University of Virginia Library

Sonnets.

1. PART 1.

[I. Sometimes, when winding slow by brook and bower]

Sometimes, when winding slow by brook and bower,
Beating the idle grass,—of what avail,
I ask, are these dim fancies, cares, and fears?
What though from every bank I drew a flower,—
Bloodroot, king-orchis, or the pearlwort pale,—
And set it in my verse with thoughtful tears?
What would it count, though I should sing my death,
And muse and mourn with as poetic breath
As, in damp garden walks, the autumn gale
Sighs o'er the fallen floriage? What avail
Is the swan's voice, if all the hearers fail?
Or his great flight, that no eye gathereth,
In the blending blue? And yet, depending so,
God were not God, whom knowledge cannot know.

[II. Wherefore, with this belief, held like a blade]

Wherefore, with this belief, held like a blade,—
Gathering my strength and purpose, fair and slow,
I wait; resolved to carry it to the heart
Of that dark doubt in one collected blow;
And stand at guard with spirit undismayed,
Nor fear the Opposer's anger, arms, or art;
When, from a hiding near, behold him start
With a fresh weapon of my weakness made;
And goad me with myself, and urge the attack,
While I strike short, and still give back and back
While the foe rages. Then from that disgrace
He points to where they sit that have won the race,
Laurel by laurel wreathing, face o'er face,
And leaves me lower still; for, ranked in place,

[III. And borne with theirs, my proudest thoughts do seem]

And borne with theirs, my proudest thoughts do seem
Bald at the best, and dim: a barren gleam
Among the immortal stars, and faint and brief
As north-light flitting in the dreary north,
“What have thy dreams,—a vague, prospective worth?
An import imminent? or dost thou deem
Thy life so fair, that thou wouldst set it forth
Before the day? or art thou wise in grief,
Has fruitful Sorrow swept thee with her wing?”
To-day I heard a sweet voice carolling
In the wood-land paths, with laugh and careless cry,
Leading her happy mates. Apart I stept;
And, while the laugh and song went lightly by,
In the wild bushes I sat down and wept.

[IV. Nor looks that backward life so bare to me]

Nor looks that backward life so bare to me,
My later youth, and ways I've wandered through
But touched with innocent grace, the early bee
On the maple log, the white-heaped cherry-tree
That hummed all day in the sun, the April blue!
Yet hardly now one ray the Forward hath
To show where sorrow rests, and rest begins;
Although I check my feet, nor walk to wrath
Through days of crime, and grosser shadowings
Of evil done in the dark, but fearfully,
Mid unfulfilled yet unrelinquished sins
That hedge me in, and press about my path,
Like purple-poison flowers of stramony,
With their dull opiate-breath, and dragon-wings.

[V. And so the day drops by; the horizon draws]

And so the day drops by; the horizon draws
The fading sun, and we stand struck in grief:
Failing to find our haven of relief,—
Wide of the way, nor sure to turn or pause;
And weep to view how fast the splendour wanes,
And scarcely heed, that yet some share remains
Of the red after-light, some time to mark,
Some space between the sundown and the dark,
But not for him those golden calms succeed,
Who, while the day is high, and glory reigns,
Sees it go by,—as the dim Pampas plain,
Hoary with salt, and gray with bitter weed,
Sees the vault blacken, feels the dark wind strain,
Hears the dry thunder roll, and knows no rain.

[VI. Not sometimes, but, to him that heeds the whole]

Not sometimes, but, to him that heeds the whole,
And in the Ample reads his personal page,
Labouring to reconcile, content, assuage,
The vexed conditions of his heritage,
For ever waits an angel at the goal,
And ills seem but as food for spirits sage,
And grief becomes a dim apparelage,
The weed and wearing of the sacred soul,
Might I but count, but here, one watchlight spark!
But vain, oh vain! this turning for the light,—
Vain as a groping hand to rend the dark.
I call, entangled in the night, a night
Of wind and voices! but the gusty roll
Is vague, nor comes there cheer of pilotage.

[VII. Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray]

Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray
With trees and trail of mosses wringing wet;
Beds of the black pitch-pine in dead leaves set
Whose wasted red has wasted to white away;
Remnants of rain, and droppings of decay,
Why hold ye so my heart, nor dimly let
Through your deep leaves the light of yesterday,
The faded glimmer of a sunshine set?
Is it that in your blindness, shut from strife,
The bread of tears becomes the bread of life?
Far from the roar of day, beneath your boughs
Fresh griefs beat tranquilly, and loves and vows
Grow green in your gray shadows, dearer far
Even than all lovely lights, and roses, are?

[VIII. As when, down some broad River dropping, we]

As when, down some broad River dropping, we,
Day after day, behold the assuming shores
Sink and grow dim, as the great Water-course
Pushes his banks apart and seeks the sea;
Benches of pines, high shelf and balcony,
To flats of willow and low sycamores
Subsiding, till, where'er the wave we see,
Himself is his horizon utterly:
So fades the portion of our early world.
Still on the ambit hangs the purple air;
Yet, while we lean to read the secret there,
The stream that by green shore-sides splashed and purled
Expands; the mountains melt to vapors rare,
And life alone circles out flat and bare.

