The poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier in four volumes |
1. | VOLUME I NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS |
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The poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier | ||
1. VOLUME I NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS
PROEM
Which softly melt the ages through,
The songs of Spenser's golden days,
Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase,
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew.
To breathe their marvellous notes I try;
I feel them, as the leaves and flowers
In silence feel the dewy showers,
And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky.
The harshness of an untaught ear,
The jarring words of one whose rhyme
Beat often Labor's hurried time,
Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here.
No rounded art the lack supplies;
Unskilled the subtle lines to trace,
Or softer shades of Nature's face,
I view her common forms with unanointed eyes.
The secrets of the heart and mind;
To drop the plummet-line below
Our common world of joy and woe,
A more intense despair or brighter hope to find.
Of human right and weal is shown;
A hate of tyranny intense,
And hearty in its vehemence,
As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own.
Nor mighty Milton's gift divine,
Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song,
Still with a love as deep and strong
As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine!
THE VAUDOIS TEACHER.
This poem was suggested by the account given of the manner in which the Waldenses disseminated their principles among the Catholic gentry. They gained access to the house through their occupation as peddlers of silks, jewels, and trinkets. “Having disposed of some of their goods,” it is said by a writer who quotes the inquisitor Rainerus Sacco, “they cautiously intimated that they had commodities far more valuable than these, inestimable jewels, which they would show if they could be protected from the clergy. They would then give their purchasers a Bible or Testament; and thereby many were deluded into heresy.”
The poem, under the title Le Colporteur Vaudois, was translated into French by Professor G. de Felice, of Montauban, and further naturalized by Professor Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet, who quoted it in his lectures on French literature, afterwards published. It became familiar in this form to the Waldenses, who adopted it as a household poem. An American clergyman, J. C. Fletcher, frequently heard it when he was a student, about the year 1850, in the theological seminary at Geneva, Switzerland, but the authorship of the poem was unknown to those who used it. Twenty-five years later, Mr. Fletcher, learning the name of the author, wrote to the moderator of the Waldensian synod at La Tour, giving the information. At the banquet which closed the meeting of the synod, the moderator announced the fact, and was instructed in the name of the Waldensian church to write to me a letter of thanks. My letter, written in reply, was translated into Italian and printed throughout Italy.
The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty's queen might wear;
I have brought them with me a weary way,—will my gentle lady buy?”
Which veiled her brow, as she bent to view his silks and glittering pearls;
And she placed their price in the old man's hand and lightly turned away,
But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call,—“My gentle lady, stay!
Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the lofty brow of kings;
A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay,
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a blessing on thy way!”
Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks waved their clasping pearls between;
“Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveller gray and old,
And name the price of thy precious gem, and my page shall count thy gold.”
“Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove as such to thee!
Nay, keep thy gold—I ask it not, for the word of God is free!”
Hath had its pure and perfect work on that highborn maiden's mind,
And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the lowliness of truth,
And given her human heart to God in its beautiful hour of youth!
The courtly knights of her father's train, and the maidens of her bower;
And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly feet untrod,
Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the perfect love of God!
THE FEMALE MARTYR.
Mary G---, aged eighteen, a “Sister of Charity,” died in one of our Atlantic cities, during the prevalence of the Indian cholera, while in voluntary attendance upon the sick.
Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call;
Glanced through the dark the coarse white sheet,
Her coffin and her pall.
“What—only one!” the brutal hack-man said,
As, with an oath, he spurned away the dead.
As rolled that dead-cart slowly by,
With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall!
The dying turned him to the wall,
To hear it and to die!
Onward it rolled; while oft its driver stayed,
And hoarsely clamored, “Ho! bring out your dead.”
“Toss in your load!” and it was done.
With quick hand and averted face,
Hastily to the grave's embrace
They cast them, one by one,
Stranger and friend, the evil and the just,
Together trodden in the churchyard dust!
No white-robed sisters round thee trod,
Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer
Rose through the damp and noisome air,
Giving thee to thy God;
Nor flower, nor cross, nor hallowed taper gave
Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave!
In every heart of kindly feeling,
As if beneath the convent-tree
Thy sisterhood were kneeling,
At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, keeping
Their tearful watch around thy place of sleeping.
Of Heaven's own love was kindled well;
Enduring with a martyr's might,
Through weary day and wakeful night,
Far more than words may tell:
Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and unknown,
Thy mercies measured by thy God alone!
The throngful street grew foul with death,
O high-souled martyr! thou wast there,
Inhaling, from the loathsome air,
Poison with every breath.
Yet shrinking not from offices of dread
For the wrung dying, and the unconscious dead.
Its light through vapors, damp, confined,
Hushed as a seraph's fell thy tread,
A new Electra by the bed
Of suffering human-kind!
Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay,
To that pure hope which fadeth not away.
And holy mysteries of Heaven!
How turned to thee each glazing eye,
As thy low prayers were given;
And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore, the while,
An angel's features, a deliverer's smile!
Who, turning from the world, as thou,
Before life's pathway had begun
To leave its spring-time flower and sun,
Had sealed her early vow;
Giving to God her beauty and her youth,
Her pure affections and her guileless truth.
Could be for thee a meet reward;
Thine is a treasure far more dear:
Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear
Of living mortal heard
The joys prepared, the promised bliss above,
The holy presence of Eternal Love!
A nobler name than thine shall be.
The deeds by martial manhood wrought,
The lofty energies of thought,
The fire of poesy,
These have but frail and fading honors; thine
Shall Time unto Eternity consign.
And human pride and grandeur fall,
The herald's line of long renown,
The mitre and the kingly crown,—
Perishing glories all!
Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part.
EXTRACT FROM “A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND.”
How has New England's romance fled,Even as a vision of the morning!
Its rites foredone, its guardians dead,
Its priestesses, bereft of dread,
Waking the veriest urchin's scorning!
Gone like the Indian wizard's yell
And fire-dance round the magic rock,
Forgotten like the Druid's spell
At moonrise by his holy oak!
No more along the shadowy glen
Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men;
No more the unquiet churchyard dead
Glimpse upward from their turfy bed,
Startling the traveller, late and lone;
As, on some night of starless weather,
They silently commune together,
Each sitting on his own head-stone!
The roofless house, decayed, deserted,
Its living tenants all departed,
No longer rings with midnight revel
Of witch, or ghost, or goblin evil;
No pale blue flame sends out its flashes
Through creviced roof and shattered sashes!
The witch-grass round the hazel spring
May sharply to the night-air sing,
Refresh at ease their broomstick nags,
Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters
As beverage meet for Satan's daughters;
No more their mimic tones be heard,
The mew of cat, the chirp of bird,
Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter
Of the fell demon following after!
The cautious goodman nails no more
A horseshoe on his outer door,
Lest some unseemly hag should fit
To his own mouth her bridle-bit;
The goodwife's churn no more refuses
Its wonted culinary uses
Until, with heated needle burned,
The witch has to her place returned!
Our witches are no longer old
And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold,
But young and gay and laughing creatures,
With the heart's sunshine on their features;
Their sorcery—the light which dances
Where the raised lid unveils its glances;
Or that low-breathed and gentle tone,
The music of Love's twilight hours,
Soft, dream-like, as a fairy's moan
Above her nightly closing flowers,
Sweeter than that which sighed of yore
Along the charmed Ausonian shore!
Even she, our own weird heroine,
Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn,
Sleeps calmly where the living laid her;
And the wide realm of sorcery,
Left by its latest mistress free,
Hath found no gray and skilled invader.
With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping,
His charmëd torch beside his knee,
That even the dead himself might see
The magic scroll within his keeping.
And now our modern Yankee sees
Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries;
And naught above, below, around,
Of life or death, of sight or sound,
Whate'er its nature, form, or look,
Excites his terror or surprise,—
All seeming to his knowing eyes
Familiar as his “catechise,”
Or “Webster's Spelling-Book.”
THE DEMON OF THE STUDY.
And eats his meat and drinks his ale,
And beats the maid with her unused broom,
And the lazy lout with his idle flail;
But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn,
And hies him away ere the break of dawn.
And the Cocklane ghost from the barn-loft cheer,
The fiend of Faust was a faithful one,
Agrippa's demon wrought in fear,
And the devil of Martin Luther sat
By the stout monk's side in social chat.
Who seven times crossed the deep,
Twined closely each lean and withered limb,
Like the nightmare in one's sleep.
But he drank of the wine, and Sindbad cast
The evil weight from his back at last.
To my quiet room and fireside nook,
Where the casement light falls dim and gray
On faded painting and ancient book,
Is a sorrier one than any whose names
Are chronicled well by good King James.
No runner of errands like Ariel,
He comes in the shape of a fat old man,
Without rap of knuckle or pull of bell;
And whence he comes, or whither he goes,
I know as I do of the wind which blows.
Slouched heavily down to his dark, red nose,
And two gray eyes enveloped in fat,
Looking through glasses with iron bows.
Read ye, and heed ye, and ye who can,
Guard well your doors from that old man!
And seats himself in my elbow-chair;
And my morning paper and pamphlet new
Fall forthwith under his special care,
And he wipes his glasses and clears his throat,
And, button by button, unfolds his coat.
In a low and husky asthmatic tone,
With the stolid sameness of posture and look
Of one who reads to himself alone;
And hour after hour on my senses come
That husky wheeze and that dolorous hum.
The poet's song and the lover's glee,
The horrible murders, the seaboard gales,
The marriage list, and the jeu d'esprit,
All reach my ear in the self-same tone,—
I shudder at each, but the fiend reads on!
O'er the mossy roots of some forest tree,
The sigh of the wind in the woods of June,
Or sound of flutes o'er a moonlight sea,
Or the low soft music, perchance, which seems
To float through the slumbering singer's dreams,
Of her in whose features I sometimes look,
As I sit at eve by her side alone,
And we read by turns, from the self-same book,
Some tale perhaps of the olden time,
Some lover's romance or quaint old rhyme.
Some prisoner's plaint through his dungeon-bar,
Her blue eye glistens with tears, and low
Her voice sinks down like a moan afar;
And I seem to hear that prisoner's wail,
And his face looks on me worn and pale.
Her voice is glad as an April bird's,
And when the tale is of war and wrong,
A trumpet's summons is in her words,
And the rush of the hosts I seem to hear,
And see the tossing of plume and spear!
The stout fiend darkens my parlor door;
And reads me perchance the self-same lay
Which melted in music, the night before,
From lips as the lips of Hylas sweet,
And moved like twin roses which zephyrs meet!
I whistle and laugh and sing and shout,
I flourish my cane above his head,
And stir up the fire to roast him out;
I topple the chairs, and drum on the pane,
And press my hands on my ears, in vain!
And wizard black-letter tomes which treat
Of demons of every name and size
Which a Christian man is presumed to meet,
But never a hint and never a line
Can I find of a reading fiend like mine.
And laid the Primer above them all,
I 've nailed a horseshoe over the grate,
And hung a wig to my parlor wall
Once worn by a learned Judge, they say,
At Salem court in the witchcraft day!
Abire ad tuum locum!”—still
Like a visible nightmare he sits by me,—
The exorcism has lost its skill;
And I hear again in my haunted room
The husky wheeze and the dolorous hum!
With her sevenfold plagues, to the wandering Jew,
To the terrors which haunted Orestes when
The furies his midnight curtains drew,
But charm him off, ye who charm him can,
That reading demon, that fat old man!
THE FOUNTAIN.
On the declivity of a hill in Salisbury, Essex County, is a fountain of clear water, gushing from the very roots of a venerable oak. It is about two miles from the junction of the Powow River with the Merrimac.
By the swift Powow,
With the summer sunshine falling
On thy heated brow,
Listen, while all else is still,
To the brooklet from the hill.
By that streamlet's side,
And a greener verdure showing
Where its waters glide,
Over root and mossy stone.
O'er the sloping hill,
Beautiful and freshly springeth
That soft-flowing rill,
Through its dark roots wreathed and bare,
Gushing up to sun and air.
In that magic well,
Of whose gift of life forever
Ancient legends tell,
In the lonely desert wasted,
And by mortal lip untasted.
Sought with longing eyes,
Underneath the bright pavilion
Of the Indian skies,
Where his forest pathway lay
Through the blooms of Florida.
With the dusky brow
Of the outcast forest-ranger,
Crossed the swift Powow,
And betook him to the rill
And the oak upon the hill.
For an instant shone
As he stooped him down
To the fountain's grassy side,
And his eager thirst supplied.
O'er his mossy seat,
And the cool, sweet waters flowing
Softly at his feet,
Closely by the fountain's rim
That lone Indian seated him.
To the woods below
Hues of beauty, such as heaven
Lendeth to its bow;
And the soft breeze from the west
Scarcely broke their dreamy rest.
With his chains of sand;
Southward, sunny glimpses giving,
'Twixt the swells of land,
Of its calm and silvery track,
Rolled the tranquil Merrimac.
Gazed that stranger man,
Sadly, till the twilight shadow
Over all things ran,
Save where spire and westward pane
Flashed the sunset back again.
Of his warrior sires,
Where no lingering trace was telling
Of their wigwam fires,
Who the gloomy thoughts might know
Of that wandering child of woe?
Hills that once had stood
Down their sides the shadows throwing
Of a mighty wood,
Where the deer his covert kept,
And the eagle's pinion swept!
Down the swift Powow,
Dark and gloomy bridges strided
Those clear waters now;
And where once the beaver swam,
Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam.
And the hunter's cheer,
Iron clang and hammer's ringing
Smote upon his ear;
And the thick and sullen smoke
From the blackened forges broke.
Loved to linger here?
These bare hills, this conquered river,—
Could they hold them dear,
With their native loveliness
Tamed and tortured into this?
Gathered o'er the hill,
While the western half of heaven
Blushed with sunset still,
From the fountain's mossy seat
Turned the Indian's weary feet.
But he came no more
To the hillside on the river
Where he came before.
But the villager can tell
Of that strange man's visit well.
With their fruits or flowers,—
Roving boy and laughing maiden,
In their school-day hours,
Love the simple tale to tell
Of the Indian and his well.
PENTUCKET.
The village of Haverhill, on the Merrimac, called by the Indians Pentucket, was for nearly seventeen years a frontier town, and during thirty years endured all the horrors of savage warfare. In the year 1708, a combined body of French and Indians, under the command of De Chaillons, and Hertel de Rouville, the infamous and bloody sacker of Deerfield, made an attack upon the village, which at that time contained only thirty houses. Sixteen of the villagers were massacred, and a still larger number made prisoners. About thirty of the enemy also fell, and among them Hertel de Rouville. The minister of the place, Benjamin Rolfe, was killed by a shot through his own door.
The mellow light of sunset shone!
Each small, bright lake, whose waters still
Mirror the forest and the hill,
Reflected from its waveless breast
The beauty of a cloudless west,
Glorious as if a glimpse were given
Within the western gates of heaven,
Left, by the spirit of the star
Of sunset's holy hour, ajar!
The dark and low-walled dwellings stood,
Where many a rood of open land
Stretched up and down on either hand,
With corn-leaves waving freshly green
The thick and blackened stumps between.
Behind, unbroken, deep and dread,
The wild, untravelled forest spread,
Back to those mountains, white and cold,
Of which the Indian trapper told,
Upon whose summits never yet
Was mortal foot in safety set.
Of danger darkly lurking near,
The weary laborer left his plough,
The milkmaid carolled by her cow;
From cottage door and household hearth
Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth.
And silence on that village lay.
—So slept Pompeii, tower and hall,
Ere the quick earthquake swallowed all,
Undreaming of the fiery fate
Which made its dwellings desolate!
The Merrimac along his bed.
Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood
Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood,
Silent, beneath that tranquil beam,
As the hushed grouping of a dream.
Yet on the still air crept a sound,
No bark of fox, nor rabbit's bound,
Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing,
Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing.
Which downward from the hillside beat?
What forms were those which darkly stood
Just on the margin of the wood?—
Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight dim,
Or paling rude, or leafless limb?
No,—through the trees fierce eyeballs glowed,
Dark human forms in moonshine showed,
Wild from their native wilderness,
With painted limbs and battle-dress!
Swelled on the night air, far and clear;
Then smote the Indian tomahawk
On crashing door and shattering lock;
The shrill death-scream of stricken men,—
Sank the red axe in woman's brain,
And childhood's cry arose in vain.
Bursting through roof and window came,
Red, fast, and fierce, the kindled flame,
And blended fire and moonlight glared
On still dead men and scalp-knives bared.
The river willows, wet with dew.
No sound of combat filled the air,
No shout was heard, nor gunshot there;
Yet still the thick and sullen smoke
From smouldering ruins slowly broke;
And on the greensward many a stain,
And, here and there, the mangled slain,
Told how that midnight bolt had sped
Pentucket, on thy fated head!
Where Rolfe beside his hearthstone fell,
Still show the door of wasting oak,
Through which the fatal death-shot broke,
And point the curious stranger where
De Rouville's corse lay grim and bare;
Whose hideous head, in death still feared,
Bore not a trace of hair or beard;
And still, within the churchyard ground,
Heaves darkly up the ancient mound,
Whose grass-grown surface overlies
The victims of that sacrifice.
THE NORSEMEN.
In the early part of the present century, a fragment of a statue, rudely chiselled from dark gray stone, was found in the town of Bradford, on the Merrimac. Its origin must be left entirely to conjecture. The fact that the ancient Northmen visited the northeast coast of North America and probably New England, some centuries before the discovery of the western world by Columbus, is now very generally admitted.
A relic to the present cast,
Left on the ever-changing strand
Of shifting and unstable sand,
Which wastes beneath the steady chime
And beating of the waves of Time!
Who from its bed of primal rock
First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block?
Whose hand, of curious skill untaught,
Thy rude and savage outline wrought?
Are glancing in the sun's warm beam;
From sail-urged keel and flashing oar
The circles widen to its shore;
And cultured field and peopled town
Slope to its willowed margin down.
Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing
The home-life sound of school-bells ringing,
And rolling wheel, and rapid jar
Of the fire-winged and steedless car,
And voices from the wayside near
Come quick and blended on my ear,—
A spell is in this old gray stone,
My thoughts are with the Past alone!
Stretches along the sail-thronged shore;
Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud,
Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud:
Spectrally rising where they stood,
I see the old, primeval wood;
Dark, shadow-like, on either hand
I see its solemn waste expand;
It climbs the green and cultured hill,
It arches o'er the valley's rill,
And leans from cliff and crag to throw
Its wild arms o'er the stream below.
Unchanged, alone, the same bright river
Flows on, as it will flow forever!
I listen, and I hear the low
Soft ripple where its waters go;
I hear behind the panther's cry,
The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by,
And shyly on the river's brink
The deer is stooping down to drink.
What sound comes up the Merrimac?
What sea-worn barks are those which throw
The light spray from each rushing prow?
Have they not in the North Sea's blast
Bowed to the waves the straining mast?
Their frozen sails the low, pale sun
Of Thulë's night has shone upon;
Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep
Round icy drift, and headland steep.
Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters
Have watched them fading o'er the waters,
Like white-winged sea-birds on their way!
Their iron-armed and stalwart crew;
Joy glistens in each wild blue eye,
Turned to green earth and summer sky.
Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside
Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide;
Bared to the sun and soft warm air,
Streams back the Norsemen's yellow hair.
I see the gleam of axe and spear,
The sound of smitten shields I hear,
Keeping a harsh and fitting time
To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme;
Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung,
His gray and naked isles among;
Or muttered low at midnight hour
Round Odin's mossy stone of power.
The wolf beneath the Arctic moon
Has answered to that startling rune;
The Gael has heard its stormy swell,
The light Frank knows its summons well;
Iona's sable-stoled Culdee
Has heard it sounding o'er the sea,
And swept, with hoary beard and hair,
His altar's foot in trembling prayer!
In darkness on my dreaming eyes!
The forest vanishes in air,
Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare;
I hear the common tread of men,
And hum of work-day life again;
A broken mass of common stone;
And if it be the chiselled limb
Of Berserker or idol grim,
A fragment of Valhalla's Thor,
The stormy Viking's god of War,
Or Praga of the Runic lay,
Or love-awakening Siona,
I know not,—for no graven line,
Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign,
Is left me here, by which to trace
Its name, or origin, or place.
Yet, for this vision of the Past,
This glance upon its darkness cast,
My spirit bows in gratitude
Before the Giver of all good,
Who fashioned so the human mind,
That, from the waste of Time behind,
A simple stone, or mound of earth,
Can summon the departed forth;
Quicken the Past to life again,
The Present lose in what hath been,
And in their primal freshness show
The buried forms of long ago.
As if a portion of that Thought
By which the Eternal will is wrought,
Whose impulse fills anew with breath
The frozen solitude of Death,
To mortal mind were sometimes lent,
To mortal musings sometimes sent,
To whisper—even when it seems
But Memory's fantasy of dreams—
Through the mind's waste of woe and sin,
Of an immortal origin!
FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS.
Polan, chief of the Sokokis Indians of the country between Agamenticus and Casco Bay, was killed at Windham on Sebago Lake in the spring of 1756. After the whites had retired, the surviving Indians “swayed” or bent down a young tree until its roots were upturned, placed the body of their chief beneath it, and then released the tree, which, in springing back to its old position, covered the grave. The Sokokis were early converts to the Catholic faith. Most of them, prior to the year 1756, had removed to the French settlements on the St. François.
There lingers not a breeze to break
The mirror which its waters make.
The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er,
Are painted on its glassy floor.
The snowy mountain-tops which lie
Piled coldly up against the sky.
Wild winds have bared some splintering peak,
Or snow-slide left its dusky streak.
And belts of spruce and cedar show,
Dark fringing round those cones of snow.
Though yet on her deliverer's wing
The lingering frosts of winter cling.
And mildly from its sunny nooks
The blue eye of the violet looks.
The sweet birch and the sassafras,
Upon the scarce-felt breezes pass.
Hath Nature scattered everywhere,
In bud and flower, and warmer air.
What reck the broken Sokokis,
Beside their slaughtered chief, of this?
Scarce have the death-shot echoes died
Along Sebago's wooded side;
Grouped darkly, where a swell of land
Slopes upward from the lake's white sand.
Save one lone beech, unclosing there
Its light leaves in the vernal air.
They break the damp turf at its foot,
And bare its coiled and twisted root.
The firm roots from the earth divide,—
The rent beneath yawns dark and wide.
In tasselled garb of skins arrayed,
And girded with his wampum-braid.
Beneath the heavy arms, which rest
Upon his scarred and naked breast.
The beechen-tree stands up unbent,
The Indian's fitting monument!
Their green and pleasant dwelling-place,
Which knew them once, retains no trace;
As now upon that beech's head,
A green memorial of the dead!
In northern winds, that, cold and free,
Howl nightly in that funeral tree.
Forever round that lonely lake
A solemn undertone shall make!
Where Nature's younger children rest,
Lulled on their sorrowing mother's breast?
These bronzed forms of the wilderness
She foldeth in her long caress?
As if with fairer hair and brow
The blue-eyed Saxon slept below.
No priestly knee hath ever pressed,—
No funeral rite nor prayer hath blessed?
And thoughts of wailing and despair,
And cursing in the place of prayer!
The Indian's lowliest forest-mound,—
And they have made it holy ground.
His powerless bolts of cursing fall
Unheeded on that grassy pall.
Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild!
Great Nature owns her simple child!
The secret of the heart is known,—
The hidden language traced thereon;
Of form and creed, and outward things,
To light the naked spirit brings;
Not with our pride and scorn shall ban,
The spirit of our brother man!
ST. JOHN.
The fierce rivalry between Charles de La Tour, a Protestant, and D'Aulnay Charnasy, a Catholic, for the possession of Acadia, forms one of the most romantic passages in the history of the New World. La Tour received aid in several instances from the Puritan colony of Massachusetts. During one of his voyages for the purpose of obtaining arms and provisions for his establishment at St. John, his castle was attacked by D'Aulnay, and successfully defended by its high-spirited mistress. A second attack however followed in the fourth month, 1647, when D'Aulnay was successful, and the garrison was put to the sword. Lady La Tour languished a few days in the hands of her enemy, and then died of grief.
Bear homeward again!”
Cried the Lord of Acadia,
Cried Charles of Estienne;
From the prow of his shallop
He gazed, as the sun,
From its bed in the ocean,
Streamed up the St. John.
That shallop had passed,
Where the mists of Penobscot
Clung damp on her mast.
St. Saviour had looked
On the heretic sail,
As the songs of the Huguenot
Rose on the gale.
Remembered her well,
And had cursed her while passing,
With taper and bell;
But the men of Monhegan,
Of Papists abhorred,
Had welcomed and feasted
The heretic Lord.
With dun-fish and ball,
With stores for his larder,
And steel for his wall.
Pemaquid, from her bastions
And turrets of stone,
Had welcomed his coming
With banner and gun.
Had followed his way,
As homeward he glided,
Down Pentecost Bay.
Oh, well sped La Tour!
For, in peril and pain,
For his coming again.
The morning sun shone,
On the plane-trees which shaded
The shores of St. John.
“Now, why from yon battlements
Speaks not my love!
Why waves there no banner
My fortress above?”
St. Estienne gazed about,
On fire-wasted dwellings,
And silent redoubt;
From the low, shattered walls
Which the flame had o'errun,
There floated no banner,
There thundered no gun!
Of its doorway there stood
A pale priest of Rome,
In his cloak and his hood.
With the bound of a lion,
La Tour sprang to land,
On the throat of the Papist
He fastened his hand.
Of scarlet and sin!
What wolf has been prowling
My castle within?”
The Jesuit broke,
Half in scorn, half in sorrow,
He smiled as he spoke:
Has ravaged thy hall,
But thy red-handed rival,
With fire, steel, and ball!
On an errand of mercy
I hitherward came,
While the walls of thy castle
Yet spouted with flame.
Were moored in the bay,
Grim sea-lions, roaring
Aloud for their prey.”
“But what of my lady?”
Cried Charles of Estienne.
“On the shot-crumbled turret
Thy lady was seen:
Her hand grasped thy pennon,
While her dark tresses swayed
In the hot breath of cannon!
But woe to the heretic,
Evermore woe!
When the son of the church
And the cross is his foe!
In the path of the ball,
The breach of the wall!
Steel to steel, gun to gun,
One moment,—and then
Alone stood the victor,
Alone with his men!
Thy lady alone
Saw the cross-blazoned banner
Float over St. John.”
“Let the dastard look to it!”
Cried fiery Estienne,
“Were D'Aulnay King Louis,
I 'd free her again!”
No service from thee
Is needed by her
Whom the Lord hath set free;
Nine days, in stern silence,
Her thraldom she bore,
But the tenth morning came,
And Death opened her door!”
La Tour staggered back;
His hand grasped his sword-hilt,
His forehead grew black.
He sprang on the deck
Of his shallop again.
“We cruise now for vengeance!
Give way!” cried Estienne.
Of the Huguenot's wrong,
And from island and creekside
Her fishers shall throng!
Pentagoet shall rue
What his Papists have done,
When his palisades echo
The Puritan's gun!”
Hung tenderly o'er him,
There were waves in the sunshine,
And green isles before him:
But a pale hand was beckoning
The Huguenot on;
And in blackness and ashes
Behind was St. John!
THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON.
Ibn Batuta, the celebrated Mussulman traveller of the fourteenth century, speaks of a cypress-tree in Ceylon, universally held sacred by the natives, the leaves of which were said to fall only at certain intervals, and he who had the happiness to find and eat one of them was restored, at once, to youth and vigor. The traveller saw several venerable Jogees, or saints, sitting silent and motionless under the tree, patiently awaiting the falling of a leaf.
The sacred cypress-tree about,
And, from beneath old wrinkled brows,
Their failing eyes looked out.
Through weary night and lingering day,—
Grim as the idols at their side,
And motionless as they.
The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet;
Unseen of them the island flowers
Bloomed brightly at their feet.
The thunder crashed on rock and hill;
The cloud-fire on their eyeballs blazed,
Yet there they waited still!
The Moslem's sunset-call, the dance
Of Ceylon's maids, the passing gleam
Of battle-flag and lance?
Of which the wandering Jogees sing:
Which lends once more to wintry age
The greenness of its spring.
In trustful patience wait to feel
O'er torpid pulse and failing limb
A youthful freshness steal;
Whose healing leaves of life are shed,
In answer to the breath of prayer,
Upon the waiting head—
And build the spirit's broken shrine,
But on the fainting soul to shed
A light and life divine—
And murmur at the long delay?
Impatient of our Father's time
And His appointed way?
Allure and claim the Christian's eye,
When on the heathen watcher's ear
Their powerless murmurs die?
Than prison cell or martyr's stake,
The self-abasing watchfulness
Of silent prayer may make.
Our erring brother in the wrong,—
And in the ear of Pride and Power
Our warning voice is strong.
Than “watch one hour” in humbling prayer.
Life's “great things,” like the Syrian lord,
Our hearts can do and dare.
From waters which alone can save;
And Pharpar's brighter wave.
Didst wake Thy weary ones again,
Who slumbered at that fearful hour
Forgetful of Thy pain;
And set our sleep-bound spirits free,
Nor leave us slumbering in the watch
Our souls should keep with Thee!
THE EXILES.
The incidents upon which the following ballad has its foundation occurred about the year 1660. Thomas Macy was one of the first, if not the first white settler of Nantucket. The career of Macy is briefly but carefully outlined in James S. Pike's The New Puritan.
One sultry afternoon,
With his young wife singing at his side
An old and goodly tune.
The dark green woods were still;
And the skirts of a heavy thunder-cloud
Hung over the western hill.
Above the wilderness,
Were stooping over this.
And all was still again,
Save a low murmur in the air
Of coming wind and rain.
A weary stranger came,
And stood before the farmer's door,
With travel soiled and lame.
Was in his quiet glance,
And peace, like autumn's moonlight, clothed
His tranquil countenance,—
In Pilate's council-hall:
It told of wrongs, but of a love
Meekly forgiving all.
The stranger meekly said;
And, leaning on his oaken staff,
The goodman's features read.
Are following in my track;
The traces of the torturer's whip
Are on my aged back;
Within thy doors to take
A hunted seeker of the Truth,
Oppressed for conscience' sake.”
“Come in, old man!” quoth she,
“We will not leave thee to the storm,
Whoever thou mayst be.”
And silent sat him down;
While all within grew dark as night
Beneath the storm-cloud's frown.
Filled every cottage nook,
And with the jarring thunder-roll
The loosened casements shook,
Came sounding up the lane,
And half a score of horse, or more,
Came plunging through the rain.
We would not be house-breakers;
A rueful deed thou 'st done this day,
In harboring banished Quakers.”
With much of fear and awe,
For there, with broad wig drenched with rain.
The parish priest he saw.
And let thy pastor in,
And give God thanks, if forty stripes
Repay thy deadly sin.”
“The stranger is my guest;
He is worn with toil and grievous wrong,—
Pray let the old man rest.”
And strong hands shook the door.
“Believe me, Macy,” quoth the priest,
“Thou 'lt rue thy conduct sore.”
“No priest who walks the earth,
Shall pluck away the stranger-guest
Made welcome to my hearth.”
The matchlock, hotly tried
At Preston-pans and Marston-moor,
By fiery Ireton's side;
With shout and psalm contended;
And Rupert's oath, and Cromwell's prayer,
With battle-thunder blended.
“My spirit is not free
To bring the wrath and violence
Of evil men on thee;
Bethink thee of thy Lord,
Who healed again the smitten ear,
And sheathed His follower's sword.
Friends of the poor, farewell!”
Beneath his hand the oaken door
Back on its hinges fell.
The reckless scoffers cried,
As to a horseman's saddle-bow
The old man's arms were tied.
In Boston's crowded jail,
Where suffering woman's prayer was heard,
With sickening childhood's wail,
Those scenes have passed away;
Let the dim shadows of the past
Brood o'er that evil day.
“Take Goodman Macy too;
The sin of this day's heresy
His back or purse shall rue.”
She caught his manly arm;
Behind, the parson urged pursuit,
With outcry and alarm.
The river-course was near;
The plashing on its pebbled shore
Was music to their ear.
Above the waters hung,
And at its base, with every wave,
A small light wherry swung.
The goodman wields his oar;
“Ill luck betide them all,” he cried,
“The laggards on the shore.”
The burly sheriff came:—
“Stand, Goodman Macy, yield thyself;
Yield in the King's own name.”
Bold Macy answered then,—
“Whip women, on the village green,
But meddle not with men.”
His grave cocked hat was gone;
Behind him, like some owl's nest, hung
His wig upon a thorn.
“The church's curse beware.”
“Curse, an' thou wilt,” said Macy, “but
Thy blessing prithee spare.”
“Thou 'lt yet the gallows see.”
“Who 's born to be hanged will not be drowned,”
Quoth Macy, merrily;
He bent him to his oar,
And the small boat glided quietly
From the twain upon the shore.
Scattered and fell asunder,
While feebler came the rush of rain,
And fainter growled the thunder.
Looked out serene and warm,
Painting its holy symbol-light
Upon the passing storm.
O'er dim Crane-neck was bended;
One bright foot touched the eastern hills,
And one with ocean blended.
The small boat glided fast;
The watchers of the Block-house saw
The strangers as they passed.
Sat shaking in their shoes,
To hear the dip of Indian oars,
The glide of birch canoes.
The men were all away—
Looked out to see the stranger oar
Upon their waters play.
Their sunset-shadows o'er them,
And Newbury's spire and weathercock
Peered o'er the pines before them.
The marsh lay broad and green;
And on their right, with dwarf shrubs crowned,
Plum Island's hills were seen.
The harbor-bar was crossed;
A plaything of the restless wave,
The boat on ocean tossed.
On land and water lay;
On the steep hills of Agawam,
On cape, and bluff, and bay.
And Gloucester's harbor-bar;
The watch-fire of the garrison
Shone like a setting star.
On Massachusetts Bay!
Blue wave, and bright green island,
Rejoicing in the day.
Round isle and headland steep;
No tempest broke above them,
No fog-cloud veiled the deep.
The venturous Macy passed,
And on Nantucket's naked isle
Drew up his boat at last.
They braved the rough sea-weather;
And there, in peace and quietness,
Went down life's vale together;
And how their fishing sped,
Until to every wind of heaven
Nantucket's sails were spread;
With Plenty's golden smile;
Behold, is it not written
In the annals of the isle?
A refuge of the free,
As when true-hearted Macy
Beheld it from the sea.
Her shrubless hills of sand,
Free as the waves that batter
Along her yielding land.
No loftier spirit stirs,
Nor falls o'er human suffering
A readier tear than hers.
And grant forevermore,
That charity and freedom dwell
As now upon her shore!
THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN.
The sun shall sink again,
Farewell to life and all its ills,
Farewell to cell and chain!
But, darker far than they,
The shadow of a sorrow old
Is on my heart alway.
Closed o'er my steed, and I,
An alien from my name and blood,
A weed cast out to die,—
I saw her turret gleam,
And from its casement, far and white,
Her sign of farewell stream,
Doth home's green isles descry,
And, vainly longing, gazes o'er
The waste of wave and sky;
I gaze across the past;
Forever on life's dial-plate
The shade is backward cast!
I 've knelt at many a shrine;
And bowed me to the rocky floor
Where Bethlehem's tapers shine;
I 've pledged my knightly sword
To Christ, His blessed Church, and her,
The Mother of our Lord.
How vain do all things seem!
My soul is in the past, and life
To-day is but a dream!
And hard for flesh to bear;
The prayer, the fasting, and the thong,
And sackcloth shirt of hair.
Its ears are open still;
And vigils with the past they keep
Against my feeble will.
Do evermore uprise;
I see the flow of locks of gold,
The shine of loving eyes!
Those golden locks recline;
I see upon another rest
The glance that once was mine.
I hear the Master cry;
“Shut out the vision from thy sight,
Let Earth and Nature die.
And thou the bridegroom art;
Then let the burden of thy vows
Crush down thy human heart!”
Till life itself hath ceased,
And falls beneath the self-same blow
The lover and the priest!
And saints and martyrs old!
Pray for a weak and sinful knight,
A suffering man uphold.
And death unbind my chain,
The sun shall fall again.
CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK.
In 1658 two young persons, son and daughter of Lawrence Southwick of Salem, who had himself been imprisoned and deprived of nearly all his property for having entertained Quakers at his house, were fined for non-attendance at church. They being unable to pay the fine, the General Court issued an order empowering “the Treasurer of the County to sell the said persons to any of the English nation of Virginia or Barbadoes, to answer said fines.” An attempt was made to carry this order into execution, but no shipmaster was found willing to convey them to the West Indies.
From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked the spoil away;
Yea, He who cooled the furnace around the faithful three,
And tamed the Chaldean lions, hath set His handmaid free!
Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale gleam of stars;
In the coldness and the darkness all through the long night-time,
My grated casement whitened with autumn's early rime.
Star after star looked palely in and sank adown the sky;
No sound amid night's stillness, save that which seemed to be
The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the sea;
The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in my sorrow,
Dragged to their place of market, and bargained for and sold,
Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer from the fold!
And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to me came:
“Why sit'st thou thus forlornly,” the wicked murmur said,
“Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy maiden bed?
Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the pleasant street?
Where be the youths whose glances, the summer Sabbath through,
Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's pew?
Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm bright hearth;
How the crimson shadows tremble on foreheads white and fair,
On eyes of merry girlhood, half hid in golden hair.
Not for thee the nuts of Wenham woods by laughing boys are broken;
No first-fruits of the orchard within thy lap are laid,
For thee no flowers of autumn the youthful hunters braid.
