University of Virginia Library

1. PART 1.

[I. Sometimes, when winding slow by brook and bower]

Sometimes, when winding slow by brook and bower,
Beating the idle grass,—of what avail,
I ask, are these dim fancies, cares, and fears?
What though from every bank I drew a flower,—
Bloodroot, king-orchis, or the pearlwort pale,—
And set it in my verse with thoughtful tears?
What would it count, though I should sing my death,
And muse and mourn with as poetic breath
As, in damp garden walks, the autumn gale
Sighs o'er the fallen floriage? What avail
Is the swan's voice, if all the hearers fail?
Or his great flight, that no eye gathereth,
In the blending blue? And yet, depending so,
God were not God, whom knowledge cannot know.

[II. Wherefore, with this belief, held like a blade]

Wherefore, with this belief, held like a blade,—
Gathering my strength and purpose, fair and slow,
I wait; resolved to carry it to the heart
Of that dark doubt in one collected blow;
And stand at guard with spirit undismayed,
Nor fear the Opposer's anger, arms, or art;
When, from a hiding near, behold him start
With a fresh weapon of my weakness made;
And goad me with myself, and urge the attack,
While I strike short, and still give back and back
While the foe rages. Then from that disgrace
He points to where they sit that have won the race,
Laurel by laurel wreathing, face o'er face,
And leaves me lower still; for, ranked in place,

[III. And borne with theirs, my proudest thoughts do seem]

And borne with theirs, my proudest thoughts do seem
Bald at the best, and dim: a barren gleam
Among the immortal stars, and faint and brief
As north-light flitting in the dreary north,
“What have thy dreams,—a vague, prospective worth?
An import imminent? or dost thou deem
Thy life so fair, that thou wouldst set it forth
Before the day? or art thou wise in grief,
Has fruitful Sorrow swept thee with her wing?”
To-day I heard a sweet voice carolling
In the wood-land paths, with laugh and careless cry,
Leading her happy mates. Apart I stept;
And, while the laugh and song went lightly by,
In the wild bushes I sat down and wept.

[IV. Nor looks that backward life so bare to me]

Nor looks that backward life so bare to me,
My later youth, and ways I've wandered through
But touched with innocent grace, the early bee
On the maple log, the white-heaped cherry-tree
That hummed all day in the sun, the April blue!
Yet hardly now one ray the Forward hath
To show where sorrow rests, and rest begins;
Although I check my feet, nor walk to wrath
Through days of crime, and grosser shadowings
Of evil done in the dark, but fearfully,
Mid unfulfilled yet unrelinquished sins
That hedge me in, and press about my path,
Like purple-poison flowers of stramony,
With their dull opiate-breath, and dragon-wings.

[V. And so the day drops by; the horizon draws]

And so the day drops by; the horizon draws
The fading sun, and we stand struck in grief:
Failing to find our haven of relief,—
Wide of the way, nor sure to turn or pause;
And weep to view how fast the splendour wanes,
And scarcely heed, that yet some share remains
Of the red after-light, some time to mark,
Some space between the sundown and the dark,
But not for him those golden calms succeed,
Who, while the day is high, and glory reigns,
Sees it go by,—as the dim Pampas plain,
Hoary with salt, and gray with bitter weed,
Sees the vault blacken, feels the dark wind strain,
Hears the dry thunder roll, and knows no rain.

[VI. Not sometimes, but, to him that heeds the whole]

Not sometimes, but, to him that heeds the whole,
And in the Ample reads his personal page,
Labouring to reconcile, content, assuage,
The vexed conditions of his heritage,
For ever waits an angel at the goal,
And ills seem but as food for spirits sage,
And grief becomes a dim apparelage,
The weed and wearing of the sacred soul,
Might I but count, but here, one watchlight spark!
But vain, oh vain! this turning for the light,—
Vain as a groping hand to rend the dark.
I call, entangled in the night, a night
Of wind and voices! but the gusty roll
Is vague, nor comes there cheer of pilotage.

[VII. Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray]

Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray
With trees and trail of mosses wringing wet;
Beds of the black pitch-pine in dead leaves set
Whose wasted red has wasted to white away;
Remnants of rain, and droppings of decay,
Why hold ye so my heart, nor dimly let
Through your deep leaves the light of yesterday,
The faded glimmer of a sunshine set?
Is it that in your blindness, shut from strife,
The bread of tears becomes the bread of life?
Far from the roar of day, beneath your boughs
Fresh griefs beat tranquilly, and loves and vows
Grow green in your gray shadows, dearer far
Even than all lovely lights, and roses, are?

