 | The poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich |  |
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THE SISTERS' TRAGEDY WITH OTHER POEMS
THE SISTERS' TRAGEDY
A. D. 1670
Agläe, a widow.
Muriel, her unmarried sister.
Muriel, her unmarried sister.
It happened once, in that brave land that lies
Wrapped half the year in mist and sombre skies,
Two sisters loved one man. He being dead,
Grief loosed the lips of her he had not wed,
And all the passion that through heavy years
Had masked in smiles unmasked itself in tears.
No purer love may mortals know than this,
The hidden love that guards another's bliss.
Wrapped half the year in mist and sombre skies,
Two sisters loved one man. He being dead,
Grief loosed the lips of her he had not wed,
And all the passion that through heavy years
Had masked in smiles unmasked itself in tears.
No purer love may mortals know than this,
The hidden love that guards another's bliss.
High in a turret's westward-facing room,
Whose painted window held the sunset's bloom,
The two together grieving, each to each
Unveiled her soul with sobs and broken speech.
Both still were young, in life's rich summer yet
And one was dark, with tints of violet
In hair and eyes, and one was blond as she
Who rose—a second daybreak—from the sea,
Gold-tressed and azure-eyed. In that lone place,
Like dusk and dawn, they sat there face to face.
Whose painted window held the sunset's bloom,
The two together grieving, each to each
Unveiled her soul with sobs and broken speech.
Both still were young, in life's rich summer yet
And one was dark, with tints of violet
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Who rose—a second daybreak—from the sea,
Gold-tressed and azure-eyed. In that lone place,
Like dusk and dawn, they sat there face to face.
She spoke the first whose strangely silvering hair
No wreath had worn, nor widow's weed might wear,
And told her blameless love, and knew no shame—
Her holy love that, like a vestal flame
Beside the sacred body of some queen
Within a guarded crypt, had burned unseen
From weary year to year. And she who heard
Smiled proudly through her tears and said no word,
But, drawing closer, on the troubled brow
Laid one long kiss, and that was words enow!
No wreath had worn, nor widow's weed might wear,
And told her blameless love, and knew no shame—
Her holy love that, like a vestal flame
Beside the sacred body of some queen
Within a guarded crypt, had burned unseen
From weary year to year. And she who heard
Smiled proudly through her tears and said no word,
But, drawing closer, on the troubled brow
Laid one long kiss, and that was words enow!
MURIEL
Be still, my heart! Grown patient with thine ache
Thou shouldst be dumb, yet needs must speak, or break.
The world is empty now that he is gone.
AGLÄE
Ay, sweetheart!
MURIEL
None was like him, no, not one.
From other men he stood apart, alone
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Nothing all evil was it his to know;
His charity still found some germ, some spark
Of light in natures that seemed wholly dark.
He read men's souls; the lowly and the high
Moved on the self-same level in his eye.
Gracious to all, to none subservient,
Without offence he spake the word he meant—
His word no trick of tact or courtly art,
But the white flowering of the noble heart.
Careless he was of much the world counts gain,
Careless of self, too simple to be vain,
Yet strung so finely that for conscience' sake
He would have gone like Cranmer to the stake.
I saw—how could I help but love? And you—
AGLÄE
At this perfection did I worship too ...
'Twas this that stabbed me. Heed not what I say!
I meant it not, my wits are gone astray,
With all that is and has been. No, I lie—
Had he been less perfection, happier I!
MURIEL
Strange words and wild! 'Tis the distracted mind
Breathes them, not you, and I no meaning find.
AGLÄE
Yet 't were as plain as writing on a scroll
Had you but eyes to read within my soul.—
How a grief hidden feeds on its own mood,
Poisons the healthful currents of the blood
With bitterness, and turns the heart to stone!
I think, in truth, 'twere better to make moan,
And so be done with it. This many a year,
Sweetheart, have I laughed lightly and made cheer,
Pierced through with sorrow!
Had you but eyes to read within my soul.—
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Poisons the healthful currents of the blood
With bitterness, and turns the heart to stone!
I think, in truth, 'twere better to make moan,
And so be done with it. This many a year,
Sweetheart, have I laughed lightly and made cheer,
Pierced through with sorrow!
Then the widowed one
With sorrowfullest eyes beneath the sun,
Faltered, irresolute, and bending low
Her head, half whispered,
With sorrowfullest eyes beneath the sun,
Faltered, irresolute, and bending low
Her head, half whispered,
“Dear, how could you know?
What masks are faces!—yours, unread by me
These seven long summers; mine, so placidly
Shielding my woe! No tremble of the lip,
No cheek's quick pallor let our secret slip!
Mere players we, and she that played the queen,
Now in her homespun, looks how poor and mean!
How shall I say it, how find words to tell
What thing it was for me made earth a hell
That else had been my heaven! 'T would blanch your cheek
Were I to speak it. Nay, but I will speak,
Since like two souls at compt we seem to stand,
Where nothing may be hidden. Hold my hand,
But look not at me! Noble 't was, and meet,
To hide your heart, nor fling it at his feet
To lie despised there. Thus saved you our pride
And that white honor for which earls have died.
You were not all unhappy, loving so!
I with a difference wore my weight of woe.
My lord was he. It was my cruel lot,
My hell, to love him—for he loved me not!”
What masks are faces!—yours, unread by me
These seven long summers; mine, so placidly
Shielding my woe! No tremble of the lip,
No cheek's quick pallor let our secret slip!
Mere players we, and she that played the queen,
Now in her homespun, looks how poor and mean!
How shall I say it, how find words to tell
What thing it was for me made earth a hell
That else had been my heaven! 'T would blanch your cheek
Were I to speak it. Nay, but I will speak,
Since like two souls at compt we seem to stand,
Where nothing may be hidden. Hold my hand,
But look not at me! Noble 't was, and meet,
To hide your heart, nor fling it at his feet
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And that white honor for which earls have died.
You were not all unhappy, loving so!
I with a difference wore my weight of woe.
My lord was he. It was my cruel lot,
My hell, to love him—for he loved me not!”
Then came a silence. Suddenly like death
The truth flashed on them, and each held her breath—
A flash of light whereby they both were slain,
She that was loved and she that loved in vain!
The truth flashed on them, and each held her breath—
A flash of light whereby they both were slain,
She that was loved and she that loved in vain!
ELMWOOD
IN MEMORY OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Here, in the twilight, at the well-known gate
I linger, with no heart to enter more.
Among the elm-tops the autumnal air
Murmurs, and spectral in the fading light
A solitary heron wings its way
Southward—save this no sound or touch of life.
Dark is that window where the scholar's lamp
Was used to catch a pallor from the dawn.
I linger, with no heart to enter more.
Among the elm-tops the autumnal air
Murmurs, and spectral in the fading light
A solitary heron wings its way
Southward—save this no sound or touch of life.
Dark is that window where the scholar's lamp
Was used to catch a pallor from the dawn.
Yet I must needs a little linger here.
Each shrub and tree is eloquent of him,
For tongueless things and silence have their speech.
This is the path familiar to his foot
From infancy to manhood and old age;
For in a chamber of that ancient house
His eyes first opened on the mystery
Of life, and all the splendor of the world.
Here, as a child, in loving, curious way,
He watched the bluebird's coming; learned the date
Of hyacinth and goldenrod, and made
Friends of those little redmen of the elms,
And slyly added to their winter store
Of hazel-nuts: no harmless thing that breathed,
Footed or winged, but knew him for a friend.
The gilded butterfly was not afraid
To trust its gold to that so gentle hand,
The bluebird fled not from the pendent spray.
Ah, happy childhood, ringed with fortunate stars!
What dreams were his in this enchanted sphere,
What intuitions of high destiny!
The honey-bees of Hybla touched his lips
In that old New-World garden, unawares.
