University of Virginia Library

SONNETS 1860–1872

3. Part III

[Once on a day, alone but not elate]

Once on a day, alone but not elate,
I sat perusing a forgotten sage
And turning hopelessly a dim old page
Of history, long disused and out of date,
Reading “his Method” till I lost my own,
When suddenly there fell a gold presage
Of sunset sunshine on the letters thrown.
The day had been one cloud, but now a bird
Shot into song. I left my hermitage
With happy heart; but ere I reached the gate
The sun was gone, the bird, and bleak and drear
An all but icy breath the balsams stirred.
I turned again and, entering with a groan,
Sat darkly down to Dagoraus Whear.

[But Nature, in her mood, pushes or pulls]

But Nature, in her mood, pushes or pulls
At her caprice. We see what is not shown
By that which we behold; nor this alone;
To commonest matters let us fix a bound
Or purport, straight another use is found
And this annihilates and that annuls.
And every straw of grass, or dirt, or stone,
Has different function from the kind well-known:
Commerce and custom, dikes and watermills.
Not to the sea alone, from inland earth,
The stream draws down its freight of floats and hulls,
But backward far, upwinding to the north
The river gleams, a highway for the gulls
That fly not over land, into the hills.

[Yet not for him lifts the low weather cloud]

Yet not for him lifts the low weather cloud,
Not for his solace comes the clearing gale,
Who dreams but on himself, whose breath may fail
And leave no crown his due, no god his debtor;
Of his own gloom sole builder and begetter.
But Nature for thy mirth shall laugh aloud,
O trustful child who on her heart hast lain
In every flow of storm and fit of rain.
So let the day be wilder, windier, wetter,
It irks not thee nor bids thy fealty end,
Affection wasted and allegiance vain—
But rather seems like an embracing Friend
Who puts thee from him, but to view thee better,
And better so to fold thee close again.

[Thin little leaves of wood-fern, ribbed and toothed]

Thin little leaves of wood-fern, ribbed and toothed,
Long curved-sail needles of the green pitch-pine
And common sand-grass skirt the horizon line,
And over these the incorruptible blue.
Here let me gently lie and softly view
All world asperities, lightly touched and smoothed
As by his gracious hand, the great Bestower.
What though the year be late, some colours run
Yet through the dry, some links of melody.
Still let me be, by such, assuaged and soothed
And happier made—as when, our schoolday done,
We hunted on, from flower to frosty flower,
Tattered and dim the last red butterfly,
Or the old grasshopper molasses-mouthed.

[How well do I recall that walk in state]

How well do I recall that walk in state
Across the Common, by the paths we knew:
Myself in silver badge and riband blue,
My little sister with her book and slate;
The elm tree by the Pond, the fence of wood,
The burial place that at the corner stood
Where once we crossed, through the forbidden gate,
The stones that grudg'd us way, the graveside weed,
The ominous wind that turned us half about!
Smit by the flying drops, at what a speed
Across the paths, unblessed and unforgiven
We hurried homeward when the day was late
And heard, with awe that left no place for doubt,
God's anger mutter in the darkened heaven.

[I looked across the rollers of the deep]

I looked across the rollers of the deep,
Long land-swells, ropes of weed, and riding foam,
With bitter angry heart. Did I not roam
Ever like these? And what availeth sleep?
Or wakefulness? or pain? And still the sea
Rustled and sang, “Alike! and one to me!”
Ay! once I trod these shores too happily,
Murmuring my gladness to the rocks and ground
And, while the wave broke loud on ledge and reef,
Whispered it in the pause, like one who tells
His heart's dream and delight! And still the sea
Went back and forth upon its bar of shells,
Washed and withdrew, with a soft shaling sound,
As though the wet were dry and joy were grief.

[O rest divine! O golden certainty]

O rest divine! O golden certainty
Of love, when love's half smile, illumining pain,
Bade all bright things immutable remain!
Dreaming I stand, the low brook drawling by,
Her flowerlike mien, her mountain step to mark.
Oh, I recall when her least look again
Could mar the music in my happy mind
And plunge me into doubt, her faintest sigh
Stir all the fixéd pillars of my heaven,
Commingling them in mist and stormy dark
And all together, as I have seen the rain,
When the whole shower is swinging in the wind
And like a mighty pendulum urged and driven,
Beat back and forth between the earth and sky.