[VIII. As when, down some broad River dropping, we]

As when, down some broad River dropping, we,
Day after day, behold the assuming shores
Sink and grow dim, as the great Water-course
Pushes his banks apart and seeks the sea;
Benches of pines, high shelf and balcony,
To flats of willow and low sycamores
Subsiding, till, where'er the wave we see,
Himself is his horizon utterly:
So fades the portion of our early world.
Still on the ambit hangs the purple air;
Yet, while we lean to read the secret there,
The stream that by green shore-sides splashed and purled
Expands; the mountains melt to vapors rare,
And life alone circles out flat and bare.

[IX. Yet wear we on; the deep light disallowed]

Yet wear we on; the deep light disallowed
That lit our youth, in years no longer young.
We wander silently, and brood among
Dead graves, and tease the sun-break and the cloud
For import. Were it not better yet to fly,
To follow those who go before the throng,
Reasoning from stone to star, and easily
Exampling this existence? or shall I
Who yield slow reverence where I cannot see,
And gather gleams, where'er by chance or choice
My footsteps draw, though brokenly dispensed,
Come into light at last? or suddenly,
Struck to the knees like Saul, one arm against
The overbearing brightness, hear—a Voice?

[X. An upper chamber in a darkened house]

An upper chamber in a darkened house,
Where, ere his footsteps reached ripe manhood's brink,
Terror and anguish were his cup to drink,
I cannot rid the thought, nor hold it close:
But dimly dream upon that man alone;
Now though the autumn clouds most softly pass,
The cricket chides beneath the doorstep stone,
And greener than the season grows the grass,
Nor can I drop my lids, nor shade my brows,
But there he stands beside the lifted sash;
And, with a swooning of the heart, I think
Where the black shingles slope to meet the boughs
And, shattered on the roof like smallest snows—
The tiny petals of the mountain-ash.

[XI. What profits it to me, though here allowed]

What profits it to me, though here allowed
Life, sunlight, leisure, if they fail to urge,
Me to due motion, or myself to merge
With the onward stream, too humble, or too proud?
That find myself not with the popular surge
Washed off and on, or up to higher reefs
Flung with the foremost, when the rolling crowd
Hoists like a wave, nor strong to speak aloud:
But standing here, gazing on my own griefs,
Strange household woe, and wounds that bleed and smart;
With still lips, and an outcry in the heart!
Or now, from day to day, I coldly creep
By summer farms and fields, by stream and steep,
Dull, and like one exhausted with deep sleep.

[XII. Tall, stately plants, with spikes and forks of gold]

Tall, stately plants, with spikes and forks of gold,
Crowd every slope: my heart repeats its cry,—
A cry for strength, for strength and victory;
The will to strive, the courage overbold
That would have moved me once to turn indeed,
And level with the dust each lordly weed.
But now I weep upon my wayside walks,
And sigh for those fair days, when glorying
I stood a boy amid the mullein-stalks,
And dreamed myself like him the Lion-King:
There, where his shield shed arrows, and the clank
Clashed on his helm of battle-axe and brand,
He pushed the battle backward, rank on rank,
Fallen in the sword-swing of his stormy hand.

[XIII. As one who walks and weeps by alien brine]

As one who walks and weeps by alien brine,
And hears the heavy land-wash break, so I,
Apart from friends, remote in misery,
But brood on pain, and find in heaven no sign:
The lights are strange, and bitter voices by,
So the doomed sailor, left alone to die,
Looks sadly seaward at the day's decline,
And hears his parting comrades' jeers and scoffs;
Or sees, through mists that hinder and deform,
The dewy stars of home,—sees Regulus shine
With a hot flicker through the murky damp,
And setting Sirius twitch and twinge like a lamp
Slung to the mast-head, in a night of storm,
Of lonely vessel labouring in the troughs.

[XIV. Not proud of station; nor in worldly pelf]

Not proud of station; nor in worldly pelf
Immoderately rich, nor rudely gay;
Gentle he was, and generous in a way,
And with a wise direction ruled himself.
Large Nature spread his table every day;
And so he lived,—to all the blasts that woo,
Responsible, as yon long locust spray
That waves and washes in the windy blue.
Nor wanted he a power to reach and reap
From hardest things a consequence and use
And yet this friend of mine, in one small hour
Fell from himself, and was content to weep
For eyes love-dark, red lips, and cheeks in hues
Not red, but rose-dim, like the jacinth-flower!