Each shrub and tree is eloquent of him,
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This is the path familiar to his foot
From infancy to manhood and old age;
For in a chamber of that ancient house
His eyes first opened on the mystery
Of life, and all the splendor of the world.
Here, as a child, in loving, curious way,
He watched the bluebird's coming; learned the date
Of hyacinth and goldenrod, and made
Friends of those little redmen of the elms,
And slyly added to their winter store
Of hazel-nuts: no harmless thing that breathed,
Footed or winged, but knew him for a friend.
The gilded butterfly was not afraid
To trust its gold to that so gentle hand,
The bluebird fled not from the pendent spray.
Ah, happy childhood, ringed with fortunate stars!
What dreams were his in this enchanted sphere,
What intuitions of high destiny!
The honey-bees of Hybla touched his lips
In that old New-World garden, unawares.
So in her arms did Mother Nature fold
Her poet, breathing what of strange and sweet
Into his ear—the state-affairs of birds,
The lore of dawn and sunset, what the wind
Said in the treetops—fine, unfathomed things
Henceforth to turn to music in his brain:
A various music, now like notes of flutes,
And now like blasts of trumpets blown in wars.
Later he paced this leafy academe
A student, drinking from Greek chalices
The ripened vintage of the antique world.
And here to him came love, and love's dear loss;
Here honors came, the deep applause of men
Touched to the heart by some swift-wingéd word
That from his own full heart took eager flight—
Some strain of piercing sweetness or rebuke,
For underneath his gentle nature flamed
A noble scorn for all ignoble deed,
Himself a bondman till all men were free.
Her poet, breathing what of strange and sweet
Into his ear—the state-affairs of birds,
The lore of dawn and sunset, what the wind
Said in the treetops—fine, unfathomed things
Henceforth to turn to music in his brain:
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And now like blasts of trumpets blown in wars.
Later he paced this leafy academe
A student, drinking from Greek chalices
The ripened vintage of the antique world.
And here to him came love, and love's dear loss;
Here honors came, the deep applause of men
Touched to the heart by some swift-wingéd word
That from his own full heart took eager flight—
Some strain of piercing sweetness or rebuke,
For underneath his gentle nature flamed
A noble scorn for all ignoble deed,
Himself a bondman till all men were free.
Thus passed his manhood; then to other lands
He strayed, a stainless figure among courts
Beside the Manzanares and the Thames.
Whence, after too long exile, he returned
With fresher laurel, but sedater step
And eye more serious, fain to breathe the air
Where through the Cambridge marshes the blue Charles
Uncoils its length and stretches to the sea:
Stream dear to him, at every curve a shrine
For pilgrim Memory. Again he watched
His loved syringa whitening by the door,
And knew the catbird's welcome; in his walks
Smiled on his tawny kinsmen of the elms
Stealing his nuts; and in the ruined year
Sat at his widowed hearthside with bent brows
Leonine, frosty with the breath of time,
And listened to the crooning of the wind
In the wide Elmwood chimneys, as of old.
And then—and then ...
He strayed, a stainless figure among courts
Beside the Manzanares and the Thames.
Whence, after too long exile, he returned
With fresher laurel, but sedater step
And eye more serious, fain to breathe the air
Where through the Cambridge marshes the blue Charles
Uncoils its length and stretches to the sea:
Stream dear to him, at every curve a shrine
For pilgrim Memory. Again he watched
His loved syringa whitening by the door,
And knew the catbird's welcome; in his walks
Smiled on his tawny kinsmen of the elms
Stealing his nuts; and in the ruined year
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Leonine, frosty with the breath of time,
And listened to the crooning of the wind
In the wide Elmwood chimneys, as of old.
And then—and then ...
The afterglow has faded from the elms,
And in the denser darkness of the boughs
From time to time the firefly's tiny lamp
Sparkles. How often in still summer dusks
He paused to note that transient phantom spark
Flash on the air—a light that outlasts him!
And in the denser darkness of the boughs
From time to time the firefly's tiny lamp
Sparkles. How often in still summer dusks
He paused to note that transient phantom spark
Flash on the air—a light that outlasts him!
The night grows chill, as if it felt a breath
Blown from that frozen city where he lies.
All things turn strange. The leaf that rustles here
Has more than autumn's mournfulness. The place
Is heavy with his absence. Like fixed eyes
Whence the dear light of sense and thought has fled
The vacant windows stare across the lawn.
The wise sweet spirit that informed it all
Is otherwhere. The house itself is dead.
O autumn wind among the sombre pines,Blown from that frozen city where he lies.
All things turn strange. The leaf that rustles here
Has more than autumn's mournfulness. The place
Is heavy with his absence. Like fixed eyes
Whence the dear light of sense and thought has fled
The vacant windows stare across the lawn.
The wise sweet spirit that informed it all
Is otherwhere. The house itself is dead.
Breathe you his dirge, but be it sweet and low,
With deep refrains and murmurs of the sea,
Like to his verse—the art is yours alone.
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Tender and low, O wind among the pines!
WHITE EDITH
Above an ancient book, with a knight's crest
In tarnished gold on either cover stamped,
She leaned, and read—a chronicle it was
In which the sound of hautboys stirred the pulse,
And masques and gilded pageants fed the eye.
Though here and there the vellum page was stained
Sanguine with battle, chiefly it was love
The stylus held—some wan-cheeked scribe, perchance,
That in a mouldy tower by candle-light
Forgot his hunger in his madrigals.
Outside was winter: in its winding-sheet
The frozen Year lay. Silent was the room,
Save when the wind against the casement pressed
Or a page rustled, turned impatiently,
Or when along the still damp apple-wood
A little flame ran that chirped like a bird—
Some wren's ghost haunting the familiar bough.
In tarnished gold on either cover stamped,
She leaned, and read—a chronicle it was
In which the sound of hautboys stirred the pulse,
And masques and gilded pageants fed the eye.
Though here and there the vellum page was stained
Sanguine with battle, chiefly it was love
The stylus held—some wan-cheeked scribe, perchance,
That in a mouldy tower by candle-light
Forgot his hunger in his madrigals.
Outside was winter: in its winding-sheet
The frozen Year lay. Silent was the room,
Save when the wind against the casement pressed
Or a page rustled, turned impatiently,
Or when along the still damp apple-wood
A little flame ran that chirped like a bird—
Some wren's ghost haunting the familiar bough.
With parted lips, in which less color lived
Than paints the pale wild-rose, she leaned and read.
From time to time her fingers unawares
Closed on the palm; and oft upon her cheek
The pallor died, and left such transient glow
As might from some rich chapel window fall
On a girl's cheek at prayer. So moved her soul,
From this dull age unshackled and divorced,
In far moon-haunted gardens of romance.
But once the wind that swept the palsied oaks,
As if new-pierced with sorrow, came and moaned
Close by the casement; then she raised her eyes,
The light of dreams still fringing them, and spoke:
“Tell me, good cousin, does this book say true?
Is it so fine a thing to be a queen?”
Than paints the pale wild-rose, she leaned and read.
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Closed on the palm; and oft upon her cheek
The pallor died, and left such transient glow
As might from some rich chapel window fall
On a girl's cheek at prayer. So moved her soul,
From this dull age unshackled and divorced,
In far moon-haunted gardens of romance.
But once the wind that swept the palsied oaks,
As if new-pierced with sorrow, came and moaned
Close by the casement; then she raised her eyes,
The light of dreams still fringing them, and spoke:
“Tell me, good cousin, does this book say true?
Is it so fine a thing to be a queen?”
As if a spell of incantation dwelt
In those soft syllables, before me stood.
Colored like life, the phantasm of a maid
Who, in the savage childhood of this world,
Was crowned by error, or through dark intent
Made queen, and for the durance of one day
The royal diadem and ermine wore.
