Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne :: :: University of Virginia Library

The passionate summer's dead! the sky's aglow
With roseate flushes of matured desire,
The winds at eve are musical and low,
As sweeping chords of a lamenting lyre,
Far up among the pillared clouds of fire,
Whose pomp of strange procession upward rolls,
With gorgeous blazonry of pictured scrolls,
To celebrate the summer's past renown;
Ah, me! how regally the heavens look down,
O'ershadowing beautiful autumnal woods
And harvest fields with hoarded increase brown,
And deep-toned majesty of golden floods,
That raise their solemn dirges to the sky,
To swell the purple pomp that floateth by.

LIFE AND DEATH.

I.—LIFE.

Suffering! and yet majestical in pain;
Mysterious! yet, like spring-showers in the sun,
Veiling the light with their melodious rain,
Life is a warp of gloom and glory spun;
Its darkling phases are as clouds that mourn
Beneath the loftier splendors of an arch
Where deathless orbs in golden daylight burn,
And God's great pulses beat their music march.
The heaven we worship dimly girt with tears,
The spirit-heaven, what is it but a life,
Lifting its soul beyond our mortal years
That oft begin, and ever end with strife:
Strife we must pass to win a happier height,
Nature but travails to reveal us—light.

II.—DEATH.

Then whence, O Death! thy dreariness? We know
That every flower the breeze's flattering breath
Wooes to a blush, and love-like murmuring low,
Dies but to multiply its bloom in death:
The rill's glad, prattling infancy, that fills
The woodlands with its song of innocent glee,
Is passing through the heart of shadowy hills,
To swell the eternal manhood of the sea;
And the great stars, Creation's minstrelfires
Are rolling toward the central source of light,
Where all their separate glory but expires
To merge into one world's unbroken might;
There is no death but change, soul claspeth soul,
And all are portion of the immortal whole.

SHELLEY.

Because they thought his doctrines were not just,
Mankind assumed for him the chastening rod,
And tyrants reared in pride, and strong in lust,
Wounded the noblest of the sons of God;
The heart's most cherished benefactions riven,
Basely they strove to humble and malign
A soul whose charities were wide as heaven,
Whose deeds, if not his doctrines, were divine;
And in the name of Him, whose sunshine warms
The evil as the righteous, deemed it good
To wreak their bigotry's relentless storms
On one whose nature was not understood.
Ah, well! God's ways are wondrous; it may be
His seal hath not been set to man's decree.

POETS OF THE OLDEN TIME.

The brave old poets sing of nobler themes
Than those weak griefs which harass craven souls;
The torrent of their lusty music rolls
Not through dark valleys of distempered dreams,
But murmurous pastures lit by sunny streams;
Or, rushing from some mountain height of thought,
Swells to strange meaning that our minds have sought
Vainly to gather from the doubtful gleams
Of our more gross perceptions. Oh, their strains
Nerve and ennoble manhood! no shrill cry,
Set to a treble, tells of querulous woe;
Yet numbers deep-voiced as the mighty main's
Merge in the ringdove's plaining, or the sigh
Of lovers whispering where sweet rivulets flow.

“NOW, WHILE THE REAR-GUARD.”

Now, while the rear-guard of the flying year,
Rugged December on the season's verge
Marshals his pale days to the mournful dirge
Of muffled winds in far-off forests drear,
Good friend! turn with me to our in-door cheer;
Draw nigh; the huge flames roar upon the hearth,
And this sly sparkler is of subtlest birth,
And a rich vintage, poet souls hold dear;
Mark how the sweet rogue wooes us! Sit thee down,
And we will quaff, and quaff, and drink our fill,
Topping the spirits with a Bacchanal crown,
Till the funereal blast shall wail no more,
But silver-throated clarions seem to thrill,
And shouts of triumph peal along the shore.

“PENT IN THIS COMMON SPHERE.”

