Poems by Henry Septimus Sutton

The light that parleys with a poet's eyes
Hath more rays than the mere prismatic seven,
For goes therewith a flush of such fine dyes
As makes of earth meet vestibule for heaven,
Blends with all dullest things a lifeful leaven,
And quickens to a full sweet Sunday grace
The dead looks in this world's old workday face.

When Eugene's eyes in infant wonderment
First questioned this mysterious world, for him
In vain spake tongueful Nature; vainly spent
The Earth her beautiful continual hymn;
Why did he look with such perception dim?
Why dreamt he not of that poetic soul
Majestical that vivifies the whole?

Yet sometimes came wild startlings, and his eyes
Widened and burned, as reading wondrous lore,
But then at once the exquisite surprise
Would die down into dulness as before;
For the Muse knew he might not yet bear more,
So let flit dimly past his soul forlorn
Joys bodiless that must not yet be born.

At length, the gates of vision came unchained;
New light flowed outward through his wondering eyes,
Whose eagerness continually gained
Unguessed-of news from earth and air and skies;
And many till then obstinate mysteries
He as acquaintance boldly could accost,
Their cold reserve and distance being lost.

Now for his heart athirst new solace ran,
Poured from the only source that satisfies;
For Nature's old dull crust all o'er began
To crack and peel, and through the clefts his eyes
Caught glimpses of the Deity that lies
Creative under all. Whate'er he saw
Was quick with new thought, wonder, worship, awe.

All musical he grew, all musical,
For melody would start about his heart,
And oft sound with so audible a call,
And be so real, so from himself apart,
It seemed an echo from God's throne did start,—
That some sad sinner had been just forgiven,
And the glad angels rang the bells of heaven.

Now what Prometheus meant might Eugene see,
For this creative creature 'gan to give
Heaven's living fire so wide and lavishly
That all inanimate things appear'd to live:
To fields and flowers the boy grew talkative;
Accosted stars and stones; enjoy'd the meeting
With trees, which held their arms out for his greeting.

So he was never alone; for,—lying,—float
Would music round his pillow; walking,—air
Grow busy with low voices; on the river,—
The water seem all pulsed by footsteps fair
With little whirling dimples here and there;
Or,—turning round,—be glimpsed swift vanishings
Of robes ethereal and mysterious wings.

All things were changed:—the little gentle flowers
Were brothers, now, and sisters to Eugene;
The birds were feather-veilëd guardian powers
Tenanting leafy thrones, with loving mien,
To watch earth's good, and sing sweet songs between;
The dew that when the stars burn bright is given,
Was precious oil dropp'd from those lamps of heaven.

Earth was a glorious great kaleidoscope
Which, turning ever, fed his eye anew:
He lived in one wide palace of fine hope,
With floor of green, and archëd roof of blue,
And he a son of its great Maker too,—
A son made grandly welcome to each part,
And with a son's right to be glad in heart.

All things had influence for him; all his heart
Was as a harp of such responsive strings,
That not an evening primrose could out-start,
No lark shake rapture from its fluttering wings,
Not the least motion rise in natural things,
But all its chords would tremble and compete
In rich vibration, eloquently sweet.

Thus Nature, as with delicate-fingered wind,
Played soft Æolian music in his breast,
And wooed him ever with her courtship kind
Till she had won him to a sweet unrest,
And made his heart all eager with a zest
For converse with her in the loneliest bowers,
Loving her to her face for hours and hours.

Now he delighted, stretched on bed of grass,
To learn the looks of the sun-lighted skies;
Cloud-watching, till his lifted soul would pass
To God's great heaven of thought-wove tapestries;
There lie at catch for inward symphonies,
For sweetness and for fulness far above
All sounds of earth that men's ears drink and love.

Yet also glad was he for cloven shout
Of cuckoo, and for all the voiceful throng
That wreathe their voluntaries in and out,
Felicitous, the leafy boughs among;—
Glad even of the gnats' drowsed undersong;
And he liked, too, the sound of merriment
By distant steeple's loud-tongued tenants sent;

Who, tossing up their heads imperious, find
Tasks and long errands for the busy gales,
Measuring out bellfuls of melodious wind
Impregnated and spiced with chiming tales
Which ought the winds to bear into far vales,
But, careless, lose part of their message sweet,
So bring a burden richly incomplete:—

And glad was he, to list when all around
Harsh winter blasts throng in, the world to freeze,
Each to keen edge and cutting sharpness ground
On icy pavements of the northern seas,
And hear them fighting with the uprooted trees,
Beating the boughs on their bleak threshing floors,
Whooping out triumph o'er far howling moors:—

Or watch when March sends out his windy elves
To shake by th' shoulders the deep slumbering trees,
To bid them wake and dress their drowsy selves
In haste the approaching Lady Spring to please;
Nor may those tiresome breezes cease to tease,
Until each giant, answering their appeals,
In a green mantle its gaunt arms conceals:—

Or see some tree shake its sad aged head,
Priming the wind with storm-foreboding sighs,
While each leaf writheth on its stalky thread,
And, shuddering, whispereth rainy prophecies,
Because the black clouds, weary of the skies,
Spent with far travel, sullen stand, and roar,
And, till unladen, vow they'll move no more:—

Or watch the dozing twilight drop asleep
Just when the setting sun gives Eve's first star
Her cue upon that boundless stage to leap,
Whereto ten thousand mighty orbs afar
The theatre and watchful audience are;—
Why fears it not to play its little part?
Why shines it on with an unflurried heart?

