 | The writings of James Russell Lowell |  |
191
FANCY
UNDER THE OCTOBER MAPLES
What mean these banners spread,
These paths with royal red
So gaily carpeted?
Comes there a prince to-day?
Such footing were too fine
For feet less argentine
Than Dian's own or thine,
Queen whom my tides obey.
These paths with royal red
So gaily carpeted?
Comes there a prince to-day?
Such footing were too fine
For feet less argentine
Than Dian's own or thine,
Queen whom my tides obey.
Surely for thee are meant
These hues so orient
That with a sultan's tent
Each tree invites the sun;
Our Earth such homage pays,
So decks her dusty ways,
And keeps such holidays,
For one, and only one.
These hues so orient
That with a sultan's tent
Each tree invites the sun;
Our Earth such homage pays,
So decks her dusty ways,
And keeps such holidays,
For one, and only one.
My brain shapes form and face,
Throbs with the rhythmic grace
And cadence of her pace
To all fine instincts true;
Her footsteps, as they pass,
Than moonbeams over grass
Fall lighter,—but, alas,
More insubstantial too!
Throbs with the rhythmic grace
And cadence of her pace
To all fine instincts true;
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Than moonbeams over grass
Fall lighter,—but, alas,
More insubstantial too!
LOVE'S CLOCK
A PASTORAL
DAPHNISwaiting.
“O Dyrad feet,
Be doubly fleet,
Timed to my heart's expectant beat
While I await her!
‘At four,’ vowed she;
'T is scarcely three,
Yet by my time it seems to be
A good hour later!”
CHLOE.
“Bid me not stay!
Hear reason, pray!
'T is striking six! Sure never day
Was short as this is!”
DAPHNIS.
“Reason nor rhyme
Is in the chime!
It can't be five; I 've scarce had time
To beg two kisses!”
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“Early or late,
When lovers wait,
And Love's watch gains, if Time a gait
So snail-like chooses,
Why should his feet
Become more fleet
Than cowards' are, when lovers meet
And Love's watch loses?”
ELEANOR MAKES MACAROONS
Light of triumph in her eyes,
Eleanor her apron ties;
As she pushes back her sleeves,
High resolve her bosom heaves.
Hasten, cook! impel the fire
To the pace of her desire;
As you hope to save your soul,
Bring a virgin casserole,
Brightest bring of silver spoons,—
Eleanor makes macaroons!
Eleanor her apron ties;
As she pushes back her sleeves,
High resolve her bosom heaves.
Hasten, cook! impel the fire
To the pace of her desire;
As you hope to save your soul,
Bring a virgin casserole,
Brightest bring of silver spoons,—
Eleanor makes macaroons!
Almond-blossoms, now adance
In the smile of Southern France,
Leave your sport with sun and breeze,
Think of duty, not of ease;
Fashion, 'neath their jerkins brown,
Kernels white as thistle-down,
Tiny cheeses made with cream
From the Galaxy's mid-stream,
Blanched in light of honeymoons,—
Eleanor makes macaroons!
In the smile of Southern France,
Leave your sport with sun and breeze,
Think of duty, not of ease;
Fashion, 'neath their jerkins brown,
Kernels white as thistle-down,
Tiny cheeses made with cream
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Blanched in light of honeymoons,—
Eleanor makes macaroons!
Now for sugar,—nay, our plan
Tolerates no work of man.
Hurry, then, ye golden bees;
Fetch your clearest honey, please,
Garnered on a Yorkshire moor,
While the last larks sing and soar,
From the heather-blossoms sweet
Where sea-breeze and sunshine meet,
And the Augusts mask as Junes,—
Eleanor makes macaroons!
Tolerates no work of man.
Hurry, then, ye golden bees;
Fetch your clearest honey, please,
Garnered on a Yorkshire moor,
While the last larks sing and soar,
From the heather-blossoms sweet
Where sea-breeze and sunshine meet,
And the Augusts mask as Junes,—
Eleanor makes macaroons!
Next the pestle and mortar find,
Pure rock-crystal,—these to grind
Into paste more smooth than silk,
Whiter than the milkweed's milk:
Spread it on a rose-leaf, thus,
Cate to please Theocritus;
Then the fire with spices swell,
While, for her completer spell,
Mystic canticles she croons,—
Eleanor makes macaroons!
Pure rock-crystal,—these to grind
Into paste more smooth than silk,
Whiter than the milkweed's milk:
Spread it on a rose-leaf, thus,
Cate to please Theocritus;
Then the fire with spices swell,
While, for her completer spell,
Mystic canticles she croons,—
Eleanor makes macaroons!
Perfect! and all this to waste
On a graybeard's palsied taste!