[As one turned round on some high mountain top]

As one turned round on some high mountain top
Views all things as they are, but out of place,
Reversing recognition, so I trace
Dimly those dreams of youth and love and stop
Blindly; for in such mood landmarks and ways
That we have trodden all our lives and know
We seem not to have known and cannot guess:
Like one who told his footsteps over to me
In the opposite world and where he wandered through
Whilst the hot wind blew from the sultry north—
Forests that give no shade and bottomless
Sands where the plummet sinks as in the sea,
Saw the sky struck by lightning from the earth,
Rain salt like blood, and flights of fiery snow.

[But into order falls our life at last]

But into order falls our life at last,
Though in the retrospection jarred and blent:
Broken ambition, love misplaced or spent
Too soon, and slander busy with the past;
Sorrows too sweet to lose, or vexing joy.
But time will bring oblivion of annoy
And silence bind the blows that words have lent;
And we will dwell, unheeding love or fame,
Like him who has outlived a shining name;
And peace will come, as evening comes to him,
No leader now of men, no longer proud
But poor and private, watching the sun's rim,
Contented too to fade as yonder cloud
Dim fades and, as the sun fades, fading likewise dim.

[Sometimes I walk where the deep water dips]

Sometimes I walk where the deep water dips
Against the land. Or on where fancy drives
I walk and muse aloud, like one who strives
To tell his half-shaped thought with stumbling lips,
And view the ocean sea, the ocean ships,
With joyless heart. Still but myself I find
And restless phantoms of my restless mind:
Only the moaning of my wandering words,
Only the wailing of the wheeling plover,
And this high rock beneath whose base the sea
Has wormed long caverns, like my tears in me:
And hard like this I stand, and beaten and blind,
This desolate rock with lichens rusted over,
Hoar with salt-sleet and chalkings of the birds.

[Long Island! Yes! When first my vision swept]

Long Island! Yes! When first my vision swept
Thy far faint shores with inlet and lagoon
Or misty woodflats, where the senses swoon
As in that land where Christian sank and slept,
I thought of him; and then when in the rain
We reached the Inn; and when I heard them speak
Of Fire Place at hand and Devil's Neck
And Good Ground and Mount Sinai west away,
As in a dream I seemed to tread again
The Pilgrim's steps and trace the Heavenly Way.
But there sat Happy Jack, with dumb Rejoice,
Red Ike the hostler with his whistling voice,
And an old man I called Legality . . .
Craftily quaint the tale he told to me.

[“Young Silas Long, a carrier through these woods]

“Young Silas Long, a carrier through these woods,
Drove home one night in not the best of moods,
Having just seen a drowned man flung ashore
With a strange feather cap. And once before,
When he was hauling seine in Southold Bay
About this time of year, a seaman's corse
Washed up, with such a cap and such a face,
And it had brought misfortune on the place.
Pondering he drove; when lo, across the way
He saw, too late, that there a body lay,
Felt the wheels tilt but could not stop his horse
Or not at once, then—flinging with a slap
The old cloth cover down he called a cap—
Ran back, ten steps or more, and nothing found . . .

[“Yes, the dead pines and deersfoot on the ground]

“Yes, the dead pines and deersfoot on the ground,—
So quick returned again in five or six.
His cap was gone and in its stead thrown down
The very loon-skin the twice-drowned had on,
With bits of seaweed sticking to the flix.
So Long rode home, of cap and sense bereft,
But still can show the dead man's that was left,
And the webs crawl, he says, when the sea rolls.”
Then he, having told his tale and said his say,
By way of emphasis or corollary
Spat a torpedo in the bed of coals.
“And what, what, what,” squealed Ike, “became of Long's?”
But the old man here rose and reached the tongs,
Laid fire to his pipe and phewed away.

[An episode: yet with a relish rank]

An episode: yet with a relish rank
Of wild sea places—or of life indeed—
Where yet we find unstirred the secret seed
Of song or story marvellous, and thank
The sailor for his jest and manners rude.
More welcome, too, the old-fashioned fireside,
The beach of devils' aprons at low tide,
Than scandal bleeding-new or journal dank.
Here did my dreaming childhood, listening, brood
On tales of wind and shipwreck; journeyings made
Island or inland; peaks at sea descried
Shaped like a wave, a table or a tooth:
Old Peter Batte, that should be Pitherbooth,
Gibraltar's or the grim Rock of Visgrade.