Gently it twinkleth there its prologue out
Till that fair stage grows brighter by a moon,
And the quick stars scatter themselves about,
Peopling all skiey nooks and by-ways soon,
That no place lack its little glimmering boon;
And prouder grow the rich and populous skies
Twinkling all over with a thousand eyes.

But oh, how healing to all aching pang,
On profiled moon's bright crescent thin to gaze,
And on her fine sharp horns intense to hang
A thousand phantasies a thousand ways!
Or, when her face grows to a fuller phase,
How sweet to calm our passion's seething lees
In her pure beams of cooling, soothing ease!

Yet are there times when cruel witchcraft fills
Her light, no longer friendly; when a flood
Of chill lone feeling passionates and thrills
Our hearts, and kills our calmness in the bud;
When hints to grief, half-vaguely understood,
By her are lent, till our unbidden eyes
Our cheeks with mournful overflow surprise.

For then come visions of the old home-places,
Dear, consecrated, incense-haunted fanes;
And then rise memories of lost forms and faces,
Rise, like old vials' odours sweet, and strains
Of songs that sob to music that complains;
While airs leap on us from forgotten climes
Rich with the holy breath of better times.

Ay, we may weep, and weep! They will not come,—
The soft warm hand; the voluble dear eye;
Lips whereon, open, sweet speech; whereon, dumb,
The honey-gift, for us did ever lie:
They will not come, though we for grief should die.
Eugene was not too young for memory's tongue
To pierce his soul;—who is there that's too young?

But, when the stars dim out, and darkling lies
Earth under moonless heaven, then would Eugene
The thickening night confront, and let his eyes
On the blind blackness grapple with stern mien,
While groan'd the trees in dusky turmoil keen,
As if the horrible winds their stretch did swell
To span some dread Æolian harp of hell.

O Night, thou speaker in all awful tones
Of bale and unredeemable despair!
Why hang'st thou on thy winds such creaks and moans
As might almost persuade us that we hear
Old earth's huge axle grind? Why should thy fear
Make dread torpedo-thoughts swim in by shoals,
Smiting to dumbness our astounded souls?

Yet in the excitements of the night not oft
Did Eugene revel thus; fields and the day
Had better pleasures for him;—as, when soft
The morning blows o'er flowers, then away
With the white river to keep holiday;—
To brighten in broad sunshine; or to run
Where flickering shadows half deny the sun;—

Or hear the birds, orchestred deep in leaves,
Transmute, with power alchemic, to sweet strain,
Air lately mute, while the young sun-dawn weaves
Fine gold into the clouds, and earth amain
Like sun-woke Memnon's statue o'er again,
Greets its first beams, and, to proclaim its rise,
All her sweet, living, feathery psalteries plies.

And Eugene liked some glorious book to bring
Beneath the trees, and read, on some hill-side,
Of Isabella's piteous gardening,
Or Porphyro's thief-venture for a bride;
Or how old Apollonius, cruel-eyed,
Shoots arrows from bent eyebrow bows, to slay
Lycius and Lamia on their wedding-day:—

Or any other essence of man's heart
Distill'd by poets to eternal times;
But ever loathingly the boy would start
From tales, unantidoted poison-rhymes,
Of souls all fungus'd over with their crimes,—
Too busy with sharp-rowel'd passions' goading
To take or heed forbidding or foreboding.

And often to the boy an impulse came
Urging his soul to try her strength in songs;
For what was in him but a fiery flame?
And what were round him but symphonious throngs
Of words that seem'd to fall from heavenly tongues?
And what was left him, but to vent that flame,
And utter those sweet sayings as they came?

Ay, though sage list'ners mock'd his harp's young tones,
And bade him cease from the ambitious trade,
Why should he cease? Fire shut up in the bones
Consumes to baneful ash its barricade.
Why should he cease? For the whole world was made,
Glorious with foregleams of what might be done
In noble work,—ay, and what honour won.

'Tis true, indeed, the thought of wealth or fame
Belongs not rightly to the poet's pleasures;
He must not damp that pure high-aiming flame
For popular praise, nor play those heaven-born measures
On strings tuned low to th' chink of earthly treasures;
He must not dream God's great trusts may be sold;
He must not dare to cramp his soul in gold.

Yet while he works for duty's sake in chief,
Not too much loving voices that applaud,
The poet should not be without belief
That in the boundaries of our language broad
There will be one or two kind souls unawed
By others' censure, who will find in him,
If dimness, yet at least some gold not dim.

Thus is he not so lower'd below or raised
Above his kind, as to be all unmoved
And careless of the sweet of being praised;
Thinks it a bliss to have his rhymes approved
By noble souls, of Goodness well-beloved;—
Hopes to be read at least by one or two
Such as I know, and such as Eugene knew.

And oft he pictures some heart, precious cruse
Of holy human feeling, that shall read
His leaves, and not, because of dross, quite lose
His genuine gold; that shall her glances feed
On rhymes that cannot ask a better meed;
And some kind smiles upon the book bestow
Of him who writes for her he ne'er will know.

And oft he pictures some large-hearted youth
Shall love the unknown rhymer, for the sake
Of the known rhymes; one not gnaw'd by the tooth
Of worldliness; not seized of Mammon-ache;
To Friendship, Beauty, Goodness, all awake:—
For such he hopes to work; with such to stand
A friend unseen, yet shaken by the hand.

University of Virginia Library

EUGENE.