Pent in this common sphere of sensual shows,
I pine for beauty; beauty of fresh mien,
And gentle utterance, and the charm serene,
Wherewith the hue of mystic dream-land glows;

I pine for lulling music, the repose
Of low-voiced waters, in some realm between
The perfect Adenne, and this clouded scene
Of love's sad loss, and passion's mournful throes;
A pleasant country, girt with twilight calm,
In whose fair heaven a moon of shadowy round
Wades through a fading fall of sunset rain;
Where drooping lotos-flowers, distilling balm,
Gleam by the drowsy streamlets sleep hath crown'd,
While Care forgets to sigh, and Peace hath balsamed Pain.

“BETWEEN THE SUNKEN SUN AND THE NEW MOON.”

Between the sunken sun and the new moon,
I stood in fields through which a rivulet ran
With scarce perceptible motion, not a span
Of its smooth surface trembling to the tune
Of sunset breezes: “O delicious boon,”
I cried, “of quiet! wise is Nature's plan,
Who, in her realm, as in the soul of man,
Alternates storm with calm, and the loud noon
With dewy evening's soft and sacred lull:
Happy the heart that keeps its twilight hour,
And, in the depths of heavenly peace reclined,
Loves to commune with thoughts of tender power;
Thoughts that ascend, like angels beautiful,
A shining Jacob's ladder of the mind,”

ANCIENT MYTHS.

Ye pleasant myths of Eld, why have ye fled?
The earth has fallen from her blissful prime
Of summer years, the dews of that sweet time
Are withered on its garlands sere and dead.
No longer in the blue fields overhead
We list the rustling of immortal wings,
Or hail at eve the kindly visitings
Of gentle Genii to fair fortunes wed:
The seas have lost their Nereids, the sad streams
Their gold-haired habitants, the mountains lone
Those happy Oreads, and the blithesome tone
Of Pan's soft pipe melts only in our dreams;
Fitfully fall the old faith's broken gleams
On our dull hearts, cold as sepulchral stone.

O GOD! WHAT GLORIOUS SEASONS BLESS THY WORLD!

O God! what glorious seasons bless thy world!
See! the tranced winds are nestling on the deep,
The guardian heavens unclouded vigil keep
O'er the mute earth; the beach birds' wings are furled
Ghost-like and gray, where the dim billows curled
Lazily up the sea-strand, sink in sleep,
Save when the random fish with lightning leap
Flashes above them, the far sky's impearled
Inland, with lines of silvery smoke that gleam
Upward from quiet homesteads, thin and slow:
The sunset girds me like a gorgeous dream
Pregnant with splendors, by whose marvellous spell,
Senses and soul are flushed to one deep glow,
The golden mood of thoughts ineffable!

“ALONG THE PATH THY BLEEDING FEET.”

Along the path thy bleeding feet have trod,
O Christian Mother! do the martyr-years,
Crownèd with suffering through the mist of tears
Uplift their brows, thorn-circled, unto God;
Most bitterly our Father's chastening rod
Hath ruled within thy term of mortal days,
Yet in thy soul spring up the tones of praise,
Freely as flowers from out a burial-sod:
Nor hath a tireless faith essayed in vain
To win from sorrow that diviner rest,
Which, like a sunset, purpling through the rain
Of dying storms, maketh the darkness blest;
Grief is transfigured, and dethronèd Fears,
Pale in the glory beckoning from the West.

“TOO OFT THE POET IN ELABORATE VERSE.”

Too oft the poet in elaborate verse,
Flushed with quaint images and gorgeous tropes,
Casteth a doubtful light, which is not hope's,
On the dark spot where Death hath sealed his curse
In monumental silence. Nature starts
Indignant from the sacrilege of words
That ring so hollow, and forlornly girds
Her great woe round her; there's no trick of Art's,

But shows most ghastly by a new-made tomb.
I see no balm in Gilead; he is lost,
The beautiful soul that loved thee, thy life's bloom,
Is withered by the sudden blighting frost;
O Grief! how mighty; Creeds! how vain ye are:
Earth presses closely,—Heaven is cold and far.

MOUNTAIN SONNETS.

[Written on one of the Blue Ridge range of Mountains.]

