Ralph Waldo Emerson - Poems, 1877

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—

WORKS OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON. " Such l8 the baauty of his speech, such the msjesty of his ideas, such the power of the moral sentiment in men, and such the impression which hi i whole character makes on them, that they lend him, everywhere, their ears,

and thousands

bless his

manly thoughts.".

Massachusetts Quarterly

Revienv.

ESSAYS. First Series, ESSAYS^ Second Series,

MISCELLANIES. LECTURES.

$i.so

i6rao

ivol.

i6rao

i vol.

1.50

Embracing Nature,

addresses, and

i6mo

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1.50

REPRESENTATIVE MEN. Seven Lectures, ivol. i6mo 1.50 ENGLISH TRAITS, ivol. i6rao 1.50 THE CONDUCT OF LIFE, iSmo PROSE WORKS. Comprisingr the six preceding volumes, svols. i2mo. i vol.

Cloth, $ 5.00

;

Half

Calf, $9.00

;

Morocco, $

AND SOLITUDE, LETTER^ AND SOCIAL AIMS. SOCIETY

POEMS,

1..50

12.00,

i vol.

i6mo.

ivol.

MAY-DAY,

i6mo ivol.

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WithPortrait

and Other Pieces,

ivol.

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Little Classic "

HAWTHORNE.

In nine volumes.

ti.50 a volume.

ENGLISH TRAITS. THE CONDUCT OF LIFE. SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE. LETTERS AND SOCIAL AIMS.

ESSAYS. First Series. ESSA VS. Second Series. MISCELLANIES.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

POEMS.

PA RNA SSUS A volume of

Clioice Poems, selected from the whole range of English Literature, edited by RALPH WALDO EMERSON. $4.00 Witn a Prefatory Essay. Crown 8vo. Nearly 600 pages :

JAMES

R.

OSSOOD

&

CO., PuWisIiers, Boston.

POJIKS.

BY

RV

W; EMERSON.

BOSTON: JAMES

R.

OSGOOD AND COMPANY*

Late Ticknor

&

Fields,

and

Fields, Osgood,

1877.

&

Co.

LIBRARY Enteron'

jxiordina to

ad

X

o' ^^.sresa, in the vfuu 13*'',

by

Jaueb Mukboe and CoiiPAHr, in tbe Cleik's

ifflce

of the District Court of the Dijiinct of Massachusetts

CONTENTS. fAOX

TH£

SPHIltX,

7

EACH AND ALL,

14

"^^ FROBLEM,

17

TO RHEA

21

THE

25

VISIT,

jjxm.,

27

THE WORLD-SOUL,

30

ALFHONSO OF CASTILE,

36

KITHEIDATES,

41

TO

J.

'

W.,

43

FATE,

45

GUT,

48

TACT,

EAMATREYA, EABTH<SONG, 'SSOINBYE,

51 i

.

i

53 54

57

CONTENTS.

4

THE EHODCRA,

59

«iE HUMBLE-BEE

^

BEKRYING,

^^

THE SNOW-STORM,

65

WOODNOTES,

67

I.,

II.,

MONADNOC,

75 3*

FABLE,

115

ODE,

11"

ASTR^A,

123

ETIENNE DE LA BO^CE,

126

SnUM CUIQUE,

123

COMPENSATION,

1S9

FORBEARANCE,

130

THE FARK,

131

FORERUNNERS,

133

SURSUM CORDA,

135

-ODE TO BEAUTY,

136

GIVE ALL TO LOVE,

141

TO ELLEN,

144

:P0

EVA,

147

5

CONTENTS.

148

THE AIIUIST, "fmNli EYES

STILL

SHINED,

149

EROS

150

3ERMI0NE,

151

INITIAL, 'fllE

D£MONIC, AND CELESTLLL LOVE,

156

APOLOGY

MERLIN,

178 180

I.,

II.,

,.

...

185

BACCHUS

188

LOSS AND GAIN,

193

MEROFS,

194

THE HOUSE,

195

SAADI,

,

197

HOLIDAYS,

206

PAINTING AND SCULPTURE,

208

FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ,

209

.SHASELLE,

217

XENOPHANES,

219

THE day's RATION,

221

BLIGHT,

223

tlUSKETAQUID,

...

227

CONTENTS.

6

DIRGE,

239

THBENOBT,

236

^MN,

SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE CONCORD

MOSUnWiT,

850

;

POEMS. THE SPHINX The

Sphinx

is

Her wings

Her

ear

drowsy. are furled;

heavy,

is

She broods on the world. "Who'll

The

tell

me my

secret.

ages have kept?

—

I awaited the seer.

While they slumbered and

" The

fate

of the man-child

The meaning

Known

fiuit

of

of the unknown

Daedalian plaii;

7

man;

slept;-

:

;;

J

HE SPHIWX.

Out of sleeping a waking,

Out of waking

a sleep

Life deatli overtaking;

Deep

underneatli deep

?

' Erect as a sunbeam,

Upspringeth the palm;

The

elephant browses,

Undaunted and calm In beautiful motion

The Kind

thrush plies his wings

leaves of his covert

Your

"The

silence

he

sings.

waves, unashamed.

In difference sweet. Play glad with the breezes^

Old playfellows meet

The

journeying atoms.

Primordial wholes.

Firmly draw, firmly drive.

By

their

animate poles

!

—

;

;

THE SPHINX.

" Sea,

earth, air, sound, silence.

Plant, quadruped, bird.

By one music

One Each

enchanted.

deity stirred,

the other adorning,

Accompany

still;

Night veileth the morning,

The

"The

vapor the

babe by

its

hill.

mother

Lies bathed in joy

Glide

its

hours uncounted.

The sun

is

its

Without cloud, the

In

"

Bu'.

sum of

soft

man

a'l

being.

in its eyes;

the world

miniature

lies.

crouches and blushes

Absconds and conceals

He

creepeth and peepeth.

He

—

toy;

Shines the peace of

And

j

palters and steals

;

THE SPHINA

Infirm, melancholy,

Jealous glancing around.

An

oaf,

an accomplice,"

lie poisons the ground.

"Out spoke

the great mother.

Beholding his fear;

—

At the sound of her accents Cold shuddered the sphere *

Who has drugged my Who has mixed my

Who, with

:

—

boy's cup ? boy's bread T

sadness and madness.

Has turned

the man-child's head?'"

1 heard a poet answer.

Aloud and

cheerfully,

' Say on, sweet Sphinx

Are pleasant songs

Deep

1

thy dirges

to

me

love lieth under

These pictures of time

They

fade in the light of

Their meaning sublime.

;

THE SPHINX. "

The

man

fiend that

11

harries

Is love of the Best

Yawns Lit

the pit of the Dragon,

by rays from the

The Lethe

Blest.

of nature

Can't trance him again,

Whose

soul sees the perfect,

Which

his eyes seek in vaiu.

" Profounder, profounder, Man's

To

spirit

must dive;

his aye-rolling orbit

No The

goal will arrive;

heavens that

now draw him

With sweetness

Once

found,

He

—

for

untold,

new heavens

spurneth the old.

"Pride ruined the

angels,

Their shame them restores;

And

the joy that

Lurks

is

sweetest

in stings of remorse.

;

;

.

THE SPHINX.

Have

a lover

I

Who I

is

noble and free

?

—

would \e were nobler

Than

"Eterne

Now And

love me.

't

alternation follows,

now

flies

under pain, pleasure,^

Under

pleasure, pain

Love works

lies.

at tie centre,

Heart-heaving alway

Forth speed the

To

*'

strinjt pulses

the borders of day,

Dull Sphinx, Jove keep

Thy

sight

is

Her muddy eyes

am

for il-e

to clear

!

"

Sphinx

—

old Sphinx bit her thick lip,---

Said^ " t

y five wits

growing blear;

Rue, myrrh, and cummin

The

tl.

thy

Of

Who

spirit,

taught thee

me

yoke-fellow.

thine eye I

am eyebeam

t*

nrwiA

-

;

;

;

: ;

THE SPniNX

" Thou

art the

13

unanswered question

Couldst see thy proper eye,

AJway

asketh, asketh

it

And' each answer

So take It

Ask

is

a

lie.

thy quest through nature.

through thousand natures ply

on, thou clothed .eternity

Time

is

;

the false reply."

Uprose the merry Sphinx,

And crouched no more She melted

She

into purple cloud,

silvered in the

She spired

in stone;

moon

into a yellow flame

She flowered in blossoms. red; She flowed

into a foaming

wave;

She stood Monadnoc's head.

Thorough

a thousand voices

Spoke the

"

Who

telleth

universal

dame:

one of .ny meanings.

Is master of

all

I

am,"

;;

;

14

EACH AND ALL

Little thinks,

yon red-cloaked clown

in the field,

thee from the hill-top looking

Of

The

down

heifer that lows in the upland farm.

Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm

The

sexton, tolling his bell at noon,

Deems

not that great Napoleon

Stops his horse, and

Whilst his

files

lists

with delight,

sweep round yjn Alpine height;

Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy

life

to thy neighbor's creed has lent.

All are needed by each one;

Nothing

U

fair

or good alone.

thought the sparrow's note from heaven,

Singing I

is

at

dawn on

the alder bough;

brought him home, in his

He

sings the song, but

it

iiest,

at

even

pleases not now,

;

EACH AND ALL. For

I

He

did not bring

home

my

— they

sang to

ear,

lA

the river and sky;

my

sang to

The

delicate shells lay

The

bubbles of the latest wave

—

eye.

on the shore;

Fresh pearls to their enamel gave.

And

the bellowing of the savage sea

Greeted their safe escape to me. I

wiped away the weeds and foam,

I

fetched

my

sea-born treasures

home;

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things

Had With

The As

beauty on the shore.

left their

the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar. lover

watched his graceful maid.

'mid the virgin train she strayeff,

Nor knew her

Was woven At

last

beauty's best attire

still

she came

by the snow-white

choir.

to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage

The gay enchantment was

A

undone,

gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then

I said,

Beauty

is

'

I

covet truth

unripe childhood's cheat;

;

—

;

ItJ

;

'

EACH AND ALL.

Itj

I

leave

As

it

behind with the games of youth

I spoke,

The

my

beneath

ground-pine curled

Running over

feet its

pretty wreath,

the club-moss burrs;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and

firs;

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;

Over me soared the

eternal sky,

Full of light and of deity

Again

The

I saw, again I heard,

rolling river, the

Beauty through

my

morning bird

;

—

senses stole

I yielded myself to the perfect whcJe.

;

;

,

17

THE PROBLEM.

I

LIKE a church

;

I like a cowl

I love a prophet of the soul

And

my

on

heart monastic aisles

Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles

Yet not

Would

Why

for all his faith

I that cowled

can see

churchman be

should the vest on him allure,

Which

I could not on

Not from

me endure?

a vain or shallow thought

His awful Jove young Phidias brought

Never from

lips

of cunning

fell

The

thrilling

Out

from the heart of nature rolled

The burdens 2

Delphic oracle;

of the Bible old

;

<

;

;

;

—

THE PROBLEM

IH

The

of nations came,

litanies

Like the volcano's tongue of flame,

Up

from the burning core below,

The

canticles of love and

The hand

And

woe

rounded Peter's dome,

that

groined the aisles of Christian

Wrought

Rome,

in a sad sincerity

Himself from God he could not free;

He

builded better than he

The

knew

—

;

conscious stone to beauty grew.

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's

Of

leaves,

Or how

and feathers from her breast?

the fish outbuilt her shell,

Painting with

Or how

To

morn each annual

cell?

the sacred pine-tree adds

her old leaves

new myriads?

Such and so grew these holy Whilst love and terror

piles,

laid the tiles.

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,

As the

best

gem upon

her zone

net-i

;

;

;

THE PROBLEM.

And Morning

To

19

opes with haste her

lids,

gaze upon the Pyramids

O'er England's abbeys bends the sky.

As on

its

friends, with kindred eye

For, out of Thought's interior sphere,

These wonders

And Nature

gladly gave

Adopted them

And

rose to upper air

granted them an equal date

These temples grew

as

Ararat.

grows the grass;

Art might obey, but not

To

surpass.

passive Master lent his hand

the vast soul that o'er

And

place.

into her race.

With Andes and with

The

them

the

same power

him planned;

that reared the shrine.

Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.

Ever the

fiery

Pentecost

Girds with one flame the countless host,

Trances the heart through chanting

And

choirs,

through the priest the mind inspires.

—

THE PROBLEM.

aO

The word unto

Was

writ

on

The word by

the prophet spoken

tables yet

unbroken

;

seers or sibyls told,

In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,

upon the morning wind.

Still

floats

Still

whispers to the willing mind.

One

accent of the Holy Ghost

The

heedless world hath never

I

know what

The Book

lost.

say the fathers wise,

itself before

me

lies,

Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,

And

he who blent both in his

The younger Golden Lips

line.

or mines,

Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines.

His words are music in I see his

And I

my

ear,

cowled portrait dear;

yet, for all his faith

could see,

would not the good bishop

be.

;

;

21

TO RHEA.

