The poetical works of Bayard Taylor :: :: University of Virginia Library

Born in the purple! born in the purple!
Heir to the sceptre and crown!
Lord over millions and millions of vassals,—
Monarch of mighty renown!
Where, do you ask, are my banner-proud castles?
Where my imperial town?

II

Where are the ranks of my far-flashing lances,—
Trumpets, courageous of sound,—
Galloping squadrons and rocking armadas,
Guarding my kingdom around?
Where are the pillars that blazon my borders,
Threatening the alien ground?

III

Vainly you ask, if you wear not the purple,
Sceptre and diadem own;
Ruling, yourself, over prosperous regions,
Seated supreme on your throne.
Subjects have nothing to give but allegiance:
Monarchs meet monarchs alone.

IV

But, if a king, you shall stand on my ramparts,
Look on the lands that I sway,
Number the domes of magnificent cities,
Shining in valleys away,—
Number the mountains whose foreheads are golden,
Lakes that are azure with day.

V

Whence I inherited such a dominion?
What was my forefathers' line?
Homer and Sophocles, Pindar and Sappho,
First were anointed divine:
Theirs were the realms that a god might have governed,
Ah, and how little is mine!

VI

Hafiz in Orient shared with Petrarca
Thrones of the East and the West;
Shakespeare succeeded to limitless empire,
Greatest of monarchs, and best:
Few of his children inherited kingdoms,
Provinces only, the rest.

VII

Keats has his vineyards, and Shelley his islands;
Coleridge in Xanadu reigns;
Wordsworth is eyried aloft on the mountains,
Goethe has mountains and plains;
Yet, though the world has been parcelled among them,
A world to be parcelled remains.

VIII

Blessing enough to be born in the purple,
Though but a monarch in name,—
Though in the desert my palace is builded,
Far from the highways of Fame:

Up with my standards! salute me with trumpets!
Crown me with regal acclaim!

1855.

THE SONG OF THE CAMP

“Give us a song!” the soldiers cried,
The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
Grew weary of bombarding.

The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay, grim and threatening, under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belched its thunder.

There was a pause. A guardsman said
“We storm the forts to-morrow;
Sing while we may, another day
Will bring enough of sorrow.”

They lay along the battery's side,
Below the smoking cannon:
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde,
And from the banks of Shannon.

They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain's glory:
Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang “Annie Laurie.”

Voice after voice caught up the song,
Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong,—
Their battle-eve confession.

Dear girl, her name he dared not speak,
But, as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier's cheek
Washed off the stains of powder.

Beyond the darkening ocean burned
The bloody sunset's embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned
How English love remembers.

And once again a fire of hell
Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot, and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars!

And Irish Nora's eyes are dim
For a singer, dumb and gory;
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of “Annie Laurie.”

Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing:
The bravest are the tenderest,—
The loving are the daring.

1856.

ICARUS

I

Io triumphe! Lo, thy certain art,
My crafty sire, releases us at length!
False Minos now may knit his baffled brows,
And in the labyrinth by thee devised
His brutish horns in angry search may toss
The Minotaur,—but thou and I are free!
See where it lies, one dark spot on the breast
Of plains far-shining in the long-lost day,
Thy glory and our prison! Either hand
Crete, with her hoary mountains, olive-clad
In twinkling silver, 'twixt the vineyard rows,
Divides the glimmering seas. On Ida's top
The sun, discovering first an earthly throne,
Sits down in splendor; lucent vapors rise
From folded glens among the awaking hills,
Expand their hovering films, and touch, and spread
In airy planes beneath us, hearths of air
Whereon the Morning burns her hundred fires.

II

Take thou thy way between the cloud and wave.
O Dædalus, my father, steering forth