Poets so their verses write,
Heap them full of life and light,
And then fling them to the rude
Mumbling of the multitude.
Not so dire her fate as theirs,
Since her friend this gift declares
Choicest of his birthday boons;—
Eleanor's dear macaroons!
On a graybeard's palsied taste!
Poets so their verses write,
Heap them full of life and light,
And then fling them to the rude
Mumbling of the multitude.
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Since her friend this gift declares
Choicest of his birthday boons;—
Eleanor's dear macaroons!
February 22, 1884.
TELEPATHY
“And how could you dream of meeting?”
Nay, how can you ask me, sweet?
All day my pulse had been beating
The tune of your coming feet.
Nay, how can you ask me, sweet?
All day my pulse had been beating
The tune of your coming feet.
And as nearer and ever nearer
I felt the throb of your tread,
To be in the world grew dearer,
And my blood ran rosier red.
I felt the throb of your tread,
To be in the world grew dearer,
And my blood ran rosier red.
Love called, and I could not linger.
But sought the forbidden tryst,
As music follows the finger
Of the dreaming lutanist.
But sought the forbidden tryst,
As music follows the finger
Of the dreaming lutanist.
And though you had said it and said it,
“We must not be happy to-day,”
Was I not wiser to credit
The fire in my feet than your Nay?
“We must not be happy to-day,”
Was I not wiser to credit
The fire in my feet than your Nay?
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SCHERZO
When the down is on the chin
And the gold-gleam in the hair,
When the birds their sweethearts win
And champagne is in the air,
Love is here, and Love is there,
Love is welcome everywhere.
And the gold-gleam in the hair,
When the birds their sweethearts win
And champagne is in the air,
Love is here, and Love is there,
Love is welcome everywhere.
Summer's cheek too soon turns thin,
Days grow briefer, sunshine rare;
Autumn from his cannekin
Blows the froth to chase Despair:
Love is met with frosty stare,
Cannot house 'neath branches bare.
Days grow briefer, sunshine rare;
Autumn from his cannekin
Blows the froth to chase Despair:
Love is met with frosty stare,
Cannot house 'neath branches bare.
When new life is in the leaf
And new red is in the rose,
Though Love's Maytime be as brief
As a dragon-fly's repose,
Never moments come like those,
Be they Heaven or Hell: who knows?
And new red is in the rose,
Though Love's Maytime be as brief
As a dragon-fly's repose,
Never moments come like those,
Be they Heaven or Hell: who knows?
All too soon comes Winter's grief,
Spendthrift Love's false friends turn foes;
Softly comes Old Age, the thief,
Steals the rapture, leaves the throes:
Love his mantle round him throws,—
“Time to say Good-bye; it snows.”
Spendthrift Love's false friends turn foes;
Softly comes Old Age, the thief,
Steals the rapture, leaves the throes:
Love his mantle round him throws,—
“Time to say Good-bye; it snows.”
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“FRANCISCUS DE VERULAMIO SIC COGITAVIT”
That's a rather bold speech, my Lord Bacon,
For, indeed, is 't so easy to know
Just how much we from others have taken,
And how much our own natural flow?
For, indeed, is 't so easy to know
Just how much we from others have taken,
And how much our own natural flow?
Since your mind bubbled up at its fountain,
How many streams made it elate,
While it calmed to the plain from the mountain,
As every mind must that grows great?
How many streams made it elate,
While it calmed to the plain from the mountain,
As every mind must that grows great?
While you thought 't was You thinking as newly
As Adam still wet with God's dew,
You forgot in your self-pride that truly
The whole Past was thinking through you.
As Adam still wet with God's dew,
You forgot in your self-pride that truly
The whole Past was thinking through you.
Greece, Rome, nay, your namesake, old Roger,
With Truth's nameless delvers who wrought
In the dark mines of Truth, helped to prod your
Fine brain with the goad of their thought.
With Truth's nameless delvers who wrought
In the dark mines of Truth, helped to prod your
Fine brain with the goad of their thought.
As mummy was prized for a rich hue
The painter no elsewhere could find,
So 't was buried men's thinking with which you
Gave the ripe mellow tone to your mind.
The painter no elsewhere could find,
So 't was buried men's thinking with which you
Gave the ripe mellow tone to your mind.
I heard the proud strawberry saying,
“Only look what a ruby I 've made!”
It forgot how the bees in their maying
Had brought it the stuff for its trade.
“Only look what a ruby I 've made!”
It forgot how the bees in their maying
Had brought it the stuff for its trade.
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And yet there 's the half of a truth in it,
And my Lord might his copyright sue;
For a thought 's his who kindles new youth in it,
Or so puts it as makes it more true.
And my Lord might his copyright sue;
For a thought 's his who kindles new youth in it,
Or so puts it as makes it more true.