With wild and raving railers an evil path to tread;
To leave a wholesome worship, and teaching pure and sound,
And mate with maniac women, loose-haired and sackcloth bound,—
Who rail against the pulpit, and holy bread and wine;
Sore from their cart-tail scourgings, and from the pillory lame,
Rejoicing in their wretchedness, and glorying in their shame.
Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage to the grave!
Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in hopeless thrall,
The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn of all!”
Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavailing tears,
I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in silent prayer,
To feel, O Helper of the weak! that Thou indeed wert there!
And how from Peter's sleeping limbs the prison shackles fell,
Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an angel's robe of white,
And to feel a blessed presence invisible to sight.
Like dew of Hermon's holy hill, upon my spirit melt;
When “Get behind me, Satan!” was the language of my heart,
And I felt the Evil Tempter with all his doubts depart.
Flecked with the shade of bar and grate within my lonely cell;
The hoar-frost melted on the wall, and upward from the street
Came careless laugh and idle word, and tread of passing feet.
And slowly at the sheriff's side, up the long street I passed;
I heard the murmur round me, and felt, but dared not see,
How, from every door and window, the people gazed on me.
Swam earth and sky around me, my trembling limbs grew weak:
“O Lord! support thy handmaid; and from her soul cast out
The fear of man, which brings a snare, the weakness and the doubt.”
And a low deep voice within me seemed whispering words like these:
Trust still His loving-kindness whose power is over all.”
On glaring reach of shining beach, and shingly wall of rock;
The merchant-ships lay idly there, in hard clear lines on high,
Tracing with rope and slender spar their network on the sky.
And grim and stout sea-captains with faces bronzed and old,
And on his horse, with Rawson, his cruel clerk at hand,
Sat dark and haughty Endicott, the ruler of the land.
The priest leaned o'er his saddle, with laugh and scoff and jeer;
It stirred my soul, and from my lips the seal of silence broke,
As if through woman's weakness a warning spirit spoke.
Go light the dark, cold hearth-stones,—go turn the prison lock
Of the poor hearts thou hast hunted, thou wolf amid the flock!”
O'er Rawson's wine-empurpled cheek the flush of anger spread;
“Good people,” quoth the white-lipped priest, “heed not her words so wild,
Her Master speaks within her,—the Devil owns his child!”
That law the wicked rulers against the poor have made,
Who to their house of Rimmon and idol priesthood bring
No bended knee of worship, nor gainful offering.
“Which of ye, worthy seamen, will take this Quaker maid?
In the Isle of fair Barbadoes, or on Virginia's shore,
You may hold her at a higher price than Indian girl or Moor.”
“Speak out, my worthy seamen!”—no voice, no sign replied;
But I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind words met my ear,—
“God bless thee, and preserve thee, my gentle girl and dear!”
I felt it in his hard, rough hand, and saw it in his eye;
And when again the sheriff spoke, that voice, so kind to me,
Growled back its stormy answer like the roaring of the sea,—
From keel-piece up to deck-plank, the roomage of her hold,
By the living God who made me!—I would sooner in your bay
Sink ship and crew and cargo, than bear this child away!”
Ran through the crowd in murmurs loud the people's just applause.
Shall we see the poor and righteous again for silver sold?”
Swept round the throng his lion glare of bitter hate and scorn;
Fiercely he drew his bridle-rein, and turned in silence back,
And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode murmuring in his track.
Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, and crushed his parchment roll.
“Good friends,” he said, “since both have fled, the ruler and the priest,
Judge ye, if from their further work I be not well released.”
As, with kind words and kinder looks, he bade me go my way;
For He who turns the courses of the streamlet of the glen,
And the river of great waters, had turned the hearts of men.
A lovelier light on rock and hill and stream and woodland lay,
And softer lapsed on sunnier sands the waters of the bay.
Who from the hands of evil men hath set his handmaid free;
All praise to Him before whose power the mighty are afraid,
Who takes the crafty in the snare which for the poor is laid!
Uplift the loud thanksgiving, pour forth the grateful psalm;
Let all dear hearts with me rejoice, as did the saints of old,
When of the Lord's good angel the rescued Peter told.
The Lord shall smite the proud, and lay His hand upon the strong.
Woe to the wicked rulers in His avenging hour!
Woe to the wolves who seek the flocks to raven and devour!
And let the mourning ones again with robes of praise be clad.
For He who cooled the furnace, and smoothed the stormy wave,
And tamed the Chaldean lions, is mighty still to save!
THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD.
The following ballad is founded upon one of the marvellous legends connected with the famous General M---, of Hampton, New Hampshire, who was regarded by his neighbors as a Yankee Faust, in league with the adversary. I give the story, as I heard it when a child, from a venerable family visitant.
Gone the bridemaids, gone the priest.
All is over, all is done,
Twain of yesterday are one!
Blooming girl and manhood gray,
Autumn in the arms of May!
Dancing feet and wrestlers' shout;
Dies the bonfire on the hill;
All is dark and all is still,
Save the starlight, save the breeze
Moaning through the graveyard trees:
And the great sea-waves below,
Pulse of the midnight beating slow.
She hath wakened, at his side.
With half-uttered shriek and start,—
Feels she not his beating heart?
And the pressure of his arm,
And his breathing near and warm?
Springs that fair dishevelled head,
And a feeling, new, intense,
Half of shame, half innocence,
Maiden fear and wonder speaks
Through her lips and changing cheeks.
Faintest light the lamp is throwing
On the mirror's antique mould,
High-backed chair, and wainscot old,
And, through faded curtains stealing,
His dark sleeping face revealing.
Silver-streaked his careless hair;
Lips of love have left no trace
On that hard and haughty face;
And that forehead's knitted thought
Love's soft hand hath not unwrought.
More than these calm lips will tell.
Stooping to my lowly state,
He hath made me rich and great,
And I bless him, though he be
Hard and stern to all save me!”
O'er her fingers small and white;
Gold and gem, and costly ring
Back the timid lustre fling,—
Love's selectest gifts, and rare,
His proud hand had fastened there.
From those tapering lines of snow;
Fondly o'er the sleeper bending
His black hair with golden blending,
In her soft and light caress,
Cheek and lip together press.
That wild stare and wilder cry,
Full of terror, full of pain?
Is there madness in her brain?
Hark! that gasping, hoarse and low,
“Spare me,—spare me,—let me go!”
Spectral hands her own enfold,
Drawing silently from them
Love's fair gifts of gold and gem.
“Waken! save me!” still as death
At her side he slumbereth.
And that ice-cold hand withdrawn;
But she hears a murmur low,
Full of sweetness, full of woe,
Half a sigh and half a moan:
“Fear not! give the dead her own!”
That cold hand whose pressure froze,
Once in warmest life had borne
Gem and band her own hath worn.
“Wake thee! wake thee!” Lo, his eyes
Open with a dull surprise.
Closer to his breast he holds her;
Trembling limbs his own are meeting,
And he feels her heart's quick beating:
“Nay, my dearest, why this fear?”
“Hush!” she saith, “the dead is here!”
But before the lamp's pale gleam
Tremblingly her hand she raises.
There no more the diamond blazes,
Clasp of pearl, or ring of gold,—
“Ah!” she sighs, “her hand was cold!”
But his dark lip quivereth,
And as o'er the past he thinketh,
From his young wife's arms he shrinketh;
Can those soft arms round him lie,
Underneath his dead wife's eye?
Soothed and childlike on his breast,
And in trustful innocence
Draw new strength and courage thence;
He, the proud man, feels within
But the cowardice of sin!
Simple prayers her mother taught,
And His blessed angels call,
Whose great love is over all;
He, alone, in prayerless pride,
Meets the dark Past at her side!
From his look, or word, or tread,
Unto whom her early grave
Was as freedom to the slave,
Moves him at this midnight hour,
With the dead's unconscious power!
From their solemn homes of thought,
Where the cypress shadows blend
Darkly over foe and friend,
Or in love or sad rebuke,
Back upon the living look.
Who their wrongs have borne the meekest,
Lifting from those dark, still places,
Sweet and sad-remembered faces,
O'er the guilty hearts behind
An unwitting triumph find.
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
Winnepurkit, otherwise called George, Sachem of Saugus, married a daughter of Passaconaway, the great Pennacook chieftain, in 1662. The wedding took place at Pennacook (now Concord,
Through the rough northern country. We had seen
The sunset, with its bars of purple cloud,
Like a new heaven, shine upward from the lake
Of Winnepiseogee; and had felt
The sunrise breezes, midst the leafy isles
Which stoop their summer beauty to the lips
Of the bright waters. We had checked our steeds,
Silent with wonder, where the mountain wall
Is piled to heaven; and, through the narrow rift
Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet
Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar,
Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind
Comes burdened with the everlasting moan
Of forests and of far-off waterfalls,
We had looked upward where the summer sky,
Tasselled with clouds light-woven by the sun,
Sprung its blue arch above the abutting crags
O'er-roofing the vast portal of the land
Beyond the wall of mountains. We had passed
In the dwarf spruce-belts of the Crystal Hills,
Had heard above us, like a voice in the cloud,
The horn of Fabyan sounding; and atop
Of old Agioochook had seen the mountains
Piled to the northward, shagged with wood, and thick
As meadow mole-hills,—the far sea of Casco,
A white gleam on the horizon of the east;
Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods and hills;
Moosehillock's mountain range, and Kearsarge
Lifting his granite forehead to the sun!
Shadowing the bank, whose grassy spires are shaken
By the perpetual beating of the falls
Of the wild Ammonoosuc. We had tracked
The winding Pemigewasset, overhung
By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks,
Or lazily gliding through its intervals,
From waving rye-fields sending up the gleam
Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon
Rising behind Umbagog's eastern pines,
Like a great Indian camp-fire; and its beams
At midnight spanning with a bridge of silver
The Merrimac by Uncanoonuc's falls.
Had thrown together in these wild north hills:
A city lawyer, for a month escaping
From his dull office, where the weary eye
Saw only hot brick walls and close thronged streets;
Life's sunniest side, and with a heart to take
Its chances all as godsends; and his brother,
Pale from long pulpit studies, yet retaining
The warmth and freshness of a genial heart,
Whose mirror of the beautiful and true,
In Man and Nature, was as yet undimmed
By dust of theologic strife, or breath
Of sect, or cobwebs of scholastic lore;
Like a clear crystal calm of water, taking
The hue and image of o'erleaning flowers,
Sweet human faces, white clouds of the noon,
Slant starlight glimpses through the dewy leaves,
And tenderest moonrise. 'T was, in truth, a study,
To mark his spirit, alternating between
A decent and professional gravity
And an irreverent mirthfulness, which often
Laughed in the face of his divinity,
Plucked off the sacred ephod, quite unshrined
The oracle, and for the pattern priest
Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious merchant,
To whom the soiled sheet found in Crawford's inn,
Giving the latest news of city stocks
And sales of cotton, had a deeper meaning
Than the great presence of the awful mountains
Glorified by the sunset; and his daughter,
A delicate flower on whom had blown too long
Those evil winds, which, sweeping from the ice
And winnowing the fogs of Labrador,
Shed their cold blight round Massachusetts Bay,
With the same breath which stirs Spring's opening leaves
And lifts her half-formed flower-bell on its stem,
Poisoning our seaside atmosphere.
That as we turned upon our homeward way,
A drear northeastern storm came howling up
The valley of the Saco; and that girl
Who had stood with us upon Mount Washington,
Her brown locks ruffled by the wind which whirled
In gusts around its sharp, cold pinnacle,
Who had joined our gay trout-fishing in the streams
Which lave that giant's feet; whose laugh was heard
Like a bird's carol on the sunrise breeze
Which swelled our sail amidst the lake's green islands,
Shrank from its harsh, chill breath, and visibly drooped
Like a flower in the frost. So, in that quiet inn
Which looks from Conway on the mountains piled
Heavily against the horizon of the north,
Like summer thunder-clouds, we made our home:
And while the mist hung over dripping hills,
And the cold wind-driven rain-drops all day long
Beat their sad music upon roof and pane,
We strove to cheer our gentle invalid.
Went angling down the Saco, and, returning,
Recounted his adventures and mishaps;
Gave us the history of his scaly clients,
Mingling with ludicrous yet apt citations
Of barbarous law Latin, passages
From Izaak Walton's Angler, sweet and fresh
As the flower-skirted streams of Staffordshire,
Where, under aged trees, the southwest wind
Of soft June mornings fanned the thin, white hair
Our youthful candidate forsook his sermons,
His commentaries, articles and creeds,
For the fair page of human loveliness,
The missal of young hearts, whose sacred text
Is music, its illumining, sweet smiles.
He sang the songs she loved; and in his low,
Deep, earnest voice, recited many a page
Of poetry, the holiest, tenderest lines
Of the sad bard of Olney, the sweet songs,
Simple and beautiful as Truth and Nature,
Of him whose whitened locks on Rydal Mount
Are lifted yet by morning breezes blowing
From the green hills, immortal in his lays.
And for myself, obedient to her wish,
I searched our landlord's proffered library,—
A well-thumbed Bunyan, with its nice wood pictures
Of scaly fiends and angels not unlike them;
Watts' unmelodious psalms; Astrology's
Last home, a musty pile of almanacs,
And an old chronicle of border wars
And Indian history. And, as I read
A story of the marriage of the Chief
Of Saugus to the dusky Weetamoo,
Daughter of Passaconaway, who dwelt
In the old time upon the Merrimac,
Our fair one, in the playful exercise
Of her prerogative,—the right divine
Of youth and beauty,—bade us versify
The legend, and with ready pencil sketched
Its plan and outlines, laughingly assigning
To each his part, and barring our excuses
With absolute will. So, like the cavaliers
Whose voices still are heard in the Romance
Of Arno, with soft tales of love beguiling
The ear of languid beauty, plague-exiled
From stately Florence, we rehearsed our rhymes
To their fair auditor, and shared by turns
Her kind approval and her playful censure.
To the fair setting of their circumstances,—
The associations of time, scene, and audience,—
Their place amid the pictures which fill up
The chambers of my memory. Yet I trust
That some, who sigh, while wandering in thought,
Pilgrims of Romance o'er the olden world,
That our broad land,—our sea-like lakes and mountains
Piled to the clouds, our rivers overhung
By forests which have known no other change
For ages than the budding and the fall
Of leaves, our valleys lovelier than those
Which the old poets sang of,—should but figure
On the apocryphal chart of speculation
As pastures, wood-lots, mill-sites, with the privileges,
Rights, and appurtenances, which make up
A Yankee Paradise, unsung, unknown,
To beautiful tradition; even their names,
Whose melody yet lingers like the last
Vibration of the red man's requiem,
Exchanged for syllables significant,
Of cotton-mill and rail-car, will look kindly
Upon this effort to call up the ghost
Of our dim Past, and listen with pleased ear
To the responses of the questioned Shade.
I. THE MERRIMAC.
Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's wings,
Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters shine,
Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the dwarf pine;
From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of stone,
By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and free,
Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the sea!
Stretched their long arms above thee and kissed in the breeze:
No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy shores,
The plunging of otters, the light dip of oars.
Thy twin Uncanoonucs rose stately and tall,
Thy Nashua meadows lay green and unshorn,
And the hills of Pentucket were tasselled with corn.
And greener its grasses and taller its trees,
Ere the sound of an axe in the forest had rung,
Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had swung.
The bark-builded wigwams of Pennacook stood;
There glided the corn-dance, the council-fire shone,
And against the red war-post the hatchet was thrown.
To the pike and the white-perch their baited lines flung;
There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the shy maid
Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum braid.
Could rise from thy waters to question of mine,
Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan
Of sorrow would swell for the days which have gone.
The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel;
But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze,
The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees!
II. THE BASHABA.
And, turning from familiar sight and sound,
Sadly and full of reverence let us cast
A glance upon Tradition's shadowy ground,
Led by the few pale lights which, glimmering round
That dim, strange land of Eld, seem dying fast;
And that which history gives not to the eye,
The faded coloring of Time's tapestry,
Let Fancy, with her dream-dipped brush, supply.
Through whose chinks the sunbeams shine,
Tracing many a golden line
On the ample floor within;
Where, upon that earth-floor stark,
Lay the gaudy mats of bark,
With the bear's hide, rough and dark,
And the red-deer's skin.
Woven of the willow white,
Lent a dimly checkered light;
And the night-stars glimmered down,
Where the lodge-fire's heavy smoke,
Slowly through an opening broke,
In the low roof, ribbed with oak,
Sheathed with hemlock brown.
By the solemn pine-wood made;
Through the rugged palisade,
In the open foreground planted,
Stir of leaves and wild-flowers blowing,
Steel-like gleams of water flowing,
In the sunlight slanted.
Held his long-unquestioned sway,
From the White Hills, far away,
To the great sea's sounding shore;
Chief of chiefs, his regal word
All the river Sachems heard,
At his call the war-dance stirred,
Or was still once more.
Jaw of wolf and black bear's paw,
Panther's skin and eagle's claw,
Lay beside his axe and bow;
And, adown the roof-pole hung,
Loosely on a snake-skin strung,
In the smoke his scalp-locks swung
Grimly to and fro.
Swifter was the hunter's rowing,
When he saw that lodge-fire glowing
O'er the waters still and red;
And the squaw's dark eye burned brighter,
And she drew her blanket tighter,
As, with quicker step and lighter,
From that door she fled.
And a Panisee's dark will,
Powers which bless and powers which ban;
Wizard lord of Pennacook,
Chiefs upon their war-path shook,
When they met the steady look
Of that wise dark man.
When the winter night-wind cold
Pierced her blanket's thickest fold,
And her fire burned low and small,
Till the very child abed,
Drew its bear-skin over head,
Shrinking from the pale lights shed
On the trembling wall.
Under earth or wave, abiding
In the caverned rock, or riding
Misty clouds or morning breeze;
Every dark intelligence,
Secret soul, and influence
Of all things which outward sense
Feels, or hears, or sees,—
At his bidding banned or blessed,
Stormful woke or lulled to rest
Wind and cloud, and fire and flood;
Burned for him the drifted snow,
Bade through ice fresh lilies blow,
And the leaves of summer grow
Over winter's wood!
Now, as then, the wise and bold
All the powers of Nature hold
Subject to their kingly will;
From the wondering crowds ashore,
Treading life's wild waters o'er,
As upon a marble floor,
Moves the strong man still.
With their sterner laws dispense,
And the chain of consequence
Broken in their pathway lies;
Time and change their vassals making,
Flowers from icy pillows waking,
Tresses of the sunrise shaking
Over midnight skies.
Rests on towered Gibeon,
And the moon of Ajalon
Lights the battle-grounds of life;
To his aid the strong reverses
Hidden powers and giant forces,
And the high stars, in their courses,
Mingle in his strife!
III. THE DAUGHTER.
Of women thronging round the bed,
The tinkling charm of ring and shell,
The Powah whispering o'er the dead!
When, on her journey long and wild
To the dim World of Souls, alone,
In her young beauty passed the mother of his child.
They laid her in the walnut shade,
Where a green hillock gently swelling
Her fitting mound of burial made.
There trailed the vine in summer hours,
The tree-perched squirrel dropped his shell,—
On velvet moss and pale-hued flowers,
Woven with leaf and spray, the softened sunshine fell!
It closes darkly o'er its care,
And formed in Nature's sternest mould,
Is slow to feel, and strong to bear.
The war-paint on the Sachem's face,
Unwet with tears, shone fierce and red,
And still, in battle or in chase,
Dry leaf and snow-rime crisped beneath his foremost tread.
And when the robe her mother gave,
And small, light moccasin she wore,
Had slowly wasted on her grave,
Unmarked of him the dark maids sped
Their sunset dance and moonlit play;
No other shared his lonely bed,
No other fair young head upon his bosom lay.
The tempest-smitten tree receives
From one small root the sap which climbs
Its topmost spray and crowning leaves,
So from his child the Sachem drew
A life of Love and Hope, and felt
His cold and rugged nature through
The softness and the warmth of her young being melt.
Bemocking April's gladdest bird,—
A light and graceful form which sprang
To meet him when his step was heard,—
Eyes by his lodge-fire flashing dark,
Small fingers stringing bead and shell
Or weaving mats of bright-hued bark,—
With these the household-god had graced his wigwam well.
Slight-robed, with loosely flowing hair,
She swam the lake or climbed the tree,
Or struck the flying bird in air.
O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon
Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way;
And dazzling in the summer noon
The blade of her light oar threw off its shower of spray!
The dull restraint, the chiding frown,
The weary torture of the school,
The taming of wild nature down.
Around the hunter's fire at night;
Stars rose and set, and seasons rolled,
Flowers bloomed and snow-flakes fell, unquestioned in her sight.
With which the artist-eye can trace
In rock and tree and lake and hill
The outlines of divinest grace;
Unknown the fine soul's keen unrest,
Which sees, admires, yet yearns alway;
Too closely on her mother's breast
To note her smiles of love the child of Nature lay!
Of common, natural things a part,
To feel, with bird and stream and tree,
The pulses of the same great heart;
But we, from Nature long exiled,
In our cold homes of Art and Thought
Grieve like the stranger-tended child,
Which seeks its mother's arms, and sees but feels them not.
In cultured soil and genial air,
To cloud the light of Fashion's room
Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair;
In lonelier grace, to sun and dew
The sweetbrier on the hillside shows
Its single leaf and fainter hue,
Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose!
Their mingling shades of joy and ill
The instincts of her nature threw;
The savage was a woman still.
Midst outlines dim of maiden schemes,
Heart-colored prophecies of life,
Rose on the ground of her young dreams
The light of a new home, the lover and the wife.
IV. THE WEDDING.
But the Bashaba's wigwam glowed with light,
For down from its roof, by green withes hung,
Flaring and smoking the pine-knots swung.
Shot into the night their long, red spires,
Showing behind the tall, dark wood,
Flashing before on the sweeping flood.
Now high, now low, that firelight played,
On tree-leaves wet with evening dews,
On gliding water and still canoes.
And the weary fisher on Contoocook,
Saw over the marshes, and through the pine,
And down on the river, the dance-lights shine.
The Bashaba's daughter Weetamoo,
His softest furs and wampum white.
The river Sagamores came to the feast;
And chiefs whose homes the sea-winds shook
Sat down on the mats of Pennacook.
From the snowy sources of Snooganock,
And from rough Coös whose thick woods shake
Their pine-cones in Umbagog Lake.
Wild as his home, came Chepewass;
And the Keenomps of the hills which throw
Their shade on the Smile of Manito.
Glowing with paint came old and young,
In wampum and furs and feathers arrayed,
To the dance and feast the Bashaba made.
All which the woods and the waters yield,
On dishes of birch and hemlock piled,
Garnished and graced that banquet wild.
From the rocky slopes of the Kearsarge;
Delicate trout from Babboosuck brook,
And salmon speared in the Contoocook;
In the gravelly bed of the Otternic;
And small wild-hens in reed-snares caught
From the banks of Sondagardee brought;
Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken,
Cranberries picked in the Squamscot bog,
And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog:
In the river scooped by a spirit's hands,
Garnished with spoons of shell and horn,
Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn.
All which the woods and the waters yield,
Furnished in that olden day
The bridal feast of the Bashaba.
On the fire-lit green the dance begun,
With squaws' shrill stave, and deeper hum
Of old men beating the Indian drum.
And red arms tossing and black eyes glowing,
Now in the light and now in the shade
Around the fires the dancers played.
And the beat of the small drums louder still
The Saugus Sachem and Weetamoo.
Their snow upon that chieftain's head,
And toil and care and battle's chance
Had seamed his hard, dark countenance.
Why turns the bride's fond eye on him,
In whose cold look is naught beside
The triumph of a sullen pride?
The rough oak with her arm of vines;
And why the gray rock's rugged cheek
The soft lips of the mosses seek:
To harmonize her wide extremes,
Linking the stronger with the weak,
The haughty with the soft and meek!
V. THE NEW HOME.
Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge;
Steep, cavernous hillsides, where black hemlock spurs
And sharp, gray splinters of the wind-swept ledge
Pierced the thin-glazed ice, or bristling rose,
Where the cold rim of the sky sunk down upon the snows.
Dull, dreary flats without a bush or tree,
O'er-crossed by icy creeks, where twice a day
Gurgled the waters of the moon-struck sea;
And faint with distance came the stifled roar,
The melancholy lapse of waves on that low shore.
No laugh of children wrestling in the snow,
No camp-fire blazing through the hillside oaks,
No fishers kneeling on the ice below;
Yet midst all desolate things of sound and view,
Through the long winter moons smiled dark-eyed Weetamoo.
Its beautiful affections overgrew
Their rugged prop. As o'er some granite wall
Soft vine-leaves open to the moistening dew
And warm bright sun, the love of that young wife
Found on a hard cold breast the dew and warmth of life.
The long, dead level of the marsh between,
A coloring of unreal beauty wore
Through the soft golden mist of young love seen.
For o'er those hills and from that dreary plain,
Nightly she welcomed home her hunter chief again.
Repaid her welcoming smile and parting kiss,
No fond and playful dalliance half concealing,
Under the guise of mirth, its tenderness:
And vanity's pleased smile with homage satisfied.
Sat on his mat and slumbered at his side;
That he whose fame to her young ear had flown
Now looked upon her proudly as his bride;
That he whose name the Mohawk trembling heard
Vouchsafed to her at times a kindly look or word.
Which teach the woman to become a slave,
And feel herself the pardonless disgrace
Of love's fond weakness in the wise and brave,—
The scandal and the shame which they incur,
Who give to woman all which man requires of her.
Broke link by link the frost chain of the rills,
And the warm breathings of the southwest passed
Over the hoar rime of the Saugus hills;
The gray and desolate marsh grew green once more,
And the birch-tree's tremulous shade fell round the Sachem's door.
With gift and greeting for the Saugus chief;
Beseeching him in the great Sachem's name,
That, with the coming of the flower and leaf,
The song of birds, the warm breeze and the rain,
Young Weetamoo might greet her lonely sire again.
And a grave council in his wigwam met,
The rigid rules of forest etiquette
Permitted Weetamoo once more to look
Upon her father's face and green-banked Pennacook.
The forest sages pondered, and at length,
Concluded in a body to escort her
Up to her father's home of pride and strength,
Impressing thus on Pennacook a sense
Of Winnepurkit's power and regal consequence.
A soft and many-shaded greenness lent,
Over high breezy hills, and meadow land
Yellow with flowers, the wild procession went.
Till, rolling down its wooded banks between,
A broad, clear, mountain stream, the Merrimac was seen.
The fisher lounging on the pebbled shores,
Squaws in the clearing dropping the seed-corn,
Young children peering through the wigwam doors,
Saw with delight, surrounded by her train
Of painted Saugus braves, their Weetamoo again.
VI. AT PENNACOOK.
Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet
Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank.
Shines round the helmsman plunging through the night;
And still, with inward eye, the traveller sees
In close, dark, stranger streets his native trees.
By breezes whispering of his native land,
And on the stranger's dim and dying eye
The soft, sweet pictures of his childhood lie.
A child upon her father's wigwam floor!
Once more with her old fondness to beguile
From his cold eye the strange light of a smile.
The dry leaves whirled in autumn's rising blast,
And evening cloud and whitening sunrise rime
Told of the coming of the winter-time.
Down the dark river for her chief's canoe;
No dusky messenger from Saugus brought
The grateful tidings which the young wife sought.
To Winnepurkit's sea-cooled wigwam went:
“Eagle of Saugus,—in the woods the dove
Mourns for the shelter of thy wings of love.”
In the grim anger of hard-hearted pride;
“I bore her as became a chieftain's daughter,
Up to her home beside the gliding water.
Of all which line her father's wigwam round,
Let Pennacook call out his warrior train,
And send her back with wampum gifts again.”
Bearing the words of Winnepurkit back.
“Dog of the Marsh,” cried Pennacook, “no more
Shall child of mine sit on his wigwam floor.
The stolen bear-skin of his beggar's bed;
Son of a fish-hawk! let him dig his clams
For some vile daughter of the Agawams,
In Mohawk smoke, before I send her back.”
He shook his clenched hand towards the ocean wave,
While hoarse assent his listening council gave.
His iron hardness to thy woman's heart?
Or cold self-torturing pride like his atone
For love denied and life's warm beauty flown?
Hung its white wreaths; with stifled voice and low
Built by the hoar-locked artisan of Frost.
Pierced the red sunset with her silver horn,
Or, from the east, across her azure field
Rolled the wide brightness of her full-orbed shield.
Of the scorned wife her dusky rival sat;
And he, the while, in Western woods afar,
Urged the long chase, or trod the path of war.
Waste not on him the sacredness of grief;
Be the fierce spirit of thy sire thine own,
His lips of scorning, and his heart of stone.
The storm-worn watcher through long hunting nights,
Cold, crafty, proud of woman's weak distress,
Her home-bound grief and pining loneliness?
VII. THE DEPARTURE.
The snowy mountains of the North among,
Making each vale a watercourse, each hill
Bright with the cascade of some new-made rill.
Heaved underneath by the swollen current's strain,
Bore the huge ruin crashing down its track.
Guided by one weak hand was seen to float;
Evil the fate which loosed it from the shore,
Too early voyager with too frail an oar!
The thick huge ice-blocks threatening either side,
The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view,
With arrowy swiftness sped that light canoe.
On the wet bank by Uncanoonuc's feet,
Saw the swift boat flash down the troubled stream;
Slept he, or waked he? was it truth or dream?
The small hand clenching on the useless oar,
The bead-wrought blanket trailing o'er the water—
He knew them all—woe for the Sachem's daughter!
Heedless of peril, the still faithful wife
Had left her mother's grave, her father's door,
To seek the wigwam of her chief once more.
On the sharp rocks and piled-up ices hurled,
Empty and broken, circled the canoe
In the vexed pool below—but where was Weetamoo?
VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN.
The Spring-bird has flown;
On the pathway of spirits
She wanders alone.
The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore:
Mat wonck kunna-monee! We hear it no more!
We cast on thy wave
These furs which may never
Hang over her grave;
Bear down to the lost one the robes that she wore:
Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!
No Powah has told:
It may burn with the sunshine,
Or freeze with the cold.
Let us give to our lost one the robes that she wore:
Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!
Shall soon be our own;
Each gliding in shadow
Unseen and alone!
In vain shall we call on the souls gone before:
Mat wonck kunna-monee! They hear us no more!
Thy gateways unfold,
From thy wigwam of sunset
Lift curtains of gold!
Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!
The broad, dark river's coldly flowing tide;
Now low, now harsh, with sob-like pause and swell,
On the high wind their voices rose and fell.
Nature's wild music,—sounds of wind-swept trees,
The scream of birds, the wailing of the breeze,
The roar of waters, steady, deep, and strong,—
Mingled and murmured in that farewell song.
BARCLAY OF URY.
Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of Friends in Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany. As a Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the hands of the magistrates and the populace. None bore the indignities of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul than this once proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should be treated so harshly in his old age who had been so honored before. “I find more satisfaction,” said Barclay, “as well as honor, in being thus insulted for my religious principles, than when, a few years ago, it was usual for the magistrates, as I passed the city of Aberdeen, to meet me on the road and conduct me to public entertainment in their hall, and then escort me out again, to gain my favor.”
By the kirk and college green,
Rode the Laird of Ury;
Close behind him, close beside,
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,
Pressed the mob in fury.
Jeered at him the serving-girl,
Prompt to please her master;
And the begging carlin, late
Fed and clothed at Ury's gate,
Cursed him as he passed her.
Up the streets of Aberdeen
Came he slowly riding;
And, to all he saw and heard,
Answering not with bitter word,
Turning not for chiding.
Bits and bridles sharply ringing,
Loose and free and froward;
Quoth the foremost, “Ride him down!
Push him! prick him! through the town
Drive the Quaker coward!”
Cried a sudden voice and loud:
“Barclay! Ho! a Barclay!”
And the old man at his side
Saw a comrade, battle tried,
Scarred and sunburned darkly;
Fronting to the troopers there,
Cried aloud: “God save us,
Call ye coward him who stood
Ankle deep in Lützen's blood,
With the brave Gustavus?”
Comrade mine,” said Ury's lord;
“Put it up, I pray thee:
Passive to His holy will,
Trust I in my Master still,
Even though He slay me.
Proved on many a field of death,
Not by me are needed.”
Marvelled much that henchman bold,
That his laird, so stout of old,
Now so meekly pleaded.
With a slowly shaking head,
And a look of pity;
“Ury's honest lord reviled,
Mock of knave and sport of child,
In his own good city!
As we charged on Tilly's line,
And his Walloon lancers,
Smiting through their midst we'll teach
Civil look and decent speech
To these boyish prancers!”
Like beginning, like the end:”
Quoth the Laird of Ury;
“Is the sinful servant more
Than his gracious Lord who bore
Bonds and stripes in Jewry?
I can bear, with patient frame,
All these vain ones offer;
While for them He suffereth long,
Shall I answer wrong with wrong,
Scoffing with the scoffer?
Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall,
With few friends to greet me,
Than when reeve and squire were seen,
Riding out from Aberdeen,
With bared heads to meet me.
Blessed me as I passed her door;
And the snooded daughter,
Through her casement glancing down,
Smiled on him who bore renown
From red fields of slaughter.
Hard the old friend's falling off,
Hard to learn forgiving;
But the Lord His own rewards,
And His love with theirs accords,
Warm and fresh and living.
Faith beholds a feeble light
Up the blackness streaking;
Knowing God's own time is best,
In a patient hope I rest
For the full day-breaking!”
Turning slow his horse's head
Towards the Tolbooth prison,
Where, through iron gates, he heard
Poor disciples of the Word
Preach of Christ arisen!
Unto us the tale is told
Of thy day of trial;
Every age on him who strays
From its broad and beaten ways
Pours its seven-fold vial.
Angel comfortings can hear,
O'er the rabble's laughter;
And while Hatred's fagots burn,
Glimpses through the smoke discern
Of the good hereafter.
Share of Truth was vainly set
In the world's wide fallow;
After hands shall sow the seed,
After hands from hill and mead
Reap the harvests yellow.
Must the moral pioneer
From the Future borrow;
Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,
And, on midnight's sky of rain,
Paint the golden morrow!
THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA.
A letter-writer from Mexico during the Mexican war, when detailing some of the incidents at the terrible fight of Buena Vista, mentioned that Mexican women were seen hovering near the field of death, for the purpose of giving aid and succor to the wounded One poor woman was found surrounded by the maimed and suffering of both armies, ministering to the wants of Americans as well as Mexicans, with impartial tenderness.
O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array,
Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they near?
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear.
Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls!”
Who is losing? who is winning? “Over hill and over plain,
I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain rain.”
“Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before,
Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course.”
And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks of gray.
Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop of Minon wheels;
There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon at their heels.
Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance!
Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and foot together fall;
Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern ball.”
Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost, and who has won?
“Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together fall,
O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters, for them all!
I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of slain.
Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they fall, and strive to rise;
Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die before our eyes!
Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst thou hear me? canst thou see?
O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal, look once more
On the blessed cross before thee! Mercy! mercy! all is o'er!”
Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his breast;
Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said;
To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid.
Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away;
She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt.
With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead;
But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain,
And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again.
Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside her child?
All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied;
With her kiss upon his forehead, “Mother!” murmured he, and died!
From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely, in the North!”
Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead,
And turned to soothe the living, and bind the wounds which bled.
Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the wounded strive;
Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ of God, forgive!”
Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all!
Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled,
In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold.
Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and lacking food.
Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung,
And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue.
Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers;
From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer,
And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air!
THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK.
“This legend [to which my attention was called by my friend Charles Summer], is the subject of a celebrated picture by Tintoretto, of which Mr. Rogers possesses the original sketch. The slave lies on the ground, amid a crowd of spectators, who look on, animated by all the various emotions of sympathy, rage, terror; a woman, in front, with a child in her arms, has always been admired for the lifelike vivacity of her attitude and expression. The executioner holds up the broken implements; St. Mark, with a headlong movement, seems to rush down from heaven in haste to save his worshipper. The dramatic grouping in this picture is wonderful; the coloring, in its gorgeous depth and harmony, is, in Mr. Rogers's sketch, finer than in the picture.”— Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, i. 154.
With roaring blast and sleety showers;
And through the dusk the lilacs wear
The bloom of snow, instead of flowers.
To ponder o'er a tale of old;
A legend of the age of Faith,
By dreaming monk or abbess told.
That fancy of a loving heart,
In graceful lines and shapes of power,
And hues immortal as his art.
There lived a lord, to whom, as slave,
A peasant-boy of tender years
The chance of trade or conquest gave.
Beyond the hills with almonds dark,
The straining eye could scarce discern
The chapel of the good St. Mark.
The service of the youth repaid,
By stealth, before that holy shrine,
For grace to bear his wrong, he prayed.
The boar-hunt sounded on the hill;
Why stayed the Baron from the chase,
With looks so stern, and words so ill?
By scath of fire and strain of cord,
How ill they speed who give dead saints
The homage due their living lord!”
When, through the dungeon's vaulted dark,
He saw the light of shining robes,
And knew the face of good St. Mark.
The cords released their cruel clasp,
The pincers, with their teeth of fire,
Fell broken from the torturer's grasp.
Barred door and wall of stone gave way;
And up from bondage and the night
They passed to freedom and the day!
O painter! true thy pencil's art;
In tones of hope and prophecy,
Ye whisper to my listening heart!
Moans up to God's inclining ear;
Unheeded by his tender eye,
Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear.
The pomp and power of tyrant man
Are scattered at his lightest breath,
Like chaff before the winnower's fan.
His heavy hands to Heaven in vain.
God's angel, like the good St. Mark,
Comes shining down to break his chain!
Your helpers in their downward flight;
Nor hear the sound of silver wings
Slow beating through the hush of night!
With sunbright watchers bending low,
That Fear's dim eye beheld alone
The spear-heads of the Syrian foe.
Can see the helpers God has sent,
And how life's rugged mountain-side
Is white with many an angel tent!
Sends down his pathway to prepare;
And light, from others hidden, shines
On their high place of faith and prayer.
Hopeless, yet longing to be free,
Breathe once again the Prophet's prayer:
“Lord, ope their eyes, that they may see!”
KATHLEEN.
This ballad was originally published in my prose work, Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal, as the song of a wandering Milesian schoolmaster. In the seventeenth century, slavery in the New World was by no means confined to the natives of Africa. Political offenders and criminals were transported by the British government to the plantations of Barbadoes and Virginia, where they were sold like cattle in the market. Kidnapping of free and innocent white persons was practised to a considerable extent in the seaports of the United Kingdom.
And rest your weary hand,
And come and hear me sing a song
Of our old Ireland.
A mighty lord was he;
And he did wed a second wife,
A maid of low degree.
And so, in evil spite,
She baked the black bread for his kin,
And fed her own with white.
And drove away the poor;
“Ah, woe is me!” the old lord said,
“I rue my bargain sore!”
Beloved of old and young,
And nightly round the shealing-fires
Of her the gleeman sung.
As Eve before her fall;”
So sang the harper at the fair,
So harped he in the hall.
Come sit upon my knee,
For looking in your face, Kathleen,
Your mother's own I see!”
He kissed her forehead fair;
“It is my darling Mary's brow,
It is my darling's hair!”
“Get up, get up,” quoth she,
“I'll sell ye over Ireland,
I'll sell ye o'er the sea!”
That none her rank might know,
She took away her gown of silk,
And gave her one of tow,
And to a seaman sold
This daughter of an Irish lord
For ten good pounds in gold.
And tore his beard so gray;
But he was old, and she was young,
And so she had her way.
To fright the evil dame,
And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen,
With funeral torches came.
And glimmering down the hill;
They crept before the dead-vault door,
And there they all stood still!
“Ye murthering witch,” quoth he,
“So I'm rid of your tongue, I little care
If they shine for you or me.”
My gold and land shall have!”
Oh, then spake up his handsome page,
“No gold nor land I crave!
Give sweet Kathleen to me,
Be she on sea or be she on land,
I'll bring her back to thee.”
And you of low degree,
But she shall be your bride the day
You bring her back to me.”
And far and long sailed he,
Until he came to Boston town,
Across the great salt sea.
The flower of Ireland?
Ye'll know her by her eyes so blue,
And by her snow-white hand!”
The maiden whom ye mean;
I bought her of a Limerick man,
And she is called Kathleen.
Her hands are soft and white,
Yet well by loving looks and ways
She doth her cost requite.”
And met a maiden fair,
A little basket on her arm
So snowy-white and bare.
This young man ever seen?”
They wept within each other's arms,
The page and young Kathleen.
And take my purse of gold.”
“Nay, not by me,” her master said,
“Shall sweet Kathleen be sold.
The Lord hath early ta'en;
But, since her heart's in Ireland,
We give her back again!”
For his poor soul shall pray,
And Mary Mother wash with tears
His heresies away.
As you go up Claremore
Ye'll see their castle looking down
The pleasant Galway shore.
And a happy man is he,
For he sits beside his own Kathleen,
With her darling on his knee.
THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE.
Pennant, in his Voyage to the Hebrides, describes the holy well of Loch Maree, the waters of which were supposed to effect a miraculous cure of melancholy, trouble, and insanity.
A little isle reposes;
And willow o'er it closes.
Set round with stony warders;
A fountain, gushing through the turf,
Flows o'er its grassy borders.
With care or madness burning,
Feels once again his healthful thought
And sense of peace returning.
Unquiet and unstable,
That holy well of Loch Maree
Is more than idle fable!
Its glaring sunshine blindeth,
And blest is he who on his way
That fount of healing findeth!
And contrite heart are o'er it;
Go read its legend, “Trust in God,”
On Faith's white stones before it.
THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.
The incident upon which this poem is based is related in a note to Bernardin Henri Saint Pierre's Etudes de la Nature.
“We arrived at the habitation of the Hermits a little before they sat down to their table, and while they were still at church. J. J. Rousseau proposed to me to offer up our devotions. The hermits were reciting the Litanies of Providence, which are remarkably beautiful. After we had addressed our prayers to God, and the hermits were proceeding to the refectory, Rousseau said to me, with his heart overflowing, ‘At this moment I experience what is said in the gospel: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. There is here a feeling of peace and happiness which penetrates the soul.’ I said, ‘If Fénelon had lived, you would have been a Catholic.’ He exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, ‘Oh, if Fénelon were alive, I would struggle to get into his service, even as a lackey!’”
In my sketch of Saint Pierre, it will be seen that I have somewhat antedated the period of his old age. At that time he was not probably more than fifty. In describing him, I have by no means exaggerated his own history of his mental condition at the period of the story. In the fragmentary Sequel to his Studies of Nature, he thus speaks of himself: “The ingratitude of those of whom I had deserved kindness, unexpected family misfortunes, the total loss of my small patrimony through enterprises solely undertaken for the benefit of my country, the debts under which I lay oppressed, the blasting of all my hopes,—these combined calamities made dreadful inroads upon my health and reason. ... I found it impossible to continue in a room where there was company, especially if the doors were shut. I could not even cross an alley in a public garden, if several persons had got together in it. When alone, my malady subsided. I felt myself likewise at ease in places where I saw children only. At the sight of any one walking up to the place where I was, I felt my whole frame agitated, and retired. I often said to myself, ‘My sole study has been to merit well of mankind; why do I fear them?‘”
He attributes his improved health of mind and body to the counsels of his friend, J.J. Rousseau. “I renounced,” says he, “my books. I threw my eyes upon the works of nature, which spake to all my senses a language which neither time nor nations
Speaking of Rousseau, he says: “I derived inexpressible satisfaction from his society. What I prized still more than his genius was his probity. He was one of the few literary characters, tried in the furnace of affliction, to whom you could, with perfect security, confide your most secret thoughts. ... Even when he deviated, and became the victim of himself or of others, he could forget his own misery in devotion to the welfare of mankind. He was uniformly the advocate of the miserable. There might be inscribed on his tomb these affecting words from that Book of which he carried always about him some select passages, during the last years of his life: His sins, which are many, are forgiven, for he loved much”
I pray for help to unbelief;
For needful strength aside to lay
The daily cumberings of my way.
Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant,
Profession's smooth hypocrisies,
And creeds of iron, and lives of ease.
I read the record of our Lord;
And, weak and troubled, envy them
Who touched His seamless garment's hem;
Above the grave where Lazarus slept;
Of Olivet, His evening hymn.
The beggar crouching at the gate,
The leper loathly and abhorred,
Whose eyes of flesh beheld the Lord!
Sweet fountains of His noonday rest!
O light and air of Palestine,
Impregnate with His life divine!
On Siloa's pool, and Kedron's brook;
Kneel at Gethsemane, and by
Gennesaret walk, before I die!
Would melt before that Orient light;
And, wet by Hermon's dew and rain,
My childhood's faith revive again!”
Where the still river slid away
Beneath us, and above the brown
Red curtains of the woods shut down.
The mute appealing of his look,—
“I, too, am weak, and faith is small,
And blindness happeneth unto all.
Through present wrong, the eternal right;
And, step by step, since time began,
I see the steady gain of man;
Remains to make our own time glad,
Our common daily life divine,
And every land a Palestine.
What gain to thee time's holiest date?
The doubter now perchance had been
As High Priest or as Pilate then!
In Him had Nain and Nazareth?
Of the few followers whom He led
One sold Him,—all forsook and fled.
Nor storied stream of Morning-Land;
The heavens are glassed in Merrimac,—
What more could Jordan render back?
To find the Orient's marvels here;
The still small voice in autumn's hush,
Yon maple wood the burning bush.
In signs and tokens manifold;
Slaves rise up men; the olive waves,
With roots deep set in battle graves!
A low, sweet prelude finds its way;
Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear,
A light is breaking, calm and clear.
Erelong shall swell from star to star!
That light, the breaking day, which tips
The golden-spired Apocalypse!”
And, sighing, sadly smiled, I said:
“Thou mind'st me of a story told
In rare Bernardin's leaves of gold.”
The shadows of the frost-stained grove,
And, picturing all, the river ran
O'er cloud and wood, I thus began:—
The Chapel of the Hermits stood;
And thither, at the close of day,
Came two old pilgrims, worn and gray.
The storms of Baikal's wintry side,
And mused and dreamed where tropic day
Flamed o'er his lost Virginia's bay.
All hearts had melted, high or low;—
Immortal in its tenderness.
Beat quick the young heart of his age,
He walked amidst the crowd unknown,
A sorrowing old man, strange and lone.
Pale setting of a weary day;
Too dull his ear for voice of praise,
Too sadly worn his brow for bays.
Yet still his heart its young dream kept,
And, wandering like the deluge-dove,
Still sought the resting-place of love.
The peasant's welcome from his door
By smiling eyes at eventide,
Than kingly gifts or lettered pride.
All-pitying Nature on him smiled,
And gave to him the golden keys
To all her inmost sanctities.
She laid her great heart bare to him,
Its loves and sweet accords;—he saw
The beauty of her perfect law.
What notes her cloudy clarion blew;
The rhythm of autumn's forest dyes,
The hymn of sunset's painted skies.
Which swept, of old, the stars along;
And to his eyes the earth once more
Its fresh and primal beauty wore.
And field and wood, a balm for care;
And bathed in light of sunset skies
His tortured nerves and weary eyes?
His words had shaken crypt and throne;
Like fire, on camp and court and cell
They dropped, and kindled as they fell.
The mitred juggler's masque and show,
A prophecy, a vague hope, ran
His burning thought from man to man.
The fraud of priests, the wrong of law,
And felt how hard, between the two,
Their breath of pain the millions drew.
The weakness of an unweaned child,
A sun-bright hope for human-kind,
And self-despair, in him combined.
To half the glorious truths he knew;
The doubt, the discord, and the sin,
He mourned without, he felt within.
Sweet pictures on his easel glowed
Of simple faith, and loves of home,
And virtue's golden days to come.
The foil to all his pen portrayed;
Still, where his dreamy splendors shone,
The shadow of himself was thrown.
Up to Thy sevenfold brightness climbs,
While still his grosser instinct clings
To earth, like other creeping things!
So high, so low; chance-swung between
The foulness of the penal pit
And Truth's clear sky, millennium-lit!
Quick fancy and creative brain,
Unblest by prayerful sacrifice,
Absurdly great, or weakly wise!
Without were fears, within was strife;
And still his wayward act denied
The perfect good for which he sighed.
The fame that crowned him scorched and burned,
Burning, yet cold and drear and lone,—
A fire-mount in a frozen zone!
Seen southward from his sleety mast,
About whose brows of changeless frost
A wreath of flame the wild winds tossed.
Of lambent light and purple shade,
Lost on the fixed and dumb despair
Of frozen earth and sea and air!
By those whose wrongs his soul had moved,
He bore the ban of Church and State,
The good man's fear, the bigot's hate!
Its pomp and shame, its sin and wrong,
The twain that summer day had strayed
To Mount Valerien's chestnut shade.
Lent something of their quietude,
And golden-tinted sunset seemed
Prophetical of all they dreamed.
The bell was calling home to prayers,
And, listening to its sound, the twain
Seemed lapped in childhood's trust again.
A sweet old music, swelling o'er
Low prayerful murmurs, issued thence,—
The Litanies of Providence!
In His name meet, He there will be!”
And then, in silence, on their knees
They sank beneath the chestnut-trees.
As daybreak to the Arctic night,
Old faith revived; the doubts of years
Dissolved in reverential tears.
“Ah me!” Bernardin sighed at last,
“I would thy bitterest foes could see
Thy heart as it is seen of me!
Thou hast but spurned in scorn aside
A bare and hollow counterfeit,
Profaning the pure name of it!
His fire the western herdsman feeds,
And greener from the ashen plain
The sweet spring grasses rise again.
Disturb the solid sky behind;
And through the cloud the red bolt rends
The calm, still smile of Heaven descends!
And scourging fire, thy words have passed.
Clouds break,—the steadfast heavens remain;
Weeds burn,—the ashes feed the grain!
Its touch pollute, its darkness blind;
And learn, as latent fraud is shown
In others' faith, to doubt his own.
And pious hope we tread in dust;
Lost the calm faith in goodness,—lost
The baptism of the Pentecost!
Too oft on truth itself are spent,
As through the false and vile and base
Looks forth her sad, rebuking face.
We come not scathless from the strife!
The Python's coil about us clings,
The trampled Hydra bites and stings!
The plastic shapes of circumstance,
What might have been we fondly guess,
If earlier born, or tempted less.
Misjudged alike in blame and praise,
Unsought and undeserved the same
The skeptic's praise, the bigot's blame;—
Among the highly favored men
Who walked on earth with Fénelon,
He would have owned thee as his son;
Visibly waving over him,
Seen through his life, the Church had seemed
All that its old confessors dreamed.”
“The humblest servant at his side,
Obscure, unknown, content to see
How beautiful man's life may be!
Than solemn rite or sacred lore,
The holy life of one who trod
The foot-marks of the Christ of God!
The oneness of the Dual law;
That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth began,
And God was loved through love of man.
The strong man Reason, Faith the child;
In him belief and act were one,
The homilies of duty done!”
The two old pilgrims went their way.
What seeds of life that day were sown,
The heavenly watchers knew alone.
Green Summer in her brown and gold;
Time passed, and Winter's tears of snow
Dropped on the grave-mound of Rousseau.
The pained on earth is pained in hell!”
So priestcraft from its altars cursed
The mournful doubts its falsehood nursed.
“Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid!”
Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above,
And man is hate, but God is love!
Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees;
A morning dream, a tale that 's told,
The wave of change o'er all has rolled.
And from its twilight cool and gray
Comes up a low, sad whisper, “Make
The truth thine own, for truth's own sake.
Its perfect flower and fruit in man?
No saintly touch can save; no balm
Of healing hath the martyr's palm.
Of spiritual pride and pampered sense,
A voice saith, ‘What is that to thee?
Be true thyself, and follow Me!’
The wanton's wish, the bigot's word,
And pomp of state and ritual show
Scarce hid the loathsome death below,—
The losel swarm of crown and cowl,
White-robed walked François Fénelon,
Stainless as Uriel in the sun!
The poor were eaten up like bread:
Men knew him not; his garment's hem
No healing virtue had for them.
The white cymar gleams far behind,
Revealed in outline vague, sublime,
Through telescopic mists of time!
But in the Lord, old Scripture saith;
The truth which saves thou mayst not blend
With false professor, faithless friend.
In others in thyself may be;
All dust is frail, all flesh is weak;
Be thou the true man thou dost seek!
The whitest of the saints of God!
To show thee where their feet were set,
The light which led them shineth yet.
Which marked their path, remain in thine
And that great Life, transfused in theirs,
Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers!”
A word of fitness to my need;
So from that twilight cool and gray
Still saith a voice, or seems to say.
While down the west the sunset burned;
And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide,
And human forms seemed glorified.
And purple bluffs, whose belting wood
Across the waters leaned to hold
The yellow leaves like lamps of gold.
Forever old, forever new,
These home-seen splendors are the same
Which over Eden's sunsets came.
Lift voiceless praise and anthem still;
Fall, warm with blessing, over them,
Light of the New Jerusalem!
Of John's Apocalyptic dream!
Yon green-banked lake our Galilee!
For olden time and holier shore;
God's love and blessing, then and there,
Are now and here and everywhere.”
TAULER.
Without the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine,
Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life;
As one who, wandering in a starless night,
Feels momently the jar of unseen waves,
And hears the thunder of an unknown sea,
Breaking along an unimagined shore.
Old prayer with which, for half a score of years,
Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and heart
Had groaned: “Have pity upon me, Lord!
Thou seest, while teaching others, I am blind.
Send me a man who can direct my steps!”
A sound as of an old man's staff among
The dry, dead linden-leaves; and, looking up,
He saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and old.
“God give thee a good day!” The old man raised
But all my days are good, and none are ill.”
“God give thee happy life.” The old man smiled,
“I never am unhappy.”
His hand upon the stranger's coarse gray sleeve:
“Tell me, O father, what thy strange words mean.
Surely man's days are evil, and his life
Sad as the grave it leads to.” “Nay, my son,
Our times are in God's hands, and all our days
Are as our needs; for shadow as for sun,
For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike
Our thanks are due, since that is best which is;
And that which is not, sharing not His life,
Is evil only as devoid of good.
And for the happiness of which I spake,
I find it in submission to his will,
And calm trust in the holy Trinity
Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty Power.”
Stood the great preacher; then he spake as one
Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting thought
Which long has followed, whispering through the dark
Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking, into light:
“What if God's will consign thee hence to Hell?”
What Hell may be I know not; this I know,—
One arm, Humility, takes hold upon
His dear Humanity; the other, Love,
Clasps his Divinity. So where I go
He goes; and better fire-walled Hell with Him
Than golden-gated Paradise without.”
Like the first ray which fell on chaos, clove
Apart the shadow wherein he had walked
Darkly at noon. And, as the strange old man
Went his slow way, until his silver hair
Set like the white moon where the hills of vine
Slope to the Rhine, he bowed his head and said:
“My prayer is answered. God hath sent the man
Long sought, to teach me, by his simple trust,
Wisdom the weary schoolmen never knew.”
The city gates, he saw, far down the street,
A mighty shadow break the light of noon,
Which tracing backward till its airy lines
Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his eyes
O'er broad façade and lofty pediment,
O'er architrave and frieze and sainted niche,
Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the wise
Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where
In the noon-brightness the great Minster's tower,
Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown,
Rose like a visible prayer. “Behold!” he said,
“The stranger's faith made plain before mine eyes.
As yonder tower outstretches to the earth
The dark triangle of its shade alone
So, darkness in the pathway of Man's life
Is but the shadow of God's providence,
By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon;
And what is dark below is light in Heaven.”
THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID.
From inmost founts of life ye start,—
The spirit's pulse, the vital breath
Of soul and heart!
Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad,
Unheard of man, ye enter in
The ear of God.
Nor weary rote, nor formal chains;
The simple heart, that freely asks
In love, obtains.
The mercy-seat and cherubim,
And all the holy mysteries,
He bears with him.
Which, wordless, shapes itself in needs,
And wearies Heaven for naught above
Our common needs.
That trust of His undoubting child
Whereby all seeming good and ill
Are reconciled.
Of favor, is content to fall
Within the providence which shines
And rains on all.
At noontime o'er the sacred word.
Was it an angel or a fiend
Whose voice he heard?
A human utterance, sweet and mild;
And, looking up, the hermit saw
A little child.
O'erawed and troubled by the sight
Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies,
And anchorite.
Of cool, green palms, nor grass, nor well,
Nor corn, nor vines.” The hermit said:
“With God I dwell.
I live not by the outward sense;
My Nile his love, my sheltering palm
His providence.”
Here only?—where the desert's rim
Is green with corn, at morn and eve,
We pray to Him.
His little field; beneath the leaves
My sisters sit and spin, the while
My mother weaves.
And all the bean-field hangs in pod,
My mother smiles, and says that all
Are gifts from God.
She calls the stranger at the door,
She says God fills the hands that deal
Food to the poor.”
Glistened the flow of human tears;
“Dear Lord!” he said, “Thy angel speaks,
Thy servant hears.”
And thought of home and life with men;
And all his pilgrim feet forsook
Returned again.
The eyes that smiled through lavish locks,
Home's cradle-hymn and harvest-song,
And bleat of flocks.
There is no place where God is not;
That love will make, where'er it be,
A holy spot.”
And, leaning on his staff of thorn,
Went with the young child hand in hand,
Like night with morn.
And heard the palm-tree's rustling fan,
The Nile-bird's cry, the low of kine,
And voice of man.
He followed, as the small hand led
To where a woman, gentle-eyed,
Her distaff fed.
She thanked the stranger with her eyes;
The hermit gazed in doubt and joy
And dumb surprise.
A tender memory thrilled his frame;
New-born, the world-lost anchorite
A man became.
Behold me!—had we not one mother?”
She gazed into the stranger's face:
“Thou art my brother!”
And patient trust is more than mine;
And wiser than the gray recluse
This child of thine.
That toil is praise, and love is prayer,
I come, life's cares and pains content
With thee to share.”
The hermit's better life began;
Its holiest saint the Thebaid lost,
And found a man!
MAUD MULLER.
The recollection of some descendants of a Hessian deserter in the Revolutionary war bearing the name of Muller doubtless suggested the somewhat infelicitous title of a New England idyl. The poem had no real foundation in fact, though a hint of it may have been found in recalling an incident, trivial in itself, of a journey on the picturesque Maine seaboard with my sister some years before it was written. We had stopped to rest our tired horse under the shade of an apple-tree, and refresh him with water from a little brook which rippled through the stone wall across the road. A very beautiful young girl in scantest summer attire was at work in the hay-field, and as we talked with her we noticed that she strove to hide her bare feet by raking hay over them, blushing as she did so, through the tan of her cheek and neck.
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
White from its hill-slope looking down,
And a nameless longing filled her breast,—
For something better than she had known.
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,
Through the meadow across the road.
And filled for him her small tin cup,
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
From a fairer hand was never quaffed.”
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
That I the Judge's bride might be!
And praise and toast me at his wine.
My brother should sail a painted boat.
And the baby should have a new toy each day.
And all should bless me who left our door.”
And saw Maud Muller standing still.
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
Show her wise and good as she is fair.
Like her, a harvester of hay;
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
And health and quiet and loving words.”
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.
And Maud was left in the field alone.
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
He watched a picture come and go;
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
He longed for the wayside well instead;
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
“Ah, that I were free again!
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay.”
And many children played round her door.
Left their traces on heart and brain.
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
Over the roadside, through the wall,
She saw a rider draw his rein.
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Stretched away into stately halls;
The tallow candle an astral burned,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Saying only, “It might have been.”
For rich repiner and household drudge!
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”
Deeply buried from human eyes;
Roll the stone from its grave away!
MARY GARVIN.
Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's intervales;
There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters foam and flow,
As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred years ago.
How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its freedom of the hills,
Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately Champernoon
Heard on its banks the gray wolf's howl, the trumpet of the loon!
Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him like a dream.
Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward far and fast
The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of the past.
The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our own akin;
Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always young.
O mill-girl watching late and long the shuttle's restless play!
Let, for the once, a listening ear the working hand beguile,
And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, a tear or smile!
Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and plunged the Saco's falls.
Over cedars darkening inland the smokes of Spurwink blew.
Right and left sat dame and goodman, and between them lay the dog,
Sitting drowsy in the firelight, winked and purred the mottled cat.
And his gray head slowly shaking, as one who speaks of death.
Since the Indians fell on Saco, and stole our child away.”
Of a great and common sorrow, and words were needed not.
On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and furred, the fire-light shone.
“Lives here Elkanah Garvin?” “I am he,” the goodman said.
And the goodwife drew the settle, and stirred the fire amain.
In her large, moist eyes, and over soft folds of dark brown hair.
Dear heart!” she cried, “now tell me, has my child come back to me?”
“Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin's child!
She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far away.
She said, ‘May God forgive me! I have closed my heart too long.
I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father of us all.
Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart.
Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims of blood denied;
Earthly daughter, Heavenly Mother! thou at least wilt not condemn!‘
As we come to do her bidding, so receive us for her sake.”
He woundeth, but He healeth; in her child our daughter lives!”
And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with reverence, “Let us pray.”
Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer of love and praise.
The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of Papistrie.
A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign of Rome?”
“Oh, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my mother died!
As they fall on Spurwink's graveyard; and the dear God watches all!”
“Your words, dear child,” he answered, “are God's rebuke to me.
Let me be your father's father, let him be to me a son.”
From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to sermon and to prayer,
As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the people sit;
From the brave coat, lace-embroidered, to the gray frock, shading down;
Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has followed them through life,
Where she rests (they hope in God's peace), has sent to them her child;
Not unworthy, through their weakness, of such special proof of love.”
And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maidenhood.
Thought the young men, “'T is an angel in Mary Garvin's stead!”
THE RANGER.
When the ranger's horn was calling
Through the woods to Canada.
Gone the spring-time's bud and blowing,
Gone the summer's harvest mowing,
And again the fields are gray.
Yet away, he's away!
Faint and fainter hope is growing
In the hearts that mourn his stay.
Abraham's rock with teeth of iron,
Glares o'er wood and wave away,
Faintly thence, as pines far sighing,
Or as thunder spent and dying,
Come the challenge and replying,
Come the sounds of flight and fray.
Well-a-day! Hope and pray!
Some are living, some are lying
In their red graves far away.
Homeward faring, weary strangers
Pass the farm-gate on their way;
Tidings of the dead and living,
Forest march and ambush, giving,
Till the maidens leave their weaving,
And the lads forget their play.
“Still away, still away!”
Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving,
“Why does Robert still delay!”
Does the golden-locked fruit bearer
Through his painted woodlands stray,
Overlook the long, blue reaches,
Silver coves and pebbled beaches,
And green isles of Casco Bay;
Nowhere day, for delay,
With a tenderer look beseeches,
“Let me with my charmed earth stay.”
Stands the serried corn like train-bands,
Plume and pennon rustling gay;
Out at sea, the islands wooded,
Silver birches, golden-hooded,
Set with maples, crimson-blooded,
White sea-foam and sand-hills gray,
Stretch away, far away.
Dim and dreamy, over-brooded
By the hazy autumn day.
Of the brown nuts downward pattering,
Leap the squirrels, red and gray.
On the grass-land, on the fallow,
Drop the apples, red and yellow;
Drop the russet pears and mellow,
Drop the red leaves all the day.
And away, swift away,
Sun and cloud, o'er hill and hollow
Chasing, weave their web of play.
Prithee tell us of the reason
Why you mope at home to-day:
Leave your quilling, leave your spinning;
What is all your store of linen,
If your heart is never gay?
Come away, come away!
Never yet did sad beginning
Make the task of life a play.”
With the flaxen skein she 's tending
Pale brown tresses smoothed away
From her face of patient sorrow,
Sits she, seeking but to borrow,
From the trembling hope of morrow,
Solace for the weary day.
“Go your way, laugh and play;
Unto Him who heeds the sparrow
And the lily, let me pray.”
Join us!” cried the blue-eyed Nelly;
“Join us!” cried the laughing May,
“To the beach we all are going,
And, to save the task of rowing,
West by north the wind is blowing,
Blowing briskly down the bay!
Come away, come away!
Time and tide are swiftly flowing,
Let us take them while we may!
Where the purple beach-plum mellows
On the bluffs so wild and gray.
Hark, our merry mates are calling;
Time it is that we were all in,
Singing tideward down the bay!”
“Nay, nay, let me stay;
Sore and sad for Robert Rawlin
Is my heart,” she said, “to-day.”
Some red squaw his moose-meat 's broiling,
Or some French lass, singing gay;
Just forget as he 's forgetting;
What avails a life of fretting?
If some stars must needs be setting,
Others rise as good as they.”
“Cease, I pray; go your way!”
Martha cries, her eyelids wetting;
“Foul and false the words you say!”
Prithee, put a kinder face on!”
“Cease to vex me,” did she say;
“Better at his side be lying,
With the mournful pine-trees sighing,
And the wild birds o'er us crying,
Than to doubt like mine a prey;
While away, far away,
Turns my heart, forever trying
Some new hope for each new day.
And the sunset's golden ladders
Sink from twilight's walls of gray,—
I can see his sickle gleaming,
Cheery-voiced, can hear him teaming
Down the locust-shaded way;
But away, swift away,
Fades the fond, delusive seeming,
And I kneel again to pray.
And the barn-yard cock is crowing,
And the horned moon pales away:
From a dream of him awaking,
Every sound my heart is making
Seems a footstep of his taking;
Then I hush the thought, and say,
‘Nay, nay, he 's away!’
Ah! my heart, my heart is breaking
For the dear one far away.”
Glows a face of manhood worthy:
“Robert!” “Martha!” all they say.
O'er went wheel and reel together,
Little cared the owner whither;
Heart of lead is heart of feather,
Noon of night is noon of day!
Come away, come away!
When such lovers meet each other,
Why should prying idlers stay?
Quench the red leaves in December's
Hoary rime and chilly spray.
Household welcomes sound sincerer,
Heart to loving heart draw nearer,
When the bridal bells shall say:
“Hope and pray, trust alway;
Life is sweeter, love is dearer,
For the trial and delay!”
THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN.
Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann.
Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide glimmering down,
And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient fishing-town.
When along yon breezy headlands with a pleasant friend I strolled.
Ah! the autumn sun is shining, and the ocean wind blows cool,
And the golden-rod and aster bloom around thy grave, Rantoul!
A wild and wondrous story, by the younger Mather penned,
Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaos Ovid sings.
Inward, grand with awe and reverence; outward, mean and coarse and cold;
Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and vulgar clay,
Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of hodden gray.
Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in;
And the lore of home and fireside, and the legendary rhyme,
Make the task of duty lighter which the true man owes his time.
When with pious chisel wandering Scotland's moorland graveyards through,
From the graves of old traditions I part the blackberry-vines,
Wipe the moss from off the headstones, and retouch the faded lines.
The garrison-house stood watching on the gray rocks of Cape Ann;
On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and palisade,
And rough walls of unhewn timber with the moonlight overlaid.
O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white with breakers stretching north,—
Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, jagged capes, with bush and tree,
Leaning inland from the smiting of the wild and gusty sea.
Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets in their hands;
On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch was shared,
And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from beard to beard.
Of all ghostly sights and noises,—signs and wonders manifold;
Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom of morning clouds;
Full of plants that love the summer,—blooms of warmer latitudes;
Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's flowery vines,
And the white magnolia-blossoms star the twilight of the pines!
As they spake of present tokens of the powers of evil near;
Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aim of gun;
Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould of mortals run!
Thrice around the block-house marching, met, unharmed, its volleyed flame;
Then, with mocking laugh and gesture, sunk in earth or lost in air,
All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the moonlit sands lay bare.
Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, grimly marching in the moon.
“Ghosts or witches,” said the captain, “thus I foil the Evil One!”
And he rammed a silver button, from his doublet, down his gun.
Once again the levelled muskets through the palisades flashed out,
With that deadly aim the squirrel on his tree-top might not shun,
Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his slant wing to the sun.
With a laugh of fierce derision, once again the phantoms fled;
Once again, without a shadow on the sands the moonlight lay,
And the white smoke curling through it drifted slowly down the bay!
They have vanished with their leader, Prince and Power of the air!
They who do the Devil's service wear their master's coat of mail!”
Roused the score of weary soldiers watching round the dusky hall:
And they looked to flint and priming, and they longed for break of day;
But the captain closed his Bible: “Let us cease from man, and pray!”
And their steadfast strength of courage struck its roots in holy fear.
Every hand forsook the musket, every head was bowed and bare,
Every stout knee pressed the flag-stones, as the captain led in prayer.
But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears and hearts of all,—
Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish! Never after mortal man
Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round the block-house of Cape Ann.
From the childhood of its people comes the solemn legend down.
Not in vain the ancient fiction, in whose moral lives the youth
And the fitness and the freshness of an undecaying truth.
Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, in the darkness undefined;
Round us throng the grim projections of the heart and of the brain,
And our pride of strength is weakness, and the cunning hand is vain.
Breaks the crystal spheres of silence, and no white wings downward fly;
But the heavenly help we pray for comes to faith, and not to sight,
And our prayers themselves drive backward all the spirits of the night!
THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS.
While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray,
Alone with God, as was his pious choice,
Heard from without a miserable voice,
As of a lost soul crying out of hell.
His thoughts went upward broken by that cry;
And, looking from the casement, saw below
A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow,
And withered hands held up to him, who cried
For alms as one who might not be denied.
His life for ours, my child from bondage save,—
My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaves
In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit waves
Lap the white walls of Tunis!”—“What I can
I give,” Tritemius said, “my prayers.”—“O man
Of God!” she cried, for grief had made her bold,
“Mock me not thus; I ask not prayers, but gold.
Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice;
Even while I speak perchance my first-born dies.”
None go unfed, hence are we always poor;
A single soldo is our only store.
Thou hast our prayers;—what can we give thee more?”
On either side of the great crucifix.
God well may spare them on His errands sped,
Or He can give you golden ones instead.”
Woman, so be it! (Our most gracious Lord,
Pardon me if a human soul I prize
Above the gifts upon his altar piled!)
Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child.”
He placed within the beggar's eager palms;
And as she vanished down the linden shade,
He bowed his head and for forgiveness prayed.
He woke to find the chapel all aflame,
And, dumb with grateful wonder, to behold
Upon the altar candlesticks of gold!
SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.
In the valuable and carefully prepared History of Marblehead, published in 1879 by Samuel Roads, Jr., it is stated that the crew of Captain Ireson, rather than himself, were responsible for the abandonment of the disabled vessel. To screen themselves they charged their captain with the crime. In view of this the writer of the ballad addressed the following letter to the historian:—
Oak Knoll, Danvers, 5 mo. 18, 1880.My dear Friend: I heartily thank thee for a copy of thy History of Marblehead. I have read it with great interest and think good use has been made of the abundant material. No town in Essex County has a record more honorable than Marblehead; no one has done more to develop the industrial interests of our New England seaboard, and certainly none have given such evidence of self-sacrificing patriotism. I am glad the story of it has been at last told, and told so well. I have now no doubt that thy version of Skipper Ireson's ride is the correct one. My verse was founded solely on a fragment of rhyme which I heard from one of my early schoolmates, a native of Marblehead.
I supposed the story to which it referred dated back at least a century. I knew nothing of the participators, and the narrative
Told in story or sung in rhyme,—
On Apuleius's Golden Ass,
Or one-eyed Calender's horse of brass,
Witch astride of a human back,
Islam's prophet on Al-Borák,—
The strangest ride that ever was sped
Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead!
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,
Feathered and ruffled in every part,
Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.
Scores of women, old and young,
Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,
Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane,
Shouting and singing the shrill refrain:
“Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!”
Girls in bloom of cheek and lips,
Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase
Bacchus round some antique vase,
Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,
With couch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang,
Over and over the Mænads sang:
“Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!”
From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,—
Sailed away from a sinking wreck,
With his own town's-people on her deck!
“Lay by! lay by!” they called to him.
Back he answered, “Sink or swim!
Brag of your catch of fish again!”
And off he sailed through the fog and rain!
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
That wreck shall lie forevermore.
Mother and sister, wife and maid,
Looked from the rocks of Marblehead
Over the moaning and rainy sea,—
Looked for the coming that might not be!
What did the winds and the sea-birds say
Of the cruel captain who sailed away?—
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
Up flew windows, doors swung wide;
Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
Hulks of old sailors run aground,
Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,
And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain:
“Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!”
Bloom of orchard and lilac showed.
Little the wicked skipper knew
Of the fields so green and the sky so blue.
Riding there in his sorry trim,
Like an Indian idol glum and grim,
Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear
Of voices shouting, far and near:
“Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!”
“What to me is this noisy ride?
What is the shame that clothes the skin
To the nameless horror that lives within?
Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck,
And hear a cry from a reeling deck!
Hate me and curse me,—I only dread
The hand of God and the face of the dead!”
Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
Said, “God has touched him! why should we?”
Said an old wife mourning her only son,
“Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!”
So with soft relentings and rude excuse,
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,
And gave him a cloak to hide him in,
And left him alone with his shame and sin.
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
THE SYCAMORES.
Hugh Tallant was the first Irish resident of Haverhill, Mass. He planted the button-wood trees on the bank of the river below the village in the early part of the seventeenth century. Unfortunately this noble avenue is now nearly destroyed.
On the river's winding shores,
Stand the Occidental plane-trees,
Stand the ancient sycamores.
And another half-way told,
Since the rustic Irish gleeman
Broke for them the virgin mould.
At his violin's sound they grew,
Through the moonlit eves of summer,
Making Amphion's fable true.
Pass in jerkin green along,
With thy eyes brimful of laughter,
And thy mouth as full of song.
With his fiddle and his pack;
Little dreamed the village Saxons
Of the myriads at his back.
Delved by day and sang by night,
With a hand that never wearied,
And a heart forever light,—
With a record grave and drear,
Like the rollic air of Cluny,
With the solemn march of Mear.
Made the sweet May woodlands glad,
And the Aronia by the river
Lighted up the swarming shad,
With their silver-sided haul,
Midst the shouts of dripping fishers,
He was merriest of them all.
Love stole in at Labor's side,
With the lusty airs of England,
Soft his Celtic measures vied.
And the merry fair's carouse;
Of the wild Red Fox of Erin
And the Woman of Three Cows,
Pleasant seemed his simple tales,
Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legends
And the mountain myths of Wales.
Scrambled up from fate forlorn,
On St. Keven's sackcloth ladder,
Slyly hitched to Satan's horn.
Played all night to ghosts of kings;
Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairies
Dancing in their moorland rings!
Best he loved the Bob-o-link.
“Hush!” he 'd say, “the tipsy fairies!
Hear the little folks in drink!”
Singing through the ancient town,
Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant,
Hath Tradition handed down.
But if yet his spirit walks,
'T is beneath the trees he planted,
And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks;
Linking still the river-shores,
With their shadows cast by sunset,
Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores!
Through the north-land riding came,
And the roofs were starred with banners,
And the steeples rang acclaim,—
Leaving smithy, mill, and farm,
Waved his rusted sword in welcome,
And shot off his old king's arm,—
Down the thronged and shouting street;
Village girls as white as angels,
Scattering flowers around his feet.
Deepest fell, his rein he drew:
On his stately head, uncovered,
Cool and soft the west-wind blew.
Looking up and looking down
On the hills of Gold and Silver
Rimming round the little town,—
To the lap of greenest vales
Winding down from wooded headlands,
Willow-skirted, white with sails.
Slowly with his ungloved hand,
I have seen no prospect fairer
In this goodly Eastern land.”
Stirred to life the cavalcade:
And that head, so bare and stately,
Vanished down the depths of shade.
Life has had its ebb and flow;
Thrice hath passed the human harvest
To its garner green and low.
Through the changes, changeless stand;
As the marble calm of Tadmor
Mocks the desert's shifting sand.
Silvers o'er each stately shaft;
Still beneath them, half in shadow,
Singing, glides the pleasure craft;
Love and Youth together stray;
While, as heart to heart beats faster,
More and more their feet delay.
On the open hillside wrought,
Singing, as he drew his stitches,
Songs his German masters taught,
Round his rosy ample face,—
Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen
Stitch and hammer in his place.
Now are Traffic's dusty streets;
From the village, grown a city,
Fast the rural grace retreats.
On the river's winding shores,
Stand the Occidental plane-trees,
Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores.
THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW.
Voice of the glens and hills;
The droning of the torrents,
The treble of the rills!
Not the braes of broom and heather,
Nor the mountains dark with rain,
Nor maiden bower, nor border tower,
Have heard your sweetest strain!
And plaided mountaineer,—
To the cottage and the castle
The Scottish pipes are dear;—
Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch
O'er mountain, loch, and glade;
The pipes at Lucknow played.
Louder yelled, and nearer crept;
Round and round the jungle-serpent
Near and nearer circles swept.
“Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,—
Pray to-day!” the soldier said;
“To-morrow, death's between us
And the wrong and shame we dread.”
Till their hope became despair;
And the sobs of low bewailing
Filled the pauses of their prayer.
Then up spake a Scottish maiden,
With her ear unto the ground:
“Dinna ye hear it?—dinna ye hear it?
The pipes o' Havelock sound!”
Hushed the wife her little ones;
Alone they heard the drum-roll
And the roar of Sepoy guns.
But to sounds of home and childhood
The Highland ear was true;—
As her mother's cradle-crooning
The mountain pipes she knew.
Through the vision of the seer,
More of feeling than of hearing,
Of the heart than of the ear,
She knew the Campbell's call:
“Hark! hear ye no MacGregor's,
The grandest o' them all!”
And they caught the sound at last;
Faint and far beyond the Goomtee
Rose and fell the piper's blast!
Then a burst of wild thanksgiving
Mingled woman's voice and man's;
“God be praised!—the march of Havelock!
The piping of the clans!”
Sharp and shrill as swords at strife,
Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call,
Stinging all the air to life.
But when the far-off dust-cloud
To plaided legions grew,
Full tenderly and blithesomely
The pipes of rescue blew!
Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine,
Breathed the air to Britons dearest,
The air of Auld Lang Syne.
O'er the cruel roll of war-drums
Rose that sweet and homelike strain;
And the tartan clove the turban,
As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.
And plaided mountaineer,—
The piper's song is dear.
Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch
O'er mountain, glen, and glade;
But the sweetest of all music
The Pipes at Lucknow played!
TELLING THE BEES.
A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and their hives dressed in mourning. This ceremonial was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home.
Runs the path I took;
You can see the gap in the old wall still,
And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.
And the poplars tall;
And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard,
And the white horns tossing above the wall.
And down by the brink
Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun,
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.
Heavy and slow;
And the same brook sings of a year ago.
And the June sun warm
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees,
Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.
From my Sunday coat
I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair,
And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat.
To love, a year;
Down through the beeches I looked at last
On the little red gate and the well-sweep near.
Of light through the leaves,
The sundown's blaze on her window-pane,
The bloom of her roses under the eaves.
The house and the trees,
The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,—
Nothing changed but the hives of bees.
Forward and back,
Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,
Draping each hive with a shred of black.
Had the chill of snow;
For I knew she was telling the bees of one
Gone on the journey we all must go!
For the dead to-day:
Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps
The fret and the pain of his age away.”
With his cane to his chin,
The old man sat; and the chore-girl still
Sung to the bees stealing out and in.
In my ear sounds on:—
“Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
Mistress Mary is dead and gone!”
THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY.
In Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts Bay from 1623 to 1636 may be found Anthony Thacher's Narrative of his Shipwreck. Thacher was Avery's companion and survived to tell the tale. Mather's Magnalia, III. 2, gives further Particulars of Parson Avery's End, and suggests the title of the poem.
Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife and children eight,
Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop “Watch and Wait.”
With the newly planted orchards dropping their fruits first-born,
And the home-roofs like brown islands amid a sea of corn.
And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and walnuts green;—
A fairer home, a goodlier land, his eyes had never seen.
And the voice of God seemed calling, to break the living bread
To the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of Marblehead.
The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights denied,
And far and low the thunder of tempest prophesied!
Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the rudder in his hand,
And questioned of the darkness what was sea and what was land.
“Never heed, my little children! Christ is walking on before
To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall be no more.”
To let down the torch of lightning on the terror far and wide;
And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote the tide.
A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp and bare,
And, through it all, the murmur of Father Avery's prayer.
On a rock, where every billow broke above him as it passed,
Alone, of all his household, the man of God was cast.
“All my own have gone before me, and I linger just behind;
Not for life I ask, but only for the rest Thy ransomed find!
Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears have heard!—
Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the grace of Christ, our Lord!
And let me follow up to Thee my household and my kin!
Open the sea-gate of Thy heaven, and let me enter in!”
And the angels, leaning over the walls of crystal, hear
How the notes so faint and broken swell to music in God's ear.
As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet hymn upward pressed,
And the soul of Father Avery went, singing, to its rest.
In the stricken church of Newbury the notes of prayer were read;
And long, by board and hearthstone, the living mourned the dead.
With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale recall,
When they see the white waves breaking on the Rock of Avery's Fall!
THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF NEWBURY.
“Concerning ye Amphisbæna, as soon as I received your commands, I made diligent inquiry: ... he assures me yt it had really two heads, one at each end; two mouths, two stings or tongues.”—
Rev. Christopher Toppan to Cotton Mather.Of every people, in every clime,
Dragons and griffins and monsters dire,
Born of water, and air, and fire,
Or nursed, like the Python, in the mud
And ooze of the old Deucalion flood,
Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage,
Through dusk tradition and ballad age.
So from the childhood of Newbury town
And its time of fable the tale comes down
Of a terror which haunted bush and brake,
The Amphisbæna, the Double Snake!
Consider that strip of Christian earth
On the desolate shore of a sailless sea,
Full of terror and mystery,
Of the wood so dreary, and dark, and old,
Which drank with its lips of leaves the dew
When Time was young, and the world was new,
And wove its shadows with sun and moon,
Ere the stones of Cheops were squared and hewn.
Think of the sea's dread monotone,
Of the mournful wail from the pine-wood blown,
Of the strange, vast splendors that lit the North,
Of the troubled throes of the quaking earth,
And the dismal tales the Indian told,
Till the settler's heart at his hearth grew cold,
And he shrank from the tawny wizard boasts,
And the hovering shadows seemed full of ghosts,
And above, below, and on every side,
The fear of his creed seemed verified;—
And think, if his lot were now thine own,
To grope with terrors nor named nor known,
How laxer muscle and weaker nerve
And a feebler faith thy need might serve;
And own to thyself the wonder more
That the snake had two heads, and not a score!
Or the gray earth-flax of the Devil's Den,
Or swam in the wooded Artichoke,
Or coiled by the Northman's Written Rock,
Nothing on record is left to show;
Only the fact that he lived, we know,
And left the cast of a double head
In the scaly mask which he yearly shed.
For he carried a head where his tail should be,
And the two, of course, could never agree,
Now to the left and now to the right;
Pulling and twisting this way and that,
Neither knew what the other was at.
Judge of the wonder, guess at the fear!
Think what ancient gossips might say,
Shaking their heads in their dreary way,
Between the meetings on Sabbath-day!
How urchins, searching at day's decline
The Common Pasture for sheep or kine,
The terrible double-ganger heard
In leafy rustle or whir of bird!
Think what a zest it gave to the sport,
In berry-time, of the younger sort,
As over pastures blackberry-twined,
Reuben and Dorothy lagged behind,
And closer and closer, for fear of harm,
The maiden clung to her lover's arm;
And how the spark, who was forced to stay,
By his sweetheart's fears, till the break of day,
Thanked the snake for the fond delay!
Like a snowball growing while it rolled.
The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry;
And it served, in the worthy minister's eye,
To paint the primitive serpent by.
Cotton Mather came galloping down
All the way to Newbury town,
With his eyes agog and his ears set wide,
And his marvellous inkhorn at his side;
Of his brains for the lore he learned at school,
To garnish the story, with here a streak
Of Latin, and there another of Greek:
And the tales he heard and the notes he took,
Behold! are they not in his Wonder-Book?
If the snake does not, the tale runs still
In Byfield Meadows, on Pipestave Hill.
And still, whenever husband and wife
Publish the shame of their daily strife,
And, with mad cross-purpose, tug and strain
At either end of the marriage-chain,
The gossips say, with a knowing shake
Of their gray heads, “Look at the Double Snake!
One in body and two in will,
The Amphisbæna is living still!”
MABEL MARTIN.
A HARVEST IDYL.
Susanna Martin, an aged woman of Amesbury, Mass., was tried and executed for the alleged crime of witchcraft. Her home was in what is now known as Pleasant Valley on the Merrimac, a little above the old Ferry way, where, tradition says, an attempt was made to assassinate Sir Edmund Andros on his way to Falmouth (afterward Portland) and Pemaquid, which was frustrated by a warning timely given. Goody Martin was the only woman hanged on the north side of the Merrimac during the dreadful delusion. The aged wife of Judge Bradbury who lived on the other side of the Powow River was imprisoned and would have been put to death but for the collapse of the hideous persecution.
The substance of the poem which follows was published under the name of The Witch's Daughter, in The National Era in 1857. In 1875 my publishers desired to issue it with illustrations, and I then enlarged it and otherwise altered it to its present form. The principal addition was in the verses which constitute Part I.
PROEM.
In tender memory of the summer day
When, where our native river lapsed away,
Songs of their own, and the great pine-trees laid
On warm noonlights the masses of their shade.
Her life in ours, despite of years and pain,—
The Autumn's brightness after latter rain.
Who stands, at evening, when the work is done,
Glorified in the setting of the sun!
Fairer than any of which painters dream;
Lights the brown hills and sings in every stream;
Heard, not unpleased, its simple legends told,
And loved with us the beautiful and old.
I. THE RIVER VALLEY.
A grassy, rarely trodden way,
With thinnest skirt of birchen spray
To where you see the dull plain fall
Sheer off, steep-slanted, ploughed by all
The over-leaning harebells swing,
With roots half bare the pine-trees cling;
You see the wavering river flow
Along a vale, that far below
And glimmering water-line between,
Broad fields of corn and meadows green,
The low brown roofs and painted eaves,
And chimney-tops half hid in leaves.
Yon wind-scourged sand-dunes, cold and bleak;
No fairer river comes to seek
Or mark the northmost border line
Of sun-loved growths of nut and vine.
Untempted by the city's gain,
The quiet farmer folk remain
And keep their fathers' gentle ways
And simple speech of Bible days;
With modest ease her equal place,
And wears upon her tranquil face
Her self-hood in another's will,
Is love's and duty's handmaid still.
Through birches to the open land,
Where, close upon the river strand
Above whose wall of loosened stones
The sumach lifts its reddening cones,
And broad, unsightly burdocks fold
The household ruin, century-old.
Of sterner lives and gloomier faith,
A woman lived, tradition saith,
And witched and plagued the country-side,
Till at the hangman's hand she died.
Falls slantwise down the quiet vale,
And, haply ere yon loitering sail,
Below Deer Island's pines, or sees
Behind it Hawkswood's belt of trees
My idyl of its days of old,
The valley's legend, shall be told.
II. THE HUSKING.
When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
And garrets bend beneath their load,
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
Through which the moted sunlight streams,
The red plumes of the roosted cocks,
And the loose hay-mow's scented locks,—
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves,
From their low scaffolds to their eaves.
With many an autumn threshing worn,
Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn.
Beneath a moon that, large and low,
Lit that sweet eve of long ago.
And others by a merry voice
Or sweet smile guided to their choice.
Between the shadow of the mows,
Looked on them through the great elm-boughs!
On girlhood with its solid curves
Of healthful strength and painless nerves!
The house-dog answer with his howl,
And kept astir the barn-yard fowl;
In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors,
Ere Norman William trod their shores;
The fat sides of the Saxon thane,
Forgetful of the hovering Dane,—
The charms and riddles that beguiled
On Oxus' banks the young world's child,—
Have youth and maid the story told,
So new in each, so dateless old,
Who waited, blushing and demure,
The red-ear's kiss of forfeiture.
III. THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER.
That river-valley ever heard
From lips of maid or throat of bird;
And let the hay-mow's shadow fall
Upon the loveliest face of all.
Who knew that none would condescend
To own the Witch-wife's child a friend.
Since curious thousands thronged to see
Her mother at the gallows-tree;
That faltered on the fatal stairs,
And wan lip trembling with its prayers!
Or, when they saw the mother die,
Dreamed of the daughter's agony.
As men and Christians justified:
God willed it, and the wretch had died!
Forgive our faith in cruel lies,—
Forgive the blindness that denies!
For the all-perfect love Thou art,
Some grim creation of his heart.
Our bloody altars; let us see
Thyself in Thy humanity!
Crept to her desolate hearth-stone,
And wrestled with her fate alone;
The phantoms of disordered sense,
The awful doubts of Providence!
And dreary fell the winter nights
When, one by one, the neighboring lights
And all the phantom-peopled dark
Closed round her hearth-fire's dying spark.
And sad the uncompanioned eves,
And sadder sunset-tinted leaves,
She scarcely felt the soft caress,
The beauty died of loneliness!
And, when she sought the house of prayer,
Her mother's curse pursued her there.
She saw the horseshoe's curvëd charm,
To guard against her mother's harm:
Who daily, by the old arm-chair,
Folded her withered hands in prayer;—
Her worn old Bible o'er and o'er,
When her dim eyes could read no more!
Her faith, and trusted that her way,
So dark, would somewhere meet the day.
Day after day, with no relief:
Small leisure have the poor for grief.
IV. THE CHAMPION.
Untouched by mirth she sees and hears,
Her smile is sadder than her tears.
And cruel lips repeat her name,
And taunt her with her mother's shame.
But drew her apron o'er her face,
And, sobbing, glided from the place.
Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze
Of one who, in her better days,
Ere yet her mother's doom had made
Even Esek Harden half afraid.
And, starting, with an angry frown,
Hushed all the wicked murmurs down.
“This passes harmless mirth or jest;
I brook no insult to my guest.
But God's sweet pity ministers
Unto no whiter soul than hers.
I never knew her harm a fly,
And witch or not, God knows—not I.
And as God lives, I 'd not condemn
An Indian dog on word of them.”
The skill to guide, the power to awe,
Were Harden's; and his word was law.
But one sly maiden spake aside:
“The little witch is evil-eyed!
Or witched a churn or dairy-pan;
But she, forsooth, must charm a man!”
V. IN THE SHADOW.
The nameless terrors of the wood,
And saw, as if a ghost pursued,
The soft breath of the west-wind gave
A chill as from her mother's grave.
Wide in the moonbeams' ghastly glare
Its windows had a dead man's stare!
The tremulous shadow of a birch
Reached out and touched the door's low porch,
A sudden warning call she heard,
The night-cry of a boding bird.
So fair, so young, so full of pain,
White in the moonlight's silver rain.
Made music such as childhood knew;
The door-yard tree was whispered through
Had heard in moonlights long ago;
And through the willow-boughs below
Beyond, in waves of shade and light,
The hills rolled off into the night.
A sense of some transforming spell,
The shadow of her sick heart fell.
The harvest lights of Harden shone,
And song and jest and laugh went on.
Of men the bravest and the best,
Had he, too, scorned her with the rest?
And, in her old and simple way,
To teach her bitter heart to pray.
Grew to a low, despairing cry
Of utter misery: “Let me die!
And hide me where the cruel speech
And mocking finger may not reach!
A daughter's right I dare not crave
To weep above her unblest grave!
With few to pity, and with none
To love me, hardens into stone.
Whose faith in Thee grows weak an small,
And take me ere I lose it all!”
And murmuring wind and wave became
A voice whose burden was her name.
VI. THE BETROTHAL.
His angel down? In flesh and blood,
Before her Esek Harden stood!
“Dear Mabel, this no more shall be;
Who scoffs at you must scoff at me.
And if he seems no suitor gay,
And if his hair is touched with gray,
His heart less warm than when she smiled,
Upon his knees, a little child!”
As, folded in his strong embrace,
She looked in Esek Harden's face.
“God bless you for your kindly thought,
And make me worthy of my lot!”
Beside their happy pathway ran
The shadows of the maid and man.
To where the swinging lanterns glowed,
And through the doors the huskers showed.
“I'm weary of this lonely life;
In Mabel see my chosen wife!
The past is past, and all offence
Falls harmless from her innocence.
You know what Esek Harden is;—
He brooks no wrong to him or his.
And let the sweetest songs be sung
That ever made the old heart young!
And a lone hearth shall brighter burn,
As all the household joys return!”
Between the shadow of the mows,
Looked on them through the great elm-boughs!
On Esek's shaggy strength it fell;
And the wind whispered, “It is well!”
THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL.
The prose version of this prophecy is to be found in Sewall's The New Heaven upon the New Earth, 1697, quoted in Joshua Coffin's History of Newbury. Judge Sewall's father, Henry Sewall, was one of the pioneers of Newbury.
Strange are the forms my fancy meets,
For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid,
And through the veil of a closëd lid
The ancient worthies I see again:
I hear the tap of the elder's cane,
And his awful periwig I see,
And the silver buckles of shoe and knee.
Stately and slow, with thoughtful air,
His black cap hiding his whitened hair,
Walks the Judge of the great Assize,
Samuel Sewall the good and wise.
His face with lines of firmness wrought,
He wears the look of a man unbought,
Who swears to his hurt and changes not;
Yet, touched and softened nevertheless
With the grace of Christian gentleness,
The face that a child would climb to kiss!
True and tender and brave and just,
That man might honor and woman trust.
Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist old,
Of the fast which the good man lifelong kept
With a haunting sorrow that never slept,
As the circling year brought round the time
Of an error that left the sting of crime,
With the laws of Moses and Hale's Reports,
And spake, in the name of both, the word
That gave the witch's neck to the cord,
And piled the oaken planks that pressed
The feeble life from the warlock's breast!
All the day long, from dawn to dawn,
His door was bolted, his curtain drawn;
No foot on his silent threshold trod,
No eye looked on him save that of God,
As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms
Of penitent tears, and prayers, and psalms,
And, with precious proofs from the sacred word
Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord,
His faith confirmed and his trust renewed
That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued,
Might be washed away in the mingled flood
Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood!
Of the Judge of the old Theocracy,
Whom even his errors glorified,
Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain-side
By the cloudy shadows which o'er it glide!
Honor and praise to the Puritan
Who the halting step of his age outran,
And, seeing the infinite worth of man
In the priceless gift the Father gave,
In the infinite love that stooped to save,
Dared not brand his brother a slave!
“Who doth such wrong,” he was wont to say,
In his own quaint, picture-loving way,
Which God shall cast down upon his head!”
That brave old jurist of the past
And the cunning trickster and knave of courts
Who the holy features of Truth distorts,—
Ruling as right the will of the strong,
Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong;
Wide-eared to power, to the wronged and weak
Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek;
Scoffing aside at party's nod
Order of nature and law of God;
For whose dabbled ermine respect were waste,
Reverence folly, and awe misplaced;
Justice of whom 't were vain to seek
As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik!
Oh, leave the wretch to his bribes and sins;
Let him rot in the web of lies he spins!
To the saintly soul of the early day,
To the Christian judge, let us turn and say:
“Praise and thanks for an honest man!—
Glory to God for the Puritan!”
The hills of Newbury rolling away,
With the many tints of the season gay,
Dreamily blending in autumn mist
Crimson, and gold, and amethyst.
Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned,
Plum Island lies, like a whale aground,
A stone's toss over the narrow sound.
The hills curve round like a bended bow;
A silver arrow from out them sprung,
I see the shine of the Quasycung;
And, round and round, over valley and hill,
Old roads winding, as old roads will,
Here to a ferry, and there to a mill;
And glimpses of chimneys and gabled eaves,
Through green elm arches and maple leaves,—
Old homesteads sacred to all that can
Gladden or sadden the heart of man,
Over whose thresholds of oak and stone
Life and Death have come and gone!
There pictured tiles in the fireplace show,
Great beams sag from the ceiling low,
The dresser glitters with polished wares,
The long clock ticks on the foot-worn stairs,
And the low, broad chimney shows the crack
By the earthquake made a century back.
Up from their midst springs the village spire
With the crest of its cock in the sun afire;
Beyond are orchards and planting lands,
And great salt marshes and glimmering sands,
And, where north and south the coast-lines run,
The blink of the sea in breeze and sun!
But my thoughts are full of the past and old,
I hear the tales of my boyhood told;
And the shadows and shapes of early days
Flit dimly by in the veiling haze,
With measured movement and rhythmic chime
Weaving like shuttles my web of rhyme.
Who once on yon misty hillsides stood,
(A poet who never measured rhyme,
A seer unknown to his dull-eared time,)
And, propped on his staff of age, looked down,
With his boyhood's love, on his native town,
Where, written, as if on its hills and plains,
His burden of prophecy yet remains,
For the voices of wood, and wave, and wind
To read in the ear of the musing mind:—
As God appointed, shall keep its post;
As long as a salmon shall haunt the deep
Of Merrimac River, or sturgeon leap;
As long as pickerel swift and slim,
Or red-backed perch, in Crane Pond swim;
As long as the annual sea-fowl know
Their time to come and their time to go;
As long as cattle shall roam at will
The green, grass meadows by Turkey Hill;
As long as sheep shall look from the side
Of Oldtown Hill on marishes wide,
And Parker River, and salt-sea tide;
As long as a wandering pigeon shall search
The fields below from his white-oak perch,
When the barley-harvest is ripe and shorn,
And the dry husks fall from the standing corn;
As long as Nature shall not grow old,
Nor drop her work from her doting hold,
And her care for the Indian corn forget,
And the yellow rows in pairs to set;—
So long shall Christians here be born,
Grow up and ripen as God's sweet corn!—
Shall never a holy ear be lost,
But, husked by Death in the Planter's sight,
Be sown again in the fields of light!”
Up the river the salmon comes,
The sturgeon leaps, and the wild-fowl feeds
On hillside berries and marish seeds,—
All the beautiful signs remain,
From spring-time sowing to autumn rain
The good man's vision returns again!
And let us hope, as well we can,
That the Silent Angel who garners man
May find some grain as of old he found
In the human cornfield ripe and sound,
And the Lord of the Harvest deign to own
The precious seed by the fathers sown!
THE RED RIVER VOYAGEUR.
The links of its long, red chain,
Through belts of dusky pine-land
And gusty leagues of plain.
With the drifting cloud-rack joins,
The smoke of the hunting-lodges
Of the wild Assiniboins!
From the land of ice and snow;
And heavy the hands that row.
And one upon the shore,
The Angel of Shadow gives warning
That day shall be no more.
Is it the Indian's yell,
That lends to the voice of the north-wind
The tones of a far-off bell?
To the sound that grows apace;
Well he knows the vesper ringing
Of the bells of St. Boniface.
That call from their turrets twain,
To the boatman on the river,
To the hunter on the plain!
The bitter north-winds blow,
And thus upon life's Red River
Our hearts, as oarsmen, row.
Rests his feet on wave and shore,
And our eyes grow dim with watching
And our hearts faint at the oar,
The signal of his release
In the bells of the Holy City,
The chimes of eternal peace!
THE PREACHER.
George Whitefield, the celebrated preacher, died at Newburyport in 1770, and was buried under the church which has since borne his name.
Beneath a thousand roofs of brown,
Far down the vale, my friend and I
Beheld the old and quiet town;
The ghostly sails that out at sea
Flapped their white wings of mystery;
The beaches glimmering in the sun,
And the low wooded capes that run
Into the sea-mist north and south;
The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth;
The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar,
The foam-line of the harbor-bar.
A crimson-tinted shadow lay,
Of clouds through which the setting day
Flung a slant glory far away.
It glittered on the wet sea-sands,
It flamed upon the city's panes,
Smote the white sails of ships that wore
The steeples with their veering vanes!
O'erran the landscape. “Yonder spire
Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire;
What is it, pray?”—“The Whitefield Church!
Walled about by its basement stones,
There rest the marvellous prophet's bones.”
Then as our homeward way we walked,
Of the great preacher's life we talked;
And through the mystery of our theme
The outward glory seemed to stream,
And Nature's self interpreted
The doubtful record of the dead;
And every level beam that smote
The sails upon the dark afloat
A symbol of the light became,
Which touched the shadows of our blame,
With tongues of Pentecostal flame.
Gathers the moss of a hundred years;
On man and his works has passed the change
Which needs must be in a century's range.
The land lies open and warm in the sun,
Anvils clamor and mill-wheels run,—
Flocks on the hillsides, herds on the plain,
The wilderness gladdened with fruit and grain!
But the living faith of the settlers old
A dead profession their children hold;
To the lust of office and greed of trade
A stepping-stone is the altar made.
Rebukes the sin of the world no more,
Nor sees its Lord in the homeless poor.
Everywhere is the grasping hand,
And eager adding of land to land;
And earth, which seemed to the fathers meant
But as a pilgrim's wayside tent,—
A nightly shelter to fold away
When the Lord should call at the break of day,—
Solid and steadfast seems to be,
And Time has forgotten Eternity!
Of primal forests the young growth shoots;
From the death of the old the new proceeds,
And the life of truth from the rot of creeds:
On the ladder of God, which upward leads,
The steps of progress are human needs.
For His judgments still are a mighty deep,
And the eyes of His providence never sleep:
When the night is darkest He gives the morn;
When the famine is sorest, the wine and corn!
Shaping his creed at the forge of thought;
And with Thor's own hammer welded and bent
The iron links of his argument,
Which strove to grasp in its mighty span
The purpose of God and the fate of man!
Yet faithful still, in his daily round
To the weak, and the poor, and sin-sick found,
The schoolman's lore and the casuist's art
Drew warmth and life from his fervent heart.
Of his deep and dark Northampton woods
A vision of love about him fall?
Not the blinding splendor which fell on Saul,
But the tenderer glory that rests on them
Who walk in the New Jerusalem,
Where never the sun nor moon are known,
But the Lord and His love are the light alone!
And watching the sweet, still countenance
Of the wife of his bosom rapt in trance,
Had he not treasured each broken word
Of the mystical wonder seen and heard;
And loved the beautiful dreamer more
That thus to the desert of earth she bore
Clusters of Eshcol from Canaan's shore?
Aloft in waiting his chaff and grain,
Joyfully welcomes the far-off breeze
Sounding the pine-tree's slender keys,
So he who had waited long to hear
The sound of the Spirit drawing near,
Like that which the son of Iddo heard
When the feet of angels the myrtles stirred,
Felt the answer of prayer, at last,
As over his church the afflatus passed,
Breaking its sleep as breezes break
To sun-bright ripples a stagnant lake.
The creep of the flesh at danger near,
A vague foreboding and discontent,
Over the hearts of the people went.
The wind in the tops of the forest pines
In the name of the Highest called to prayer,
As the muezzin calls from the minaret stair.
Through ceilëd chambers of secret sin
Sudden and strong the light shone in;
A guilty sense of his neighbor's needs
Startled the man of title-deeds;
The trembling hand of the worldling shook
The dust of years from the Holy Book;
And the psalms of David, forgotten long,
Took the place of the scoffer's song.
Of waters moved by a central force;
The tide of spiritual life rolled down
From inland mountains to seaboard town.
Waiting the prophet's outstretched hands
And prayer availing, to downward call
The fiery answer in view of all.
Hearts are like wax in the furnace; who
Shall mould, and shape, and cast them anew?
Lo! by the Merrimac Whitefield stands
In the temple that never was made by hands,—
Curtains of azure, and crystal wall,
And dome of the sunshine over all—
A homeless pilgrim, with dubious name
Blown about on the winds of fame;
Now as an angel of blessing classed,
And now as a mad enthusiast.
Called in his youth to sound and gauge
The moral lapse of his race and age,
Of human frailty and perfect law;
Possessed by the one dread thought that lent
Its goad to his fiery temperament,
Up and down the world he went,
A John the Baptist crying, Repent!
Here or there the circle will break;
The orb of life as it takes the light
On one side leaves the other in night.
Never was saint so good and great
As to give no chance at St. Peter's gate
For the plea of the Devil's advocate.
So, incomplete by his being's law,
The marvellous preacher had his flaw;
With step unequal, and lame with faults,
His shade on the path of History halts.
Fear is easy, but love is hard,—
Easy to glow with the Santon's rage,
And walk on the Meccan pilgrimage;
But he is greatest and best who can
Worship Allah by loving man.
Of zeal on fire from its own excess,
Heaven seemed so vast and earth so small
That man was nothing, since God was all,—
Forgot, as the best at times have done,
That the love of the Lord and of man are one.
Little to him whose feet unshed
The thorny path of the desert trod,
Seemed the hunger-pang and the poor man's wrong,
The weak ones trodden beneath the strong.
Should the worm be chooser?—the clay withstand
The shaping will of the potter's hand?
The scorn of a god rebuke his fears:
“Spare thy pity!” Krishna saith;
“Not in thy sword is the power of death!
All is illusion,—loss but seems;
Pleasure and pain are only dreams;
Who deems he slayeth doth not kill;
Who counts as slain is living still.
Strike, nor fear thy blow is crime;
Nothing dies but the cheats of time;
Slain or slayer, small the odds
To each, immortal as Indra's gods!”
The stones of his mission the preacher laid
On the heart of the negro crushed and rent,
And made of his blood the wall's cement;
Bade the slave-ship speed from coast to coast,
Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost;
And begged, for the love of Christ, the gold
Coined from the hearts in its groaning hold.
What could it matter, more or less
Of stripes, and hunger, and weariness?
Living or dying, bond or free,
What was time to eternity?
Mission and church are now but dreams;
To honor God through the wrong of man.
Of all his labors no trace remains
Save the bondman lifting his hands in chains.
The woof he wove in the righteous warp
Of freedom-loving Oglethorpe,
Clothes with curses the goodly land,
Changes its greenness and bloom to sand;
And a century's lapse reveals once more
The slave-ship stealing to Georgia's shore.
Father of Light! how blind is he
Who sprinkles the altar he rears to Thee
With the blood and tears of humanity!
Was the work of God in him unwrought?
The servant may through his deafness err,
And blind may be God's messenger;
But the errand is sure they go upon,—
The word is spoken, the deed is done.
Was the Hebrew temple less fair and good
That Solomon bowed to gods of wood?
For his tempted heart and wandering feet,
Were the songs of David less pure and sweet?
So in light and shadow the preacher went,
God's erring and human instrument;
And the hearts of the people where he passed
Swayed as the reeds sway in the blast,
Under the spell of a voice which took
In its compass the flow of Siloa's brook,
And the mystical chime of the bells of gold
On the ephod's hem of the priest of old,—
Now the roll of thunder, and now the awe
Of the trumpet heard in the Mount of Law.
Fell like the shadow of a cloud.
The sailor reeling from out the ships
Whose masts stood thick in the river-slips
Felt the jest and the curse die on his lips.
Listened the fisherman rude and hard,
The calker rough from the builder's yard;
The man of the market left his load,
The teamster leaned on his bending goad,
The maiden, and youth beside her, felt
Their hearts in a closer union melt,
And saw the flowers of their love in bloom
Down the endless vistas of life to come.
Old age sat feebly brushing away
From his ears the scanty locks of gray;
And careless boyhood, living the free
Unconscious life of bird and tree,
Suddenly wakened to a sense
Of sin and its guilty consequence.
It was as if an angel's voice
Called the listeners up for their final choice;
As if a strong hand rent apart
The veils of sense from soul and heart,
Showing in light ineffable
The joys of heaven and woes of hell!
All about in the misty air
The hills seemed kneeling in silent prayer;
The rustle of leaves, the moaning sedge,
The water's lap on its gravelled edge,
The wailing pines, and, far and faint,
The wood-dove's note of sad complaint,—
To the solemn voice of the preacher lent
An undertone as of low lament;
On the easterly wind, now heard, now lost,
Seemed the murmurous sound of the judgment host.
As that storm of passion above them swept,
And, comet-like, adding flame to flame,
The priests of the new Evangel came,—
Davenport, flashing upon the crowd,
Charged like summer's electric cloud,
Now holding the listener still as death
With terrible warnings under breath,
Now shouting for joy, as if he viewed
The vision of Heaven's beatitude!
And Celtic Tennant, his long coat bound
Like a monk's with leathern girdle round,
Wild with the toss of unshorn hair,
And wringing of hands, and eyes aglare,
Groaning under the world's despair!
Grave pastors, grieving their flocks to lose,
Prophesied to the empty pews
That gourds would wither, and mushrooms die,
And noisiest fountains run soonest dry,
Like the spring that gushed in Newbury Street,
Under the tramp of the earthquake's feet,
A silver shaft in the air and light,
For a single day, then lost in night,
Leaving only, its place to tell,
Sandy fissure and sulphurous smell.
With zeal wing-clipped and white-heat cool,
Moved by the spirit in grooves of rule,
No longer harried, and cropped, and fleeced,
Flogged by sheriff and cursed by priest,
To settle quietly on his lees,
And, self-concentred, to count as done
The work which his fathers well begun,
In silent protest of letting alone,
The Quaker kept the way of his own,—
A non-conductor among the wires,
With coat of asbestos proof to fires.
And quite unable to mend his pace
To catch the falling manna of grace,
He hugged the closer his little store
Of faith, and silently prayed for more.
And vague of creed and barren of rite,
But holding, as in his Master's sight,
Act and thought to the inner light,
The round of his simple duties walked,
And strove to live what the others talked.
Step by step with the good intent,
And with love and meekness, side by side,
Lust of the flesh and spiritual pride?—
That passionate longings and fancies vain
Set the heart on fire and crazed the brain?
That over the holy oracles
Folly sported with cap and bells?
That goodly women and learned men
Marvelling told with tongue and pen
How unweaned children chirped like birds
Texts of Scripture and solemn words,
Like the infant seers of the rocky glens
In the Puy de Dome of wild Cevennes:
Or baby Lamas who pray and preach
From Tartar cradles in Buddha's speech?
With impious fraud and the wrong of ages,
Hate and malice and self-love mar
The notes of triumph with painful jar,
And the helping angels turn aside
Their sorrowing faces the shame to hide.
Never on custom's oilëd grooves
The world to a higher level moves,
But grates and grinds with friction hard
On granite boulder and flinty shard.
The heart must bleed before it feels,
The pool be troubled before it heals;
Ever by losses the right must gain,
Every good have its birth of pain;
The active Virtues blush to find
The Vices wearing their badge behind,
And Graces and Charities feel the fire
Wherein the sins of the age expire;
The fiend still rends as of old he rent
The tortured body from which he went.
And flow of the Nile, with its annual gift,
Who cares for the Hadji's relics sunk?
Who thinks of the drowned-out Coptic monk?
The tide that loosens the temple's stones,
And scatters the sacred ibis-bones,
Drives away from the valley-land
That Arab robber, the wandering sand,
Moistens the fields that know no rain,
Fringes the desert with belts of grain,
And bread to the sower brings again.
Troubled the land as it swept along,
But left a result of holier lives,
Tenderer mothers and worthier wives.
The husband and father whose children fled
And sad wife wept when his drunken tread
Frightened peace from his roof-tree's shade,
And a rock of offence his hearthstone made,
In a strength that was not his own began
To rise from the brute's to the plane of man.
Old friends embraced, long held apart
By evil counsel and pride of heart;
And penitence saw through misty tears,
In the bow of hope on its cloud of fears,
The promise of Heaven's eternal years,—
The peace of God for the world's annoy,—
Beauty for ashes, and oil of joy!
Under the tread of its Sabbath feet,
Walled about by its basement stones,
Lie the marvellous preacher's bones.
No saintly honors to them are shown,
No sign nor miracle have they known;
But he who passes the ancient church
Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch,
And ponders the wonderful life of him
Who lies at rest in that charnel dim.
Long shall the traveller strain his eye
From the railroad car, as it plunges by,
And the vanishing town behind him search
For the slender spire of the Whitefield Church;
And fashion, and folly, and pleasure laid,
By the thought of that life of pure intent,
That voice of warning yet eloquent,
Of one on the errands of angels sent.
And if where he labored the flood of sin
Like a tide from the harbor-bar sets in,
And over a life of time and sense
The church-spires lift their vain defence,
As if to scatter the bolts of God
With the points of Calvin's thunder-rod,—
Still, as the gem of its civic crown,
Precious beyond the world's renown,
His memory hallows the ancient town!
THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA.
In the winter of 1675–76, the Eastern Indians, who had been making war upon the New Hampshire settlements, were so reduced in numbers by fighting and famine that they agreed to a peace with Major Waldron at Dover, but the peace was broken in the fall of 1676. The famous chief, Squando, was the principal negotiator on the part of the savages. He had taken up the hatchet to revenge the brutal treatment of his child by drunken white sailors, which caused its death.
It not unfrequently happened during the Border wars that young white children were adopted by their Indian captors, and so kindly treated that they were unwilling to leave the free, wild life of the woods; and in some instances they utterly refused to go back with their parents to their old homes and civilization.
These huge mill-monsters overgrown;
Blot out the humbler piles as well,
Where, moved like living shuttles, dwell
Tear from the wild Cocheco's track
The dams that hold its torrents back;
And let the loud-rejoicing fall
Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall;
And let the Indian's paddle play
On the unbridged Piscataqua!
Wide over hill and valley spread
Once more the forest, dusk and dread,
With here and there a clearing cut
From the walled shadows round it shut;
Each with its farm-house builded rude,
By English yeoman squared and hewed,
And the grim, flankered block-house bound
With bristling palisades around.
So, haply shall before thine eyes
The dusty veil of centuries rise,
The old, strange scenery overlay
The tamer pictures of to-day,
While, like the actors in a play,
Pass in their ancient guise along
The figures of my border song:
What time beside Cocheco's flood
The white man and the red man stood,
With words of peace and brotherhood;
When passed the sacred calumet
From lip to lip with fire-draught wet,
And, puffed in scorn, the peace-pipe's smoke
Through the gray beard of Waldron broke,
And Squando's voice, in suppliant plea
For mercy, struck the haughty key
Of one who held, in any fate,
His native pride inviolate!
He who speaks has never lied.
Waldron of Piscataqua,
Hear what Squando has to say!
Far off, Saco's hemlock-trees.
In his wigwam, still as stone,
Sits a woman all alone,
Dropping from her careless hands,
Listening ever for the fleet
Patter of a dead child's feet!
Told the flowers the time to blow,
In that lonely wigwam smiled
Menewee, our little child.
He was lying still and cold;
Sent before us, weak and small,
When the Master did not call!
Three times went and came the day,
Thrice above me blazed the noon,
Thrice upon me wept the moon.
Far and low, a spirit-bird;
Very mournful, very wild,
Sang the totem of my child.
Walks a path he cannot see:
Let the white man's wigwam light
With its blaze his steps aright.
Empty hands to Manito:
Better gifts he cannot bear
Than the scalps his slayers wear.’
Lightning blazed and thunder rang;
And a black cloud, reaching high,
Pulled the white moon from the sky.
All that spirits hear can héar,—
I, whose eyes are wide to see
All the things that are to be,—
In the whispers of the pines,
In the river roaring loud,
In the mutter of the cloud.
From the grave I passed away;
Flowers bloomed round me, birds sang glad,
But my heart was hot and mad.
From the warm, red springs of life;
On the funeral hemlock-trees
Many a scalp the totem sees.
Squando's heart is sad and sore;
And his poor squaw waits at home
For the feet that never come!
Squando speaks, who laughs at fear;
Take the captives he has ta'en;
Let the land have peace again!”
Wide apart his warriors swung;
Parted, at the sign he gave,
Right and left, like Egypt's wave.
Through the prophet-charmëd sea,
Captive mother, wife, and child
Through the dusky terror filed.
Middleway her steps delayed,
Glancing, with quick, troubled sight,
Round about from red to white.
On the little maiden's head,
Lightly from her forehead fair
Smoothing back her yellow hair.
What I have is all my own:
Never yet the birds have sung,
‘Squando hath a beggar's tongue.’
For the dead who cannot come,
Let the little Gold-hair be
In the place of Menewee!
Come to Saco's pines afar;
Where the sad one waits at home,
Wequashim, my moonlight, come!”
Christian-born to heathens wild?
As God lives, from Satan's hand
I will pluck her as a brand!”
“Let the little one decide.
Wequashim, my moonlight, say,
Wilt thou go with me, or stay?”
Half regretfully, the maid
Owned the ties of blood and race,—
Turned from Squando's pleading face.
But his wampum chain he broke,
And the beaded wonder hung
On that neck so fair and young.
In the marches of a dream,
Single-filed, the grim array
Through the pine-trees wound away.
Through her tears the young child gazed.
“God preserve her!” Waldron said;
“Satan hath bewitched the maid!”
Singing came a child from play,
Tossing from her loose-locked head
Gold in sunshine, brown in shade.
But her head she gravely shook,
And with lips that fondly smiled
Feigned to chide her truant child.
“Up and down the brook I ran,
Where, beneath the bank so steep,
Lie the spotted trout asleep.
After me I heard him call,
And the cat-bird on the tree
Tried his best to mimic me.
That I stopped to look and hark,
On a log, with feather-hat,
By the path, an Indian sat.
But he called, and bade me stay;
And his voice was good and mild
As my mother's to her child.
Looked and looked it o'er again;
Gave me berries, and, beside,
On my neck a plaything tied.”
What the Indian's gift might be.
On the braid of wampum hung,
Lo! a cross of silver swung.
Squando's bird and totem pine;
And, a mirage of the brain,
Flowed her childhood back again.
Into space the walls outgrew;
On the Indian's wigwam-mat,
Blossom-crowned, again she sat.
In her ear the pines sang low,
And, like links from out a chain,
Dropped the years of care and pain.
From the griefs that gnaw within,
To the freedom of the woods
Called the birds, and winds, and floods.
Watch thy flock, but blame not her,
If her ear grew sharp to hear
All their voices whispering near.
All the desert's glamour stole,
That a tear for childhood's loss
Dropped upon the Indian's cross.
And she bowed her widowed head,
And a prayer for each loved name
Rose like incense from a flame,
In her pitying bosom hid,
To the listening ear of Heaven
Lo! the Indian's name was given.
MY PLAYMATE.
Their song was soft and low;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.
The orchard birds sang clear;
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.
My playmate left her home,
And took with her the laughing spring,
The music and the bloom.
She laid her hand in mine:
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons with as sweet May morns,
But she came back no more.
Of uneventful years;
Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
And reap the autumn ears.
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.
She smooths her silken gown,—
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.
The brown nuts on the hill,
And still the May-day flowers make sweet
The woods of Follymill.
The bird builds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.
And how the old time seems,—
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?
For other eyes than ours,—
That other hands with nuts are filled,
And other laps with flowers?
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.
A sweeter memory blow;
And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.
Are moaning like the sea,—
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee!
COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION.
This ballad was written on the occasion of a Horticultural Festival. Cobbler Keezar was a noted character among the first settlers in the valley of the Merrimac.
With patient teeth that day,
The minks were fish-wards, and the crows
Surveyors of highway,—
Upon his cobbler's form,
With a pan of coals on either hand
To keep his waxed-ends warm.
He stitched and hammered and sung;
In the brook he moistened his leather,
In the pewter mug his tongue.
Who brewed the stoutest ale,
And he paid the goodwife's reckoning
In the coin of song and tale.
Who dress the hills of vine,
The tales that haunt the Brocken
And whisper down the Rhine.
The swift stream wound away,
Through birches and scarlet maples
Flashing in foam and spray,—
Plunging in steep cascade,
Tossing its white-maned waters
Against the hemlock's shade.
East and west and north and south;
Only the village of fishers
Down at the river's mouth;
With its farm-house rude and new,
And tree-stumps, swart as Indians,
Where the scanty harvest grew.
No vintage-song he heard,
And on the green no dancing feet
The merry violin stirred.
“When Nature herself is glad,
And the painted woods are laughing
At the faces so sour and sad?”
What sorrow of heart was theirs
Who travailed in pain with the births of God,
And planted a state with prayers,—
Smiting the heathen horde,—
One hand on the mason's trowel,
And one on the soldier's sword!
Give him his pipe and song,
Little he cared for Church or State,
Or the balance of right and wrong.
“And for rest a snuffle of psalms!”
He smote on his leathern apron
With his brown and waxen palms.
Of the days when I was young!
For the merry grape-stained maidens,
And the pleasant songs they sung!
Of apples and nuts and wine!
For an oar to row and a breeze to blow
Down the grand old river Rhine!”
And dropped on his beard so gray.
“Old, old am I,” said Keezar,
“And the Rhine flows far away!”
He could call the birds from the trees,
Charm the black snake out of the ledges,
And bring back the swarming bees.
All the lore of the woods, he knew,
And the arts of the Old World mingled
With the marvels of the New.
And the lapstone on his knee
Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles
Or the stone of Doctor Dee.
Wrought it with spell and rhyme
From a fragment of mystic moonstone
In the tower of Nettesheim.
The marvellous stone gave he,—
And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar,
Who brought it over the sea.
He held it up like a lens,
And he counted the long years coming
By twenties and by tens.
“And fifty have I told:
Now open the new before me,
And shut me out the old!”
Rolled from the magic stone,
And a marvellous picture mingled
The unknown and the known.
And river and ocean joined;
And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line,
And cold north hills behind.
By many a steepled town,
By many a white-walled farm-house,
And many a garner brown.
The stream no more ran free;
White sails on the winding river,
White sails on the far-off sea.
The flags were floating gay,
And shone on a thousand faces
The light of a holiday.
Turned the brown earth from their shares;
Here were the farmer's treasures,
There were the craftsman's wares.
Ruby her currant-wine;
Grand were the strutting turkeys,
Fat were the beeves and swine.
And the ripe pears russet-brown,
And the peaches had stolen blushes
From the girls who shook them down.
That shame the toil of art,
Mingled the gorgeous blossoms
Of the garden's tropic heart.
“Am I here, or am I there?
Is it a fête at Bingen?
Do I look on Frankfort fair?
And imps with horns and tail?
And where are the Rhenish flagons?
And where is the foaming ale?
Strange things the Lord permits;
But that droughty folk should be jolly
Puzzles my poor old wits.
And the maiden's step is gay;
Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking,
Nor mopes, nor fools, are they.
And good without abuse,
The holiday and the bridal
Of beauty and of use.
Do the cat and dog agree?
Have they burned the stocks for ovenwood?
Have they cut down the gallows-tree?
Would they own the graceless town,
With never a ranter to worry
And never a witch to drown?”
Laughed like a school-boy gay;
Tossing his arms above him,
The lapstone rolled away.
It spun like a wheel bewitched,
It plunged through the leaning willows,
And into the river pitched.
The magic stone lies still,
Under the leaning willows
In the shadow of the hill.
Sits on the shadowy bank,
And his dreams make marvellous pictures
Where the wizard's lapstone sank.
When the river seems to run
Out from the inner glory,
Warm with the melted sun,
Beside the charmëd stream,
And the sky and the golden water
Shape and color her dream.
The rosy signals fly;
Her homestead beckons from the cloud,
And love goes sailing by.
AMY WENTWORTH.
Unwittingly from the great stress of grief
And anxious care, in fantasies outwrought
From the hearth's embers flickering low, or caught
From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet,
Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet
Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why
They scarcely know or ask,—so, thou and I,
Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong
In the endurance which outwearies Wrong,
With meek persistence baffling brutal force,
And trusting God against the universe,—
We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share
With other weapons than the patriot's prayer,
Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes,
The awful beauty of self-sacrifice,
And wrung by keenest sympathy for all
Who give their loved ones for the living wall
'Twixt law and treason,—in this evil day
May haply find, through automatic play
Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain,
And hearten others with the strength we gain.
I know it has been said our times require
No play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre,
No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform
To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm,
But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets
The battle's teeth of serried bayonets,
Some softer tints may blend, and milder keys
Relieve the storm-stunned ear. Let us keep sweet,
If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat
The bitter harvest of our own device
And half a century's moral cowardice.
As Nürnberg sang while Wittenberg defied,
And Kranach painted by his Luther's side,
And through the war-march of the Puritan
The silver stream of Marvell's music ran,
So let the household melodies be sung,
The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung,—
So let us hold against the hosts of night
And slavery all our vantage-ground of light.
Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake
From its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake,
Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in tan,
And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man,
And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull
By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull,—
But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease,
(God grant it soon!) the graceful arts of peace:
No foes are conquered who the victors teach
Their vandal manners and barbaric speech.
Of the great common burden our full share,
Let none upbraid us that the waves entice
Thy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint device,
Rhythmic and sweet, beguiles my pen away
From the sharp strifes and sorrows of to-day.
Thus, while the east-wind keen from Labrador
Sings in the leafless elms, and from the shore
Of the long-breaking surf, and all the sky
Is gray with cloud, home-bound and dull, I try
To time a simple legend to the sounds
Of winds in the woods, and waves on pebbled bounds,—
A song for oars to chime with, such as might
Be sung by tired sea-painters, who at night
Look from their hemlock camps, by quiet cove
Or beach, moon-lighted, on the waves they love.
(So hast thou looked, when level sunset lay
On the calm bosom of some Eastern bay,
And all the spray-moist rocks and waves that rolled
Up the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy gold.)
Something it has—a flavor of the sea,
And the sea's freedom—which reminds of thee.
Its faded picture, dimly smiling down
From the blurred fresco of the ancient town,
I have not touched with warmer tints in vain,
If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one thought from pain.
They dance so light along;
The bloom upon her parted lips
Is sweeter than the song.
Her thoughts are not of thee;
She better loves the salted wind,
The voices of the sea.
That at its anchor swings;
The murmur of the stranded shell
Is in the song she sings.
But dreams the while of one
Who watches from his sea-blown deck
The icebergs in the sun.
And every fog-wreath dim,
And bids the sea-birds flying north
Bear messages to him.
He perilled life to save,
And grateful prayers like holy oil
To smooth for him the wave.
Fair toast of all the town!—
The skipper's jerkin ill beseems
The lady's silken gown!
For him the blush of shame
Who dares to set his manly gifts
Against her ancient name.
And blood is not like wine;
Nor honored less than he who heirs
Is he who founds a line.
If love be Fortune's spur;
And never maiden stoops to him
Who lifts himself to her.
With stately stairways worn
By feet of old Colonial knights
And ladies gentle-born.
The English ivy twines,
Trained back to show in English oak
The herald's carven signs.
Ancestral faces frown,—
And this has worn the soldier's sword,
And that the judge's gown.
She walks the gallery floor
As if she trod her sailor's deck
By stormy Labrador!
And green are Eliot's bowers;
Her garden is the pebbled beach,
The mosses are her flowers.
To see the white gulls fly;
His greeting from the Northern sea
Is in their clanging cry.
As in its romance old,
Shall homeward ride with silken sails
And masts of beaten gold!
And high and low mate ill;
But love has never known a law
Beyond its own sweet will!
THE COUNTESS.
I inscribed this poem to Dr. Elias Weld of Haverhill, Massachusetts, to whose kindness I was much indebted in my boyhood. He was the one cultivated man in the neighborhood. His small but well-chosen library was placed at my disposal. He is the “wise old doctor” of Snow-Bound.
Count Francois de Vipart with his cousin Joseph Rochemont de Poyen came to the United States in the early part of the present century. They took up their residence at Rocks Village on the Merrimac, where they both married. The wife of Count Vipart was Mary Ingalls, who as my father remembered her was a very lovely young girl. Her wedding dress, as described by a lady still living, was “pink satin with an overdress of white lace, and white satin slippers.” She died in less than a year after her marriage. Her husband returned to his native country. He lies buried in the family tomb of the Viparts at Bordeaux.
Whether, still waiting with a trust serene,
Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten,
Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen;
But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee,
Like an old friend, all day has been with me.
Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land
Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet
Keeps green the memory of his early debt.
To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their words
Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords,
Listening with quickened heart and ear intent
To each sharp clause of that stern argument,
I still can hear at times a softer note
Of the old pastoral music round me float,
While through the hot gleam of our civil strife
Looms the green mirage of a simpler life.
As, at his alien post, the sentinel
Drops the old bucket in the homestead well,
And hears old voices in the winds that toss
Above his head the live-oak's beard of moss,
So, in our trial-time, and under skies
Shadowed by swords like Islam's paradise,
I wait and watch, and let my fancy stray
To milder scenes and youth's Arcadian day;
And howsoe'er the pencil dipped in dreams
Shades the brown woods or tints the sunset streams,
The country doctor in the foreground seems,
Whose ancient sulky down the village lanes
Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains.
I could not paint the scenery of my song,
Mindless of one who looked thereon so long;
Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round,
Made friends o' the woods and rocks, and knew the sound
Of each small brook, and what the hillside trees
Said to the winds that touched their leafy keys;
The village-folk, with all their humors quaint,—
The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan.
Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown;
The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown;
The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale,
And the loud straggler levying his blackmail,—
Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears,
All that lies buried under fifty years.
To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay,
And, grateful, own the debt I cannot pay.
Between its houses brown,
To the dark tunnel of the bridge
The street comes straggling down.
Of gable, roof, and porch,
The tavern with its swinging sign,
The sharp horn of the church.
To meet, in ebb and flow,
The single broken wharf that serves
For sloop and gundelow.
The heavy hay-boats crawl,
The long antennæ of their oars
In lazy rise and fall.
The idle shad-net dries;
The toll-man in his cobbler's stall
Sits smoking with closed eyes.
Of waves that chafe and gnaw;
You start,—a skipper's horn is blown
To raise the creaking draw.
With slow and sluggard beat,
Or stage-coach on its dusty rounds
Wakes up the staring street.
A cobwebbed nook of dreams;
Left by the stream whose waves are years
The stranded village seems.
The native dweller clings,
And keeps, in uninquiring trust,
The old, dull round of things.
The farmer sows his grain,
Content to hear the murmuring pines
Instead of railroad-train.
That slopes against the west,
The hamlet's buried idlers sleep
In still profounder rest.
The birch's pale-green scarf,
And break the web of brier and bloom
From name and epitaph.
Of pomp and romance shorn,
The dry, old names that common breath
Has cheapened and outworn.
The wild vines o'er it laced,
And read the words by rustic art
Upon its headstone traced.
Of fourscore years can say
What means the noble name of her
Who sleeps with common clay.
Found refuge here and rest,
And loved, of all the village band,
Its fairest and its best.
He worshipped through her eyes,
And on the pride that doubts and scorns
Stole in her faith's surprise.
By homeliest duties tried,
In all things by an untaught law
Of fitness justified.
He took the hue and tone
Of lowly life and toil, and made
Her simple ways his own.
To harvest-field or dance
He brought the gentle courtesies,
The nameless grace of France.
From him she loved in turn
Caught in her sweet unconsciousness
What love is quick to learn.
Nor knew the gazing town
If she looked upward to her lord
Or he to her looked down.
His violin's mirth and wail,
The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore,
The river's moonlit sail!
The altar and the bier,
The burial hymn and bridal song,
Were both in one short year!
Beneath the locust's bloom:
Far off her lover sleeps as still
Within his scutcheoned tomb.
In death still clasp their hands;
The love that levels rank and grade
Unites their severed lands.
Or whose the blazoned stone?
Forever to her western wave
Shall whisper blue Garonne!
That gives thy sweet flower room,
Wherever, nursed by ease or toil,
The human heart takes bloom!—
Of sinful earth unriven,
White blossom of the trees of God
Dropped down to us from heaven!—
Is holy for thy sake;
A sweetness which is all thy own
Breathes out from fern and brake.
The Gascon's tomb with flowers,
Fall sweetly here, O song of mine,
With summer's bloom and showers!
Unite again in thee,
As western wave and Gallic stream
Are mingled in one sea!
AMONG THE HILLS.
This poem, when originally published, was dedicated to Annie Fields, wife of the distinguished publisher, James T. Fields, of Boston, in grateful acknowledgment of the strength and inspiration I have found in her friendship and sympathy.
The poem in its first form was entitled The Wife: an Idyl of Bearcamp Water, and appeared in The Atlantic Monthly for January, 1868. When I published the volume Among the Hills, in December of the same year, I expanded the Prelude and filled out also the outlines of the story.
PRELUDE.
That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought,
Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod,
And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers
Hang motionless upon their upright staves.
The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind,
Wing-weary with its long flight from the south,
Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf
With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams,
Confesses it. The locust by the wall
Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm.
A single hay-cart down the dusty road
Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep
On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill,
Huddled along the stone wall's shady side,
The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still
Defied the dog-star. Through the open door
A drowsy smell of flowers—gray heliotrope,
And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette—
Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends
To the pervading symphony of peace.
To task their strength: and (unto Him be praise
Who giveth quietness!) the stress and strain
Of years that did the work of centuries
Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more
Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters
Make glad their nooning underneath the elms
With tale and riddle and old snatch of song,
I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn
The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'er
Old summer pictures of the quiet hills,
And human life, as quiet, at their feet.
Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feeling
All their fine possibilities, how rich
And restful even poverty and toil
Become when beauty, harmony, and love
Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat
At evening in the patriarch's tent, when man
Makes labor noble, and his farmer's frock
The symbol of a Christian chivalry
Tender and just and generous to her
Who clothes with grace all duty; still, I know
Too well the picture has another side,—
How wearily the grind of toil goes on
Where love is wanting, how the eye and ear
And heart are starved amidst the plenitude
Of nature, and how hard and colorless
Is life without an atmosphere. I look
Across the lapse of half a century,
Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds,
Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the place
Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose
And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed
Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine
To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves
Across the curtainless windows, from whose panes
Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness.
Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed
(Broom-clean I think they called it); the best room
Stifling with cellar damp, shut from the air
In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless
Save the inevitable sampler hung
Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece,
A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath
Impossible willows; the wide-throated hearth
Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing
The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back;
And, in sad keeping with all things about them,
Shrill, querulous women, sour and sullen men,
Untidy, loveless, old before their time,
With scarce a human interest save their own
Monotonous round of small economies,
Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood;
Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed,
Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet;
For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink
Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves;
For them in vain October's holocaust
Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills,
The sacramental mystery of the woods.
But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent,
Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls
And winter pork with the least possible outlay
Of salt and sanctity; in daily life
Showing as little actual comprehension
Of Christian charity and love and duty,
As if the Sermon on the Mount had been
Outdated like a last year's almanac:
Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields,
And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless,
The veriest straggler limping on his rounds,
The sun and air his sole inheritance,
Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes,
And hugged his rags in self-complacency!
Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell
As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state,
With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make
His hour of leisure richer than a life
Of fourscore to the barons of old time,
Our yeoman should be equal to his home
Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled,
A man to match his mountains, not to creep
Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain
In this light way (of which I needs must own
With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings.
“Story, God bless you! I have none to tell you!”
Invite the eye to see and heart to feel
The beauty and the joy within their reach,—
Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes
Of nature free to all. Haply in years
Heard where some breezy balcony looks down
On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon
Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth,
In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet
Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine
May seem the burden of a prophecy,
Finding its late fulfilment in a change
Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up
Through broader culture, finer manners, love,
And reverence, to the level of the hills.
And not of sunset, forward, not behind,
Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee bring
All the old virtues, whatsoever things
Are pure and honest and of good repute,
But add thereto whatever bard has sung
Or seer has told of when in trance and dream
They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy!
Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide
Between the right and wrong; but give the heart
The freedom of its fair inheritance;
Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so long,
At Nature's table feast his ear and eye
With joy and wonder; let all harmonies
Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon
The princely guest, whether in soft attire
Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil,
And, lending life to the dead form of faith,
Give human nature reverence for the sake
With the ineffable tenderness of God;
Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer,
The heirship of an unknown destiny,
The unsolved mystery round about us, make
A man more precious than the gold of Ophir.
Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things
Should minister, as outward types and signs
Of the eternal beauty which fulfils
The one great purpose of creation, Love,
The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven!
And vexed the vales with raining,
And all the woods were sad with mist,
And all the brooks complaining.
The mountain veils asunder,
And swept the valleys clean before
The besom of the thunder.
Good morrow to the cotter;
And once again Chocorua's horn
Of shadow pierced the water.
Once more the sunshine wearing,
Stooped, tracing on that silver shield
His grim armorial bearing.
The peaks had winter's keenness;
And, close on autumn's frost, the vales
Had more than June's fresh greenness.
With golden lights were checkered,
Once more rejoicing leaves in wind
And sunshine danced and flickered.
Atoning for its sadness
Had borrowed every season's charm
To end its days in gladness.
Of shadow and of shining,
Through which, my hostess at my side,
I drove in day's declining.
The river's whitening shallows,
By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns
Swept through and through by swallows;
And larches climbing darkly
The mountain slopes, and, over all,
The great peaks rising starkly.
With gaps of brightness riven,—
How through each pass and hollow streamed
The purpling lights of heaven,—
From far celestial fountains,—
The great sun flaming through the rifts
Beyond the wall of mountains!
Brought down the pasture's treasure,
And in the barn the rhythmic flails
Beat out a harvest measure.
The crow his tree-mates calling:
The shadows lengthening down the slopes
About our feet were falling.
In broken lines of splendor,
Touched the gray rocks and made the green
Of the shorn grass more tender.
Their arch of leaves just tinted
With yellow warmth, the golden glow
Of coming autumn hinted.
And smiled on porch and trellis,
The fair democracy of flowers
That equals cot and palace.
'Twixt chidings and caresses,
A human flower of childhood shook
The sunshine from her tresses.
Of fancy and of shrewdness,
Where taste had wound its arms of vines
Round thrift's uncomely rudeness.
Shook hands, and called to Mary:
Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came,
White-aproned from her dairy.
Of womanly completeness;
A music as of household songs
Was in her voice of sweetness.
But something more and better,
The secret charm eluding art,
Its spirit, not its letter;—
Of culture or appliance,—
The warmth of genial courtesy,
The calm of self-reliance.
How dared our hostess utter
The paltry errand of her need
To buy her fresh-churned butter?
Her goodly store disclosing,
Full tenderly the golden balls
With practised hands disposing.
We watched the changeful glory
Of sunset, on our homeward way,
I heard her simple story.
Plashed through my friend's narration:
Her rustic patois of the hills
Lost in my free translation.
Our hills in middle summer,
She came, when June's first roses blow,
To greet the early comer.
The city's fair, pale daughter,
To drink the wine of mountain air
Beside the Bearcamp Water.
That watch our homesteads over;
On cheek and lip, from summer fields,
She caught the bloom of clover.
From cool Chocorua stealing:
There's iron in our Northern winds;
Our pines are trees of healing.
That skirt the mowing-meadow,
And watched the gentle west-wind weave
The grass with shine and shadow.
To share her grateful screening,
With forehead bared, the farmer stood,
Upon his pitchfork leaning.
Had nothing mean or common,—
Strong, manly, true, the tenderness
And pride beloved of woman.
The country air had brought her,
And, laughing, said: ‘You lack a wife,
Your mother lacks a daughter.
You do not need a lady:
Be sure among these brown old homes
Is some one waiting ready,—
And cheerful heart for treasure,
Who never played with ivory keys,
Or danced the polka's measure.’
He set his white teeth tightly.
‘'Tis well,’ he said, ‘for one like you
To choose for me so lightly.
I take no note of sweetness:
I tell you love has naught to do
With meetness or unmeetness.
No leave of pride or fashion
When silken zone or homespun frock
It stirs with throbs of passion.
Your winning graces hither
As free as if from cradle-time
We two had played together.
Your cheek of sundown's blushes,
A motion as of waving grain,
A music as of thrushes.
The spells you weave around me
You cannot at your will undo,
Nor leave me as you found me.
Your life is well without me;
What care you that these hills will close
Like prison-walls about me?
Or daughter for my mother:
Who loves you loses in that love
All power to love another!
With pride your own exceeding;
I fling my heart into your lap
Without a word of pleading.’
So archly, yet so tender:
‘And if I lend you mine,’ she said,
‘Will you forgive the lender?
And see you not, my farmer,
How weak and fond a woman waits
Behind this silken armor?
And not my worth, presuming,
Will you not trust for summer fruit
The tree in May-day blooming?’
His hair-swung cradle straining,
Looked down to see love's miracle,—
The giving that is gaining.
His mother found a daughter:
There looks no happier home than hers
On pleasant Bearcamp Water.
The careful ways of duty;
Our hard, stiff lines of life with her
Are flowing curves of beauty.
Our door-yards brighter blooming,
And all about the social air
Is sweeter for her coming.
Her daily life is preaching;
The still refreshment of the dew
Is her unconscious teaching.
Unknits the brow of ailing;
Her garments to the sick man's ear
Have music in their trailing.
The youthful huskers gather,
Or sleigh-drives on the mountain ways
Defy the winter weather,—
The winds of March are blowing,
And sweetly from its thawing veins
The maple's blood is flowing,—
Its virgin zone is baring,
Or where the ruddy autumn fire
Lights up the apple-paring,—
Her finer mirth displaces,
A subtler sense of pleasure fills
Each rustic sport she graces.
To all who come before it.
If woman lost us Eden, such
As she alone restore it.
The farmer is her debtor;
Who holds to his another's heart
Must needs be worse or better.
A purer-toned ambition;
No double consciousness divides
The man and politician.
Her instincts to determine;
At the loud polls, the thought of her
Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon.
And wisdom of unreason,
Supplying, while he doubts and weighs,
The needed word in season.
Her fancy's freer ranges;
And love thus deepened to respect
Is proof against all changes.
His feet are slow to travel,
And if she reads with cultured eyes
What his may scarce unravel,
Of beauty and of wonder,
He learns the meaning of the hills
He dwelt from childhood under.
Or winter-crowned and hoary,
The ridged horizon lifts for him
Its inner veils of glory.
The lessons nature taught him,
The wisdom which the woods and hills
And toiling men have brought him:
Her flexile grace seems sweeter;
The sturdy counterpoise which makes
Her woman's life completer;
No breath of love to fan it;
And wit, that, like his native brooks,
Plays over solid granite.
She sees the poor pretension,
The wants, the aims, the follies, born
Of fashion and convention!
Stands strong and self-sustaining,
The human fact transcending all
The losing and the gaining.
Of teacher and of hearer,
Their lives their true distinctness keep
While daily drawing nearer.
In home's strong light discovers
Such slight defaults as failed to meet
The blinded eyes of lovers,
Without their thorns of roses,
Or wonders that the truest steel
The readiest spark discloses?
The secret of true living;
Love scarce is love that never knows
The sweetness of forgiving.
He takes his young wife thither;
No prouder man election day
Rides through the sweet June weather.
All hearts to her inclining;
Not less for him his household light
That others share its shining.”
Before me, warmer tinted
And outlined with a tenderer grace,
The picture that she hinted.
Beneath the deep hill-shadows.
Below us wreaths of white fog walked
Like ghosts the haunted meadows.
Dropped down their golden plummets:
The pale arc of the Northern lights
Rose o'er the mountain summits,
We heard the Bearcamp flowing,
And saw across the mapled lawn
The welcome home-lights glowing.
'T were well, thought I, if often
To rugged farm-life came the gift
To harmonize and soften;
Of fact and fancy plighted,
And culture's charm and labor's strength
In rural homes united,—
With beauty's sphere surrounding,
And blessing toil where toil abounds
With graces more abounding.
THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL.
And racked with fever-pain;
The frozen fiords were fishless,
The earth withheld her grain.
Before them come and go,
And, through their dreams, the Urdarmoon
From west to east sailed slow!
At Yule-time made his vow;
On Rykdal's holy Doom-stone
He slew to Frey his cow.
To Skuld, the younger Norn,
Who watches over birth and death,
He gave her calf unborn.
Took up the sprinkling-rod,
And smeared with blood the temple
And the wide lips of the god.
Ground its ice-blocks o'er and o'er;
Jets of foam, like ghosts of dead waves,
Rose and fell along the shore.
Aloft in icy space,
Shone down on the bloody Horg-stones
And the statue's carven face.
Beneath its baleful light
The Jotun shapes of mountains
Came crowding through the night.
As a flame by wind is blown;
A weird power moved his white lips,
And their voice was not his own!
“The gods must have more blood
Before the tun shall blossom
Or fish shall fill the flood.
And hence our blight and ban;
The mouths of the strong gods water
For the flesh and blood of man!
Not warriors, sword on thigh;
But let the nursling infant
And bedrid old man die.”
“There needs nor doubt nor parle.”
But, knitting hard his red brows,
In silence stood the Jarl.
At the temple door was heard,
But the old men bowed their white heads,
And answered not a word.
A Vala young and fair,
Sang softly, stirring with her breath
The veil of her loose hair.
Bring never sound of strife;
The gifts for Frey the meetest
Are not of death, but life.
The grazing kine's sweet breath;
He loathes your bloody Horg-stones,
Your gifts that smell of death.
No pain is cured by pain;
The blood that smokes from Doom-rings
Falls back in redder rain.
As earth shall Asgard prove;
And hate will come of hating,
And love will come of love.
That old and young may live;
And look to Frey for favor
When first like Frey you give.
The summer dawn begins:
The tun shall have its harvest,
The fiord its glancing fins.”
“By Gimli and by Hel,
O Vala of Thingvalla,
Thou singest wise and well!
Bought with our children's lives;
Better die than shame in living
Our mothers and our wives.
To him who hath most need;
Of curdled skyr and black bread,
Be daily dole decreed.”
Three links of beaten gold;
And each man, at his bidding,
Brought gifts for young and old.
And daughters fed their sires,
And Health sat down with Plenty
Before the next Yule fires.
The Doom-ring still remains;
But the snows of a thousand winters
Have washed away the stains.
Have found their twilight dim;
And, wiser than she dreamed, of old
The Vala sang of Him!
THE TWO RABBINS.
Walked blameless through the evil world, and then,
Just as the almond blossomed in his hair,
Met a temptation all too strong to bear,
And miserably sinned. So, adding not
Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught
No more among the elders, but went out
From the great congregation girt about
With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head,
Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed,
Smiting his breast; then, as the Book he laid
Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice,
Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice,
Behold the royal preacher's words: “A friend
Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end;
And for the evil day thy brother lives.”
Marvelling, he said: “It is the Lord who gives
Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells
Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels
In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees
Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees
Bow with their weight. I will arise, and lay
My sins before him.”
Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers;
But even as one who, followed unawares,
Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand
Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned
Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear,
So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low
The wail of David's penitential woe,
Before him still the old temptation came,
And mocked him with the motion and the shame
Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred
Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord
To free his soul and cast the demon out,
Smote with his staff the blankness round about.
The towers of Ecbatana far away
Rose on the desert's rim; and Nathan, faint
And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint
The faith of Islam reared a domëd tomb,
Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom
He greeted kindly: “May the Holy One
Answer thy prayers, O stranger!” Whereupon
The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then,
Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray men
Wept, praising Him whose gracious providence
Made their paths one. But straightway, as the sense
Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore
Himself away: “O friend beloved, no more
Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came,
Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame.
Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine,
May purge my soul, and make it white like thine.
Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned!”
Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare
The mournful secret of his shirt of hair.
“I too, O friend, if not in act,” he said,
“In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not read,
‘Better the eye should see than that desire
Should wander?’ Burning with a hidden fire
That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee
For pity and for help, as thou to me.
Pray for me, O my friend!” But Nathan cried,
“Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!”
In the low sunshine by the turban stone
They knelt; each made his brother's woe his own,
Forgetting, in the agony and stress
Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness;
Peace, for his friend besought, his own became;
His prayers were answered in another's name;
And, when at last they rose up to embrace,
Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face!
Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos
In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words were read:
“Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead;
Forget it in love's service, and the debt
Thou canst not pay the angels shall forget;
Heaven's gate is shut to him who comes alone;
Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!”
NOREMBEGA.
Norembega, or Norimbegue, is the name given by early French fishermen and explorers to a fabulous country south of Cape Breton, first discovered by Verrazzani in 1524. It was supposed to have a magnificent city of the same name on a great river, probably the Penobscot. The site of this barbaric city is laid down on a map published at Antwerp in 1570. In 1604 Champlain sailed in search of the Northern Eldorado, twenty-two leagues up the Penobscot from the Isle Haute. He supposed the river to be that of Norembega, but wisely came to the conclusion that those travellers who told of the great city had never seen it. He saw no evidences of anything like civilization, but mentions the finding of a cross, very old and mossy, in the woods.
The mystic water took,
From where, to count its beaded lakes,
The forest sped its brook.
For sun or stars to fall,
While evermore, behind, before,
Closed in the forest wall.
Wan flowers without a name;
Life tangled with decay and death,
League after league the same.
The rounding shadow lay,
Save where the river cut at will
A pathway to the day.
Weak as a child unweaned,
At shut of day a Christian knight
Upon his henchman leaned.
Along the clouds burned down;
“I see,” he said, “the domes and spires
Of Norembega town.”
Are golden clouds on high;
Yon spire is but the branchless pine
That cuts the evening sky.”
But chants and holy hymns?”
“Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees
Through all their leafy limbs.”
The air with its low tone?”
“Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills,
The insect's vesper drone.”
A blessed cross in sight!”
“Now, nay, 't is but yon blasted tree
With two gaunt arms outright!”
It mattereth not, my knave;
Methinks to funeral hymns I hark,
The cross is for my grave!
My home-set sails again;
The sweetest eyes of Normandie
Shall watch for me in vain.
The baffling marvel calls;
I fain would look before I die
On Norembega's walls.
At Christian feet to lay
The mystery of the desert's heart
My dead hand plucked away.
And look from yonder heights;
Perchance the valley even now
Is starred with city lights.”
He saw nor tower nor town,
But, through the drear woods, lone and still,
The river rolling down.
Whose shapes he could not see,
A flutter as of evil wings,
The fall of a dead tree.
A sword of fire beyond;
He heard the wolf howl, and the loon
Laugh from his reedy pond.
We are but men misled;
And thou hast sought a city here
To find a grave instead.”
A true man's cross may stand,
So Heaven be o'er it here as there
In pleasant Norman land?
Of lordly tower and hall;
Yon river in its wanderings wide
Has washed no city wall;
The holy stars are given:
Is Norembega, then, a dream
Whose waking is in Heaven?
My weary eyes shall see;
A city never made with hands
Alone awaiteth me—
Its mansions passing fair,
‘Condita cœlo;’ let me be,
Dear Lord, a dweller there!”
The vision of the bard,
As faltered on his failing tongue
The song of good Bernard.
Beneath the hemlocks brown,
And to the desert's keeping gave
The lord of fief and town.
Sailed up the unknown stream,
And Norembega proved again
A shadow and a dream,
Within the hemlock's shade,
And, stretching wide its arms to save,
The sign that God had made,
And made it holy ground:
He needs the earthly city not
Who hath the heavenly found.
MIRIAM.
Under the Charter Oak, our horoscope
We drew thick-studded with all favoring stars.
Now, with gray beards, and faces seamed with scars
From life's hard battle, meeting once again,
We smile, half sadly, over dreams so vain;
Knowing, at last, that it is not in man
Who walketh to direct his steps, or plan
The muses' haunts, and all our fancies moved
To measures of old song. How since that day
Our feet have parted from the path that lay
So fair before us! Rich, from lifelong search
Of truth, within thy Academic porch
Thou sittest now, lord of a realm of fact,
Thy servitors the sciences exact;
Still listening with thy hand on Nature's keys,
To hear the Samian's spheral harmonies
And rhythm of law. I called from dream and song,
Thank God! so early to a strife so long,
That, ere it closed, the black, abundant hair
Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare
On manhood's temples, now at sunset-chime
Tread with fond feet the path of morning time.
And if perchance too late I linger where
The flowers have ceased to blow, and trees are bare,
Thou, wiser in thy choice, wilt scarcely blame
The friend who shields his folly with thy name.
After the meeting, quietly
Passed from the crowded village lanes,
White with dry dust for lack of rains,
And climbed the neighboring slope, with feet
Slackened and heavy from the heat,
Although the day was wellnigh done,
And the low angle of the sun
Our shadows as of giants vast.
We reached, at length, the topmost swell,
Whence, either way, the green turf fell
In terraces of nature down
To fruit-hung orchards, and the town
With white, pretenceless houses, tall
Church-steeples, and, o'ershadowing all,
Huge mills whose windows had the look
Of eager eyes that ill could brook
The Sabbath rest. We traced the track
Of the sea-seeking river back,
Glistening for miles above its mouth,
Through the long valley to the south,
And, looking eastward, cool to view,
Stretched the illimitable blue
Of ocean, from its curved coast-line;
Sombred and still, the warm sunshine
Filled with pale gold-dust all the reach
Of slumberous woods from hill to beach,—
Slanted on walls of thronged retreats
From city toil and dusty streets,
On grassy bluff, and dune of sand,
And rocky islands miles from land;
Touched the far-glancing sails, and showed
White lines of foam where long waves flowed
Dumb in the distance. In the north,
Dim through their misty hair, looked forth
The space-dwarfed mountains to the sea,
From mystery to mystery!
We talked of human life, its hope
It might have been, and yet was not.
And, when at last the evening air
Grew sweeter for the bells of prayer
Ringing in steeples far below,
We watched the people churchward go,
Each to his place, as if thereon
The true shekinah only shone;
And my friend queried how it came
To pass that they who owned the same
Great Master still could not agree
To worship Him in company.
Then, broadening in his thought, he ran
Over the whole vast field of man,—
The varying forms of faith and creed
That somehow served the holders' need;
In which, unquestioned, undenied,
Uncounted millions lived and died;
The bibles of the ancient folk,
Through which the heart of nations spoke;
The old moralities which lent
To home its sweetness and content,
And rendered possible to bear
The life of peoples everywhere:
And asked if we, who boast of light,
Claim not a too exclusive right
To truths which must for all be meant,
Like rain and sunshine freely sent.
In bondage to the letter still,
We give it power to cramp and kill,—
To tax God's fulness with a scheme
Narrower than Peter's house-top dream,
His wisdom and his love with plans
It must be that He witnesses
Somehow to all men that He is:
That something of His saving grace
Reaches the lowest of the race,
Who, through strange creed and rite, may draw
The hints of a diviner law.
We walk in clearer light;—but then,
Is He not God?—are they not men?
Are His responsibilities
For us alone and not for these?
And, in all lands beneath the sun,
Whoso hath eyes to see may see
The tokens of its unity.
No scroll of creed its fulness wraps,
We trace it not by school-boy maps,
Free as the sun and air it is
Of latitudes and boundaries.
In Vedic verse, in dull Korán,
Are messages of good to man;
The angels to our Aryan sires
Talked by the earliest household fires;
The prophets of the elder day,
The slant-eyed sages of Cathay,
Read not the riddle all amiss
Of higher life evolved from this.
Or make the gospel Jesus brought
Less precious, that His lips retold
Some portion of that truth of old;
The tested wisdom of the years;
Confirming with his own impress
The common law of righteousness.
We search the world for truth; we cull
The good, the pure, the beautiful,
From graven stone and written scroll,
From all old flower-fields of the soul;
And, weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our mothers read,
And all our treasure of old thought
In His harmonious fulness wrought
Who gathers in one sheaf complete
The scattered blades of God's sown wheat,
The common growth that maketh good
His all-embracing Fatherhood.
The altars of self-sacrifice,
Where love its arms has opened wide,
Or man for man has calmly died,
I see the same white wings outspread
That hovered o'er the Master's head!
Up from undated time they come,
The martyr souls of heathendom,
And to His cross and passion bring
Their fellowship of suffering.
I trace His presence in the blind
Pathetic gropings of my kind,—
In prayers from sin and sorrow wrung,
In cradle-hymns of life they sung,
Of the unmeasured Over-Heart;
And with a stronger faith confess
The greater that it owns the less.
Good cause it is for thankfulness
That the world-blessing of His life
With the long past is not at strife;
That the great marvel of His death
To the one order witnesseth,
No doubt of changeless goodness wakes,
No link of cause and sequence breaks,
But, one with nature, rooted is
In the eternal verities;
Whereby, while differing in degree
As finite from infinity,
The pain and loss for others borne,
Love's crown of suffering meekly worn,
The life man giveth for his friend
Become vicarious in the end;
Their healing place in nature take,
And make life sweeter for their sake.
The tokens of that primal Force,
Older than heaven itself, yet new
As the young heart it reaches to,
Beneath whose steady impulse rolls
The tidal wave of human souls;
Guide, comforter, and inward word,
The eternal spirit of the Lord!
Nor fear I aught that science brings
From searching through material things;
Content to let its glasses prove,
The myriad worlds on worlds that course
The spaces of the universe;
Since everywhere the Spirit walks
The garden of the heart, and talks
With man, as under Eden's trees,
In all his varied languages.
Why mourn above some hopeless flaw
In the stone tables of the law,
When scripture every day afresh
Is traced on tablets of the flesh?
By inward sense, by outward signs,
God's presence still the heart divines;
Through deepest joy of Him we learn,
In sorest grief to Him we turn,
And reason stoops its pride to share
The child-like instinct of a prayer.”
A story of the days of old,
Not found in printed books,—in sooth,
A fancy, with slight hint of truth,
Showing how differing faiths agree
In one sweet law of charity.
Meanwhile the sky had golden grown,
Our faces in its glory shone;
But shadows down the valley swept,
And gray below the ocean slept,
As time and space I wandered o'er
To tread the Mogul's marble floor,
And see a fairer sunset fall
On Jumna's wave and Agra's wall.
Came forth from the Divan at close of day
Bowed with the burden of his many cares,
Worn with the hearing of unnumbered prayers,—
Wild cries for justice, the importunate
Appeals of greed and jealousy and hate,
And all the strife of sect and creed and rite,
Santon and Gouroo waging holy fight:
For the wise monarch, claiming not to be
Allah's avenger, left his people free,
With a faint hope, his Book scarce justified,
That all the paths of faith, though severed wide,
O'er which the feet of prayerful reverence passed,
Met at the gate of Paradise at last.
Where, far beneath, he heard the Jumna's stream
Lapse soft and low along his palace wall,
And all about the cool sound of the fall
Of fountains, and of water circling free
Through marble ducts along the balcony;
The voice of women in the distance sweet,
And, sweeter still, of one who, at his feet,
Soothed his tired ear with songs of a far land
Where Tagus shatters on the salt sea-sand
The mirror of its cork-grown hills of drouth
And vales of vine, at Lisbon's harbor-mouth.
Its topmost boughs against the balustrade,
Motionless as the mimic leaves and vines
That, light and graceful as the shawl-designs
And the tired monarch, who aside had thrown
The day's hard burden, sat from care apart,
And let the quiet steal into his heart
From the still hour. Below him Agra slept,
By the long light of sunset overswept:
The river flowing through a level land,
By mango-groves and banks of yellow sand,
Skirted with lime and orange, gay kiosks,
Fountains at play, tall minarets of mosques,
Fair pleasure-gardens, with their flowering trees
Relieved against the mournful cypresses;
And, air-poised lightly as the blown sea-foam,
The marble wonder of some holy dome
Hung a white moonrise over the still wood,
Glassing its beauty in a stiller flood.
Swift-falling hid the city from his sight;
Then to the woman at his feet he said:
“Tell me, O Miriam, something thou hast read
In childhood of the Master of thy faith,
Whom Islam also owns. Our Prophet saith:
‘He was a true apostle, yea, a Word
And Spirit sent before me from the Lord.’
Thus the Book witnesseth; and well I know
By what thou art, O dearest, it is so.
As the lute's tone the maker's hand betrays,
The sweet disciple speaks her Master's praise.”
She cherished in the Moslem's liberal court
The sweet traditions of a Christian child;
And, through her life of sense, the undefiled
Gazed on her with an eye she might not shun,—
The sad, reproachful look of pity, born
Of love that hath no part in wrath or scorn,)
Began, with low voice and moist eyes, to tell
Of the all-loving Christ, and what befell
When the fierce zealots, thirsting for her blood,
Dragged to his feet a shame of womanhood.
How, when his searching answer pierced within
Each heart, and touched the secret of its sin,
And her accusers fled his face before,
He bade the poor one go and sin no more.
And Akbar said, after a moments thought,
“Wise is the lesson by thy prophet taught;
Woe unto him who judges and forgets
What hidden evil his own heart besets!
Something of this large charity I find
In all the sects that sever human kind;
I would to Allah that their lives agreed
More nearly with the lesson of their creed!
Those yellow Lamas who at Meerut pray
By wind and water power, and love to say:
‘He who forgiveth not shall, unforgiven,
Fail of the rest of Buddha,’ and who even
Spare the black gnat that stings them, vex my ears
With the poor hates and jealousies and fears
Nursed in their human hives. That lean, fierce priest
Of thy own people, (be his heart increased
By Allah's love!) his black robes smelling yet
Of Goa's roasted Jews, have I not met
Meek-faced, barefooted, crying in the street
The saying of his prophet true and sweet,—
‘He who is merciful shall mercy meet!’”
To fall, a murmur through the hareem ran
That one, recalling in her dusky face
The full-lipped, mild-eyed beauty of a race
Known as the blameless Ethiops of Greek song,
Plotting to do her royal master wrong,
Watching, reproachful of the lingering light,
The evening shadows deepen for her flight,
Love-guided, to her home in a far land,
Now waited death at the great Shah's command.
A world was bartered, daughter of the Nile
Herself, and veiling in her large, soft eyes
The passion and the languor of her skies,
The Abyssinian knelt low at the feet
Of her stern lord: “O king, if it be meet,
And for thy honor's sake,” she said, “that I,
Who am the humblest of thy slaves, should die,
I will not tax thy mercy to forgive.
Easier it is to die than to outlive
All that life gave me,—him whose wrong of thee
Was but the outcome of his love for me,
Cherished from childhood, when, beneath the shade
Of templed Axum, side by side we played.
Stolen from his arms, my lover followed me
Through weary seasons over land and sea;
And two days since, sitting disconsolate
Within the shadow of the hareem gate,
Suddenly, as if dropping from the sky,
Down from the lattice of the balcony
Fell the sweet song by Tigre's cowherds sung
In the old music of his native tongue.
Answering in song.
This night he waited near
To fly with me. The fault was mine alone:
He knew thee not, he did but seek his own;
Who, in the very shadow of thy throne,
Sharing thy bounty, knowing all thou art,
Greatest and best of men, and in her heart
Grateful to tears for favor undeserved,
Turned ever homeward, nor one moment swerved
From her young love. He looked into my eyes,
He heard my voice, and could not otherwise
Than he hath done; yet, save one wild embrace
When first we stood together face to face,
And all that fate had done since last we met
Seemed but a dream that left us children yet,
He hath not wronged thee nor thy royal bed;
Spare him, O king! and slay me in his stead!”
And, turning to the eunuch at his back,
“Take them,” he said, “and let the Jumna's waves
Hide both my shame and these accursed slaves!”
His loathly length the unsexed bondman bowed:
“On my head be it!”
Straightway from a cloud
Of dainty shawls and veils of woven mist
The Christian Miriam rose, and, stooping, kissed
The monarch's hand. Loose down her shoulders bare
Swept all the rippled darkness of her hair,
Veiling the bosom that, with high, quick swell
Of fear and pity, through it rose and fell.
The words of Him we spake of yesternight?
Or thy own prophet's, ‘Whoso doth endure
And pardon, of eternal life is sure’?
O great and good! be thy revenge alone
Felt in thy mercy to the erring shown;
Let thwarted love and youth their pardon plead,
Who sinned but in intent, and not in deed!”
With the great storm of passion. Then his look
Softened to her uplifted face, that still
Pleaded more strongly than all words, until
Its pride and anger seemed like overblown,
Spent clouds of thunder left to tell alone
Of strife and overcoming. With bowed head,
And smiting on his bosom: “God,” he said,
“Alone is great, and let His holy name
Be honored, even to His servant's shame!
Well spake thy prophet, Miriam,—he alone
Who hath not sinned is meet to cast a stone
At such as these, who here their doom await,
Held like myself in the strong grasp of fate.
They sinned through love, as I through love forgive;
Take them beyond my realm, but let them live!”
The ancient Fakir, sitting in his place,
Motionless as an idol and as grim,
In the pavilion Akbar built for him
Under the court-yard trees, (for he was wise,
Knew Menu's laws, and through his close-shut eyes
Into the thoughts of other men could look,)
Began, half chant, half howling, to rehearse
The fragment of a holy Vedic verse;
And thus it ran: “He who all things forgives
Conquers himself and all things else, and lives
Above the reach of wrong or hate or fear,
Calm as the gods, to whom he is most dear.”
The tomb of Akbar through its cypress-trees;
And, near at hand, the marble walls that hide
The Christian Begum sleeping at his side.
And o'er her vault of burial (who shall tell
If it be chance alone or miracle?)
The Mission press with tireless hand unrolls
The words of Jesus on its lettered scrolls,—
Tells, in all tongues, the tale of mercy o'er,
And bids the guilty, “Go and sin no more!”
The night lay on the lonely hill,
Down which our homeward steps we bent,
And, silent, through great silence went,
Save that the tireless crickets played
Their long, monotonous serenade.
A young moon, at its narrowest,
Curved sharp against the darkening west;
And, momently, the beacon's star,
Slow wheeling o'er its rock afar,
From out the level darkness shot
One instant and again was not.
The thought of both: “Yon crescent see!
Like Islam's symbol-moon it gives
Hints of the light whereby it lives:
Somewhat of goodness, something true
From sun and spirit shining through
All faiths, all worlds, as through the dark
Of ocean shines the lighthouse spark,
Attests the presence everywhere
Of love and providential care.
The faith the old Norse heart confessed
In one dear name,—the hopefulest
And tenderest heard from mortal lips
In pangs of birth or death, from ships
Ice-bitten in the winter sea,
Or lisped beside a mother's knee,—
The wiser world hath not outgrown,
And the All-Father is our own!”
NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON.
Dwelt, poor but blameless, where his narrowing Cape
Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds
And the relentless smiting of the waves,
Awoke one morning from a pleasant dream
Of a good angel dropping in his hand
A fair, broad gold-piece, in the name of God.
Far inland, where the voices of the waves
As, through the tangle of the low, thick woods,
He searched his traps. Therein nor beast nor bird
He found; though meanwhile in the reedy pools
The otter plashed, and underneath the pines
The partridge drummed: and as his thoughts went back
To the sick wife and little child at home,
What marvel that the poor man felt his faith
Too weak to bear its burden,—like a rope
That, strand by strand uncoiling, breaks above
The hand that grasps it. “Even now, O Lord!
Send me,” he prayed, “the angel of my dream!
Nauhaught is very poor; he cannot wait.”
A low, metallic clink, and, looking down,
He saw a dainty purse with disks of gold
Crowding its silken net. Awhile he held
The treasure up before his eyes, alone
With his great need, feeling the wondrous coins
Slide through his eager fingers, one by one.
So then the dream was true. The angel brought
One broad piece only; should he take all these?
Who would be wiser, in the blind, dumb woods?
The loser, doubtless rich, would scarcely miss
This dropped crumb from a table always full.
Still, while he mused, he seemed to hear the cry
Of a starved child; the sick face of his wife
Tempted him. Heart and flesh in fierce revolt
Urged the wild license of his savage youth
Against his later scruples. Bitter toil,
To watch his halting,—had he lost for these
The freedom of the woods;—the hunting-grounds
Of happy spirits for a walled-in heaven
Of everlasting psalms? One healed the sick
Very far off thousands of moons ago:
Had he not prayed him night and day to come
And cure his bed-bound wife? Was there a hell?
Were all his fathers' people writhing there—
Like the poor shell-fish set to boil alive—
Forever, dying never? If he kept
This gold, so needed, would the dreadful God
Torment him like a Mohawk's captive stuck
With slow-consuming splinters? Would the saints
And the white angels dance and laugh to see him
Burn like a pitch-pine torch? His Christian garb
Seemed falling from him; with the fear and shame
Of Adam naked at the cool of day,
He gazed around. A black snake lay in coil
On the hot sand, a crow with sidelong eye
Watched from a dead bough. All his Indian lore
Of evil blending with a convert's faith
In the supernal terrors of the Book,
He saw the Tempter in the coiling snake
And ominous, black-winged bird; and all the while
The low rebuking of the distant waves
Stole in upon him like the voice of God
Among the trees of Eden. Girding up
His soul's loins with a resolute hand, he thrust
The base thought from him: “Nauhaught, be a man!
From honest eyes on all men, unashamed.
God help me! I am deacon of the church,
A baptized, praying Indian! Should I do
This secret meanness, even the barken knots
Of the old trees would turn to eyes to see it,
The birds would tell of it, and all the leaves
Whisper above me: ‘Nauhaught is a thief!’
The sun would know it, and the stars that hide
Behind his light would watch me, and at night
Follow me with their sharp, accusing eyes.
Yea, thou, God, seest me!” Then Nauhaught drew
Closer his belt of leather, dulling thus
The pain of hunger, and walked bravely back
To the brown fishing-hamlet by the sea;
And, pausing at the inn-door, cheerily asked:
“Who hath lost aught to-day?”
“I,” said a voice;
“Ten golden pieces, in a silken purse,
My daughter's handiwork.” He looked, and lo!
One stood before him in a coat of frieze,
And the glazed hat of a seafaring man,
Shrewd-faced, broad-shouldered, with no trace of wings.
Marvelling, he dropped within the stranger's hand
The silken web, and turned to go his way.
But the man said: “A tithe at least is yours;
Take it in God's name as an honest man.”
And as the deacon's dusky fingers closed
Over the golden gift, “Yea, in God's name
I take it, with a poor man's thanks,” he said.
Ran, white in sunshine, to the summer sea,
He sought his home, singing and praising God;
And when his neighbors in their careless way
Spoke of the owner of the silken purse—
A Wellfleet skipper, known in every port
That the Cape opens in its sandy wall—
He answered, with a wise smile, to himself:
“I saw the angel where they see a man.”
THE SISTERS.
Woke in the night to the sound of rain,
Of great waves climbing a rocky shore.
And looked out into the storm and night.
“Hearest thou nothing, sister dear?”
And roar of the northeast hurricane.
No good comes of watching a storm.
That waves are roaring and wild winds blow?
The harbor-lights on a night like this.”
Up from the sea on the wind it came!
And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!”
“Hall of the Heron is safe,” she said.
He rides at anchor in Anisquam.
Or lee shore rocks, would he call on thee?”
And wringing her small white hands she cried:
I hear it again, so loud and long.
And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!”
“Thou liest! He never would call thy name!
To keep him forever from thee and me!”
Like the cry of a dying man it passed.
But through her tears a strange light shone,—
To own and cherish its love in peace.
“Life was a lie, but true is death.
Shall crown me now in the light of day.
Never by lover my lips be kissed.
Thou in heaven and I on earth!”
“Hall of the Heron is dead!” she said.
We shall see him no more beneath the sun.
It loved him not with a love like mine.
Could hem and 'broider thy bridal gear,
And stitch for stitch in my heart be set.
Thine the living, and mine the dead!”
MARGUERITE.
Upwards of one thousand of the Acadian peasants forcibly taken from their homes on the Gaspereau and Basin of Minas were assigned to the several towns of the Massachusetts colony, the children being bound by the authorities to service or labor.
Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins knew!
Into her lonesome garret fell the light of the April day,
On the loose-laid floor of hemlock, on oaken ribs of roof,
The wheel with flaxen tangle, as it dropped from her sick hand!
As she lay in the trance of the dying, heedless of sound or sight?
The world of the alien people lay behind her dim and dead.
With gold the Basin of Minas, and set over Gaspereau;
Through inlet and creek and river, from dike to upland wood;
The drift of the fog in moonshine, over the dark coast-wall.
And far off, faintly, slowly, the bell for vespers rang!
Peering into the face, so helpless, and feeling the ice-cold feet.
By care no longer heeded and pity too late for use.
Leaned over the head-board, covering his face with his hands, and wept.
“What! love you the Papist, the beggar, the charge of the town?”
I love her, and fain would go with her wherever she goes!
You saw but the town-charge; I knew her God's angel at first.”
And awed by the silence and shadow of death drawing nigh,
With the last of her life in her fingers, the cross to her breast.
“She is joined to her idols, like Ephraim; let her alone!”
And he called back the soul that was passing: “Marguerite, do you hear?”
Wistful, tender, lit up for an instant the cloud of her eyes.
And the words the living long for he spake in the ear of the dead.
Of the folded hands and the still face never the robins knew!
THE ROBIN.
Crept slowly out in the sun of spring,
Pushed from her ears the locks of gray,
And listened to hear the robin sing.
And, cruel in sport as boys will be,
Tossed a stone at the bird, who hopped
From bough to bough in the apple-tree.
My poor, bad boy! of the fiery pit,
And how, drop by drop, this merciful bird
Carries the water that quenches it?
And lets it fall on the souls of sin:
You can see the mark on his red breast still
Of fires that scorch as he drops it in.
Singing so sweetly from limb to limb,
Very dear to the heart of Our Lord
Is he who pities the lost like Him!”
“Sing, bird of God, in my heart as well:
Each good thought is a drop wherewith
To cool and lessen the fires of hell.
Tears of pity are cooling dew,
And dear to the heart of Our Lord are all
Who suffer like Him in the good they do!”
THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM.
The beginning of German emigration to America may be traced to the personal influence of William Penn, who in 1677 visited the Continent, and made the acquaintance of an intelligent and highly cultivated circle of Pietists, or Mystics, who, reviving in the seventeenth century the spiritual faith and worship of Tauler and the “Friends of God” in the fourteenth, gathered about the pastor Spener, and the young and beautiful Eleonora Johanna Von Merlau. In this circle originated the Frankfort Land Company, which bought of William Penn, the Governor of Pennsylvania, a tract of land near the new city of Philadelphia.
The company's agent in the New World was a rising young lawyer, Francis Daniel Pastorius, son of Judge Pastorius, of Windsheim, who, at the age of seventeen, entered the University of Altorf. He studied law at Strasburg, Basle, and Jena, and at Ratisbon, the seat of the Imperial Government, obtained a practical knowledge of international polity. Successful in all his examinations and disputations, he received the degree of Doctor of Law at Nuremberg in 1676. In 1679 he was a law-lecturer at Frankfort, where he became deeply interested in the teachings of Dr. Spener. In 1680–81 he travelled in France, England, Ireland, and Italy with his friend Herr Von Rodeck. “I was,” he says, “glad to enjoy again the company of my Christian friends, rather than be with Von Rodeck feasting and dancing.” In 1683, in company with a small number of German Friends, he emigrated to America, settling upon the Frankfort Company's tract between the Schuylkill and the Delaware rivers. The township was divided into
In the year 1688 he drew up a memorial against slaveholding, which was adopted by the Germantown Friends and sent up to the Monthly Meeting, and thence to the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia. It is noteworthy as the first protest made by a religious body against Negro Slavery. The original document was discovered in 1844 by the Philadelphia antiquarian, Nathan Kite, and published in The Friend (Vol. XVIII. No. 16). It is a bold and direct appeal to the best instincts of the heart. “Have not,” he asks, “these negroes as much right to fight for their freedom as you have to keep them slaves?”
Under the wise direction of Pastorius, the Germantown settlement grew and prospered. The inhabitants planted orchards and vineyards, and surrounded themselves with souvenirs of their old home. A large number of them were linen-weavers, as well as small farmers. The Quakers were the principal sect, but men of all religions were tolerated, and lived together in harmony. In 1692 Richard Frame published, in what he called verse, a Description of Pennsylvania, in which he alludes to the settlement:—
“The German town of which I spoke before,Which is at least in length one mile or more,
Where lives High German people and Low Dutch,
Whose trade in weaving linen cloth is much,—
There grows the flax, as also you may know
That from the same they do divide the tow.
Their trade suits well their habitation.—
We find convenience for their occupation.”
Pastorius seems to have been on intimate terms with William Penn, Thomas Lloyd, Chief Justice Logan, Thomas Story, and other leading men in the Province belonging to his own religious society, as also with Kelpius, the learned Mystic of the Wissahickon, with the pastor of the Swedes' church, and the leaders of the Mennonites. He wrote a description of Pennsylvania, which was published at Frankfort and Leipsic in 1700 and 1701. His Lives of the Saints, etc., written in German and dedicated to Professor Schurmberg, his old teacher, was published in 1690. He left behind him many unpublished manuscripts covering a very wide range of subjects, most of which are now lost. One huge manuscript folio, entitled Hive Beestock, Melliotropheum Alucar, or Rusca Apium, still remains, containing one thousand pages with about one hundred lines to a page. It is a medley of knowledge and fancy, history, philosophy, and poetry, written in seven languages. A large portion of his poetry is devoted to the pleasures of gardening, the description of flowers, and the care of bees. The following specimen of his punning Latin is addressed to an orchard-pilferer:—
“Quisquis in hæc furtim reptas viridaria nostraTangere fallaci poma caveto manu,
Si non obsequeris faxit Deus omne quod opto,
Cum malis nostris ut mala cuncta feras.”
Professor Oswald Seidensticker, to whose papers in Der Deutsche Pioneer and that able periodical the Penn Monthly, of Philadelphia, I am indebted for many of the foregoing facts in regard to the German pilgrims of the New World, thus closes his notice of Pastorius:—
“No tombstone, not even a record of burial, indicates where his remains have found their last resting-place, and the pardonable desire to associate the homage due to this distinguished man with some visible memento cannot
The Pilgrims of Plymouth have not lacked historian and poet. Justice has been done to their faith, courage, and self-sacrifice, and to the mighty influence of their endeavors to establish righteousness on the earth. The Quaker pilgrims of Pennsylvania, seeking the same object by different means, have not been equally fortunate. The power of their testimony for truth and holiness, peace and freedom, enforced only by what Milton calls “the unresistible might of meekness,” has been felt through two centuries in the amelioration of penal severities, the abolition of slavery, the reform of the erring, the relief of the poor and suffering,—felt, in brief, in every step of human progress. But of the men themselves, with the single exception of William Penn, scarcely anything is known. Contrasted, from the outset, with the stern, aggressive Puritans of New England, they have come to be regarded as “a feeble folk,” with a personality as doubtful as their unrecorded graves. They were not soldiers, like Miles Standish; they had no figure so picturesque as Vane, no leader so rashly brave and haughty as Endicott. No Cotton Mather wrote their Magnalia; they had no awful drama of supernaturalism in which Satan and his angels were actors; and the only witch mentioned in their simple annals was a poor old Swedish woman, who, on complaint of
It will be sufficiently apparent to the reader that, in the poem which follows, I have attempted nothing beyond a study of the life and times of the Pennsylvania colonist,—a simple picture of a noteworthy man and his locality. The colors of my sketch are all very sober, toned down to the quiet and dreamy atmosphere through which its subject is visible. Whether, in the glare and tumult of the present time, such a picture will find favor may well be questioned. I only know that it has beguiled
Hail, future men of Germanopolis!
Let the young generations yet to be
Look kindly upon this.
Think how your fathers left their native land,—
Dear German-land! O sacred hearths and homes!—
And, where the wild beast roams,
In patience planned
New forest-homes beyond the mighty sea,
There undisturbed and free
To live as brothers of one family.
What pains and cares befell,
What trials and what fears,
Remember, and wherein we have done well
Follow our footsteps, men of coming years!
Where we have failed to do
Aright, or wisely live,
Be warned by us, the better way pursue,
And, knowing we were human, even as you,
Pity us and forgive!
Farewell, Posterity!
Farewell, dear Germany!
Forevermore farewell!
From the Latin of Francis Daniel Pastorius in the Germantown Records. 1688.
PRELUDE.
I sing the Pilgrim of a softer climeAnd milder speech than those brave men's who brought
To the ice and iron of our winter time
A will as firm, a creed as stern, and wrought
With one mailed hand, and with the other fought.
Simply, as fits my theme, in homely rhyme
I sing the blue-eyed German Spener taught,
Through whose veiled, mystic faith the Inward Light,
Steady and still, an easy brightness, shone,
Transfiguring all things in its radiance white.
The garland which his meekness never sought
I bring him; over fields of harvest sown
With seeds of blessing, now to ripeness grown,
I bid the sower pass before the reapers' sight.
From Pennsylvania's vales of spring away,
Where, forest-walled, the scattered hamlets lay
Of purple cloud, on which the evening star
Shone like a jewel on a scimitar,
Hush of the woods a murmur seemed to creep,
The Schuylkill whispering in a voice of sleep.
Rested at last, and from their long day's browse
Came the dun files of Krisheim's home-bound cows.
The rivers like two mighty arms were thrown,
Marked by the smoke of evening fires alone,
With its fair women and its stately men
Gracing the forest court of William Penn,
Of oak and pine the dryads held their claims,
And lent its streets their pleasant woodland names.
Looked city-ward, then stooped to prune again
Her vines and simples, with a sigh of pain.
In the oak clearing, and, as daylight failed,
Slow, overhead, the dusky night-birds sailed.
With low-bent head as if with sorrow weighed,
Daniel Pastorius slowly came and said,
Silent before her, wrestling with the mood
Of one who sees the evil and not good.
A slow, faint smile across his features broke,
Sadder than tears. “Dear heart,” he said, “our folk
Are frail; our elders have their selfish ends,
And few dare trust the Lord to make amends
For the dumb slaves the startled meeting heard
As if a stone its quiet waters stirred;
A ripple of dissent which downward ran
In widening circles, as from man to man.
Of tender fear that some their guide outwent,
Troublers of Israel. I was scarce intent
Of gallery Friends, in dumb and piteous show,
I saw, methought, dark faces full of woe.
They toiled and suffered; I was made aware
Of shame and wrath and anguish and despair!
With cautious phrase, a Voice there seemed to be,
‘As ye have done to these ye do to me!’
Of anise, mint, and cumin, till the sun
Set, leaving still the weightier work undone.
If these be weak? Who shall rebuke the wrong,
If these consent? How long, O Lord! how long!”
With folded arms, and eyes that sought the ground,
Walked musingly his little garden round.
Rare plants of power and herbs of healing grew,
Such as Van Helmont and Agrippa knew.
With the mild mystics of his dreamy age
He read the herbal signs of nature's page,
Fair as herself, in boyhood's happy hours,
The pious Spener read his creed in flowers.
Touching with finger-tip an aloe, rife
With leaves sharp-pointed like an Aztec knife
From the rare gardens of John Evelyn,
Brought from the Spanish Main by merchantmen.
And, year by year, its patient leaves unfold,
Till the young eyes that watched it first are old.
A sudden beauty, brightness, and perfume,
The century-moulded bud shall burst in bloom.
Grow with the years, and, after long delay,
Break into bloom, and God's eternal Yea
Who now, by faith alone, behold its stem
Crowned with the flowers of Freedom's diadem.
Remains for us. The wrong indeed is great,
But love and patience conquer soon or late.”
Than youth's caress upon the head of her
Pastorius laid his hand. “Shall we demur
We dream not of, the slow-grown bud may flower,
And what was sown in weakness rise in power!”
“Procul este profani!” Anna led
To where their child upon his little bed
Must bearers of a heavy burden be,
Our boy, God willing, yet the day shall see
Slave and slave-owner shall no longer meet,
But all sit equal at the Master's feet.”
Set the low walls a-glimmer, showed the cock
Rebuking Peter on the Van Wyck clock,
By side with Fox and Behmen, played at hide
And seek with Anna, midst her household pride
Of costly cloth or silver cup, but where,
Tasting the fat shads of the Delaware,
And quoted Horace o'er her home-brewed beer,
Till even grave Pastorius smiled to hear.
He dwelt in peace with God and man, and gave
Food to the poor and shelter to the slave.
The righteous code by Penn and Sidney framed,
And men withheld the human rights they claimed.
And hardened avarice, on its gains intent,
Stifled the inward whisper of dissent.
On tender hearts. At last Pastorius bore
Their warning message to the Church's door
Wrought ever after in the souls who heard,
And a dead conscience in its grave-clothes stirred
Of Hebrew custom, patriarchal use,
Good in itself if evil in abuse.
Discerning through the decent fig-leaf dress
Of the poor plea its shame of selfishness.
He hid the outcast, and bewrayed him not;
And, when his prey the human hunter sought,
And proffered cheer prolonged the master's stay,
To speed the black guest safely on his way.
His life to some great cause, and finds his friends
Shame or betray it for their private ends?
In childish folly for their seats above;
And that fond mother, blinded by her love,
Might sit on either hand? Amidst his own
A stranger oft, companionless and lone,
Is not alone from scourge and cell and chain;
Sharper the pang when, shouting in his train,
The loud hosannas of their daily cry,
And make their echo of his truth a lie.
Guests, motley-minded, drew his hearth around,
And held armed truce upon its neutral ground.
Strong, hero-limbed, like those whom Homer sung,
Pastorius fancied, when the world was young,
Like bronzes in his friend Von Rodeck's hall,
Comely, if black, and not unpleasing all.
Drew round his board on Monthly Meeting day,
Genial, half merry in their friendly way.
Weak, timid, homesick, slow to understand
The New World's promise, sought his helping hand.
By Wissahickon, maddest of good men,
Dreamed o'er the Chiliast dreams of Petersen.
Snake-like in shade, the Helmstadt Mystic hid,
Weird as a wizard, over arts forbid,
And Behmen's Morning-Redness, through the Stone
Of Wisdom, vouchsafed to his eyes alone,
And saw the visions man shall see no more,
Till the great angel, striding sea and shore,
The warning trump of the Apocalypse,
Shattering the heavens before the dread eclipse.
Leaned o'er the gate; or Ranter, pure within,
Aired his perfection in a world of sin.
Teased the low back-log with his shodden staff,
Till the red embers broke into a laugh
The rugged face, half tender, half austere,
Touched with the pathos of a homesick tear!
As law the Brethren of the Manor heard,
Announced the speedy terrors of the Lord,
Above a wrecked world with complacent face
Riding secure upon his plank of grace!
Manly in thought, in simple ways a child,
His white hair floating round his visage mild,
Pleased from his neighbor's lips to hear once more
His long-disused and half-forgotten lore.
And speak in Bion's Doric, and rehearse
Cleanthes' hymn or Virgil's sounding verse.
Argued as Quaker and as Lutheran,
Ending in Christian love, as they began.
Where Sommerhausen over vales of shade
Looked miles away, by every flower delayed,
Who loved, like him, to let his memory run
Over old fields of learning, and to sun
And dream with Philo over mysteries
Whereof the dreamer never finds the keys;
For doubt of truth, but let the buckets drop
Deep down and bring the hidden waters up.
Of tender souls; to differ was not crime;
The varying bells made up the perfect chime.
The white, clear light, tradition-colored, stole
Through the stained oriel of each human soul.
His old beliefs, adjusting to the thought
That moved his soul the creed his fathers taught.
Within themselves its secret witness find,
The soul's communion with the Eternal Mind,
Scholar and peasant, lord and serf, allied,
The polished Penn and Cromwell's Ironside.
By face in Flemish detail, we may trace
How loose-mouthed boor and fine ancestral grace
Broad market-dame, and simple serving-girl
By skirt of silk and periwig in curl!
Made all men equal, none could rise above
Nor sink below that level of God's love.
The homespun frock beside the scholar's gown,
Pastorius to the manners of the town
The bookless wisdom by experience taught,
And learned to love his new-found home, while not
Their rounds, and somewhat to his spirit lent
Of their own calm and measureless content.
His song of welcome to the Western spring,
And bluebird borrowing from the sky his wing.
And all the woods with many-colored flame
Of splendor, making summer's greenness tame,
Spake to him from each kindled bush around,
And made the strange, new landscape holy ground!
Swept the white street and piled the dooryard drift,
He exercised, as Friends might say, his gift
Of corn and beans in Indian succotash;
Dull, doubtless, but with here and there a flash
Of quiet fancies, meet to while away
The slow hours measuring off an idle day.
Of love's endurance, from its niche he took
The written pages of his ponderous book.
His “Rusca Apium,” which with bees began,
And through the gamut of creation ran.
In gray Altorf or storied Nürnberg penned
Dropped in upon him like a guest to spend
The fair Von Merlau spake as waters fall
And voices sound in dreams, and yet withal
Over the roses of her gardens blown
Brought the warm sense of beauty all her own.
Of spiritual influx or of saving grace
In the wild natures of the Indian race.
From Talmud, Koran, Veds, and Pentateuch,
Sought out his pupil in his far-off nook,
Of bird, beast, reptile, in his forest range,
Of flowers and fruits and simples new and strange.
Across the water, and the friendly lands
Talked with each other from their severed strands.
Sent from his new home grew to flower and fruit
Along the Rhine and at the Spessart's foot;
Smiled at his door, the same in form and hue,
And on his vines the Rhenish clusters grew.
He set his hand to every honest work,—
Farmer and teacher, court and meeting clerk.
Grapes, flax, and thread-spool on a trefoil ground,
With “Vinum, Linum et Textrinum” wound.
Where Paul and Grotius, Scripture text and saw,
Assured the good, and held the rest in awe.
He kept the Sermon on the Mount in view,
And justice always into mercy grew.
Nor ducking-stool; the orchard-thief grew pale
At his rebuke, the vixen ceased to rail,
The slanderer faltered at the witness-stand,
And all men took his counsel for command.
Of tenderer skies than German land knew of,
Green calm below, blue quietness above,
That, with a sense of loving Fatherhood
And childlike trust in the Eternal Good,
Hushed strife, and taught impatient zeal to wait
The slow assurance of the better state?
O'er jagged ice, relieved by granite gray,
Blew round the men of Massachusetts Bay?
What hints of pitiless power and terror spoke
In waves that on their iron coast-line broke?
The sectary yielded to the citizen,
And peaceful dwelt the many-creeded men.
The air to madness, and no steeple flung
Alarums down from bells at midnight rung.
Washed all his war-paint off, and in the place
Of battle-marches sped the peaceful chase,
Giving to kindness what his native pride
And lazy freedom to all else denied.
Traditions that his swarthy neighbors told
By wigwam-fires when nights were growing cold,
Its dreams, and held their childish faith more true
To God and man than half the creeds he knew.
Beneath the warm wind waves of green and gold;
The planted ear returned its hundred-fold.
Than that which by the Rhine stream shines upon
The purpling hillsides with low vines o'errun.
Tried with light bill, that scarce a petal stirred,
The Old World flowers to virgin soil transferred;
The young boughs down, their gold and russet blending,
Made glad his heart, familiar odors lending
Life-everlasting, bay, and eglantine,
And all the subtle scents the woods combine.
Warm, tender, restful, sweet with woodland balm,
Came to him, like some mother-hallowed psalm
Of labor, winding off from memory's reel
A golden thread of music. With no peal
The scattered settlers through green forest-ways
Walked meeting-ward. In reverent amaze
Shade of the alders on the rivulet's rim,
Seek the Great Spirit's house to talk with Him.
And made intense by sympathy, outside
The sparrows sang, and the gold-robin cried,
Breathed through the open windows of the room
From locust-trees, heavy with clustered bloom.
Whose fervor jail nor pillory could tame,
Proud of the cropped ears meant to be their shame,
In Indian isles; pale women who had bled
Under the hangman's lash, and bravely said
And gray old soldier-converts, seamed with scars
From every stricken field of England's wars.
Each waiting heart, till haply some one felt
On his moved lips the seal of silence melt.
Of a diviner life from soul to soul,
Baptizing in one tender thought the whole.
The friendly group still lingered at the door,
Greeting, inquiring, sharing all the store
Down the green vistas of the woodland strayed,
Whispered and smiled and oft their feet delayed.
Did light girl laughter ripple through the bushes,
As brooks make merry over roots and rushes?
The ear of silence heard, and every sound
Its place in nature's fine accordance found.
Old kindly faces, youth and maidenhood
Seemed, like God's new creation, very good!
Pastorius went his way. The unscared bird
Sang at his side; scarcely the squirrel stirred
And, wheresoe'er the good man looked or trod,
He felt the peace of nature and of God.
He loved all beauty, without fear of harm,
And in his veins his Teuton blood ran warm.
He made his own no circuit-judge to try
The freer conscience of his neighbors by.
Gracious and sweet, the better way was shown,
The joy of one, who, seeking not his own,
The thorns and shards of duty overpast,
And daily life, beyond his hope's forecast,
And flowers upspringing in its narrow round,
And all his days with quiet gladness crowned.
He hummed what seemed like Altorf's Burschensong;
His good wife smiled, and did not count it wrong.
His Memory, while he trod the New World's strand,
A double-ganger walked the Fatherland!
Shone on his quiet hearth, he missed the sight
Of Yule-log, Tree, and Christ-child all in white;
Old wait-songs sounding down his native street,
And watched again the dancers' mingling feet;
He held the plain and sober maxims fast
Of the dear Friends with whom his lot was cast.
He loved the bird's song in his dooryard trees,
And the low hum of home-returning bees;
Down the long street, the beauty and perfume
Of apple-boughs, the mingling light and gloom
With sun-threads; and the music the wind drew,
Mournful and sweet, from leaves it overblew.
And through the common sequence of events,
He felt the guiding hand of Providence
And lo! all other voices far and near
Died at that whisper, full of meanings clear.
The wandering lights, that all-misleading run
Went out like candles paling in the sun.
It led, as in the vision of the seer
The wheels moved as the spirit in the clear
Watching the living splendor sink or rise,
Its will their will, knowing no otherwise.
He walked by faith and not the letter's sight,
And read his Bible by the Inward Light.
Frozen in their creeds like fish in winter's pool,
Tried the large tolerance of his liberal school,
He welcomed all the seeking souls who came,
And no man's faith he made a cause of blame.
His own dear Friends sit by him knee to knee,
In social converse, genial, frank, and free.
Who owned it first) upon the circle fell,
Hushed Anna's busy wheel, and laid its spell
To solemnize his shining face of mirth;
Only the old clock ticked amidst the dearth
In that soul-sabbath, till at last some word
Of tender counsel or low prayer was heard.
And take love's message, went their homeward way;
So passed in peace the guileless Quaker's day.
A truer idyl than the bards have told
Of Arno's banks or Arcady of old.
And century-rooted mosses o'er it creep,
The Nürnberg scholar and his helpmeet sleep.
In Bartram's garden, did John Woolman cast
A glance upon it as he meekly passed?
That tender soul, and for the slave's redress
Lend hope, strength, patience? It were vain to guess.
Set in the fresco of tradition's wall
Like Jotham's bramble, mattereth not at all.
And summer's heat, no seed of truth is lost,
And every duty pays at last its cost.
God sent the answer to his life-long prayer;
The child was born beside the Delaware,
Guided his people unto nobler ends,
And left them worthier of the name of Friends.
And over all the exile's Western home,
From sea to sea the flowers of freedom bloom!
But not for thee, Pastorius! Even so
The world forgets, but the wise angels know.
KING VOLMER AND ELSIE.
AFTER THE DANISH OF CHRISTIAN WINTER.
In its little Christian city stands the church of Vordingborg,
In merry mood King Volmer sat, forgetful of his power,
As idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded on his tower.
“Dar'st trust thy little Elsie, the maid of thy desire?”
“Of all the men in Denmark she loveth only me:
As true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to thee.”
When I myself will test her; she will not say me nay.”
Thereat the lords and gallants, that round about him stood,
Wagged all their heads in concert and smiled as courtiers should.
From the tall tower of Valdemar the Golden Goose looks down;
The yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind of morn,
The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn.
And, singing with the early birds, her daily task begins.
Gay tulips bloom and sweet mint curls around her garden-bower,
But she is sweeter than the mint and fairer than the flower.
As snow, her loose sleeves only leave her small, round wrists in sight;
Below, the modest petticoat can only half conceal
The motion of the lightest foot that ever turned a wheel.
But, look! she starts, she lifts her face, she shades it with her arm.
And, hark! a train of horsemen, with sound of dog and horn,
Come leaping o'er the ditches, come trampling down the corn!
As fast beside her father's gate the riders held their way;
And one was brave in scarlet cloak, with golden spur on heel,
And, as he checked his foaming steed, the maiden checked her wheel.
For weary months in secret my heart has longed for thee!”
What noble knight was this? What words for modest maiden's ear?
She dropped a lowly courtesy of bashfulness and fear.
Trembling in every limb, her cheek with blushes crimsoned o'er.
“Nay, fear me not,” the rider said, “I offer heart and hand,
Bear witness these good Danish knights who round about me stand.
For to-morrow, little Elsie, shall bring another day.”
He spake the old phrase slyly as, glancing round his train,
He saw his merry followers seek to hide their smiles in vain.
I'll line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that you wear;
All precious gems shall twine your neck; and in a chariot gay
You shall ride, my little Elsie, behind four steeds of gray.
On marble floors your feet shall weave the dances to and fro.
At frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall shine,
While, at our ease, we play at draughts, and drink the blood-red wine.”
A roguish smile shone in her eye and on her lip found place.
Back from her low white forehead the curls of gold she threw,
And lifted up her eyes to his, steady and clear and blue.
I will not trust a love that soon may cool and turn to slight.
If you would wed me henceforth be a peasant, not a lord;
I bid you hang upon the wall your tried and trusty sword.”
And in its place will swing the scythe and mow your father's hay.”
“Nay, but your gallant scarlet cloak my eyes can never bear;
A Vadmal coat, so plain and gray, is all that you must wear.”
“And on the Lord's high altar I'll lay my scarlet cloak.”
“But mark,” she said, “no stately horse my peasant love must ride,
A yoke of steers before the plough is all that he must guide.”
No other man must ride the horse that has been backed by me.
Henceforth I'll tread the furrow and to my oxen talk,
If only little Elsie beside my plough will walk.”
The homely mead I brew you may serve a peasantman.”
“Most willingly, fair Elsie, I'll drink that mead of thine,
And leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to drain my generous wine.”
Unmeet for peasant-wedded arms, your knightly knee across.
And pull me down your castle from top to basement wall,
And let your plough trace furrows in the ruins of your hall!”
The maiden of the spinning-wheel was to her troth-plight true.
“Ah, roguish little Elsie! you act your part full well:
You know that I must bear my shield and in my castle dwell!
Keep watch o'er Denmark's honor, and guard her ancient name.
Who ploughs them ploughs up Denmark, this goodly home of ours!
Would God that all our maidens were good and pure as you!
Well have you pleased your monarch, and he shall well repay;
God's peace! Farewell! To-morrow will bring another day!”
And like a whirl-blast swept away with all his gallant men.
The steel hoofs beat the rocky path; again on winds of morn
The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare of hunter's horn.
And, leaping o'er the green hedge, he stood by Elsie's side.
None saw the fond embracing, save, shining from afar,
The Golden Goose that watched them from the tower of Valdemar.
Her vales of spring the fairest, I sing for you my song.
No praise as yours so bravely rewards the singer's skill;
Thank God! of maids like Elsie the land has plenty still!
THE THREE BELLS.
That raked her splintering mast
The good ship settled slowly,
The cruel leak gained fast.
Her signal guns pealed out.
Dear God! was that Thy answer
From the horror round about?
“Ho! ship ahoy!” its cry:
“Our stout Three Bells of Glasgow
Shall lay till daylight by!”
Yet on the heaving swells
Tossed up and down the ship-lights,
The lights of the Three Bells!
Man answered back to man,
While oft, to cheer and hearten,
The Three Bells nearer ran;
Sent down his hopeful cry:
“Take heart! Hold on!” he shouted;
“The Three Bells shall lay by!”
The tossing lights shone clear;
All night from reeling taffrail
The Three Bells sent her cheer.
Of storm and darkness passed,
Just as the wreck lurched under,
All souls were saved at last.
In grateful memory sail!
Ring on, Three Bells of rescue,
Above the wave and gale!
Repeat the Master's cry,
As tossing through our darkness
The lights of God draw nigh!
JOHN UNDERHILL.
Since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth stone.
When Captain Underhill, bearing scars
From Indian ambush and Flemish wars,
Left three-hilled Boston and wandered down,
East by north, to Cocheco town.
He had sat at Anna Hutchinson's feet,
And, when the bolt of banishment fell
On the head of his saintly oracle,
He had shared her ill as her good report,
And braved the wrath of the General Court.
The dust of the Massachusetts Bay.
The world might bless and the world might ban.
What did it matter the perfect man,
To whom the freedom of earth was given,
Proof against sin, and sure of heaven?
With screed of Scripture and holy song,
Or thought how he rode with his lances free
By the Lower Rhine and the Zuyder-Zee,
Till his wood-path grew to a trodden road,
And Hilton Point in the distance showed.
The two fair rivers, the flakes thereby,
The little shallop from Strawberry Bank;
And he rose in his stirrups and looked abroad
Over land and water, and praised the Lord.
Into the clearing's space rode he,
With the sun on the hilt of his sword in sheath,
And his silver buckles and spurs beneath,
And the settlers welcomed him, one and all,
From swift Quampeagan to Gonic Fall.
As the way seemed open to seek a home.
Somewhat the Lord hath wrought by my hands
In the Narragansett and Netherlands,
And if here ye have work for a Christian man,
I will tarry, and serve ye as best I can.
The wonderful favor God hath shown,
The special mercy vouchsafed one day
On the shore of Narragansett Bay,
As I sat, with my pipe, from the camp aside,
And mused like Isaac at eventide.
A garment of gladness wrapped me round
I felt from the law of works released,
The strife of the flesh and spirit ceased,
My faith to a full assurance grew,
And all I had hoped for myself I knew.
I shall not stumble, I shall not stray;
He hath taken away my fig-leaf dress,
I wear the robe of His righteousness;
And the shafts of Satan no more avail
Than Pequot arrows on Christian mail.”
“Thou man of God, as our ruler and guide.”
And Captain Underhill bowed his head.
“The will of the Lord be done!” he said.
And the morrow beheld him sitting down
In the ruler's seat in Cocheco town.
His words were wise and his rule was good;
He coveted not his neighbor's land,
From the holding of bribes he shook his hand;
And through the camps of the heathen ran
A wholesome fear of the valiant man.
And life hath ever a savor of death.
Through hymns of triumph the tempter calls,
And whoso thinketh he standeth falls.
Alas! ere their round the seasons ran,
There was grief in the soul of the saintly man.
Had found the joints of his spiritual mail;
And men took note of his gloomy air,
The shame in his eye, the halt in his prayer,
The signs of a battle lost within,
The pain of a soul in the coils of sin.
With broken vows and a life of blame;
And the people looked askance on him
As he walked among them sullen and grim,
Ill at ease, and bitter of word,
And prompt of quarrel with hand or sword.
He strove in the bonds of his evil will;
But he shook himself like Samson at length,
And girded anew his loins of strength,
And bade the crier go up and down
And call together the wondering town.
Ceased as he rose in his place and said:
“Men, brethren, and fathers, well ye know
How I came among you a year ago,
Strong in the faith that my soul was freed
From sin of feeling, or thought, or deed.
But not with a lie on my lips I came.
In my blindness I verily thought my heart
Swept and garnished in every part.
He chargeth His angels with folly; He sees
The heavens unclean. Was I more than these?
The trust you gave me, and go my way.
Hate me or pity me, as you will,
The Lord will have mercy on sinners still;
And I, who am chiefest, say to all,
Watch and pray, lest ye also fall.”
That only his quickened ear could know
Smote his heart with a bitter pain,
As into the forest he rode again,
And the veil of its oaken leaves shut down
On his latest glimpse of Cocheco town.
The streams flashed up, and the sky shone in;
On his cheek of fever the cool wind blew,
The leaves dropped on him their tears of dew,
And angels of God, in the pure, sweet guise
Of flowers, looked on him with sad surprise.
Sang in their saddest of minor keys?
What was it the mournful wood-thrush said?
What whispered the pine-trees overhead?
Did he hear the Voice on his lonely way
That Adam heard in the cool of day?
Alone with the Infinite Purity;
And, bowing his soul to its tender rebuke,
As Peter did to the Master's look,
He measured his path with prayers of pain
For peace with God and nature again.
The bruit of a once familiar name;
How among the Dutch of New Netherlands,
From wild Danskamer to Haarlem sands,
A penitent soldier preached the Word,
And smote the heathen with Gideon's sword!
How he harried the foe on the long frontier,
And heaped on the land against him barred
The coals of his generous watch and ward.
Frailest and bravest! the Bay State still
Counts with her worthies John Underhill.
CONDUCTOR BRADLEY.
Be said with reverence!) as the swift doom came,
Smitten to death, a crushed and mangled frame,
To do the utmost that a brave man could,
And die, if needful, as a true man should.
On that poor wreck beyond all hopes or fears,
Lost in the strength and glory of his years.
Dead to all thought save duty's, moved again:
“Put out the signals for the other train!”
From lips of saint or martyr ever ran,
Electric, through the sympathies of man.
The sick-bed dramas of self-consciousness,
Our sensual fears of pain and hopes of bliss!
That last brave act of failing tongue and brain!
Freighted with life the downward rushing train,
Obeyed the warning which the dead lips gave.
Others he saved, himself he could not save.
Who in his record still the earth shall tread
With God's clear aureole shining round his head.
Of virtue dwarfed the noble deed beside.
God give us grace to live as Bradley died!
THE WITCH OF WENHAM
The house is still standing in Danvers, Mass., where, it is said, a suspected witch was confined overnight in the attic, which was bolted fast. In the morning when the constable came to take her to Salem for trial she was missing, although the door was still bolted. Her escape was doubtless aided by her friends, but at the time it was attributed to Satanic interference.
I.
Blew warm the winds of May,
And over Naumkeag's ancient oaks
The green outgrew the gray.
The early birds at will
Waked up the violet in its dell,
The wind-flower on its hill.
Son Andrew, tell me, pray.”
“For stripëd perch in Wenham Lake
I go to fish to-day.”
The mottled perch shall be:
A blue-eyed witch sits on the bank
And weaves her net for thee.
Her spell-song low and faint;
The wickedest witch in Salem jail
Is to that girl a saint.”
God knows,” the young man cried,
“He never made a whiter soul
Than hers by Wenham side.
And every want supplies;
To her above the blessed Book
She lends her soft blue eyes.
Her lips are sweet with prayer;
Go where you will, in ten miles round
Is none more good and fair.”
And of thy mother, stay!”
She clasped her hands, she wept aloud,
But Andrew rode away.
The Wenham witch has caught;
She holds him with the curlëd gold
Whereof her snare is wrought.
She binds him with her hair;
Oh, break the spell with holy words,
Unbind him with a prayer!”
“This mischief shall not be;
The witch shall perish in her sins
And Andrew shall go free.
She saw her weave a spell,
Bare-armed, loose-haired, at full of moon,
Around a dried-up well.
The Hebrew's old refrain
(For Satan uses Bible words),
Till water flowed amain.
By Wenham water words
That made the buttercups take wings
And turn to yellow birds.
The hive at her command;
And fishes swim to take their food
From out her dainty hand.
The godly minister
Notes well the spell that doth compel
The young men's eyes to her.
Is Satan's seal and sign;
Her lips are red with evil bread
And stain of unblest wine.
At Quasycung she took
The Black Man's godless sacrament
And signed his dreadful book.
Against the young witch cried.
To take her Marshal Herrick rides
Even now to Wenham side.”
His daughter at his knee;
“I go to fetch that arrant witch,
Thy fair playmate,” quoth he.
And haunts both hall and stair;
They know her by the great blue eyes
And floating gold of hair.”
No foul old witch is she,
But sweet and good and crystal-pure
As Wenham waters be.”
Before us good and ill,
And woe to all whose carnal loves
Oppose His righteous will.
Choose thou, my child, to-day:
No sparing hand, no pitying eye,
When God commands to slay!”
With fear as he drew nigh;
The children in the dooryards held
Their breath as he passed by.
The grim witch-hunter rode
The pale Apocalyptic beast
By grisly Death bestrode.
II.
Upon the young girl's shone,
Her tender mouth, her dreaming eyes,
Her yellow hair outblown.
To natural harmonies,
She sat beneath the trees.
Her mother's wedding gown,
When lo! the marshal, writ in hand,
From Alford hill rode down.
He grasped the maiden's hands:
“Come with me unto Salem town,
For so the law commands!”
Farewell before I go!”
He closer tied her little hands
Unto his saddle bow.
“For thy sweet daughter's sake.”
“I'll keep my daughter safe,” he said,
“From the witch of Wenham Lake.”
She needs my eyes to see.”
“Those eyes, young witch, the crows shall peck
From off the gallows-tree.”
And up its stairway long,
And closed on her the garret-door
With iron bolted strong.
Her evening prayer she said,
While, through the dark, strange faces seemed
To mock her as she prayed.
The fears her childhood knew;
The awe wherewith the air was filled
With every breath she drew.
Some secret thought or sin
Had shut good angels from her heart
And let the bad ones in?
Let go her hold on Heaven,
And sold herself unwittingly
To spirits unforgiven?
No human sound she heard,
But up and down the chimney stack
The swallows moaned and stirred.
Of evil sight and sound,
The blind bats on their leathern wings
Went wheeling round and round.
Looked in a half-faced moon.
Was it a dream, or did she hear
Her lover's whistled tune?
A whisper reached her ear:
“Slide down the roof to me,” it said,
“So softly none may hear.”
Till from its eaves she hung,
And felt the loosened shingles yield
To which her fingers clung.
And touched her feet so small;
“Drop down to me, dear heart,” he said,
“My arms shall break the fall.”
Her arms about him twined;
And, noiseless as if velvet-shod,
They left the house behind.
Full free the rein he cast;
Oh, never through the mirk midnight
Rode man and maid more fast.
The bridgeless streams they swam;
At set of moon they passed the Bass,
At sunrise Agawam.
The ancient ferryman
Forgot, at times, his idle oars,
So fair a freight to scan.
He saw them mount and ride,
“God keep her from the evil eye,
And harm of witch!” he cried.
At all its fears gone by;
“He does not know,” she whispered low,
“A little witch am I.”
And, in the red sundown,
Drew rein before a friendly door
In distant Berwick town.
The Quaker people felt;
And safe beside their kindly hearths
The hunted maiden dwelt,
The haunting horror threw,
And hatred, born of ghastly dreams,
To shame and pity grew.
Its golden summer day,
But blithe and glad its withered fields,
And skies of ashen gray;
The spectres ceased to roam,
And scattered households knelt again
Around the hearths of home.
The meadow-lark outsang,
And once again on all the hills
The early violets sprang,
Lay green within the arms
Of creeks that bore the salted sea
To pleasant inland farms,
The jail-bolts backward fell;
And youth and hoary age came forth
Like souls escaped from hell.
KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS.
The king rode with his great
War chiefs and lords of state,
And Sheba's queen with them;
To whom, perchance, belongs
That wondrous Song of songs,
Sensuous and mystical,
In fond, ecstatic dream,
And through its earth-born theme
The Love of loves discern.
In gold and purple sheen,
The dusky Ethiop queen
Smiled on King Solomon.
The languages of all
The creatures great or small
That trod the earth or flew.
The king's path, and he heard
Its small folk, and their word
He thus interpreted:
As wise and good and just,
To crush us in the dust
Under his heedless feet.”
And saw the wide surprise
Of the Queen of Sheba's eyes
As he told her what they said.
“Too happy fate have they
Who perish in thy way
Beneath thy gracious feet!
Shall these vile creatures dare
Murmur against thee where
The knees of kings kneel down?”
“The wise and strong should seek
The welfare of the weak,”
And turned his horse aside.
Curved with their leader round
The ant-hill's peopled mound,
And left it free from harm.
“O king!” she said, “henceforth
The secret of thy worth
And wisdom well I know.
Whose ruler heedeth more
The murmurs of the poor
Than flatteries of the great.”
IN THE “OLD SOUTH.”
On the 8th of July, 1677, Margaret Brewster with four other Friends went into the South Church in time of meeting, “in sackcloth, with ashes upon her head, barefoot, and her face blackened,” and delivered “a warning from the great God of Heaven and Earth to the Rulers and Magistrates of Boston.” For the offence she was sentenced to be “whipped at a cart's tail up and down the Town, with twenty lashes.”
A wonder and a sign,
With a look the old-time sibyls wore,
Half-crazed and half-divine.
Unclothed as the primal mother,
With limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed
With a fire she dare not smother.
With sprinkled ashes gray;
She stood in the broad aisle strange and weird
As a soul at the judgment day.
And the people held their breath,
For these were the words the maiden spoke
Through lips as the lips of death:
All men my courts shall tread,
And priest and ruler no more shall eat
My people up like bread!
In thunder and breaking seals!
Let all souls worship Him in the way
His light within reveals.”
And her sackcloth closer drew,
And into the porch of the awe-hushed church
She passed like a ghost from view.
Through half the streets of the town,
But the words she uttered that day nor fire
Could burn nor water drown.
By equal feet are trod,
And the bell that swings in its belfry rings
Freedom to worship God!
It thrills the conscious walls;
The stone from the basement cries aloud
And the beam from the timber calls.
And pulpits that bless and ban,
And the Lord will not grudge the single church
That is set apart for man.
And the prophets under the sun,
And the first is last and the last is first,
And the twain are verily one.
And her bay-tides rise and fall,
Shall freedom stand in the Old South Church
And plead for the rights of all!
THE HENCHMAN.
My lady's page her fleet greyhound,
My lady's hair the fond winds stir,
And all the birds make songs for her.
And Rathburn side is gay with flowers;
But ne'er like hers, in flower or bird,
Was beauty seen or music heard.
The least of all her worshippers,
The dust beneath her dainty heel,
She knows not that I see or feel.
Where'er she goes with her I go;
Oh, cold and fair!—she cannot guess
I kneel to share her hound's caress!
I rob their ears of her sweet talk;
Her suitors come from east and west,
I steal her smiles from every guest.
I greet her with the song of birds;
I reach her with her green-armed bowers,
I kiss her with the lips of flowers.
The wind and I uplift her veil;
As if the calm, cold moon she were,
And I the tide, I follow her.
The license of the sun and air,
My worship from her scorn and pride.
I breathe her charmëd atmosphere,
Wherein to her my service brings
The reverence due to holy things.
My dumb devotion shall not shame;
The love that no return doth crave
To knightly levels lifts the slave.
To splinter in my lady's sight;
But, at her feet, how blest were I
For any need of hers to die!
THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK.
E. B. Tylor in his Primitive Culture, chapter xii., gives an account of the reverence paid the dead by the Kol tribes of Chota Nagpur, Assam. “When a Ho or Munda,” he says, “has been burned on the funeral pile, collected morsels of his bones are carried in procession with a solemn, ghostly, sliding step, keeping time to the deep-sounding drum, and when the old woman who carries the bones on her bamboo tray lowers it from time to time, then girls who carry pitchers and brass vessels mournfully reverse them to show that they are empty; thus the remains are taken to visit every house in the village, and every dwelling of a friend or relative for miles, and the inmates come out to mourn and praise the goodness of the departed; the bones are carried to all the dead man's favorite haunts, to the fields he cultivated, to the grove he planted, to the threshing-floor where he worked, to the village dance-room where he made merry. At last they are taken to the grave, and buried in an earthen vase upon a store of food,
Once, twice, thrice!
We have swept the floor,
We have boiled the rice.
Come hither, come hither!
Come from the far lands,
Come from the star lands,
Come as before!
We lived long together,
We loved one another;
Come back to our life.
Come father, come mother,
Come sister and brother,
Child, husband, and wife,
For you we are sighing.
Come take your old places,
Come look in our faces,
The dead on the dying,
Come home!
Once, twice, thrice!
We have kindled the coals,
And we boil the rice
For the feast of souls.
Come hither, come hither!
Think not we fear you,
Whose hearts are so near you.
Come tenderly thought on,
Come all unforgotten,
From the dim meadow-lands
Where the pale grasses bend
Low to our sighing.
Come father, come mother,
Come sister and brother,
Come husband and friend,
The dead to the dying,
Come home!
You entered so oft;
For the feast of souls
We have kindled the coals,
And we boil the rice soft.
Come you who are dearest
To us who are nearest,
Come hither, come hither,
From out the wild weather;
The storm clouds are flying,
The peepul is sighing;
Come in from the rain.
Come father, come mother,
Come sister and brother,
Come husband and lover,
Beneath our roof-cover.
Look on us again,
The dead on the dying,
Come home!
For the feast of souls
We have kindled the coals
We may kindle no more!
The curse of the Brahmin,
The sun and the dew,
They burn us, they bite us,
They waste us and smite us;
Our days are but few!
In strange lands far yonder
To wonder and wander
We hasten to you.
List then to our sighing,
While yet we are here:
Nor seeing nor hearing,
We wait without fearing,
To feel you draw near.
O dead, to the dying
Come home!
THE KHAN'S DEVIL.
To Hamza, santon of renown.
Thy help, O holy man, I seek.”
The Khan's red eyes and purple face,
“Thou hast a devil!” Hamza said.
“Rid me of him at once, O man!”
Can slay that cursed thing of thine.
Water of healing on the brink
The Nahr el Zeben downward flows.
May Allah's pity go with thee!”
Went forth where Nahr el Zeben ran.
His bed, the water quenched his thirst;
Curved sharp above the evening star,
Not weak and trembling as before,
“Behold,” he said, “the fiend is slain.”
The curst one lies in death-like swound.
And jins like him have charmëd lives.
May call him up in living shape.
Sparkles for thee, beware, O Khan!
And drown each day thy devilkin!”
As Shitan's own, though offered up,
By Yarkand's maids and Samarcand's.
Of the medress of Kaush Kodul,
A golden-lettered tablet saw,
Graved on it at the Khan's command:
A devil, Khan el Hamed saith,
The fiend that loves the breath of wine
Nor Meccan dervis can drive out.
That robs him of his power to harm.
To save thee lies in tank and well!”
THE KING'S MISSIVE.
This ballad, originally written for The Memorial History of Boston, describes, with pardonable poetic license, a memorable incident in the annals of the city. The interview between Shattuck and the Governor took place, I have since learned, in the residence of the latter, and not in the Council Chamber. The publication of the ballad led to some discussion as to the historical truthfulness of the picture, but I have seen no reason to rub out any of the figures or alter the lines and colors.
To cove and meadow and Common lot,
In his council chamber and oaken chair,
Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott.
A grave, strong man, who knew no peer
In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear
Of God, not man, and for good or ill
Held his trust with an iron will.
The flag, and cloven the May-pole down,
Harried the heathen round about,
And whipped the Quakers from town to town.
To burn like a torch for his own harsh creed,
He kept with the flaming brand of his zeal
The gate of the holy common weal.
With a look of mingled sorrow and wrath;
“Woe 's me!” he murmured: “at every turn
The pestilent Quakers are in my path!
Some we have scourged, and banished some,
Some hanged, more doomed, and still they come.
Fast as the tide of yon bay sets in,
Sowing their heresy's seed of sin.
The graves of our kin, the comfort and ease
Of our English hearths and homes, to find
Troublers of Israel such as these?
Shall I spare? Shall I pity them? God forbid!
I will do as the prophet to Agag did:
They come to poison the wells of the Word,
I will hew them in pieces before the Lord!”
Entered, and whispered under breath,
“There waits below for the hangman's work
A fellow banished on pain of death—
Shattuck, of Salem, unhealed of the whip,
Brought over in Master Goldsmith's ship
At anchor here in a Christian port,
With freight of the devil and all his sort!”
Striding fiercely from wall to wall,
The Governor cried, “if I hang not all!
Bring hither the Quaker.” Calm, sedate,
With the look of a man at ease with fate,
Into that presence grim and dread
Came Samuel Shattuck, with hat on head.
Smote down the offence; but the wearer said
With a quiet smile, “By the king's command
I bear his message and stand in his stead.”
In the Governor's hand a missive he laid
With the royal arms on its seal displayed,
And the proud man spake as he gazed thereat,
Uncovering, “Give Mr. Shattuck his hat.”
“The king commandeth your friends' release
Doubt not he shall be obeyed, although
To his subjects' sorrow and sin's increase.
What he here enjoineth, John Endicott,
His loyal servant, questioneth not.
You are free! God grant the spirit you own
May take you from us to parts unknown.”
And, like Daniel, out of the lion's den
Tender youth and girlhood passed,
With age-bowed women and gray-locked men
And the voice of one appointed to die
Was lifted in praise and thanks on high,
And the little maid from New Netherlands
Kissed, in her joy, the doomed man's hands.
To the souls in prison, beside him went,
An ancient woman, bearing with her
The linen shroud for his burial meant.
For she, not counting her own life dear,
In the strength of a love that cast out fear,
Had watched and served where her brethren died,
Like those who waited the cross beside.
On the martyr graves by the Common side,
And much scourged Wharton of Salem took
His burden of prophecy up and cried:
“Rest, souls of the valiant! Not in vain
Have ye borne the Master's cross of pain;
Ye have fought the fight, ye are victors crowned,
With a fourfold chain ye have Satan bound!”
On wood and meadow and upland farms;
On the brow of Snow Hill the great windmill
Slowly and lazily swung its arms;
Broad in the sunshine stretched away,
With its capes and islands, the turquoise bay;
And over water and dusk of pines
Blue hills lifted their faint outlines.
The sumach added its crimson fleck,
And double in air and water showed
The tinted maples along the Neck;
Through frost flower clusters of pale star-mist,
And gentian fringes of amethyst,
The grazing cattle on Centry trod.
The world about them; they only thought
With deep thanksgiving and pious awe
On the great deliverance God had wrought.
Through lane and alley the gazing town
Noisily followed them up and down;
Some with scoffing and brutal jeer,
Some with pity and words of cheer.
Upsall, gray with his length of days,
Cried from the door of his Red Lion Inn:
“Men of Boston, give God the praise!
No more shall innocent blood call down
The bolts of wrath on your guilty town.
The freedom of worship, dear to you,
Is dear to all, and to all is due.
When your beautiful City of the Bay
Shall be Christian liberty's chosen home,
And none shall his neighbor's rights gainsay.
The varying notes of worship shall blend
And as one great prayer to God ascend,
And hands of mutual charity raise
Walls of salvation and gates of praise.”
Whose painful ministers sighed to see
The walls of their sheep-fold falling down,
And wolves of heresy prowling free.
With milder counsels the State grew strong,
As outward Letter and inward Light
Kept the balance of truth aright.
To Concord's yeomen the signal sent,
And spake in the voice of the cannon-shot
That severed the chains of a continent.
With its gentler mission of peace and good-will
The thought of the Quaker is living still,
And the freedom of soul he prophesied
Is gospel and law where the martyrs died.
VALUATION.
And his neighbor, the Deacon, went by,
“In spite of my bank stock and real estate,
You are better off, Deacon, than I.
You have less of this world to resign,
But in Heaven's appraisal your assets, I fear,
Will reckon up greater than mine.
I wish I could swap with you even:
The pounds I have lived for and laid up in store
For the shillings and pence you have given.”
While his eye had a twinkle of fun,
“Let your pounds take the way of my shillings and pence,
And the thing can be easily done!”
RABBI ISHMAEL.
“Rabbi Ishmael Ben Elisha said, Once, I entered into the Holy of Holies [as High Priest] to burn incense, when I saw Aktriel [the Divine Crown] Jah, Lord of Hosts, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, who said unto me, ‘Ishmael, my son, bless me.’ I answered, ‘May it please Thee to make Thy compassion prevail over Thine anger; may it be revealed above Thy other attributes; mayest Thou deal with Thy children according to it, and not according to the strict measure of judgment.’ It seemed to me that He bowed His head, as though to answer Amen to my blessing.”—
Talmud (Berachôth, i. f. 6. b.)Of the world heavy upon him, entering in
The Holy of Holies, saw an awful Face
With terrible splendor filling all the place.
“O Ishmael Ben Elisha!” said a voice,
“What seekest thou? What blessing is thy choice?”
And, knowing that he stood before the Lord,
Within the shadow of the cherubim,
Wide-winged between the blinding light and him,
He bowed himself, and uttered not a word,
But in the silence of his soul was prayer:
“O Thou Eternal! I am one of all,
And nothing ask that others may not share.
And yet Thy children: let Thy mercy spare!”
Trembling, he raised his eyes, and in the place
Of the insufferable glory, lo! a face
Of more than mortal tenderness, that bent
Graciously down in token of assent,
And, smiling, vanished! With strange joy elate,
The wondering Rabbi sought the temple's gate.
Radiant as Moses from the Mount, he stood
And cried aloud unto the multitude:
“O Israel, hear! The Lord our God is good!
Mine eyes have seen his glory and his grace;
Beyond his judgments shall his love endure;
The mercy of the All Merciful is sure?”
THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE.
H. Y. Hind, in Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula (ii. 166) mentions the finding of a rock tomb near the little fishing port of Bradore, with the inscription upon it which is given in the poem.
Where no tree unfolds its leaves,
And never the spring wind weaves
Green grass for the hunter's tread;
A land forsaken and dead,
Where the ghostly icebergs go
And come with the ebb and flow
Of the waters of Bradore!
By summer breezes fanned,
By the dreadful solitude,
Hearing alone the cry
Of sea-birds clanging by,
The crash and grind of the floe,
Wail of wind and wash of tide.
