 | Songs of summer |  |
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THE BURDEN OF UNREST.
I.
From our bridal chamber, dearest, we behold the stretch of bay;From the window watch the sunset, mirrored on its glassy floor:
Here in brightness, there in shadow, trace the fading steps of Day,
Fainting in the west behind us, dying on the solemn shore.
Splendors on the liquid surface, isles of purple, waves of gold;
On the peaks of cloudy mountains streaks of red and lurid fires,
Blackening, as the eve expires,
Like December's latest embers turning now to ashes cold.
Kiss me ere I lose you wholly, in the darkness melancholy;
Through the gloom that gathers round us leave your little hand in mine:
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Till the stars begin to shine:
We are folded from the darkness in a cloud of light divine!
II.
Are you happy, sweetest? Do you in your spirit feel serene?I am saddened, I am restless, and I feel the touch of tears;
Not for any recent sorrow, but the season, and the scene,
And the yet remembered burden of my desolated years!
You are happy, I can see it, dawning on your pallid cheek,
And your clasping hand confesses all my love desires to know;
So I pray you, while you listen, let my troubled spirit speak,
And in words relieve its woe.
I am not of those who babble, be my suffering what it may;
Not for me poetic whining; all such weakness I despise:
With my nature wrapt around me I pursue my silent way,
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Yet the silence weighs upon me, and the night demands a tongue;
Therefore let me speak, my darling! even let my soul complain;
Years of utter silence give me right to speak what will relieve me,
Right to babble like the young,
Since it will relieve my pain:
Hear me, then, and my confession shall not trouble you again!
III.
1.
Ah! that bitter, bitter burden! who besides myself has known it?From a myriad I was singled for its ministry and doom:
None that bear it, if there be such, have the honesty to own it;
Living they are voiceless, and voiceless is the tomb!
I that bore it, I that bear it, hardly understand it yet;
'Tis not easy to see clearly through the distance of regret.
First were longings, vague and hopeless as the glances cast above,
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Then a dream of something bright;
'Twas the bliss, the sorrow—Love!
With love my dreams grew clear, and from out their skirts of mist,
Clad in robes of white, came a bevy of fair girls;
Each a fairy princess, a fairy lover kissed,
On her drooping eyelids, on her golden curls,
And the red mouth, dropping pearls!
From sweet lips plucking kisses, from bright eyes drinking flame,
From warm hearts hoarding passion, what heart had I for care?
A cavalier of olden time, my love a noble dame,
While lavish Fancy built me a castle in the air!
To airy jousts and tournaments I rode in gallant show;
No matter who opposed me, I cleared the tented field;
A lady's favor on my crest, a heart upon my shield,
A bleeding heart below!
2.
I was young, that was the reason, why my fancy was so wild;And 'tis natural to love, in the simpleness of youth;
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Surely then it was a trifle, in a child!
Nay, though I have learned to hate it, with a host of weighty reasons,
(Holding true to its Ideal, in the midst of all my hate!)
There are none, I think, exempted, none but suffer in their seasons,
Loved and loving, soon or late.
Loveless, friendless, from the first, and with solitude accurst,
My soul did sigh, and moan:
I wanted some one near me, some loving one to cheer me;
For who can cheerful be, or good, or human, when alone!
Mine eyes went searching round, for something never seen,
By either Night, or Day;
I stretched my arms to clasp my fancy's queen,
That paragon of clay!
I stretched my loving arms, and clasped her in my sleep,
Wound myself about her in a coil of fire;
And my hot lips kissed her with passionate desire,
Brow, and face, and bosom, until I woke to weep!
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3.
Thrilling with my youthful longings, which anticipated thee,Dreams were mine of bridal chambers, and they colored all my song;
Like the rosy hues of evening, settling yonder on the sea,
Blending with the waves, whose motion wafts the dying flame along!
But my songs were of the senses, running over with desire;
Dim seraglios in the tropics, steeped in all their bloom and fire;
Shaded lamps, and burning odors; flagons of the ripest wine;
Purple curtains, downy couches, and sultannas veiled in tresses;
Sighing rapture, showering kisses, intertwining last caresses,
And the ecstasy divine.
Is it any wonder, dearest, now the madness is confest,
Now the road again is traversed, every bramble, every thorn,
Where the feet of youth were torn,
That my burning years were wasted with the Burden of Unrest?
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IV.
When the flower of youth is on us, and the heart of youth is warm,And the passions are awakening with the warranty of heaven,
Sins of passion may be looked for: will not do us any harm;
Must be overlooked, forgiven!