The birds but repeat without ending
The same old traditional notes,
Which some, by more happily blending,
Seem to make over new in their throats;
The same old traditional notes,
Which some, by more happily blending,
Seem to make over new in their throats;
And we men through our old bit of song run,
Until one just improves on the rest,
And we call a thing his, in the long run,
Who utters it clearest and best.
Until one just improves on the rest,
And we call a thing his, in the long run,
Who utters it clearest and best.
AUSPEX
My heart, I cannot still it,
Nest that had song-birds in it;
And when the last shall go,
The dreary days, to fill it,
Instead of lark or linnet,
Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.
Nest that had song-birds in it;
And when the last shall go,
The dreary days, to fill it,
Instead of lark or linnet,
Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.
Had they been swallows only,
Without the passion stronger
That skyward longs and sings,—
Woe 's me, I shall be lonely
When I can feel no longer
The impatience of their wings!
Without the passion stronger
That skyward longs and sings,—
Woe 's me, I shall be lonely
When I can feel no longer
The impatience of their wings!
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A moment, sweet delusion,
Like birds the brown leaves hover;
But it will not be long
Before their wild confusion
Fall wavering down to cover
The poet and his song.
Like birds the brown leaves hover;
But it will not be long
Before their wild confusion
Fall wavering down to cover
The poet and his song.
THE PREGNANT COMMENT
Opening one day a book of mine,
I absent, Hester found a line
Praised with a pencil-mark, and this
She left transfigured with a kiss.
I absent, Hester found a line
Praised with a pencil-mark, and this
She left transfigured with a kiss.
When next upon the page I chance,
Like Poussin's nymphs my pulses dance,
And whirl my fancy where it sees
Pan piping 'neath Arcadian trees,
Whose leaves no winter-scenes rehearse,
Still young and glad as Homer's verse.
“What mean,” I ask, “these sudden joys?
This feeling fresher than a boy's?
What makes this line, familiar long,
New as the first bird's April song?
I could, with sense illumined thus,
Clear doubtful texts in Æschylus!”
Like Poussin's nymphs my pulses dance,
And whirl my fancy where it sees
Pan piping 'neath Arcadian trees,
Whose leaves no winter-scenes rehearse,
Still young and glad as Homer's verse.
“What mean,” I ask, “these sudden joys?
This feeling fresher than a boy's?
What makes this line, familiar long,
New as the first bird's April song?
I could, with sense illumined thus,
Clear doubtful texts in Æschylus!”
Laughing, one day she gave the key,
My riddle's open-sesame;
Then added, with a smile demure,
Whose downcast lids veiled triumph sure,
“If what I left there give you pain,
You—you—can take it off again;
'T was for my poet, not for him,
Your Doctor Donne there!”
My riddle's open-sesame;
Then added, with a smile demure,
Whose downcast lids veiled triumph sure,
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You—you—can take it off again;
'T was for my poet, not for him,
Your Doctor Donne there!”
Earth grew dim
And wavered in a golden mist,
As rose, not paper, leaves I kissed.
Donne, you forgive? I let you keep
Her precious comment, poet deep.
And wavered in a golden mist,
As rose, not paper, leaves I kissed.
Donne, you forgive? I let you keep
Her precious comment, poet deep.
THE LESSON
I sat and watched the walls of night
With cracks of sudden lightning glow,
And listened while with clumsy might
The thunder wallowed to and fro.
With cracks of sudden lightning glow,
And listened while with clumsy might
The thunder wallowed to and fro.
The rain fell softly now; the squall,
That to a torrent drove the trees,
Had whirled beyond us to let fall
Its tumult on the whitening seas.
That to a torrent drove the trees,
Had whirled beyond us to let fall
Its tumult on the whitening seas.
But still the lightning crinkled keen,
Or fluttered fitful from behind
The leaden drifts, then only seen,
That rumbled eastward on the wind.
Or fluttered fitful from behind
The leaden drifts, then only seen,
That rumbled eastward on the wind.
Still as gloom followed after glare,
While bated breath the pine-trees drew,
Tiny Salmoneus of the air,
His mimic bolts the firefly threw.
While bated breath the pine-trees drew,
Tiny Salmoneus of the air,
His mimic bolts the firefly threw.
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He thought, no doubt, “Those flashes grand,
That light for leagues the shuddering sky,
Are made, a fool could understand,
By some superior kind of fly.
That light for leagues the shuddering sky,
Are made, a fool could understand,
By some superior kind of fly.
“He 's of our race's elder branch,
His family-arms the same as ours,
Both born the twy-forked flame to launch,
Of kindred, if unequal, powers.”