To friendly Samos, or the Carian shore!
But me the spaces of the upper heaven
Attract, the height, the freedom, and the joy.
For now, from that dark treachery escaped,
And tasting power which was the lust of youth,
Whene'er the white blades of the sea-gull's wings
Flashed round the headland, or the barbèd files
Of cranes returning clanged across the sky,
No half-way flight, no errand incomplete
I purpose. Not, as once in dreams, with pain
I mount, with fear and huge exertion hold
Myself a moment, ere the sickening fall
Breaks in the shock of waking. Launched, at last,
Uplift on powerful wings, I veer and float
Past sunlit isles of cloud, that dot with light
The boundless archipelago of sky.
I fan the airy silence till it starts
In rustling whispers, swallowed up as soon;
I warm the chilly ether with my breath;
I with the beating of my heart make glad
The desert blue. Have I not raised myself
Unto this height, and shall I cease to soar?
The curious eagles wheel about my path:
With sharp and questioning eyes they stare at me,
With harsh, impatient screams they menace me,
Who, with these vans of cunning workmanship
Broad-spread, adventure on their high domain,—
Now mine, as well. Henceforth, ye clamorous birds,
I claim the azure empire of the air!
Henceforth I breast the current of the morn,
Between her crimson shores: a star, henceforth,
Upon the crawling dwellers of the earth
My forehead shines. The steam of sacred blood,
The smoke of burning flesh on altars laid,
Fumes of the temple-wine, and sprinkled myrrh,
Shall reach my palate ere they reach the Gods.

III

Nay, am not I a God? What other wing,
If not a God's, could in the rounded sky
Hang thus in solitary poise? What need,
Ye proud Immortals, that my balanced plumes
Should grow, like yonder eagle's from the nest?
It may be, ere my crafty father's line
Sprang from Erectheus, some artificer,
Who found you roaming wingless on the hills,
Naked, asserting godship in the dearth
Of loftier claimants, fashioned you the same.
Thence did you seize Olympus: thence your pride
Compelled the race of men, your slaves, to tear
The temple from the mountain's marble womb,
To carve you shapes more beautiful than they,
To sate your idle nostrils with the reek
Of gums and spices, heaped on jewelled gold.

IV

Lo, where Hyperion, through the glowing air
Approaching, drives! Fresh from his banquet-meats,
Flushed with Olympian nectar, angrily
He guides his fourfold span of furious steeds,
Convoyed by that bold Hour whose ardent torch
Burns up the dew, toward the narrow beach,

This long, projecting spit of cloudy gold
Whereon I wait to greet him when he comes.
Think not I fear thine anger: this day, thou,
Lord of the silver bow, shalt bring a guest
To sit in presence of the equal Gods
In your high hall: wheel but thy chariot near,
That I may mount beside thee!
—What is this?
I hear the crackling hiss of singèd plumes!
The stench of burning feathers stifles me!
My loins are stung with drops of molten wax!—
Ai! ai! my ruined vans!—I fall! I die!
[OMITTED]
Ere the blue noon o'erspanned the bluer strait
Which parts Icaria from Samos, fell,
Amid the silent wonder of the air,
Fell with a shock that startled the still wave,
A shrivelled wreck of crisp, entangled plumes,
A head whence eagles' beaks had plucked the eyes,
And clots of wax, black limbs by eagles torn
In falling: and a circling eagle screamed
Around that floating horror of the sea
Derision, and above Hyperion shone.

1860.

THE BATH

Off, fetters of the falser life,—
Weeds, that conceal the statue's form!
This silent world with truth is rife,
This wooing air is warm.

Now fall the thin disguises, planned
For men too weak to walk unblamed:
Naked beside the sea I stand,—
Naked and not ashamed.

Where yonder dancing billows dip,
Far-off, to ocean's misty verge,
Ploughs Morning, like a full-sailed ship,
The Orient's cloudy surge.

With spray of scarlet fire before
The ruffled gold that round her dies,
She sails above the sleeping shore,
Across the waking skies.

The dewy beach beneath her glows;
A pencilled beam, the lighthouse burns:
Full-breathed, the fragrant sea-wind blows,—
Life to the world returns!

I stand, a spirit newly-born,
White-limbed and pure, and strong, and fair;
The first-begotten son of Morn,
The nursling of the air!

There, in a heap, the masks of Earth,
The cares, the sins, the griefs, are thrown:
Complete, as through diviner birth,
I walk the sands alone.

With downy hands the winds caress,
With frothy lips the amorous sea,
As welcoming the nakedness
Of vanished gods, in me.

Along the ridged and sloping sand,
Where headlands clasp the crescent cove,
A shining spirit of the land,
A snowy shape, I move:

Or, plunged in hollow-rolling brine,
In emerald cradles rocked and swung,
The sceptre of the sea is mine,
And mine his endless song.

For Earth with primal dew is wet,
Her long-lost child to rebaptize;
Her fresh, immortal Edens yet
Their Adam recognize.

Her ancient freedom is his fee;
Her ancient beauty is his dower:
She bares her ample breasts, that he
May suck the milk of power.

