 | The Wanderer |  |
77
V.
THE ISLAND.
Dreaming the sea the elder, I must search
In her for tidings of the olden days,—
Oldest and newest. For how fresh the breeze
That blows along the beaches! and the cry
Of the small glancing bird who runs before,
And still before me, as I find my way
Along the salt sea's ooze, seems like the frail
Admonitor of all the birds: and mark,
Forever turning, that green-crested wave,
Curve of the gleaming billows, and the weed
Purple and green and glistering, the long kelp
Swaying for ages towards the foaming strand;
For here the world is endless. On the marge
I sit of that small Island in the bay,
As an observatory anchored there,
And view the shores receding, where afar
The long sand-beach pursues his lonely way.
Sweet the scene adorned with early sunrise,
Or when a golden hour lifts the faint mist
Of the retreating dawn, and half reveals
The far green hillsides, or the scattered town,
And bits of lovely wood, a moment seen,
Like beauty smiling in her curtained couch.
And then we turn, and meet the curling swell
Roll crashing o'er his sands,—unending Surge,
Voice of another life in worlds how far!
In her for tidings of the olden days,—
Oldest and newest. For how fresh the breeze
That blows along the beaches! and the cry
Of the small glancing bird who runs before,
And still before me, as I find my way
Along the salt sea's ooze, seems like the frail
Admonitor of all the birds: and mark,
Forever turning, that green-crested wave,
Curve of the gleaming billows, and the weed
Purple and green and glistering, the long kelp
Swaying for ages towards the foaming strand;
For here the world is endless. On the marge
I sit of that small Island in the bay,
As an observatory anchored there,
78
The long sand-beach pursues his lonely way.
Sweet the scene adorned with early sunrise,
Or when a golden hour lifts the faint mist
Of the retreating dawn, and half reveals
The far green hillsides, or the scattered town,
And bits of lovely wood, a moment seen,
Like beauty smiling in her curtained couch.
And then we turn, and meet the curling swell
Roll crashing o'er his sands,—unending Surge,
Voice of another life in worlds how far!
Even like the sea himself, torn down the past,
That wrecker shows, Antonio, an old man,
Patched and repainted like his time-worn craft,
An odd tarpaulin o'er his wild gray locks,
And ever in his hand his wrecking-hook.
Cold as the strand whereon he walks he seems;
His eyes put out with gazing on the deep,
Together with the wear of seventy years,
And scanty food, chill breezes, and the spray
Running their courses in his life. Nor less
The ocean is his friend; that mystery
Still stranger as he studies it the more.
With tempests often striking o'er his path
Linked to the wrecker's eyes with the far heaven,
Upon whose omens patiently he pores,
And dreams of crashing decks or corpses pale
Washing alone Time's melancholy shore:
Thus are they filled with wisdom who compute
The sea as their companion. Books to them
Are the faint dreams of students, save that one,—
The battered Almanac,—split to the core,
Fly-blown, and tattered, that above the fire
Devoted smokes, and furnishes the fates,
And perigees and apogees of moons.
Despite the rolling temper of the main,
He knows by sternest laws the tide revolves,
And mows his marsh disdainful of the flood:
Held by firm rules, old ocean shall obey,
Indifferently fatal, friend or foe.
Her things so new, her creatures so unlike
All which the dull unmoving shore concerns,
Amid her briny passion pledged to be
Sailors unsocial, darlings of the sea.
That wrecker shows, Antonio, an old man,
Patched and repainted like his time-worn craft,
An odd tarpaulin o'er his wild gray locks,
And ever in his hand his wrecking-hook.
Cold as the strand whereon he walks he seems;
His eyes put out with gazing on the deep,
Together with the wear of seventy years,
And scanty food, chill breezes, and the spray
79
The ocean is his friend; that mystery
Still stranger as he studies it the more.
With tempests often striking o'er his path
Linked to the wrecker's eyes with the far heaven,
Upon whose omens patiently he pores,
And dreams of crashing decks or corpses pale
Washing alone Time's melancholy shore:
Thus are they filled with wisdom who compute
The sea as their companion. Books to them
Are the faint dreams of students, save that one,—
The battered Almanac,—split to the core,
Fly-blown, and tattered, that above the fire
Devoted smokes, and furnishes the fates,
And perigees and apogees of moons.
Despite the rolling temper of the main,
He knows by sternest laws the tide revolves,
And mows his marsh disdainful of the flood:
Held by firm rules, old ocean shall obey,
Indifferently fatal, friend or foe.
Her things so new, her creatures so unlike
80
Amid her briny passion pledged to be
Sailors unsocial, darlings of the sea.