God himself is Love, they tell us; surely he'll forgive us then:
Punish all who err in loving, you destroy the race of men!
Loving, I must not be fettered, but must rove where e'er I please;
You, dear women, are but flowers, we, poor men, are only bees!
As for me, I am a poet, with the fullest license here;
Favorite of the gods, they wink at all my peccadilloes dear:
But 'tis none for me to love you, for I never do you wrong;
If I rob you of your honey, don't I pay you with my song?
Tush! no virtuous surprise,
You are willing, there's a witness in your dear consenting eyes!
Like a Bacchante wild with revel, intertangled in a vine,
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Oh, what days of fiery passion, oh, what wasting nights were mine!
V.
1.
I lived the life the gods live, so beautiful and strong;So right in all its sweetness, in all its sin so wrong:
The life that youth delights in, and lives, but lives not long;
For either falls a darkness that palls upon the clay,
Or comes the King of Darkness, and bears the soul away!
Nor know I which is saddest, the dying, and the tomb,
Or the living, and the doom!
2.
By the hell within my bosom, I am hurried to and fro;Just to see the waters flowing, just to hear the breezes blow:
Whether I am crushing flowers, whether wading in the snow,
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Up and down the noisy city, in its dusty, crowded streets,
Where its ocean of existence on the stony pavement beats;
When the sun from morn to even flounders in a waste of clouds;
When the sickly lamps are flickering, dying in their stormy shrouds:
In a shroud of anguish walking, like a corpse that should be dead,
Or a dreamer in his slumbers, by a horrid phantom led;
(Through the dim, mysterious chambers, up the spirit-haunted stairs,
Down the house-top, while the watchers hush their unavailing prayers!)
Up and down the silent city, through the dreary blank of walls;
Where the houses drift forever, where the starless shadow falls!
3.
Weary is existence, will it never end?Shall I never know it—death's eternal sleep?
Death! I have no other, won't you be my friend?
I cannot live so longer! I cannot even weep!
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VI.
1.
Weep? and wherefore should I? Grief is unavailing,And tears are not for manhood; we must not whine like boys:
The malice of our natures is ancient, and unfailing;
The gods are jealous of us, their images and toys!
They sit up in the clouds there, and do whate'er they please,
While men walk in the dust here, and follow their decrees!
And I am one among ye, ye myriads of men,
Though not like ye in essence, nor like ye curst and blest:
For ye in alternation may weep, and smile again,
While I am always laden with burdens of unrest.
What have ye done, what do ye, unless indeed your worst,
Ye many as the grasses, or billows of the main?
But billows flow, and grasses grow, as ordered from the first;
But ye, how are ye growing? What learn ye here, save pain?
2.
Ye live upon a grand old world in unimagined space;203
Above, a host of starry lights that stare ye in the face,
Or would, indeed, but that your eyes are fixed upon the ground!
Why stare ye on the ground so, when stars are in the sky?
Is it to watch the spring-flowers that twinkle in the mold?
Not so: nor think ye of your graves, though Death is ever nigh,
But only of the gold beneath, the curséd, curséd gold!
When ye were boys, my brothers, in the merry years of old,
There was a pomp and beauty about the changing day;
Some little worth in youth and love, some grief at their decay;
But the world has taught ye better; there's nothing now but Gold!
Ye worship golden idols, no matter what they be,
Were I well gilded over, ye'd worship even me!
Forever o'er the ledger, (its missal,) Trade is bent,
And the age responds, (its sole amen!) “Per cent! per cent! per cent!”
Were this all, I would not murmur: Nay! I do not murmur now;
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There's a dignity in dollars, and a wisdom hid in gold,
Which the poor man cannot fathom, howsoever wise and bold.
3.
Not for this I blame ye, brothers, nor that ye reject the flowers,See no glory in the starlight, know no meaning in the wind;
Not for angels look I, hope I, in a world like this of ours;
I only ask for men, but men I cannot find.
All your actions, public, private, lack a certain manly tone;
Either ye are arrant cowards, else ye are absurdly brave:
Either to himself, or others, man is more or less a slave,
Not the king and god he should be, with his heavenly realm and throne.
In yourselves ye might be royal, might be every thing ye would;
But for help ye call in others, when the one alone is good!
First in youth your hearts are tender; (granite, not so hard as mine!)
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Others answer, 'tis their instinct; both your lusty arms entwine,
Both are kissing painted clay!
Who would pin his faith on woman, whom the lightest whim can move?
