Lines in Pleasant Places :: :: University of Virginia Library

In the “far west”—once reckoned very far—
Our neighbor now, by the fleet railroad car—
Are certain hillocks, rounded in their shape,
That long have set the curious world agape,
Provoking questionings—conundrums rare—
Regarding how they could have happened there;
Who could have built them—what they did it for—
Whether of peace they grew, or if of war;
Whether they held the bones of braves in trust,
Or were some ancient Boffin's piles of dust.
“What mean they?” Science cried, with eager glow,
And Echo answered, “Really, I don't know.”
Savants have tried to fathom them in vain,
Receiving little for their care and pain:
A bone, perhaps, an antique pipe of clay,
A hatchet made of flint,—yet happy they,
For on the bracket of a single tooth

They'd hang immortal theories, forsooth,
Of those who might have lived beyond the flood,
And held their tenure in the primal mud,
Therein abiding in that distant while,
—Dying as soon as they had “made their pile,”—
Leaving behind them no authentic trace
If ape or polliwog began the race.

This hint suggests the sympathetic fact
That we with like constructive purpose act,
Heaping up mounds of character for those
Who, after us, our status would disclose,
And scratch beneath the surface, like a hen,
To find out what we were or might have been.
We toil and toil with pertinacious might
To bring our structures to the proper height:
Some scarce perceived above the sod to lift,
Some soaring high with industry and thrift,
Some with benevolence and virtue wrought,
Some beautiful with wisdom and with thought;
While others—sad reflection!—highest reared,
Will have the meanest showing, it is feared,
—A sordid, selfish, fraudulent offence,—
Procuring fame, like goods, by false pretence.

I've often wondered if, from some high sphere,
Angels take cognizance of doings here;
And if they do, what must their notions be
Of what they guess, at times, and what they see,
As, bending o'er the rim of some fair star,
They spend their time divining what we are,
And what we are doing on the ball below

In our excited, strange, and restless show,
Hither and thither rushing, round and round,
Each striving, driving, piling up his mound.
Happy our fame if from its heart exhumed
One fossil flower is found that erewhile bloomed,—
One seed of Truth that in the air may grow,
And vital energy and fruitage show;
Or from its soil one tree be found to spring,
That gratefully abroad its shade may fling,
Beneath whose shelter humble souls may rest
In sweet contentedness and pleasure blest.

We glance about, as on our spades we lean,
And mark the toil of others in the scene,
Each piling on, with busy hand and brain,
Some height of honor or of place to gain.
A welcome privilege, the nonce, is ours
—Granted in boon by overruling powers—
To leave our own small mounds of love or cares,
And look upon, and be the judge of, theirs!
Just as in neighborhoods where every one
Watches for others' faults to pounce upon,
And, in the scrutinizing zeal that's shown,
Forgets, the moment, foibles of his own.

Here Greed's contestants every effort make
All things that come within their reach to take,
Toiling, with aching head and hardening heart,
In known and unknown courses of the mart;
Selling their comfort and their spirit's peace
To swell the measure of a rich increase;

With not a thought save on accruing dimes,
The chink of Mammon drowning heavenly chimes;
With sacrifice of conscience, early seared,
And justice seen through eyes corrupt and bleared.
The late Tom Walker, everybody sees,
Sold not himself more patently than these,
Although the fiend may not the mortgage close,
As terms are easier in these days than those!
We pick their mounds to pieces when they die,
To see what underneath the crust may lie,
—What trace of character may there remain,—
Alas! we have the western mounds again:
Lots of the dirt, but here and there a speck
Of native worth, surviving honor's wreck,
A few worn bones of principle and worth,
The rest all selfishness and yellow earth.

The Politician with his wary eye
Watches the changes of the party sky,
And plans his tactics to preserve his place
E'en though his country tremble with disgrace.
Like the old vicar of the church of Bray
He trims his sails to winds from any way,
Ready to change as parties make or break,
True to himself whatever course they take.
He pulls all strings that bear upon the dime,
And crawls unshrinking through the dirt and slime;
Thinks he's a statesman, bound in fame to shine,
But this no more than buttermilk is wine—
A wretched shoddy for the statesman's gown
Stuffed out to win the homage of the town.

('Tis needless, maybe, to proclaim the fact,
But he with our pure party doesn't act.)
He rears a mound symmetrical and high,
A goodly outside to the careless eye;
One honest kick when he has fled away,
And what a mass offensive greets the day!—
Falsehood and cunning, perfidy and greed,
With not a thing that might for mercy plead.

The Quack—of whate'er name—his craft applies,
And all the cavil of the world defies;
Isms or medicine pours without a stint
Down human throats through avenues of print,
And gains his point of influence or fame,
His gilded trappings covering up his shame!
We plodders by the way must seek retreat
When his fast horses prance adown the street,
With liveried servants, and such thin veneer
As makes pretence like verity appear.
Or if the quack affects no glittering pride,
Choosing in less pretentious garb to stride,
Alike veneer conceals the fraud below,
And if 'tis false the world don't care to know,
Taking in blindly that which credence fills,
And bolting false philosophy or pills!
The quack's mound rises, shadowing the land,
Of fabric fair and architecture grand,
Covered by gilt, in ostentatious guise,
A specious bid for favor in our eyes.
What are its contents when, in after day,
The shell remorselessly is torn away?—

Pills, stock, and heresies, humbug and pretence,
Without a show of honesty or sense!

The one who yields himself to Fashion's art,
And to his tailor renders up his heart,
Plies his faint brains, in emulous emprise,
By stunning trim his manhood to disguise;
Succeeding in his effort, day by day,
And butterflying all his life away.
Or Pleasure's votary, whose constant care
Is in some “high old time” to take a share,
And in the crazed abandon of the strife
Forget the grand realities of life;
Steeps his weak soul in sensual delight,
And yields himself a slave to appetite.
(O, what a wretched fallacy is this,
That leads him wildered by this road to bliss;
To find, at last, at no far distant day,
That “good times,” in the aggregate, don't pay!)
The puzzled seeker might their mounds invade
And find few obstacles resist the spade—
A tailor's bill, unpaid, a fancy tie,
A willow flask—exhaling ancient rye!

The Honest Man (self-styled), within the law,
Enacts his part without a single flaw.
He notes distinctly the dividing line
Where the illegal and the legal join,
And plants his toes with microscopic care,
Fearing to trespass by a single hair;
Then mortgages forecloses with a smile,

And big per cents he heaps upon his pile,
Doing whate'er the law will let him do,
—Devouring widows and their houses too,—
Until he dies, his mound of shapely grace
Revealing not a blemish we may trace.
The pick betrays him, and, alone, descried,
Is what he reached and took from t'other side.

And all are balanced by some humble soul,
Whose life is spent 'neath virtue's grand control,
Who, from the love and wish of doing good,
Expands in one sublime beatitude;
Seeking no glory, but, in noiseless way,
Shedding abroad rare blessing day by day,—
As some sweet rill may make a desert bloom,
And glad its life with verdure and perfume,
The world unheeding that which so doth bless,
By the still mission of unselfishness,
Until it shrinks beneath the fervent sun,
And then is felt the service it has done.
So are the good remembered when they're past,
And all their worth is valued at the last.

Thus builders pile their mounds of mind or pelf,
And each in character transmits himself;
None moundless, though diversity we trace,
And difference in altitude or grace;
Piled high with care, cupidity or pride,
With worldly hopes and aims identified,
Or built of Truths that high their summits raise,
Their beauty gladdening the seeker's gaze.

That mound is highest as its base is spread,
When towers among the clouds its lofty head.
This fact recalls the antiquated myth
Of the old devotee, of zealous pith,
Who, with a power by holy frenzy given,
Resolved to build a mound from earth to heaven.
No joint-stock matter this,—though not more wild
Than many by which people are beguiled;
Man-traps, approved and chartered by the State,
That, like old Samson's foemen lie in wait,
All lovely in the specious dress of ink,
Until the bubble bursts and down they sink;
The ancient zealot was a grasping elf,
And chose to corner all the stock himself.

And first he drew a circle on the ground
To form the area of his mighty mound.
His stakes being driven he took off his coat,
To his grand work his muscle to devote,
Bending his back with vigor to the task,
Without a question of success to ask.
There's nought like pious muscle to effect
What shrewd religious thinking may project.
Up rose the heap beneath his sturdy might,
Towering and towering to exalted height,
And still he toiled, with a persistent will,
His self-appointed mission to fulfil,—
Smiling to see it rise in upper air,
The bantling of his effort and his prayer.
At length the earth refused atop to stay—
The base too narrow for his grand essay.

Fast as he piled, the sand in drifts did meet,
In crawling eddies, round his stinted feet,
Suggesting plainly he should “change his base”
Ere he could hope to reach the upper space.
It is not told how he the land procured
By which his future triumph was assured,
But, gaining it, he backward made a move,
His heart and eyes fixed hopefully above.
He would not let the edge of his intent
Be turned by any temporal accident,
And so he labored, moving backward still,
As loftier rose his life-embodied hill,
And, when its summit reached the upper deep,
The base comprised the whole world in its sweep!
And then a glory born of joy complete
Filled all his heart with satisfaction sweet;
He'd made his pile by strength devotion lent,
Then died contented, though not worth a cent.
He might have climbed his hill to endless day,
But chose to go the customary way.

From all of which I'd have this manifest—
That every one should do his “level best,”
And make a mound symmetrical and high,
His worth and action to exemplify.
Not bidding for a loud posthumous fame,
But emblemizing deeds much more than name.
It might be pleasant, with our love of praise,
To have admiring crowds their plaudits raise;
But better far than this, as one can deem,
Is the grand fact of being what we seem.

We may make money, such of us as can,
And ne'er forget a moment we are Man;
Such generous, noble souls as you and I
Would to rare uses make the money fly.
Fortune, howe'er, has ever held in trust
My portion of the soul-corrupting dust,
Fearing, 'twould seem, my lavishness might tend
Too much in acts benevolent to spend.
Grand are those souls, on whom is poured the pelf,
Who lose no portion of their better self!
E'en Impecunius such bestowal sees,
And makes no growl at Fortune's rough decrees,
Investing, with unstinted bounty, such,
With dimes his itching fingers may not touch.
Be politicians,—patriots good and true,—
Your country calls especially to you;
But not as demagogues to trade and prate,
And let yourself and yours precede the state,
Abusing privilege your station lends,
And looking out for parasites and friends.
Be devotees as pious as you may,
But pray put bigotry at once away;
Let your devotion, pure, to heaven ascend,
And love to all your earthly doings lend.
Be fashionable, if your tastes incline,
Though better not in borrowed plumage shine.
Remember foppishness shows no advance,
And good taste never means extravagance;
Money may find a more exalted use
Than hatching goslings from a tailor's goose.
I'd have true Manhood evermore pervade

Each art, profession, enterprise, or trade,
And true nobility of soul enthroned,
Now compromised or utterly disowned.
Whether the mound is built by hand or mind
Integrity should be in all combined.

Ye Judges, sitting there, in embryo,
Preserve your ermine in unsullied snow;
Look well to time before the robe you don,
Nor soil your shoulders ere you put it on.
The highest tribute held by fame in trust
Is that, when justly given,—he was just.

Ye Doctors, who prospective pulses feel,
Be faithful in the paths light may reveal;
Don't let your consciences for gain grow tough,
And ne'er be niggard with your doctor's stuff;
If called up nights make no ill-natured talk,
But charge it blandly with a double chalk.

Ye Lawyers,—ready every side to plead;
To back and fill, advance and then recede,—
If right or wrong a client's cause to bear,
And for its justice neither know nor care,
The merits of a case at once to see,
Commended by a smart retaining fee,—
For you I have but just one little word:
E'er be as honest—as you can afford.

Ye Teachers, now prepared the world to show
A part of what you do and think you know,

Don't cram your pupils with the dough of text
Till memory and patience are perplexed;
Teach them, beyond the books upon your shelves,
And lead their minds to think things out themselves.

Ye Merchants,—missionary aids to thought,—
Whose white sails light from every clime has caught,
Think of the proud position Commerce boasts,
Extending Truth to earth's far-distant coasts,—
Think of the powers that to your sphere belong
To aid the right and subjugate the wrong,—
And never let cupidity come in
To swerve its bent to compromise with sin;
May honesty e'er justify your sales,
With unshrunk yardsticks and ungrudging scales!

Ye Preachers, destined for the sacred place,
Imbibe humility and loving grace,
And strive, the while God's holy word you preach,
To learn and listen, while you talk and teach.
Present the “cloth” as worthy of respect,
And not a trade-mark, merely, for a sect.
And should a higher call, like Samuel's, come,
Don't shrink from it, and say you're not at home;
We must, you know, all our temptations face,
And circumstance be left to rule each case.

Ye Poets, dwelling in the airs sublime
That blow about our ears in gusts of rhyme,
Forever sing for Truth and Love divine
In strains as good, if possible, as mine.

I close my theme—a mountain in my view—
To be assumed, and added to, by you.
The mounds are waiting, ready to be shown,
As the fair image bides within the stone.
Begin to build,—your just position take,—
Here forge the tools your waiting mounds to make
Roll up your sleeves and enter on your work—
No one to lag, no one his task to shirk;
Like the old zealot widen out your base,
And, like him, look to heaven with hopeful face;
Stick to your mound persistently and true,
And dread no failure in the great review,
When angels, searching for its inner plan,
Shall say, approvingly, Here was a Man!

Read before Literary Societies of Dartmouth College, July, 1871.