How smooth the seal's complexion! finely haired
To shed the searching moisture as if oiled,
Like brave Mahomet's, that unhappy sheik;
Awfully human, the seal's bearded face
Lifts in the cold green current. On the tide
That rakes the channel, there he bolts his horse;
Then stretches off his bulk on the black rocks,
Spread on the seaweed with his heated pile;
Or on the polar cake, politely warm,
Expires his fat. Nor scorn the coots that take
Cold-water treatment, riding on the surf
That combing breaks now spilt upon the sand;
All swimming as one coot from pole to pole.
Nor scare the little beach-birds, dainty thing
Mounted on stilts above the long sea-sands,
Skipping and piping by the whirling tide;
And one, neatest of all, the peep, whose nes
In the remote recesses of the north
That bird constructs, scarcely by Brewer robbed.
A manless thing, a creature with no heart
For human prayers, the cold unfeeling brine.
That tale survives all annals of the past,—
Of an old-fashioned flood, when earliest boat,
An ark, was fairly launched, victualled and stocked,
With patriarch Noah and his constant dove.
Chinese or Persian, old or newly made,
In all the creature's legends I may hear
The same relation, the same flabby tale.
'Tis Ocean's independence. “Launch your ark;
Get out the long-boat; tow a raft astern,”
Cries Ocean to her sons; “for sure am I
I cannot oil your coats, nor stamp your seals.”
And man obeys, and in cork-jackets swims.
They dam the restless beach, they stone and pile.
Alack! the sea pours on its flood the same,
Turning us back, and bowing its regret.
To shed the searching moisture as if oiled,
Like brave Mahomet's, that unhappy sheik;
Awfully human, the seal's bearded face
Lifts in the cold green current. On the tide
That rakes the channel, there he bolts his horse;
Then stretches off his bulk on the black rocks,
Spread on the seaweed with his heated pile;
Or on the polar cake, politely warm,
Expires his fat. Nor scorn the coots that take
Cold-water treatment, riding on the surf
That combing breaks now spilt upon the sand;
All swimming as one coot from pole to pole.
Nor scare the little beach-birds, dainty thing
Mounted on stilts above the long sea-sands,
Skipping and piping by the whirling tide;
And one, neatest of all, the peep, whose nes
81
That bird constructs, scarcely by Brewer robbed.
A manless thing, a creature with no heart
For human prayers, the cold unfeeling brine.
That tale survives all annals of the past,—
Of an old-fashioned flood, when earliest boat,
An ark, was fairly launched, victualled and stocked,
With patriarch Noah and his constant dove.
Chinese or Persian, old or newly made,
In all the creature's legends I may hear
The same relation, the same flabby tale.
'Tis Ocean's independence. “Launch your ark;
Get out the long-boat; tow a raft astern,”
Cries Ocean to her sons; “for sure am I
I cannot oil your coats, nor stamp your seals.”
And man obeys, and in cork-jackets swims.
They dam the restless beach, they stone and pile.
Alack! the sea pours on its flood the same,
Turning us back, and bowing its regret.
Where the Ægean on its cerule wave
Bore forth the Grecian fleets, what green parade
Was that, to populate the sea with gods,
And tossing heroes, who the mortal state
Had raised diviner! There in peace they rolled,—
Tridental Neptune and his spouting team,
Tritonia, and the Nereids cool
Taking perpetual baths, and who the first,
(Above description) from the sea spumed forth,—
Idalian Venus, on her pink conch-shell,
Smoothing the lovely wave, and throwing smiles
Over the laughing billows. But to-day
To the depths descend the gods of ocean,
When mackerel fishers ride the hollow main,
And in the room of Phosphor, worship gold.
Honest Herodotus who marched afar
O'er Egypt's sands and Babylonia's fall,
Telling strange stories of the deaths of kings,
Gives out that Homer made the gods for men,
Some few short centuries before his time.
How vivid the Greek fancy took the sea!
Making the grave of waters yield its dead,
And in its splendid figures live and burn.
Bore forth the Grecian fleets, what green parade
82
And tossing heroes, who the mortal state
Had raised diviner! There in peace they rolled,—
Tridental Neptune and his spouting team,
Tritonia, and the Nereids cool
Taking perpetual baths, and who the first,
(Above description) from the sea spumed forth,—
Idalian Venus, on her pink conch-shell,
Smoothing the lovely wave, and throwing smiles
Over the laughing billows. But to-day
To the depths descend the gods of ocean,
When mackerel fishers ride the hollow main,
And in the room of Phosphor, worship gold.