In strange sort wore—for this queen fed the starved,
The naked clothed, threw open dungeon doors;
Could to no story list of suffering
But the full tear was lovely on her lash;
Taught Grief to smile, and wan Despair to hope;
Upon her stainless bosom pillowed Sin
Repentant at her feet—like Him of old;
Made even the kerns and wild-men of the fells,
That sniffing pillage clamored at the gate,
Gentler than doves by some unknown white art,
And saying to herself, “So, I am Queen!”
With lip all tremulous, held out her hand
To the crowd's kiss. What joy to ease the hurt
Of bruisèd hearts! As in a trance she walked
That live-long day. Then night came, and the stars,
And blissful sleep. But ere the birds were called
By bluebell chimes (unheard of mortal ear)
To matins in their branch-hung priories—
Ere yet the dawn its gleaming edge lay bare
Like to the burnished axe's subtle edge,
She, from her sleep's caresses roughly torn,
The meek eyes blinking in the torches' glare,
Upon a scaffold for her glory paid
Her cheeks' two roses. For it so befell
That from the Northland there was come a prince,
With a great clash of shields and trailing spears
Through the black portals of the breathless night,
To claim the sceptre. He no less would take
Than those same roses for his usury.
What less, in faith! The throne was rightly his
Of that sea-girdled isle; so to the block
Needs go the ringlets and the white swan-throat.
A touch of steel, a sudden darkness, then
Blue Heaven and all the hymning angel-choir!
No tears for her—keep tears for those who live
To mate with sin and shame, and have remorse
At last to light them to unhallowed earth.
Hers no such low-hung fortunes. Thus to stand
Supreme one instant at that dizzy height,
With no hoarse raven croaking in her ear
The certain doom, and then to have life's rose
Struck swiftly from the cheek, and so escape
Love's death, black treason, friend's ingratitude,
The pang of separation, chill of age,
The grief that in an empty cradle lies,
And all the unspoke sorrow women know—
That was, in truth, to have a happy reign!
Has thine been happier, Sovereign of the Sea,
In that long-mateless pilgrimage to death?
Or thine, whose beauty like a star illumed
Awhile the dark and angry sky of France,
Thy kingdom shrunken to two exiled graves?
Sweet old-world maid, a gentler fate was yours!
Would he had wed your story to his verse
Who from the misty land of legend brought
Helen of Troy to gladden English eyes.
There 's many a queen that lived her grandeur out,
Gray-haired and broken, might have envied you,
Your Majesty, that reigned a single day!
In those soft syllables, before me stood.
Colored like life, the phantasm of a maid
Who, in the savage childhood of this world,
Was crowned by error, or through dark intent
Made queen, and for the durance of one day
The royal diadem and ermine wore.
In strange sort wore—for this queen fed the starved,
The naked clothed, threw open dungeon doors;
Could to no story list of suffering
But the full tear was lovely on her lash;
Taught Grief to smile, and wan Despair to hope;
Upon her stainless bosom pillowed Sin
Repentant at her feet—like Him of old;
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That sniffing pillage clamored at the gate,
Gentler than doves by some unknown white art,
And saying to herself, “So, I am Queen!”
With lip all tremulous, held out her hand
To the crowd's kiss. What joy to ease the hurt
Of bruisèd hearts! As in a trance she walked
That live-long day. Then night came, and the stars,
And blissful sleep. But ere the birds were called
By bluebell chimes (unheard of mortal ear)
To matins in their branch-hung priories—
Ere yet the dawn its gleaming edge lay bare
Like to the burnished axe's subtle edge,
She, from her sleep's caresses roughly torn,
The meek eyes blinking in the torches' glare,
Upon a scaffold for her glory paid
Her cheeks' two roses. For it so befell
That from the Northland there was come a prince,
With a great clash of shields and trailing spears
Through the black portals of the breathless night,
To claim the sceptre. He no less would take
Than those same roses for his usury.
What less, in faith! The throne was rightly his
Of that sea-girdled isle; so to the block
Needs go the ringlets and the white swan-throat.
A touch of steel, a sudden darkness, then
Blue Heaven and all the hymning angel-choir!
No tears for her—keep tears for those who live
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At last to light them to unhallowed earth.
Hers no such low-hung fortunes. Thus to stand
Supreme one instant at that dizzy height,
With no hoarse raven croaking in her ear
The certain doom, and then to have life's rose
Struck swiftly from the cheek, and so escape
Love's death, black treason, friend's ingratitude,
The pang of separation, chill of age,
The grief that in an empty cradle lies,
And all the unspoke sorrow women know—
That was, in truth, to have a happy reign!
Has thine been happier, Sovereign of the Sea,
In that long-mateless pilgrimage to death?
Or thine, whose beauty like a star illumed
Awhile the dark and angry sky of France,
Thy kingdom shrunken to two exiled graves?
Sweet old-world maid, a gentler fate was yours!
Would he had wed your story to his verse
Who from the misty land of legend brought
Helen of Troy to gladden English eyes.
There 's many a queen that lived her grandeur out,
Gray-haired and broken, might have envied you,
Your Majesty, that reigned a single day!
All this, between two heart-throbs, as it were,
Flashed through my mind, so lightning-like is thought.
With lifted eyes expectant, there she sat
Whose words had sent my fancy over-sea,
Her lip still trembling with its own soft speech,
As for a moment trembles the curved spray
Whence some winged melody has taken flight.
How every circumstance of time and place
Upon the glass of memory lives again!—
The bleak New England road; the level boughs
Like bars of iron across the setting sun;
The gray ribbed clouds piled up against the West;
The window splashed with frost; the firelit room,
And in the antique chair that slight girl-shape,
The auburn braid about the saintly brows
Making a nimbus, and she white as snow!
Flashed through my mind, so lightning-like is thought.
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Whose words had sent my fancy over-sea,
Her lip still trembling with its own soft speech,
As for a moment trembles the curved spray
Whence some winged melody has taken flight.
How every circumstance of time and place
Upon the glass of memory lives again!—
The bleak New England road; the level boughs
Like bars of iron across the setting sun;
The gray ribbed clouds piled up against the West;
The window splashed with frost; the firelit room,
And in the antique chair that slight girl-shape,
The auburn braid about the saintly brows
Making a nimbus, and she white as snow!
“Dear Heart,” I said, “the humblest place is best
For gentle souls—the throne's foot, not the throne.
The storms that smite the dizzy solitudes
Where monarchs sit—most lonely folk are they!—
Oft leave the vale unscathed; there dwells content,
If so content have habitation here.
Never have I in annals read or rhyme
Of queen save one that found not at the end
The cup too bitter; never queen save one,
And she—her empire lasted but a day!
Yet that brief breath of time did she so fill
With mercy, love, and holy charity
As more rich made it than long-drawn-out years
Of such weed-life as drinks the lavish sun
And rots unflower'd.” “Straight tell me of that queen!”
Cried Edith; “Brunhild, in my legend here,
Is lovely—was that other still more fair?
And had she not a Siegfried at the court
To steal her talisman?—that Siegfried did
At Günther's bidding. Was your queen not loved?
Tell me it all!” With chin upon her palm
Resting, she listened, and within her eyes
The sapphire deepened as I told the tale
Of the girl-empress in the dawn of Time—
A flower that on the vermeil brink of May
Died, with its folded whiteness for a shroud;
A strain of music that, ere it was mixed
With baser voices, floated up to heaven.
For gentle souls—the throne's foot, not the throne.
The storms that smite the dizzy solitudes
Where monarchs sit—most lonely folk are they!—
Oft leave the vale unscathed; there dwells content,
If so content have habitation here.
Never have I in annals read or rhyme
Of queen save one that found not at the end
The cup too bitter; never queen save one,
And she—her empire lasted but a day!