Thee, dear Not with

Which

To

which dims the morning's eye

come from

I have

but truths.

tarnish not, but purify

light

From

friend, a brother soothes.

flatteries,

the spring-woods,

the fragrant solitudes;

—

Listen what the poplar-tree

And murmuring

waters counselled me.

If with love thy heart has burned

If thy love

Hide thy

Though

is

unreturned

it

grief within thy breast. tear thee unexpressed;

For when love has once departed

From

the eyes of the false-hearted.

;

;

TO. RHEA.

22

And one by one The bandages

has torn off quite

of purple light

Though thou wert

the loveliest

Form

the soul had ever dressed,

Thou

shalt seem, in

A

each reply,

vixen to his altered eye;

Thy

softest pleadings

Thy

praying lute will seem to scold

Though thou kept Yet thou

errest far

But thou

shalt

seem too bold,

the straightest road,

and broad.

do as do the gods

In their cloudless periods

For of

this lore

Though thou

;

be thou sure,

—

forget, the gods, secure,

Fprget never their command.

But make the

As

statute of this land.

they lead, so follow

all,

Ever have done, ever

shall.

Warning

and deaf,

to the blind

'Tis written on the iron leaf.

;

;

:

—

: ;:

TO RHKjI

Who

23

drinks of Cupid's nectar cup

Loveth downward, and not up;

He

wlio loves, of gods or men,

Shall not by the

same be loved again

His sweetheart's idolatry

new

Falls, in turn, a

When

a god

By beauty of

And by

He

is

once beguiled

a mortal child.

her radiant youth delighted.

not fooled, but warily knoweth

His love

And

is

degree.

shall

never be requited.

thus the wise Immortal doeth.

'Tis his study and delight

To

bless that creature

From

all

evils to

And

He And

ransack earth

day and night;

defend her

In her lap to pour

IV

•

all

splendor

for riches rare,

fetch her stars to

deck her hair

mixes music with her thoughts, saddens her with heavenly doubts

All grace,

all

good

his great heart

Profuse in love, the king bestows

knows,

!

TO KHEA.

24

Saying, 'Hearken! Earth, Sea, Air!

This monument of

my

despair

Build I to the All-Good, All-Fair.

Not

for

But

I,

a private good,

from

my

Albeit scorned

Adorn her I

make

To

as

this

beatitude,

none was scorned.

as

was none adorned.

maiden an ensample

Nature, through her kingdoms ample,

Whereby

to

model newer races,

and

Statelier forms,

To Of

.

carry

man

to

fairer faces;

new degrees

power,- and of comeliness.

These presents be the hostages

Which

I

See to

thyself,

Thou And

pawn

for

O

art better,

my

release.

Universe

and not worse.'

the god, having given

Is freed forever

from his

all,

thrall.

—

—

25

THE

AsKEST,

'

How

VISIT.

long thou shall stay

Devastator of the day

Know, each Thorough Hath

its

And

every

Is

I

substai.ce,

and

relation,

nature's operation,

unit,

bound, and metre;

new compound

some product and

repeater,

Product of the earlier found.

But the unit of the

The

visit.

encounter of the wise,

Say, what other metre

Than

the meeting

is

^ the

—

it

eyes?

Nature poureth into nature

Through the channels of Riding on the ray of

that feature

sight.

Fleeter far than whirlwinds go,

?

2^

THE

Oi

VISIT.

for service, or delight,

Hearts to hearts their meaning show.

Sum

their long experience,

And

import intelligence.

Single look has drained the breast;

moment

Single

The

years confessed.

duration of a glance

Is the

term of convenance.

And, though thy

ri,Je

Frugal multiples of

be church or state

that.

Speeding Saturn cannot halt; Linger, If

Love

— thou his

shall rue the fault

moment

overstay.

Hatred's swiil repulsions play.

;

S7

URIEL.

It

in the ancient periods

fell

Which

Or

the brooding soul surveys,

ever the wild

Time

coined

itself

Into calendar months and days.

This was the lapse of

Which

Uriel,

in Paradise befell.

Once, among the Pleiads walking, Said overheard the young gods talking;

And

To

the treason, too long pent,

his ears

The young Laws of

was evident. deities discussed

form, and metre just,

Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams.

What

subsisteth,

and what seems.

;

;

;

;

;

URIEL.

28

One, with low tones that decide,

And

doubt and reverend use defiea,

With

a look that solved the sphere.

And

stirred the devils everywhere,

Gave

his sentiment divine

Against the being of a '

Line

line.

in nature is not found

;

Unit and universe are round

In vain produced,

all

rays return

;

Evil will bless, and ice will burn.'

As

A

Uriel spoke with piercing eyej

shudder ran around the sky

The

stern old war-gods shook their heads-

The

seraphs frowned from myrtle-beds

Seemed

The

to the holy festival

rash word boded

The balance-beam The bounds

ill

to all,

of Fate was bent

of good and

ill

were rent

Strong Hades could not keep his

But

A

all

slid to confusion.

sad self-knowledge, withering,

On

o'vÂŤÂť.

the beauty of Uriel

fell

DElbU

'2S

In heaven oncw; eminent, the god

Withdrew, that hour, into his cloud;

Whether doomed

to long gyration

In the sea of generation,

Or by knowledge grown

To

hit the

too bright

nerve of feebler sight.

Straightway, a forgetting wind Stole over the celestial kind,

And

their lips the secret kept,

If in ashes the fire-seed slept.

But now and then, truth-speaking things

Shamed And,

the angels' veiling wings;

shrilling

Or from

fruit

from the solar course. of chemic force.

Procession of a soul in matter,

Or

the speeding change of water.

Or

out of the good of evil born.

Came

Uriel's voice of cherub scorn.

And

a blush tinged the upper sky,

And

the gods shook, they

knew

not why.

;

;

30

THE WORLD-SOUL.

Thanks

to the

Thanks

To

New-Hampshire,

the green-haired forest free

Thanks

To

light,

to the foaming sea,

the uplands of

To

To

morning

to each

man

of courage,

the maids of holy

the boy with his

Who

mind

games undaunted

never looks behind.

Cities of proud hotels,

Houses of rich and Vice nestles

in

great,

your chambers.

Beneath your roofs of

slate.

;

;

;

;

THE WOIILD-SODL.

It

cannot conquer

31

folly,

Time-and-space-conquering steam,

And

the light-outspeeding telegraph

Bears nothing on

The

politics are

The

And

'tis

The

letters,

streets ensnare us,

weak and worn;

bodies are

plot

and corrupt each other,

Some

despoil the unborn.

in the parlor sits

figure of noble guise,

—

angel, in a stranger's form,

Or woman's Or

deeps of history,

Our

Yet there

Our

base

voice that speaketh clear.

And we

.

beam.

do not cheer

far in the

Trade and the

We

its

pleading eyes

only a flashing sunbeam

In

at

the window-pane

Or Music pours on Its beautiful

mortals

disdain.

;

32

THE -WORLD-SOUL.

The

morning

inevitable

Finds them who in cellars be

And be

sure the all-loving Nature

Will smile in a factory. "Yon ridge of purple landscape,

Yon Hold

all

sky between the walls, the hidden wonders,

In scanty intervals.

Alas

!

the Sprite that haunts us

Deceives our rash desire; It

whispers of the glorious gods.

And

We

leaves us in the mire.

cannot learn the cipher That's writ upon our cell;

Stars help us by a mystery

Which we

could never spell

If but one hero

The The

knew

it.

world would blush in flame;

sage,

till

he

Would hang

hit the secret.

his

head

for

shame.

;

THE WOKLD-SOUI,.

33

But our brothers have not read

Not one has found

And

henceforth

We Still,

The

are comforted,

—

are but such as they.

the secret presses;

still

The

we

it,

the key;

nearing clouds draw down

crimson morning flames into

The

fopperies of the town.

Within, without the idle earth, Stars weave eternal rings;

The sun

And

himself shines heartily. shares the joy he brings.

And what Like

And

Trade sow

cities

thatch with towns the prairie broai

With

They

if

shells along the shore.

railways ironed o'er?

—

are but sailing foam-bells

Along Thought's causing stream.

And

take their shape and sun-color

From him 3

that sends the dream.

;;;

34

;

THE WORLD-SOUL.

For DestiT/y does not

To And

yield to

men

patient

With

He

the helm

shoots his thought, by hidden nervea.

Throughout the

The

like

solid realm.

Dismon

sits,

roses and a shroud

has his way, and deals his gifS

But ours

He

is

is

not allowed.

no churl nor

And

trifler.

his viceroy is none,

Love-without-weakness,

Of Genius And

his will

The ,

sire is

—

and son.

not thwarted

seeds of land and sea

Are the atoms of

And

—

his

body bright,

his behest obey.

rie serveth the servant.

The He

kills

And

brave he loves amain the cripple and the sick. straight begins again

—

;

THE WOllLD-SOUL. For gods delight

And

weak

fly

open wide.

the old world

And

aside;

scorns their charities,

Tiieir arms

When

in gods.

thrust the

To him who

3.1

is

sterile,

the ages are effete,

lie will from wrecks and sediment

The

He

fairer

world complete.

forbids to despair;

His cheeks mantle with mirth

And

the unimagined good of

men

Is yeaning at the birth.

Spring

still

When

makes spring

in the

mind.

sixty years are told;

Love wakes anew

And we

this

throbbing heart,

are never old.

Over the winter glaciers, I see the

summer glow.

And, through the

The warm

wild-piled snowdrift,

rosebuds below

:

?fi

ALPHONSO OF CASTILE.

I,

Alphonso,

live

and learn,

Seeing Nature go astern.

Things deteriorate

Lemons run

in kind;

to leaves

Meagre crop of

and rind;

and limes;

figs

Shorter days and harder times.

Flowering April cools and dies In the insufficient skies.

Imps,

at

high midsummer, blot

Half the sun's disk with a spot 'Twill not

now

Orange cheek

avail

to tan

or skin of

man.

Roses bleach, the goats are dry, Lisbon quakes, the people cry.

Yon

pale,

Gaunt

scrawny

fisher fools,

as bitterns in the pools.

;

;

;

ALPHONSO OF CASTILE.

Are no brothers of

They

my

blood

37

—

;

Adamhood.

discredit

Eyes of gods I ye must have seen, O'er your ramparts as ye lean.

The Of

general debility

genius the

sterility

;

Mighty projects countermanded

Rash

ambition, brokenhanded

Puny man and

scentless rose

Tormenting Pan Rebuild or ruin

Of

vital force

Or tumble

To

all

to double the dose. :

either

the wasted

fill

rill,

again in heap

weltering chaos and to sleep.

Say, Seigniors, are the old Niles dry.

Which

fed the veins of earth

That mortals miss the

Which Now,

and sky,

loyal heats.

drove them erst to social feats;

to a savage selfness grown,

TL'nk nature

barely serves for one;

;

,

ALPHONSO OF CASTILE.

3?

With science poorly mask

And

their hurt,

vex the gods with question pert,

whether you

Immensely curious

mildew?

are rulers, or

Still

Masters, I'm in pain with you Masters,

my

In

I'll

be plain with you;

palace of Castile,

can

a king, for kings

I,

feel.

There my thoughts the matter

And And,

Ye

roll,

solve and oft resolve the whole. for

I'm styled Alphonse the Wine,

shall not fail for

sound advice

Before ye want a drop of rain.

Hear the sentiment of Spain.

You

have tried famine

Ply us

now

Teach your

:

with a

full

pupils

now

no more

try

diet;

with plenty

For one sun supply us twenty. I

have thought

it

thoroughly over,

Slate of hermit, state of lover;

—

it

;

;

;

;

ALPHONSO OF CASTILE.

We

must have

We

cannot spare variety.

Hear you,

HU

society,

then, celestial fellows!

Fits not to be overzealous

Steads not to work on the clean jump,

Nor wine nor

Men

brains perpetual pump.

and gods are too extense

Could you slacken and condense?

Your rank overgrowths reduce Till your kinds

abound with juice?

Earth, crowded, cries,

My

counsel

And bestow

On

is,

kill

'

Too many men

nine in ten,

the shares of

all

the remnant decimal.

Add

their nine lives to this cat

Stuff their nine brains in his hat

Make With

his

frame and forces square

the labors he must dare;

Thatch

his flesh, and even his years

With the marble which he

rears.

There, growing slowly old at ease,

No

faster

than his planted trees,

!

ALPHONSO OF CASTILE.

40

He

may, by warrant of his age,

In schemes of broader scope engage.

So

shall

ye have a

man

of the sphere

Fit to grace the solar year.

;

MITHRIDATES.

I

CANNOT spare water

or wine,

Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose

From

the earth-poles to the line.

All between that works or grows,

Every thing

is

kin of mine.

my

Give

me

agates for

Give

me

cantharids to eat;

meat;

me

From

air

and ocean bring

From

all

zones and altitudes

From

all

natures, sharp and slimy,

Salt

and

Tree and

basalt, wild

;

foods,

—

and tame:

lichen, ape, sea-lion,

Biid, and reptile, be

my

game.

;

;

42

MITHKIDATES.

Ivy for

my

fillet

band

Blinding dog-wood in

Hemlock

And

for

my

my hand

sherbet cull me,

me;

the prussic juice to lull

Swing me

in the upas boughs,

Vampyre-fanned, when I carouse.

