 | The poetical works of Lucy Larcom |  |
THE OLD HYMNS.
Our homely past we cannot lose:
The witch-wife's tingling tale
Adds a weird sparkle to these dews,
Spices this eastern gale.
The witch-wife's tingling tale
Adds a weird sparkle to these dews,
Spices this eastern gale.
The war-whoop and the tomahawk
Left iron in the air;
The Pilgrims' nerve and will of rock
Fell to their children's share.
Left iron in the air;
The Pilgrims' nerve and will of rock
Fell to their children's share.
But memory's voice grows low and thin,
As thunder, passing by,
Leaves a reverberating din,
Trailed faintly down the sky.
As thunder, passing by,
Leaves a reverberating din,
Trailed faintly down the sky.
Still, wandering over field and hill,
And surging up the beach,
Are songs that wake a nobler thrill
Than our new singers teach.
And surging up the beach,
Are songs that wake a nobler thrill
Than our new singers teach.
The psalm-tunes of the Puritan:
The hymns that dared to go
Down shuddering through the abyss of man,
His gulfs of conscious woe;
The hymns that dared to go
Down shuddering through the abyss of man,
His gulfs of conscious woe;
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That scaled the utmost height of bliss
Where the veiled seraph sings,
And worlds unseen brought down to this
On music's mighty wings:
Where the veiled seraph sings,
And worlds unseen brought down to this
On music's mighty wings:
The tunes the Plymouth Pilgrims sang
Upon the Mayflower's deck;
From hearts that knew no dread they rang,
And faith that feared no wreck.
Upon the Mayflower's deck;
From hearts that knew no dread they rang,
And faith that feared no wreck.
The rapt strain hallowed the blue arch
Above the settler's farm,
And held him, in his forest march,
Closer to God's right arm.
Above the settler's farm,
And held him, in his forest march,
Closer to God's right arm.
Its sweetness drowned the savage yell
That jarred the Sabbath day,
And calmed, as with a halcyon spell,
The billows of the bay.
That jarred the Sabbath day,
And calmed, as with a halcyon spell,
The billows of the bay.
The mother lulled her babe to sleep
With those grand cadences,
And felt him folded safe and deep
Within God's mysteries.
With those grand cadences,
And felt him folded safe and deep
Within God's mysteries.
And children's voices caught the sound,
And sent it up and down
In cherub-echoes, far around,
From seaside town to town.
And sent it up and down
In cherub-echoes, far around,
From seaside town to town.
From wild Nahant to Agawam,
Blent with the surf's hushed roar,
By creeks and curves of lonely Squam,
They floated down the shore.
Blent with the surf's hushed roar,
By creeks and curves of lonely Squam,
They floated down the shore.
The fisherman in Mackerel Cove
Rowed softly to the song;
By Mingo's Beach the farmer drove
More cheerily along;
Rowed softly to the song;
By Mingo's Beach the farmer drove
More cheerily along;
And thought that He who died still walked
Upon the Atlantic Sea;
On these wild hills with plain men talked
As once in Galilee.
Upon the Atlantic Sea;
On these wild hills with plain men talked
As once in Galilee.
The green earth seemed an emerald floor,
The sky was sweet with prayer;
The sunset, heaven's wide-open door;
Nay, heaven was everywhere.
The sky was sweet with prayer;
The sunset, heaven's wide-open door;
Nay, heaven was everywhere.
Then is it strange that at the sound
Of these old, hackneyed hymns
The pulses give a homesick bound,
The eye with moisture swims?
Of these old, hackneyed hymns
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The eye with moisture swims?
The long, quaint words, the hum-drum rhyme,
The verse that reads like prose,
Are relics of a sturdier time
Than modern childhood knows.
The verse that reads like prose,
Are relics of a sturdier time
Than modern childhood knows.
There comes a loss for every gain;
Some good drifts hourly by;
We tear up aged roots with pain,
Though the old trees must die.
Some good drifts hourly by;
We tear up aged roots with pain,
Though the old trees must die.
The radiance of the former hope
Still beckons in the new;
Dear is the Present's widening scope,
Dear the old landmark, too.
Still beckons in the new;
Dear is the Present's widening scope,
Dear the old landmark, too.