His family-arms the same as ours,
Both born the twy-forked flame to launch,
Of kindred, if unequal, powers.”
And is man wiser? Man who takes
His consciousness the law to be
Of all beyond his ken, and makes
God but a bigger kind of Me?
His consciousness the law to be
Of all beyond his ken, and makes
God but a bigger kind of Me?
SCIENCE AND POETRY
He who first stretched his nerves of subtile wireOver the land and through the sea-depths still,
Thought only of the flame-winged messenger
As a dull drudge that should encircle earth
With sordid messages of Trade, and tame
Blithe Ariel to a bagman. But the Muse
Not long will be defrauded. From her foe
Her misused wand she snatches; at a touch,
The Age of Wonder is renewed again,
And to our disenchanted day restores
The Shoes of Swiftness that give odds to Thought,
The Cloak that makes invisible; and with these
I glide, an airy fire, from shore to shore,
Or from my Cambridge whisper to Cathay.
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A NEW YEAR'S GREETING
The century numbers fourscore years;
You, fortressed in your teens,
To Time's alarums close your ears,
And, while he devastates your peers,
Conceive not what he means.
You, fortressed in your teens,
To Time's alarums close your ears,
And, while he devastates your peers,
Conceive not what he means.
If e'er life's winter fleck with snow
Your hair's deep shadowed bowers,
That winsome head an art would know
To make it charm, and wear it so
As 't were a wreath of flowers.
Your hair's deep shadowed bowers,
That winsome head an art would know
To make it charm, and wear it so
As 't were a wreath of flowers.
If to such fairies years must come,
May yours fall soft and slow
As, shaken by a bee's low hum,
The rose-leaves waver, sweetly dumb,
Down to their mates below!
May yours fall soft and slow
As, shaken by a bee's low hum,
The rose-leaves waver, sweetly dumb,
Down to their mates below!
THE DISCOVERY
I watched a moorland torrent run
Down through the rift itself had made,
Golden as honey in the sun,
Of darkest amber in the shade.
Down through the rift itself had made,
Golden as honey in the sun,
Of darkest amber in the shade.
In this wild glen at last, methought,
The magic's secret I surprise;
Here Celia's guardian fairy caught
The changeful splendors of her eyes.
The magic's secret I surprise;
Here Celia's guardian fairy caught
The changeful splendors of her eyes.
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All else grows tame, the sky's one blue,
The one long languish of the rose,
But these, beyond prevision new,
Shall charm and startle to the close.
The one long languish of the rose,
But these, beyond prevision new,
Shall charm and startle to the close.
WITH A SEASHELL
Shell, whose lips, than mine more cold,Might with Dian's ear make bold,
Seek my Lady's; if thou win
To that portal, shut from sin,
Where commissioned angels' swords
Startle back unholy words,
Thou a miracle shalt see
Wrought by it and wrought in thee;
Thou, the dumb one, shalt recover
Speech of poet, speech of lover.
If she deign to lift you there,
Murmur what I may not dare;
In that archway, pearly-pink
As the Dawn's untrodden brink,
Murmur, “Excellent and good,
Beauty's best in every mood,
Never common, never tame,
Changeful fair as windwaved flame”—
Nay, I maunder; this she hears
Every day with mocking ears,
With a brow not sudden-stained
With the flush of bliss restrained,
With no tremor of the pulse
More than feels the dreaming dulse
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When a tempest heaps the waves.
Thou must woo her in a phrase
Mystic as the opal's blaze,
Which pure maids alone can see
When their lovers constant be.
I with thee a secret share,
Half a hope, and half a prayer,
Though no reach of mortal skill
Ever told it all, or will;
Say, “He bids me—nothing more—
Tell you what you guessed before!”
THE SECRET
I have a fancy: how shall I bring it
Home to all mortals wherever they be?
Say it or sing it? Shoe it or wing it,
So it may outrun or outfly Me,
Merest cocoon-web whence it broke free?
Home to all mortals wherever they be?
Say it or sing it? Shoe it or wing it,
So it may outrun or outfly Me,
Merest cocoon-web whence it broke free?
Only one secret can save from disaster,
Only one magic is that of the Master:
Set it to music; give it a tune,—
Tune the brook sings you, tune the breeze brings you,
Tune the wild columbines nod to in June!
Only one magic is that of the Master:
Set it to music; give it a tune,—
Tune the brook sings you, tune the breeze brings you,
Tune the wild columbines nod to in June!
This is the secret: so simple, you see!
Easy as loving, easy as kissing,
Easy as—well, let me ponder—as missing,
Known, since the world was, by scarce two or three.
Easy as loving, easy as kissing,
Easy as—well, let me ponder—as missing,
Known, since the world was, by scarce two or three.
| The writings of James Russell Lowell | |