Too long

shut in strait and few,

Thinly dieted on dew, [

will

To

use the world, and

a thousand humors

As you

O O

it.

and goblins merry

you

virtues,

Means, appliances,

delights.

!

take me, use me,

Vein and

God

!

rights.

routine, and things allowed,

Minorities, things under cloud

Hither

1

methods, mights.

Reputed wrongs and braggart

Smug

it.

spin a cherry.

doleful ghosts, all

sift

shift

artery,

fill

though ye

I will not be an owl,

But sun

me

in the Capitol.

I

me,

kill

me'

;

;

4S

TO

Set not thy

foot

J.

on graves

Hear what wine and

The mountain The crowded

W

:

roses say

chase, the

summer waves,

town, thy feet

may

well deln.y.

Set not thy foot on graves

Nor seek

Which

to

charitable

And Nature

To

unwind the shroud

Time

have allowed

wrap the errors of a sage sublime

Set not thy foot on graves:

Care not to

Of Ilis

strip the

dead

his sad ornament,

myrrh, and wine, and rings,

: :

44

TO

His sheet of

And

J.

w.

lead,

trophies buried

Go, get them where he earned them when

As

resolutely dig or dive.

Life

In

is

too short to vvaste

critic

peep or cynic bark,

Quarrel or reprimand 'Twill soon be dark;

Up

!

God

;

mind

thine

own

speed tb" markl

aim, and

alive

;

;

45

PATE.

That you Or

are fair or wise

vain,

strong, or rich, or generous

You must

hare also the untaught strain

That sheds beauty on the There's a melody

Which

bom

rose.

of melody,

melts the world into a sea.

Toil could never compass

Art It

is

its

it;

height could never hit;

came never out of

wit

But a music music-born

Well may Jove and Juno

Thy

beauty, if

Which

What

drives

it

lack the

me mad

boots it?

scorn. fire

with sweet desire,

what the

soldier's mail.

Unless he conquer and prevail?

;

:

'

;

16

What

the goods thy pride which

all

If thou pine for another's gift

Alas

one

that

1

Thy

shall

Or care

Or

slight

thou lookest on his face,

heait saith,

None

'

Brother, go thy wayi

ask thee what thou doest,

a rush for what thou knoweat

listen

when thou

repiiest,

Or remember where thou Or how

And

?

born in blight,

is

Victim of perpetual

When

li;

thy supper

another

To make

is

is

liest,

sodden

;

born

the sun forgotten.

Surely he carries a talisman

Under

his tongue

Broad his shoulders are and strong

And

his eye is scornful.

Threatening, and young. I

hold

it

of

little

matter

Whether your jewel be of pure water,

A

rose

diamond

But whether

it

or a white.

dazzle

me

with light.

;

;

;

;

FATE.

I care not

how you

In coarsest

47

are dressed,

weeds or

in the best

Nor whether your name Nor

for the fashion of

is

base or brave

your behavior

But whether you charm me, Bid

my

bread feed and

And

dress

up Nature

One

thing

is

my

fire

warm me.

in your favor

forever good

That one thing

is

Success,

—

Dear to the Eumenides,

And

Who

to

all

the heavenly brood.

bides at home, nor looks abroad,

Carries the eagies, and masters the sword.

;

48

GUY.

Mortal mixed

of middle claj,

Attempered to the night and day. Interchangeable with things,

Needs no amulets nor

Guy

ring?,

possessed the talisman

That

And

all

as,

things from

him began

?

of old, Polycrates

Chained the sunshine and the breeze.

So

did

Guy

Fortune was

betimes discover his

guard and lover

In strange junctures,

felt,

with awe,

His own symmetry with law;

That no mixture could withstand

The

He

virtue of his lucky hand.

gold or jewel could not lose.

Nor not receive

his

ample dues.

;

In the

street, if

;

he turned round,

His eye the eye 'twas seeking found. It

seemed

his

Worked on

And made

Genius discreet

the Maker's

own

receipt,

each tide and element

Stewards of stipend and of rent

So

that the

As

costly

He had

common

waters

wine into his

well.

so sped his wise affairs

That he caught Nature Early or

fell

late,

in his snares

.

the falling rain

Arrived in time to swell his grain

Stream could not so perversely

But corn of Guy's was there

The

To

siroc found

speed his

And

To

it

sails,

on

its

wmd

to grind

way,

to dry his

hay;

the world's sun seemed to rise,

drudge

all

day

for

Guy

In his rich nurseries, timely

the wise. skill

Strong crab with nobler blood did

The zephyr From

in his

garden rolled

plum-trees vegetable gold;

4

fill;

50

GUY.

And With

a^l

the hours of the year

their

own

There was no

Nor

freshet,

harvest honored were.

frost

but welcome came,

nor midsummer flame.

Belonged to wind and world the

And

venture, and to

Guy

the

oil.

toil

5\

TACT.

What

boots

What

it,

thy virtue,

profit thy parts,

While one thing thou

The

The

art

of

all

lackest,

arts ?

only credentials.

Passport to success;

Opens

castle

and parlor,

—

Address, man. Address.

The maiden

Was

in

danger

saved by the svrain;

His stout arm restored her

To Broadway

again.

•

—

;;

TkVt.

The maid would reward

him,

—

Gay company come,

They

laugh, she laughs with them;

He

is

moonstruck und dumb.

This clinches the bargain Sails out of the bay;

Gets the vote in the senate, Spite of Webster and Clay

Has -

for genius

no mercy,

For speeches no heed

It lurks in the

eyebeam,

It leaps to its deed.

Church, market, and tavern.

Bed and board, It

it

wUl sway^

has nc to-morrow Tt

ends wi*h to-day

;

!

;

63

HAMATREYA.

MiNOTT, Lee, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint Possessed the land which rendered to their

toil

Hay, corn,

and wood

hemp,

roots,

flax,

apples, wool,

Each of these landlords walked amidst Saying,

'

'Tis mine,

my

children's,

my

and

How

sweet the west wind sounds in

How

graceful climb those shadows on

I

his farm.

name's

my own

my

trees

I

hill

fancy these pure waters and the flags

Know me, And,

Where

And

as does

I affirm,

my

are these

my dog actions

men ?

:

we sympathize

smack of the

soil.'

Asleep beneath their grounas

strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.

Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys Earth-proud, proud of the earth which

Who

is

not their?

steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet

Clear of the grave.

;

;

HAMATEEYA.

>4

They added

And '

;

;

ridge to valley, brook to ponu,

sighed for

This

We

me

suits

must have

that

all

for a

bounded

pasture

;

their

that's

domain

my

park

clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge.

And

misty lowland, where to go for peat.

The

land

'Tis good,

To Ah

is

well,

—

lies fairly to

when you have crossed

find the sitfast acres !

Him floar

the south. the sea and back,

where you

the hot owner sees not Death, to his land, a

left

them.'

who adds

lump of mould the more

what the Earth says: —

EARTH-SONG. '

Mine and yours Mine, not yours. Earth endures; Stars abide

—

Shine down in the old sea;

Old

are the shores

But where are old men?

=

flAMATKEYA.

I

who have

Such have

'The

seen much, I

never seen.

lawyer's deed

Ran In

'il

sure,

tail,

To

them, and to their heirs

Who

shall

Without

succeed,

fail,

Forevermore.

'

Here

is

the land,

Shaggy with wood,

With

its

old valley.

Mound, and

flood.

Biit the heritors ?

Fled like the

flood's

foam,—

The

lawyer, and the laws,

And

the kingdom,

Clean swept herefrom.

C>tl

,

They

'

Who

HAMATBEYA.

called

me

theirs,

so controlled

me;

Yet every one

Wished

to stay, and is gone.

How am

I theirs.

If they cannot hold me.

But

When I

I hold

them?'

I heard the Earth-song,

was no longer brave;

My

avarice cooled

Like

lust in the chill

if

the grave.

;

:

57

GOOD-BYE.

Good-bye, proud world

Thou

art

not

Long through

A

rirer-ark

Long

I'-ve

my

!

friend,

I'm going home and I'm not

thini

thy weary crowds I roam;

on the ocean

been tossed

brine.

like the driven foan

But now, proud world! I'm going home.

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;

To

Grandeur with

To

upstart Wealth's averted eye;

To

supple Office, low and high

his wise

grimace;

—

58

;

;

G00i>>BYE.

I

am going

to

Bosomed

in

A

nook

secret

my own

yon green

hearth-stone, hills

alone,

in a pleasant land.

Whose

groves the frolic

Where

arches green, the livelong day.

Echo

And

A

planned;

the blackbird's roundelay.

vulgar feet have never trod

spot that

O, when 1 tread

I

Where

is

am

thought and God,

sacred

to

safe in

.my sylvan home,

on the pride of Greece and

And when

I

am

Rome

stretched beneath the pines,

the evening star so holy shines,

I laugh at the lore

At

fairies

and the pride of man.

the sophist schools, -and the learned clan

For what are they

When

iljan in

all,

in their high conceit.

the bush with

God may meet?

;

59

THE RHODORA: ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE

when sea-winds pierced our

In May, I

solitudes,

found the fresh Rhodoia in the woods,

Spreading

To

leafless

its

blooms in a damp nook.

please the desert and the sluggish brook

The

purple petals, fallen in the pool.

Made

the black water with their beauty gay

Here might the red-bird come

And

his

1

the sages ask thee

if

This charm

is

why

wasted on the earth and sky,

Tell them, dear, that if eyes were

Then Beauty

Why

is its

own

thou wert there,

O

But, in

my

made

for seeing,

excuse for being: rival

of the rose

never thought to ask, I never

The

plumes to cool,

court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora

I

THE FLOWER?

IS

\

knew:

simple ignorance, suppose

self-same

Power

that brought

me

there brought you

;

!

;

m

THE HUMBLE-BEE

BuKLY, dozing humble-bee,

Where

thou art

Let them

sail

is

for

clime for me.

Porto Rique,

Far-ofF heats through seas to seek

j

I will follow thee alone.

Thou animated Zigzag Let

me

torrid-zone

I

steerer, desert cheerer,

chase thy waving lines:

Keep me

nearer,

me

thy hearer.

Singing over shrubs and vines.

Insect lover of the sun,

Joy of thy dominion Sailor of the atmosphere

Swimmer through

the waves of air

;

—

IKE HUMBLE-BEE.

Voyager of

f>]

and noon

light

Epicurean of June; Wait, I prithee,

till

I

come

Within earshot of thy hum, All without

When

is

martyrdom.*

the south wind, in

May

With a net of shining haze Silvers the horizon wall,

And, with Tints the

With

softness touching

all.

human countenance

a color of romance.

And, infusing

subtle heats,

Turns the sod Thou,

in

sunny

to violets. solitudes,

Rover of the underwoods.

The

green silence dost displace

AVith thy mellow, breezy bass.

Hot midsummer's Sweet

to

me

petted crone.

thy drowsy tone

dajs.

;

62

; ;

;

THE HUMBLE-BEE. Tells of countless sunny hours.

Long

Of

days, and solid banks of flowers

gulfs of sweetness without

bound

In Indian wildernesses found

Of

Syrian peace, immortal leisure.

Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure.

Aught unsavory Hath But

my

or unclean

insect never seen

violets

and bilberry

bells.

Maple-sap, and daffodels,

Grass with green flag half-mast high,

Succory to match the sky.

Columbine with horn of honey, Scented

fern,

and agrimony,

Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue,

And

brier-roses, dwelt

All beside was

among

unknown

waste,

All was picture as he passed.

Wiser

far

than

human

seer,

Yellow-breeched philosopher

I

63

THE HUMBLE-BEE. Seeing only what

is

Sipping only what

Thou

dost

Leave the

When

mock chatF,

is

fair,

sweet,

at fate

and take the wheat.

the fierce north-western blast

Cools sea and land so

Thou

Woe

and care,

far

and

fast.

already slumberest deep;

and want thou canst outsleep;

Want and

woe, which torture ua.

Thy

makes

sleep

ridiculous.

64

BERRyiNG

'

May

be true what I had heard,

Earth

—

a howling wilderness.

's

Truculent with fraud and I,

And

along the river-side.

strolling

force,'

through the pastures,

Said

"Caught among the blackberry vine?.

Feeding on the Ethiops sweet. Pleasant fancies overtook me. I said,

'

What

influence

me

preferred.

Elect, to dreams thus beautiful?'

The

vines replied,

No wisdom

'

And

didst thou

from our berries went?'

deem

6iÂť

THE SNOW-STORM.

Announced by

all

the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the

Seems nowhere Hides

hills

veils the

The

sled

and all

farm-house

fields,

the whited air

:

and woods, the

And

Delayed,

to alight

river,

and th? heaven.

at the garden's end.

traveller stopped, the courier's feet

friends_ shut out, the

Around the radiant

housemates

sit

fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of storra

Come

see the north wind's masonry

Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with

tile,

the fierce artificer

Curves his white bastions with projected roof

Round

every windward stake, or tree, or door

Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work

5

;

00

THE SNOW-STOKM.

So

fanciful, so savage,

nought cares he

For number or proportion.

On

A

Mockingly,

coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths swan-like form, invests the hidden thorn

Fills

up the farmer's lane from wall

Mau^re the

A

;

farmer's sighs

;

to wall,

and, at the gate,

tapering turret overtops the work.

And when Is all his

Leaves,

his hours are

own,

when

.To mimic

numbered, and the world

retiring, as

he were, not,

the sun appears, astonished Art

in slow structures, stone by stone,

Built in an age, the

mad

wind's night-work,

1'he frolic architecture of the snow.

—

:

67

WOODNOTES

1.

For

this present,

hard

Is the fortune of the bard.

Born out of lime

;

All his accomplishment,

From

Nature's utmost treasure spent,

Booteth not him.

When

the pine tosses

its

cones

To

the song of

He

speeds to the woodland walks.

To

birds and trees he talks

its

Csesar of his leafy

There the poet

He

is

waterfall tones.

Rome, at

home.

goes to the river-side,

Not hook nor

line hath he;

:

:

:

WOOUNOTES.

Od

He

stands in the

Nor gun nor

meadows wide,—

scythe to see;

With noue has he

And none

to do,

seek him,

Nor men below. Nor

spirits

dim.

Sure some god

his eye enchants

What he knows nobody

wants.

In the wood he travels glad.

Without

better fortune had,

Melancholy without bad. Planter of celestial plants.

What he knows nobody

What he knows he Knowledge

Seems

this

wants;

hides, not vaunts.

man

prizes best

fantastic to the rest

Pondering shadows,

colors, clouds.

Grass-buds, and caterpillar-shrouds.

Boughs on which the wild bees Tints that spot the

Why

violets'

petal,.

Nature loves tho number

And why

settle.

five.

the star-form she repeats

;

VVOODNOTES.

liovur of

ail

69

things alive,

Wonderer

at all

Wonderer

chiefly at himself,

Who

him what he

car. tell

Or how meet Coming and

he meets,

in

human

is?

elf

past eternities'?

2. V

V

And

A

such I knew, a forest seer,

minstrel of the natural year,

Foreteller of the vernal ides.

Wise harbinger of spheres and f

'A

lover true,

Each joy

who knew by

tides,

heart

the mountain dales impart

Nature could not raise

It

seemed

A

plant in any secret place,

that

In quaking bog, on snowy

hill.

Beneath the grass that shades the

rill,

Under the snow, between the rocks. In

damp

fields

known

But he would come It

opened

to bird

and

in the very

in its virgin

bower,

fox,

hour

;;

70

WOOLMOTES.

As

sunbeam showed the

if a

And

tell

place,

long-descended race.

its

It

seemed

as if the breezes brought

It

seemed

as if the

As

if

sparrows taught him

by seci et sight he knew

Where,

Many

him

in far fields, the orchis grew.

haps

fall

in the field

Seldom seen by wishful eyes, But

To

her shows did Nature yield,

all

please and win this pilgrim wise.

He saw

the partridge

drum

in the

woods;

He

heard the woodcock's evening

He

found the tawny thrush's broods;

And

the shy

What And

did wait for him

;

;

others did at distance hear,

guessed within the thicket's gloom,

Was showed And

hawk

hymn

at his

to this philosopher.

bidding seemed to come.

3. In

unploughed Maine he sought the lumberers'

Where

froiri

a

hundred lakes young

rivers sprar

— ;

;

WOODNOTES.

He

7l

irode-the implanted forest floor, whereon

The

all-seeing

Where

sun

for

And up

the

mast runs the woodpecker,

tall

saw beneath dim

lie

The

slight

And

blessed the

Which

ages hath not shone

feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear

aisles, in

Linnaea hang

odorous beds,

twin-born heads.

'ts

monument of

the

man

of flowers,

breathes his sweet fame through

the northern

bowers.

He

heard,

when

With sudden

One

in the grove, at intervals.

roar the aged pine-tree

crash, the

death-hymn of the perfect

Declares the close of

Low

lies

falls,

its

tree,

green century.

the plant to whose creation went

Sweet influence from every element

Whose

living towers the years conspired to build,

Whose giddy

top the morning loved to gild.

Through these green

He

tents,

by eldest Nature dressed,

roamed, content alike with

Where darkness found him he riiere the red

Three moons

man and

beast.

lay glad at night;

morning touched him with his great heart

So long he roved

at will

its

light

him a hermit made

the boundless shade.

;

;

72

;

;

WOODNOTES.

The

timid

And

fear

what

To make no And

ills

concerns to ask their way,

it

to

and swamps can

foe in caves

step until the event

come

is

stray,

known,

bemoan.

as evils past

Not so the wise; no coward watch he keeps

To

spy what danger on his pathway creeps

Go where

he

will, the

His hearth the

Where

earth,

man

wise

—

is

at

home,

his hall the azure

dome.

his clear spirit leads him, there's his road,

By God's own

light illumined

and foreshowed.

4.

'Twas one of the charmed days.

When

God

the genius of

The wind may

twenty ways,

alter

A

tempest cannot blow

It

may blow

Or

south,

Or

east,

Or

west,

it

it

north, still

doth flow,

it

is

still

is

warm;

clear

smells like a clover-farm

no thunder

The musing

fear.

peasant lowly great

Beside the forest water sate

—

; ;;

;

;

WOODNOTES.

The

73

lope-.ike pine roots crosswise

grown

Composed

the network of his throne

The wide

lake,

Was

edged with sand and grass,

burnished to a floor of glass.

Painted with shadows green and proud

Of

the tree and of the cloud.

He

was the heart of

On him To It

hill

more serene

the sun looked

and cloud

his face

seemed the likeness of

They knew by

The '

the scene

all

their

own

secret sympathy

public child of earth and sky.

You

Me

was known,

ask,'

he said,

'

what guide

through trackless thickets led,

Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide ? I found the water's bed.

The

watercourses were

1 travelled grateful

Or through They

led

their

me

my

guide;

by their side.

channel dry

through the thicket damp.

Through brake and

fern, the beavers'

camp,

;

;

WOODNOTES.

74

Through beds of

my

granite cut

And

their resistless friendship

The

falling waters led

The

foodful waters fed

And

brought

me

road,

showed:

me, me,

to the lowest land.

Unerring to the ocean sand.

The moss upon

the forest bark

Was

polestar

The

purple berries in the

Supplied

me

when

the night was dark>

wood

necessary food

For Nature ever

faithful is

To such as trust her faithfulness. When the forest shall mislead me, When

the night and morning

When

sea and land refuse to feed

'Twill be time

Then

A

will yet

enough

my

lie.

me,

to die

mother yield

pillow in her greenest

field.

Nor

the

The

clay of theirj departed lover.

June flowers scorn

to cover

;

76

WOODNOTES. II.

Ai sunbeams stream through

liberal space

i.nd nothing jostle or displace, i8'9

waved

the pine-tree through

And fanned

'

Whether

Come

to

my

thought

the dreams it never brouglit

is

better the gift or the donor

me/

Q.uoth the pine-tree, '

I

am

My

the giver of honor.

garden

is

the cloven rock.

And my manure

And

the

snow

drifting sand-heaps feed

In summer's scorching glow.

Ancient or curious,

Who

knoweth aught of us ?

my

stock,

T

woo^^'>TES.

76

Old

as Jove,

Old

as

Who

Love,

of

me

Tells the pedigree?

Only the mountains old Only the waters

cold,

Only moon and

star

My

coevals are.

Ere the

first

fowl sung

My

relenting boughs

Ere

Adam

wived,

Ere

Adam

lived,

among

Ere the duck dived. Ere the bees hived. Ere the

lion roared.

Ere the eagle soared, Light and heat, land and sea.

Spake unto the ddest Glad

in the sweet

Which

tree.

and secret aid

matter unto matter paid,

The

water flowed, the breezes fanned

The

tree confined the roving sand,

;

WOODNOTES.

The sunbeam gave me The

to the sight,

tree adorned the formless light,

And once

again

O'er the grave of

We

77

shall talk to

men

each other again

Of

the old age behind.

Of

the time out of mind.

Which

shall

'Whether

Come

is

come

again.

better the gift or the

to me,'

Q,uoth the pine-tree, I

am

He

is

'

the giver of honor. great

who can

live

The rough and bearded

by me.

forester

Is better than the lord

God

fi''s

the scrip and canister,

Siu piles the loaded board.

The

lord

The

peasant the lord that shall be;

The

lord

is

One

dry,

and one the living

is

the peasant that was.

hay, the peasant grass. tree.

donor?

;;;

;

WOODNOTES

78 Genius with

Want and

Who

Foundeth

fast

and spendeth

my

all.

savage haunts,

his chariot

and

his care

twilight realm he disenchants,

And

'

by the ragged pine

a heroic line

goes to

With

My

shall flourish,

liveth in the palace hall

Waneth

He

boughs

cold our roots shall nourish.

liveth

Who

my

finds his prison there.

What

prizes the town and the tower ?

Only what the Sinew

The

that

pine-tree yields

subdued the

wild-eyed boy,

hymn

;

fields

who

in the

and

woods

Chants

his

Whom

the city's poisoning spleen

Made

Whom Whom

to hills

not pale, or

fat,

floods.

or lean

the rain and the wind purgeth, the

dawn and

the day-star urgeth,

In whose cheek the rose-leaf blusheth, In whose

feet the lion rusheth.

WOODNOTES.

Iron arms, and iron mould,

That know not I give

My

rafters to his boat,

billets to his boiler's throat;

And

To

my

fear, fatigue, or cold.

swim

I will

my

float

And

the ancient sea.

child to victory,

grant to dwellers with the pine

Dominion

o'er the

Westward

I

The It

ope the

vine.

forest gates.

train along the railroad skates;

leaves the land behind like ages past.

The

foreland flows to

Missouri I have I

palm and

teach Iowa Saxon

Who

it

in river fast;

made a mart, art.

leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend.

Unnerves

his strength, invites his end.

Cut a bough from my parent stem,

And

A

dip

little

in thy porcelain vase;

it

while each russet

gem

Will swell and rise with wonted grace;

But when

it

The orphan

seeks enlarged supplies.

of the forest dies.

;

;

WOODNOTES.

30

Whoso

And

walketh in solitude,

inhabiteth the

Choosing

light,

wood,

wave, rock, and bird.

Before the money-loving herd. Into that forester shall pass. these companions, power and grace,

From

he be, without, within.

Clean

shall

From

the old adhering sin.

Love

shall he,

The All

Of

all-fair,

ill

but not adulate

the all-embracing Fate;

dissolving in the light

his triumphant piercing sight.

Not

vain, sour, nor frivolous

Not mad,

athirst,

nor garrulous;

Grave, chaste, contented, though retired,

And

of

all

On him Shall

fall

other

men

desired.

the light of star and

moon

with purer radiance down;

All constellations of the sky

Shed

their virtue

Him Nature

through his eye.

giveth for defence

His formidable innocence

;

;

;

WOOBNOTES.

81

Tlie mounting sap, the shells, the sea. All spheres,

He Nor

He

shall

stones, his helpers

all

never be old

his fate shall be foretold shall see the

shall

shall

fear;

be happy in his love.

Like to like

He

;

speeding year.

Without wailing, without

He

be

shall joyful

prove

be happy whilst he woos,

Muse-born, a daughter of the Muse.

But

with gold she bind her hair.

if

And deck Take

her breast with diamond,

off thine eyes, thy heart forbear.

Though thou

The It

lie

alone on the ground.

robe of silk in which she shines,

was woven of many sins;

And

the shreds

Which

she sheds

In the wearing of the saine.

on

Shall be grief

And shame on 6

grief,

shame.

;

;

WOODNOTES.

82

'

Heed

the old oracles,

my

Ponder

spells

Song wakes

When

in

my

pinnacles

the wind swells.

Soundeth the prophetic wind,

The shadows shake on

And

the rock behind.

the countless leaves of the pine are sdinga

Tuned

to the lay the

Hearken

wood-god

Hearken

1

If thou wouldst

know

sings.

I

the mystic song

Chanted when the sphere was young. Aloft, abroad, the paean swells

O O

wise

man

!

hear'st thou half

wise

man

!

hear'st thou the least part

'Tis the chronicle of

To

the open ear

it

it

tells ?

art.

sings

Sweet the genesis of

things,

Of

tendefncy through endless ages.

Of

star-dust,

Of rounded Of

and star-pilgrimages. worlds, of space and time.

the old flood's subsiding slime,

1

; ;

!

KJ

WOODNOTES.

Of chemic

matter, force, and form.

poles and powers, cold, wet, and

Of

The

warm

rushing metamorphosis,

Dissolving

all

that fixture

is,

Melts things that be to things that seem,

And O,

solid nature to a

listen to the

The

dream.

undersong

—

ever old, the ever young;

And,

far

within those cadent pauses,

The chorus of

the ancient Causes

Delights the dreadful Destiny

To

fling his voice into the tree,

And

shock thy weak ear with a note

Breathed from the everlasting throat. In music he repeats the pang

Whence

O

mortal

the fair flock of Nature sprang. !

thy ears are stones

These echoes are laden with tones

Which

Thou

Of

only the pure can hear canst not catch what they recite

Fate and Will, of

Want and

Right,

:

;

";

,

;

'

WOODNOTEP

84

Of man

to

come, of human

life,

Of Death, and Fortune, Growth, and

Once '

again the pine-tree sung

:

Strife'

—

Speak not thy speech my boughs among;

Put

off thy years,

wash

My

hours are peaceful centuries.