Press on, ye hounds of life, that lurk
So close, to seize your harried prey;

Ye fiends of Custom, Gold, and Work,—
I hear your distant bay!

And, like the Arab, when he bears
To the insulted camel's path
His garment, which the camel tears,
And straight forgets his wrath;

So, yonder badges of your sway,
Life's paltry husks, to you I give:
Fall on, and in your blindness say:
We hold the fugitive!

But leave to me this brief escape
To simple manhood, pure and free,—
A child of God, in God's own shape,
Between the land and sea!

1860.

THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI

The Coliseum lifts at night
Its broken cells more proudly far
Than in the noonday's naked light,
For every rent enshrines a star:
On Cæsar's hill the royal Lar
Presides within his mansion old:
Decay and Death no longer mar
The moon's atoning mist of gold.

Still lingering near the shrines renewed,
We sadly, fondly, look our last;
Each trace concealed of spoilage rude
From old or late iconoclast,
Till, Trajan's whispering forum passed,
We hear the waters, showering bright,
Of Trevi's ancient fountain, cast
Their woven music on the night.

The Genius of the Tiber nods
Benign, above his tilted urn;
Kneel down and drink! the beckoning gods
This last libation will not spurn.
Drink, and the old enchantment learn
That hovers yet o'er Trevi's foam,—
The promise of a sure return,
Fresh footsteps in the dust of Rome!

Kneel down and drink! the golden days
Here lived and dreamed, shall dawn again:
Albano's hill, through purple haze,
Again shall crown the Latin plain.
Whatever stains of Time remain,
Left by the years that intervene,
Lo! Trevi's fount shall toss its rain
To wash the pilgrim's forehead clean.

Drink, and depart! for Life is just:
She gives to Faith a master-key
To ope the gate of dreams august,
And take from joys in memory
The certainty of joys to be:
And Trevi's basins shall be bare
Ere we again shall fail to see
Their silver in the Roman air.

1860.

PROPOSAL

The violet loves a sunny bank,
The cowslip loves the lea;
The scarlet creeper loves the elm,
But I love—thee.

The sunshine kisses mount and vale,
The stars, they kiss the sea;
The west winds kiss the clover bloom,
But I kiss—thee!

The oriole weds his mottled mate;
The lily 's bride o' the bee;
Heaven's marriage-ring is round the earth—
Shall I wed thee?

1859.

THE PALM AND THE PINE

When Peter led the First Crusade,
A Norseman wooed an Arab maid.

He loved her lithe and palmy grace,
And the dark beauty of her face:

She loved his cheeks, so ruddy fair,
His sunny eyes and yellow hair.

He called: she left her father's tent;
She followed wheresoe'er he went.

She left the palms of Palestine
To sit beneath the Norland pine.

She sang the musky Orient strains
Where Winter swept the snowy plains.

Their natures met like Night and Morn
What time the morning-star is born.

The child that from their meeting grew
Hung, like that star, between the two.

The glossy night his mother shed
From her long hair was on his head:

But in its shade they saw arise
The morning of his father's eyes.

Beneath the Orient's tawny stain
Wandered the Norseman's crimson vein:

Beneath the Northern force was seen
The Arab sense, alert and keen.

His were the Viking's sinewy hands,
The arching foot of Eastern lands.

And in his soul conflicting strove
Northern indifference, Southern love;

The chastity of temperate blood,
Impetuous passion's fiery flood;

The settled faith that nothing shakes,
The jealousy a breath awakes;

The planning Reason's sober gaze,
And fancy's meteoric blaze.

And stronger, as he grew to man,
The contradicting natures ran,—

As mingled streams from Etna flow,
One born of fire, and one of snow.

And one impelled, and one withheld,
And one obeyed, and one rebelled.

One gave him force, the other fire;
This self-control, and that desire.

One filled his heart with fierce unrest;
With peace serene the other blessed.

He knew the depth and knew the height,
The bounds of darkness and of light;

And who these far extremes has seen
Must needs know all that lies between.

So, with untaught, instinctive art,
He read the myriad-natured heart.

He met the men of many a land;
They gave their souls into his hand;

And none of them was long unknown
The hardest lesson was his own.

But how he lived, and where, and when
It matters not to other men;

For, as a fountain disappears,
To gush again in later years,

So hidden blood may find the day,
When centuries have rolled away;

And fresher lives betray at last
The lineage of a far-off Past.

