University of Virginia Library

Faces on the Wall.

(1876.)

LONE HOUSE.

Lone House amid the Main, where I abide,
Faces there are around thy walls; and see
With constant features, fair and faithfuleyed,
In solemn silence these admonish me.
They are the Faces of the strong and free;
Prophets who on the car of Tempest ride;
Martyrs who drift amid the waters wide
On some frail raft, and pray on bended knee.
Stay with me, Faces! make me free and strong!
On other walls let flush'd Bacchantes leer;
In quainter rooms of snugger sons of song
Let old fantastic tapestries appear.
Lone House! for comfort, when the nights are long,
Let none but future-seeking eyes be here!

STORM AND CALM.

The lone House shakes, the wild waves leap around,
Their sharp mouths foam, their frantic hands wave high;
I hear around me a sad soul of sound,—
A ceaseless sob,—a melancholy cry.
Above, there is the trouble of the sky.
On either side stretch waters with no bound.
Within, my cheek upon my hand, sit I,
Oft startled by sick faces of the drown'd.
Yet are there golden dawns and glassy days
When the vast Sea is smooth and sunk in rest,
And in the sea the gentle heaven doth gaze,
And, seeing its own beauty, smiles its best;
With nights of peace, when, in a virgin haze,
God's Moon wades thro' the shallows of the West.

WITHOUT AND WITHIN.

The Sea without, the silent room within,
The Mystery above, the Void below!
I watch the storms die and the storms begin;
I see the white ships ghost-like come and go;
I wave a signal they may see and know,
As, crowding up on deck with faces thin,
The seamen pass,—some sheltered creek to win,
Or drift to whirling pools of pain and woe.
What prospect, then, on midnights dark and dead,
When the room rocks and the wild water calls?—
Only to mark the beacon I have fed,
Whose cold streak glassily on the black sea falls;
Only, while the dim lamp burns overhead,
To watch the glimmering Faces on the walls.

NAPOLEON.

Look on that picture, and on this. . . . Behold
The Face that frown'd the rights of realms away;
The imperial forehead, filleted with gold;
The arrogant chin, the lips of frozen clay.
This is the later Cæsar, whose great day
Was one long sunset in blood-ruby rolled,
Till, on an ocean-island lone and gray,
It sank unblest, forgotten, dead, and cold.
Yea, this is he who swept from plain to plain,
Watering the harvest-fields with crimson rain;
This is the Eagle who on garbage fed.
Turn to the wall the pitiless eyes. Art, Thought,
Law, Science, owed the monster less than nought;
And Nature breath'd again when he was dead.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WALT WHITMAN.

Friend Whitman! wert thou less serene and kind,
Surely thou mightest (like our Bard sublime,
Scorn'd by a generation deaf and blind),
Make thine appeal to the avenger, Time;
For thou art none of those who upward climb,
Gathering roses with a vacant mind,
Ne'er have thy hands for jaded triflers twined
Sick flowers of rhetoric and weeds of rhyme.
Nay, thine hath been a Prophet's stormier fate.
While Lincoln and the martyr'd legions wait
In the yet widening blue of yonder sky,
On the great strand below them thou art seen,—
Blessing, with something Christ-like in thy mien,
A sea of turbulent lives that break and die!

O FACES!

O Faces! that look forward, eyes that spell
The future time for signs, what see ye there?
On what far gleams of portent do ye dwell?
Whither, with lips like quivering leaves and hair
Back-blowing in the whirlwind, do ye stare
So steadfast and so still? Oh speak and tell!
Is the soul safe? shall the sick world be well?
Will morning glimmer soon, and all be fair?
O Faces! ye are pale, and somewhat sad,
And in your eyes there swim the fatal tears;
But on your brows the dawn gleams cold and hoar.
I, too, gaze forward, and my heart grows glad;
I catch the comfort of the golden years;
I see the Soul is safe for evermore!

TO TRIFLERS.

Go, triflers with God's secret. Far, oh far
Be your thin monotone, your brows flower-crown'd,
Your backward-looking faces; for ye mar
The pregnant time with silly sooth of sound,
With flowers around the feverish temples bound,
And withering in the close air of the feast.
Take all the summer pleasures ye have found,
While Circe-charm'd ye turn to bird and beast.
Meantime I sit apart, a lonely wight
On this bare rock amid this fitful Sea,
And in the wind and rain I try to light
A little lamp that may a Beacon be,
Whereby poor ship-folk, driving thro' the night,
May gain the Ocean-course, and think of me!

THE WANDERERS.

God's blessing on poor ship-folk! Peace and prayer
Fall on their eyelids till they close in sleep!
God send them gentle winds and summer air,
For the great sea is treacherous and deep.
Light me up lamps on every ocean-steep,—
Beacon the shallows with a loving care.
Ay me! the wind cries and the wild waves leap,
And on they drive—God knows—they know not—where.
Come Poets! come, O Prophets! yea, disown
The phantasies and phantoms ye pursue!
Lights! lights! with fatal snares the sea is sown.
Guide the poor ship-folk lone beneath the blue.
Nay, do not light for Lazarus alone,
But light for Dives and the Devil too.

THE WATCHER OF THE BEACON.

Lone is his life who, on a sea-tower blind,
Watcheth all weathers o'er the beacon-light.
Ah! woe to him if, mad with his own mind,
He groweth sick for scenes more sweet and bright;
For round him, in the dreadful winter night,
The snow drifts, and the waves beat, and the wind
Shrieks desolately, while with feeble sight
He readeth some old Scripture left behind
By those who sat before him in that place,
And in their season perish'd, one and all. . . .
Wild raves the wind: the Faces on the wall
Seem phantoms: features dark and dim to trace.
He starteth up—he tottereth—he would fall,
When, lo! the gleam of one Diviner Face!

‘AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD MOVED UPON THE WATERS.’

O Faces! fade upon the wall, and leave
This only, for the watcher to implore.
Dim with the peace that starry twilights weave,
It riseth, and the storm is hush'd and o'er.
Trembling I feed my feeble lamp once more,
Tho' all be placid as a summer eve.
See there it moves where weary waters grieve,—
O mariners! look yonder and adore!
Spirit, grow brighter on my nights and days;
Shine out of heaven; my guide and comfort be:
Pilot the wanderers through the ocean ways;
Keep the stars steadfast, and the waters free:
Lighten thy lonely creature while he prays:
Keep his Soul strong amid the mighty Sea!