Talk no more with

No more

in the breeze

feeble tongue

the fool of space and time.

Come weave

with mine a nobler rhyme.

Only thy Americans

Can

read thy line, can meet thy glance,

But the runes that

I

rehearse

Understands the universe

The

least breath

my

boughs which tossed

Brings again the Pentecost

To

every soul

it

soundeth clear

Tn a voice of solemn cheer, "

Am

And

My

I

not thine

?

—

Are not these

they reply, " Forever mine

1

branches speak Italian,

English, German, Basque, Castilian,

thine

1

WOODNOTES.

Mounta in spe ech

Ocean tongues

85

to Highlanders,

to islanders,

To

Fin, and Lap, and swart Malay,

To

each his bosom- secret say.

Come Which

learn with

me

the fatal song

knits the world in music strong,

Whereto every bosom dances. Kindled with courageous fancies.

Come Of

lift

thine eyes to lofty rhymes.

things with things, of times with times

Primal chimes of sun and shade.

Of sound and The

echo,

man and

maid,

land reflected in the flood,

Body with shadow For Nature beats

And rounds

still

pursued.

in perfect tune,

with rhyme her every rune,

Whether she work

in land or sea,

Or hide underground her alchemy.

Thou Or

canst not

wave thy

staff"

in air,

dip thy paddle in the lake,

But

And

it

carves the

bow of beauty

there,

the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake.

WOODNOTES.

60

The wood

is

wiser far than thou;

The wood and wave each Not

unrelated, unaffied,

But

to each thought

other know.

and thing

allied,

Is perfect Nature's every part,

Rooted

in the

mighty Heart.

But thou, poor child

Whence

1

unbound, unrhymed,

earnest thou, misplaced, mistimed)

O

Whence,

thou orphan and defrauded

Is thy land peeled, thy realm

Who And

thy faith

who

left ?

hath bereft.

torn the ensigns from thy brow.

And sunk

the immortal eye so low?

Thy cheek Thy

too white, thy form too slender.

gait too slow, thy habits tender

For royal man

An

marauded?

thee divorced, deceived, and

Thee of

?

;

— they

thee confess

exile from the wilderness,

—

The

hills

And

the wise soul expels disease.

Hark

!

where health with health agrees,

in thy ear I will tell the sign

By which thy hurt thou may'st

.

divine.

;

;

WOODNOTES.

When

87

thou shalt climb the mountalD

Or see the wide shore from thy

To

cliff,

skiff,

thee the horizon shall express

Only emptiness and emptiness

There

lives

no man of Nature's worth

In the circle of the earth

And

to thine eye the vast skies

Dire and

satirical.

On

clucking hens, and prating

On

thieves,

And

fools.

on drudges, and on

dolls.

thou shalt say to the Most High.

" Godhead

And

fall,

fate,

Strong

this

all

!

astronomy.

and practice, and invention,

art,

and beautiful pretension.

This radiant pomp of sun and

star.

Throes that were, and worlds that Behold It

!

were

cannot be,

Surely

And

now

earth's

in vain

—

I

will

are. ;

—

surprise;

—

and in vain look again

;

will the curtain rise, fit

tenant

me

But the curtain doth not

rise.

;

woodnotes.

8m

And Nature

has miscarried wholly

Into failure, into folly."

'

Alas

!

thine

is

the bankruptcy,

Blessed Nature so to see.

Come,

And

lay thee in

my

soothing shade,

heal the hurts which sin has

I will

made

teach the bright parable

Older than time.

Things undeclarable, Visions sublime. I see thee in the

crowd alone;

I will be thy companion.

Quit thy friends as the dead in doom^

And

build to

them a

final

tomb

Let the starred shade that nightly Still

celebrate their funerals.

And

the bell of beetle and of bee

fa]

Knell their melodious memory.

Behind thee leave thy merchandise.

Thy

churches, and thy charities;

s

;

;;

WOODNOTES.

And

leave thy peacock wit behind;

Enough That

for thee the

primal mind

thy pedant lore apart;

all

hid the whole world in thy heart.

Love shuns the sage, the

And

gives

The

rain

The

river

them

Blessing

The

who

all

child all

it

knows the way pilot

it

its

to the cloud

The shadow

sits

The

date

fails

And

thou,

— go

falls,

charity;

sea tosses and foams to

way up

calls

to the sea;

runs and

lands with

all

crowns.

renounce.

comes when the wind

Without a

Its

wind

flows in streams, that breathes in

Leave

God

89

find

and wind;

close to the flying ball

not on the palm-tree

tall

—

burn thy wormy pages,

Shalt outsee seers, and outwit sages.

Oft didst thou thread the woods ia vain

To

find

Seek

what bird had piped the

not,

and the

little

strain

eremite

Flies gayly forth and sings in sight.

;

—

!

**0

:

WOODNOTES.

'

Hearken once more

mundane

I will tell thee the

Older

am

Change

I

Hitherto

And

I

than thy numbers wot,

may, but I pass

all

lore.

not.

things fast abide,

anchored in the tempest

Trenchant time behoves All to yean and

all

ride.

hurry

to

to bury

All the forms are fugitive.

But the substances

survive.

Ever fresh the broad creation,

A

divine improvisation.

From

A

the heart of

God

proceeds,

single will, a million deeds.

Once

And

slept the

pulse, and sound, and light

And God And

said,

was none;

" Throb " and there was motimi,

the vast mass

Onward and

Who

world an egg of stone,

!

became

vast ocean.

on, the eternal Pan,

layeth the world's incessant plan,

Halteth never in one shape.

But forever doth escape.

;

;

;

;

WOODNOTES.

91

Like wave or flame, into new forms

Of gem, and I,

that to-day

of plants, and worms

air,

am

a pine,

Yesterday was a bundle of grass.

He

is

free

and

libertine,

Pouring of his power the wine

To

every age, to every race

Unto every race and age

He

emptieth the beverage

Unto each, and unto

all.

Maker and

original.

The

world

is

And

the play of his miracles.

As he Thus

He

the ring of his spells,

giveth to

all

to drink.

or thus they are and think.

giveth

little

To make them

or giveth

much.

several or such.

With one drop sheds form and

With

;

feature;

the next a special nature

The

third adds heat's, indulgent spark

The

fourth gives light

which eats the dark

;

;

WOODNOTEB.

92

Into the

And

fifth

himself he

conscious

Law

flings,

King of

is

kings.

Pleaseth him, the Eternal Child,

To

play his sweet will, glad and wild;

As

the bee through the garden ranges.

From world As

to world the

godhead changes;

the sheep go feeding in the waste,

From form

he maketh haste

to form

This vault which glows immense with Is the inn

What

where he lodges

recks such Traveller

Which bloom and

A

bunch of

Or

fragrant

lilies

the stars of eternity

for a night. if

fade like

the bowers

meadow

flowers

be,

?

Alike to him the better, the worse,—

The glowing Thou

And Thou

He

angel, the outcast corse.

metest him by centuries. lo

!

he passes like the breeze

seek'st in globe

and galaxyj

hides in pure transparency;

Thou

askest in fountains and in fires,

He

the essence that inquires.

is

light

;

;

WOODNOTES.

He

is

the axis of the star;

He

is

the sparkle of the spar;

He

is

the heart of every creature

He

is

the lucaiimg of each feature

And Than

his all

mind it

is

the sky,

holds more deep, more high.

93

!

;

94

MONADNOn.

Thousand '

minstrels

Our music's

woke

within me,

in the hills

Gayest pictures rose to win Leopard-colored

'Up! — If thou

To

;

'

—

mc;,

rills.

knew' St 'who

calls

twilight parks of beech and pine,

High over the Above

river intervals,

the ploughman's highest line,

Over the owner's

Up! where the

farthest walls

airy citadel

O'erlooks the surging landscape's swell

I

*

Let not unto the stones the Dav

Her

lily

Read Lo

!

and rose, her sea and land display

the celestial sign

I

the Si>uth answers to the north

Bookworm, break

this sloth

urbane;

!

95

MONADNOC.

A

greater spirit bids thee forth

Than

the gray dreams which thee detain.

Mark how

the climbing Oreads

Beckon thee

to their arcades

Youth,

moment

for a

Teach thy Ere yet

feet to feel the

arrives the wintry

When Time Take

free as they.

ground.

day

thy feet has bound.

the bounty of thy birth,

Taste the lordship of the

I heard,

and I obeyed,

earth.'

—

Assured that he who made the claim,

Well known, but loving not a name.

Was

not to be gainsaid.

Ere yet the summoning voice was I

turned to Cheshire's haughty

From

hill.

the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowed

Like ample banner flung abroad

To

all

still,

the dwel'.ers in the plains

;

MONADNOC.

96

Round

about, a hundred miles,

salutation to the sea, and to the border-

With

ing

In his

isles.

own

loom's garment dressed.

By his proper bounty blessed, Fast abides this constant giver.

Pouring many a cheerful river;

To

far eyes,

Unploughed,

an aerial

isle

vi^hich finer spirits pile.

Which morn and crimson evening For

bard, for lover,

The

and

people's pride, the country's core,

Inspircr, prophet evermore; Pillar

So It

paint

for saint;

which God

that

men might

should be their

And mix

itself

had

aloft it

set

not forget;

life's

ornament,

with each event

Gauge and calendar and

dial,

Weatherglass and chemic phial,

Garden of

berries,

perch of birds,

Pasture of pool-haunting herds.

;

!

MONADNOC.

i)7

Graced by each change of sum untold, Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold.

The

Titan heeds his sky-afFairs,

Rich rents and wide

alliance shares;

Mysteries of color daily laid

By

the sun in light and shade

And

sweet varieties of chance,-

And

the mystic seasons' dance;

And

thief-like step

Thawing

snow-drift into flowers.

O, wondrous

By

'

of liberal hours

craft

plant and stone

wrought and shown

eldest science

Happy,' I said,

o.'"

'

whose home

Fair fortunes to the mountaineer

Boon Nature

Has

here

is

I

I

to his poorest shed

royal pleasure-grounds outspread.'

Intent, I searched the region round,

And

in

low hut

my monarch

found

:

—

08

;

; ;

;

;

MONADNOC.

Wo

is

me

for

my

hope's downfall

yonder squalid peasant

Is

That

this

t

all

proud nursery could breed

For God's vicegerency and stead?

Time

Ah

out of mind, this forge of

Quarry of spars Old

Of

in

ore.i

mountain pores

cradle, hunting-ground,

and bier

wolf and otter, bear and deer

Well-built abode of

many

Tower of observance

a race

searching space

:

Factory of river and of rain

Link

By

in the alps' globe-girding chain;

million changes skilled to

What

tell

in the Eternal standeth well,

And what

obedient Nature can

—

;

Is this colossal talisman

Kindly to plant, and blood, and kind,

But speechless I

to the master's

mind

thought to find the patriots

In

whom

the stock of freedom roots*

?

; ;

——

:

MONADNOO.

To

myself I

Tales of

oft

many

09

recount

a famous mount,

Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary's dells; Bards, Roys, Scanderbegs, and Tells.

Here Nature

shall

condense her powers,

Her music, and her meteors,

And

lifting

Where

man

to the blue deep

stars their perfect courses keep,

Like wise preceptor, lure

To And

Of

his

eye

sound the science of the sky. carry learning to

its

height

untried power and sane delight

The

Indian cheer, the frosty skies.

Rear purer

wits, inventive eyes,

Eyes that frame

And hands

And by

cities

where none be,

that stablish

what these see;

the moral of his place

Hint summits of heroic grace

Man

To

in these crags a fastness find

fight pollution

of the mind

In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong,

Adhere

like this foundation strong.

!

!

!

MONADNOL.

100

The

insanity of towns to stem

With simpleness But

if the

And end

for stratagem.

brave old mould .

in churls the

is

broke,

mountain

folk,

In tavern cheer and tavern joke, Sink,

O

Hide

in thy skies,

mountain, in the swramp

O

sovereign lamp

Perish like leaves, the highland breed

No

Soft

sire survive,

!

let

no son succeed

not the offended muse

Toil's hard hap with scorn accuse.

Many

hamlets sought I then,

Many

farms of mountain men.

Rallying round a parish steeple Nestle

warm

the highland people,

Coarse and boisterous, yet mild, Strong as giant, slow as child,

Smoking

Where

in a squalid

room

yet the westland breezes come.

i

>

MONAUNOC

Masked

lUl

rough guises lurk

in those

Western magians,

— here

Sweat and season are

they work.

their arts,

Their talismans are ploughs and carts;

And

command

well the youngest can

Honey from

the frozen land;

With cloverheads the swamp adorn, Change the running sand For wolves and

And

for cold

Weave wood

to corn;

foxes, lowing herds.

mosses, cream and curds: to canisters

and mats;

Drain sweet maple juice in

No

bird

From

No

safe that cuts the air

their rifle or their snare;

fish,

But

is

in river or in lake.

their long

And

hands

it

thence will take;

the country's flinty face,

Like wax, their fashioning

To

vats.

fill

skill betrays,

the hollows, sink the

hills,

Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and mil

And

fit

the bleak and howling place

For gardens of a

finer race.