[XV. And she, her beauty never made her cold]

And she, her beauty never made her cold
Young-Oread-like, beside the green hill-crest,
And blissfully obeying Love's behest,
She turned to him as to a god of old!
Her smitten soul with its full strength and spring
Retaliating his love: unto that breast,
Ere scarce the arms dared open to infold,
She gave herself as but a little thing!
And now,—to impulse cold, to passion dead,—
With the wild grief of unperfected years,
He kissed her hands, her mouth, her hair, her head;
Gathered her close and closer, to drink up
The odour of her beauty; then in tears,
As for a world, gave from his lips the cup!

[XVI. Yet Nature, where the thunder leaves its trace]

Yet Nature, where the thunder leaves its trace
On the high hemlock pine, or sandstone bank,
Hating all shock of hue, or contrast rank,
With some consenting colour heals the place,
Or o'er it draws her mosses green and dank,
So gentle Time will bring with tender craft
Another day, and other greens ingraft
On the dead soil, so fire-burned now, and blank.
What we have had, we hold! and cannot sink
Remembrance: patience cometh from above.
And now he breathes apart, to daily drink
In tears the bitter ashes of his love,
Yet precious rich, and a diviner draught
Than Agria, or Artemisia drank!

[XVII. All men,—the Preacher saith,—whate'er or whence]

All men,—the Preacher saith,—whate'er or whence
Their increase, walking thro' this world has been;
Both those that gather out, or after glean,
Or hold in simple fee of harvests dense;
Or but perhaps a flowerless barren green,
Barren with spots of sorrel, knot-grass, spurge:—
See to one end their differing paths converge,
And all must render answer, here or hence.
“Lo! Death is at the doors,”—he crieth, “with blows!”
But what to him, unto whose feverish sense
The stars tick audibly, and the wind's low surge
In the pine, attended, tolls, and throngs, and grows
On the dread ear,—a thunder too profound
For bearing,—a Niagara of sound!

[XVIII. Perchance his own small field some charge demands]

Perchance his own small field some charge demands,
So full the eternal Choral sobs and swells;
But clear away the weeds, although there lurk
Within the weeds a few dim asphodels,
Flowers of a former day, how fair! how fair!
And yet behold them not, but to the work,
Before the short light darken, set thy hands!
Nor over the surface dip with easy share,
But beam-deep, plough and plunge your parallels
Breaking in clod and flower! that so may spring
From the deep grain a goodlier growth and kind;
Unstirred of heats that blast, of frosts that bind,
Nor swept aside, ere the seed catch, by wing
Of casual shower, nor any chance of wind.

[XIX. Yet vain, perhaps, the fruits our care applaud]

Yet vain, perhaps, the fruits our care applaud;
If the Forefate, decree the harvest fat,
Why should we mind this thing or matter that,
To sift the seed, and blow the chaff abroad?
But doubt not so the Giver to defraud,
Who will accuse thy labour; spend, nor slack
Of my best strength and sweetness too, till God,
With a full hand and flowing, pay thee back.
Behold! on rolling zone and zodiac
The spray and scatter of his bounty flung!
And what canst thou, to whom no hands belong
To hasten by one hour the morning's birth?
Or stay one planet at his circle hung,
In the great flight of stars across the earth?

[XX. Still craves the spirit: never Nature solves]

Still craves the spirit: never Nature solves
That yearning which with her first breath began;
And, in its blinder instinct, still devolves
On god or pagod, Manada or man,
Or, lower yet, brute-service, apes and wolves!
By Borneo's surf, the bare Barbarian
Still to the sands beneath him bows to pray:
Give Greek his god, the Bheel his devil-sway;
And what remains to me, who count no odds
Between such Lord and him I saw to-day,
The farmer mounted on his market-load,
Bundles of wool, and locks of upland hay;
The son of toil, that his own works bestrode,
And him, Ophion, earliest of the gods?

[XXI. O Father, God! to whom, in happier days]

O Father, God! to whom, in happier days,
My father bade me cry when troubles fall,
Again I come before thy tribunal,
Too faint for prayer, and all too blind for praise;
Yet owning never, through life's dim career,
The eye that would not see, and reckless ear;
Against my head no more thy tempests call!—
Refreshing that wild sorrow of the heart,
And those fierce tears: another morning raise
Upon this vision, now so dimmed and swoln:
Guide me, as once, unto thy feet to flee;
Claiming no price of labour, place, or part;
And only seek, before thy footstool fall'n,
Tears in mine eyes, to lift these hands of me!

