 | Poems |  |
[I. There in the old gray house whose end we see]
There in the old gray house whose end we see,
Half-peeping through the golden Willow's veil,
Whose graceful twigs make foliage through the year,
My Hawthorne dwelt, a scholar of rare worth;
The gentlest man that kindly nature drew,
New England's Chaucer, Hawthorne fitly lives.
His tall compacted figure, ably strung
To urge the Indian chase or guide the way,
Softly reclining 'neath the aged elm,
Like some still rock looked out upon the scene,
As much a part of Nature, as itself.
The passing Fisher, saw this idle man
Thus lying solitary 'neath the elm,
And as he plied with lusty arms his oar,
Shooting upon the tranquil glass below
The old red Bridge, and further on the stream
To those still coves where the great prizes swim,
Asked of himself this question, why that man
Thus idly on the bank o'erhung the stream?—
Then by the devious light at twilight's close,
He read the Twice-told Tales, nor dreamt the mind
Thus idly musing by the River's side,
Had gathered and stored up from Nature's fields
This golden grain, and sweet nutritious fare,
Nor saw within the blind man's eye that boy,
The Gentle Boy, float o'er the tranquil tide.
Half-peeping through the golden Willow's veil,
Whose graceful twigs make foliage through the year,
My Hawthorne dwelt, a scholar of rare worth;
The gentlest man that kindly nature drew,
New England's Chaucer, Hawthorne fitly lives.
His tall compacted figure, ably strung
To urge the Indian chase or guide the way,
Softly reclining 'neath the aged elm,
Like some still rock looked out upon the scene,
As much a part of Nature, as itself.
The passing Fisher, saw this idle man
109
And as he plied with lusty arms his oar,
Shooting upon the tranquil glass below
The old red Bridge, and further on the stream
To those still coves where the great prizes swim,
Asked of himself this question, why that man
Thus idly on the bank o'erhung the stream?—
Then by the devious light at twilight's close,
He read the Twice-told Tales, nor dreamt the mind
Thus idly musing by the River's side,
Had gathered and stored up from Nature's fields
This golden grain, and sweet nutritious fare,
Nor saw within the blind man's eye that boy,
The Gentle Boy, float o'er the tranquil tide.
Softly from out the well-stored sunny brake,
Or where the great Fields glimmer in the sun,
Such mystic influence came to Hawthorne's soul,
That from the air, and from the liquid day,
He drank the subtle image of deep life.
And when the grand and cumbrous Winter rose,
Sealing the face of Nature as with stone,
He sat within the Manse, and filled the place
With all the wealth of Summer like a sun.—
Yet were these plains more sacred in my eyes,
That furnished treasure for his Kingly purse.
Or where the great Fields glimmer in the sun,
Such mystic influence came to Hawthorne's soul,
That from the air, and from the liquid day,
He drank the subtle image of deep life.
And when the grand and cumbrous Winter rose,
Sealing the face of Nature as with stone,
He sat within the Manse, and filled the place
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Yet were these plains more sacred in my eyes,
That furnished treasure for his Kingly purse.
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