;

;

:

MONADNOC.

102

The

World-sou] knows his

own

affair,

when he would prepare

Forelooking,

For the next ages, men of mould Well embodied, well ensouled.

He

cools the present's fiery glow,

Sets the life-pulse strong but slow: Bitter

winds and

fasts

His quarantines and

He

austere

where

grottos,

slowly cures decrepit flesh.

And

brings

it

infantile

and

fresh.

Toil and tempest are the toys

And games They If

to breathe his stalwart

bide their time, and well can prove,

need were,

Of

the

As

that

And

same

their line stuff,

fibre,

from Jove

and so allayed,

whereof the sun

of the

Whose

Now

boys

is

made.

quick and strong.

throbs are love, whose thiills are song.

in sordid

[n dulness

now

weeds they their secret

sleep,

keep

;

;

MONADNOC.

lOh

Yet, wil. you Iparn our ancient speech,

These the masters who can

teach.

Fourscore or a hundred words All their vocal

muse

But they turn them

affords

a fashion

in

Past clerks' or statesmen's art or passion. I can spare the college bell,

And

the learned lecture, well

Spare the clergy and

libraries,

and dictionaries,

Institutes

For that hardy English root Thrives here, unvalued, underfoot.

Rude

poets of the tavern hearth.

Squandering your unquoted mirth,

Which keeps While Jake Scoff of

Goes

the ground, and never soars,

retorts,

yeoman

strong and stark,

like bullet to

While the

and Reuben roars;

mark;

its

solid curse

and jeer

Never balk the waiting

ear.

;

MONADNOO.

104

On

the

summit

as I stood,

O'er the floor of plain and flood

Seemed

Was

to

me, the towering

not altogether

hiii

still.

But a quiet sense conveyed; If I err not, thus

*

Many

Oft,

my

feet in

it

said

summer

:

—

seek.

far-appearing peak

In the dreaded winter time,

None

save dappling shadows climb.

Under clouds, my Old

as the sun, old almost as the

And comest

To

lonely head.

shade

thou

see strange forests and

new snow.

And

tread uplifted land

And

leavest thou thy lowland race,

Here amid clouds

And

wouldst be

?

to stand

my

?

companion,

MONADNOC.

Where

I

gaze, and

lO;

shall gaze,

still

Thro' tempering nights and flashing days.

When Over

forests

fall,

and

man

is

gone,

and over ^mes.

tribes

At the burning Lyre, Nearing me.

With In

'

stars ot northern fire,

its

many

Ah

!

a thousand jears?

welcome,

if

thou

My

secret in thy brain

To

mountain-top

The gamut

And how

;

may Muse's wing

With good allowance Gentle pilgrim,

brmg

if

strain.

thou

know

old of Pan,

the hills began.

The

frank blessings of the

Fall

on

thee, as

fall

they

hill

will.

'Tis the law of bush and stone,

Each can only take

his own.

!; ;

;

MONADNOC.

103

'

Let him heed who can and

Enchantment

To

me

fixed

will

here

stand the hurts of time, until I disappear.

In mightier charit '

How

If thou trowest

the chemic eddies play,

Pole to pole, and what they say

And

that these gray crags

Not on crags are hung. But beads are of a rosary

On

prayer and music strung

And, credulous, through the granite seeming, Seest the smile of Reason beaming

Can

thy style-discerning eye

The

hidden-working Builder spy.

Who

builds, yet

makes no

chips,

;

no

—

din,

With hammer

soft as snowflake's flight

Knowest thou

this?

O

pilgrim, wandering not amiss

Already

my

rocks

And soon my cone

lie light.

will spin.

;

—

;

MONADNOC.

For the world was

And

the atoms

107

built in order,

march

in

tune

Time

Rhyme

the pipe, and

Cannot

forget the sun, the

Orb and atom

When

the warder.

moon.

forth they prance,

they hear from far the rune,

None

so backward in the troop.

When

the music and the dance

Reach

his place

and circumstance.

But knows the sun-creating sound,

And, though a pyramid,

'

Monadnoc

is

Tall and good

But well

I

will

bound.

a mountain strong,

my

kind among;

know, no mountain can,

Zion or Meru, measure with man.

For

it

is

Adamant

on zodiacs writ, is

And when With my

soft to wit:

the greater

comes again

secret in his brain,

I shall pass, as glides

Daily over

hill

my shadow

and meadow.

MONADKOC.

lOS

'

Through

Well

On

hear the approaching feet

I

the flinty

Of him

As

pathway beat

come;

that cometh, and shall

Of him who

My

gloom

time, in light, in

all

as lightly bear

shall

daily load of

woods and streams.

doth this round sky-deaving boat

Which never

Whose

strains its rocky

beams;

timbers, as they silent float,

Alps and Caucasus uprear,

And

the long Alleganies here,

And

all

town-sprinkled lands that be.

Sailing through stars with

'

Every morn

See

New

I

lift

my

all

their history

head,

England underspread,

South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound,

From

Katskill east to the sea-bound.

Anchored

fast for

I await the

Who,

many an

age,

bard and sage,

in large thoughts, like fair pearl-seed,

Shall string

Monaduoc

like a bead.

— ;

MONADNOC.

Comes

that cheerful troubadour,

This mound

As when, It rose a

When From

109

shall throb his face before.

with inward

fires

and pain,

bubble from the plain.

he cometh,

I shall shed.

this wellspring in

my

head,

Fountain-drop of spicier worth

Than

all

vintage of the earth.

There's fruit upon

my

barren

Costlier far than wine or

soil

oil.

There's a berry blue and gold,

Autumn-ripe,

its

juices hold

Sparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart,

Asia's rancor, Athens'

art,

Slowsure Britain's secular might,

And

the German's inward sight.

I will give

my

son to eat

Best of Pan's immortal meat.

Bread

to eat,

and juice to drink

So the thoughts

that he shall think

Shall not be forms of stars, but stars.

Nor

pictures pale, but Jove and

Mars

;

MONADKOC.

110

He

comes, but not of that race bred

Who

daily climb

my

specular head.

my

Oft as morning wreathes

Fled the

scarf,

plumule of the Dark,

last

Pants up hither the spruce clerk

From South Cove and I take

City Wharf.

him up my rugged

sides.

Half-repentant, scant of breath,

Bead-eyes

my

—

granite chaos show,

And my midsummer snow Open

the daunting

map

—

beneath,

All his county, sea and land,

Dwarfed

to

measure of

His day's ride

is

his

hand

;

a furlong space,

His city-tops a glimmering haze. I

plant his eyes on the sky-hoop

boundmg

" See there the grim gray rounding

Of

the bullet of the earth

Whereon ye Tumbling

sail.

steep

In the uncontinented deep."

He

looks on that, and he turns pale.

,

;

;

MONADNOC.

Ill

'Tis even so, this treacherous kite.

Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere,

Thoughtless of

its

anxious freight,

Plunges eyeless on forever

And

he j poor parasite,

Cooped

in a ship he cannot steer,

Who

the captain he

5S'

knows

Port or pilot trows not,

—

not,

—

Risk or ruin he must share. I scowl

on him with

my

With my north wind I

lame

And

Then,

down

blood

the rocks

in fear.

him down

into his dapper town.

chatter, frightened, to his elan. '

And

As

is

at last, I let

Once more

To

he

(iloud.

chill his

hira, clattering

to live

forget

me

if

he can.'

in the old poetic

The gods

And

;

fame

are blind and lame.

the simular despite

Betrays the more abounding might.

:

I

MONADNOC.

la

So

call

Above

not waste that barren cone the floral zone,

Where

forests starve

pure use

It is

What

;

—

sheaves like those which here

we

g^cian

and bind/

Of

a celestial Ceres and the

Ages

are thy days.

Thou grand afBrmer

And

of the present tense,

type of permanence

Firm ensign of the

Amid That

Muse 1

fatal

!

Being,

these coward shapes of joy and grief, will not bide the seeing!

Hither

we

bring

Our

insect miseries to the rocks;

And

the whole flight, with pestering wing,

Vanish, and end their murmuring,

—

Vanish beside these dedicated blocks,

Which who can Spoils of a front

tell

what mason laid?

none need

restore.

!

MONADNOC.

1

Replacing frieze and architrave;

Yet flowers each stone Still is

Of

—

and metope brave;

rosette

the haughty pile erect

the old building Intellect.

Complement of human kind, Having us

vantage

at

stUl,

Our sumptuous indigence,

O barren mound, thy We fool and prate; Thou

To

and sedate.

art silent

constant mountain doth dispense;

Shedding on joy

Thou

it

all

joys,

seest,

O

its

snows and leaves,

one grief

watchman

Our towns and

And

fill

myriad kinds and times one sense

The

One

plenties

races

it

grieves.

tall.

grow and

fall.

imagest the stable good

For which we

all

our lifetime grope,

In shifting form the formless mind,

And though

We

the substance us elude,

in thee the

8

shadow

find.

la

.

1

MONADNOC.

14

Thou,

An

in our astronomy

opaker

star,

Seen haply from

afar,

Above the horizon's hoop,

A As

moment, by the railway troop. o'er

some bolder height they speed,

By circumspect

By

errant gain.

By

feasters

ambition,

and the

frivolous,

—

Recallest us,

And makest

sane.

Mute

orator! well skilled to plead.

And

send conviction without phrase.

Thou

dost succor

and remede

The

shortness of our days.

And

promise, on thy Founder's truth,

Long morrow

to this mortal youth.

iia

FABLE'.

The

mountain and the squirrel

Had

a quarrel;

And

the former called the latter 'Little Prig,

Bun

replied,

'You But

are doubtless very big;

all

sorts

of things and weather

Must be taken

To make up

in together.

a year

And

a sphere.

And

I think

it

To occupy my

no disgrace place.

If I'm not so large as you,

You

are not so small as I,

And

not half so spry.

I'll

not deny you

make

116

FAVITM.

A

very pretty squirrel track

Talents differ;

all

is

;

,

well and wisely put;

If I cannot carrv forests on

my

Neither can you cracK a nut.'

back,

117

ODE, INSCRIBED TO .W. H. CHANNINQ.

Though The

loath to grieve

evil time's sole patriot,

I cannot leave

My

honied thought

For the

Or

priest's cant,

statesman's rant.

If I refuse

My

study for their politique.

Which

The

at the best is trick,

angry

Muse

Puts confusion in

But who

Of

is

my

brain.

he that prates

the culture of mankind,

1

18

ODE.

Of

better arts and life ?

Go, blindworm, go, Behold the famous States

Harrying Mexico

With

rifle

Or who,

and with knife

1

with accent bolder,

Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer?

O

I found by thee,

rushing Contoocook

And

in thy valleys,

The

jackals of the negro-holder.

Agiochook

!

The God who made New Hampshire Taunted the

With

little

lofty

men

;

land

—

Small bat and wren

House

in the

oak

:

—

If earth-fire cleave

The upheaved The

land, and bury the folk,

southern crocodile would grieve.

!

;

;

UU

ODE.

Virtue palters; Right

Freedom

hence;

is

praised, but hid

Funeril eloquence Rattles the coffin-lid.

What

O

boots thy zeal,

glowing friend.

That would indignant rend

The

northland from th^ south

Wherefore

1

to

what good end

7

?

Boston Bay and Bunker Hill

Would

serve things

still

;

—

Things are of the snake.

The horseman The

neatherd serves the neat,

The merchant The

serves the horse,

eiatet

serves the purse.

serves his meat;

'Tis the day of the chattel,

Web

to weave,

Things are

And

and corn to grind

in the saddle.

ride mankind.

;

120

ODE.

There

Not

are two laws discrete,

reconciled,

Law

for

The

last builds

But

it

—

man, and law

for thing-

town and

fleet.

runs wild,

And

doth the

man

'Tis

fit

The

steep be graded,

the forest

The mountain

The sand

unking.

fall,

tunnelled,

shaded,

The

orchard planted.

The

glebe

tilled.

The

prairie granted.

The

steamer

built.

Let man serve law

for

Live for friendship,

live for love,

For

truth's

The

state

man

and harmony's behoof;

may

As Olympus

follow

how

follows Jove.

it

can,

;

121

ODE.

Yet do not

I

implore

my

The

wrinkled shopman to

Nor

bid the unwilling senator

Ask

rotes of thrushes in the solitudes.

sounding wouda,

Every one to his chosen work Foolish hands

Sex

they

to sex,

The

issues are.

roll till

dark

is

light,

and even to odd;

over-god

Who

marries Right to Might,

Who

peoples,

He who

unpeoples,^

exterminates

Races by stronger races, Black by white faces,

Knows

to bring

Out of the

—

honey

lion

Grafts gentlest scion

On

pirate

and Turk.

The Cossack Like stolen

—

may mix and mar;

Wise and sure the

Round

;

eats Poland,

fruit;

—

ODE.