Here let me pause by the lone eagle's nest,
And breathe the golden sunlight and sweet air,
Which gird and gladden all this region fair
With a perpetual benison of rest;
Like a grand purpose that some god hath blest,
The immemorial mountain seems to rise,
Yearning to overtop diviner skies,
Though monarch of the pomps of East and West;
And pondering here, the genius of the height
Quickens my soul as if an angel spake,
And I can feel old chains of custom break,
And old ambitions start to win the light;
A calm resolve born with them, in whose might
I thank thee, Heaven! that noble thoughts awake.

Here, friend! upon this lofty ledge sit down,
And view the beauteous prospect spread below,
Around, above us; in the noonday glow
How calm the landscape rests! yon distant town,
Enwreathed with clouds of foliage like a crown
Of rustic honor; the soft, silvery flow
Of the clear stream beyond it, and the show
Of endless wooded heights, circling the brown
Autumnal fields, alive with billowy grain;
Say! hast thou ever gazed on aught more fair
In Europe, or the Orient? What domain
(From India to the sunny slopes of Spain)
Hath beauty, wed to grandeur in the air,
Blessed with an ampler charm a more benignant reign?

The rainbows of the heaven are not more rare,
More various and more beautiful to view,
Than these rich forest rainbows, dipped in dew
Of morn and evening, glimmering everywhere
From wooded dell to dark-blue mountain mere;
O Autumn! wondrous painter! every hue
Of thy immortal pencil is steeped through
With essence of divinity; how bare
Beside thy coloring the poor shows of Art,
Though Art were thrice inspired; in dreams alone
(The loftiest dreams wherein the soul takes part)
Of jasper pavements, and the sapphire throne
Of Heaven, hath such unearthly brightness shone
To flush and thrill the visionary heart!

COMPOSED IN AUTUMN.

With these dead leaves stripped from a withered tree,
And slowly fluttering round us, gentle friend,

Some faithless soul a sad presage might blend;
To me they bring a happier augury;
Lives that shall bloom in genial sunshine free,
Nursed by the spell Love's dews and breezes send,
And when a kindly Fate shall speak the end,
Down dropping in Time's autumn silently;
All hopes fulfilled, all passions duly blessed,
Life's cup of gladness drained, except the lees,
No more to fear or long for, but the rest
Which crowns existence with its dreamless ease;
Thus when our days are ripe, oh! let us fall
Into that perfect Peace which waits for all!

GREAT POETS AND SMALL.

Shall I not falter on melodious wing,
In that my notes are weak and may not rise
To those world-wide entrancing harmonies,
Which the great poets to the ages sing?
Shall my thought's humble heaven no longer ring
With pleasant lays, because the empyreal height
Stretches beyond it, lifting to the light
The anointed pinion of song's radiant king?
Ah! a false thought! the thrush her fitful flight
Ventures in vernal dawns; a happy note
Trills from the russet linnet's gentle throat,
Though far above the eagle soars in might,
And the glad skylark—an ethereal mote—
Sings in high realms that mock our straining sight.

MY STUDY.

This is my world! within these narrow walls,
I own a princely service; the hot care
And tumult of our frenzied life are here
But as a ghost, and echo; what befalls
In the far mart to me is less than naught;
I walk the fields of quiet Arcadies,
And wander by the brink of hoary seas,
Calmed to the tendance of untroubled thought:
Or if a livelier humor should enhance
The slow-timed pulse, 'tis not for present strife.
The sordid zeal with which our age is rife,
Its mammon conflicts crowned by fraud or chance,
But gleamings of the lost, heroic life,
Flashed through the gorgeous vistas of romance.

TO ------.

Belovèd! in this holy hush of night.
I know that thou art looking to the South,
Fair face and cordial brow bathed in the light
Of tender Heavens, and o'er thy delicate mouth
A dewy gladness from thy dark eyes shed;
O eloquent eyes! that on the evening spread
The glory of a radiant world of dreams
(The inner moonlight of the soul that dims
This moonlight of the sense), and o'er thy head,
Thrown back, as listening to a voice of hymns,
Perchance in thine own spirit, violet gleams

From modest flowers that deck the window-bars,
While the winds sigh, and sing the far-off streams,
And a faint bliss seems dropping from the stars.
O! pour thine inmost soul upon the air
And trust to heaven the secrets that recline
In the sweet nunnery of thy virgin breast;
Speak to the winds that wander everywhere,—
And sure must wander hither—the divine
Contentment, and the infinite, deep rest
That sway thy passionate being, and lift high
To the calm realm of Love's eternity,
The passive ocean of thy charmèd thought;
And tell the aerial element to bear
The burden of thy whispered heart to me,
By fairy alchemy of distance wrought
To something sacred as a saintly prayer,
A spell to set my nobler nature free.

TO W. H. H.

How like a mighty picture, tint by tint,
This marvellous world is opening to thy view!
Wonders of earth and heaven; shapes bright and new,
Strength, radiance, beauty, and all things that hint
Most of the primal glory, and the print
Of angel footsteps; from the globe of dew
Tiny, but luminous, to the encircling blue,
Unbounded, thou drink'st knowledge without stint;
Like a pure blossom nursed by genial winds,
Thy innocent life, expanding day by day,
Upsprings, spontaneous, to the perfect flower;
Lost Eden-splendors round thy pathway play,
While o'er it rise and burn the starry signs
Which herald hope and joy to souls of power.

I pray the angel in whose hands the sum
Of mortal fates in mystic darkness lies,
That to the soul which fills these deepening eyes,
Sun-crowned and clear, the spirit of Song may come;
That strong-winged fancies, with melodious hum
Of plumèd vans, may touch to sweet surprise
His poet nature, born to glow and rise,
And thrill to worship though the world be dumb;
That love, and will, and genius, all may blend
To make his soul a guiding star of time,
True to the purest thought, the noblest end,
Full of all richness, gentle, wise, complete,
In whose still heights and most ethereal clime,
Beauty, and faith, and plastic passion meet.

LINES.

Ye cannot add by any pile ye raise,
One jot or tittle to the statesman's fame;
That the world knows; to the far future days
Belongs his glory, and its radiant flame
Will burn, when ye are dead, decayed, forgot;
Therefore, your opposition matters not;
The thin-masked jealousies of present time,
Unburied in his grave, survive to keep

Rampant the hate he deemed his highest praise,
And the rude clash of discord o'er his sleep;
But for his great, wise acts, his faith sublime,
All that the soul of genius sanctifies,
These mount where viler passions cannot climb,
These live where palsied malice faints and dies.

Still must the common voice denounce the deed,
The common heart swell with an outraged pride,
That the poor purchase of that paltry meed
His country owed him should be thus denied;
Shame on the Senate! shame on every hand
Which did not falter when recording there,
The basest act achieved for many a year,
To fire the scorn of the whole Southern land;
Nor the South only, for our foes will cry
Out on your petty pasteboard chivalry!
The people who refuse to crown the great
And good with honor, do themselves eclipse,
And doubly shameless is the recreant State,
Whose condemnation comes from her own lips.

“AN IDLE POET DREAMING.”

An idle poet, dreaming in the sun,
One given to much unhallowed vagrancy
Of thought and step; who, when he comes to die.
In the broad world can point to nothing done;
No chartered corporations, no streets paved
With very princely stone-work, no vast file
Of warehouses, no slowly-hoarded pile
Of priceless treasure, no proud sceptre waved
O'er potent realms of stock, no magic art
Lavished on curious gins, or works of steam;
Only a few wild songs that melt the heart,
Only the glow of some unearthly dream,
Embodied and immortal; what are these?
Sneers the sage world; chaff, smoke, vain phantasies!

Yet stock depreciates, even banks decay,
Merchant and architect are lowly laid
In purple palls, and the shrewd lords of trade
Lament, for they were wiser in their day
Than the clear sons of light; but prithee, how
Doth stand the matter, when the years have fled;
What means yon concourse thronging where the dead
Old singer sleeps; say! do they seek him now?
Now that his dust is scattered on the breath
Of every wind that blows; what meaneth this?
It means, thou sapient citizen, that death
Heralds the bard's true life, as with a kiss,
Wakens two immortalities; then bow
To the world's scorn, O poet, with calm brow.