The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan :: :: University of Virginia Library

As a pine-log prostrate lying,
Slowly thro' its knotted skin
Feels the warm revivifying
Spring-time thrill and tremble in;
As a pine-log, strong and massive,
Feels the light and lieth passive,
While a Sunbeam, coming daily,
Creeps upon its bosom gaily;
Warms the bark with quick pulsations,
Warms and waits each day in patience,
While the green begins to brighten,
And the sap begins to heighten,—

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Till at last from its hard bosom
Suddenly there slips a blossom
Green as emerald!—then another!
Then a third! then more and more!
Till the soft green bud-knots smother
What was sapless wood before;
Till the thing is consecrated
To the spirit of the Spring,
Till the love for all things fated
Burns and beautifies the thing;—
And the wood-doves sit and con it,
And the squirrels from on high
Fluttering drop their nuts upon it,
And the bee and butterfly
Find it pleasant to alight there,
And taps busy morn and night there
Many a bird with golden beak;
Till, since all has grown so bright there,
It would cry (if Logs could speak),
‘Sunbeam, sunbeam, I'm your debtor!
I was fit for firewood nearly.
I'm considerably better,
And I love you, Sunbeam, dearly!’

. . . Thou, Eureka, wast the wood!
She, the Sunbeam of the Spring,
Vivifying thy dull blood
Past thy mind's imagining!
Till the passion of her loving,
Seething forth with ardours frantic,
Brought the buds forth, set thee moving,
Made thee almost look romantic.

‘O would some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!’
Sang the wise ploughman in his power.
And yet, Eureka, had sweet Heaven
To thee her wondrous ‘giftie’ given
To see thyself as seen that hour,
To know thy features as she knew them,
To see thy shape as she perceived it;
To see thine eyes, and thro' and thro’ them,
Into thy Soul as she conceived it;
Either thy blood had run mad races,
And driven thee to some maniac action;
Or (what more likely in the case is)
Thy wits had frozen to stupefaction!

For never god in olden story,
When the gods had honour due,
Gather'd brighter guise and glory,
In an adoring mortal's view.
Let me own it, though thy nature
Was sedate and beaver-bred,
As a god thou wert in stature,
Fair of face and proud of tread;
And thine eyes were luminous glasses,
And thy face a glorious scroll,
And the radiant light that passes
O'er the dumb flowers and the grasses,
Caught thy gaze and look'd like Soul;
And the animal vibration
Throbbing in thee at her touch,
The wild earthly exaltation,
Beasts and birds can feel as much,
Radiating and illuming
Every fibre of thy flesh,
Made thee beautiful and blooming,
Great and glorious, fair and fresh;
Fit it seem'd for love to yearn to,
For a fairer Soul than thine,
Morning, noon, and night to burn to,
In a flash that felt divine.
Her tall white chief, whom God had brought her
From the far-off Big-Sea Water!
Her warrior of the pale races,
With wise tongues and paintless faces;
More than mortal, a great creature,
Soft of tongue, and fine of feature;
As the wind that blew above her
O'er the hunting-fields of azure,
As the stately clouds that hover
In the air that pants for pleasure,
Full of strength and motion stately,
Were thy face and form unto her;
And thy blue eyes pleased her greatly,
And thy clear voice trembled thro' her;
And for minute after minute
She did pore upon thy face,
Read the lines and guess within it
The great spirit of thy race;
And thou seemedst altogether
A great creature, fair of skin,
Born in scenes of softer weather,
Nobler than her savage kin!

As a peasant maiden homely
Might regard some lordly wooer,
Find each feature trebly comely
From the pride it stoops unto her;
Thus, Eureka, she esteem'd thee
Fairer for thy finer blood;
She revered thee, loved thee, deem'd thee
Wholly beautiful and good!
And her day-dream ne'er was broken,
As some mortal day-dreams are,

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By a word or sentence spoken
In thy coarse vernacular.
For she could not speak a dozen
Words as used by the white nation!
And thy speech seem'd finely chosen,
Since she made her own translation,
Scarce a syllable quite catching,
Yet, upon thy bosom leaning,
Out of ever sentence snatching
Music with its own sweet meaning.

Powers above! the situation's
Psychological, I swear!
How express the false relations
Of this strange-assorted pair?
Happy, glorious, self-deluded,
On the handsome face she brooded,
Ne'er by word or gesture driven
From her day-dream sweet as heaven.
In her native language for him
She had warrior's names most sweet:
And she loved and did adore him,
Falling fawn-like at his feet;
More, the rapturous exultation
Struck him! blinded him, in turn!
Till with passionate sensation
Body and brain began to burn;—
And he yielded to the bursting,
Burning, blinding, hungering, thirsting,
Passion felt by beasts and men!
And his eyes caught love and rapture,
And he held her close in capture,
Kissing lips—that kiss'd again!

III. Nuptial Song.

Where were they wedded? In no Temple of ice
Built up by human fingers;
The floor was strewn with flowers of fair device,
The wood-birds were the singers.

Who was the Priest? The priest was the still Soul,
Calm, gentle, and low-spoken;
He read a running brooklet like a scroll,
And trembled at the token.