Ah! let us not forget the strength
That more than beauty is;
The steadfast truth we prize at length
Beyond weak tenderness!
That more than beauty is;
The steadfast truth we prize at length
Beyond weak tenderness!
And when we sing some hard old hymn,
That rings like flint on steel,
Let not a shade of mockery dim
The flame its words reveal.
That rings like flint on steel,
Let not a shade of mockery dim
The flame its words reveal.
But let our piping treble sound
Harmonious as it may,
With music loftier, more profound,
Of singers passed away!
Harmonious as it may,
With music loftier, more profound,
Of singers passed away!
Cape Ann has her own poets, nightingales
Warbling among her roses, rarely heard,
Except by those who woke that minstrelsy.
And she hath joy in other voices: hers
Who saw and pointed to the Gates Ajar
So earnestly, the world turned to look in;
And his whose rippling notes the Merrimack
Brings down to charm the coast with; Avery's chant,
Surging up from the seas and centuries
In dying triumph; and the marvelous tale
Of spectral soldiers at the garrison
In times of war and witchcraft; and that bard's
Whose tender Ballad of the Hesperus
Blooms, a sweet, pale, pathetic flower of song,
From the bare reef of Norman's Woe. Cool coves,
That open to blue breadths of sea; lost roads,
Wandering, bewildered, past forsaken homes,
House and inhabitant forgotten now,
And grass-grown cellar-hollows their sole sign;
Strange rocking-stones a-tilt for centuries;
White lily-ponds and dank magnolia-beds;
Sands that give music to your footstep; pines
Hoarse with forever answering the sea's moan,—
These will awaken to poetic life
In hearts of unborn minstrels. Though too late
For resurrection of dead legends now,
Though Woes and Miseries haunt us, unexplained,
Though all the dangerous coast is lighted up,
Safe as a city street by night,—the gleam
Of Straitsmouth, Eastern Point, and Ten Pound Light,
And Thacher's Isle, twin-beaconed, winking back
To twinkling sister-eyes of Baker's Isle,—
Prosaic names await romantic births.
Man makes his own traditions; life and death
And love and sorrow baffle commonplace;
And Poesy will find her wilderness
Of fancy to grow up in, blithely free
From pedant-theories of thus and so,
That fence the schools around.
Yon gaping gorge,
Where the sea wounds the half-unconscious land
Deeply and terribly, already knows
A tale more tragic than its name conceals,
Left by the visitors of a summer's day.
Warbling among her roses, rarely heard,
Except by those who woke that minstrelsy.
And she hath joy in other voices: hers
Who saw and pointed to the Gates Ajar
So earnestly, the world turned to look in;
And his whose rippling notes the Merrimack
Brings down to charm the coast with; Avery's chant,
Surging up from the seas and centuries
In dying triumph; and the marvelous tale
Of spectral soldiers at the garrison
In times of war and witchcraft; and that bard's
Whose tender Ballad of the Hesperus
Blooms, a sweet, pale, pathetic flower of song,
From the bare reef of Norman's Woe. Cool coves,
That open to blue breadths of sea; lost roads,
Wandering, bewildered, past forsaken homes,
House and inhabitant forgotten now,
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Strange rocking-stones a-tilt for centuries;
White lily-ponds and dank magnolia-beds;
Sands that give music to your footstep; pines
Hoarse with forever answering the sea's moan,—
These will awaken to poetic life
In hearts of unborn minstrels. Though too late
For resurrection of dead legends now,
Though Woes and Miseries haunt us, unexplained,
Though all the dangerous coast is lighted up,
Safe as a city street by night,—the gleam
Of Straitsmouth, Eastern Point, and Ten Pound Light,
And Thacher's Isle, twin-beaconed, winking back
To twinkling sister-eyes of Baker's Isle,—
Prosaic names await romantic births.
Man makes his own traditions; life and death
And love and sorrow baffle commonplace;
And Poesy will find her wilderness
Of fancy to grow up in, blithely free
From pedant-theories of thus and so,
That fence the schools around.
Yon gaping gorge,
Where the sea wounds the half-unconscious land
Deeply and terribly, already knows
A tale more tragic than its name conceals,
Left by the visitors of a summer's day.
| The poetical works of Lucy Larcom | |