[But we are set to strive to make our mark]

But we are set to strive to make our mark
And scarcely pause to plead for any play
Nor think that any hour of any day
Writes its own record down in chalk or chark,
For all we falsely claim and blindly say,
“I am the Truth, the Life too and the Way.”
It stands, a word to comfort and appal,
A summons grave and sweet, a warning stark.
But death and dread responsibility
I hardly fear tonight or feel at all—
Watching my fancy gleam, now bright, now dark,
As snapping from the brands a single spark
Splits in a spray of sparkles ere it fall,
And the long flurrying flame that shoots to die.

Part IV

[Still, like a city, seated on a height]

Still, like a city, seated on a height
Appears my soul, and gathered in her place:
Whilst, faintly hovering, swarm about her base,
Still nearer drawing with the nearer night,
Dim cloudlike groups of men and groups of horse,
Outposts and riders of some mightier Force
That lies along the hills; while from them thrown
Rise shadowing shafts with storms of summoning stone,
And the bolt falleth where the cross-bolt fell;
Till doubt contends with hope, and fear conspires
To thwart them both: so that the soul retires
Even to her inmost keep and citadel
And views along the horizon darkening far,
Vague tumult, lights of woe, and moving war.

[But thought, like a mailed archer helmed and tall]

But thought, like a mailed archer helmed and tall,
Treads ever on the outward battlement,
Striving to pierce—through embrasure and rent—
The secret of the gloom that girdleth all,
The immeasurable gulf and interval,
Nor heeds the random showers about him sent;
But whilst the cloudy squadrons tramp and wheel,
Busy with weight and bar and implement
He casteth where to make his missiles fall—
Training his engine now, now lower, now higher,
As a strong archer sets his bow of steel.
Yet some may pass like meteors to the mark
Of those blind ventures loosed into the dark:
So swift the arrow flies, it taketh fire.

[And thus the mind by its own impulse deep]

And thus the mind by its own impulse deep,
As lightning instantly enlighteneth,
May cleave the shades of sin, the shapes of death
That pace it round all day and never sleep,
That watch the wall all night and pace it round—
Yet not its own. In man's extremity
God lends the light we use, the strength we keep.
So let us use that light, that we may be
Oh, not perhaps with others throned and crowned
But at the last in white arrayment found,—
So daily use it, that the mystery
Of life be touched: in cloud and wind and tree,
In human faces that about us dwell,
And the deep soul that knoweth heaven and hell.

[Yes, pray thy God to give, whate'er thou art]

Yes, pray thy God to give, whate'er thou art,
Some work to be by thee with reverence wrought:
Some trumpet note obeyed, some good fight fought,
Ere thou lay down thy weapons and depart.
Brood on thyself, until thy lamp be spent;
Bind all thy force to compass and invent;
But shun the reveries of voluptuous thought,
Day-musings, the floralia of the heart
And vain imaginations: else may start
Beside the portal of thy tower or tent,
Rending thy trance with dissonant clang and jar,
A summons that shall drive thee wild to hear—
Loud, as when in the dreaming conqueror's ear
Antigenidas blew a point of war.

[Yet some there be, believers for the nonce]

Yet some there be, believers for the nonce,
Who God's commands unwelcomely obey.
Lost in the path, they keep the heavenward way
But trip at absolute heaven and drop at once
In the red gulf. Not so do thou essay
To snatch the splendour and to see the thrones.
Take patience, hope, nor miserably mourn.
If evil sneereth, yet abides the good.
And even could we look where the white ones wait
Nigh before God and for a moment scan
The angelic faces, even though we stood
In audience of their voices, could we learn
More than 'tis love that lifts us near their state,
And the dear fellow aid of man to man?

[And two I knew, an old man and a boy]

And two I knew, an old man and a boy,
Alternate helpers: for their day was spent
In gathering forest bark; and when they went
Late home, the elder did his time employ
To teach the other and tell him what he knew
Of history, myth, or mathematics hard,
In hours of night and, when the night was dark,
Showed him Job's Coffin, and the Golden Yard,
Showed the nine moonstars in the moonless blue,
And the great Circle of the Bestiary;
So that the child grew up to love the sky
And, in the woods beyond the hemlock bark,
To heed the intricate moss that o'er it grew,
The shadowy flower all wet with all-day dew.

[But war his overturning trumpet blew]

But war his overturning trumpet blew.
And in that scattering blast, the knot was rent
That held them: one his faint steps northward bent,
The younger the blind lot of battle drew;
And all seemed well, no cause for tears or joy;
But tidings came or else, of these in lieu,
A written word: a hand, though rough to see,
The old man loved, for he had taught the boy.
At length all ceased: the last one was the last;
But still he read and with a fond belief
Weighed each, as 'twere to find some link or clue.
It never came,—but days the old man passed
Pondering upon the letters wistfully,
Silent, and with the fiery eye of grief.

[Nor strange it is, to us who walk in bonds]

Nor strange it is, to us who walk in bonds
Of flesh and time, if virtue's self awhile
Gleam dull like sunless ice; whilst graceful guile—
Blood-flecked like hamatite or diamonds
With a red inward spark—to reconcile
Beauty and evil seems and corresponds
So well with good that the mind joys to have
Full wider jet and scope nor swings and sleeps
Forever in one cradle wearily:
Like those vast weeds that off d'Acunha's isle
Wash with the surf and flap their mighty fronds
Mournfully to the dipping of the wave,
Yet cannot be disrupted from their deeps
By the whole heave and settle of the sea.

[Here, where the red man swept the leaves away]

Here, where the red man swept the leaves away
To dig for cordial bark or cooling root,
The wayside apple drops its surly fruit.
Right through the deep heart of his midmost wood,
Through range and river and swampy solitude,
The common highway landward runs today,
The train booms by with long derisive hoot
And, following fast, rise factory, school and forge.
I heed them not; but where yon alders shoot,
Searching strange plants to medicine my mood—
With a quick savage sense I stop, or stray
Through the brush pines and up the mountain gorge:
With patient eye, and with as safe a foot,
As though I walked the wood with sagamore George.

[Hast thou seen reversed the prophet's miracle]

Hast thou seen reversed the prophet's miracle—
The worm that, touched, a twig-like semblance takes?
Or hast thou mused what giveth the craft that makes
The twirling spider at once invisible,
And the spermal odour to the barberry flower,
Or heard the singing sand by the cold coast foam,
Or late—in inland autumn groves afar—
Hast thou ever plucked the little chick-winter-green star
And tasted the sour of its leaf? Then come
With me betimes, and I will show thee more
Than these, of nature's secrecies the least:
In the first morning, overcast and chill,
And in the day's young sunshine, seeking still
For earliest flowers and gathering to the east.

Part V

[But Nature where she gives must give in kind]

But Nature where she gives must give in kind,
Grant to the rich and from the poor withhold;
And much that we in manifest behold
Is faint to some, while other some still find
Truths—that to our sense are veiled and furled—
Published as light, notorious as wind.
But the old Mother moves about her fire,
Replenishes its flame and feeds the world
And so fulfils her births and offices—
Causal or consequential cares not she
Or ortive or abortive: her desire
Is but to serve, and her necessity.
The invention and authority are His,
In the whole past or what remains to be....

[Nor, though she seem to cast with backward hand]

Nor, though she seem to cast with backward hand
Strange measure, sunny cold or cloudy heat,
Or break with stamping rain the farmer's wheat,
Yet in such waste no waste the soul descries,
Intent to glean by barrenest sea and land.
For whoso waiteth, long and patiently,
Will see a movement stirring at his feet—
If he but wait nor think himself much wise.
Nay, for the mind itself a glimpse will rest
Upon the dark; summoning from vacancy
Dim shapes about his intellectual lamp,
Calling these in and causing him to see;
As the night-heron wading in the swamp
Lights up the pools with her phosphoric breast.

[And yet tonight, when summer-daylight dies]

And yet tonight, when summer-daylight dies,
I crossed the fields against the summer-gust
And with me, rising from my feet like dust,
A crowd of flea-like grasshoppers, like flies
Presaging dry and dry continuance; yet
Where they prefigure change, all signals must
Fail in the dry when they forebode the wet....
I know not. All tonight seemed mystery:
From the full fields that pressed so heavily,
The burden of the blade, the waste of blowth,
The twinkling of the smallest life that flits—
To where, and all unconsciously, he sits:
My little boy, symbolling eternity,
Like the god Brahma, with his toe in his mouth.

[But man finds means, grant him but place and room]

But man finds means, grant him but place and room,
To gauge the depths and views a wonder dawn,
Sees all the worlds in utmost space withdrawn
In shape and structure like a honeycomb,
Locates his sun and grasps the universe
Or to their bearings bids the orbs disperse;
Now seems to stand like that great angel girt
With moon and stars; now, sick for shelter even,
Craves but a roof to turn the thunder-rain—
Or finds his vaunted reach and wisdom vain,
Lost in the myriad meaning of a word,
Or starts at its bare import, panic-stirred:
For earth is earth or hearth or dearth or dirt,
The sky heaved over our faint heads is heaven.

[Where will the ladder land? Who knows?—who knows]

Where will the ladder land? Who knows?—who knows?
He who would seize the planet zone by zone
As on a battle-march, for use alone,
Nor stops for visionary wants and woes
But like the Bruce's, on, his heart he throws
And leaves behind the dreamer and the drone?
Great is his work indeed, his service great,
Who seeks for Nature but to subjugate,
Break and bereave, build upward and create
And, hampering her, to carry, heave and drag
Points to results,—towns, cables, cars and ships.
Whilst I in dim green meadows lean and lag,
He counts his course in truth by vigorous steps,
By steps of stairs; but I add crag to crag.

[Licentiate of the schools, with knowledge hot]

Licentiate of the schools, with knowledge hot,
A stranger hither came—our dames to frighten—
Who talked to us of Christ, the Sybil's grot,
Glanced at Copernick, though he knew him not,
And showed us hell and where the blest abide.
“The stars,” he said, “that round the North-star glide—
For there is heaven—tell nightly as they brighten.”
“But do they move?” I said. “Or is it so?”
He answered tranquilly, “We see they do.”
It was enough. The crowd was satisfied,
And I was hushed—yet felt my colour heighten.
Was he a knave, a coxcomb, or a clown,
Who stooping thus, our ignorance to enlighten,
Ended by so illuminating his own?

[That night the town turned out and crammed the hall]

That night the town turned out and crammed the hall.
And I, perhaps maliciously, made one
To hear the lecture: I, who went to none,
And an old friend with me, who went to all.
But vain it were that thesis to recall,
A rant of phrase and metaphor blundered through
And meaning not or how, when ended quite
And poetry had closed what prayer begun,
Strong men were touched to tears and bright lips grew
Breathless with praise. But my companion
Spoke not, or spoke with satire grave and arch:
“We scarce had had such learning and such light
Since he, the Yankee schoolmaster, last March
Came from Nine Partners to Illyria down.”

[A garden lodge, shut in with quaintest growth]

A garden lodge, shut in with quaintest growth,
A slender girl with still kine pasturing near,
And bright look half-expectant—need I fear
Thus to recall that morning when we both
Rode on to the wide city, loud and drear?
Yes, in the shock and tumult hurrying here,
Let me remind thee of that place of peace:
The maiden's smile, the look of happy doubt.
Nor in the stream of things, do thou too fail
Still to remember me of more than these:—
The little valley hidden in the pine,
The low-built cottage buried in the vale,
Wooded and over-wooded, bushed about
With holm tree, ople tree, and sycamine.

[For these, my friend, were but the foldings fair]

For these, my friend, were but the foldings fair,
The furling leaves about the jewel-flower,
The shade that lent her beauty half its dower,—
The beauty that made rich the shadow there,
Touching all objects with transfiguring power:
The housedog at the door, the village school,
The village in the hills, the hills of Ule. . .
(And thou, Aurania, with thy brow of pearl,
So loved from all the world, didst overrule
All time, all thought, in thy sweet kingdom, girl!) . . .
Through the slow weeks my fancy found but her
And day by day at dusk and dawn-break cool.
All the long moonlight nights I dreamed of Ule
And in the dark half of the months my heart was there.