Yet that brief breath of time did she so fill
With mercy, love, and holy charity
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Of such weed-life as drinks the lavish sun
And rots unflower'd.” “Straight tell me of that queen!”
Cried Edith; “Brunhild, in my legend here,
Is lovely—was that other still more fair?
And had she not a Siegfried at the court
To steal her talisman?—that Siegfried did
At Günther's bidding. Was your queen not loved?
Tell me it all!” With chin upon her palm
Resting, she listened, and within her eyes
The sapphire deepened as I told the tale
Of the girl-empress in the dawn of Time—
A flower that on the vermeil brink of May
Died, with its folded whiteness for a shroud;
A strain of music that, ere it was mixed
With baser voices, floated up to heaven.
Without was silence, for the wind was spent
That all the day had pleaded at the door.
Against the crimson sunset elm and oak
Stood black and motionless; among the boughs
The sad wind slumbered. Silence filled the room,
Save when from out the crumbled apple branch
Came the wren's twitter, faint, and fainter now,
Like a bird's note far heard in twilight woods.
No other sound was. Presently a hand
Stole into mine, and rested there, inert,
Like some new-gathered snowy hyacinth,
So white and cold and delicate it was.
I know not what dark shadow crossed my heart,
What vague presentiment, but as I stooped
To lift the slender fingers to my lip,
I saw it through a mist of strangest tears—
The thin white hand invisible Death had touched!
That all the day had pleaded at the door.
Against the crimson sunset elm and oak
Stood black and motionless; among the boughs
The sad wind slumbered. Silence filled the room,
Save when from out the crumbled apple branch
Came the wren's twitter, faint, and fainter now,
Like a bird's note far heard in twilight woods.
No other sound was. Presently a hand
Stole into mine, and rested there, inert,
Like some new-gathered snowy hyacinth,
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I know not what dark shadow crossed my heart,
What vague presentiment, but as I stooped
To lift the slender fingers to my lip,
I saw it through a mist of strangest tears—
The thin white hand invisible Death had touched!
SEA LONGINGS
The first world-sound that fell upon my ear
Was that of the great winds along the coast
Crushing the deep-sea beryl on the rocks—
The distant breakers' sullen cannonade.
Against the spires and gables of the town
The white fog drifted, catching here and there
At over-leaning cornice or peaked roof,
And hung—weird gonfalons. The garden walks
Were choked with leaves, and on their ragged biers
Lay dead the sweets of summer—damask rose,
Clove pink, old-fashioned, loved New England flowers.
Only keen salt sea-odors filled the air.
Sea-sounds, sea-odors—these were all my world.
Was that of the great winds along the coast
Crushing the deep-sea beryl on the rocks—
The distant breakers' sullen cannonade.
Against the spires and gables of the town
The white fog drifted, catching here and there
At over-leaning cornice or peaked roof,
And hung—weird gonfalons. The garden walks
Were choked with leaves, and on their ragged biers
Lay dead the sweets of summer—damask rose,
Clove pink, old-fashioned, loved New England flowers.
Only keen salt sea-odors filled the air.
Sea-sounds, sea-odors—these were all my world.
Hence is it that life languishes with me
Inland; the valleys stifle me with gloom
And pent-up prospect; in their narrow bound
Imagination flutters futile wings.
Vainly I seek the sloping pearl-white sand
And the mirage's phantom citadels
Miraculous, a moment seen, then gone.
Among the mountains I am ill at ease,
Missing the stretched horizon's level line
And the illimitable restless blue.
The crag-torn sky is not the sky I love,
But one unbroken sapphire spanning all;
And nobler than the branches of a pine
Aslant upon a mountain-torrent's brink
Are the strained spars of some great battle-ship
Ploughing across the sunset. No bird's lilt
So takes me as the whistling of the gale
Among the shrouds. My cradle-song was this,
Strange inarticulate sorrows of the sea,
Blithe rhythms upgathered from the Sirens' caves.
Perchance of earthly voices the last voice
That shall an instant my freed spirit stay
On this world's verge, will be some message blown
Over the dim salt lands that fringe the coast
At dusk, or when the trancèd midnight droops
With weight of stars, or haply just as dawn,
Illumining the sullen purple wave,
Turns the gray pools and willow-stems to gold.
Inland; the valleys stifle me with gloom
And pent-up prospect; in their narrow bound
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Vainly I seek the sloping pearl-white sand
And the mirage's phantom citadels
Miraculous, a moment seen, then gone.
Among the mountains I am ill at ease,
Missing the stretched horizon's level line
And the illimitable restless blue.
The crag-torn sky is not the sky I love,
But one unbroken sapphire spanning all;
And nobler than the branches of a pine
Aslant upon a mountain-torrent's brink
Are the strained spars of some great battle-ship
Ploughing across the sunset. No bird's lilt
So takes me as the whistling of the gale
Among the shrouds. My cradle-song was this,
Strange inarticulate sorrows of the sea,
Blithe rhythms upgathered from the Sirens' caves.
Perchance of earthly voices the last voice
That shall an instant my freed spirit stay
On this world's verge, will be some message blown
Over the dim salt lands that fringe the coast
At dusk, or when the trancèd midnight droops
With weight of stars, or haply just as dawn,
Illumining the sullen purple wave,
Turns the gray pools and willow-stems to gold.
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THE BELLS AT MIDNIGHT
In their dark House of Cloud
The three weird sisters toil till time be sped;
One unwinds life, one ever weaves the shroud,
One waits to part the thread.
The three weird sisters toil till time be sped;
One unwinds life, one ever weaves the shroud,
One waits to part the thread.
I
CLOTHO
How long, O sister, how long
Ere the weary task is done?
How long, O sister, how long
Shall the fragile thread be spun?
Ere the weary task is done?
How long, O sister, how long
Shall the fragile thread be spun?
LACHESIS
'T is mercy that stays her hand,
Else she had cut the thread;
She is a woman too,
Like her who kneels by his bed!
Else she had cut the thread;
She is a woman too,
Like her who kneels by his bed!
ATROPOS
Patience! the end is come;
He shall no more endure:
See! with a single touch!—
My hand is swift and sure!
He shall no more endure:
See! with a single touch!—
My hand is swift and sure!
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II
Two Angels pausing in their flightFIRST ANGEL
Listen! what was it fell
An instant ago on my ear—
A sound like the throb of a bell
From yonder darkling sphere.
SECOND ANGEL
The planet where mortals dwell!
I hear it not ... yes, I hear;
How it deepens—a sound of dole!
FIRST ANGEL
Listen! It is the knell
Of a passing soul—
The midnight lamentation
Of some stricken nation
For a chieftain's soul!
It is just begun,
The many-throated moan ...
Now the clangor swells
As if a million bells
Had blent their tones in one!
Accents of despair
Are these to mortal ear;
But all this wild funereal music blown
275
Turns to triumphal pæans here!
Wave upon wave the silvery anthems flow;
Wave upon wave the deep vibrations roll
From that dim sphere below.
Come, let us go—
Surely, some chieftain's soul!
The death of President Garfield was announced at midnight by the tolling of church bells throughout the land.
UNGUARDED GATES
Wide open and unguarded stand our gates,
Named of the four winds, North, South, East, and West;
Portals that lead to an enchanted land
Of cities, forests, fields of living gold,
Vast prairies, lordly summits touched with snow,
Majestic rivers sweeping proudly past
The Arab's date-palm and the Norseman's pine—
A realm wherein are fruits of every zone,
Airs of all climes, for lo! throughout the year
The red rose blossoms somewhere—a rich land,
A later Eden planted in the wilds,
With not an inch of earth within its bound
But if a slave's foot press it sets him free.
Here, it is written, Toil shall have its wage,
And Honor honor, and the humblest man
Stand level with the highest in the law.
Of such a land have men in dungeons dreamed,
And with the vision brightening in their eyes
Gone smiling to the fagot and the sword.