[IX. Yet wear we on; the deep light disallowed]

Yet wear we on; the deep light disallowed
That lit our youth, in years no longer young.
We wander silently, and brood among
Dead graves, and tease the sun-break and the cloud
For import. Were it not better yet to fly,
To follow those who go before the throng,
Reasoning from stone to star, and easily
Exampling this existence? or shall I
Who yield slow reverence where I cannot see,
And gather gleams, where'er by chance or choice
My footsteps draw, though brokenly dispensed,
Come into light at last? or suddenly,
Struck to the knees like Saul, one arm against
The overbearing brightness, hear—a Voice?

[X. An upper chamber in a darkened house]

An upper chamber in a darkened house,
Where, ere his footsteps reached ripe manhood's brink,
Terror and anguish were his cup to drink,
I cannot rid the thought, nor hold it close:
But dimly dream upon that man alone;
Now though the autumn clouds most softly pass,
The cricket chides beneath the doorstep stone,
And greener than the season grows the grass,
Nor can I drop my lids, nor shade my brows,
But there he stands beside the lifted sash;
And, with a swooning of the heart, I think
Where the black shingles slope to meet the boughs
And, shattered on the roof like smallest snows—
The tiny petals of the mountain-ash.

[XI. What profits it to me, though here allowed]

What profits it to me, though here allowed
Life, sunlight, leisure, if they fail to urge,
Me to due motion, or myself to merge
With the onward stream, too humble, or too proud?
That find myself not with the popular surge
Washed off and on, or up to higher reefs
Flung with the foremost, when the rolling crowd
Hoists like a wave, nor strong to speak aloud:
But standing here, gazing on my own griefs,
Strange household woe, and wounds that bleed and smart;
With still lips, and an outcry in the heart!
Or now, from day to day, I coldly creep
By summer farms and fields, by stream and steep,
Dull, and like one exhausted with deep sleep.

[XII. Tall, stately plants, with spikes and forks of gold]

Tall, stately plants, with spikes and forks of gold,
Crowd every slope: my heart repeats its cry,—
A cry for strength, for strength and victory;
The will to strive, the courage overbold
That would have moved me once to turn indeed,
And level with the dust each lordly weed.
But now I weep upon my wayside walks,
And sigh for those fair days, when glorying
I stood a boy amid the mullein-stalks,
And dreamed myself like him the Lion-King:
There, where his shield shed arrows, and the clank
Clashed on his helm of battle-axe and brand,
He pushed the battle backward, rank on rank,
Fallen in the sword-swing of his stormy hand.

[XIII. As one who walks and weeps by alien brine]

As one who walks and weeps by alien brine,
And hears the heavy land-wash break, so I,
Apart from friends, remote in misery,
But brood on pain, and find in heaven no sign:
The lights are strange, and bitter voices by,
So the doomed sailor, left alone to die,
Looks sadly seaward at the day's decline,
And hears his parting comrades' jeers and scoffs;
Or sees, through mists that hinder and deform,
The dewy stars of home,—sees Regulus shine
With a hot flicker through the murky damp,
And setting Sirius twitch and twinge like a lamp
Slung to the mast-head, in a night of storm,
Of lonely vessel labouring in the troughs.

[XIV. Not proud of station; nor in worldly pelf]

Not proud of station; nor in worldly pelf
Immoderately rich, nor rudely gay;
Gentle he was, and generous in a way,
And with a wise direction ruled himself.
Large Nature spread his table every day;
And so he lived,—to all the blasts that woo,
Responsible, as yon long locust spray
That waves and washes in the windy blue.
Nor wanted he a power to reach and reap
From hardest things a consequence and use
And yet this friend of mine, in one small hour
Fell from himself, and was content to weep
For eyes love-dark, red lips, and cheeks in hues
Not red, but rose-dim, like the jacinth-flower!

[XV. And she, her beauty never made her cold]

And she, her beauty never made her cold
Young-Oread-like, beside the green hill-crest,
And blissfully obeying Love's behest,
She turned to him as to a god of old!
Her smitten soul with its full strength and spring
Retaliating his love: unto that breast,
Ere scarce the arms dared open to infold,
She gave herself as but a little thing!
And now,—to impulse cold, to passion dead,—
With the wild grief of unperfected years,
He kissed her hands, her mouth, her hair, her head;
Gathered her close and closer, to drink up
The odour of her beauty; then in tears,
As for a world, gave from his lips the cup!

[XVI. Yet Nature, where the thunder leaves its trace]

Yet Nature, where the thunder leaves its trace
On the high hemlock pine, or sandstone bank,
Hating all shock of hue, or contrast rank,
With some consenting colour heals the place,
Or o'er it draws her mosses green and dank,
So gentle Time will bring with tender craft
Another day, and other greens ingraft
On the dead soil, so fire-burned now, and blank.
What we have had, we hold! and cannot sink
Remembrance: patience cometh from above.
And now he breathes apart, to daily drink
In tears the bitter ashes of his love,
Yet precious rich, and a diviner draught
Than Agria, or Artemisia drank!

[XVII. All men,—the Preacher saith,—whate'er or whence]

All men,—the Preacher saith,—whate'er or whence
Their increase, walking thro' this world has been;
Both those that gather out, or after glean,
Or hold in simple fee of harvests dense;
Or but perhaps a flowerless barren green,
Barren with spots of sorrel, knot-grass, spurge:—
See to one end their differing paths converge,
And all must render answer, here or hence.
“Lo! Death is at the doors,”—he crieth, “with blows!”
But what to him, unto whose feverish sense
The stars tick audibly, and the wind's low surge
In the pine, attended, tolls, and throngs, and grows
On the dread ear,—a thunder too profound
For bearing,—a Niagara of sound!

[XVIII. Perchance his own small field some charge demands]

Perchance his own small field some charge demands,
So full the eternal Choral sobs and swells;
But clear away the weeds, although there lurk
Within the weeds a few dim asphodels,
Flowers of a former day, how fair! how fair!
And yet behold them not, but to the work,
Before the short light darken, set thy hands!
Nor over the surface dip with easy share,
But beam-deep, plough and plunge your parallels
Breaking in clod and flower! that so may spring
From the deep grain a goodlier growth and kind;
Unstirred of heats that blast, of frosts that bind,
Nor swept aside, ere the seed catch, by wing
Of casual shower, nor any chance of wind.

[XIX. Yet vain, perhaps, the fruits our care applaud]

Yet vain, perhaps, the fruits our care applaud;
If the Forefate, decree the harvest fat,
Why should we mind this thing or matter that,
To sift the seed, and blow the chaff abroad?
But doubt not so the Giver to defraud,
Who will accuse thy labour; spend, nor slack
Of my best strength and sweetness too, till God,
With a full hand and flowing, pay thee back.
Behold! on rolling zone and zodiac
The spray and scatter of his bounty flung!
And what canst thou, to whom no hands belong
To hasten by one hour the morning's birth?
Or stay one planet at his circle hung,
In the great flight of stars across the earth?

[XX. Still craves the spirit: never Nature solves]

Still craves the spirit: never Nature solves
That yearning which with her first breath began;
And, in its blinder instinct, still devolves
On god or pagod, Manada or man,
Or, lower yet, brute-service, apes and wolves!
By Borneo's surf, the bare Barbarian
Still to the sands beneath him bows to pray:
Give Greek his god, the Bheel his devil-sway;
And what remains to me, who count no odds
Between such Lord and him I saw to-day,
The farmer mounted on his market-load,
Bundles of wool, and locks of upland hay;
The son of toil, that his own works bestrode,
And him, Ophion, earliest of the gods?

[XXI. O Father, God! to whom, in happier days]

O Father, God! to whom, in happier days,
My father bade me cry when troubles fall,
Again I come before thy tribunal,
Too faint for prayer, and all too blind for praise;
Yet owning never, through life's dim career,
The eye that would not see, and reckless ear;
Against my head no more thy tempests call!—
Refreshing that wild sorrow of the heart,
And those fierce tears: another morning raise
Upon this vision, now so dimmed and swoln:
Guide me, as once, unto thy feet to flee;
Claiming no price of labour, place, or part;
And only seek, before thy footstool fall'n,
Tears in mine eyes, to lift these hands of me!

[XXII. The morning comes; not slow, with reddening gold]

The morning comes; not slow, with reddening gold
But wildly driven, with windy shower, and sway
As though the wind would blow the dark away:
Voices of wail, of misery multifold,
Wake with the light, and its harsh glare obey;
And yet I walk betimes this day of spring,
Still my own private portion reckoning,
Not to compute, though every tear be told.
Oh, might I on the gale my sorrow fling!
But sweep, sweep on, wild blast; who bids thee stay?
Across the stormy headlands shriek and sing
And, earlier than the daytime, bring the day
To pouring eyes, half-quenched with watery sight,
And breaking hearts that hate the morning light.

[XXIII. Shall I not see her? Yes; for one has seen]

Shall I not see her? Yes; for one has seen
Her in her beauty, since we called her dead,
One like herself, a fair young mother, led
By her own lot to feel compassion keen;
And unto her last night my Anna came,
And sat within her arms, and spoke her name,
“While the old smile,” she said, “like starlight gleamed;
And like herself in fair young bloom,” she said,
“Only the white more white, the red more red;
And fainter than the mist her pressure seemed.”
And words there were, though vague, yet beautiful,
Which she who heard them could not tell to me,—
It is enough! my Anna did not flee
To grief or fear, nor lies in slumber dull.

[XXIV. Perhaps a dream; yet surely truth has beamed]

Perhaps a dream; yet surely truth has beamed
Oft from the gate of dreams upon the brain;
As on yon mountain, black with thunder-rain,
To-day, through cloudy clefts, the glory streamed.
Why do men doubt, and balance, and disdain,
Where she, the gentler spirit, seeks to skim
Light from the vague,—though thick the shadows swim;
Still counting what she may not all explain,—
Not to be lost, or lightly disesteemed,—
Though cloudy of shape it seem, and meaning dim?
Did Manoah's wife doubt ere she showed to him
The angel standing in the golden grain?
Had Deborah fear? or was that Vision vain
That Actia, Arlotte, and Mandanè dreamed?

[XXV. By this low fire I often sit to woo]

By this low fire I often sit to woo
Memory to bring the days for ever done;
And call the mountains, where our love begun,
And the dear happy woodlands dipped in dew;
And pore upon the landscape, like a book,
But cannot find her: or there rise to me
Gardens and groves in light and shadow outspread:
Or, on a headland far away, I see
Men marching slow in orderly review;
And bayonets flash, as, wheeling from the sun,
Rank after rank give fire; or, sad, I look
On miles of moonlit brine, with many a bed
Of wave-weed heaving,—there, the wet sands shine
And just awash, the low reef lifts its line.

[XXVI. For Nature daily through her grand design]

For Nature daily through her grand design
Breathes contradiction where she seems most clear:
For I have held of her the gift to hear;
And felt, indeed, endowed of sense divine,
When I have found, by guarded insight fine,
Cold April flowers in the green end of June;
And thought myself possessed of Nature's ear,
When, by the lonely mill-brook, into mine,
Seated on slab, or trunk asunder sawn,
The night-hawk blew his horn at sunny noon;
And in the rainy midnight I have heard
The ground-sparrow's long twitter from the pine,
And the cat-bird's silver song,—the wakeful bird
That to the lighted window sings for dawn.

[XXVII. So, to the mind long brooding but on it]

So, to the mind long brooding but on it—
A haunting theme for anger, joy, or tears,—
With ardent eyes, not what we think, appears,
But, hunted home, behold its opposite!
Worn Sorrow breaking in disastrous mirth,
And wild tears wept of laughter, like the drops
Shook by the trampling thunder to the earth;
And each seems either, or but a counterfeit
Of that it would dissemble: hopes are fears,
And love is woe. Nor here the discord stops;
But through all human life runs the account,—
Born into pain, and ending bitterly;
Yet sweet perchance, between-time, like a fount,
That rises salt, and freshens to the sea.

[XXVIII. Not the round natural world, not the deep mind]

Not the round natural world, not the deep mind,
The reconcilement holds: the blue abyss
Collects it not; our arrows sink amiss;
And but in Him may we our import find.
The agony to know, the grief, the bliss
Of toil, is vain and vain! clots of the sod
Gathered in heat and haste, and flung behind
To blind ourselves and others,—what but this
Still grasping dust, and sowing toward the wind?
No more thy meaning seek, thine anguish plead;
But, leaving straining thought, and stammering word,
Across the barren azure pass to God;
Shooting the void in silence, like a bird,—
A bird that shuts his wings for better speed!

2. PART II.

[I. That boy,”—the farmer said, with hazel wand]

“That boy,”—the farmer said, with hazel wand
Pointing him out, half by the haycock hid,—
“Though bare sixteen, can work at what he's bid,
From sun till set,—to cradle, reap, or band.”
I heard the words, but scarce could understand
Whether they claimed a smile, or give me pain;
Or was it aught to me, in that green lane,
That all day yesterday, the briers amid,
He held the plough against the jarring land
Steady, or kept his place among the mowers;
Whilst other fingers, sweeping for the flowers,
Brought from the forest back a crimson stain?
Was it a thorn that touched the flesh? or did
The poke-berry spit purple on my hand?

[II. Nor idle all, though naught he sees in thine]

Nor idle all, though naught he sees in thine—
But dallying with the day to make it brief;
And thinks it braver far to tramp the leaf
With dog and gun, thro' tamerac, birch, and pine;
Or lounge the day beneath a tavern-sign:
Yet in his labour can I well discern
Great workings moving, both in his, and mine.
What though indeed a joyless verse I turn?
The flowers are fair, and give their glimmering heaps
To grace her rest. And so to-night I pass
To that low mound, gone over now with grass,
And find her stirless still; whilst overhead
Creation moveth, and the farm-boy sleeps
A still strong sleep, till but the east is red.

[III. Yes; though the brine may from the desert deep]

Yes; though the brine may from the desert deep
Run itself sweet before it finds the foam,
Oh! what for him—the deep heart once a home
For love and light—is left?—to walk and weep;
Still, with astonished sorrow, watch to keep
On his dead day; he weeps, and knows his doom,
Yet standeth stunned; as one who climbs a steep,
And dreaming softly of the cottage-room,
The faces round the porch, the rose in showers,—
Gains the last height between his heart and it;
And, from the windows where his children sleep,
Sees the red fire fork; or, later come,
Finds, where he left his home, a smouldering pit,—
Blackness and scalding stench, for love and flowers!

[IV. But Grief finds solace faint in others' ills]

But Grief finds solace faint in others' ills,
And but in her own shadow loves to go:
For her, the mountain-side may flower or flow;
Alike to that dull eye, the wild brook fills
With mist the chasm, or feeds the fields below;
Alike the latter rain, with sure return,
Breaks in the barren pine, or thick distils
On the pond-lily and the green brook flags,
Or rises softly up to flood the fern.
What though the world were water-drowned? or though
The sun, from his high place descending slow,
Should over the autumn landscapes brood and burn,
Till all the vales were tinder, and their crags,
Apt to the touch of fire, Hephaestian hills?

[V. No shame dissuades his thought, no scorn despoils]

No shame dissuades his thought, no scorn despoils
Of beauty, who, the daily heaven beneath,
Gathers his bread by run-sides, rocks, and groves.
He drinks from rivers of a thousand soils;
And, where broad Nature blows, he takes his breath:
For so his thought stands like the things he loves,
In thunderous purple like Cascadnac peak,
Or glimpses faint with grass and cinquefoils.
The friend may listen with a sneering cheek,
Concede the matter good, and wish good luck;
Or plainly say, “Your brain is planet-struck!”—
And drop your hoarded thought as vague and vain,
Like bypast flowers, to redden again in rain,
Flung to the offal-heap with shard and shuck!

[VI. No! cover not the fault. The wise revere]

No! cover not the fault. The wise revere
The judgment of the simple; harshly flow
The words of counsel; but the end may show
Matter and music to the unwilling ear.
But perfect grief, like love, should cast out fear,
And, like an o'er-brimmed river, moaning go.
Yet shrinks it from the senseless chaff and chat
Of those who smile, and insolently bestow
Their ignorant praise; or those who stoop and peer
To pick with sharpened fingers for a flaw;
Nor ever touch the quick, nor rub the raw.
Better than this, were surgery rough as that,
Which, hammer and chisel in hand, at one sharp blow
Strikes out the wild tooth from a horse's jaw!

[VII. His heart was in his garden; but his brain]

His heart was in his garden; but his brain
Wandered at will among the fiery stars:
Bards, heroes, prophets, Homers, Hamilcars,
With many angels, stood, his eye to gain;
The devils, too, were his familiars.
And yet the cunning florist held his eyes
Close to the ground,—a tulip-bulb his prize,—
And talked of tan and bone-dust, cutworms, grubs,
As though all Nature held no higher strain;
Or, if he spoke of Art, he made the theme
Flow through box-borders, turf, and flower-tubs;
Or, like a garden-engine's, steered the stream,—
Now spouted rainbows to the silent skies;
Now kept it flat, and raked the walks and shrubs.

[VIII. Companions were we in the grove and glen]

Companions were we in the grove and glen!
Through belts of summer wandered hour on hour,
Ransacking sward and swamp to deck his bower,—
River, and reservoir of mountain rain;
Nor sought for hard-named herb, or plant of power,
But Whippoorwill-shoe, and quaint Sidesaddle flower.
And still he talked, asserting, thought is free;
And wisest souls by their own action shine:
“For beauty,” he said, “is seen where'er we look,
Growing alike in waste and guarded ground;
And, like the May-flower, gathered equally
On desolate hills, where scantily the pine
Drops his dry wisps about the barren rock,
And in the angles of the fences found.”

[IX. But unto him came swift calamity]

But unto him came swift calamity,
In the sweet spring-time, when his beds were green;
And my heart waited, trustfully serene;
For the new blossom on my household-tree.
But flowers, and gods, and quaint Philosophy,
Are poor, in truth, to fill the empty place;
Nor any joy, nor season's jollity,
Can aught, indeed, avail to grace our grief.
Can spring return to him a brother's face?
Or bring my darling back to me,—to me?
Undimmed the May went on with bird and bower;
The summer filled and faded like a flower:
But rainy Autumn and the red-turned leaf
Found us at tears, and wept for company.

[X. Thy baby, too, the child that was to be]

Thy baby, too, the child that was to be,
Thro' happier days,—a brightening sun above.—
Held to thy heart with more forgetful love,—
So proud a portion of thyself and me:
We talked it o'er,—the bliss that was to bless
The birth, the baby robes, the christening,
And all our hearts were carried in this thing.
Cold, cold she lies where houseless tempests blow;
The baby's face is here, almost a woe;
And I, so seared in soul, so sapped and shrunk,
Gaze hopeless,—careless, in my changed estate
To fall at once, or in the wilderness
Stand like a charred and fire-hardened trunk,
To break the axe's edge of Time and Fate!

[XI. Still pressing through these weeping solitudes]

Still pressing through these weeping solitudes,
Perchance I snatch a beam of comfort bright,—
And pause, to fix the gleam, or lose it quite,
That darkens as I move, or but intrudes
To baffle and forelay: as sometimes here,
When late at night the wearied engineer
Driving his engine up through Whately woods,
Sees on the track a glimmering lantern-light,
And checks his crashing speed,—with hasty hand
Reversing and retarding. But, again!
Look where it burns, a furlong on before!—
The witchlight of the reedy river-shore,
The pilot of the forest and the fen,
Not to be left, but with the waste woodland.

[XII. How most unworthy, echoing in mine ears]

How most unworthy, echoing in mine ears
The verse sounds on!—Life, Love, Experience, Art,
Fused into grief, and like a grief-filled heart,
Where all emotion tends and turns to tears,
Broken by its own strength of passion and need:
Unworthy, though the bitter waters start
In these dim eyes, reviewing thought and word
The high desire, the faint accomplished deed
Unuttered love and loss,—and feverish
Beatings against a gate for ever barred.
Yet over and again I range and read
The blotted page, re-turning leaf and leaf;
And half-believe the words are what I wish,
And pore upon my verse, and court my grief.

[XIII. Even as a lover, dreaming, unaware]

Even as a lover, dreaming, unaware,
Calls o'er his mistress' features hour by hour,
Nor thinks of simple dress, and humble dower:
But pictures to himself her graces rare,—
Dark eyes, dark lashes, and harmonious hair
Caught lightly up with amaryllis flower,
Haemanthus, eardrop, or auricula,
And deems within wide Nature's bound and law
All to beseem her beauty but designed—
Of pure or proud, nor counts himself too bold
To fit her forehead with the perfect gold,
Or round her girlish temples belt and bind
Some lamp of jewels, lovelier than the whole,—
Green diamond, or gem or girasol!