There is something half degrading in the very name of love!
Love yourselves, your dogs, your horses, even the cheats of dice and wine;
But for women—would your fancies were but half as free as mine!
4.
Then ye call in priests and monarchs, and are fain to summon more;But they shut and bar the door:
Man within himself is prisoned, and his jailers guard the cell,
Terrible with bristling bayonets, and the keys of heaven and hell:
Hell with all its noxious vapors never spawned such deadly twins:
Priests and monarchs! ye must answer all our aggregated sins!
From our weakness and our error, working on our love and terror,
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Each in his peculiar fashion elevates some human passion,
Deifies some mortal evil for his fellows to adore.
Pillared temples, marble statues, smoking altars, silver shrines,
Formed the frame of ancient creeds:
Mostly, all the moderns keep it, with a score of new designs,
Pictures, crucifixes, beads!
And to bind our spirits firmer, working in their addled brains,
Priests have feigned, or found, and added hell itself to their domains.
'Tis enough to make one merry! Nay! I care not for your ban;
Good my masters, hell is only in the wicked heart of man:
The black hearts that have enslaved us, since the very world began!
5.
Also you, ye gilded monarchs, in your tinsel robes of state,Ye are cheats and demons also, worthy our profoundest hate!
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Up! ye nations! kill your tyrants! level prison, palace, throne!
Yet I know not, nor advise ye. Why should ye again be free?
Vassals! even when ye are so, ye are soon enslaved again:
Slavery has made ye heedful; use has made your fetters needful;
Let them be!
Think what bayonets oppose ye; think what thousands must be slain;
Think of Liberty's disasters; think of grim Religion's key,
Then, go supplicate your masters, soul and body on its knee,
Slaves again!
Slaves, I hate ye! hew your wood, and draw your water;
'Tis the best for dogs like you;
Beasts of burden! bear your burdens, march to slaughter!
Hecatombs, the earth demands it! Blood! it fattens her like dew!
6.
Up! be merry! never think! Eat and drink! eat and drink!208
Clink your glasses, toast your lasses,
Be no longer God, but man!
Clink your glasses, toast your lasses, set the table in a roar!
There's a vacant chair beside ye; there's a shadow on the floor,
And a knocking at the door!
Shout and drown it! 'tis but fancy; merry till your dying breath;
Merry in the teeth of Death!
Talk no longer of repentance; once indeed—but all is past:
Good or evil, 'tis no matter: we shall all be damned at last!
VII.
1.
Peace, wild dreamer! cease this raving! 'tis a madness in the brain;Even were it true, why say it? What will be the end, the gain?
Waves may murmur, thunders roll,
Silence is the only answer of a self-collected soul.
Though I fall, in darkness groping, I shall yet behold the light;
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But the holy light will enter like the tempest and the night,
Beating on me, as I wander in the corridors apart!
In my youth I thought to perish: youth has gone, and I remain;
Some great shock will fall upon me, and will make me calm again:
Nay, my calmness is returning: torture has not wrung in vain.
Beauty stirs again my nature, not in suns and moons alone,
But in thoughts that breathe repentance, and in actions that atone:
Nature folds me to her bosom, in her unity enshrined,
Like a shell within the ocean, or a thought within the mind.
Even Love, the dream, remaineth; wears a kind of hopeful smile:
I've no faith in his fulfilment, but he may remain awhile!
2.
And mine the Paradise of books, the heaven of classic lore;The dreams of sage philosophers, the songs of bards of yore:
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Nor pine, for that is over, for woman's loving looks!
Sometimes a tone of music, an old familiar strain
Reminds me of my feelings, recalls my former pain:
Something about the organ, a shrill yet muffled tone,
A rich melodious fretfulness, a snarling silver moan:
But I rarely heed its sorrow, I know its syren charms;
Nor need I listen to it, for in my listening brain
Is many a richer strain,
Lays to bury Youth to, or rouse the world in arms!
So armed with calm endurance I frame my glowing lays,
Embalming in forgetfulness the burden of my days!
3.
And when the days are ended, and come the dusky nights,Glimmering in my chamber, I let my fancy roam;
Watching from the window the twinkling city lights,
The people going home!
I cross my neighbor's threshold, and softly mount the stairs,
But for all my stealthy creeping, no step of mine is missed;
For the wifely face surprises me, like a vision, unawares,
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The dear old feelings waken, the sad old times return;
Perchance I shed a tear or two, or heave a stifled sigh:
But the cheerful merry lamp comes in, the merry fagots burn,
And I put the darkness by!