“O wretched land!” he cried,
“Land of all lands the worst,
God forsaken and curst!
Thy gates of rock should show
The words the Tuscan seer
Read in the Realm of Woe:
Hope entereth not here!”
A block of smooth larch wood,
Waif of some wandering wave,
Beside a rock-closed cave
By Nature fashioned for a grave;
Safe from the ravening bear
And fierce fowl of the air,
Wherein to rest was laid
A twenty summers' maid,
Whose blood had equal share
Of the lands of vine and snow,
Half French, half Eskimo.
In letters uneffaced,
Upon the block were traced
The grief and hope of man,
And thus the legend ran:
“We loved her!
Words cannot tell how well!
We loved her!
God loved her!
We love her!”
“O winter land!” he said,
“Thy right to be I own;
God leaves thee not alone.
And if thy fierce winds blow
Over drear wastes of rock and snow,
And at thy iron gates
The ghostly iceberg waits,
Thy homes and hearts are dear.
Thy sorrow o'er thy sacred dust
Is sanctified by hope and trust;
God's love and man's are here.
And love where'er it goes
Makes its own atmosphere;
Its flowers of Paradise
Take root in the eternal ice,
And bloom through Polar snows!”
THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS.
The volume in which The Bay of Seven Islands was published was dedicated to the late Edwin Percy Whipple, to whom more than to any other person I was indebted for public recognition as one worthy of a place in American literature, at a time when it required a great degree of courage to urge such a claim for a proscribed abolitionist. Although younger than I, he had gained the reputation of a brilliant essayist, and was regarded as the highest American authority in criticism. His wit and wisdom enlivened a small literary circle of young men including Thomas Starr King, the eloquent preacher, and Daniel N. Haskell of the Daily Transcript, who gathered about our common friend James T. Fields at the Old Corner Bookstore. The poem which gave title to the volume I inscribed to my friend and neighbor Harriet Prescott Spofford, whose poems have lent a new interest to our beautiful river-valley.
Of that half mythic ancestor of mine
Who trod its slopes two hundred years ago,
Down the long valley of the Merrimac,
Midway between me and the river's mouth,
I see thy home, set like an eagle's nest
Among Deer Island's immemorial pines,
Crowning the crag on which the sunset breaks
Its last red arrow. Many a tale and song,
Which thou hast told or sung, I call to mind,
Softening with silvery mist the woods and hills,
The out-thrust headlands and inreaching bays
Of our northeastern coast-line, trending where
The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade
Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate.
Answer not vainly, nor in vain the moan
Of the South Breaker prophesying storm.
And thou hast listened, like myself, to men
Sea-periled oft where Anticosti lies
Like a fell spider in its web of fog,
Or where the Grand Bank shallows with the wrecks
Of sunken fishers, and to whom strange isles
And frost-rimmed bays and trading stations seem
Familiar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove,
Nubble and Boon, the common names of home.
Simple and homely, lacking much thy play
Of color and of fancy. If its theme
And treatment seem to thee befitting youth
Rather than age, let this be my excuse:
It has beguiled some heavy hours and called
Some pleasant memories up; and, better still,
Occasion lent me for a kindly word
To one who is my neighbor and my friend.
Leaving the apple-bloom of the South
For the ice of the Eastern seas,
In his fishing schooner Breeze.
And the maids of Newbury sighed to see
His lessening white sail fall
Under the sea's blue wall.
Of the isles of Mingan and Madeleine,
St. Paul's and Blanc Sablon,
The little Breeze sailed on,
Of lorn and desolate Labrador,
And found at last her way
To the Seven Islands Bay.
Great hills white with lingering snow,
Half hid in the dwarf spruce wood;
Of summer upon the dreary coast,
With its gardens small and spare,
Sad in the frosty air.
A fisherman's cottage looked away
Over isle and bay, and behind
On mountains dim-defined.
Laughed with their stranger guest, and sung
In their native tongue the lays
Of the old Provençal days.
Of a scar on Suzette's forehead fine;
And both, it so befell,
Loved the heretic stranger well.
But the heart of the skipper clave to one;
Though less by his eye than heart
He knew the twain apart.
Well did his wooing of Marguerite speed;
And the mother's wrath was vain
As the sister's jealous pain.
And solemn warning was sternly said
By the black-robed priest, whose word
As law the hamlet heard.
The skipper said, “A warm sun shines
On the green-banked Merrimac;
Wait, watch, till I come back.
The signal fly of a kerchief red,
My boat on the shore shall wait;
Come, when the night is late.”
And all that the home sky overbends,
Did ever young love fail
To turn the trembling scale?
Slowly unclasped their plighted hands:
One to the cottage hearth,
And one to his sailor's berth.
Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird,
But a listener's stealthy tread
On the rock-moss, crisp and dead.
By the black coast-line of Labrador;
And by love and the north wind driven,
Sailed back to the Islands Seven.
Saw the Breeze come sailing in again;
Said Suzette, “Mother dear,
The heretic's sail is here.”
Your door shall be bolted!” the mother cried:
While Suzette, ill at ease,
Watched the red sign of the Breeze.
She stole in the shadow of the cliff;
And out of the Bay's mouth ran
The schooner with maid and man.
Her prayers to the Virgin Marguerite said:
And thought of her lover's pain
Waiting for her in vain.
The sound of her light step drawing near?
And, as the slow hours passed,
Would he doubt her faith at last?
The morning break on a sea of rain,
Could even her love avail
To follow his vanished sail?
Left the rugged Moisic hills behind,
And heard from an unseen shore
The falls of Manitou roar.
They sat on the reeling deck together,
Lover and counterfeit,
Of hapless Marguerite.
He smoothed away her jet-black hair.
What was it his fond eyes met?
The scar of the false Suzette!
East by north for Seven Isles Bay!”
The maiden wept and prayed,
But the ship her helm obeyed.
They heard the bell of the chapel sound,
And the chant of the dying sung
In the harsh, wild Indian tongue.
Was in all they heard and all they saw:
Spell-bound the hamlet lay
In the hush of its lonely bay.
The mother rose up from her weeping sore,
And with angry gestures met
The scared look of Suzette.
“Give me the one I love instead.”
But the woman sternly spake;
“Go, see if the dead will wake!”
And strange in the noonday taper light,
She lay on her little bed,
With the cross at her feet and head.
Down to her face, and, kissing it, went
Back to the waiting Breeze,
Back to the mournful seas.
And Newbury's homes that bark came back.
Whether her fate she met
On the shores of Carraquette,
But even yet at Seven Isles Bay
Is told the ghostly tale
Of a weird, unspoken sail,
Seen by the blanketed Montagnais,
Or squaw, in her small kyack,
Crossing the spectre's track.
Her likeness kneels on the gray coast sands;
One in her wild despair,
And one in the trance of prayer.
The red sign fluttering from her mast,
The ghost of the schooner Breeze!
THE WISHING BRIDGE.
Along our rocky shore,
The Wishing Bridge of Marblehead
May well be sung once more.
The old-time story) all
Good wishes said above its span
Would, soon or late, befall.
The prayers of man or maid
For him who on the deep sea sailed,
For her at home who stayed.
And wished in childish glee:
And one would be a queen and rule,
And one the world would see.
And in the self-same place,
Two women, gray with middle years,
Stood, wondering, face to face.
They queried what had been:
Said one, “I am a queen.
Where, lacking crown and throne,
I rule by loving services
And patient toil alone.”
Beyond me as it lay;
O'er love's and duty's boundaries
My feet may never stray.
Its common sounds I hear,
My widowed mother's sick-bed room
Sufficeth for my sphere.
Of travel far and wide,
And in a dreamy pilgrimage
We wander side by side.
My book becomes to me
A magic glass: my watch I keep,
But all the world I see.
While fancy's privilege
Is mine to walk the earth at will,
Thanks to the Wishing Bridge.”
The other cried, “and say
God gives the wishes of our youth,
But in His own best way!”
HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER.
The following is a copy of the warrant issued by Major Waldron, of Dover, in 1662. The Quakers, as was their wont, prophesied against him, and saw, as they supposed, the fulfilment of their prophecy when, many years after, he was killed by the Indians.
To the constables of Dover, Hampton, Salisbury, Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, Wenham, Lynn, Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, and until these vagabond Quakers are carried out of this jurisdiction.
You, and every one of you, are required, in the King's Majesty's name, to take these vagabond Quakers, Anne Colman, Mary Tomkins, and Alice Ambrose, and make them fast to the cart's tail, and driving the cart through your several towns, to whip them upon their naked backs not exceeding ten stripes apiece on each of them, in each town; and so to convey them from constable to constable till they are out of this jurisdiction, as you will answer it at your peril; and this shall be your warrant.
Richard Waldron. Dated at Dover, December 22, 1662.This warrant was executed only in Dover and Hampton. At Salisbury the constable refused to obey it. He was sustained by the town's people, who were under the influence of Major Robert Pike, the leading man in the lower valley of the Merrimac, who stood far in advance of his time, as an advocate of religious freedom, and an opponent of ecclesiastical authority. He had the moral courage to address an able and manly letter to the court at Salem, remonstrating against the witchcraft trials.
Hardened to ice on its rocky wall,
As through Dover town in the chill, gray dawn,
Three women passed, at the cart-tail drawn!
And keener sting of the constable's whip,
The blood that followed each hissing blow
Froze as it sprinkled the winter snow.
Followed the dismal cavalcade;
And from door and window, open thrown,
Looked and wondered gaffer and crone.
“We suffer for Him who for all men died;
The wrong ye do has been done before,
We bear the stripes that the Master bore!
We hear the feet of a coming doom,
On thy cruel heart and thy hand of wrong
Vengeance is sure, though it tarry long.
Climb and kindle a proud roof-tree;
And beneath it an old man lying dead,
With stains of blood on his hoary head.”
The magistrate cried, “lay on with a will!
Drive out of their bodies the Father of Lies,
Who through them preaches and prophesies!”
By winding river and frost-rimmed bay,
Over wind-swept hills that felt the beat
Of the winter sea at their icy feet.
Peered stealthily through the forest gaps;
And the outlying settler shook his head,—
“They 're witches going to jail,” he said.
A blast on his horn the constable blew;
And the boys of Hampton cried up and down,
“The Quakers have come!” to the wondering town.
The goodwife quitted her quilting frame,
With her child at her breast; and, hobbling slow,
The grandam followed to see the show.
Once more keen lashes the bare flesh stung.
“Oh, spare! they are bleeding!” a little maid cried,
And covered her face the sight to hide.
Quoth the constable, busy counting the strokes,
“No pity to wretches like these is due,
They have beaten the gospel black and blue!”
With her wooden noggin of milk drew near.
“Drink, poor hearts!” a rude hand smote
Her draught away from a parching throat.
For fines, as they took your horse and plough,
She said; “they are cruel as death, I know.”
Through Seabrook woods, a weariful way;
By great salt meadows and sand-hills bare,
And glimpses of blue sea here and there.
The sufferers stood, in the red sundown,
Bare for the lash! O pitying Night,
Drop swift thy curtain and hide the sight!
The Salisbury constable dropped his whip.
“This warrant means murder foul and red;
Cursed is he who serves it,” he said.
A blow at your peril!” said Justice Pike.
Of all the rulers the land possessed,
Wisest and boldest was he and best.
As man meets man; his feet he set
Beyond his dark age, standing upright,
Soul-free, with his face to the morning light.
From our precincts; at every town on the way
Give each ten lashes.” “God judge the brute!
I tread his order under my foot!
Come what will of it, all men shall know
No warrant is good, though backed by the Crown,
For whipping women in Salisbury town!”
From creed of terror and rule of priest,
By a primal instinct owned the right
Of human pity in law's despite.
His Saxon manhood the yeoman kept;
Quicker or slower, the same blood ran
In the Cavalier and the Puritan.
And thanks. A last, low sunset blaze
Flashed out from under a cloud, and shed
A golden glory on each bowed head.
When souls were fettered and thought was crime,
And heresy's whisper above its breath
Meant shameful scourging and bonds and death!
Even woman rebuked and prophesied,
And soft words rarely answered back
The grim persuasion of whip and rack!
Pierced sharp as the Kenite's driven nail.
O woman, at ease in these happier days,
Forbear to judge of thy sister's ways!
To her faith and courage thou canst not know,
Nor how from the paths of thy calm retreat
She smoothed the thorns with her bleeding feet.
SAINT GREGORY'S GUEST.
To careless, sight-worn travellers still,
Who pause beside the narrow cell
Of Gregory on the Cælian Hill.
A beggar, stretching empty palms,
Fainting and fast-sick, in the name
Of the Most Holy asking alms.
In this poor cell of mine I give,
The silver cup my mother gave;
In Christ's name take thou it, and live.”
The pastoral crook and keys of Rome,
The poor monk, in Saint Peter's chair,
Sat the crowned lord of Christendom.
“And let twelve beggars sit thereat.”
The beggars came, and one beside,
An unknown stranger, with them sat.
“O stranger; but if need be thine,
I bid thee welcome, for the sake
Of Him who is thy Lord and mine.”
Like His who on Gennesaret trod,
Or His on whom the Chaldeans gazed,
Whose form was as the Son of God.
And in the hand he lifted up
The Pontiff marvelled to behold
Once more his mother's silver cup.
Sweetly among the flowers of heaven.
I am The Wonderful, through whom
Whate'er thou askest shall be given.”
With his twelve guests in mute accord
Prone on their faces, knowing well
Their eyes of flesh had seen the Lord.
Nor vain thy art, Verona's Paul,
Telling it o'er and o'er again
On gray Vicenza's frescoed wall.
Its bread with sorrow, want, and sin,
And love the beggar's feast prepares,
The uninvited Guest comes in.
Unseen, because our eyes are dim,
He walks our earth, The Wonderful,
And all good deeds are done to Him.
BIRCHBROOK MILL.
Beneath its leaning trees;
That low, soft ripple is its own,
That dull roar is the sea's.
The distant church spire's tip,
And, ghost-like, on a blank of gray,
The white sail of a ship.
It wanders at its will;
Nor dam nor pond is left to tell
Where once was Birchbrook mill.
Long since a farmer's fires;
His doorsteps are the stones that ground
The harvest of his sires.
No right of her domain;
She waited, and she brought the old
Wild beauty back again.
Falls on its moist, green sod,
And wakes the violet bloom of spring
And autumn's golden-rod.
The swallow dips her wings
In the cool spray, and on its banks
The gray song-sparrow sings.
The school-girl shrinks with dread;
The farmer, home-bound from his fields,
Goes by with quickened tread.
Of shadowy stone on stone;
The plashing of a water-wheel
Where wheel there now is none.
Above the clattering mill?
The pawing of an unseen horse,
Who waits his mistress still?
Has sight confirmed the sound;
A wavering birch line marks alone
The vacant pasture ground.
The agony of prayer;
No spectral steed impatient shakes
His white mane on the air.
No tongue has fitly told;
The secret of the dark surmise
The brook and birches hold.
Broods here forevermore?
What ghost his unforgiven sin
Is grinding o'er and o'er?
The actor's tragic part,
Rehearsals of a mortal life
And unveiled human heart?
That drama of its ill,
And let the scenic curtain fall
On Birchbrook's haunted mill!
THE TWO ELIZABETHS.
A high-born princess, servant of the poor,
Sweetening with gracious words the food she dealt
To starving throngs at Wartburg's blazoned door.
Cramped the sweet nature that he could not kill,
Scarred her fair body with his penance-pains,
And gauged her conscience by his narrow will.
With fast and vigil she denied them all;
Unquestioning, with sad, pathetic face,
She followed meekly at her stern guide's call.
In the chill rigor of a discipline
That turned her fond lips from her children's kiss,
And made her joy of motherhood a sin.
One with the low and vile herself she made,
While thankless misery mocked the hand that fed,
And laughed to scorn her piteous masquerade.
She gave her all while yet she had to give;
And then her empty hands, importunate,
In prayer she lifted that the poor might live.
And dwarfed and stifled by a harsh control,
She kept life fragrant with good deeds and prayer,
And fresh and pure the white flower of her soul.
Alone she uttered as she paused to die,
With song and wing the angels drawing nigh!
And, on Murillo's canvas, Want and Pain
Kneel at her feet. Her marble image stands
Worshipped and crowned in Marburg's holy fane.
Wide as the world her story still is told;
In manhood's reverence, woman's prayers and tears,
She lives again whose grave is centuries old.
Of blind submission to the blind, she hath
A tender place in hearts of every name,
And more than Rome owns Saint Elizabeth!
An English matron, in whose simple faith
Nor priestly rule nor ritual had claim,
A plain, uncanonized Elizabeth.
Nor wasting fast, nor scourge, nor vigil long,
Marred her calm presence. God had made her fair,
And she could do His goodly work no wrong.
Whose sole confessor is the Christ of God;
Her quiet trust and faith transcending sight
Smoothed to her feet the difficult paths she trod.
Safe and unsullied as a cloistered nun,
Shamed with her plainness Fashion's gaudy show,
And overcame the world she did not shun.
In the great city's restless crowd and din,
Her ear was open to the Master's call,
And knew the summons of His voice within.
Amidst the throngs of prisoned crime she stood
In modest raiment faultless as her life,
The type of England's worthiest womanhood!
The sweet persuasion of her lips sufficed,
And guilt, which only hate and fear had known,
Saw in her own the pitying love of Christ.
She followed, finding every prison cell
It opened for her sacred as a tent
Pitched by Gennesaret or by Jacob's well.
And priest and ruler marvelled as they saw
How hand in hand went wisdom with her zeal,
And woman's pity kept the bounds of law.
The air of earth as with an angel's wings,
And warms and moves the hearts of men like hers,
The sainted daughter of Hungarian kings.
Each, in her own time, faithful unto death,
Live sister souls! in name and spirit one,
Thuringia's saint and our Elizabeth!
REQUITAL.
Nigh to its close, besought all men to say
Whom he had wronged, to whom he then should pay
A debt forgotten, or for pardon sue,
And, through the silence of his weeping friends,
A strange voice cried: “Thou owest me a debt,”
“Allah be praised!” he answered. “Even yet
He gives me power to make to thee amends.
O friend! I thank thee for thy timely word.”
So runs the tale. Its lesson all may heed,
For all have sinned in thought, or word, or deed,
Or, like the Prophet, through neglect have erred.
All need forgiveness, all have debts to pay
Ere the night cometh, while it still is day.
THE HOMESTEAD.
Ghost of a dead home, staring through
Its broken lights on wasted lands
Where old-time harvests grew.
The poor, forsaken farm-fields lie,
Once rich and rife with golden corn
And pale green breadths of rye.
The garden plot no housewife keeps;
Through weeds and tangle only left,
The snake, its tenant, creeps.
Sways slow before the empty rooms;
Beside the roofless porch a sad
Pathetic red rose blooms.
On floor and hearth the squirrel leaves,
And in the fireless chimney's mouth
His web the spider weaves.
Resounds no more on husking eves;
No cattle low in yard or stall,
No thresher beats his sheaves.
Some haunting Presence makes its sign;
That down yon shadowy lane some ghost
Might drive his spectral kine!
Did all thy memories die with thee?
Were any wed, were any born,
Beneath this low roof-tree?
And let the waiting sunshine through?
What goodwife sent the earliest smoke
Up the great chimney flue?
Did maidens, swaying back and forth
In rhythmic grace, at wheel and loom,
Make light their toil with mirth?
Did boyhood frolic in the snow?
Did gray age, in her elbow chair,
Knit, rocking to and fro?
The pine's slow whisper, cannot tell;
Low mounds beneath the hemlock-trees
Keep the home secrets well.
Of sons far off who strive and thrive,
Forgetful that each swarming host
Must leave an emptier hive!
Leave noisome mill and chaffering store:
Gird up your loins for sturdier toil,
And build the home once more!
And fragrant fern, and ground-nut vine;
Breathe airs blown over holt and copse
Sweet with black birch and pine.
That life's essential wants supply?
Your homestead's title gives you all
That idle wealth can buy.
The brick-walled slaves of 'Change and mart,
Lawns, trees, fresh air, and flowers, you have,
More dear for lack of art.
With none to bid you go or stay,
Till the old fields your fathers tilled,
As manly men as they!
And chemic aid that science brings,
Reclaim the waste and outworn lands,
And reign thereon as kings!
HOW THE ROBIN CAME.
AN ALGONQUIN LEGEND.
Under May's blown apple-tree,
While these home-birds in and out
Through the blossoms flit about.
Hear a story, strange and old,
By the wild red Indians told,
How the robin came to be:
Well-beloved, his only one,—
When the boy was well-nigh grown,
In the trial-lodge alone.
Left for tortures long and slow
Youths like him must undergo,
Who their pride of manhood test,
Lacking water, food, and rest.
Seven nights he never slept.
Then the young boy, wrung with pain,
Weak from nature's overstrain,
Faltering, moaned a low complaint:
“Spare me, father, for I faint!”
But the chieftain, haughty-eyed,
Hid his pity in his pride.
“You shall be a hunter good,
Knowing never lack of food;
You shall be a warrior great,
Wise as fox and strong as bear;
Many scalps your belt shall wear,
If with patient heart you wait
Bravely till your task is done.
Better you should starving die
Than that boy and squaw should cry
Shame upon your father's son!”
Glistened on the hemlock sprays,
Straight that lodge the old chief sought,
And boiled samp and moose meat brought.
“Rise and eat, my son!” he said.
Lo, he found the poor boy dead!
And his bow beside him laid,
Pipe, and knife, and wampum-braid,
On the lodge-top overhead,
Preening smooth its breast of red
And the brown coat that it wore,
Sat a bird, unknown before.
And as if with human tongue,
“Mourn me not,” it said, or sung;
“I, a bird, am still your son,
Happier than if hunter fleet,
Or a brave, before your feet
Laying scalps in battle won.
Friend of man, my song shall cheer
Lodge and corn-land; hovering near,
To each wigwam I shall bring
Tidings of the coming spring;
Every child my voice shall know
In the moon of melting snow,
When the maple's red bud swells,
And the wind-flower lifts its bells.
As their fond companion
Men shall henceforth own your son,
And my song shall testify
That of human kin am I.”
How, at first, the robin came
With a sweeter life from death,
Bird for boy, and still the same.
If my young friends doubt that this
Is the robin's genesis,
Not in vain is still the myth
Unto gentleness belong
Gifts unknown to pride and wrong;
Happier far than hate is praise,—
He who sings than he who slays.
BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS.
On a painting by E. A. Abbey. The General Court of Massachussets enacted Oct. 19, 1658, that “any person or persons of the cursed sect of Quakers” should, on conviction of the same, be banished, on pain of death, from the jurisdiction of the commonwealth.
Set in green clearings passed the exiled Friend,
In simple trust, misdoubting not the end.
“Dear heart of mine!” he said, “the time has come
To trust the Lord for shelter.” One long gaze
The goodwife turned on each familiar thing,—
The lowing kine, the orchard blossoming,
The open door that showed the hearth-fire's blaze,—
And calmly answered, “Yes, He will provide.”
Silent and slow they crossed the homestead's bound,
Lingering the longest by their child's grave-mound.
“Move on, or stay and hang!” the sheriff cried.
They left behind them more than home or land,
And set sad faces to an alien strand.
With ravening wolves than those whose zeal for God
Was cruelty to man, the exiles trod
Drear leagues of forest without guide or path,
Or launching frail boats on the uncharted sea,
Round storm-vexed capes, whose teeth of granite ground
The waves to foam, their perilous way they wound,
Enduring all things so their souls were free.
Oh, true confessors, shaming them who did
Anew the wrong their Pilgrim Fathers bore!
For you the Mayflower spread her sail once more,
Freighted with souls, to all that duty bid
Faithful as they who sought an unknown land,
O'er wintry seas, from Holland's Hook of Sand!
Bodeful of storm, stout Macy held his way,
And, when the green shore blended with the gray,
His poor wife moaned: “Let us turn back again.”
“Nay, woman, weak of faith, kneel down,” said he,
“And say thy prayers: the Lord himself will steer;
And led by Him, nor man nor devils I fear!”
So the gray Southwicks, from a rainy sea,
Saw, far and faint, the loom of land, and gave
With feeble voices thanks for friendly ground
Whereon to rest their weary feet, and found
Where, ocean-walled, and wiser than his age,
The lord of Shelter scorned the bigot's rage.
And Indian-haunted Narragansett saw
The way-worn travellers round their camp-fire draw,
Or heard the plashing of their weary oars.
And every place whereon they rested grew
Happier for pure and gracious womanhood,
And men whose names for stainless honor stood,
Founders of States and rulers wise and true.
The Muse of history yet shall make amends
To those who freedom, peace, and justice taught,
Beyond their dark age led the van of thought,
And left unforfeited the name of Friends.
O mother State, how foiled was thy design!
The gain was theirs, the loss alone was thine.
THE BROWN DWARF OF RÜGEN.
The hint of this ballad is found in Arndt's Märchen, Berlin, 1816. The ballad appeared first in St. Nicholas, whose young readers were advised, while smiling at the absurd superstition, to remember that bad companionship and evil habits, desires, and passions are more to be dreaded now than the Elves and Trolls who frightened the children of past ages.
To the silver-sanded beaches of the Pomeranian shore;
Plucked the meadow-flowers together and in the sea-surf played.
He was the Amptman's first-born, the miller's child was she.
The brown-faced little Earth-men, the people without souls;
Walking in air and sunshine, a Troll was underground.
Among the haunted Nine Hills, where the elves and goblins play.
Of evil voices in the air, and heard the small horns blown.
They cried her east, they cried her west, but she came not again.
And prayers were made, and masses said, and Rambin's church bell tolled.
“I will find my little playmate, be she alive or dead.”
And saw them dance by moonlight merrily in a ring.
Young Deitrich caught it as it fell, and thrust it on his head.
“Oh, give me back my magic cap, for your great head unfit!”
Must serve its finder at his will, and for his folly pay.
And you shall ope the door of glass and let me lead her forth.”
“The day is set, the cake is baked, to-morrow we shall wed.”
Quick! open, to thy evil world, the glass door of the hill!”
And saw in dim and sunless light a country strange and vast.
Its palaces of precious stones, its streets of golden sand.
Where a young maiden served to him the red wine and the bread.
Yet pale and very sorrowful, like one who never smiled!
Like something he had seen elsewhere or something he had dreamed.
“O Lisbeth! See thy playmate—I am the Amptman's son!”
“Oh, take me from this evil place, and from the elfin folk!
And feel the soft wind on my cheek and hear the dropping rain!
The lowing cows, the bleat of sheep, the voices of the sea;
And hear the bell of vespers ring in Rambin church once more!”
And tore his tangled hair and ground his long teeth angrily.
Has served you in your evil world and well must she be paid!
Then when we pass the gate of glass, you'll take your cap once more.”
And filled the pockets of the youth and apron of the maid.
They felt the sunshine's warm caress, they trod the soft, green grass.
And crooked claw-like fingers, they tossed his red cap down.
As hand in hand they homeward walked the pleasant meadows through!
And never washed the waves so soft along the Baltic shore;
The bells rung out their merriest peal, the folks with joy ran wild.
The Amptman kissed a daughter, the miller blest a son.
Their cradle song: “Sleep on, sleep well, the Trolls shall come no more!”
And Elf and Brown Dwarf sought in vain a door where door was none.
Looked o'er the Baltic water to the Pomeranian coast;
Count Deitrich and his lovely bride dwelt long and happy there.
Note 1, page 24. The Pythoness of ancient Lynn was the redoubtable Moll Pitcher, who lived under the shadow of High Rock in that town, and was sought far and wide for her supposed powers of divination. She died about 1810. Mr. Upham, in his Salem Witchcraft, has given an account of her.
Note 2, page 88. Bashaba was the name which the Indians of New England gave to two or three of their principal chiefs, to whom all their inferior sagamores acknowledged allegiance. Passaconaway seems to have been one of these chiefs. His residence was at Pennacook. (Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. iii. pp. 21, 22.) “He was regarded,” says Hubbard, “as a great sorcerer, and his fame was widely spread. It was said of him that he could cause a green leaf to grow in winter, trees to dance, water to burn, etc. He was, undoubtedly, one of those shrewd and powerful men whose achievements are always regarded by a barbarous people as the result of supernatural aid. The Indians gave to such the names of Powahs or Panisees.”
“The Panisees are men of great courage and wisdom, and to these the Devill appeareth more familiarly than to others.”—
Winslow's Relation.Note 3, page 93. “The Indians,” says Roger Williams, “have a god whom they call Wetuomanit, who presides over the household.”
Note 4, page 97. There are rocks in the river at the Falls of Amoskeag, in the cavities of which, tradition says, the Indians formerly stored and concealed their corn.
Note 6, page 106. “Mat wonck kunna-monee.” We shall see thee or her no more.—See Roger Williams's Key.
Note 8, page 109. The barbarities of Count de Tilly after the siege of Magdeburg made such an impression upon our forefathers that the phrase “like old Tilly” is still heard sometimes in New England of any piece of special ferocity.
Note 9, page 134. Dr. Hooker, who accompanied Sir James Ross in his expedition of 1841, thus describes the appearance of that unknown land of frost and fire which was seen in latitude 77° south,—a stupendous chain of mountains, the whole mass of which, from its highest point to the ocean, was covered with everlasting snow and ice:—
“The water and the sky were both as blue, or rather more intensely blue, than I have ever seen them in the tropics, and all the coast was one mass of dazzlingly beautiful peaks of snow, which, when the sun approached the horizon, reflected the most brilliant tints of golden yellow and scarletl; and then, to see the dark cloud of smoke, tinged with flame, rising from the volcano in a perfect unbroken column, one side jet-black, the other giving back the colors of the sun, sometimes turning off at a right angle by some current of wind, and stretching many miles to leeward! This was a sight so surpassing everything that can be imagined, and so heightened by the consciousness that we had penetrated, under the guidance of our commander, into regions far beyond what was ever deemed practicable, that it caused a feeling of awe to steal over us at the consideration of our own comparative insignificance and helplessness, and at the same time an indescribable feeling of the greatness of the Creator in the works of his hand.”
Note 10, page 210. It was the custom in Sewall's time for churches and individuals to hold fasts whenever any public or private need suggested the fitness; and as state and church were very closely connected, the General Court sometimes ordered a fast. Out of this custom sprang the annual fast in spring, now observed, but it is of comparatively recent date. Such a fast was ordered on the 14th of January,
Note 11, page 244. Dr. John Dee was a man of erudition, who had an extensive museum, library, and apparatus; he claimed to be an astrologer, and had acquired the reputation of having dealings with evil spirits, and a mob was raised which destroyed the greater part of his possessions. He professed to raise the dead and had a magic crystal. He died a pauper in 1608.
Note 12, page 325. Eleonora Johanna Von Merlau, or, as Sewall the Quaker Historian gives it, Von Merlane, a noble young lady of Frankfort, seems to have held among the Mystics of that city very much such a position as Anna Maria Schurmaus did among the Labadists of Holland. William Penn appears to have shared the admiration of her own immediate circle for this accomplished and gifted lady.
Note 13, page 330. Magister Johann Kelpius, a graduate of the University of Helmstadt, came to Pennsylvania in 1694, with a company of German Mystics. They made their home in the woods on the Wissahickon, a little west of the Quaker settlement of Germantown. Kelpius was a believer in the near approach of the Millennium, and was a devout student of the Book of Revelation, and the Morgen-Rothe of Jacob Behmen. He called his settlement “The Woman in the Wilderness” (Das Weib in der Wueste). He was only twenty-four years of age when he came to America, but his gravity, learning, and devotion placed him at the head of the settlement. He disliked the Quakers, because he thought they were too exclusive in the matter of ministers. He was, like most of the Mystics, opposed to the severe doctrinal views of Calvin and even Luther, declaring “that he could as little agree with the Damnamus of the Augsburg Confession as with the Anathema of the Council of Trent.”
He died in 1704, sitting in his little garden surrounded by his grieving disciples. Previous to his death it is said that he cast his famous “Stone of Wisdom” into the river, where
Note 14, page 331. Peter Sluyter, or Schluter, a native of Wesel, united himself with the sect of Labadists, who believed in the Divine commission of John De Labadie, a Roman Catholic priest converted to Protestantism, enthusiastic, eloquent, and evidently sincere in his special calling and election to separate the true and living members of the Church of Christ from the formalism and hypocrisy of the ruling sects. George Keith and Robert Barclay visited him at Amsterdam, and afterward at the communities of Herford and Wieward; and, according to Gerard Croes, found him so near to them on some points, that they offered to take him into the Society of Friends. This offer, if it was really made, which is certainly doubtful, was, happily for the Friends at least, declined. Invited to Herford in Westphalia by Elizabeth, daughter of the Elector Palatine, De Labadie and his followers preached incessantly, and succeeded in arousing a wild enthusiasm among the people, who neglected their business and gave way to excitements and strange practices. Men and women, it was said, at the Communion drank and danced together, and private marriages, or spiritual unions, were formed. Labadie died in 1674 at Altona, in Denmark, maintaining his testimonies to the last. “Nothing remains for me,” he said, “except to go to my God. Death is merely ascending from a lower and narrower chamber to one higher and holier.”
In 1679, Peter Sluyter and Jasper Dankers were sent to America by the community at the Castle of Wieward. Their journal, translated from the Dutch and edited by Henry C. Murphy, has been recently published by the Long Island Historical Society. They made some converts, and among them was the eldest son of Hermanns, the proprietor of a rich tract of land at the head of Chesapeake Bay, known as Bohemia Manor. Sluyter obtained a grant of this tract, and established upon it a community numbering at one time a hundred souls. Very contradictory statements are on record regarding his headship of this spiritual family, the discipline of which seems to have been of more than monastic
Note 15, page 332. Among the pioneer Friends were many men of learning and broad and liberal views. Penn was conversant with every department of literature and philosophy. Thomas Lloyd was a ripe and rare scholar. The great Loganian Library of Philadelphia bears witness to the varied learning and classical taste of its donor, James Logan. Thomas Story, member of the Council of State, Master of the Rolls, and Commissioner of Claims under William Penn, and an able minister of his Society, took a deep interest in scientific questions, and in a letter to his friend Logan, written while on a religious visit to Great Britain, seems to have anticipated the conclusion of modern geologists. “I spent,” he says, “some months, especially at Scarborough, during the season attending meetings, at whose high cliffs and the variety of strata therein and their several positions I further learned and was confirmed in some things,—that the earth is of much older date as to the beginning of it than the time assigned in the Holy Scriptures as commonly understood, which is suited to the common capacities of mankind, as to six days of progressive work, by which I understand certain long and competent periods of time, and not natural days.” It was sometimes made a matter of reproach by the Anabaptists and other sects, that the Quakers read profane writings and philosophies, and that they quoted heathen moralists in support of their views. Sluyter and Dankers, in their journal of American travels, visiting a Quaker preacher's house at Burlington,
Note 16, page 333. “The Quaker's Meeting,” a painting by E. Hemskerck (supposed to be Egbert Hemskerck the younger, son of Egbert Hemskerck the old), in which William Penn and others—among them Charles II., or the Duke of York—are represented along with the rudest and most stolid class of the British rural population at that period. Hemskerck came to London from Holland with King William in 1689. He delighted in wild, grotesque subjects, such as the nocturnal intercourse of witches and the temptation of St. Anthony. Whatever was strange and uncommon attracted his free pencil. Judging from the portrait of Penn, he must have drawn his faces, figures, and costumes from life, although there may be something of caricature in the convulsed attitudes of two or three of the figures.
Note 17, page 337. In one of his letters addressed to German friends, Pastorius says: “These wild men, who never in their life heard Christ's teachings about temperance and contentment, herein far surpass the Christians. They live far more contented and unconcerned for the morrow. They do not overreach in trade. They know nothing of our everlasting pomp and stylishness. They neither curse nor swear, are temperate in food and drink, and if any of them get drunk the mouth-Christians are at fault, who, for the sake of accursed lucre, sell them strong drink.”
Again he wrote in 1698 to his father that he finds the Indians reasonable people, willing to accept good teaching and manners, evincing an inward piety toward God, and more eager, in fact, to understand things divine than many
“It is evident,” says Professor Seidensticker, “Pastorius holds up the Indian as Nature's unspoiled child to the eyes of the ‘European Babel,’ somewhat after the same manner in which Tacitus used the barbarian Germani to shame his degenerate countrymen.”
As believers in the universality of the Saving Light, the outlook of early Friends upon the heathen was a very cheerful and hopeful one. God was as near to them as to Jew or Anglo-Saxon; as accessible at Timbuctoo as at Rome or Geneva. Not the letter of Scripture, but the spirit which dictated it, was of saving efficacy. Robert Barclay is nowhere more powerful than in his argument for the salvation of the heathen, who live according to their light, without knowing even the name of Christ. William Penn thought Socrates as good a Christian as Richard Baxter. Early Fathers of the Church, as Origen and Justin Martyr, held broader views on this point than modern Evangelicals. Even Augustine, from whom Calvin borrowed his theology, admits that he has no controversy with the admirable philosophers Plato and Plotinus. “Nor do I think,” he says in De Civ. Dei, lib. xviii., cap. 47, “that the Jews dare affirm that none belonged unto God but the Israelites.”
Note 19, page 420. “He [Macy] shook the dust from off his feet, and departed with all his worldly goods and his family. He encountered a severe storm, and his wife, influenced by some omens of disaster, besought him to put back. He told her not to fear, for his faith was perfect. But she entreated him again. Then the spirit that impelled him broke forth: ‘Woman, go below and seek thy God. I fear not the witches on earth, or the devils in hell!’”—
Life of Robert Pike, page 55. The poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier | ||