A Child of the People And Other Poems. By James Chapman Woods |
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THE BIRTH OF A RIVER. |
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 | A Child of the People |  |
109
THE BIRTH OF A RIVER.
Girt with the mountains, his brothers, born more near to the prime,—
Are they not all one mother's,—Nature's, begotten of Time?—
The rivulet danced and chattered, tumbled the pebbles, his toys,
Pounded, piled them and scattered, just for the sake of the noise,—
Leapt on the ledge of crevasses, trilled to the tunes of the wind
Blown through the throats of the passes, heedless of meanings behind.
Still to her youngest clinging, the mother, majestic and mild,
Followed the sound of his singing, loth to be stern with her child,—
Spake at the last, “Wilt thou dally here in the fold of thy birth?
Girt with the hills is the valley; girdling the hills is the earth.
Little art thou, for Life still beginneth at least, to give space
For growth unto purpose and will; there can nothing stand long in one place.
The hills have grown taller, O stream; their height hath set props for the skies;
Dim are their brows as a dream; far wonders are seen of their eyes;
But far as they follow the light, thy gathering waters shall glide;
At the uttermost range of their sight thou first shalt come to thy pride!”
Are they not all one mother's,—Nature's, begotten of Time?—
The rivulet danced and chattered, tumbled the pebbles, his toys,
Pounded, piled them and scattered, just for the sake of the noise,—
Leapt on the ledge of crevasses, trilled to the tunes of the wind
Blown through the throats of the passes, heedless of meanings behind.
Still to her youngest clinging, the mother, majestic and mild,
Followed the sound of his singing, loth to be stern with her child,—
Spake at the last, “Wilt thou dally here in the fold of thy birth?
Girt with the hills is the valley; girdling the hills is the earth.
110
For growth unto purpose and will; there can nothing stand long in one place.
The hills have grown taller, O stream; their height hath set props for the skies;
Dim are their brows as a dream; far wonders are seen of their eyes;
But far as they follow the light, thy gathering waters shall glide;
At the uttermost range of their sight thou first shalt come to thy pride!”
Thither the stream's eyes strained where the brawny brothers stood,
With ermined necks that craned from shaggy shoulders of wood.
They were poets, these hills, with time for nought but the terribly far,—
Ragged, unkempt, sublime, and in love with the evening star.
They had forgotten the tale of the years they had yearned for her;
Their beards were matted with hail; the bristles were each a fir;
And when their hoary brows throbbed to behold her go,
An avalanche rent the boughs from the olive-bowers below.
Ah, then the trickling tears make seams in each rusty side,
And the restless chamois hears the shuddering crag-teeth gride,
And wails round the rocks are flung, from the caverns trumpeted,—
But the heart of the stream is strung to the height of the hoarest head!
With ermined necks that craned from shaggy shoulders of wood.
They were poets, these hills, with time for nought but the terribly far,—
Ragged, unkempt, sublime, and in love with the evening star.
They had forgotten the tale of the years they had yearned for her;
Their beards were matted with hail; the bristles were each a fir;
And when their hoary brows throbbed to behold her go,
111
Ah, then the trickling tears make seams in each rusty side,
And the restless chamois hears the shuddering crag-teeth gride,
And wails round the rocks are flung, from the caverns trumpeted,—
But the heart of the stream is strung to the height of the hoarest head!
“Hearken, you hills,” he carolled, “My brothers, why, stand you there
With limbs so foully apparelled, with heads so high in the air?
What a time you must have been growing! Do you never mean to have done?
Or, really there seems no knowing how soon you will hit the sun.
But why, when you live so near, do you shiver and seem so cold?
Is it pain, or the night-winds drear, or a palsy one has when old?
But I guess why your life so glooms; you have always stood so still;
They have cramps and stitches and rheums, whose youth leaps not with a will;
Mine now is a merrier day, but your sorrow has made me sage:
I also may have to pay for the pleasures of youth in age.
But what is the vision fair, wide-stretched to the far-off shore?
Is it cloudland everywhere, or a world to be wandered o'er?
Where fails your sight at the last? Though the rest of the world be dull,
Since there are my fortunes cast, oh, say it is beautiful!”
With limbs so foully apparelled, with heads so high in the air?
What a time you must have been growing! Do you never mean to have done?
Or, really there seems no knowing how soon you will hit the sun.
But why, when you live so near, do you shiver and seem so cold?
Is it pain, or the night-winds drear, or a palsy one has when old?
But I guess why your life so glooms; you have always stood so still;
They have cramps and stitches and rheums, whose youth leaps not with a will;
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I also may have to pay for the pleasures of youth in age.
But what is the vision fair, wide-stretched to the far-off shore?
Is it cloudland everywhere, or a world to be wandered o'er?
Where fails your sight at the last? Though the rest of the world be dull,
Since there are my fortunes cast, oh, say it is beautiful!”
Then the mountains spake to the stream in a soft sad voice but deep,
Though to us their words would seem but the roar of winds on the steep;—
“Will you not stay with us in the home we have made for you?
Ah, the sweet lays slumberous, and the vigils you never knew,
And the years we have cheered each other with thoughts of the happy time
When first you should stammer ‘Brother,’ and first to our shoulders climb!
But one is your heart with the rest of the brothers we erst have known:
The old may pine in the nest, but the fledglings will fly alone.
Alas that you ask us this! We nought that we know must hide;
So the word of the Mother is, of none of her sons defied.
When the star we love descends the last low stair of the sky,
And the new-roused sungod rends his night-long canopy,
And the phantom mists are furled, and the night's swart shadows flee,
Our eyes look over the world to the faint grey line of the sea;—
To the long white wall of wave, and tides round the earth that roll,
Where the rivers glide to a grave and drown in the infinite soul.
Oh, older than star or earth is the terrible, ageless main,—
The womb whence they sprang to birth,—the tomb that shall take them again!
Some well of innermost ocean hath the heart of life in it,
And the restless undulant motion is the pulse of her fever fit,
For the sea, indrawn in her sobs, its own drowned fields o'erstrides,
And ever we count the throbs by times of tyrannous tides.
Would you be waif in the whirl,—a drop in the driven deeps,—
Caught here in a torrent's swirl, tossed now from the roaring steeps,—
Is it this you would wander for,—must our old eyes watch you roam,
And drown at last on the shore? Oh, stay with us here at home!”
Though to us their words would seem but the roar of winds on the steep;—
“Will you not stay with us in the home we have made for you?
Ah, the sweet lays slumberous, and the vigils you never knew,
And the years we have cheered each other with thoughts of the happy time
When first you should stammer ‘Brother,’ and first to our shoulders climb!
But one is your heart with the rest of the brothers we erst have known:
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Alas that you ask us this! We nought that we know must hide;
So the word of the Mother is, of none of her sons defied.
When the star we love descends the last low stair of the sky,
And the new-roused sungod rends his night-long canopy,
And the phantom mists are furled, and the night's swart shadows flee,
Our eyes look over the world to the faint grey line of the sea;—
To the long white wall of wave, and tides round the earth that roll,
Where the rivers glide to a grave and drown in the infinite soul.
Oh, older than star or earth is the terrible, ageless main,—
The womb whence they sprang to birth,—the tomb that shall take them again!
Some well of innermost ocean hath the heart of life in it,
And the restless undulant motion is the pulse of her fever fit,
For the sea, indrawn in her sobs, its own drowned fields o'erstrides,
114
Would you be waif in the whirl,—a drop in the driven deeps,—
Caught here in a torrent's swirl, tossed now from the roaring steeps,—
Is it this you would wander for,—must our old eyes watch you roam,
And drown at last on the shore? Oh, stay with us here at home!”
Then the stream's heart leapt out straight to the goal of its wanderings,—
To the low-lying sand-locked gate where the great sea shallows, and sings
Of the mystery fathomless,—of the pendulous ebb and flow,—
Of the pain and the dull distress when the wing of a storm stoops low;
And then of the tide-swung bells in the palace of lazuli,
Where the god Poseidon dwells with old-world lords of the sea;—
Of the pomp and the proud array when the high god, dolphin-drawn,
Beats out the bounds of his sway on the edges of even and dawn;—
Of the blossoming wave whereof the wonderful foambell sprang,
The laughing mother of love, while the shell that she sailed in sang.
And he spake as one who speaks of a vision he seeth still,—
“Be it yours, O pale-blooded peaks, to pine for a star, an ye will!
Be it yours, in your frost-bitten fashion, to ponder and prate of the strife,
But I am thrilled with the passion and pulse of a measureless life.
For I in the storm would swing, o'ertopping the rack of the cloud,—
In the ranks of the surges spring toward the wild heights thunder-browed,—
Be one with effortless power, with limitless life be one:
Watch you for my victor hour with eyes on the first of the sun!”
And the rivulet slipped his tether, slid through a gorge, and was free;
And he and a wind together went forth to look for the sea.
To the low-lying sand-locked gate where the great sea shallows, and sings
Of the mystery fathomless,—of the pendulous ebb and flow,—
Of the pain and the dull distress when the wing of a storm stoops low;
And then of the tide-swung bells in the palace of lazuli,
Where the god Poseidon dwells with old-world lords of the sea;—
Of the pomp and the proud array when the high god, dolphin-drawn,
Beats out the bounds of his sway on the edges of even and dawn;—
115
The laughing mother of love, while the shell that she sailed in sang.
And he spake as one who speaks of a vision he seeth still,—
“Be it yours, O pale-blooded peaks, to pine for a star, an ye will!
Be it yours, in your frost-bitten fashion, to ponder and prate of the strife,
But I am thrilled with the passion and pulse of a measureless life.
For I in the storm would swing, o'ertopping the rack of the cloud,—
In the ranks of the surges spring toward the wild heights thunder-browed,—
Be one with effortless power, with limitless life be one:
Watch you for my victor hour with eyes on the first of the sun!”
And the rivulet slipped his tether, slid through a gorge, and was free;
And he and a wind together went forth to look for the sea.
| A Child of the People | |