That nature, mixed of sun and snow
Repeats its ancient ebb and flow:

The children of the Palm and Pine
Renew their blended lives—in mine.

1855.

THE VINEYARD-SAINT

She, pacing down the vineyard walks,
Put back the branches, one by one,
Stripped the dry foliage from the stalks,
And gave their bunches to the sun.

On fairer hillsides, looking south,
The vines were brown with cankerous rust,
The earth was hot with summer drouth,
And all the grapes were dim with dust.

Yet here some blessed influence rained
From kinder skies, the season through;

On every bunch the bloom remained,
And every leaf was washed in dew.

I saw her blue eyes, clear and calm;
I saw the aureole of her hair;
I heard her chant some unknown psalm,
In triumph half, and half in prayer.

“Hail, maiden of the vines!” I cried:
“Hail, Oread of the purple hill!
For vineyard fauns too fair a bride,
For me thy cup of welcome fill!

“Unlatch the wicket; let me in,
And, sharing, make thy toil more dear:
No riper vintage holds the bin
Than that our feet shall trample here.

“Beneath thy beauty's light I glow,
As in the sun those grapes of thine:
Touch thou my heart with love, and lo!
The foaming must is turned to wine!”

She, pausing, stayed her careful task,
And, lifting eyes of steady ray,
Blew, as a wind the mountain's mask
Of mist, my cloudy words away.

No troubled flush o'erran her cheek;
But when her quiet lips did stir,
My heart knelt down to hear her speak,
And mine the blush I sought in her.

“Oh, not for me,” she said, “the vow
So lightly breathed, to break erelong;
The vintage-garland on the brow;
The revels of the dancing throng!

“To maiden love I shut my heart,
Yet none the less a stainless bride;
I work alone, I dwell apart,
Because my work is sanctified.

“A virgin hand must tend the vine,
By virgin feet the vat be trod,
Whose consecrated gush of wine
Becomes the blessed blood of God!

“No sinful purple here shall stain,
Nor juice profane these grapes afford;
But reverent lips their sweetness drain
Around the Table of the Lord.

“The cup I fill, of chaster gold,
Upon the lighted altar stands;
There, when the gates of heaven unfold,
The priest exalts it in his hands.

“The censer yields adoring breath,
The awful anthem sinks and dies,
While God, who suffered life and death,
Renews His ancient sacrifice.

“O sacred garden of the vine!
And blessed she, ordained to press
God's chosen vintage, for the wine
Of pardon and of holiness!”

1860.

ON LEAVING CALIFORNIA

O fair young land, the youngest, fairest far
Of which our world can boast,—
Whose guardian planet, Evening's silver star
Illumes thy golden coast,—

How art thou conquered, tamed in all the pride
Of savage beauty still!
How brought, O panther of the splendid hide,
To know thy master's will!

No more thou sittest on thy tawny hills
In indolent repose;
Or pour'st the crystal of a thousand rills
Down from thy house of snows.

But where the wild-oats wrapped thy knees in gold,
The ploughman drives his share,
And where, through cañons deep, thy streams are rolled,
The miner's arm is bare.

Yet in thy lap, thus rudely rent and torn
A nobler seed shall be;

Mother of mighty men, thou shalt not mourn
Thy lost virginity!

Thy human children shall restore the grace
Gone with thy fallen pines:
The wild, barbaric beauty of thy face
Shall round to classic lines.

And Order, Justice, Social Law shall curb
Thy untamed energies;
And Art and Science, with their dreams superb,
Replace thine ancient ease.

The marble, sleeping in thy mountains now,
Shall live in sculptures rare;
Thy native oak shall crown the sage's brow,—
Thy bay, the poet's hair.

Thy tawny hills shall bleed their purple wine,
Thy valleys yield their oil;
And Music, with her eloquence divine,
Persuade thy sons to toil.

Till Hesper, as he trims his silver beam,
No happier land shall see,
And Earth shall find her old Arcadian dream
Restored again in thee!

1859.

WIND AND SEA

I

The sea is a jovial comrade,
He laughs wherever he goes;
His merriment shines in the dimpling lines
That wrinkle his hale repose;
He lays himself down at the feet of the Sun,
And shakes all over with glee,
And the broad-backed billows fall faint on the shore,
In the mirth of the mighty Sea!

II

But the Wind is sad and restless,
And cursed with an inward pain;
You may hark as you will, by valley or hill,
But you hear him still complain.
He wails on the barren mountains,
And shrieks on the wintry sea;
He sobs in the cedar, and moans in the pine,
And shudders all over the aspen tree.

