Dante, On a Portrait of, by Giotto. +Dara. +Darkened Mind, The. +Dead House, The. +Death of a Friend's Child, On the. +Death of Queen Mercedes. +Debate in the Sennit, The. +Discovery, The. +Dobson's, Mr. Austin, 'Old World Idylls,' Receiving a Copy of. + +E.G. de R. +EARLIER POEMS. +Eleanor makes Macaroons. +Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing. +Ember Picture, An. +Endymion. +Epistle to George William Curtis, An. +Estrangement. +Eurydice. +Ewig-Weibliche, Das. +Extreme Unction. +Eye's Treasury, The. + +FABLE FOR CRITICS, A. +Fact or Fancy? +Falcon, The. +Familiar Epistle to a Friend, A. +Fancy's Casuistry. +Fatherland, The. +Festina Lente. +Finding of the Lyre, The. +First Snow-Fall, The. +Fitz Adam's Story. +Flying Dutchman, The. +Foot-Path, The. +For an Autograph. +Foreboding, A. +Forlorn, The. +Fountain, The. +Fountain of Youth, The. +Fourth of July, 1876, An Ode for the. +FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM. +France, Ode to. +'Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit.' +Freedom. +Future, To the. + +Garrison, W.L., To. +Ghost-Seer, The. +Giddings, J.R., To. +Glance behind the Curtain, A. +Godminster Chimes. +Gold Egg: A Dream-Fantasy. +Grant, General, On a Bust of. +Graves of Two English Soldiers on Concord Battle-Ground, Lines + suggested by the. +Growth of the Legend, The. + +H.W.L., To. +Hamburg, An Incident of the Fire at. +Happiness, Ode to. +Harvard Commemoration, Ode recited at the. +HEARTSEASE AND RUE. +Hebe. +Heritage, The. +Holmes, To. +Hood, To the Memory of. +How I consulted the Oracle of the Goldfishes. +Hunger and Cold. + +In a Copy of Omar Khayydm. +In Absence. +In an Album. +In the Half-Way House. +In the Twilight. +Incident in a Railroad Car, An. +Incident of the Fire at Hamburg, An. +Indian-Summer Reverie, An. +Inscriptions. + For a Bell at Cornell University. + For a Memorial Window to Sir Walter Raleigh, set up in St. Margaret's, + Westminster, by American Contributors. + Proposed for a Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Boston. +International Copyright. +Interview with Miles Standish, An. +Inveraray, On Planting a Tree at. +Invita Minerva. +Invitation, An. +Irené. + +Jonathan to John. + +Keats, To the Spirit of. +Kettelopotomachia. +Kossuth. + +Lamartine, To. +Landlord, The. +LAST POEMS. +Latest Views of Mr. Biglow. +Leaving the Matter open. +Legend of Brittany, A. +L'ENVOi (To the Muse). +L'Envoi (Whether my heart hath wiser grown or not). +Lesson, The. +Letter, A, from a candidate for the presidency in answer to suttin + questions proposed by Mr. Hosea Biglow, inclosed in a note from Mr. + Biglow to S.H. Gay, Esq., editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard. +Letter, A, from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow of Jaalam to the Hon. Joseph T. + Buckingham, editor of the Boston Courier, inclosing a poem of his + son, Mr. Hosea Biglow. +Letter, A, from Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Hon. J.T. Buckingham, editor + of the Boston Courier, covering a letter from Mr. B. Sawin, private + in the Massachusetts Regiment. +Letter, A Second, from B. Sawin, Esq. +Letter, A Third, from B. Sawin, Esq. +LETTER FROM BOSTON. +Lines (suggested by the Graves of Two English Soldiers on Concord + Battle-Ground). +Longing. +Love. +Love and Thought. +Love's Clock. + +M.O.S., To. +Mahmood the Image-Breaker. +Maple, The. +Masaccio. +Mason and Slidell: a Yankee Idyll. +Memoriæ Positum. +MEMORIAL VERSES. +Message of Jeff Davis in Secret Session, A. +Midnight. +Miner, The. +MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. +Misconception, A. +Miss D.T., To. +Monna Lisa. +Mood, A. +Moon, The. +My Love. +My Portrait Gallery. + +Nest, The. +New-Year's Eve, 1850. +New Year's Greeting, A. +Nightingale in the Study, The. +Nightwatches. +Nobler Lover, The. +Nomades, The. +Norton, Charles Eliot, To. + +Oak, The. +Ode, An (for the Fourth of July, 1876). +Ode (In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder). +Ode (read at the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Fight