Named of the four winds, North, South, East, and West;
Portals that lead to an enchanted land
Of cities, forests, fields of living gold,
Vast prairies, lordly summits touched with snow,
Majestic rivers sweeping proudly past
The Arab's date-palm and the Norseman's pine—
A realm wherein are fruits of every zone,
Airs of all climes, for lo! throughout the year
The red rose blossoms somewhere—a rich land,
A later Eden planted in the wilds,
With not an inch of earth within its bound
But if a slave's foot press it sets him free.
Here, it is written, Toil shall have its wage,
And Honor honor, and the humblest man
276
Of such a land have men in dungeons dreamed,
And with the vision brightening in their eyes
Gone smiling to the fagot and the sword.
Wide open and unguarded stand our gates,
And through them presses a wild motley throng—
Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes,
Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho,
Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav,
Flying the Old World's poverty and scorn;
These bringing with them unknown gods and rites,
Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws.
In street and alley what strange tongues are loud,
Accents of menace alien to our air,
Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew!
And through them presses a wild motley throng—
Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes,
Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho,
Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav,
Flying the Old World's poverty and scorn;
These bringing with them unknown gods and rites,
Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws.
In street and alley what strange tongues are loud,
Accents of menace alien to our air,
Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew!
O Liberty, white Goddess! is it well
To leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast
Fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of fate,
Lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel
Stay those who to thy sacred portals come
To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a care
Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn
And trampled in the dust. For so of old
The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome,
And where the temples of the Cæsars stood
The lean wolf unmolested made her lair.
To leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast
Fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of fate,
Lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel
Stay those who to thy sacred portals come
To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a care
Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn
And trampled in the dust. For so of old
The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome,
And where the temples of the Cæsars stood
The lean wolf unmolested made her lair.
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IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
“The Southern Transept, hardly known by any other name but Poets' Corner.”—
Dean Stanley.
Tread softly here; the sacredest of tombs
Are those that hold your Poets. Kings and queens
Are facile accidents of Time and Chance.
Chance sets them on the heights, they climb not there!
But he who from the darkling mass of men
Is on the wing of heavenly thought upborne
To finer ether, and becomes a voice
For all the voiceless, God anointed him:
His name shall be a star, his grave a shrine.
Are those that hold your Poets. Kings and queens
Are facile accidents of Time and Chance.
Chance sets them on the heights, they climb not there!
But he who from the darkling mass of men
Is on the wing of heavenly thought upborne
To finer ether, and becomes a voice
For all the voiceless, God anointed him:
His name shall be a star, his grave a shrine.
Tread softly here, in silent reverence tread.
Beneath those marble cenotaphs and urns
Lies richer dust than ever nature hid
Packed in the mountain's adamantine heart,
Or slyly wrapped in unsuspected sand—
The dross men toil for, and oft stain the soul.
How vain and all ignoble seems that greed
To him who stands in this dim claustral air
With these most sacred ashes at his feet!
This dust was Chaucer, Spenser, Dryden this—
The spark that once illumed it lingers still.
O ever hallowed spot of English earth!
If the unleashed and happy spirit of man
Have option to revisit our dull globe,
What august Shades at midnight here convene
In the miraculous sessions of the moon,
When the great pulse of London faintly throbs,
And one by one the constellations pale!
Beneath those marble cenotaphs and urns
Lies richer dust than ever nature hid
Packed in the mountain's adamantine heart,
Or slyly wrapped in unsuspected sand—
The dross men toil for, and oft stain the soul.
How vain and all ignoble seems that greed
To him who stands in this dim claustral air
With these most sacred ashes at his feet!
This dust was Chaucer, Spenser, Dryden this—
The spark that once illumed it lingers still.
O ever hallowed spot of English earth!
If the unleashed and happy spirit of man
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What august Shades at midnight here convene
In the miraculous sessions of the moon,
When the great pulse of London faintly throbs,
And one by one the constellations pale!
A SHADOW OF THE NIGHT
Close on the edge of a midsummer dawn
In troubled dreams I went from land to land,
Each seven-colored like the rainbow's arc,
Regions where never fancy's foot had trod
Till then; yet all the strangeness seemed not strange,
At which I wondered, reasoning in my dream
With two-fold sense, well knowing that I slept.
At last I came to this our cloud-hung earth,
And somewhere by the seashore was a grave,
A woman's grave, new-made, and heaped with flowers;
And near it stood an ancient holy man
That fain would comfort me, who sorrowed not
For this unknown dead woman at my feet.
But I, because his sacred office held
My reverence, listened; and 't was thus he spake.
“When next thou comest thou shalt find her still
In all the rare perfection that she was.
Thou shalt have gentle greeting of thy love!
Her eyelids will have turned to violets,
Her bosom to white lilies, and her breath
To roses. What is lovely never dies,
But passes into other loveliness,
Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower, or wingèd air.
If this befalls our poor unworthy flesh,
Think thee what destiny awaits the soul!
What glorious vesture it shall wear at last!”
While yet he spoke, seashore and grave and priest,
Vanished, and faintly from a neighboring spire
Fell five slow solemn strokes upon my ear.
Then I awoke with a keen pain at heart,
A sense of swift unutterable loss,
And through the darkness reached my hand to touch
Her cheek, soft pillowed on one restful palm—
To be quite sure!
In troubled dreams I went from land to land,
Each seven-colored like the rainbow's arc,
Regions where never fancy's foot had trod
Till then; yet all the strangeness seemed not strange,
At which I wondered, reasoning in my dream
With two-fold sense, well knowing that I slept.
At last I came to this our cloud-hung earth,
And somewhere by the seashore was a grave,
A woman's grave, new-made, and heaped with flowers;
And near it stood an ancient holy man
That fain would comfort me, who sorrowed not
For this unknown dead woman at my feet.
But I, because his sacred office held
My reverence, listened; and 't was thus he spake.
“When next thou comest thou shalt find her still
In all the rare perfection that she was.
279
Her eyelids will have turned to violets,
Her bosom to white lilies, and her breath
To roses. What is lovely never dies,
But passes into other loveliness,
Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower, or wingèd air.
If this befalls our poor unworthy flesh,
Think thee what destiny awaits the soul!
What glorious vesture it shall wear at last!”
While yet he spoke, seashore and grave and priest,
Vanished, and faintly from a neighboring spire
Fell five slow solemn strokes upon my ear.
Then I awoke with a keen pain at heart,
A sense of swift unutterable loss,
And through the darkness reached my hand to touch
Her cheek, soft pillowed on one restful palm—
To be quite sure!
THE LAST CÆSAR
1851–1870
I
Now there was one who came in later daysTo play at Emperor: in the dead of night
Stole crown and sceptre, and stood forth to light
In sudden purple. The dawn's straggling rays
280
With red hands at her throat—a piteous sight.
Then the new Cæsar, stricken with affright
At his own daring, shrank from public gaze
In the Elysèe, and had lost the day
But that around him flocked his birds of prey,
Sharp-beaked, voracious, hungry for the deed.
'Twixt hope and fear behold great Cæsar hang;
Meanwhile, methinks, a ghostly laughter rang
Through the rotunda of the Invalides.
II
What if the boulevards, at the set of sun,Reddened, but not with sunset's kindly glow?
What if from quai and square the murmured woe
Swept heavenward, pleadingly? The prize was won,
A kingling made and Liberty undone.
No Emperor, this, like him a while ago,
But his Name's shadow; that one struck the blow
Himself, and sighted the street-sweeping gun!
This was a man of tortuous heart and brain,
So warped he knew not his own point of view—
The master of a dark, mysterious smile.
And there he plotted, by the storied Seine
And in the fairy gardens of St. Cloud,
The Sphinx that puzzled Europe, for a while.
