University of Virginia Library

BRYANT.

November 5th, 1864.

With timid steps, as one who enters in
A solemn temple from the city's din,
And hears behind the mighty portals close
Upon the world's long chase of joys and woes;
And half forgets his mission, through intense
Awe at the chancel's calm magnificence:
So I, a stranger with a recent name—
More on the people's than the lips of fame—
In this august assemblage faltering stand,
And doubt the right I use by your command.
Behold the temple that around me lies,
A growth of earth, but swelling to the skies;
Raised in a night, that he who fills the shrine,
Founder and glory of our tuneful line,
May hold the state his genius owns by right,
And claim our homage in the nation's sight.
What prouder pile was ever built by hands
Than that which fancy, as her eye expands,
Shapes from this mass of noble forms and minds,
Builds as she broods, and in one structure binds?
I see before me, clustered side by side,
The stateliest columns of my country's pride,—
Poets, historians, and those whose art
Makes fiction truth, and gives to shadows heart.
A storied frieze their laureled brows uphold,
Enriched with legends grand and manifold;
Or glowing with that quiet hearth-side light
Which makes the homeliest face beloved and bright.
To right and left, wide chapels flash their store
Of painted wonders from the walls, and pour
A flood of glory on each hand that wrought
Its new creation from exhaustless thought.
Here rest the sculptured shapes that never know
A mortal touch to passion's ebb or flow.
Calm in their deathless grace and changeless mood,
They front their fate with godlike fortitude,
Or breathe their love in ever-listening ears,
Or drop in sorrow their eternal tears;
Kneel at a tomb whence human grief has fled,
And pray to Heaven for man's forgotten dead.
Shall I, half trembling at the thing I do,
Speak of the windows, whence the light shines through
Upon this world of art? O critics keen,
Your lucid minds give splendor to the scene;
You are the medium of the heavenly rays;
Groups, pictures, poems kindle in your blaze.
Without your aid we see no art aright;
But is't not sometimes party-coloured light
That flames upon us from your tinted panes,
And haply glorifies, or haply stains?
I shall not ask. The marvel of the roof,
That crowns this temple draws my eyes aloof.
Wide as God's azure vault it spreads above,
A perfect dome of man's triumphant love;
And all the vastness of its cloudless cope
Burns with the stars of memory and of hope.
Such is your temple, Bryant! Do I strain
The figure farther than the facts sustain?
Look on the neighbouring groups, ye doubting few,
And own yourselves convicted at the view.
To me the sight of those assembled here
Will be a wonder till my latest year.
My memory holds no picture in its round
So pure in aim, in justice so profound,
So free from any passion that might taint
The holiest scene man's cunning art could paint;
Nor can I hope, outliving Nestor's years,
To see again these intellectual peers
Marshal their ranks, to honour any chief
With joy's acclaims, or with the tears of grief.
'T were vain in me to ape great Homer's plan,
And give his title to each noted man.
Why should I echo an illustrious name,
Already sounding from the lips of Fame?
Or like a wren, my twittering notes prolong
Amidst these sky-larks of our native song?
Thus much however; what the wren may owe
The morning's laureate, I am proud to show.
Great Master of my Country's earnest lyre,
What heart so humble that cannot aspire
With grateful pride, to feel itself the while
Blessed by the bounty of your generous smile?
To know, though vexed with doubts and crossed with fears,
That from the audience Bryant bends and hears;
And in the largess of his patient heart,
Takes the intention as the deed's best part?
Why should I tremble, holding by the hand
That led my youth across his wondrous land?
Through every feeling that can move the mind,
Through noisy joy, through sorrow dumb and blind,
Through the cool ways of philosophic thought,
Over the fields where bloody frays were fought,
Into the silence of the forest nook,
Down the green pathway of the primrose brook,
By God's own gardens in the meadows sown,
Around the prairie's sky-encompassed zone,
Across the fiery steps of dying day,
Where the lone wild-fowl winged his fearless way,
Up to the peaks that bury in the sun
Their golden foreheads, where the bright stars run
Their silver circle round the frozen pole,
And through the mysteries of man's solemn soul,
O Bryant, partner of my path and guide,
We two have journeyed onward side by side.
Yours was the realm. At your imperial look
The dew-drop glittered and the gentian shook,
The circling swallow dipped his restless wings,
The feathered conclave perched in silent rings,
The furry beast came purring to your feet,
All Nature bowed before your sovereign seat.
Crowned with the laurel, sceptred with the lyre,
Sage with the secrets of its magic wire;
Wearing the purple by a right divine,
That shamed the claimants of the haughtiest line;
Amongst the votaries of your throne I stood
With regal longings stirring in my blood.
Blame not a boy, if I essayed ere long
To catch the key-note of your matchless song.
Failed at the first, as at this latest hour,
But, failing, learned the mystery of your power.
Hearken, ye bards who err by rigid rules,
And wear the tawdry livery of the schools;
Who strive to shine as other lights have shone,
And envying others, forfeit what's your own!
Write, as he wrote, with honest, simple pains,
Out of the seeds God planted in your brains,
Out of the fulness of your nation's heart,
Nor vex the dead with imitative art;
Nor cross the natural limit of the seas,
To seek a strength that fills our stronger breeze.
For were the copy as the first mould cast,—
Out on the thing! a copy 'tis at last!
By mere descent no poet shall be known;
Each royal minstrel holds his separate throne,
And o'er his state a seraph's brand is whirled:
One Milton is enough for any world.
Poet revered, you taught this lesson first,
As from the bondage of the schools you burst,
And filled our startled but delighted sense
With our wide land's discovered affluence;
Gave the scorned legends of our narrow past
Another colour and more graceful cast;
Touched the wild flowers beneath our lucid skies,
And shook their glimmer in the dreamer's eyes;
Made history light upon unstoried hills,
And breathed a voice along our savage rills;
Spread over all the haze of fresh romance,
Till Europe wondered through her doubting glance;
But wondered more that every tone rang out
The clarion challenge of a freeman's shout;
Sounding defiance to their castes and kings,
Their courtly follies over empty things;
But, O my Bryant, tempered sweet and low,
To tenderest pity, was your music's flow
Over the trampled serfs that raised their groans
Beneath the shadows of resplendent thrones.
Warm was the welcome of the hand you gave
Across our threshold to the fleeing slave;
And stern the courage of your angry frown,
When tyrants raged for what they called their own.
You were the first who made us clearly see,
In rhythmic words, how grand 'tis to be free;
Sang to the world the spirit of our land,
And waved her standard from your spotless hand;
Taught every child the glory of his birth,
And spread his heritage around the earth;
Made youth feel stronger, that his life began
Here in the front of freedom's hardy van;
Consoled the sage against foreboding fears,
And starred with hopes the shadows of his years.
Two lives the poet lives, 'tis said. In you
Both gently mingle in a man so true
To the pure instincts of his sacred gift,
That slander's self can point no adverse drift.
Whether the subtle rhetoric of your pen
In prose or verse address itself to men,
Or the convincing logic of your tongue,
With which the rostrums of the State have rung,
Be raised in counsel; who will dare to say
They passed truth's landmarks for a novel way;
Or ranged themselves, in peace or open fight,
On any side but on the side of right?
So well the man becomes the poet's crown,
That each gives each a measure of renown;
Imbue each other, form a perfect whole,
And top our race with one exalted soul.
Let me no longer try the public ear
With what men knew before they entered here;
Or mar your title with my tedious lines,
And breathe a mist upon a thing that shines.
We hail you, poet, with our greeting shout;
From this thronged hall the cry goes rolling out
Above the city, that takes up the sound,
And spreads the welcome to the country round.
Each fruitful valley and each echoing hill,
That feel the touch of your fame-giving will,
Wake as the tones slide down the happy gales,
To wave our flag, or fill our swelling sails.
The dew-beads twinkle, and the wild-flowers nod;
The robins carol from the tawny sod;
The slave turns lightly in his galling chain,
Prays low, then dreams of liberty again.
Nature and man repeat the mystic thrill,
That proved the power of the magician's skill,
When, as a youth, you struck your country's lyre,
And filled its pauses with your spirit's fire.
Long may the years that hear your powerful rhyme,
Stretch out your life along the coming time!
We hear no discord, nothing of decay
In the fresh music of your latest lay.
Youth nerves the poet; why may not the man
Leave far behind the Psalmist's fated span;
Like a pure tone, his purer life prolong,
Live with the life of his immortal song?
God grant it, Bryant! I have not a prayer
That would not clamber up the heavenly air,
To kneel before the splendor of the Throne,
If thus another blessing could be sown
In the fair garden of your blooming days,
Already fragrant with a nation's praise,
Bright with the wreaths the total world hath given,
And warm with love that's sanctified by Heaven.