University of Virginia Library

Part V

[But Nature where she gives must give in kind]

But Nature where she gives must give in kind,
Grant to the rich and from the poor withhold;
And much that we in manifest behold
Is faint to some, while other some still find
Truths—that to our sense are veiled and furled—
Published as light, notorious as wind.
But the old Mother moves about her fire,
Replenishes its flame and feeds the world
And so fulfils her births and offices—
Causal or consequential cares not she
Or ortive or abortive: her desire
Is but to serve, and her necessity.
The invention and authority are His,
In the whole past or what remains to be....

[Nor, though she seem to cast with backward hand]

Nor, though she seem to cast with backward hand
Strange measure, sunny cold or cloudy heat,
Or break with stamping rain the farmer's wheat,
Yet in such waste no waste the soul descries,
Intent to glean by barrenest sea and land.
For whoso waiteth, long and patiently,
Will see a movement stirring at his feet—
If he but wait nor think himself much wise.
Nay, for the mind itself a glimpse will rest
Upon the dark; summoning from vacancy
Dim shapes about his intellectual lamp,
Calling these in and causing him to see;
As the night-heron wading in the swamp
Lights up the pools with her phosphoric breast.

[And yet tonight, when summer-daylight dies]

And yet tonight, when summer-daylight dies,
I crossed the fields against the summer-gust
And with me, rising from my feet like dust,
A crowd of flea-like grasshoppers, like flies
Presaging dry and dry continuance; yet
Where they prefigure change, all signals must
Fail in the dry when they forebode the wet....
I know not. All tonight seemed mystery:
From the full fields that pressed so heavily,
The burden of the blade, the waste of blowth,
The twinkling of the smallest life that flits—
To where, and all unconsciously, he sits:
My little boy, symbolling eternity,
Like the god Brahma, with his toe in his mouth.

[But man finds means, grant him but place and room]

But man finds means, grant him but place and room,
To gauge the depths and views a wonder dawn,
Sees all the worlds in utmost space withdrawn
In shape and structure like a honeycomb,
Locates his sun and grasps the universe
Or to their bearings bids the orbs disperse;
Now seems to stand like that great angel girt
With moon and stars; now, sick for shelter even,
Craves but a roof to turn the thunder-rain—
Or finds his vaunted reach and wisdom vain,
Lost in the myriad meaning of a word,
Or starts at its bare import, panic-stirred:
For earth is earth or hearth or dearth or dirt,
The sky heaved over our faint heads is heaven.

[Where will the ladder land? Who knows?—who knows]

Where will the ladder land? Who knows?—who knows?
He who would seize the planet zone by zone
As on a battle-march, for use alone,
Nor stops for visionary wants and woes
But like the Bruce's, on, his heart he throws
And leaves behind the dreamer and the drone?
Great is his work indeed, his service great,
Who seeks for Nature but to subjugate,
Break and bereave, build upward and create
And, hampering her, to carry, heave and drag
Points to results,—towns, cables, cars and ships.
Whilst I in dim green meadows lean and lag,
He counts his course in truth by vigorous steps,
By steps of stairs; but I add crag to crag.

[Licentiate of the schools, with knowledge hot]

Licentiate of the schools, with knowledge hot,
A stranger hither came—our dames to frighten—
Who talked to us of Christ, the Sybil's grot,
Glanced at Copernick, though he knew him not,
And showed us hell and where the blest abide.
“The stars,” he said, “that round the North-star glide—
For there is heaven—tell nightly as they brighten.”
“But do they move?” I said. “Or is it so?”
He answered tranquilly, “We see they do.”
It was enough. The crowd was satisfied,
And I was hushed—yet felt my colour heighten.
Was he a knave, a coxcomb, or a clown,
Who stooping thus, our ignorance to enlighten,
Ended by so illuminating his own?

[That night the town turned out and crammed the hall]

That night the town turned out and crammed the hall.
And I, perhaps maliciously, made one
To hear the lecture: I, who went to none,
And an old friend with me, who went to all.
But vain it were that thesis to recall,
A rant of phrase and metaphor blundered through
And meaning not or how, when ended quite
And poetry had closed what prayer begun,
Strong men were touched to tears and bright lips grew
Breathless with praise. But my companion
Spoke not, or spoke with satire grave and arch:
“We scarce had had such learning and such light
Since he, the Yankee schoolmaster, last March
Came from Nine Partners to Illyria down.”

[A garden lodge, shut in with quaintest growth]

A garden lodge, shut in with quaintest growth,
A slender girl with still kine pasturing near,
And bright look half-expectant—need I fear
Thus to recall that morning when we both
Rode on to the wide city, loud and drear?
Yes, in the shock and tumult hurrying here,
Let me remind thee of that place of peace:
The maiden's smile, the look of happy doubt.
Nor in the stream of things, do thou too fail
Still to remember me of more than these:—
The little valley hidden in the pine,
The low-built cottage buried in the vale,
Wooded and over-wooded, bushed about
With holm tree, ople tree, and sycamine.

[For these, my friend, were but the foldings fair]

For these, my friend, were but the foldings fair,
The furling leaves about the jewel-flower,
The shade that lent her beauty half its dower,—
The beauty that made rich the shadow there,
Touching all objects with transfiguring power:
The housedog at the door, the village school,
The village in the hills, the hills of Ule. . .
(And thou, Aurania, with thy brow of pearl,
So loved from all the world, didst overrule
All time, all thought, in thy sweet kingdom, girl!) . . .
Through the slow weeks my fancy found but her
And day by day at dusk and dawn-break cool.
All the long moonlight nights I dreamed of Ule
And in the dark half of the months my heart was there.

[A poet's moonshine! Yes, for love must lend]

A poet's moonshine! Yes, for love must lend
Answer to reason, though 'tis bitter breath.
Better wild roses died their natural death
Than evilly or idly them to rend.
The girl was fair as flower the moon beneath,
Gentle and good, and constant to her friend,
Yet out of her own place, not so complete:
Was wedded to her kind—had leave to lack,
But old associations rarely slip.
Tight as a stem of grass within its sheath,
You yet may draw and nibble, touch the sweet
With the tip tongue and browse the tender end
Half-vacantly; but not to be put back,
Or swallowed in, but sputtered from the lip.

[Another. Opposite as sky and lands]

Another. Opposite as sky and lands,
As distant too, thy beauty gleams on me.
Bend downward from thy heaven of chastity
And I will reach with earthy flickering hands.
For I am grim and stained, thou white and shrined.
'Tis better so. No common love our doom,
Half-nursed, half-forced, in common cold and gloom—
But quick, convulsively, our souls shall strike
And, in the dance of life, tumultuous wind
Like fresh and salt indeed. O thus may we
Join instantly, like to the cloud and sea
In whirling pillar!—nor meet in darkness like
Stalactite and stalagmite, ignorantly
Nearing each other, slow and of one kind.

['Twas granted. But the bitter god of love]

'Twas granted. But the bitter god of love,
As in revenge for some disparagement,
Left us to strive, inextricably blent,
Before we knew in truth for what we strove,
Or why we went, unwillingly, who went,
Or whither driven, or who he was that drove.
The countless haps that draw vague heart to heart,
The countless hands that push true hearts apart,
Of these we nothing recked and nothing knew.
The wonder of the world, the faint surmise,
The clouded looks of hate, the harrowing eyes,
But pierced and pinned together: 'twas one to us.
With the same arrow smitten through and through,
We fell, like Phadimus and Tantalus.

[A wash of rippling breath that just arrives]

A wash of rippling breath that just arrives,
Thin yellow tufts shattering and showering down
And, underfoot and all about me blown,
Thin yellow tufts and threads, bunches of fives:
Too curiously I note each lightest thing.
But where are they, my friends whose fair young lives
Gave these dead bowers the freshness of the spring?
Gone! And save tears and memory, all is gone . . .
Fate robs us not of these nor death deprives.
But when will Nature here new beauty bring
Or thou behold those faces gathering? . . .
I mark the glimmering moss that yet survives,
I touch the trees, I tread the shedded shives,—
But when will come the new awakening?

[And me my winter's task is drawing over]

And me my winter's task is drawing over,
Though night and winter shake the drifted door.
Critic or friend, dispraiser or approver,
I come not now nor fain would offer more.
But when buds break and round the fallen limb
The wild weeds crowd in clusters and corymb,
When twilight rings with the red robin's plaint,
Let me give something—though my heart be faint—
To thee, my more than friend!—believer! lover! . . .
The gust has fallen now, and all is mute—
Save pricking on the pane the sleety showers,
The clock that ticks like a belated foot,
Time's hurrying step, the twanging of the hours . . .
Wait for those days, my friend, or get thee fresher flowers.

[Let me give something!—though my spring be done]

Let me give something!—though my spring be done,
Give to the children, ere their summertime!
Though stirred with grief, like rain let fall my rhyme
And tell of one whose aim was much: of one
Whose strife was this, that in his thought should be
Some power of wind, some drenching of the sea,
Some drift of stars across a darkling coast,
Imagination, insight, memory, awe,
And dear New England nature first and last,—
Whose end was high, whose work was well-begun:
Of one who from his window looked and saw
His little hemlocks in the morning sun,
And while he gazed, into his heart almost
The peace that passeth understanding, passed.

[Let me give something!—as the years unfold]

Let me give something!—as the years unfold,
Some faint fruition, though not much, my most:
Perhaps a monument of labour lost.
But Thou, who givest all things, give not me
To sink in silence, seared with early cold,
Frost-burnt and blackened, but quick fire for frost!—
As once I saw at a houseside, a tree
Struck scarlet by the lightning, utterly
To its last limb and twig. So strange it seemed,
I stopped to think if this indeed were May.
And were those windflowers?—or had I dreamed? . . .
But there it stood, close by the cottage eaves,
Red-ripened to the heart: shedding its leaves
And autumn sadness on the dim spring day.