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III
I see him as men saw him once—a face
Of true Napoleon pallor; round the eyes
The wrinkled care; moustache spread pinion-wise,
Pointing his smile with odd sardonic grace
As wearily he turns him in his place,
And bends before the hoarse Parisian cries—
Then vanishes, with glitter of gold-lace
And trumpets blaring to the patient skies.
Of true Napoleon pallor; round the eyes
The wrinkled care; moustache spread pinion-wise,
Pointing his smile with odd sardonic grace
As wearily he turns him in his place,
And bends before the hoarse Parisian cries—
Then vanishes, with glitter of gold-lace
And trumpets blaring to the patient skies.
Not thus he vanished later! On his path
The Furies waited for the hour and man,
Foreknowing that they waited not in vain.
Then fell the day, O day of dreadful wrath!
Bow down in shame, O crimson-girt Sedan!
Weep, fair Alsace! weep, loveliest Lorraine!
The Furies waited for the hour and man,
Foreknowing that they waited not in vain.
Then fell the day, O day of dreadful wrath!
Bow down in shame, O crimson-girt Sedan!
Weep, fair Alsace! weep, loveliest Lorraine!
So mused I, sitting underneath the trees
In that old garden of the Tuileries,
Watching the dust of twilight sifting down
Through chestnut boughs just touched with autumn's brown—
Not twilight yet, but that illusive bloom
Which holds before the deep-etched shadows come;
For still the garden stood in golden mist,
Still, like a river of molten amethyst,
The Seine slipped through its spans of fretted stone,
And near the grille that once fenced in a throne,
The fountains still unbraided to the day
The unsubstantial silver of their spray.
A spot to dream in, love in, waste one's hours!
Temples and palaces, and gilded towers,
And fairy terraces!—and yet, and yet
Here in her woe came Marie Antoinette,
Came sweet Corday, Du Barry with shrill cry,
Not learning from her betters how to die!
Here, while the Nations watched with bated breath,
Was held the saturnalia of Red Death!
For where that slim Egyptian shaft uplifts
Its point to catch the dawn's and sunset's drifts
Of various gold, the busy Headsman stood. ...
Place de la Concorde—no, the Place of Blood!
In that old garden of the Tuileries,
Watching the dust of twilight sifting down
Through chestnut boughs just touched with autumn's brown—
Not twilight yet, but that illusive bloom
Which holds before the deep-etched shadows come;
For still the garden stood in golden mist,
Still, like a river of molten amethyst,
The Seine slipped through its spans of fretted stone,
282
The fountains still unbraided to the day
The unsubstantial silver of their spray.
A spot to dream in, love in, waste one's hours!
Temples and palaces, and gilded towers,
And fairy terraces!—and yet, and yet
Here in her woe came Marie Antoinette,
Came sweet Corday, Du Barry with shrill cry,
Not learning from her betters how to die!
Here, while the Nations watched with bated breath,
Was held the saturnalia of Red Death!
For where that slim Egyptian shaft uplifts
Its point to catch the dawn's and sunset's drifts
Of various gold, the busy Headsman stood. ...
Place de la Concorde—no, the Place of Blood!
And all so peaceful now! One cannot bring
Imagination to accept the thing.
Lies, all of it! some dreamer's wild romance—
High-hearted, witty, laughter-loving France!
In whose brain was it that the legend grew
Of Mænads shrieking in this avenue,
Of watch-fires burning, Famine standing guard,
Of long-speared Uhlans in that palace-yard!
What ruder sound this soft air ever smote
Than a bird's twitter or a bugle's note?
What darker crimson ever splashed these walks
Than that of rose-leaves dropping from the stalks?
And yet—what means that charred and broken wall,
That sculptured marble, splintered, like to fall,
Looming among the trees there? ... And you say
This happened, as it were, but yesterday?
And here the Commune stretched a barricade,
And there the final desperate stand was made?
Such things have been? How all things change and fade!
How little lasts in this brave world below!
Love dies; hate cools; the Cæsars come and go;
Gaunt Hunger fattens, and the weak grow strong.
Even Republics are not here for long!
Imagination to accept the thing.
Lies, all of it! some dreamer's wild romance—
High-hearted, witty, laughter-loving France!
In whose brain was it that the legend grew
Of Mænads shrieking in this avenue,
Of watch-fires burning, Famine standing guard,
Of long-speared Uhlans in that palace-yard!
What ruder sound this soft air ever smote
Than a bird's twitter or a bugle's note?
What darker crimson ever splashed these walks
Than that of rose-leaves dropping from the stalks?
283
That sculptured marble, splintered, like to fall,
Looming among the trees there? ... And you say
This happened, as it were, but yesterday?
And here the Commune stretched a barricade,
And there the final desperate stand was made?
Such things have been? How all things change and fade!
How little lasts in this brave world below!
Love dies; hate cools; the Cæsars come and go;
Gaunt Hunger fattens, and the weak grow strong.
Even Republics are not here for long!
Ah, who can tell what hour may bring the doom,
The lighted torch, the tocsin's heavy boom!
The lighted torch, the tocsin's heavy boom!
TENNYSON
I
Shakespeare and Milton—what third blazoned nameShall lips of after-ages link to these?
His who, beside the wild encircling seas,
Was England's voice, her voice with one acclaim,
284
Whose scorn gave pause to man's iniquities.
II
What strain was his in that Crimean war?A bugle-call in battle; a low breath,
Plaintive and sweet, above the fields of death!
So year by year the music rolled afar,
From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandahar,
Bearing the laurel or the cypress wreath.
III
Others shall have their little space of time,Their proper niche and bust, then fade away
Into the darkness, poets of a day;
But thou, O builder of enduring rhyme,
Thou shalt not pass! Thy fame in every clime
On earth shall live where Saxon speech has sway.
IV
Waft me this verse across the winter sea,Through light and dark, through mist and blinding sleet,
O winter winds, and lay it at his feet;
285
At his feet lay it: it may chance that he
Will find no gift, where reverence is, unmeet.
ALEC YEATON'S SON
GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720
The wind it wailed, the wind it moaned,
And the white caps flecked the sea;
“An' I would to God,” the skipper groaned,
“I had not my boy with me!”
And the white caps flecked the sea;
“An' I would to God,” the skipper groaned,
“I had not my boy with me!”
Snug in the stern-sheets, little John
Laughed as the scud swept by;
But the skipper's sunburnt cheek grew wan
As he watched the wicked sky.
Laughed as the scud swept by;
But the skipper's sunburnt cheek grew wan
As he watched the wicked sky.
“Would he were at his mother's side!”
And the skipper's eyes were dim.
“Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide,
What would become of him!
And the skipper's eyes were dim.
“Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide,
What would become of him!
“For me—my muscles are as steel,
For me let hap what may:
I might make shift upon the keel
Until the break o' day.
For me let hap what may:
I might make shift upon the keel
Until the break o' day.
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“But he, he is so weak and small,
So young, scarce learned to stand—
O pitying Father of us all,
I trust him in Thy hand!
So young, scarce learned to stand—
O pitying Father of us all,
I trust him in Thy hand!
“For Thou, who markest from on high
A sparrow's fall—each one!—
Surely, O Lord, thou 'lt have an eye
On Alec Yeaton's son!”
A sparrow's fall—each one!—
Surely, O Lord, thou 'lt have an eye
On Alec Yeaton's son!”
Then, steady, helm! Right straight he sailed
Towards the headland light:
The wind it moaned, the wind it wailed,
And black, black fell the night.
Towards the headland light:
The wind it moaned, the wind it wailed,
And black, black fell the night.
Then burst a storm to make one quail
Though housed from winds and waves—
They who could tell about that gale
Must rise from watery graves!
Though housed from winds and waves—
They who could tell about that gale
Must rise from watery graves!
Sudden it came, as sudden went;
Ere half the night was sped,
The winds were hushed, the waves were spent,
And the stars shone overhead.
