 | The writings of James Russell Lowell |  |
PHŒBE
Ere pales in Heaven the morning star,
A bird, the loneliest of its kind,
Hears Dawn's faint footfall from afar
While all its mates are dumb and blind.
A bird, the loneliest of its kind,
Hears Dawn's faint footfall from afar
While all its mates are dumb and blind.
It is a wee sad-colored thing,
As shy and secret as a maid,
That, ere in choir the robins ring,
Pipes its own name like one afraid.
As shy and secret as a maid,
That, ere in choir the robins ring,
Pipes its own name like one afraid.
It seems pain-prompted to repeat
The story of some ancient ill,
But Phœbe! Phœbe! sadly sweet
Is all it says, and then is still.
The story of some ancient ill,
But Phœbe! Phœbe! sadly sweet
Is all it says, and then is still.
It calls and listens. Earth and sky,
Hushed by the pathos of its fate,
Listen: no whisper of reply
Comes from its doom-dissevered mate.
Hushed by the pathos of its fate,
169
Comes from its doom-dissevered mate.
Phœbe! it calls and calls again,
And Ovid, could he but have heard,
Had hung a legendary pain
About the memory of the bird;
And Ovid, could he but have heard,
Had hung a legendary pain
About the memory of the bird;
A pain articulate so long
In penance of some mouldered crime
Whose ghost still flies the Furies' thong
Down the waste solitudes of time.
In penance of some mouldered crime
Whose ghost still flies the Furies' thong
Down the waste solitudes of time.
Waif of the young World's wonder-hour,
When gods found mortal maidens fair,
And will malign was joined with power
Love's kindly laws to overbear,
When gods found mortal maidens fair,
And will malign was joined with power
Love's kindly laws to overbear,
Like Progne, did it feel the stress
And coil of the prevailing words
Close round its being, and compress
Man's ampler nature to a bird's?
And coil of the prevailing words
Close round its being, and compress
Man's ampler nature to a bird's?
One only memory left of all
The motley crowd of vanished scenes,
Hers, and vain impulse to recall
By repetition what it means.
The motley crowd of vanished scenes,
Hers, and vain impulse to recall
By repetition what it means.
Phœbe! is all it has to say
In plaintive cadence o'er and o'er,
Like children that have lost their way,
And know their names, but nothing more.
In plaintive cadence o'er and o'er,
Like children that have lost their way,
And know their names, but nothing more.
170
Is it a type, since Nature's Lyre
Vibrates to every note in man,
Of that insatiable desire,
Meant to be so since life began?
Vibrates to every note in man,
Of that insatiable desire,
Meant to be so since life began?
I, in strange lands at gray of dawn,
Wakeful, have heard that fruitless plaint
Through Memory's chambers deep withdrawn
Renew its iterations faint.
Wakeful, have heard that fruitless plaint
Through Memory's chambers deep withdrawn
Renew its iterations faint.
So nigh! yet from remotest years
It summons back its magic, rife
With longings unappeased, and tears
Drawn from the very source of life.
It summons back its magic, rife
With longings unappeased, and tears
Drawn from the very source of life.
| The writings of James Russell Lowell | |