Honest Herodotus who marched afar
O'er Egypt's sands and Babylonia's fall,
Telling strange stories of the deaths of kings,
Gives out that Homer made the gods for men,
Some few short centuries before his time.
How vivid the Greek fancy took the sea!
Making the grave of waters yield its dead,
And in its splendid figures live and burn.
83
Afar upon the sky the unmoving ship
Stands leaning, her place unchanged, still leaning;
And so she stands until below the line
Of that lone horizon she silent falls;
And some fond mother's heart watching her sail,
And children's prayers that guard a father's life.
He hears the billows grating on the keel,
With their gay sheets of foam and splashing lights,
The gulf-stream past, where over Pico's cap
Sail the rich odors of the Western Isles,
And sweeping showers that cut like wings of steel;
And the long steady gale that never lulls,
Drawn through the rigging with its awful moan,
Most like the concert of the monarch-pines
That line Katahdin's walls, when the nor'westers
Scourge that woodland brig: these sounds he hears,
These sights, unmoving, sees; Neptune forgot,
Thinks of his mother knitting by the fire
In his far-sheltered cot, his wife, who lists
As o'er his cottage-roof tears the wild gale,
And hears the children, “Mother, the storm!
Will father feel the gale?”—“My child, my child!”
And folds them to her heart. Oh, mother dear!
Stands leaning, her place unchanged, still leaning;
And so she stands until below the line
Of that lone horizon she silent falls;
And some fond mother's heart watching her sail,
And children's prayers that guard a father's life.
He hears the billows grating on the keel,
With their gay sheets of foam and splashing lights,
The gulf-stream past, where over Pico's cap
Sail the rich odors of the Western Isles,
And sweeping showers that cut like wings of steel;
And the long steady gale that never lulls,
Drawn through the rigging with its awful moan,
Most like the concert of the monarch-pines
That line Katahdin's walls, when the nor'westers
Scourge that woodland brig: these sounds he hears,
These sights, unmoving, sees; Neptune forgot,
Thinks of his mother knitting by the fire
In his far-sheltered cot, his wife, who lists
As o'er his cottage-roof tears the wild gale,
And hears the children, “Mother, the storm!
84
And folds them to her heart. Oh, mother dear!
Had but those ancients ventured o'er the wave
Like patient Colomb, urging vessels small
Across the ocean's heap, and thus surpassed
Their shining bays and sands of Punic cape,
Where still bold rovers from the Grecian isles
Dart their swift galiots at the opiate Turk;
Then had the Muse of Homer taken flight
In things cosmopolite, leaving the gods
To curl their locks unsung. But so a race
Born on that midland sea achieved new fates,
And first essayed the arts of culture there,
Founding vast cities on the mud of Nile,
Where the great river, treasure of the earth,
Spawned affluence. If old Egypt be
The creature of the river, or reverse,
Becomes me not; if mimic Palestine
Took its first lessons off Egyptian stones,
As that Sidonian with Astarte's name,
On Eshmunezzar's soros found so late;
Or when great Nineveh threw up its halls
Cased with prodigious bulls and bearded saints,
And conquering tyrants trampling on their slaves;
Whatever prescience or rank assigned
To those veiled dynasties sunk in the sleep
Of superstitious gods, and what the priest
That worshipped Moloch sprang from: grant the sea
Gave impulse to those countries, and from that
They flowed with fresh existence. Yes! that sea
And its expanse of isles blest by each other;
In azure waves where rugged Rhodes piles up
Eternal sunshine, and Telmessus sweet,
With Lycian bays, the wood-nymphs' chosen haunt,
(For here the mainland floats upon the sea);
Or Cyprus, where the Paphian goddess built
Her tall melodious shrine, and, as some think,
Called from the tree to Aphrodite vowed,
And earlier to Astarte, whence it passed
From proud Phœnicia's Tyre to Carthage bronzed;
These isles, good halfway-houses to new shores,
Nurtured the mariner on fruit and wines,
Honey and figs, and more, the grace to touch
New customs, and deport novel religions
'Mid a hulk of freight.