122

Her

last

noble

Her

last

poet mute:

is

ruined,

Straight, into double

The

victors divide;

Half

for

The

astonished

band

freedom strike and stand

Muse

;

—

finds thousands at her side,

—

;

123

ASTR^A.

Thou the herald

Thy

art

who wrote

rant, and quartered thine

There

is

That can

Each

no king nor sovereign fix

own

state

a hero's rate

to all is venerable,

Cap-a-pie invulnerable, Until he write,

where

all

eyes rest,

Slave or master on his breast.

I

saw men go up and down.

In the country and the town,

With '

this tablet

on

their neck,

Judgment and a judge we

Not

to

Nor

to learned jurist's chair

monarchs they

seek.'

repair,

;

But they hurry to their peers.

coat.

; ;

;

124

Louder '

What am

And

To

with speech they pray,

thtin

I

?

say.'

the friend not hesitates assign just place and mates

Answers not Yet

companioHj

letter,

understood the better

is

Each

word or

in

to eacjh

a looking-glass,

Reflects his figure that doth pass.

Every wayfarer he meets

What

himself declared repeats,

What

himself confessed records.

Sentences him in his words

The

form

And

his thought the penal

is

his

own

corporal form,

worm.

Yet shine forever virgin minds.

Loved by

Which,

stars

snd purest winds.

o'er passion throned sedate,

Have not hazarded

their state;

Disconcert the searching spy.

Rendering

to a curious eye

•

;

ilSTItJiA.

The durance

To

those

IS

of a granite ledge

who gaze from

the sea's edge

It is

there for benefit

It is

there for purging light;

There

And It

for purifying storms;

its

depths reflect

all

forms;

cannot parley with the mean,-

Pure by impure

For

there's

is

not seen.

no sequestered

Lone mountain

grot,

tarn, or isle forgot.

But Justice, journeying in the sphere, Daily stoops to harbor there.

;

-

126

ETIENNE DE LA BOECE,

I

SERVE you

not, if

Shadowlike, o'er

And bend my

And I

am

And

I follow,

and hollow

hill

fancy to your leading,

my

All too nimble for

When

you

the pilgrimage

treading.

is

done,

we've the landscape overrun, thwarted.

bitter, vacant,

your heart

unsupported.

is

Vainly valiant, you have missed

The manhood Its

that should yours resist,

complement ; but

if I could.

In severe or cordial mood.

Lead you

Where

And

rightly to

the wisest

my

Muses

altar. falter,

worship that world-warming spark

Which

dazzles

me

in

midnight dark,

—

ETIENNE

DF.

LA BOECE.

Equalizing small and large,

While the soul That the poor

it

is

doth surcharge,

wealthy grown,

And

the hermit never alone,

The

traveller

With

—

and the road seem one

the errand to be done,

That were a man's and

lover's part.

That were Freedom's whitest chart

l^

:

128

SUUM ouiauE.

The

rain has spoiled the farmer's day J

Shall sorrow put

my

books away?

Thereby are two days Nature

shall

I will attend

lost

mind her own

my

affairs;

proper cares,

In rain, or sun, or frost

139

COMPENSATIOIV.

Witt should

When

Why I

I

keep holiday

other

men hare none?

but because, sit

when

these are gay,

and mourn alone?

And why, when

mirth unseals

all

tongues,

Should mine alone be dumb?

Ah

I

late I

spoke to

And now

their

silent throngs.

hour

is

come.

130

FORBEARANCE.

Hast thou named

all

the birds without a gun

Loved the wood-rose, and

At

"ich

left it

on

its

In

stalk?

men's tables eaten bread and pulse?

Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of

And

'I

trust?

loved so well a high behavior.

man

Nobility

O, be

or maid, that* thou from speech refrained,

more nobly

aw

Utiend.

to repay?

and teach

me

to be thine

I

—

! ;

131

TH^ PARK.

The

prosperous and beautiful

To me

seem not

to

wear

The* yoke of conscience masterful.

Which

galls

me

everywhere

I caimot shake off the -god

On my neck I look at

My

my

he makes his seat;

face in the glass,

eyes his eyeballs meet.

Enchanters

I

enchantresses

Your gold makes you seem wise;

The morning

mist within your grounds

More proudly

rolls,

more

softly lies.

THE PAEK.

132

Yet spake yon purple mountain,

Yet

said

yon ancient wood,

That Night or Day, Leads

all

that

souls to tne

Love

Good

ir Crime,

;

133

FORERUNNERS.

Long

I followed

happy guides,

I could never reach their sides

Their step

is

forth, and, ere the da>

Breaks up their leaguer, and away.

Keen my

sense,

Right good-will

my my

heart was young.

sinews strung.

But no speed of mine

avails

To

hunt upon their shining

On

and away,

Make

the morning proud and sweet;

Flowers they strew,

Or

trails.

their hasting feet

—

I catch the scent;

tone of silver instrument

Leaves on the wind melodious trace;

Yet

On

1 could never see their face.

eastern hills I see their smokes,

Mixed with mist by

distant lochs.

——

;

; ;

FOREEUNNESS.

134

I

met many

Who

travellers

the road had surely kept

They saw

not

my

fine revellers,

These had crossed them while they

Some had heard

slept.

their fair report,

In the country or the court. Fleetest couriers alive

Never yet could once

arrive,

As

they went or they returned.

At

the house where these sojourned.

Sometimes

Though

their strong speed they slacken,

they are not overtaken

In sleep their jubilant troop I tuneful' voices

may be

It

in

At unawares

I

near,

overhear

wood 'tis

Their near camp

By

is

or waste,

come and

my

spirit

past.

knows

signs gracious as rainbows.

thenceforwarc, and long

after,

Listeii for their harp-like laughter.

And

carry in

my

heart, for days.

Peace that hallows rudest ways.

—

:

135

SURSUM CORDA.

Seek not

the spirit, if

hide

it

Inexorable to thy zeal

Baby, do not whine and chide: Art thou not also real?

Why

shouldst thou stoop to poor excuse?

Turn on '

the accuser roundly

Here am

I,

say,

;

here will I reicain

Forever to myself soothfast;

Go

thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure stay

Already Heaven with thee

its

For only

deal.

it

can absolutely

lot

has cast,

I

;

—

136

ODE TO BEAUTY.

Who

gave thee,

O

Beauty,

The

keys of this breast,

Too

credulous lover

Of

blest

Say,

and unblest

when

Thee knew

?

in lapsed ages I of old

Or what was

?

the service

Poi which I was sold?

When

first

I found

me

my

eyes saw thee,

thy thrall.

By magical drawings. Sweet tyrant of

all

I

I drank at thy fountain

False waters of thirst

Thou

intimate stranger,

Thou

latest

and

first

I

;

!

!

ODE TO BEAUTY.

Thy dangerous

Make women

I ST

glances

of

men

New-born, we are melting Into nature again.

Lavish, lavish promiser,

Nigh persuading gods

to err

Guest of million painted forms,

Which

in turn thy glory

warms

The

frailest leaf,

The

acorn's cup, the raindrop's arc.

The swinging

The ruby

The

the mossy bark,

spider's silver line,

of the drop of wine.

shining pebble of the pond,

Thou

inscribest with a bond,

In thy momentary play,

Would bankrupt

Ah, what

To

avails

nature to repay.

it

hide or to shun

Whom

the Infinite

Hath granted

his

One

throne?

;

ODE TO BEAUTY.

The heaven

high over

Is the deep's lover

The sun and

sea,

Informed by thee, Before

And Yet

me

me

fly

To me it

Was

me

dravir

As Fate

Is

run, on,

still,

refuses

the heart Fate for

me

chooses.

that ray opulent soul

mingled from the generous whole;

Sea-valleys and the deep of skies

Furnished several supplies;

And

the sands whereof I'm

Draw me I turn the

Which

Of

to them, self-betrayed?

proud portfolios

hold the grand designs

Salvator, of Guercino,

And I

Piranesi's lines.

hear the lofty pieans

Of

the masters of the shell.

Who

made

heard the starry music

;

ODE TO BEAUTY.

And

recount the numbers well

Olympian bards who sung Divine Ideas below,

Which

And

always find us young,

always keep us

so.

Oft, in streets or humblest places, I detect far-wandered graces.

Which, from Eden wide

astray.

In lowly homes have lost their way.

Thee

gliding through the sea of form.

Like the lightning through the storm,

Somewhat not Somewhat not

to be possessed, to be caressed.

No

feet so fleet could ever find.

No

perfect form could ever bind.

Thou

eternal fugitive,

Hovering over

Quick and

all

that live,

skilful to inspire

Sweet, extravagant desire, Starry space and lily-bell Filling with thy roseate smell,

139

;

ODE TO BEAUTY.

140

Wilt not give the

Of

lips to taste

the nectar which thou hast.

All that's good and great with thee

Works

Thou

To

in close conspiracy; hast,

bribed the dark and Ion

report thy features only,

And

the cold and purple morning

Itself with thoughts

The

of thoe adornin

leafy dell, the city mart,

Equal trophies of thine

art

E'en the flowing azure

air

Thou

my

And,

hast touched for if I

despair;

languish into dreams.

Again I meet the ardent beams.

Queen of

things

!

I dare not die

In Being's deeps past ear and eye; Lest there I find the same deceivei

And

be the sport of Fate forever.

Dread Power, but dear

Unmake me

!

if

God

th(

quite, or give thyself

;

:

14.

GIVE ALL TO LOVE.

Give

all

Obey

thy heart

to love;

Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good-fame.

Plans, credit, and the

Nothing

refuse.

'Tis a brave master;

Let

it

Follow

have scope: it

utterly,

Hope beyond hope High and more high It dives into

noon.

With wing unspent. Untold intent;

Muse,

•

—

;

GIVE ALL TO LOVE.

142

But

is

it

Knows

And

a god,

own

its

path,

the outlets of the sky.

mean;

It

was not

It

requireth courage stou*

for the

Souls above doubt,

Valor unbending

Such

'twill

They

shall return

reward,

More than they were,

And

ever ascending.

Leave

all

for love;

Yet, hear me, yet.

One word more

One

pulse

Keep thee

thy heart behoved,

more of to-day.

To-morrow,

forever,

Free as an Arab

Of

thy beloved.

firm endeavor.

143

GIVE ALL TO LOVE.

Cling with

But when the First vague

surprise,

shadow of surmise

Flits across tier

Of

maid;

to the

life

bosom yjung

a joy apart from thee,.

Free be she, fancy-free;

Nor thou Nor

detain her vesture's

the palest rose she flung

From

her

summer diadem.

Though thou loved her

As a

as

thysd'

self of purer clay.

Though her partmg dims the Stealing grace from tieartily

When 'He

hem,

know.

half-gods go,

jrÂŤds arrive.

all

alive;

da'j

;

144

TO ELLEN AT THE SOUTH.

The

green grass

is

bowi'jg,

The morning wind

is

in

it

'Tis a tune worth thy knowing,

Though

change every minute.

it

'Tis a tune of the spring

Every year plays

To

it

;

over

the robin on the wing,

And

to the pausing lover.

O'er ten thousand, thousand acres,

Goes

light the

The Flowers

—

nimble zephyr;

tiny sect of Shakers

Worship him

ever.

-

—

!

TO ELLEN.

Hark

They summon Saying,

Nor

'

O

We

thee, dearest,

have dressed

for thee the

yet thou appearest.

hasten

;

'tis

our time,

Ere yet the red Summer Scorch our delicate prime, T.oved of bee,

'

O

— the

pride of thy race

Sad, in sooth,

it

tawny hummer.

!

were to ours,

If our brief tribe miss thy face.

We

poor

New

England

Fairest, choose the fairest

Of

flowers.

members

our lithe society;

'une's glories and September's

Show our

Thou

shall

love and piety.

command

April's cowslip,

10

4^1

winning sound

to the

'

I

us

all,

—

summer's clover,

ground,

!

146

TO ELLEN.

To

the gentian in the

fall,

Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover.

*

O

come, then, quickly come

We And

are budding,

the wind that

we

are blowing;

we perfume

Sinc;s a tune that's

worth the knowing.'

HI

TO EVA.

O

FAIR and stately maid, whose eyes

Were

kindled in the upper skies

At

the same torch that lighted mine]

For so

Thy

!

must interpret

still

sweet dominion o'er

A Ah

I

my

sympathy divine.

let

me

blameless gaze upon

Features that seem at heart

Nor

Who

will,

my own;

fear those watchful sentinels,

charm the more

their glance forbids.

Chaste-glowing, underneath their

With

fire

that draws while

it

lids.

repels

—

;

148

THE AMULET.

Your

picture smiles as

The Your

ring you gave

letter tells.

No

tidings since

me

Give

O

That keeps

still

it

1

came.

love,

and rosier red,

love not, pale and blue.

vows

certify possession

Torments me Died

same;

changing child

that neither bonds nor

Can

the

intelligence with you,

And when you

!

is

smiled;

an amulet

Red when you

Alas

first it

still

the fear that love

in its last expression.

!

;

:

^19

THINE EYES STILL SHINED.

Thine

eyes

I lonely

As

I behold

Which

still

shined for me, though far

roved the land or sea

yon evening

yet beholds not

star.

me.