[XIV. The breeze is sharp, the sky is hard and blue]

The breeze is sharp, the sky is hard and blue,—
Blue with white tails of cloud. On such a day,
Upon a neck of sand o'erblown with spray,
We stood in silence the great sea to view;
And marked the bathers at their shuddering play
Run in and out with the succeeding wave,
While from our footsteps broke the trembling turf.
Again I hear the drenching of the wave;
The rocks rise dim, with wall and weedy cave;
Her voice is in mine ears, her answer yet:
Again I see, above the froth and fret,
The blue-loft standing like eternity!
And white feet flying from the surging surf
And simmering suds of the sea!

[XV. Gertrude and Gulielma, sister-twins]

Gertrude and Gulielma, sister-twins,
Dwelt in the valley, at the farm-house old;
Nor grief had touched their locks of dark and gold,
Nor dimmed the fragrant whiteness of their skins:
Both beautiful, and one in height and mould;
Yet one had loveliness which the spirit wins
To other worlds,—eyes, forehead, smile, and all,
More softly serious than the twilight's fall.
The other—can I e'er forget the day,
When, stealing from a laughing group away,
To muse with absent eye, and motion slow,
Her beauty fell upon me like a blow?—
Gertrude! with red flowerlip, and silk black hair!
Yet Gulielma was by far more fair!

[XVI. Under the mountain, as when first I knew]

Under the mountain, as when first I knew
Its low black roof, and chimney creeper-twined,
The red house stands; and yet my footsteps find
Vague in the walks, waste balm and feverfew,
But they are gone: no soft-eyed sisters trip
Across the porch or lintels; where, behind,
The mother sat,—sat knitting with pursed lip.
The house stands vacant in its green recess,
Absent of beauty as a broken heart;
The wild rain enters; and the sunset wind
Sighs in the chambers of their loveliness,
Or shakes the pane and in the silent noons,
The glass falls from the window, part by part,
And ringeth faintly in the grassy stones.

[XVII. Roll on, sad world! not Mercury or Mars]

Roll on, sad world! not Mercury or Mars
Could swifter speed, or slower, round the sun,
Than in this year of variance thou hast done
For me. Yet pain, fear, heart-break, woes, and wars
Have natural limit; from his dread eclipse
The swift sun hastens, and the night debars
The day, but to bring in the day more bright;
The flowers renew their odorous fellowships;
The moon runs round and round; the slow earth dips.
True to her poise, and lifts; the planet-stars
Roll and return from circle to ellipse;
The day is dull and soft, the eavetrough drips;
And yet I know the splendour of the light
Will break anon: look! where the gray is white!

[XVIII. And Change, with hurried hand, has swept these scenes]

And Change, with hurried hand, has swept these scenes:
The woods have fallen: across the meadow-lot
The hunter's trail and trap-path is forgot:
And fire has drunk the swamps of evergreens!
Yet for a moment let my fancy plant
These autumn hills again,—the wild dove's haunt,
The wild deer's walk. In golden umbrage shut,
The Indian river runs, Quonecktacut!
Here, but a lifetime back, where falls to-night
Behind the curtained pane a sheltered light
On buds of rose, or vase of violet
Aloft upon the marble mantel set,
Here, in the forest-heart, hung blackening
The wolf-bait on the bush beside the spring.

[XIX. And faces, forms, and phantoms, numbered not]

And faces, forms, and phantoms, numbered not,
Gather and pass like mist upon the breeze;
Jading the eye with uncouth images,—
Women with muskets, children dropping shot;
By fields half-harvested, or lost, in fear
Of Indian inroad, or the Hessian near;
Disaster, poverty, and dire disease.
Or from the burning village, through the trees,
I see the smoke in reddening volumes roll;
The Indian file in shadowy silence pass,
While the last man sets up the trampled grass;
The Tory priest declaiming, fierce and fat;
The Shay's-man, with the green branch in his hat
Or silent sagamore, Shaug, or Wassahoale!

[XX. O hard endeavour, to blend in with these]

O hard endeavour, to blend in with these—
Deep shadings of the past, a deeper grief;
Or blur with stranger woes a wound so chief,—
Though the great world turn slow with agonies!
What though the forest wind-flowers fell and died
And Gertrude sleeps at Gulielma's side?
They have their tears, nor turn to us their eyes:
But we pursue our dead with groans, and cries,
And bitter reclamations, to the term
Of undiscerning darkness and the worm;
Then sit in silence down, and brooding dwell,
Through the slow years, on all we loved, and tell
Each tone, each look of love, each syllable,
With lips that work, with eyes that overwell!

[XXI. Last night I dreamed we parted once again]

Last night I dreamed we parted once again;
That all was over. From the outward shore,
I saw a dark bark lessen more and more;
That bore her from me o'er the boundless main;
And yearned to follow: no sense of mystery
Fell on me, nor the old fear of the sea;
Only I thought, “Knowledge must bring relief;”—
Nor feared the sunless gulfs, the tempest's breath.
Nor drowning, nor the bitterness of death!
Yet while, as one who sees his hope decay,
And scarcely weeping; vacant in my grief,
I on the jetty stood, and watched the ship,—
The wave broke fresher, flinging on my lip
Some drops of salt: I shuddered, and turned away.