Like patient Colomb, urging vessels small
Across the ocean's heap, and thus surpassed
Their shining bays and sands of Punic cape,
Where still bold rovers from the Grecian isles
Dart their swift galiots at the opiate Turk;
Then had the Muse of Homer taken flight
In things cosmopolite, leaving the gods
To curl their locks unsung. But so a race
Born on that midland sea achieved new fates,
And first essayed the arts of culture there,
Founding vast cities on the mud of Nile,
Where the great river, treasure of the earth,
Spawned affluence. If old Egypt be
The creature of the river, or reverse,
Becomes me not; if mimic Palestine
Took its first lessons off Egyptian stones,
As that Sidonian with Astarte's name,
85
Or when great Nineveh threw up its halls
Cased with prodigious bulls and bearded saints,
And conquering tyrants trampling on their slaves;
Whatever prescience or rank assigned
To those veiled dynasties sunk in the sleep
Of superstitious gods, and what the priest
That worshipped Moloch sprang from: grant the sea
Gave impulse to those countries, and from that
They flowed with fresh existence. Yes! that sea
And its expanse of isles blest by each other;
In azure waves where rugged Rhodes piles up
Eternal sunshine, and Telmessus sweet,
With Lycian bays, the wood-nymphs' chosen haunt,
(For here the mainland floats upon the sea);
Or Cyprus, where the Paphian goddess built
Her tall melodious shrine, and, as some think,
Called from the tree to Aphrodite vowed,
And earlier to Astarte, whence it passed
From proud Phœnicia's Tyre to Carthage bronzed;
These isles, good halfway-houses to new shores,
86
Honey and figs, and more, the grace to touch
New customs, and deport novel religions
'Mid a hulk of freight.
The timid sailors
Made small prime essays, and, venturing forth,
Amused themselves with colonies. At first
How limited the risk! The single ship
Bore off from Egypt's shores the chosen troop.
Soon, to the Grecian palm directly steered;
Where o'er Morea's hills the setting sun
Shames our opaque seclusion in its pomp;
There with the Corybants, or Bacchic priests
Lighting on Latmos, or by Delphi's shrine,
Unnamed, unknown, in those anterior days,
They sowed the seed upon the rolling heights
Of new religions, whence Olympus sprang;
And oaks Dodonian, comedy of creeds
Bred on the banks of Nile; and the tall stones
Now standing in her deserts, lone, not mute,
Bear witness that the race, forever one,
As on Mount Serbal, worships in high place,
Or still preserves the forest as its shrine,
And builds its altars on erected hills,
That mark Cholula's platform, to this hour.
Spring and fruit and fall the like traditions.
See the bold ranks of sepulchres that mask the vale
Of Kedron, line Telmessian hills; their doors,
Oblivious still, sealed up for ages.
As o'er the plains of Memphis, and the tomb
Of royal Cheops, where the Grecian stood,
That flaming star of Macedon, whose trail
Burnt from the shores of Greece to India's vale
Of far Cashmere, dreaming 'mid snowy crags,—
And wondered at the mass, what ages gone,
Whose ignorance shall boast? or by whose hands
The placid sphinxes fronting Karnak's mass,
Or Memnon's figure, musical at morn.
Ever the tomb, the dead, the mummied faith,
As if our race, the phantom of a day,
Spurning their nature's flight, had haughtily fixed
Upon our frame, cheap mirror of the dust,
For great enduring; scattered pyramids,
Sculptured the soros, and o'er Euxine's plain
Marched out the line of tumuli that stalks
Across the steppés, league on league afar,
Thoughts for Herodotus and Strabo dead,
And Clarke! that proudest of the Anglic race;
Or Calmuc, with his brandies made of milk;
And equine Cossacks, from whose hairy lip
Norse or Icelandic vocals lingering fall.
Made small prime essays, and, venturing forth,
Amused themselves with colonies. At first
How limited the risk! The single ship
Bore off from Egypt's shores the chosen troop.
Soon, to the Grecian palm directly steered;
Where o'er Morea's hills the setting sun
Shames our opaque seclusion in its pomp;
There with the Corybants, or Bacchic priests
Lighting on Latmos, or by Delphi's shrine,
Unnamed, unknown, in those anterior days,
They sowed the seed upon the rolling heights
Of new religions, whence Olympus sprang;
And oaks Dodonian, comedy of creeds
Bred on the banks of Nile; and the tall stones
Now standing in her deserts, lone, not mute,
87
As on Mount Serbal, worships in high place,
Or still preserves the forest as its shrine,
And builds its altars on erected hills,
That mark Cholula's platform, to this hour.
Spring and fruit and fall the like traditions.
See the bold ranks of sepulchres that mask the vale
Of Kedron, line Telmessian hills; their doors,
Oblivious still, sealed up for ages.
As o'er the plains of Memphis, and the tomb
Of royal Cheops, where the Grecian stood,
That flaming star of Macedon, whose trail
Burnt from the shores of Greece to India's vale
Of far Cashmere, dreaming 'mid snowy crags,—
And wondered at the mass, what ages gone,
Whose ignorance shall boast? or by whose hands
The placid sphinxes fronting Karnak's mass,
Or Memnon's figure, musical at morn.