What was the service? 'Twas the service read
When Adam's faith was plighted!
The tongue was silent, but the lips rose-red
In silence were united.

Who saw it done? The million starry eyes
Of one ecstatic Heaven.
Who shared the joy? The flowers, the trees, the skies
Thrill'd as each kiss was given.

Who was the Bride? A spirit strong and true,
Beauteous to human seeing,—
Soft elements of flesh, air, fire, and dew,
Blent in one Rose of being.

What was her consecration? Innocence!
Pure as the wood-doves round her,
Nothing she knew of rites—the strength intense
Of God and Nature found her.

As freely as maids give a lock away,
She gave herself unto him.
What was the Bridegroom? Clay, and common clay,
Yet the wild joy slipt through him.

Hymen, O Hymen! By the birds was shed
A matrimonial cadence!
Da nuces! Squirrels strew'd the nuts, instead
Of rosy youths and maidens!

Eureka, yea, Eureka was to blame—
He was an erring creature:
Uncivilised by one wild flash of flame
He waver'd back on Nature.

He kiss'd her lips, he drank her breath in bliss,
He drew her to his bosom:
As a clod kindles at the Spring's first kiss
His being burst to blossom!

Who rung the bells? The breeze, the merry breeze,
Set all in bright vibration:
Clear, sweet, yet low, there trembled through the trees
The nuptial jubilation!

IV. Arretez!

O'er this joy I dare not linger:
Stands a Shape with lifted finger
Crying in a low voice, ‘Singer!
Far too much of Eve and Adam.

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‘Details of this dark connection
I desire not for inspection!’
And the Bard, with genuflexion,
Answers, ‘I obey thee, Madam!’

Stands the Moral Shape reproving,
While I linger o'er this loving;
Cries the voice, ‘Pass on! be moving!
We are virtuous, here to nor'ward!’

Constable, I force cessation
To my flood of inspiration;
Such a theme for adumbration!
I resign it, and move forward.

V. The Farewell.

Love, O love! thou bright and burning
Weathercock for ever turning;
Gilded vane, fix'd for our seeing
On the highest spire of being;
Symbol, indication; reeling
Round to every wind of feeling;
Only pointing some sad morrow,
In one sudden gust of sorrow,
Sunset-ward, where redly, slowly,
Passion sets in melancholy.

In the wood-ways, roof'd by heaven,
Were the nuptial kisses given;
In the dark green, moonbeam-haunted
Forest; in the bowers enchanted
Where the fiery specks are flying,
And the whip-poor-will is crying;
Where the heaven's open blue eye
Thro' the boughs broods dark and dewy,
And the white magnolia glimmers
Back the light in starry tremors;
Where the acacia in the shady
Silence trembles like a lady
Scented sweet and softly breathing;
There, amid the brightly wreathing,
Blooming branches, did they capture
Love's first consecrated rapture.

Pure she came to him, a maiden
Innocent as Eve in Eden,
Tho' in secret; for she dreaded
Wrath of kinsmen tiger-headed,
In whose vision, fierce and awful,
Love for white men was unlawful.
Yet in this her simple reason
Knew no darker touch of treason
Than dost thou, O white and dainty
English maid of sweet-and-twenty,
When from guardian, father, brother,
[Harsh protectors, one or t'other,]
Off you trip, self-handed over
To your chosen lord and lover,
Tears of love and rapture shedding
In the hush of secret wedding.

Now from these lost days Elysian,
Modestly I drop my vision!
Rose the wave supreme and splendid,
To a tremulous crest, and ended,
Falling, falling, one sad morrow,
In a starry spray of sorrow.

Whether 'twas by days or hours,
Weeks or months, in those bright bowers,
They their gladness counted,—whether
Like the one day's summer weather
At the pole, their bliss upstarted,
Brighten'd, blacken'd, and departed,—
I relate not; all my story
Is, that soon or late this glory
Fell and faded. After daylight
Came an eve of sad and gray light;
There were tears—wild words were spoken
Down the cup was dash'd, and broken.

First came danger,—eyeballs fiery
Watch'd the pair in fierce inquiry;
Secret footsteps dodged the lovers;
As a black hawk slowly hovers
O'er the spot amid the heather
Where the gray birds crouch together,
Hung Suspicion o'er the places
Where they sat with flaming faces.
Next came—what d'ye call the dreary
Heavy-hearted thing and weary,
In old weeds of joy bedizen'd?
By the shallow French 'tis christen'd
Ennui! Ay, the snake that grovels
In a host of scrofulous novels,
Leper even of the leprous
Race of serpents vain and viprous,
Bred of slimy eggs of evil,
Sat on by the printer's devil,
Last, to gladden absinthe-lovers,
Born by broods in paper covers!

After the great wave of madness,
Ennui came; and tho' in gladness
Still the Indian maiden's nature
Clung round the inferior creature,

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Though with burning, unconsuming,
Deathless love her heart was blooming,
He grew weary, and his passion
In a dull evaporation
Slowly lessen'd, till caressing
Grew distracting and distressing.
Conscience waken'd in a fever,
Just a day too late, as ever;
He remember'd, one fine day,
His relations far away.