III

Welcome are both their voices,
And I know not which is best,—
The laughter that slips from the Ocean's lips,
Or the comfortless Wind's unrest.
There 's a pang in all rejoicing,
A joy in the heart of pain,
And the Wind that saddens, the Sea that gladdens,
Are singing the selfsame strain.

1855.

MY DEAD

Give back the soul of youth once more!
The years are fleeting fast away,
And this brown hair will soon be gray,
These cheeks be pale and furrowed o'er.

Ah, no, the child is long since dead,
Whose light feet spurred the laggard years,
Who breathed in future atmospheres,
Ere Youth's eternal Present fled.

Dead lies the boy, whose timid eye
Shunned every face that spake not love;
Whose simple vision looked above,
And saw a glory in the sky.

And now the youth has sighed his last;
I see him cold upon his bier,
But in these eyes there is no tear:
He joins his brethren of the Past.

'Twas time he died: the gates of Art
Had shut him from the temple's shrine,
And now I climb her mount divine,
But with the sinews, not the heart.

How many more, O Life! shall I
In future offer up to thee?
And shall they perish utterly,
Upon whose graves I clomb so high?

Say, shall I not at last attain
Some height, from whence the Past is clear,
In whose immortal atmosphere
I shall behold my Dead again?

1855.

THE LOST CROWN

You ask me why I sometimes drop
The threads of talk I weave with you,
And midway in expression stop
As if a sudden trumpet blew.

It is because a trumpet blows
From steeps your feet will never climb:
It calls my soul from present woes
To rule some buried realm of Time.

Wide open swing the guarded gates,
That shut from you the vales of dawn;
And there my car of triumph waits,
By white, immortal horses drawn.

A throne of gold the wheels uphold,
Each spoke a ray of jewelled fire:
The crimson banners float unrolled,
Or falter when the winds expire.

Lo! where the valley's bed expands,
Through cloudy censer-smoke, upcurled—
The avenue to distant lands—
The single landscape of a world!

I mount the throne; I seize the rein;
Between the shouting throngs I go,
The millions crowding hill and plain.
And now a thousand trumpets blow!

The armies of the world are there,
The pomp, the beauty, and the power,
Far-shining through the dazzled air,
To crown the triumph of the hour.

Enthroned aloft, I seem to float
On wide, victorious wings upborne,
Past the rich vale's expanding throat,
To where the palace burns with morn.

My limbs dilate, my breast expands,
A starry fire is in my eye;
I ride above the subject lands,
A god beneath the hollow sky.

Peal out, ye clarions! shout, ye throngs,
Beneath your banners' reeling folds!
This pageantry to me belongs,—
My hand its proper sceptre holds.

Surge on, in still augmenting lines,
Till the great plain be overrun,
And my procession far outshines
The bended pathway of the sun!

But when my triumph overtops
This language, which from vassals grew,
The crown from off my forehead drops,
And I again am serf with you.

1855.

STUDIES FOR PICTURES

I
AT HOME

The rain is sobbing on the world;
The house is dark, the hearth is cold;
And, stretching drear and ashy gray
Beyond the cedars, lies the bay.

The winds are moaning, as they pass
Through tangled knots of autumn grass,—
A weary, dreary sound of woe,
As if all joy were dead below.

I sit alone, I wait in vain
Some voice to lull this nameless pain;
But from my neighbor's cottage near
Come sounds of happy household cheer.

My neighbor at his window stands,
His youngest baby in his hands;
The others seek his tender kiss,
And one sweet woman crowns his bliss.

I look upon the rainy wild:
I have no wife, I have no child:
There is no fire upon my hearth,
And none to love me on the earth.

II
THE NEIGHBOR

How cool and wet the lowlands lie
Beneath the cloaked and wooded sky!
How softly beats the welcome rain
Against the plashy window-pane!

There is no sail upon the bay:
We cannot go abroad to-day,
But, darlings, come and take my hand,
And hear a tale of Fairy-land.

The baby's little head shall rest
In quiet on his father's breast,
And mother, if he chance to stir,
Shall sing him songs once sung to her.

Ah, little ones, ye do not fret
Because the garden grass is wet;
Ye love the rains, whene'er they come,
That all day keep your father home.

No fish to-day the net shall yield;
The happy oxen graze afield;
The thirsty corn will drink its fill,
And louder sing the woodland rill.