Ever the tomb, the dead, the mummied faith,
As if our race, the phantom of a day,
Spurning their nature's flight, had haughtily fixed
88
For great enduring; scattered pyramids,
Sculptured the soros, and o'er Euxine's plain
Marched out the line of tumuli that stalks
Across the steppés, league on league afar,
Thoughts for Herodotus and Strabo dead,
And Clarke! that proudest of the Anglic race;
Or Calmuc, with his brandies made of milk;
And equine Cossacks, from whose hairy lip
Norse or Icelandic vocals lingering fall.
Thus did life's youthful mood vouchsafe,
Glimpses unknown to us, when Grecian isles
Were first discoveries, and all westward lay
Regions unkempt, the haunt of wolf or elk;
Seas unmolested, where no keel e'er trod,
Save of the savage proa, flying thing,
With long outriders propping up her sides.
Grand opened on the lids of Carthage fierce,
Sicilian isles, the granaries of Rome;
Vast to the spoiling Romans towered the snows
Of Alpine glaciers, or the rushing shaft
Where the unfathomable crevasse
Nurses her torrents,—feeders of Lucerne,
And wild moraine, slow moving to the foot,
Lifts not its head, nor heeds the avalanche
Crashed o'er its face. From Asia's heated soil
A fiery race wide roving spread around,
Whate'er their famed progenitors enjoyed;
At Suez, where the Red Sea ends its toil,
Or through the gate of tears pursued their way
Into that Indian Ocean. The great king,
Famed for his tastes barbaric, fetched his pearls,
And peacocks, apes, and Sheba's queen, be sure,
From fertile islands in spice-wafting-roads,
Whate'er distortion later critics paste
Upon the Hebrew story.
Glimpses unknown to us, when Grecian isles
Were first discoveries, and all westward lay
Regions unkempt, the haunt of wolf or elk;
Seas unmolested, where no keel e'er trod,
Save of the savage proa, flying thing,
With long outriders propping up her sides.
Grand opened on the lids of Carthage fierce,
Sicilian isles, the granaries of Rome;
Vast to the spoiling Romans towered the snows
89
Where the unfathomable crevasse
Nurses her torrents,—feeders of Lucerne,
And wild moraine, slow moving to the foot,
Lifts not its head, nor heeds the avalanche
Crashed o'er its face. From Asia's heated soil
A fiery race wide roving spread around,
Whate'er their famed progenitors enjoyed;
At Suez, where the Red Sea ends its toil,
Or through the gate of tears pursued their way
Into that Indian Ocean. The great king,
Famed for his tastes barbaric, fetched his pearls,
And peacocks, apes, and Sheba's queen, be sure,
From fertile islands in spice-wafting-roads,
Whate'er distortion later critics paste
Upon the Hebrew story.
So the page
Of human action prints the rolling trait.
So, in the Malay races Vedic creeds,
Cut on rock temples of the Indian main,
Transport by sea, revive the Brahmin's faith;
So, o'er the yellow desert's weary sand
The fainting legend flies its thirsty way,
Flows down Euphrates' valleys, or encamps
On her flat shores. And wandering tribes of men,
Gypsies that rob all nations of the orb,
And Arabs, whose sharp letters serve the Turk
And Persian, Indian, Hebrew, all as one,
Drifting the seeds of knowledge o'er the lands,
Reflex portray in all the human symbols.
As in the Indian's Veda, so to us.
Even if beneath a cloak of legend
Supernaturally strange, whate'er the Greek
Raised to devotion, yet o'ermastering thrills;
The Pythian shrine, its oracle we hear,
Whether from hempen drug or nitrous air
Frankly diffuse, or trance mesmeric deemed,
Coming in dress of spirits, or such things
As nervous Macbeth played through Shakspeare's brain,
Or writing morals on the mountain wall,
And raising circles from Druidic stones;
Yet must the curious instinct of the race
Demand its mystery. Still St. Peter's shrine
Holds its portentous shadow o'er old Rome,
And Abraham's oak at Mamre blossoms on.
Of human action prints the rolling trait.
So, in the Malay races Vedic creeds,
Cut on rock temples of the Indian main,
90
So, o'er the yellow desert's weary sand
The fainting legend flies its thirsty way,
Flows down Euphrates' valleys, or encamps
On her flat shores. And wandering tribes of men,
Gypsies that rob all nations of the orb,
And Arabs, whose sharp letters serve the Turk
And Persian, Indian, Hebrew, all as one,
Drifting the seeds of knowledge o'er the lands,
Reflex portray in all the human symbols.
As in the Indian's Veda, so to us.
Even if beneath a cloak of legend
Supernaturally strange, whate'er the Greek
Raised to devotion, yet o'ermastering thrills;
The Pythian shrine, its oracle we hear,
Whether from hempen drug or nitrous air
Frankly diffuse, or trance mesmeric deemed,
Coming in dress of spirits, or such things
As nervous Macbeth played through Shakspeare's brain,
Or writing morals on the mountain wall,
91
Yet must the curious instinct of the race
Demand its mystery. Still St. Peter's shrine
Holds its portentous shadow o'er old Rome,
And Abraham's oak at Mamre blossoms on.
Where'er the glass you hold, reflected clear,
Priesthood and king,—names of the fatal powers,—
On most the nation's signets stamped full deep.
Always the nations marvel at themselves;
Responsive to the past, serve king and priest;
Such as the hoary Shagpat on the slab
That Layard at Koyunjik dug, and sent
To English halls, one like this mitred saint
From learned seats and colleges to us
Preaches obedience to our cherished creeds,
A secular law, or an unlovely prince;
Drawing glazed portraits of the Prussian king
Who took Silesia, justice in his strength.
Forever cutting in the claw of might,—
The sword, that hell-born cruelty, our race,
Crudely regarded human, venerate!
Kingdoms are bolted to this butcher-sword;
And poor defenceless knaves, wrenched from their hearths,
Soon at the cannon's mouth blown into rags.
The ruling princes searching swift (those sateless wolves!)
More means of shedding blood, and their poor tools
Hang up in Heaven their dismal reeking corpse,—
Glory and murder burden of their strain.
Priesthood and king,—names of the fatal powers,—
On most the nation's signets stamped full deep.
Always the nations marvel at themselves;
Responsive to the past, serve king and priest;
Such as the hoary Shagpat on the slab
That Layard at Koyunjik dug, and sent
To English halls, one like this mitred saint
From learned seats and colleges to us
Preaches obedience to our cherished creeds,
A secular law, or an unlovely prince;
Drawing glazed portraits of the Prussian king
Who took Silesia, justice in his strength.
Forever cutting in the claw of might,—
The sword, that hell-born cruelty, our race,
92
Kingdoms are bolted to this butcher-sword;
And poor defenceless knaves, wrenched from their hearths,
Soon at the cannon's mouth blown into rags.
The ruling princes searching swift (those sateless wolves!)
More means of shedding blood, and their poor tools
Hang up in Heaven their dismal reeking corpse,—
Glory and murder burden of their strain.
From Macedonia's chief to the last wolf
That ravaged Roman earth, or what the race
Who people the new world have there essayed
To emulate the elder, whence they sprang;
Age after age the red procession goes,
Sateless, unsated, lapping at the pool
Of useless carnage, as if thus alone
The humane soul, born to the noblest thoughts,
Bred on choice reasons, and devoutly tasked,
Could found their best religion, raised to heaven,
By multiplying human miseries.
To try how clean the whizzing shell impelled
Shall shear in twain the hamlets of the poor;
Or by what law of steam and iron, ships
May smite, and with their fiery rain submerse
Walls of civility and cultured works;
Then, maddened on the wave, in frenzied strife
Sink with their crews to Pluto's tireless arm.
Noble the ghoul who swills most human blood,
Who makes the solitude, and calls it peace!
Would glory, honor, or the crimson chain
Scored on the conqueror's lurid brow, pour forth
Their ruddy flame as signet-rings of Oude,
If the grim field, planted with loathsome trunks
Of what this morning were the living pride
Of happy nations, now in sackcloth clad,
Got its true name,—the shambles of a king?
There see the sad array of captives march,
Sent to the cruel prison, long to bide,
Till the two angry monarchs, murder-tired,
Cease battling, all their recompense a grave!
Then mayst thou hear the anthem of the Church,
The proud Te Deum echoing to the skies,
As in Vienna's walls, when Pandours wild
Burnt some lean village on Bavaria's front,
Roasting the peasants in their frenzied rage.
That ravaged Roman earth, or what the race
Who people the new world have there essayed
To emulate the elder, whence they sprang;
Age after age the red procession goes,
Sateless, unsated, lapping at the pool
Of useless carnage, as if thus alone
The humane soul, born to the noblest thoughts,
Bred on choice reasons, and devoutly tasked,
Could found their best religion, raised to heaven,
By multiplying human miseries.
To try how clean the whizzing shell impelled
93
Or by what law of steam and iron, ships
May smite, and with their fiery rain submerse
Walls of civility and cultured works;
Then, maddened on the wave, in frenzied strife
Sink with their crews to Pluto's tireless arm.
Noble the ghoul who swills most human blood,
Who makes the solitude, and calls it peace!