Ere half the night was sped,
The winds were hushed, the waves were spent,
And the stars shone overhead.
Now, as the morning mist grew thin,
The folk on Gloucester shore
Saw a little figure floating in
Secure, on a broken oar!
The folk on Gloucester shore
Saw a little figure floating in
Secure, on a broken oar!
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Up rose the cry, “A wreck! a wreck!
Pull, mates, and waste no breath!”—
They knew it, though 't was but a speck
Upon the edge of death!
Pull, mates, and waste no breath!”—
They knew it, though 't was but a speck
Upon the edge of death!
Long did they marvel in the town
At God His strange decree,
That let the stalwart skipper drown
And the little child go free!
At God His strange decree,
That let the stalwart skipper drown
And the little child go free!
BATUSCHKA
From yonder gilded minaret
Beside the steel-blue Neva set,
I faintly catch, from time to time,
The sweet, aerial midnight chime—
“God save the Tsar!”
Beside the steel-blue Neva set,
I faintly catch, from time to time,
The sweet, aerial midnight chime—
“God save the Tsar!”
Above the ravelins and the moats
Of the white citadel it floats;
And men in dungeons far beneath
Listen, and pray, and gnash their teeth—
“God save the Tsar!”
Of the white citadel it floats;
And men in dungeons far beneath
Listen, and pray, and gnash their teeth—
“God save the Tsar!”
288
The soft reiterations sweep
Across the horror of their sleep,
As if some demon in his glee
Were mocking at their misery—
“God save the Tsar!”
Across the horror of their sleep,
As if some demon in his glee
Were mocking at their misery—
“God save the Tsar!”
In his Red Palace over there,
Wakeful, he needs must hear the prayer.
How can it drown the broken cries
Wrung from his children's agonies?—
“God save the Tsar!”
Wakeful, he needs must hear the prayer.
How can it drown the broken cries
Wrung from his children's agonies?—
“God save the Tsar!”
Father they called him from of old—
Batuschka! . . . How his heart is cold!
Wait till a million scourgèd men
Rise in their awful might, and then—
God save the Tsar!
Batuschka! . . . How his heart is cold!
Wait till a million scourgèd men
Rise in their awful might, and then—
God save the Tsar!
“Little Father,” or “Dear Little Father,” a term of endearment applied to the Tsar in Russian folk-song.
MONODY ON THE DEATH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS
I
One by one they goInto the unknown dark—
Starlit brows of the brave,
Voices that drew men's souls.
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Can give you dead like our dead!—
Such as he from whose hand
The magic web of romance
Slipped, and the art was lost!
Such as he who erewhile—
The last of the Titan brood—
With his thunder the Senate shook;
Or he who, beside the Charles,
Untouched of envy or hate,
Tranced the world with his song;
Or that other, that gray-eyed seer
Who in pastoral Concord ways
With Plato and Hâfiz walked.
II
Not of these was the manWhose wraith, through the mists of night,
Through the shuddering wintry stars,
Has passed to eternal morn.
Fit were the moan of the sea
And the clashing of cloud on cloud
For the passing of that soul!
Ever he faced the storm!
No weaver of rare romance,
No patient framer of laws,
No maker of wondrous rhyme,
No bookman wrapped in his dream.
290
In the fight like a bugle-call,
And yet could be tender and low
As when, on a night in June,
The hushed wind sobs in the pines.
His was the eye that flashed
With a sabre's azure gleam,
Pointing to heights unwon!
III
Not for him were these daysOf clerkly and sluggish calm—
To the petrel the swooping gale!
Austere he seemed, but the hearts
Of all men beat in his breast;
No fetter but galled his wrist,
No wrong that was not his own.
What if those eloquent lips
Curled with the old-time scorn?
What if in needless hours
His quick hand closed on the hilt?
'T was the smoke from the well-won fields
That clouded the veteran's eyes.
A fighter this to the end.
Ah, if in coming times
Some giant evil arise,
And Honor falter and pale,
His were a name to conjure with!
God send his like again!
Some giant evil arise,
291
His were a name to conjure with!
God send his like again!
TWO MOODS
I
Between the budding and the falling leaf
Stretch happy skies;
With colors and sweet cries
Of mating birds in uplands and in glades
The world is rife.
Then on a sudden all the music dies,
The color fades.
How fugitive and brief
Is mortal life
Between the budding and the falling leaf!
Stretch happy skies;
With colors and sweet cries
Of mating birds in uplands and in glades
The world is rife.
Then on a sudden all the music dies,
The color fades.
How fugitive and brief
Is mortal life
Between the budding and the falling leaf!
O short-breathed music, dying on the tongue
Ere half the mystic canticle be sung!
O harp of life, so speedily unstrung!
Who, if 't were his to choose, would know again
The bitter sweetness of the lost refrain,
Its rapture, and its pain?
Ere half the mystic canticle be sung!
O harp of life, so speedily unstrung!
Who, if 't were his to choose, would know again
The bitter sweetness of the lost refrain,
Its rapture, and its pain?
292
II
Though I be shut in darkness, and becomeInsentient dust blown idly here and there,
I count oblivion a scant price to pay
For having once had held against my lip
Life's brimming cup of hydromel and rue—
For having once known woman's holy love
And a child's kiss, and for a little space
Been boon companion to the Day and Night,
Fed on the odors of the summer dawn,
And folded in the beauty of the stars.
Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay,
And serve the potter as he turns his wheel,
I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears!
THE SHIPMAN'S TALE
Listen, my masters! I speak naught but truth.
From dawn to dawn they drifted on and on,
Not knowing whither nor to what dark end.
Now the North froze them, now the hot South scorched.
Some called to God, and found great comfort so;
Some gnashed their teeth with curses, and some laughed
An empty laughter, seeing they yet lived,
So sweet was breath between their foolish lips.
Day after day the same relentless sun,
Night after night the same unpitying stars.
At intervals fierce lightnings tore the clouds,
Showing vast hollow spaces, and the sleet
Hissed, and the torrents of the sky were loosed.
From time to time a hand relaxed its grip,
And some pale wretch slid down into the dark
With stifled moan, and transient horror seized
The rest who waited, knowing what must be.
At every turn strange shapes reached up and clutched
The whirling wreck, held on awhile, and then
Slipped back into that blackness whence they came.
Ah, hapless folk, to be so tossed and torn,
So racked by hunger, fever, fire, and wave,
And swept at last into the nameless void—
Frail girls, strong men, and mothers with their babes!
From dawn to dawn they drifted on and on,
Not knowing whither nor to what dark end.
Now the North froze them, now the hot South scorched.
Some called to God, and found great comfort so;
Some gnashed their teeth with curses, and some laughed
An empty laughter, seeing they yet lived,
293
Day after day the same relentless sun,
Night after night the same unpitying stars.
At intervals fierce lightnings tore the clouds,
Showing vast hollow spaces, and the sleet
Hissed, and the torrents of the sky were loosed.
From time to time a hand relaxed its grip,
And some pale wretch slid down into the dark
With stifled moan, and transient horror seized
The rest who waited, knowing what must be.
At every turn strange shapes reached up and clutched
The whirling wreck, held on awhile, and then
Slipped back into that blackness whence they came.
Ah, hapless folk, to be so tossed and torn,
So racked by hunger, fever, fire, and wave,
And swept at last into the nameless void—
Frail girls, strong men, and mothers with their babes!
And was none saved?
My masters, not a soul!
O shipman, woful, woful is thy tale!
Our hearts are heavy and our eyes are dimmed.
What ship is this that suffered such ill fate?
Our hearts are heavy and our eyes are dimmed.
What ship is this that suffered such ill fate?
What ship, my masters? Know ye not?—The World!
294
BROKEN MUSIC
A note
All out of tune in this world's instrument.
Amy Levy.