4.
Then come the long and dreamy nights, the hours of classic ease;What honey-throated Plato says, and what Mæonides;
The songs I sing, the books I pen, the thought I undergo;
That sweet laborious idleness that poets only know!
I keep the watches of the night, the deeper hours of morn,
Till o'er the silent sea of sleep my spirit's bark is borne!
Save when the melancholy wind is moaning in the street,
When falls the rain upon the roof, when drives the icy sleet;
Or when the mournful midnight bell awakes its funeral toll,
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Then stare I on the dying lamp, the embers on the hearth,
The thickening gloom, the empty room, and grow alone on earth;
Then turn I in my restless bed, and feel upon my breast
A weight like lead, and not the head, the heart that there should rest!
And in my dreams I seem to drift along a barren land,
Where strikes the moon on ruined walls, where muffled figures stand:
The waves are laid, the winds are still, yet over all the shore
There haunts a voice, there broods a shape, the awful Nevermore!
VIII.
1.
Nevermore? The dream was idle! Even slumber can deceive,If it meant not, (still deceiving!) that I nevermore can grieve:
But perchance I heard it wrongly, as I drifted from the shore;
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With your hand in mine, I think so; from your kisses, dear, I know it;
Sleeping in your fond embraces will assure, and set the seal:
If there be a deeper knowledge, I am willing to forego it,
Deeper raptures, I renounce them, so divine are those I feel!
2.
Every moment of existence since we met comes up before me;Waves of dim remembered feeling, seas of memory sweeping o'er me:
By the sea, as now, my darling! by the very sea that lies
Pallid in the moonlight yonder, with the wonder in its eyes;
In this very bridal chamber did we lift, as now, the veil,
And reveal our inmost natures, both so beautiful and pale!
When I said “my youth is wasted,” when I moaned “my manhood dies!”
When I wept “I love you, lady!” and awaited your replies,
You but clutched my hand the closer, you but seized me by the arm,
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(Were you thinking of the ocean? were you tramping in the sand?)
But I understood the gesture, my heart clenched you like a hand;
Clenched you with a hand of iron, either to possess you there,
Or to plunge you in the ocean of its old and new despair!
Then I rose and paced the chamber, scarcely knowing where I trod,
Very daring in my curses, very humble in my prayers;
Now a demon, now a god,
And you paced with like emotion in my footsteps unawares!
3.
Past the night in troubled visions, came the morn, but came as calmAs the Sabbath days in Eden, and we walked along the shore;
Silent where the solemn ocean poured his everlasting psalm,
But our spirits talked the more!
And at noon in summer quiet at your feet I read my songs,
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And you praised me, gave me, sweetest, what to Poesy belongs—
Kisses, where the crown should be!
Now my nature fell before you, in prostration new and sweet,
Kissed the hem of your white garment, and your spirit's whiter feet;
Then rose up like one in frenzy, in the fever-throbs of pain,
And devoured you with its glances, in a passionate disdain!
Love? and wherefore? what the end? Hands may meet, and thoughts may blend,
But our lives are separated: there's a yawning gulf between;
Yet I know not, youth is flying: you are wasting, I am dying;
Loving, what should intervene?
Lay your head upon my bosom, where a falling kiss may find it;
Knit your fingers now in mine, love, and in silentness remain;
If I suffer, never mind it,
Be you happy, fool your fancy; we can both be wise again!
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Lift your face, and let me kiss it, from your brow and cheek so pale,
Wandering to your mouth, belovéd, where I hang with stifled breath;
Draining all its hoard of sweetness, till in utter bliss I fail,
Dropping from you, nigh to Death!
4.
But that morning when we parted—ah! what agony and pain!Worlds on worlds would never tempt me to be tortured so again!
Still within this very chamber, where yon window clips the moon,
(But the sky was bright with sunlight, and the air was warm with June!)
There we stood that fatal morning, with such horrid aches of heart,
Bent on parting, but unwilling, nay, unable, love, to part,
Till I tore you from my bosom, flung you off, I know not where,
Rushing in the mocking sunlight, and the curséd, curséd air,
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Growing from my heart in mountains till they overtopped the skies!
Then the dull reaction followed, settling on my barren brain,
Like a dreary day in autumn on a weary waste of plain:
Every thing was shrouded to me: Joy herself, on such a day,
Must have come to me like Sorrow, in her livery of gray!
5.
What will now become of me? You are yonder by the seaPining, (are you not, belovéd) I am in the sea of men;
You have friends, a stately birth: I am all alone on earth;
Leagues, and poverty between us, will you think of me again?