Would glory, honor, or the crimson chain
Scored on the conqueror's lurid brow, pour forth
Their ruddy flame as signet-rings of Oude,
If the grim field, planted with loathsome trunks
Of what this morning were the living pride
Of happy nations, now in sackcloth clad,
Got its true name,—the shambles of a king?
There see the sad array of captives march,
Sent to the cruel prison, long to bide,
Till the two angry monarchs, murder-tired,
Cease battling, all their recompense a grave!
Then mayst thou hear the anthem of the Church,
The proud Te Deum echoing to the skies,
94
Burnt some lean village on Bavaria's front,
Roasting the peasants in their frenzied rage.
On Nineveh's long wall in sculpture huge,
Where'er the regal pageant of the time—
Nebuco or Semiramis—crawls forth,
Upon the patent of the numerous wars
Done by the bearded peacock and his tail,
Behold, always with special emphasis,
Slaves trailing their chains. So downward far
To Rome's triumphant hours, the slave.
There Cleopatra in her beauty gleams,
And dark Jugurtha facing Rome goes by.
On Afric's sand, as well where Bornou's lake
Through the green sedges bears the fellah's boat;
As in the desert, when the caravan,
Bound for Morocco, marks its deathly trail
By the bleached bones of fainting youth and maid,
(Slaves captured for Numidia); or where Nile,
Wrenched from the Abyssinian mountains
Black and wild, whirls down the cataract
The coffle swart of wretches stolen to sell,—
With war, its source, treads human slavery!
Should a free Roman dig, or press the grape,
Save as Falernian to his weary lips,
With the scourged victim of his cruel wars
Crouched in the atrium, shuddering o'er his scars?
So triumphed down the demon; so espoused
The cause of blood: and from our shores, slavers,
Firing their guns along the Guinea coast,
Signal to send their human freight aboard;
Where the ripe culture of the Portuguese
In Christian morals and the Holy Faith,
Is the slave-factory, and its horrid field,
On which the corpses of the victims, flung
To Hades at the fever's mad command,
Bleach in the pestilent suns; and those who live
(Worse doom), wafted to states of liberty,
Employ the constant lash, and sate the hound
Brought from good Spain with all his native taste
For human gore; then shall they hoe and plant
For the North, till the white fields of cotton,
The government maintain, and on the cross,
Bleeding and nailed for life, die in their tears.
That fatal freedom to this hour ruled all!
But for a son of justice, lent from heaven,
Great Ossawatomie; who dashed his own,
His children's hearts against the demon-power,
And broke the captive's chain, and gave his name
Such glory as shall still less fade from thought,
(As time demanding damns the slavish fiends
Who drank his blood), but all the more blaze forth!
Where'er the regal pageant of the time—
Nebuco or Semiramis—crawls forth,
Upon the patent of the numerous wars
Done by the bearded peacock and his tail,
Behold, always with special emphasis,
Slaves trailing their chains. So downward far
To Rome's triumphant hours, the slave.
There Cleopatra in her beauty gleams,
And dark Jugurtha facing Rome goes by.
On Afric's sand, as well where Bornou's lake
Through the green sedges bears the fellah's boat;
As in the desert, when the caravan,
Bound for Morocco, marks its deathly trail
By the bleached bones of fainting youth and maid,
(Slaves captured for Numidia); or where Nile,
Wrenched from the Abyssinian mountains
95
The coffle swart of wretches stolen to sell,—
With war, its source, treads human slavery!
Should a free Roman dig, or press the grape,
Save as Falernian to his weary lips,
With the scourged victim of his cruel wars
Crouched in the atrium, shuddering o'er his scars?
So triumphed down the demon; so espoused
The cause of blood: and from our shores, slavers,
Firing their guns along the Guinea coast,
Signal to send their human freight aboard;
Where the ripe culture of the Portuguese
In Christian morals and the Holy Faith,
Is the slave-factory, and its horrid field,
On which the corpses of the victims, flung
To Hades at the fever's mad command,
Bleach in the pestilent suns; and those who live
(Worse doom), wafted to states of liberty,
Employ the constant lash, and sate the hound
Brought from good Spain with all his native taste
For human gore; then shall they hoe and plant
96
The government maintain, and on the cross,
Bleeding and nailed for life, die in their tears.
That fatal freedom to this hour ruled all!
But for a son of justice, lent from heaven,
Great Ossawatomie; who dashed his own,
His children's hearts against the demon-power,
And broke the captive's chain, and gave his name
Such glory as shall still less fade from thought,
(As time demanding damns the slavish fiends
Who drank his blood), but all the more blaze forth!