All out of tune in this world's instrument.
Amy Levy.
I know not in what fashion she was made,
Nor what her voice was, when she used to speak,
Nor if the silken lashes threw a shade
On wan or rosy cheek.
Nor what her voice was, when she used to speak,
Nor if the silken lashes threw a shade
On wan or rosy cheek.
I picture her with sorrowful vague eyes
Illumed with such strange gleams of inner light
As linger in the drift of London skies
Ere twilight turns to night.
Illumed with such strange gleams of inner light
As linger in the drift of London skies
Ere twilight turns to night.
I know not; I conjecture. 'T was a girl
That with her own most gentle desperate hand
From out God's mystic setting plucked life's pearl—
'T is hard to understand.
That with her own most gentle desperate hand
From out God's mystic setting plucked life's pearl—
'T is hard to understand.
So precious life is! Even to the old
The hours are as a miser's coins, and she—
Within her hands lay youth's unminted gold
And all felicity.
The hours are as a miser's coins, and she—
Within her hands lay youth's unminted gold
And all felicity.
The winged impetuous spirit, the white flame
That was her soul once, whither has it flown?
Above her brow gray lichens blot her name
Upon the carven stone.
That was her soul once, whither has it flown?
Above her brow gray lichens blot her name
Upon the carven stone.
295
This is her Book of Verses—wren-like notes,
Shy franknesses, blind gropings, haunting fears;
At times across the chords abruptly floats
A mist of passionate tears.
Shy franknesses, blind gropings, haunting fears;
At times across the chords abruptly floats
A mist of passionate tears.
A fragile lyre too tensely keyed and strung,
A broken music, weirdly incomplete:
Here a proud mind, self-baffled and self-stung,
Lies coiled in dark defeat.
A broken music, weirdly incomplete:
Here a proud mind, self-baffled and self-stung,
Lies coiled in dark defeat.
THE SAILING OF THE AUTOCRAT
ON BOARD THE S. S. CEPHALONIA April 26, 1886
I
O Wind and Wave, be kind to him!So, Wave and Wind, we give thee thanks!
O Fog, that from Newfoundland Banks
Makest the blue bright ocean dim,
Delay him not! And ye who snare
The wayworn shipman with your song,
Go pipe your ditties otherwhere
While this brave vessel ploughs along!
If still to lure him hold your thought,
O phantoms of the watery zone,
Be wary, lest yourselves get caught
With music sweeter than your own!
296
II
Yet, soft sea spirits, be not mute;Murmur about the prow, and make
Melodious the west wind's lute.
For him may radiant mornings break
From out the bosom of the deep,
And golden noons above him bend,
And kindly constellations keep
Bright vigils to his journey's end!
III
Take him, green Erin, to thy breast!Keep him, dark London—for a while!
In him we send thee of our best,
Our wisest word, our blithest smile—
Our epigram, alert and pat,
That kills with joy the folly hit—
Our Yankee Tsar, our Autocrat
Of all the happy realms of wit!
Take him and keep him—but forbear
To keep him more than half a year. ...
His presence will be sunshine there,
His absence will be shadow here!
October 7, 1894
“His absence will be shadow here”—A deeper shadow than I meant
297
And with my lightsome verses blent.
Another voyage was to be!—
The ship that bears him now from shore,
To plough an unknown, chartless sea,
Shall bring him back to us no more!
AT THE FUNERAL OF A MINOR POET
One of the Bearers soliloquises:
... Room in your heart for him, O Mother Earth,Who loved each flower and leaf that made you fair,
And sang your praise in verses manifold
And delicate, with here and there a line
From end to end in blossom like a bough
The May breathes on, so rich it was. Some thought
The workmanship more costly than the thing
Moulded or carved, as in those ornaments
Found at Mycenæ. And yet Nature's self
Works in this wise; upon a blade of grass,
Or what small note she lends the woodland thrush,
Lavishing endless patience. He was born
Artist, not artisan, which some few saw
And many dreamed not. As he wrote no odes
When Crœsus wedded or Mæcenas died,
And gave no breath to civic feasts and shows,
298
A twilight poet, groping quite alone,
Belated, in a sphere where every nest
Is emptied of its music and its wings.
Not great his gift; yet we can poorly spare
Even his slight perfection in an age
Of limping triolets and tame rondeaux.
He had at least ideals, though unreached,
And heard, far off, immortal harmonies,
Such as fall coldly on our ear to-day.
The mighty Zolaistic Movement now
Engrosses us—a miasmatic breath
Blown from the slums. We paint life as it is,
The hideous side of it, with careful pains,
Making a god of the dull Commonplace.
For have we not the old gods overthrown
And set up strangest idols? We would clip
Imagination's wing and kill delight,
Our sole art being to leave nothing out
That renders art offensive. Not for us
Madonnas leaning from their starry thrones
Ineffable, nor any heaven-wrought dream
Of sculptor or of poet; we prefer
Such nightmare visions as in morbid brains
Take form and substance, thoughts that taint the air
And make all life unlovely. Will it last?
Beauty alone endures from age to age,
299
Poets who walk with her on earth go hence
Bearing a talisman. You bury one,
With his hushed music, in some Potter's Field;
The snows and rains blot out his very name,
As he from life seems blotted: Time's glass
Slip the invisible and silent sands
That mark the century, then falls a day
The world is suddenly conscious of a flower,
Imperishable, ever to be prized,
Sprung from the mould of a forgotten grave.
'T is said the seeds wrapped up among the balms
And hieroglyphics of Egyptian kings
Hold strange vitality, and, planted, grow
After the lapse of thrice a thousand years.
Some day, perchance, some unregarded note
Of this dead Singer—some sweet minor chord
That failed to lure our more accustomed ear—
Shall wake to life, like those long buried seeds,
And witch the fancy of an unborn age.
Meanwhile he sleeps, with scantiest laurel won
And little of our Nineteenth Century gold.
So, take him, Earth, and this his mortal part,
With that shrewd alchemy thou hast, transmute
To flower and leaf in thine unending Springs!
300
SARGENT'S PORTRAIT OF EDWIN BOOTH AT “THE PLAYERS”
1891
That face which no man ever sawAnd from his memory banished quite,
With eyes in which are Hamlet's awe
And Cardinal Richelieu's subtle light
Looks from this frame. A master's hand
Has set the master-player here,
In the fair temple that he planned
Not for himself. To us most dear
This image of him! “It was thus
He looked; such pallor touched his cheek;
With that same grace he greeted us—
Nay, 't is the man, could it but speak!”
Sad words that shall be said some day—
Far fall the day! O cruel Time,
Whose breath sweeps mortal things away,
Spare long this image of his prime,
That others standing in the place
Where, save as ghosts, we come no more,
May know what sweet majestic face
The gentle Prince of Players wore!
The club-house in Gramercy Park, New York, was the gift of Mr. Booth to the association founded by him and named “The Players.”
301
“WHEN FROM THE TENSE CHORDS OF THAT MIGHTY LYRE”
January, 1892
I
When from the tense chords of that mighty lyreThe Master's hand, relaxing, falls away,
And those rich strings are silent for all time,
Then shall Love pine, and Passion lack her fire,
And Faith seem voiceless. Man to man shall say,
“Dead is the last of England's lords of rhyme.”
II
Yet—stay! there 's one, a later laurelled brow,With purple blood of poets in his veins;
Him has the Muse claimed; him might Marlowe own;
Greek Sappho's son!—men's praises seek him now.
Happy the realm where one such voice remains!
His the dropped wreath and the unenvied throne.
302
III
The wreath the world gives, not the mimic wreathThat chance might make the gift of king or queen.
O finder of undreamed-of harmonies!
Since Shelley's lips were hushed by cruel death,
What lyric voice so sweet as this has been
Blown to us on the winds from over seas?
| The poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich | |