The poems of Robert Traill Spence Lowell

There comes in life a frequent hour,
When the full voice of Fate
Calls with a dread, mysterious power
On those who should be great:
To warn them that a mighty dower
Somewhere for them doth wait.
For somewhere, in the long, long train
That marches down through Time,
Working out human nature's gain,
Its glory or its crime,
For each a station doth remain:
With power to do or to refrain,
A humble or sublime.
And they whom God hath breathed upon
And gifted, from their birth,

With lofty powers to labor on
The labor of this earth,
For them, amid the swelling crowd,
An office is assigned
With mighty influence endowed;
And unto them Fate calleth, loud,
In the first-opening mind.
Again, again, through shine or cloud,
Her words come, as the wind.
Alas! how many, downward bowed,
Their birthright have resigned!
O God! How much of great and good,
How much of fearful sin,
Were gained, or gallantly withstood,
If these their place would win!

There hung upon the chamber-wall
The fancies he had wrought:
All that his soul had power to call,
Out of the shapes that shadow all,
Into his burning thought.
The hopes that gladdened early years
Had left their colors there,
And shades were there, that early fears

Had taught his art to wear:
Alternate smiles, alternate tears,
(So that young life to thought appears,)
Each memory had its share.
But in the dark and in the bright,—
Colored by joy or pain,—
Something was wanting to his sight:
The utmost all were vain.
Sweet strains of music from old days
Murmured about his soul,
And Memory's deep, golden haze,
An atmosphere of mingled rays,
O'er his wide thought would roll,
While airs, like summer wind that plays,
Would gently fan the whole.
Oh! at such seasons, when he felt
As if his spirit, free
From the close body's narrow belt,
Swelled towards Divinity,
And pure and strong and living grew,
As when at first it came
From Him that sent it forth to do
Deeds that should earn a name,
Or, nameless, bear a blessing through
The paths of this world's shame,
Oh! why, when God himself inspired

Those raptured hours of thought,
The very seasons oft desired,
Why has he yet in vain retired,
And still no trophy brought,
Though, by a transient impulse fired,
Again he strove and wrought?
He saw the scene: he felt the force;
He started forth to do!
But no! the streamlet from its source
Bears flowers of every hue
Wrapped in their seeds; and, in its course,
It strews and plants them too:
But time, and place, and God's own smile
Must meet together, or long while
Unfruitful they must lie,
Ere they will show again the scene
From which they came, and which has been
Painted in many-colored sheen
Beneath another sky.
Thus all were vain: he could not find
Within his utmost power,
That form that floated in his mind,
Not indistinct, though not defined,
Leaving a memory behind,
Like tints at sunset hour.
His gleaming eye had caught its light,

His cheek had felt its glow;
And dreamily before his sight,
In the rapt visions of the night,
That fancy-form would go;
And when his spirit felt its might,
That form he seemed to know.
In the wild agony of prayer
His trembling hand had tried
To fix the fleeting figure there:
And he had sought in mad despair
The power that was denied.
All Beauty and all Holiness,—
(Alas! there mingled Sin,)—
Howe'er combined, could not express
That form he sought to win.
There was the blue of changeless Truth:
There was Love's burning red;
The golden-glowing Hope of Youth
Its yellow glory spread:
Oh, pure! oh, bright! oh, heavenly deep!
There seemed God's Light within,
And wings of angels seemed to sweep
The breathing work: but shades did creep
O'er all: there mingled Sin!
That chill, chill wind from o'er the graves
And from the cold, damp tomb,

That wind that frosts the hair it waves,
And pales the cheek's fresh bloom;
The bitter wind that we must face
As down life's hill we go apace,
And evening spreads its gloom;—
He felt its first cold-creeping breath,
And saw afar, in mist, the vast, dim shape of Death.

Come down, O night of dreamless sleep!
Come to this sad, sad room:
This working will and spirit steep
In silence, not in gloom.
Be thou, O night of needed rest,
A calm, clear night of peace,
Wherein the voice of heavenly guest
Can sing his gentle soothings best,
That make earth's struggles cease;
And, in the shut and darkened mind,
Leave sweetest lingering notes behind,
That shall the calm increase,
Until with waking prayer they find,
As with a breath of morning wind,
A happy, fit release.
And ye, O flowers of earnest Thought,

That in his mind grew bright,
With fresher perfume shall be fraught
And fairer robes, of spirits caught,
Cast down in peaceful night.

1838 and 1846.

END OF PART FIRST.

[12]

[The Author must ask those who are interested to wait for the Second Part of The Painter's Probation. In finishing the First Part, he set up a few lines of the other, to start with: but has not touched them since.]

University of Virginia Library

THE PAINTER'S PROBATION.

[How he strives to make the fairest painting that was ever made in earth.]

1. PART FIRST.