Oft on the marge of that small isle I sat,
Recalling all I knew about the sea,
And how much pleasure I to it had owed,—
A sheltered island tenderly caressed
In the soft billows, parted from the main
By a continuous beach, that miles along
Lists to the wail of ocean, and the cry
Of the light sand-piper: daintily his way
He picks along the cobbles of the marge,
Nor fears the wild commotion. In these frail,
These touching correspondences of love
In nature's vast dominion, man should build,
If anywhere, foundations for his creed,
And find on Alpine summits daisies bright,
And beds in bloom, fragrant of strawberry,—
There, on the concave of the eternal snow!
Recalling all I knew about the sea,
And how much pleasure I to it had owed,—
A sheltered island tenderly caressed
In the soft billows, parted from the main
By a continuous beach, that miles along
Lists to the wail of ocean, and the cry
Of the light sand-piper: daintily his way
He picks along the cobbles of the marge,
97
These touching correspondences of love
In nature's vast dominion, man should build,
If anywhere, foundations for his creed,
And find on Alpine summits daisies bright,
And beds in bloom, fragrant of strawberry,—
There, on the concave of the eternal snow!
At times, I traced the fast foam-speeding boats
Whirl like the herring gulls along their track,
As if about to sink in ocean's maze,
Then in the narrowing pass obscurely lost,
I saw them turn, and with forecasting skill
Against the wind, a sinuous course retrace.
Not the mysterious voice that Hugo hears
Comes forth to them from ocean; not to them,
But a poor rag their canvas stilled the gale;
To such the sea is but another field,
Their saving care like the dry husbandman's,—
Fishers of men? That voice they seldom hear.
Save the old cedars eying the four winds,
Pledged to the azure sky and the gray stones,
And russet fields, parched in the July sun,
Upon that isle, Poseidon more is king,
Than lobster-fishers skimming o'er the wave.
Here, in the rudest clime of all our year,—
In stern December,—touched the Pilgrim boat,
Shallop then called; just where I muse, perchance;
And onward marched the crew, and sought the rock
Loftiest of all, to view the neighboring bay,
Albeit the isle should then in thickset wood
Have closed their view,—came off the Mayflower,
While their worn vessel lay outside the beach.
O'erhead December's frown, ice at their feet,
And the old ghostly cedars whispering, “Peace!”
Grandly they raised a hymn of cheerful faith;
The sacred chorus mixing with the gale,
And stormy snow-cloud trailing down the path.
Far lay their homes,—those English homes so dear;
Vacant their hearthstones, and their fields untrod;
Soft with Atlantic mist their vaporous skies
Draping with mossy wreaths the churchyard-stones;
Their hallowed abbeys sweet with eglantine
And old traditions in the English heart,
Built up of love. Oh, unlike this, so drear!
A savage air they never felt before
Amid the ice-clad bowlders on the snows;
The owl far hooting and the panther's scream,
And Indian war-cry echoing down the wood,
And fears, in courage quenched forevermore.
Whirl like the herring gulls along their track,
As if about to sink in ocean's maze,
Then in the narrowing pass obscurely lost,
I saw them turn, and with forecasting skill
Against the wind, a sinuous course retrace.
Not the mysterious voice that Hugo hears
Comes forth to them from ocean; not to them,
But a poor rag their canvas stilled the gale;
To such the sea is but another field,
Their saving care like the dry husbandman's,—
Fishers of men? That voice they seldom hear.
Save the old cedars eying the four winds,
98
And russet fields, parched in the July sun,
Upon that isle, Poseidon more is king,
Than lobster-fishers skimming o'er the wave.
Here, in the rudest clime of all our year,—
In stern December,—touched the Pilgrim boat,
Shallop then called; just where I muse, perchance;
And onward marched the crew, and sought the rock
Loftiest of all, to view the neighboring bay,
Albeit the isle should then in thickset wood
Have closed their view,—came off the Mayflower,
While their worn vessel lay outside the beach.
O'erhead December's frown, ice at their feet,
And the old ghostly cedars whispering, “Peace!”
Grandly they raised a hymn of cheerful faith;
The sacred chorus mixing with the gale,
And stormy snow-cloud trailing down the path.
Far lay their homes,—those English homes so dear;
Vacant their hearthstones, and their fields untrod;
Soft with Atlantic mist their vaporous skies
Draping with mossy wreaths the churchyard-stones;
99
And old traditions in the English heart,
Built up of love. Oh, unlike this, so drear!
A savage air they never felt before
Amid the ice-clad bowlders on the snows;
The owl far hooting and the panther's scream,
And Indian war-cry echoing down the wood,
And fears, in courage quenched forevermore.
| The Wanderer | |