Everywhere, in Art and Nature, you diffuse your soul around;
In the books I read no longer, blurring all the misty lines;
In the heavenly sea of music freighted with a richer sound;
In the sunlight, in the moonlight, and in every star that shines:
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Rushing through the fiery darkness, in a cloud of whitest light;
And mine arms strike out like lightnings, to embrace you, and consume,
But I only grasp the night!
Yet methinks, such links have bound you, and so far my passion flies,
You must feel my arms around you, and must see my burning eyes!
6.
Yes, and when, as now, the moonlight through the snowy curtain falls,Creeps upon the tufted carpet in a diamond slab of panes,
Sleeps amid the lilac shadows waving on the dreamy walls,
Still my soul with you remains!
Bends above you as you slumber in your chastity apart,
Smooths the tresses from your forehead, lifts the cross from off your breast,
And lies down upon your heart,
In a perfect, perfect rest!
Else within my little chamber, in a dream, I see you stand,
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Gliding to my warm embraces, in my loving breast you creep,
Till I wake, and find you vanished in the Paradise of Sleep!
Sleeping, you rejoin me soon:
We are dead, are spirits only; climb the viewless rounds of air;
Full to heaven your brow is lifted, like the crescent of the moon,
While your eyes are yearning earthward through the shadows of your hair!
And you kiss my tearful eyelids as we climb the starry deep,
For I fall in utter sorrow, dear one, on your neck, and weep!
7.
Oh! what letters passed between us, and what subtle thrills they woke!Had we not fulfilled them wholly, why, our very hearts had broke!
For myself, they were my being, and to-night I had not been,
Save but for your letters, sweetest, and the sweetest love therein!
Kisses on the superscription, fingers trembling in the seal,
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Even the simple writing thrilled me, made my dazzled senses reel,
While I slowly wrung its meaning, never at the moment clear:
Hanging on the lightest phrases, as a lover only can,
Sounding all the deeps of feeling, I grew more and more a man!
Daily, hourly to the eastward, to the margin of the sea,
Did I breathe divinest kisses, did I send my soul to thee;
And my kisses met their sisters, your dear kisses, everywhere,
Nay, myself, I seemed to meet them, felt your warm lips pursed in air!
8.
But that night, can I forget it? that delicious night in spring,When we pledged our hands, so hopeless, where our hearts were pledged before,
When we gave ourselves, undaunted, to each other, evermore,
Into Love's serene dominions soaring as with angel wing!
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Round us buzzed the idle talkers, o'er us blazed the chandeliers;
There was nothing to the seeming in our interchange of hands,
But it cancelled all the sorrow of our separated years!
Flushed with passion and ambition, when I left you there alone,
Through the silent city moving, in the sleeping streets apart,
Reddest roses bloomed before me, over me the morning shone,
Marching to the stately music of my own triumphant heart:
Splendors on my brow and face,
Heaven itself rose up before me, as the great world dipped in space!
9.
Then our hours of stolen sweetness, with their maddening incompleteness;Both so loath and yet so eager, souls of mingled snow and fire;
Each its cup of passion filling, then in dust the nectar spilling,
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Often in my little chamber at your feet I knelt in prayer,
With my claspéd hands imploring, till you raised me from your feet;
Then I hid within your bosom, and unlooped your falling hair,
While your arms were locked around me, till I felt their pulses beat!
With a kiss upon my eyelids, and a mist within my eyes,
Fixed on yours in steeping passion, I returned your sweet embrace;
And my heart leaped up within me in a sudden storm of sighs,
And I poured a rain of kisses on your brow, and eyes, and face!
Then, your white throat in my fingers, and a tingling in their tips,
Wild with love I fastened on you, and I grew around your lips;
Every atom of my body felt the hunger of my heart,
I was mad to crush, and kill you, and to tear your limbs apart!
10.
But all this, the joy and glory of my glad exulting spirit,223
In the chapel, hand in hand,
Each the vast “I will!” responding where the blessed God might hear it!
Nor was that, although it raised us to the very gates of light,
Half so lofty, and so holy, as our wedded love to night;
Sitting in the happy silence, with our hands together prest,
I caress you, wife, and bless you, as you lie upon my breast;
Dreaming in our bridal chamber, in the sainted moon asleep,
With the starry spaces o'er us, and before the listening deep,
Till we turn to God above,
And demand a benediction—“Father! love us, for we love!”
1853.
| Songs of summer | |