This morn I climbed the misty

And roamed

How

hill.

the pastures through;

danced thy form before

my

path

Amidst the deep-eyed dew

When

the redbird spread his sable wing,

And showed

When

his side of flame

the rosebud ripened to the rose.

In both I read thy name.

— "»0

EROS.

The

sense of the world

Long and

To Men

is

short,—

various the report,

love and be beloved;

and gods have not outlearned

And, how

oft soe'er

they've turned

'Twill not be improyed.

it; it,

:

151

HERMIONE.

On

mound an Arab

a

And sung And

lay,

his sweet regrets.

told his amulets

The summer

bird

His sorrow heard,

And, when he heaved a sigh profound.

The

'

If

sympathetic swallow swept the ground

it

be, as they said, she

Beauty

's

was not

not beautiful to me,

But sceptred genius, aye inorbed. Culminating in her sphere.

This Hermione absorbed

The

lustre of the land

and ocean,

Hills and islands, cloud and tree,

fair.

— 152

HEIIHIONE.

'

I ask

Nor

no bawble miniature, dead

ringlets

Shorn from her comely head,

Now

morning not disdains

that

Mountains and the misty plains

Her

colossal portraiture;

They

her heralds be,

Steeped in her quality.

And

singers of her fame

Who '

is

their

Muse and dame.

Higher, dear swallows

Ah

!

heedless

Say, was

it

how

the

I

am

mind not what

weak

are strong

just.

In thee to frame, in

Thou

!

me

to trust.

to the Syrian couldst belong?

of a lineage

That each

for

each doth

In old Bassora's schools,

Hermit voWed

to

fast

I

engage;

seemed

books and gloom,

I

say

;

;

;

HERMIONE.

Ill-bested for I

gay bridegroom.

was by thy touch redeemed

When

We

talked at large of worldly fate,

Once

I

Now

truly every trait.

dwelt apart,

I live

with

So

all

shepherd's lamp on far hill-side

Seems, by the

A

;

thy meteor glances came,

And drew

As

133

traveller espied,

door into the mountain heart, didst thou quarry

Highways

Now,

for

me

and unlock

through the rock.

deceived, thou wanderest

In strange lands unblest

And my

kindred come to soothe

Southwind

He

is

is

my

me

next of blood

come through

fragrant wood.

Drugged with spice from climates warm.

And

in every twinkling glade.

;;

;

HERMIONE.

l54

And

twilight nook,

Unveils thy form.

Out of the

forest

Forth paced

And when

it

way

yesterday

by the watercourse,

I sat

Watching the daylight It

'

fade,

throbbed up from the brook.

River, and rose, and crag, and

birrf

Frost, and sun, and eldest night.

To me

their aid preferred.

To me

their comfort plight;

" Courage

!

we

—

are thine allies,

And

with this hint be wise,

The

chains of kind

The

distant bind

—

Deed thou

doest she must do,

Above her

will,

And,

To To

in her strict resort

winds and

And

be true

waterfalls.

autumn's sunlit

festivals.

music, and to music's thought,

"

HERMIONE.

155

Inextricably bound,

She

shall find thee,

and be found.

Follow not her flying

feet;

t/ome to us herself to meet

—

:

156

INITIAL. DEMONIC. AND CELESTIAL LOVE.

THE INITIAL LOVE. Venus, when her son was

lost,

Cried him up and down the coast, In hamlets, palaces, and parks,

And

told the truant by his marks,

Golden This

curls,

befell long ago.

Time and

Men None By

and quiver, and bow.

tide are strangely changed.

and manners much deranged will

now

find

Cupid

latent

this foolish antique patent.

He came Shod

late

along the waste.

like a traveller for haste;

THE INITIAL LOVE

With malice dared me

157

to proclaim him,

That the maids and boys might name him.

Boy no more, he wears

coats,

all

Frocks, and blouses, capes, capotes;

He

bears no bow, or quiver, or wand.

Nor

chaplet on his head or hand.

Leave

his

weeds and heed

his eyes.

—

All the rest he can disguise.

In the

pit

of his eye

's

Would, bring back day And,

if I tell

Though

I

you

all

a spark if it

my

comprehend

were dark;

thought, not.

it

In those unfathomable orbs

Every function he absorbs.

He

doth eat, and drink, and

And

write,

And

ride,

And

whine, and

And

kiss,

fish,

and shoot

and reason, and compute. and run, and have, and hold. flatter,

and regret,

and couple, and beget.

By those roving

eyeballs bold.

;

;

;

THE INITIAL LOVE.

158

Undaunted are

their courages,

Right Cossacks

in their forages

Fleeter they than any creature,

They

—

are his steeds, and not his feature

and

Inquisitive,

fierce,

and

fasting,

Restless, predatory, hasting

And As

they pounce on other eyes

lions

And

on

their prey;

round their circles

is

writ,

Plainer than the day,

Underneath, within, above,

Love

He

— love —

lives in his

There doth

And

He

love

rolls

love.

eyes;

digest,

buy, and

—

and work, and

sell,

and

and win

mimic ocean.

Yet holds he them with

That they may

Like

lose,

spin.

them with delighted motion,

Joy-tides swell their

The

—

tortest rein,

seize and entertain

glance that to their glance opposes, fiery

honey sucked from

roses.

— ;

;

THE INITIAL LOVE.

He

;

Io9

palmistry can understand,

Imbibing virtue by his hand

As

if it

The

were a living root

pulse of hands will

With

all

his force

make him mute

he gathers balms

Into those wise, thrilling palms.

Cupid

A

is

a casuist,

mystic, and a cabalist,

Can your lurking thought

And

He

surprise.

interpret your device. is

versed in occult science.

In magic, and in clairvoyance

Oft he keeps his fine ear strained,

And Reason on

her tiptoe pained

For aery intelligence.

And But

for strange coincidence. it

When

touches his quick heart

Fate by omens takes his part,

And chance-dropped

hints from Nature's sphere

Deeply soothe his anxious

ear.

—

;

;

THE INITIAL LOVE.

KiO

Heralds high before him run

He

has ushers

He

spreads

And

many

his,

touches

all

1

must end

malign him,

the god of sport

my

goes,

and divine him,

shall I dare to

Or accuse

;

things with his rose.

All things wait for

How

a one

welcome where he

?

true report,

Painting him from head to

foot,

In as far as I took note.

Trusting well the matchless power

Of

this

young-eyed emperor

Will clear his fame from every cloud,

With the bards and with

He

is

the crowd.

wilful, mutable.

Shy, untamed, inscrutable. Swifter-fashioned than the

fairies,

Substance mixed of pure contraries

His vice some elder

And

his

good

is

virtue's token,

evil-spokjen.

,

;

!

THE INITIAL LOVB.

Ki

Failing sometimes of his own,

He

is

He

affects the

headstrong and alone;

wood and

wild,

Like a flower-hunting child Buries himself in

;

summer waves,

In trees, with beasts, in mines, and caves,

Loves nature like a horned cow, Bird, or deer, or caribou.

Shun him, nymphs, on the

He

O

fleet

horses

has a total world of wit

how wise

But he

is

are his discourses

the arch-hypocrite,

And, through

all

science and

all

Seeks alone his counterpart.

He

is

a Pundit of the East,

He

is

an augur and a priest,

And

his soul will melt in prayer,

But word and wisdom

is

a snare

Corrupted by the present toy

He

follows joy, and only joy.

11

art,

1

I

IC2

THE INITIAL LOVE.

There

is

uo mask but he

He

invented oaths to swear

He

paints, he carves,

And

holds

all

Godlike, — but

The

;

he chants, he prajs,

stars in his 'tis

wear;

will

embrace,

for his fine pelf,

social quintessence of self.

Well said

I

And

the end of his subtle wit

He

folly

he

is

hypocrite. I

takes a sovran privilege

Not allowed

to any liege;

For he does go behind

And

all

law,

right into ^iimself does

For he

is

sovereignly allied,

draw

Heaven's oldest blood flows in

And

;

— his

interchangeably at one

With every king on every throne. That no god dare say him nay,

Or

see the fault, or seen betray

He

has the Muses by the heart,

And

the ParciE

all

:

are of his part.

side,—

;;

THE INITIAL LOVE. His many signs cannot be told

He

I

;

has not one mode, but manifold,

Many

-

fashions and addresses.

Piques, reproaches, hurts, caresses,

Arguments,

lore, poetry.

Action, service, badinage

He

will

preach like a

And jump

He

will

And

;

friar.

like Harlequin

read like a crier.

fight like a Paladin.

Boundless

is

memory

his

Plans immense bis term prolong; .

He

is

not of counted age.

Meaning always

to be young.

And

intimacy,

his

wish

is

Intimater intimacy,

And

a stricter privacy;

The

impossible shall yet be done,

And, being two,

As

the

shall still

wave breaks

Then runs

into a

to

wave

be one.

foam on shelves, again,

((3

:

1

;

THE DJEMONIC AND

04

So

lovers melt their sundered selves,

Yet melted would be twain.

II.

THE DjKMONIC and THE CELESTIAL LOVE

Man

was made of

social earth,

Child and brother from his birth,

Tethered by a liquid cord

Of

blood through veins of kindred poured

Next

Of

his heart the fireside

mother, father,

Names from

sister,

band

stand

awful childhood heard

Throbs of a wild

religion stirred

;

—

Virtue, to love, to hate them, vice Till dangerous Beauty came, at last, Till Beauty

The

oame

to snap

all

ties;

maid, abolishing the past,

; ;

; ;

;

THE CELESTIAL LOVE.

With

wine

lotus

obliterates

Dear memory's stone-incarved

And, by

165

traits,

herself, supplants alone

Friends year by year more inly known.

When

were foreign

All It

her calm eyes opened bright, in their light.

was ever the self-same

The

first

experience

tale,

will not fail

Only two in the garden walked.

And

with snake and seraph talked

But God '

have a purer

1 will

There

said,

is

smoke

ii^i

the flame

New

flowerets bring,

And

love without a

Fond

To

gift

new

prayers uplift.

name.

children, ye desire

please each other well

Another round, a higher.

Ye

shall

And

climb on the heavenly

selfish

preference forbear

stair,

:

;

THE DJEMONIC AND

•(>G

And

in right deserving,

And

without a swerving

Each from your proper

Weave

'

state,

roses for your mate.

Deep, deep are loving eyes,

Flowed with naphtha

And

the point

Where

is

sweet:

paradise.

their glances

Their reach

fiery

meet

shall yet

be more profduiid,

And

a vision without

The

axis of those eyes sun-clear

Be the So

bound

axis of the sphere

shall the lights

ye pour amaia

Go, without check or

Through from

the

intervals,

empyrean walls

Unto the same

again.'

Close, close to

men,

Like undulating layer of

air.

Right above their heads.

The

potent plain of Daemons spreads.

;

THE CELESTIAL LOVE.

human

•Stands to each

Soul

its:

IG'

cwn,

For watch, and ward, and furthi-ance, In the snares of Nature's dance

And

To

the lustre and the grace

fascinate each youthful heart,

Beaming. from

its

counterpart,

Translucent through the mortal covers, Is the

To

A

Daemon's form and

and

fro the

Genius

face.

hies,

—

gleaAi which. plays and hovers

Over the maiden's

And

dips sometimes as low as to her eyes.

Unknown,

To men, And

head-.

albeit lying near.

the path to the

they that swiftly

Daemon sphere;

come and

go-

Leave no track on the heavenly snow.

Sometimes the

airy

synod bends,

And

the mighty choir descends.

And

the brains of

In crowded and in

Teem

men still

thenceforth, resorts,

with unwonted thoughts:

:

!

THE DEMONIC AND

IG8

As, when a shower of meteors

Cross the orbit of the earth,

And,

lit

by fringent

Blaze near and

air,

far.

Mortals deem the planets bright

Have

And

slipped their sacred bars, the lone

seaman

Sails, astonished,

amid

all

the night

stars.

Beauty of a richer vein, Graces of a subtler

strain,

Unto men these moon men lend,

And our

shrinking sky extend.

So

is

By

strength and terror skirted;

man's narrow path

Also, (from the song the wrath

Of

the Genii be averted

The Muse

the truth uncolored speaking,;

The Diemons Their

fierce

Draws men

are self-seeking

and limitary

will

to their likeness

still.

;

;

;

:

THE CELESTIAL LOVE.

The

Highest Love

Him,

who

blind.

shines on all;

radiant, sharpest-sighted god,

None can

Whose

The

made Love

erring painter

lUSf

bewilder

eyes pierce

universe,

Path-finder, road-builder.

Mediator, royal giver

Rightly seeing, rightly seen.

Of joyful and

transparent mien.

'Tis a sparkle passing

From each

To

and

Sharing

from thee to me,

to each,

fro perpetually all,

daring

all.

Levelling, displacing

Each

obstruction,

it

unites

Equals remote, and seeming opposite&

And

ever and forever

Love

Delights to build a road

Unheeded Danger near him

strides.

Love laughs, and on a lion

rides.

—

;

;

:

THE UiEMONIC AND

170

But Cupid wears another

Born

into

Daemons

face,

less divine:

His roses bleach apace. His nectar smacks of wine.