[A poet's moonshine! Yes, for love must lend]

A poet's moonshine! Yes, for love must lend
Answer to reason, though 'tis bitter breath.
Better wild roses died their natural death
Than evilly or idly them to rend.
The girl was fair as flower the moon beneath,
Gentle and good, and constant to her friend,
Yet out of her own place, not so complete:
Was wedded to her kind—had leave to lack,
But old associations rarely slip.
Tight as a stem of grass within its sheath,
You yet may draw and nibble, touch the sweet
With the tip tongue and browse the tender end
Half-vacantly; but not to be put back,
Or swallowed in, but sputtered from the lip.

[Another. Opposite as sky and lands]

Another. Opposite as sky and lands,
As distant too, thy beauty gleams on me.
Bend downward from thy heaven of chastity
And I will reach with earthy flickering hands.
For I am grim and stained, thou white and shrined.
'Tis better so. No common love our doom,
Half-nursed, half-forced, in common cold and gloom—
But quick, convulsively, our souls shall strike
And, in the dance of life, tumultuous wind
Like fresh and salt indeed. O thus may we
Join instantly, like to the cloud and sea
In whirling pillar!—nor meet in darkness like
Stalactite and stalagmite, ignorantly
Nearing each other, slow and of one kind.

['Twas granted. But the bitter god of love]

'Twas granted. But the bitter god of love,
As in revenge for some disparagement,
Left us to strive, inextricably blent,
Before we knew in truth for what we strove,
Or why we went, unwillingly, who went,
Or whither driven, or who he was that drove.
The countless haps that draw vague heart to heart,
The countless hands that push true hearts apart,
Of these we nothing recked and nothing knew.
The wonder of the world, the faint surmise,
The clouded looks of hate, the harrowing eyes,
But pierced and pinned together: 'twas one to us.
With the same arrow smitten through and through,
We fell, like Phadimus and Tantalus.

[A wash of rippling breath that just arrives]

A wash of rippling breath that just arrives,
Thin yellow tufts shattering and showering down
And, underfoot and all about me blown,
Thin yellow tufts and threads, bunches of fives:
Too curiously I note each lightest thing.
But where are they, my friends whose fair young lives
Gave these dead bowers the freshness of the spring?
Gone! And save tears and memory, all is gone . . .
Fate robs us not of these nor death deprives.
But when will Nature here new beauty bring
Or thou behold those faces gathering? . . .
I mark the glimmering moss that yet survives,
I touch the trees, I tread the shedded shives,—
But when will come the new awakening?

[And me my winter's task is drawing over]

And me my winter's task is drawing over,
Though night and winter shake the drifted door.
Critic or friend, dispraiser or approver,
I come not now nor fain would offer more.
But when buds break and round the fallen limb
The wild weeds crowd in clusters and corymb,
When twilight rings with the red robin's plaint,
Let me give something—though my heart be faint—
To thee, my more than friend!—believer! lover! . . .
The gust has fallen now, and all is mute—
Save pricking on the pane the sleety showers,
The clock that ticks like a belated foot,
Time's hurrying step, the twanging of the hours . . .
Wait for those days, my friend, or get thee fresher flowers.

[Let me give something!—though my spring be done]

Let me give something!—though my spring be done,
Give to the children, ere their summertime!
Though stirred with grief, like rain let fall my rhyme
And tell of one whose aim was much: of one
Whose strife was this, that in his thought should be
Some power of wind, some drenching of the sea,
Some drift of stars across a darkling coast,
Imagination, insight, memory, awe,
And dear New England nature first and last,—
Whose end was high, whose work was well-begun:
Of one who from his window looked and saw
His little hemlocks in the morning sun,
And while he gazed, into his heart almost
The peace that passeth understanding, passed.

[Let me give something!—as the years unfold]

Let me give something!—as the years unfold,
Some faint fruition, though not much, my most:
Perhaps a monument of labour lost.
But Thou, who givest all things, give not me
To sink in silence, seared with early cold,
Frost-burnt and blackened, but quick fire for frost!—
As once I saw at a houseside, a tree
Struck scarlet by the lightning, utterly
To its last limb and twig. So strange it seemed,
I stopped to think if this indeed were May.
And were those windflowers?—or had I dreamed? . . .
But there it stood, close by the cottage eaves,
Red-ripened to the heart: shedding its leaves
And autumn sadness on the dim spring day.