 | Romance and revery |  |
179
SONNETS.
181
LONGFELLOW IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Erelong I paced those cloisteral aisles, erelong
I moved where pale memorial shapes convene,
Where poet, warrior, statesman, king or queen
In one great elegy of sculpture throng,
When suddenly, with heart-beats glad and strong,
I saw the face of that lost friend serene
Who robed Hiawatha and Evangeline
In such benign simplicity of song!
I moved where pale memorial shapes convene,
Where poet, warrior, statesman, king or queen
In one great elegy of sculpture throng,
When suddenly, with heart-beats glad and strong,
I saw the face of that lost friend serene
Who robed Hiawatha and Evangeline
In such benign simplicity of song!
Then, swift as light haze on a morning lea,
All history, legend, England, backward drawn,
Vanished like vision to incorporate air;
And in one sweet colonial home o'ersea
I saw the lamp shine out across the lawn,
I heard the old clock ticking on the stair!
All history, legend, England, backward drawn,
Vanished like vision to incorporate air;
And in one sweet colonial home o'ersea
I saw the lamp shine out across the lawn,
I heard the old clock ticking on the stair!
London.
182
OTHER WORLDS.
I sometimes muse, when my adventurous gaze
Has roamed the starry arches of the night,
That were I dowered with strong angelic sight,
All would look changed in those pale heavenly ways.
What wheeling worlds my vision would amaze!
What chasms of gloom would thrill me and affright!
What rhythmic equipoise would rouse delight!
What moons would beam on me, what suns would blaze!
Has roamed the starry arches of the night,
That were I dowered with strong angelic sight,
All would look changed in those pale heavenly ways.
What wheeling worlds my vision would amaze!
What chasms of gloom would thrill me and affright!
What rhythmic equipoise would rouse delight!
What moons would beam on me, what suns would blaze!
Then through my awed soul sweeps the larger thought
Of how creation's edict may have set
Vast human multitudes on those far spheres
With towering passions to which mine mean naught,
With majesties of happiness, or yet
With agonies of unconjectured tears!
Of how creation's edict may have set
Vast human multitudes on those far spheres
With towering passions to which mine mean naught,
With majesties of happiness, or yet
With agonies of unconjectured tears!
183
A DEAD FRIEND.
This dead man, soon to seek oblivious earth,
Was loyally my friend, and loved me well.
For him no shadow of blame that could repel
His reverence, in my honored life had birth.
Like some famed knight, admired for brawn and girth
By the young warrior eager to excel,
Ideal in his fond heart I seemed to dwell,
The exemplar and high paragon of worth!
Was loyally my friend, and loved me well.
For him no shadow of blame that could repel
His reverence, in my honored life had birth.
Like some famed knight, admired for brawn and girth
By the young warrior eager to excel,
Ideal in his fond heart I seemed to dwell,
The exemplar and high paragon of worth!
Now sternly, while I linger where he lies,
A burdening shame upon my bosom weighs ...
Perchance he watches me in calm surprise,
Far from the turmoil of terrestrial days,—
Perchance he looks my soul through, with the gaze
Of supernatural and clairvoyant eyes!
A burdening shame upon my bosom weighs ...
Perchance he watches me in calm surprise,
Far from the turmoil of terrestrial days,—
Perchance he looks my soul through, with the gaze
Of supernatural and clairvoyant eyes!
184
MUSIC.
Through earlier days, when like a fruit in reach,
Hope lingered bloomy and sweet before my sight,
Dear was each mood that Music may invite,
The allegro and the penseroso, each!
But now, when sorrowing passion finds no speech,
All drearier cadence borrows in its flight
The voice of my own agony, and can smite
My spirit as plaintive waves a lonely beach!
Hope lingered bloomy and sweet before my sight,
Dear was each mood that Music may invite,
The allegro and the penseroso, each!
But now, when sorrowing passion finds no speech,
All drearier cadence borrows in its flight
The voice of my own agony, and can smite
My spirit as plaintive waves a lonely beach!
Or like pale mourners carrying sprays of rue,
With tremulous bosoms and low eyes that grieve,
With dark voluminous robes and loosened hair,
These pensive melodies go wandering through
The unbroken twilight of my heart, to leave
A kiss on the icy brow of its despair!
With tremulous bosoms and low eyes that grieve,
With dark voluminous robes and loosened hair,
These pensive melodies go wandering through
The unbroken twilight of my heart, to leave
A kiss on the icy brow of its despair!
185
TWO PHASES.
I saw the immense moon rise beyond a sweep
Of shadowy sea whose waves were softly curled;
I watched the reddening splendor she unfurled
By dreamy and rich gradations landward creep.
Dark pines that fluttering breezes roused from sleep,
Long meadows where the illumined dew lay pearled,
The expectant air, the vast encircling world,
All thrilled with eagerness divinely deep!
Of shadowy sea whose waves were softly curled;
I watched the reddening splendor she unfurled
By dreamy and rich gradations landward creep.
Dark pines that fluttering breezes roused from sleep,
Long meadows where the illumined dew lay pearled,
The expectant air, the vast encircling world,
All thrilled with eagerness divinely deep!
Days afterward I roamed that same fair shore;
Bright surges broke on rocks with mellow roar;
Both earth and ocean laughed with golden noon.
But faintly, in opal distances of sky,
Like a bowed shape that crawls away to die
Where none shall heed, I saw the old withered moon!
Bright surges broke on rocks with mellow roar;
Both earth and ocean laughed with golden noon.
But faintly, in opal distances of sky,
Like a bowed shape that crawls away to die
Where none shall heed, I saw the old withered moon!
186
SILENCE.
All search of yours but ineffectual seems
To gain some coign of refuge, year by year;
Since far in loneliest woods, in wastes austere,
Winds call, beasts wander, or yet the vulture screams.
With hated sounds of life all nature teems,
And even among the deeps of sleep you hear
Voices now clad in distance or now clear,
That float forever from the lips of dreams!
To gain some coign of refuge, year by year;
Since far in loneliest woods, in wastes austere,
Winds call, beasts wander, or yet the vulture screams.
With hated sounds of life all nature teems,
And even among the deeps of sleep you hear
Voices now clad in distance or now clear,
That float forever from the lips of dreams!
But weary of spirit, and affrighted too,
At last you hurry away, with footsteps fleet,
To find, in chaos, torpor and eclipse,
Death, your one lover inalienably true,
Encircled by whose ghastly arms you meet
The awful icy passion of his lips!
At last you hurry away, with footsteps fleet,
To find, in chaos, torpor and eclipse,
Death, your one lover inalienably true,
Encircled by whose ghastly arms you meet
The awful icy passion of his lips!
187
WINDSOR AND ETON.
I watch the might of your historic stone,
As one that stands regretful and apart,
Windsor, whose glory of mediæval art
For old dead tyrannies can ill atone!
Even as I bide here, alien and alone,
From bastion, court and stairway seems to start
(Wrung in past years from many a bleeding heart!)
The ghost of many a bleak rebellious groan!
As one that stands regretful and apart,
Windsor, whose glory of mediæval art
For old dead tyrannies can ill atone!
Even as I bide here, alien and alone,
From bastion, court and stairway seems to start
(Wrung in past years from many a bleeding heart!)
The ghost of many a bleak rebellious groan!
But when I have crossed your Thames that winds so clear,
What charm of change my spirit overwhelms
To find sweet classic Eton's calm domain! ...
Nay, not in proud towers opposite, but here,
In gray quadrangles, by scholastic elms,
O England, your true kings first learned to reign!
What charm of change my spirit overwhelms
To find sweet classic Eton's calm domain! ...
Nay, not in proud towers opposite, but here,
In gray quadrangles, by scholastic elms,
O England, your true kings first learned to reign!
Eton, England.
188
IN A HOSPITAL.
I cannot move among these mournful halls
Where many a white-lipped sufferer has lain,
Where life is one stern monotone of pain,
Jarred only by death's ghastlier intervals,
But some new gradual sense my soul enthralls
And bids me hold the ironical disdain
Born of the pessimist for wildly vain,
Like a rash curse that recks not how it falls.
Where many a white-lipped sufferer has lain,
Where life is one stern monotone of pain,
Jarred only by death's ghastlier intervals,
But some new gradual sense my soul enthralls
And bids me hold the ironical disdain
Born of the pessimist for wildly vain,
Like a rash curse that recks not how it falls.
For though the old baffling question fronts me here
Of why such piteous woes at all should be,—
Of why fate's bitter laws thus bruise and ban,
Ah, still one realization, fair and clear,
Towers up in monumental sanctity—
The ennobling sympathy of man for man!
Of why such piteous woes at all should be,—
Of why fate's bitter laws thus bruise and ban,
Ah, still one realization, fair and clear,
Towers up in monumental sanctity—
The ennobling sympathy of man for man!
189
ANGER.
On each man born has nature's will conferred
A genie, lofty of stature, huge of limb,
Who ever bides, in unknown regions dim,
The utterance of our one relenting word.
Perchance for months, even years, he has not stirred
To break his bonds of durance, firm and grim,
Until at length, to freedom calling him,
The mandate of release is clearly heard!
A genie, lofty of stature, huge of limb,
Who ever bides, in unknown regions dim,
The utterance of our one relenting word.
Perchance for months, even years, he has not stirred
To break his bonds of durance, firm and grim,
Until at length, to freedom calling him,
The mandate of release is clearly heard!
Then forth he springs, unfettered, fiercely brave,
Or yet, being spurred by ruder madness, prone
To attest his might in some wild way and fleet;
And there have been hot hours when this dread slave,
While hurrying back to his dark lair, has thrown
Murder's red outrage at his master's feet!
Or yet, being spurred by ruder madness, prone
To attest his might in some wild way and fleet;
And there have been hot hours when this dread slave,
While hurrying back to his dark lair, has thrown
Murder's red outrage at his master's feet!
190
RUIN.
Look, friend, where that large trembling maple weaves
The indulgent sunshine through her careless boughs;
Look where the verge of that soft hill o'erbrows
Bent reapers busy among the tawny sheaves;
Where nature, as you see, no shadow leaves
Of dearth or pain, but with full thrift endows
The exultant soil—and yet my soul avows
This glade a ruin whose very zephyr grieves!
The indulgent sunshine through her careless boughs;
Look where the verge of that soft hill o'erbrows
Bent reapers busy among the tawny sheaves;
Where nature, as you see, no shadow leaves
Of dearth or pain, but with full thrift endows
The exultant soil—and yet my soul avows
This glade a ruin whose very zephyr grieves!
For history's darkest annals never knew
More piteous wreck than to one early love
A wild hour brought, near yonder peaceful slope;—
Yet domed by heaven's calm sanctity of blue,
How idly blows the unheeding grass above
The viewless Herculaneum of that hope!
More piteous wreck than to one early love
A wild hour brought, near yonder peaceful slope;—
Yet domed by heaven's calm sanctity of blue,
How idly blows the unheeding grass above
The viewless Herculaneum of that hope!
191
TREES IN THE CITY.
When I behold how beauteously they rear
From out the engirding pavements, dull and plain,
Boughs that for genial meadow or fragrant lane
Have longed, perchance, through many a lonely year,
My sympathy wakes dubious yet sincere,
Conjecturing the incalculable pain
Of lives that yearn toward bournes whence they retain
The balm of no remedial souvenir!
From out the engirding pavements, dull and plain,
Boughs that for genial meadow or fragrant lane
Have longed, perchance, through many a lonely year,
My sympathy wakes dubious yet sincere,
Conjecturing the incalculable pain
Of lives that yearn toward bournes whence they retain
The balm of no remedial souvenir!
But when the spirit of spring breaks cold eclipse,
I dream that every wind which fleetly slips
Through the broad city, is bearing in soft wise,
From happier branches under far free skies,
Compassionate tidings on æolian lips
Of sweet affinities, tender kinsmanships!
I dream that every wind which fleetly slips
Through the broad city, is bearing in soft wise,
From happier branches under far free skies,
Compassionate tidings on æolian lips
Of sweet affinities, tender kinsmanships!
192
VINES.
Often while strolling where the lights and shades
Of restless leaves clothe many a massive bough,
With reverence I can feel my heart avow
Nature's calm strength among her dells and glades;
I mark how fine a majesty pervades
The span, the stature of each growth, and how
Manhood's most virile dignities endow
Their stalwart clusters, their proud colonnades!
Of restless leaves clothe many a massive bough,
With reverence I can feel my heart avow
Nature's calm strength among her dells and glades;
I mark how fine a majesty pervades
The span, the stature of each growth, and how
Manhood's most virile dignities endow
Their stalwart clusters, their proud colonnades!
Yet constantly I see the sunshine break
On tenderer shapes of vines, that wrap great trees,
Reaching lithe stems to foliage far above ...
And ah! full sweet the reveries they awake,
While fluttering in their green dependencies,
They cling like woman's trust, like woman's love!
On tenderer shapes of vines, that wrap great trees,
Reaching lithe stems to foliage far above ...
And ah! full sweet the reveries they awake,
While fluttering in their green dependencies,
They cling like woman's trust, like woman's love!
193
ASTERS.
Hued like the wild-grapes in their yellowing bowers,
Like these, though children of no fervid skies,
You wear the deep rich color of hot Julys,
Of days when cattle pant, when blue storm lowers.
But now in mellow lulls of dreamy hours,
Or when to a random bourne the red leaf flies,
Your stars in delicate clusters gently rise
On autumn's lovely firmament of flowers!
Like these, though children of no fervid skies,
You wear the deep rich color of hot Julys,
Of days when cattle pant, when blue storm lowers.
But now in mellow lulls of dreamy hours,
Or when to a random bourne the red leaf flies,
Your stars in delicate clusters gently rise
On autumn's lovely firmament of flowers!
You are bathed in dying summer's purple haze,
Yet winds of rigor to your blooms are dear,
And silvery glimmers of cold sunset lights;
And where you group in sweet fortuitous ways,
To watch your feathery beauty is to hear
The crickets pleading in the sharp moist nights!
Yet winds of rigor to your blooms are dear,
And silvery glimmers of cold sunset lights;
And where you group in sweet fortuitous ways,
To watch your feathery beauty is to hear
The crickets pleading in the sharp moist nights!
194
THE GIANTESS.
(FROM THE FRENCH OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE.)
When primitive nature, through her broad demesne,
Each day for some strange monster travail felt,
Near a young giantess I would fain have dwelt,
Like a voluptuous cat beside a queen.
Each day for some strange monster travail felt,
Near a young giantess I would fain have dwelt,
Like a voluptuous cat beside a queen.
Her body and soul expanding in grand ways
At terrible sports, I would have gladly seen,
And dreamed that love's own flame sent sombre sheen
Through the moist misty splendors of her gaze.
At terrible sports, I would have gladly seen,
And dreamed that love's own flame sent sombre sheen
Through the moist misty splendors of her gaze.
I would have scanned her towering curves at ease;
Or crawled along the vast slope of her knees;
Or sometimes, if the unwholesome heat had laid
Or crawled along the vast slope of her knees;
Or sometimes, if the unwholesome heat had laid
Across the lands her tired form's mighty grace,
I would have drowsed beneath her breast's great shade,
Like some calm hamlet at a mountain's base!
I would have drowsed beneath her breast's great shade,
Like some calm hamlet at a mountain's base!
195
SUICIDE.
Invisible as a wind along the sky,
She ever wanders o'er the earth immense,
A spirit of beauty but malevolence,
With foot unechoing and with furtive eye.
She loathes and shuns all haunts where peace may lie,
Or love, and every joy engendered thence,
Yet prowls to wait, with wary and avid sense,
For sorrow's heaviest and most burning sigh!
She ever wanders o'er the earth immense,
A spirit of beauty but malevolence,
With foot unechoing and with furtive eye.
She loathes and shuns all haunts where peace may lie,
Or love, and every joy engendered thence,
Yet prowls to wait, with wary and avid sense,
For sorrow's heaviest and most burning sigh!
Then, when some dreary sufferer darkly fails
To find in life's chill heaven one starry trace,
One hope no menace of despair assails,
Toward him she steals with sure insidious pace,
And slowly to his desperate look unveils
The maddening glooms and splendors of her face!
To find in life's chill heaven one starry trace,
One hope no menace of despair assails,
Toward him she steals with sure insidious pace,
And slowly to his desperate look unveils
The maddening glooms and splendors of her face!
196
SUPPLICATION.
Le doute a désolé la terre;
Nous en voyons trop ou trop peu.—
Alfred de Musset.
Nous en voyons trop ou trop peu.—
Alfred de Musset.
O ye whose footfalls break upon our ears
Persistently, as one by one ye rise
From shadow and into shadow pass, with eyes
Of scorn alike for mortal smiles or tears,
Labors and longings, passions, pains and fears
And all the old solemn cry the old world cries,—
Ye years that wander among us pilgrim-wise,
Give answer, O ye inexorable years!
Persistently, as one by one ye rise
From shadow and into shadow pass, with eyes
Of scorn alike for mortal smiles or tears,
Labors and longings, passions, pains and fears
And all the old solemn cry the old world cries,—
Ye years that wander among us pilgrim-wise,
Give answer, O ye inexorable years!
Nay, answer in the agony of our need
Us worn because of many a baffling thing,
(With only enough of faith to make us bleed
More cruelly under doubt's keen dagger-sting)
Who plead you, and whose tired voices while we plead
Are hoarse with immemorial questioning!
Us worn because of many a baffling thing,
(With only enough of faith to make us bleed
More cruelly under doubt's keen dagger-sting)
Who plead you, and whose tired voices while we plead
Are hoarse with immemorial questioning!
197
TO WILLIAM PICKERING TALBOYS,
ON HIS DEPARTURE FOR A TOUR ROUND THE WORLD.
In losing thee, dear friend, I seem to fare
Forth from the lintel of some chamber bright,
Whose lamps with rosy sorcery lend their light
To flowery alcove or luxurious chair;
Whose burly and glowing logs, of mellow flare,
The happiest converse at their hearth invite,
With many a flash of tawny flame to smite
The Dante in vellum or the bronze Voltaire!
Forth from the lintel of some chamber bright,
Whose lamps with rosy sorcery lend their light
To flowery alcove or luxurious chair;
Whose burly and glowing logs, of mellow flare,
The happiest converse at their hearth invite,
With many a flash of tawny flame to smite
The Dante in vellum or the bronze Voltaire!
And yet, however stern the estrangement be,
However time with laggard lapse may fret,
That haunt of our fond friendship I shall hold
As loved this hour as when elate I see
Its draperies, dark with absence and regret,
Slide softly back on memory's rings of gold!
However time with laggard lapse may fret,
That haunt of our fond friendship I shall hold
As loved this hour as when elate I see
Its draperies, dark with absence and regret,
Slide softly back on memory's rings of gold!
198
INFLUENCES.
Who has not felt, when twilight sank in cloud,
And winds of autumn past his home gave plaint,
The poverty, the exclusion, the restraint
Of all experience learned or life allowed?
In hours like these, what spirit has not bowed
Before despondence as before a saint
That zealots worship and enthusiasts paint,
Till hope was raimented with death's own shroud?
And winds of autumn past his home gave plaint,
The poverty, the exclusion, the restraint
Of all experience learned or life allowed?
In hours like these, what spirit has not bowed
Before despondence as before a saint
That zealots worship and enthusiasts paint,
Till hope was raimented with death's own shroud?
And yet no more of splendor than some star's
May pierce the gloom and show beyond its rent
The eternities and calms in night's control,
When lo! what hurrying forth from prison bars,
What restitution, what enfranchisement,
What sovereign re-enthronement for the soul!
May pierce the gloom and show beyond its rent
The eternities and calms in night's control,
When lo! what hurrying forth from prison bars,
What restitution, what enfranchisement,
What sovereign re-enthronement for the soul!
199
GRANT DYING.
I think the April stars have never shot
O'er the dumb city a light of such cold spell
As now at midnight when all is not well—
When lingering pain is our loved hero's lot!
“Let us have peace,” he said, while hate was hot
Still in the land where he stood sentinel
And guardian of its peace, whate'er befell—
He that now sighs for peace yet wins it not!
O'er the dumb city a light of such cold spell
As now at midnight when all is not well—
When lingering pain is our loved hero's lot!
“Let us have peace,” he said, while hate was hot
Still in the land where he stood sentinel
And guardian of its peace, whate'er befell—
He that now sighs for peace yet wins it not!
O thou in whom such calm and power agree,
If immortality may ever dawn
On mortals, of thyself it now were true
That the great spirit of Lincoln looks for thee
Where files of shadowy soldiery are drawn.
Waiting their mighty Captain's last review!
If immortality may ever dawn
On mortals, of thyself it now were true
That the great spirit of Lincoln looks for thee
Where files of shadowy soldiery are drawn.
Waiting their mighty Captain's last review!
Midnight, April 6, 1885.
200
VICTOR HUGO DEAD.
When such a spirit away from earth has fled,
With all his power of deed and of desire,
When now no more the anointed lips respire,
And low at last has drooped the imperial head,
Nature, with whose large liberty was wed
So many a melody that moved his lyre,
Hath fitly bidden her lightning's wings of fire
Pierce the dark sea to tell us he is dead!
With all his power of deed and of desire,
When now no more the anointed lips respire,
And low at last has drooped the imperial head,
Nature, with whose large liberty was wed
So many a melody that moved his lyre,
Hath fitly bidden her lightning's wings of fire
Pierce the dark sea to tell us he is dead!
And yet, with loftier love for his renown,
Nature, let thy stars his vigil light,
Thy winds the music of his requiem stir!
Then lift him in thine arms and lay him down
Sublimely where the cloisters of the night
Shall be his archangelic sepulchre!
Nature, let thy stars his vigil light,
Thy winds the music of his requiem stir!
Then lift him in thine arms and lay him down
Sublimely where the cloisters of the night
Shall be his archangelic sepulchre!
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