Then, darlings, nestle round the hearth;
Ye are the sunshine of the earth:
Your tender eyes so fondly shine,
They bring a welcome rain to mine.

Keep, keep your lamps; they do not mar
The silver of a single star.
The painted roses you display
Drop from your cheeks, and fade away;
The snowy warmth you bid me see
Is hollowness and mockery;
The words that make your sin so fair
Grow silent in this vestal air;
The loosened madness of your hair,
That wrapped me in its snaky coils,
No more shall mesh me in your toils;
Your very kisses on my brow
Burn like the lips of devils now.
O sacred night! O virgin calm!
Teach me the immemorial psalm
Of your eternal watch sublime
Above the grovelling lusts of Time!
Within, the orgie shouts and reels;
Without, the planets' golden wheels
Spin, circling through the utmost space;
Within, each flushed and reckless face
Is masked to cheat a haunting care;
Without, the silence and the prayer.
Within, the beast of flesh controls;
Without, the God that speaks in souls!

IV
IN THE MORNING

The lamps were thick; the air was hot;
The heavy curtains hushed the room;
The sultry midnight seemed to blot
All life but ours in vacant gloom.

You spoke: my blood in every vein
Throbbed, as by sudden fever stirred,
And some strange whirling in my brain
Subdued my judgement, as I heard.

Ah, yes! when men are dead asleep,
When all the tongues of day are still,
The heart must sometimes fail to keep
Its natural poise 'twixt good and ill.

You knew too well its blind desires,
Its savage instincts, scarce confessed;
I could not see you touch the wires,
But felt your lightning in my breast.

For you, Life's web displayed its flaws,
The wrong which Time transforms to right:
The iron mesh of social laws
Was but a cobweb in your sight.

You showed that tempting freedom, where
The passions bear their perfect fruit,
The cheats of conscience cannot scare,
And Self is monarch absolute.

And something in me seemed to rise,
And trample old obedience down:
The serf sprang up, with furious eyes,
And clutched at the imperial crown.

That fierce rebellion overbore
The arbiter that watched within,
Till Sin so changed an aspect wore,
It was no longer that of Sin.

You gloried in the fevered flush
That spread, defiant, o'er my face,
Nor thought how soon this morning's blush
Would chronicle the night's disgrace.

I wash my eyes; I bathe my brow;
I see the sun on hill and plain:
The old allegiance claims me now,
The old content returns again.

Ah, seek to stop the sober glow
And healthy airs that come with day,
For when the cocks at dawning crow
Your evil spirits flee away.

1855.

SUNKEN TREASURES

When the uneasy waves of life subside,
And the soothed ocean sleeps in glassy rest,
I see, submerged beyond or storm or tide,
The treasures gathered in its greedy breast.

There still they shine, through the translucent Past,
Far down on that forever quiet floor;
No fierce upheaval of the deep shall cast
Them back,—no wave shall wash them to the shore.

I see them gleaming, beautiful as when
Erewhile they floated, convoys of my fate;
The barks of lovely women, noble men,
Full-sailed with hope, and stored with Love's own freight.

The sunken ventures of my heart as well,
Look up to me, as perfect as at dawn;
My golden palace heaves beneath the swell
To meet my touch, and is again withdrawn.

There sleep the early triumphs, cheaply won,
That led Ambition to his utmost verge,
And still his visions, like a drowning sun,
Send up receding splendors through the surge.

There wait the recognitions, the quick ties,
Whence the heart knows its kin, wherever cast;
And there the partings, when the wistful eyes
Caress each other as they look their last.

There lie the summer eves, delicious eves,
The soft green valleys drenched with light divine,
The lisping murmurs of the chestnut leaves,
The hand that lay, the eyes that looked in mine.

There lives the hour of fear and rapture yet,
The perilled climax of the passionate years;
There still the rains of wan December wet
A naked mound,—I cannot see for tears!

There are they all: they do not fade or waste,
Lapped in the arms of the embalming brine;
More fair than when their being mine embraced,—
Of nobler aspect, beauty more divine.

I see them all, but stretch my hands in vain;
No deep-sea plummet reaches where they rest;
No cunning diver shall descend the main,
And bring a single jewel from its breast.

1855.

THE VOYAGERS

No longer spread the sail!
No longer strain the oar!
For never yet has blown the gale
Will bring us nearer shore.