[XXII. Put off thy bark from shore, tho' near the night]

Put off thy bark from shore, tho' near the night;
And, leaving home, and friends, and hope, behind,—
Sail down the lights! Thou scarce canst fail to find,
O desolate one! the morning breaking white;
Some shore of rest beyond the labouring wave
Ah! 'tis for this I mourn; too long I have
Wandered in tears along Life's stormy way,
Where, day to day, no haven or hope reveals.
Yet on the bound my weary sight I keep,
As one who sails, a landsman on the deep,
And, longing for the land, day after day
Sees the horizon rise and fall, and feels
His heart die out,—still riding restlessly
Between the sailing cloud, and the seasick sea.

[XXIII. Some truths may pierce the spirit's deeper gloom]

Some truths may pierce the spirit's deeper gloom,
Yet shine unapprehended: grand, remote,
We bow before their strength, yet feel them not;
When some low promise of the life to come;
Blessing the mourner, holds the heart indeed,
A leading lamp that all may reach and read!
Nor reck those lights, so distant over us,
Sublime, but helpless to the spirit's need
As the night-stars in heaven's vault! yet, thus,
Though the great asterisms mount and burn
In inaccessible glory,—this, its height
Has reached; but lingers on till light return,
Low in the sky, like frosty Sirius,
To snap and sparkle through the winter's night.

[XXIV. Each common object, too,—the house, the grove]

Each common object, too,—the house, the grove,
The street, the face, the ware in the window, seems
Alien and sad, the wreck of perished dreams;
Painfully present, yet remote in love
The day goes down in rain, the winds blow wide,
I leave the town; I climb the mountain-side;
Striving from stumps and stones to wring relief;
And in the senseless anger of my grief,
I rave and weep; I roar to the unmoved skies;
But the wild tempest carries away my cries!
Then back I turn to hide my face in sleep,
Again with dawn the same dull round to sweep,
And buy, and sell, and prate, and laugh, and chide,
As if she had not lived, or had not died.

[XXV. Small gossip, whispering at the window-pane]

Small gossip, whispering at the window-pane,
Finds reason still for aught beneath the sun
Answers itself ere answer shall be none,
And in the personal field delights to reign,
Meting to this, his grief, to that his gain;
And busy to detract, to head or hang!
Oh! wiser far, for him who lieth hid
Within himself,—secure, like him to stay,
Icesius' son; who, when the city rang,
Knew there was news abroad, nor wondered what.
If these conspire, why should I counterplot?
Or vex my heart with guessing whether or not
John went to church, or what my neighbour did
The day before, day before yesterday?

[XXVI. Yet from indifference may we hope for peace]

Yet from indifference may we hope for peace,
Or in inaction lose the sense of pain?
Joyless I stand, with vacant heart and brain,
And scarce would turn the hand, to be, or cease.
No onward purpose in my life seems plain:
To-day may end it, or to-morrow will;
Life still to be preserved, though worthless still,
A tear-dimmed face glassed in a gilded locket.
But Conscience, starting, with a reddening cheek,
Loud on the ear her homely message sends!
“Ere the sun plunge, determine; up! awake!
And for thy sordid being make amends:
Truth is not found by feeling in the pocket,
Nor Wisdom sucked from out the fingers' end!”

[XXVII. But the heart murmurs at so harsh a tone]

But the heart murmurs at so harsh a tone,
So sunk in tears it lies, so gone in grief,
With its own blood 'twould venture, far more lief,
Than underprize one drop of Sorrow's own
Or grudge one hour of mournful idleness.
To idle time indeed, to moan our moan,
And then go shivering from a folded gate,
Broken in heart and life, exheredate
Of all we loved! Yet some, from dire distress,
Accounting tears no loss, and grief no crime,
Have gleaned up gold, and made their walk sublime:
So he, poor wanderer in steps like theirs,
May find his griefs, though it must be with tears,
Gold grit and grail, washed from the sands of Time.

[XXVIII. Yet sometimes, with the sad respectant mind]

Yet sometimes, with the sad respectant mind,
We look upon lost hours of want and wail,
As on a picture, with contentment pale;
And even the present seems with voices kind
To soothe our sorrow, and the past endears;
Or like a sick man's happy trance appears,
When on the first soft waves of Slumber's calm:
And like a wreck that has outlived the gale,
No longer lifted by the wrenching billow,
He rides at rest; while from the distant dam,
Dim and far off, as in a dream, he hears
The pulsing hammer play,—or the vague wind
Rising and falling in the wayside willow:
Or the faint rustling of the watch beneath his pillow.

[XXIX. How oft in schoolboy-days, from the school's sway]

How oft in schoolboy-days, from the school's sway
Have I run forth to Nature as to a friend,—
With some pretext of o'erwrought sight, to spend
My school-time in green meadows far away!
Careless of summoning bell or clocks that strike
I marked with flowers the minutes of my day!
For still the eye that shrank from hated hours
Dazzled with decimal and dividend,
Knew each bleached alder root that plashed across
The bubbling brook, and every mass of moss
Could tell the month, too, by the vervain spike,
How far the ring of purple tiny flowers
Had climbed—just starting, may be, with the May,
Half-high, or tapering off at Summer's end.

[XXX Yet, even mid merry boyhood's tricks and scapes]

Yet, even mid merry boyhood's tricks and scapes,
Early my heart a deeper lesson learnt;
Wandering alone by many a mile of burnt
Black woodside, that but the snow flake decks and drapes.
And I have stood beneath Canadian sky,
In utter solitudes, where the cricket's cry
Appals the heart, and fear takes visible shapes;
And on Long Island's void and isolate capes
Heard the sea break like iron bars: and still,
In all, I seemed to hear the same deep dirge;
Borne in the wind, the insect's tiny trill,
And crash and jangle of the shaking surge;
And knew not what they meant, prophetic woe?
Dim bodings, wherefore? Now, indeed, I know!

[XXXI. My Anna ! when for thee my head was bowed]

My Anna ! when for thee my head was bowed,
The circle of the world, sky, mountain, main,
Drew inward to one spot; and now again
Wide Nature narrows to the shell and shroud
In the late dawn they will not be forgot,
And evenings early dark, when the low rain
Begins at nightfall, though no tempests rave,
I know the rain is falling on her grave;
The morning views it, and the sunset cloud
Points with a finger to that lonely spot;
The crops, that up the valley rolling go,
Ever towards her slumber bow and blow!
I look on the sweeping corn, and the surging rye,
And with every gust of wind my heart goes by.

[XXXII. Oh for the face and footstep! woods and shores]

Oh for the face and footstep! woods and shores
That looked upon us in life's happiest flush,
That saw our figures breaking from the brush,
That heard our voices calling through the bowers,
How are ye darkened! Deepest tears upgush
From the heart's heart: and, gathering more and more
Blindness, and strangling tears, as now before
Your shades I stand and find ye still so fair!
And thou, sad mountain stream! thy stretches steal
Through fern and flag, as when we gathered flowers
Along thy reeds and shallows cold; or where
Over the red reef, with a rolling roar
The woods, thro' glimmering gaps of green reveal,
Sideward, the River turning like a wheel.

[XXXIII. One still dark night, I sat alone and wrote]

One still dark night, I sat alone and wrote:
So still it was, that distant Chanticleer
Seemed to cry out his warning at my ear,
Save for the brooding echo in his throat.
Sullen I sat, when like the night wind's note,
A voice said, “Wherefore doth he weep and fear?
Doth he not know no cry to God is dumb?”
Another spoke: “His heart is dimmed and drowned
With grief.” I knew the shape that bended then
To kiss me; when suddenly I once again,
Across the watches of the starless gloom,
Heard the cock scream and pause; the morning bell,
Into the gulfs of Night, dropped One! the vision fell,
And left me listening to the sinking sound.

[XXXIV. My Anna! though thine earthly steps are done]

My Anna! though thine earthly steps are done;
Nor in the garden, nor beside the door,
Shall I behold thee standing any more,
I would not hide my face from light, nor shun
The full completion of this worldly day.
What though beside my feet no other one
May set her own, to walk the forward way?
I will not fear to take the path alone;
Loving, for thy sake, things that cheer and bless,
Kind words, pure deeds, and gentlest charities.
Nor will I cease to hold a hope and aim;
But, prophet-like, of these will make my bread,
And feed my soul at peace; as Esdras fed
On flowers, until the Vision and the glory came!

[XXXV. Nor all of solemn is my thought of her]

Nor all of solemn is my thought of her:
Though changed and glorified, must there not be
Place still for mirth, and innocent gayety,
And pure young hearts? Or do we gravely err,
And is their happiness too deep for joy?
It cannot be: the natural heart's employ
Pours praise as pure as any worshipper
Lost in his rite; too raptured to be gay!
Yes; and such service in its flight outstrips
The cries of suffering hearts that wail and bleed,
The groans of grief, wrung from some bitter need,
This is the faith I bear; and look indeed
To hear her laugh again,—and feel her lips
Kiss from my brow the heavy thoughts away.

[XXXVI. Farewell! farewell, O noble heart! I dreamed]

Farewell! farewell, O noble heart! I dreamed
That Time nor Death could from my side divorce
Thy fair young life, beside whose pure, bright course
My earthly nature stationary seemed;
Yet, by companionship, direction took,
And progress, as the bank runs with the brook.
Oh! round that mould which all thy mortal hath,
Our children's, and about my own sere path,
May these dim thoughts not fall as dry and vain,
But, fruitful as March-dust, or April rain,
Forerun the green! foretell the perfect day
Of restoration,—when in fields divine,
And walking as of old, thy hand in mine,
By the still waters we may softly stray!

[XXXVII. As Eponina brought, to move the king]

As Eponina brought, to move the king,
In the old day, her children of the tomb,
Begotten and brought forth in charnel gloom,—
To plead a father's cause; so I, too, bring
Unto thy feet, my Maker, tearfully,
These offspring of my sorrow; hidden long,
And scarcely able to abide the light.
May their deep cry inaudible, come to Thee
Clear, through the cloud of words, the sobs of song,
And, sharper than that other's pierce thine ears
That so, each thought, aim, utterance, dark or bright,
May find thy pardoning love; more blest than she
Who joyful passed with them to death and night,
With whom she had been buried nine long years!