at Concord + Bridge). +Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration. +Ode to France. +Ode to Happiness. +Ode (written for the Celebration of the Introduction of the + Cochituate Water into the City of Boston). +Omar Khayyám, In a Copy of. +On a Bust of General Grant. +On a Portrait of Dante by Giotto. +On an Autumn Sketch of H.G. Wild. +On being asked for an Autograph in Venice. +On Board the '76. +On burning some Old Letters. +On hearing a Sonata of Beethoven's played in the Next Room. +On planting a Tree at Inveraray. +On reading Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defence of Capital Punishment. +On receiving a Copy of Mr. Austin Dobson's 'Old World Idylls.' +On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington. +On the Death of a Friend's Child. +On the Death of Charles Turner Torrey. +Optimist, The. +Oracle of the Goldfishes, How I consulted the. +ORIENTAL APOLOGUE, AN. +Origin of Didactic Poetry, The. + +Palfrey, John Gorham, To. +Palinode. +Paolo to Francesca. +Parable, A (An ass munched thistles, while a nightingale). +Parable, A (Said Christ our Lord, I will go and see). +Parable, A (Worn and footsore was the Prophet). +Parting of the Ways, The. +Past, To the. +Perdita, singing. To. +Pessimoptimism. +Petition, The. +Phillips, Wendell. +Phoebe. +Pictures from Appledore. +Pine-Tree, To a. +Pioneer, The. +Pious Editor's Creed, The. +POEMS OF THE WAR. +Portrait Gallery, My. +Portrait of Dante by Giotto, On a. +Prayer, A. +Pregnant Comment, The. +Present Crisis, The. +Prison of Cervantes. +Prometheus. +Protest, The. + +Recall, The. +Remarks of Increase D. O'Phace, Esquire, at an extrumpery caucus in + State Street, reported by Mr. H. Biglow. +Remembered Music. +Requiem, A. +Rhoecus. +Rosaline. +Rose, The: a Ballad. + +St. Michael the Weigher. +Sayings. +Scherzo. +Science and Poetry. +Scottish Border. +Search, The. +Seaweed. +Secret, The. +Self-Study. +Serenade. +She came and went. +Shepherd of King Admetus, The. +Si descendero in Infernum, ades. +Singing Leaves, The. +Sirens, The. +Sixty-Eighth Birthday. +Song (O moonlight deep and tender). +Song (to M.L.). +Song (Violet! sweet violet!). +SONNETS. + Bankside. + 'Beloved, in the noisy city here'. + Bon Voyage! + Brakes, The. + Dancing Bear, The. + Death of Queen Mercedes. + E.G. de R. + Eye's Treasury, The. + 'For this true nobleness I seek in vain.' + Foreboding, A. + 'Great truths are portions of the soul of man.' + 'I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leap.' + 'I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away.' + 'I grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away.' + 'I thought our love at full, but I did err.' + 'I would not have this perfect love of ours.' + In Absence. + Maple, The. + 'My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die.' + Nightwatches. + On an Autumn Sketch of H.G. Wild. + On being asked for an Autograph in Venice. + On reading Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defence of Capital Punishment. + 'Our love is not a fading, earthly flower.' + Paolo to Francesca. + Pessimoptimism. + Phillips, Wendell. + Prison of Cervantes. + Scottish Border. + Street, The. + Sub Pondere crescit. + 'There never yet was flower fair in vain.' + To A.C.L. + To a Friend. + To a Lady playing on the Cithern. + To Fanny Alexander. + To J.R. Giddings. + To M.O.S. + To M.W., on her Birthday. + To Miss D.T. + To the Spirit of Keats. + To Whittier. + 'What were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee.' + Winlock, Joseph. + With a copy of Aucassin and Nicolete. + With an Armchair. + Wyman, Jeffries. +Sower, The. +Speech of Honourable Preserved Doe in Secret Caucus. +Standish, Miles, An Interview with. +Stanzas on Freedom. +Street, The. +Studies for Two Heads. +Sub Pondere crescit. +Summer Storm. +Sun-Worship. +Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line. + +Telepathy. +Tempora Mutantur. +THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. +Threnodia. +To----. +To A.C.L. +To a Friend. +To a Lady playing on the Cithern. +To a Pine-Tree. +To C.F. Bradford. +To Charles Eliot Norton. +To H.W.L. +To Holmes. +To J.R. Giddings. +To John Gorham Palfrey. +To Lamartine. +To M.O.S. +To M.W., on her Birthday. +To Miss D.T. +To Mr. John Bartlett. +To Perdita, singing. +To the Dandelion. +To the Future. +To the Memory of Hood. +To the Past. +To the Spirit of Keats. +To W.L. Garrison. +To Whittier. +Token, The. +Torrey, Charles Turner, On the Death of. +Trial. +Turner's Old Téméraire. +Two Gunners, The. +Two Scenes from the Life of Blondel. + +Under the October Maples. +Under the Old Elm. +UNDER THE WILLOWS, AND OTHER POEMS. +Under the Willows. +UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT, THE. + +Valentine, A. +Verses, intended to go with a Posset Dish. +Villa Franca. +VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL, THE. +Voyage to Vinland, The. + +Washers of the Shroud, The. +What Mr. Robinson thinks. +What Rabbi Jehosha said. +Whittier, To. +Wild, H.G., On an Autumn Sketch of. +Wind-Harp, The. +Winlock, Joseph. +Winter-Evening Hymn to my Fire, A. +With a Copy of Aucassin and Nicolete. +With a Pair of Gloves lost in a Wager. +With a Pressed Flower. +With a Seashell. +With an Armchair. +Without and Within. +Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defence of Capital Punishment, On reading. +Wyman, Jeffries. + +Youthful Experiment in English Hexameters, A. +Yussouf. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: The wise Scandinavians probably called their bards by the +queer-looking title of Scald in a delicate way, as it were, just to hint +to the world the hot water they always get into.] + +[Footnote 2: +To demonstrate quickly and easily how per- +-versely absurd 'tis to sound this name _Cowper_, +As people in general call him named _super_, +I remark that he rhymes it himself with horse-trooper.] + +[Footnote 3: +(If you call Snooks an owl, he will show by his looks +That he's morally certain you're jealous of Snooks.)] + +[Footnote 4:(Cuts rightly called wooden, as all +must admit.)] + +[Footnote 5: +That is in most cases we do, but not all, +Past a doubt, there are men who are innately small, +Such as Blank, who, without being 'minished a tittle, +Might stand for a type of the Absolute Little.] + +[Footnote 6: +(And at this just conclusion will surely arrive, +That the goodness of earth is more dead than alive.)] + +[Footnote 7: +Not forgetting their tea and their toast, though, the while.] + +[Footnote 8: +Turn back now to page--goodness only knows what, +And take a fresh hold on the thread of my plot.] + +[Footnote 9: The reader curious in such matters may refer (if he can +find them) to _A sermon preached on the Anniversary of the Dark Day, An +Artillery Election Sermon, A Discourse on the Late Eclipse, Dorcas, A +Funeral Sermon on the Death of Madam Submit Tidd, Relict of the late +Experience Tidd, Esq., &c., &c._] + +[Footnote 10: Aut insanit, aut versos facit. +--H.W.] + +[Footnote 11: In relation to this expression, I cannot but think that Mr. +Biglow has been too hasty in attributing it to me. Though Time be a +comparatively innocent personage to swear by, and though Longinus in his +discourse [Greek: Peri 'Upsous] have commended timely oaths as not only +a useful but sublime figure of speech, yet I have always kept my lips +free from that abomination. _Odi profanum vulgus_, I hate your swearing +and hectoring fellows.--H.W.] + +[Footnote 12: i hait the Site of a feller with a muskit as I du pizn But +their _is_ fun to a cornwallis I aint agoin' to deny it.--H.B.] + +[Footnote 13: he means Not quite so fur I guess.--H.B.] + +[Footnote 14: the ignerant creeter means Sekketary; but he ollers stuck +to his books like cobbler's wax to an ile-stone.--H.B.] + +[Footnote 15: it must be aloud that thare's a streak of nater in lovin' +sho, but it sartinly is 1 of the curusest things in nater to see a +rispecktable dri goods dealer (deekon off a chutch maybe) a riggin' +himself out in the Weigh they du and struttin' round in the Reign +aspilin' his trowsis and makin' wet goods of himself. Ef any thin's +foolisher and moor dicklus than militerry gloary it is milishy +gloary.