The swaying keel slides on,
The helm obeys the hand;
Fast we have sailed from dawn to dawn,
Yet never reach the land.

Each morn we see its peaks,
Made beautiful with snow;
Each eve its vales and winding creeks,
That sleep in mist below.

At noon we mark the gleam
Of temples tall and fair;
At midnight watch its bonfires stream
In the auroral air.

And still the keel is swift,
And still the wind is free,
And still as far its mountains lift
Beyond the enchanted sea.

Yet vain is all return,
Though false the goal before;
The gale is ever dead astern,
The current sets to shore.

O shipmates, leave the ropes,—
And what though no one steers,
We sail no faster for our hopes,
No slower for our fears.

Howe'er the bark is blown,
Lie down and sleep awhile:
What profits toil, when chance alone
Can bring us to the isle?

1855.

SONG

Now the days are brief and drear:
Naked lies the new-born Year
In his cradle of the snow,
And the winds unbridled blow,
And the skies hang dark and low,—
For the Summers come and go.

Leave the clashing cymbals mute!
Pipe no more the happy flute!
Sing no more that dancing rhyme
Of the rose's harvest-time;—
Sing a requiem, sad and low:
For the Summers come and go.

Where is Youth? He strayed away
Through the meadow-flowers of May.
Where is Love? The leaves that fell
From his trysting-bower, can tell.
Wisdom stays, sedate and slow,
And the Summers come and go.

Yet a few more years to run,
Wheeling round in gloom and sun:
Other raptures, other woes,—
Toil alternate with Repose:
Then to sleep where daisies grow,
While the Summers come and go.

1858.

THE MYSTERY

Thou art not dead; thou art not gone to dust;
No line of all thy loveliness shall fall
To formless ruin, smote by Time, and thrust
Into the solemn gulf that covers all.

Thou canst not wholly perish, though the sod
Sink with its violets closer to thy breast;
Though by the feet of generations trod,
The headstone crumbles from thy place of rest.

The marvel of thy beauty cannot die:
The sweetness of thy presence shall not fade;
Earth gave not all the glory of thine eye,—
Death may not keep what Death has never made.

It was not thine, that forehead strange and cold,
Nor those dumb lips, they hid beneath the snow;
Thy heart would throb beneath that passive fold,
Thy hands for me that stony clasp forego.

But thou hadst gone,—gone from the dreary land,
Gone from the storms let loose on every hill,
Lured by the sweet persuasion of a hand
Which leads thee somewhere in the distance still.

Where'er thou art, I know thou wearest yet
The same bewildering beauty, sanctified
By calmer joy, and touched with soft regret
For him who seeks, but cannot reach thy side.

I keep for thee the living love of old,
And seek thy place in Nature, as a child
Whose hand is parted from his playmate's hold,
Wanders and cries along a lonesome wild.

When, in the watches of my heart, I hear
The messages of purer life, and know
The footsteps of thy spirit lingering near,
The darkness hides the way that I should go.

Canst thou not bid the empty realms restore
That form, the symbol of thy heavenly part?
Or on the fields of barren silence pour
That voice, the perfect music of thy heart?

Oh once, once bending to these widowed lips,
Take back the tender warmth of life from me,
Or let thy kisses cloud with swift eclipse
The light of mine, and give me death with thee?

1851.

A PICTURE

Sometimes, in sleeping dreams of night,
Or waking dreams of day,
The selfsame picture seeks my sight
And will not fade away.

I see a valley, cold and still,
Beneath a leaden sky:
The woods are leafless on the hill,
The fields deserted lie.

The gray November eve benumbs
The damp and cheerless air;
A wailing from the forest comes,
As of the world's despair.

But on the verge of night and storm,
Far down the valley's line,
I see the lustre, red and warm,
Of cottage windows shine.

And men are housed, and in their place
In snug and happy rest,
Save one, who walks with weary pace
The highway's frozen breast.

His limbs, that tremble with the cold,
Shrink from the coming storm;
But underneath his mantle's fold
His heart beats quick and warm.

He hears the laugh of those who sit
In Home's contented air:
He sees the busy shadows flit
Across the window's glare.

His heart is full of love unspent,
His eyes are wet and dim;
For in those circles of content
There is no room for him.

He clasps his hands and looks above,
He makes the bitter cry:
“All, all are happy in their love,—
All are beloved but I!”

Across no threshold streams the light,
Expectant, o'er his track;
No door is opened on the night,
To bid him welcome back.

There is no other man abroad
In all the wintry vale,
And lower upon his lonely road
The darkness and the gale.

I see him through the doleful shades
Press onward, sad and slow,
Till from my dream the picture fades,
And from my heart the woe.

1854.

IN THE MEADOWS

I lie in the summer meadows,
In the meadows all alone,
With the infinite sky above me,
And the sun on his midday throne.

The smell of the flowering grasses
Is sweeter than any rose,
And a million happy insects
Sing in the warm repose.

The mother lark that is brooding
Feels the sun on her wings,
And the deeps of the noonday glitter
With swarms of fairy things.

From the billowy green beneath me
To the fathomless blue above,
The creatures of God are happy
In the warmth of their summer love.

The infinite bliss of Nature
I feel in every vein;
The light and the life of Summer
Blossom in heart and brain.

But darker than any shadow
By thunder-clouds unfurled,
The awful truth arises,
That Death is in the world!

And the sky may beam as ever,
And never a cloud be curled;
And the airs be living odors,
But Death is in the world!

Out of the deeps of sunshine
The invisible bolt is hurled:
There 's life in the summer meadows,
But Death is in the world!

1854.

“DOWN IN THE DELL I WANDERED”

Down in the dell I wandered,
The loneliest of our dells,
Where grow the lowland lilies,
Dropping their foam-white bells,
And the brook among the grasses
Toys with its sand and shells.

Fair were the meads and thickets,
And sumptuous grew the trees,
And the folding hills of harvest
Were thrilled with the rippling breeze,
But I heard beyond the valley,
The hum of the plunging seas.

The birds and the vernal grasses,
They wooed me sweetly and long,
But the magic of ocean called me,
Murmuring free and strong.
And the voice of the peaceful valley
Mixed with the billow's song!

“Stay in the wood's embraces!
Stay in the dell's repose!”

“Float on the limitless azure,
Flecked with its foamy snows!”
These were the flattering voices,
Mingled in musical close.

Bliss in the soft, green shelter,
Fame on the boundless blue,
Free with the winds of the ages,
Nestled in shade and dew:
Which shall I yield forever?
Which shall I clasp and woo?

SONG

They call thee false as thou art fair,
They call thee fair and free,—
A creature pliant as the air
And changeful as the sea:
But I, who gaze with other eyes,—
Who stand and watch afar,—
Behold thee pure as yonder skies
And steadfast as a star!

Thine is a rarer nature, born
To rule the common crowd,
And thou dost lightly laugh to scorn
The hearts before thee bowed.
Thou dreamest of a different love
Than comes to such as these;
That soars as high as heaven above
Their shallow sympathies.

A star that shines with flickering spark
Thou dost not wane away,
But shed'st adown the purple dark
The fulness of thy ray:
A rose, whose odors freely part
At every zephyr's will,
Thou keep'st within thy folded heart
Its virgin sweetness still!

THE PHANTOM

Again I sit within the mansion,
In the old, familiar seat;
And shade and sunshine chase each other
O'er the carpet at my feet.

But the sweet-brier's arms have wrestled upwards
In the summers that are past,
And the willow trails its branches lower
Than when I saw them last.

They strive to shut the sunshine wholly
From out the haunted room;
To fill the house, that once was joyful,
With silence and with gloom.

And many kind, remembered faces
Within the doorway come.—
Voices, that wake the sweeter music
Of one that now is dumb.

They sing, in tones as glad as ever,
The songs she loved to hear;
They braid the rose in summer garlands,
Whose flowers to her were dear.

And still, her footsteps in the passage,
Her blushes at the door,
Her timid words of maiden welcome,
Come back to me once more.

And, all forgetful of my sorrow,
Unmindful of my pain,
I think she has but newly left me,
And soon will come again.

She stays without, perchance, a moment
To dress her dark-brown hair;
I hear the rustle of her garments—
Her light step on the stair!

O fluttering heart! control thy tumult,
Lest eyes profane should see
My cheeks betray the rush of rapture
Her coming brings to me!

She tarries long: but lo! a whisper
Beyond the open door,
And, gliding through the quiet sunshine,
A shadow on the floor!

Ah! 't is the whispering pine that calls me,
The vine, whose shadow strays;
And my patient heart must still await her,
Nor chide her long delays.

But my heart grows sick with weary waiting,
As many a time before:
Her foot is ever at the threshold,
Yet never passes o'er.

1854.