[XXII. The morning comes; not slow, with reddening gold]

The morning comes; not slow, with reddening gold
But wildly driven, with windy shower, and sway
As though the wind would blow the dark away:
Voices of wail, of misery multifold,
Wake with the light, and its harsh glare obey;
And yet I walk betimes this day of spring,
Still my own private portion reckoning,
Not to compute, though every tear be told.
Oh, might I on the gale my sorrow fling!
But sweep, sweep on, wild blast; who bids thee stay?
Across the stormy headlands shriek and sing
And, earlier than the daytime, bring the day
To pouring eyes, half-quenched with watery sight,
And breaking hearts that hate the morning light.

[XXIII. Shall I not see her? Yes; for one has seen]

Shall I not see her? Yes; for one has seen
Her in her beauty, since we called her dead,
One like herself, a fair young mother, led
By her own lot to feel compassion keen;
And unto her last night my Anna came,
And sat within her arms, and spoke her name,
“While the old smile,” she said, “like starlight gleamed;
And like herself in fair young bloom,” she said,
“Only the white more white, the red more red;
And fainter than the mist her pressure seemed.”
And words there were, though vague, yet beautiful,
Which she who heard them could not tell to me,—
It is enough! my Anna did not flee
To grief or fear, nor lies in slumber dull.

[XXIV. Perhaps a dream; yet surely truth has beamed]

Perhaps a dream; yet surely truth has beamed
Oft from the gate of dreams upon the brain;
As on yon mountain, black with thunder-rain,
To-day, through cloudy clefts, the glory streamed.
Why do men doubt, and balance, and disdain,
Where she, the gentler spirit, seeks to skim
Light from the vague,—though thick the shadows swim;
Still counting what she may not all explain,—
Not to be lost, or lightly disesteemed,—
Though cloudy of shape it seem, and meaning dim?
Did Manoah's wife doubt ere she showed to him
The angel standing in the golden grain?
Had Deborah fear? or was that Vision vain
That Actia, Arlotte, and Mandanè dreamed?

[XXV. By this low fire I often sit to woo]

By this low fire I often sit to woo
Memory to bring the days for ever done;
And call the mountains, where our love begun,
And the dear happy woodlands dipped in dew;
And pore upon the landscape, like a book,
But cannot find her: or there rise to me
Gardens and groves in light and shadow outspread:
Or, on a headland far away, I see
Men marching slow in orderly review;
And bayonets flash, as, wheeling from the sun,
Rank after rank give fire; or, sad, I look
On miles of moonlit brine, with many a bed
Of wave-weed heaving,—there, the wet sands shine
And just awash, the low reef lifts its line.

[XXVI. For Nature daily through her grand design]

For Nature daily through her grand design
Breathes contradiction where she seems most clear:
For I have held of her the gift to hear;
And felt, indeed, endowed of sense divine,
When I have found, by guarded insight fine,
Cold April flowers in the green end of June;
And thought myself possessed of Nature's ear,
When, by the lonely mill-brook, into mine,
Seated on slab, or trunk asunder sawn,
The night-hawk blew his horn at sunny noon;
And in the rainy midnight I have heard
The ground-sparrow's long twitter from the pine,
And the cat-bird's silver song,—the wakeful bird
That to the lighted window sings for dawn.

[XXVII. So, to the mind long brooding but on it]

So, to the mind long brooding but on it—
A haunting theme for anger, joy, or tears,—
With ardent eyes, not what we think, appears,
But, hunted home, behold its opposite!
Worn Sorrow breaking in disastrous mirth,
And wild tears wept of laughter, like the drops
Shook by the trampling thunder to the earth;
And each seems either, or but a counterfeit
Of that it would dissemble: hopes are fears,
And love is woe. Nor here the discord stops;
But through all human life runs the account,—
Born into pain, and ending bitterly;
Yet sweet perchance, between-time, like a fount,
That rises salt, and freshens to the sea.

[XXVIII. Not the round natural world, not the deep mind]

Not the round natural world, not the deep mind,
The reconcilement holds: the blue abyss
Collects it not; our arrows sink amiss;
And but in Him may we our import find.
The agony to know, the grief, the bliss
Of toil, is vain and vain! clots of the sod
Gathered in heat and haste, and flung behind
To blind ourselves and others,—what but this
Still grasping dust, and sowing toward the wind?
No more thy meaning seek, thine anguish plead;
But, leaving straining thought, and stammering word,
Across the barren azure pass to God;
Shooting the void in silence, like a bird,—
A bird that shuts his wings for better speed!