--H.B.] + +[Footnote 16: these fellers are verry proppilly called Rank Heroes, and +the more tha kill the ranker and more Herowick tha becum.--H.B.] + +[Footnote 17: it wuz 'tumblebug' as he Writ it, but the parson put the +Latten instid. i sed tother maid better meeter, but he said tha was +eddykated peepl to Boston and tha wouldn't stan' it no how. idnow as tha +_wood_ and idnow _as_ tha wood.--H.B.] + +[Footnote 18: he means human beins, that's wut he means. i spose he +kinder thought tha wuz human beans ware the Xisle Poles comes +from.--H.B.] + +[Footnote 19: The speaker is of a different mind from Tully, who, in his +recently discovered tractate _De Republica_, tells us, _Nec vero habere +virtutem satis est, quasi artem aliquam, nisi utare_, and from our +Milton, who says: 'I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, +unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her +adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to +be run for, _not without dust and heat.'--Areop_. He had taken the words +out of the Roman's mouth, without knowing it, and might well exclaim +with Donatus (if Saint Jerome's tutor may stand sponsor for a curse), +_Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint!_--H.W.] + +[Footnote 20: That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits our +politicians without a wrinkle,--_Magister artis, ingeniique largitor +venter_.--H.W.] + +[Footnote 21: There is truth yet in this of Juvenal,-- + +'Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas.'--H.W.] + +[Footnote 22: Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles besides those +recorded in Holy Writ, and why not of othere prophecies? It is granting +too much to Satan to suppose him, as divers of the learned have done, +the inspirer of the ancient oracles. Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance +the credit of the successful ones. What is said here of Louis Phillippe +was verified in some of its minute particulars within a few months' +time. Enough to have made the fortune of Delphi or Hammon, and no thanks +to Beelzebub neither! That of Seneca in Medea will suit here:-- + + 'Rapida fortuna ac levis + Præcepsque regno eripuit, exsilio dedit.' + +Let us allow, even to richly deserved misfortune, our commiseration, and +be not over-hasty meanwhile in our censure of the French people, left +for the first time to govern themselves, remembering that wise sentence +of Æschylus,-- + + [Greek: Apas de trachus hostis han neon kratae.] + + --H.W.] + +[Footnote 23: A rustic euphemism for the American variety of the +_Mephitis_.--H.W.] + +[Footnote 24: _Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English_.] + +[Footnote 25: Cited in Collier. (I give my authority where I do not quote +from the original book.)] + +[Footnote 26: The word occurs in a letter of Mary Boleyn, in Golding, and +Warner. Milton also was fond of the word.] + +[Footnote 27: Though I find Worcëster in the _Mirror for Magistrates_.] + +[Footnote 28: This was written twenty years ago, and now (1890) I cannot +open an English journal without coming upon an Americanism.] + +[Footnote 29: The Rev. A.L. Mayhew of Wadham College, Oxford, has +convinced me that I was astray in this.] + +[Footnote 30: _Dame_, in English, is a decayed gentlewoman of the same +family.] + +[Footnote 31: Which, whether in that form, or under its aliases +_witch_-grass and _cooch_-grass, points us back to its original Saxon +_quick_.] + +[Footnote 32: And, by the way, the Yankee never says 'o'nights,' but uses +the older adverbial form, analogous to the German _nachts_.] + +[Footnote 33: Greene in his _Quip for an Upstart Courtier_ says, 'to +_square_ it up and downe the streetes before his mistresse.'] + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES LOWELL *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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