All the beavers! the deceiver!
After all, he was a beaver
Born and bred, tho' the unchanging
Dash of wild blood kept him ranging;
Beaver-conscience, now awaken'd,
Since the first true bliss had slacken'd,
Whisper'd with a sad affection,
‘Fie! it is a strange connection!
Is it worthy? Can it profit?
Sits the world approving of it?’
While another whisper said,
‘You're a white man! She is red!’
Ne'ertheless he seem'd to love her,
Watch'd her face and bent above her,
Fondly thinking, ‘Now, I wonder
If the world would blame my blunder?
If her skin were only whiter,
If her manners were politer,
I would take her with me nor'ward,
Wed her, cling to her thenceforward,
Clothe her further, just a tittle,
Live respectable and settle!’
She was silent, as he brooded
Handsome-faced and beaver-mooded,
Thinking, ‘Now my chief is seeming
Where the fires of fight are streaming!
O, how great and grand his face is,
Lit with light of the pale races!’
And she bent her brows before him,
Kiss'd his hands, and did adore him,
And she waited in deep duty;
While her eyes of dazzling beauty,
Like two jewels ever streaming
Broken yet unceasing rays,
Watch'd him as in beaver-dreaming
He would walk in the green ways.

Still he seem'd to her a splendid
Creature, but his trance had ended;
More and more, thro' ever seeing
Red skins round him, he lost patience,
More and more the hybrid being
Sigh'd for civilised relations;
For Eureka Hart, tho' wholly
Of a common social mind,
Narrow-natured, melancholy,
Hated ties of any kind;—
Yet if any tie could hold him
To a place or to a woman,
'Twould be one the world had told him
Was respectable and common.
Here, then, hemm'd in by a double
Dark dilemma, he found trouble,
And with look a Grecian painter
Would have given to a god,
Feeling passion still grow fainter,
Thought, ‘I reckon things look odd!
Wouldn't Parson Pendon frown,
If he knew, in Drowsietown?’

As he spoke he saw the village
Rising up with tilth and tillage,
Saw the smithy, like an eye
Flaming bloodshot at the sky,
Saw the sleepy river flowing,
Saw the swamps burn in the sun,
Saw the people coming, going,
All familiar, one by one.
‘There the plump old Parson goes,
Silver buckles on his toes.
Broad-brimm'd beaver on his head,
Clean-shaved chin, and cheek as red
As ripe pippins, kept in hay,
Polish'd on Thanksgiving day;
Black coat, breeches, all complete,
On the old mare he keeps his seat,
Jogging on with smiles so bright
To creation left and right.
There's the Widow Abner smiling
At her door as he goes past,
Guess she thinks she looks beguiling,
But he cuts along more fast.
There's Abe Sinker drunk as ever,
There's the pigs all in the gutter,
There's the miller by the river,
Broad as long and fat as butter.
See it all, so plain and pleasant,
Just like life their shadows pass,
Wonder how they are at present?
Guess they think I'm gone to grass!’
While this scene he contemplated,
Sighing like a homeless creature,
Round him, brightly concentrated,
Glow'd the primal fire of Nature!
Rainbow-hued and rapturous-colour'd,
With one burning brilliant look

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Flaming fix'd upon the dullard,
Nature rose in wild rebuke!
Shower'd her blossoms round him, o'er him,
Breathed warm breath upon his face,
Flash'd her flowers and fruits before him,
Follow'd him from place to place;
With wild jasmine and with amber
She perfumed his sleeping chamber,
Hung around him happy hours
With her arms of lustre-flowers,
Held to his in blest reposes
Her warm breasts of living roses;
Bade a thousand dazzling, crying,
Living, creatures do him honour,
Stood herself, naked and sighing,
With an aureole upon her;
Then, with finger flashing brightly
Pointing to her prime creation,—
Fruits and flowers and scents blent lightly
In one dazzling adumbration,—
Cried unto him over and over,
‘See my child! O love her, love her!
I eternal am, no comer
In a feeble flush of summer,
Like the hectic colour flying
Ot a maid love-sick and dying;
Here no change, but ever burning
Quenchless fire, and ceaseless yearning:
Endless exquisite vibration
Sweet as love's first nuptial kiss,
One soft sob of strange sensation
Flowering into shapes of bliss;
And the brightest, O behold her
With a changeless warmth like mine—
Love her! In thy soul enfold hër!
Blend with us, and be divine!’
All in vain that fond entreating!
Still Eureka's beaver-brain
Thought—‘This climate's rather heating—
Weather's cooler up in Maine!’

Yet no wonder Nature loved him,
Sought to take his soul by storm,
Gloried when her meaning moved him,
Clung in fondness round his form;
For, in sooth, tho' unimpassion'd,
Gloriously the man was fashion'd:
One around whose strength and splendour
Women would have pray'd to twine,
As the lian loves to blend her
Being with the beech or pine.
And his smile when she was present
Was seraphic, full of spirit,
And his voice was low and pleasant,
And her soul grew bright to hear it!
And when tall he strode to meet her,
And his handsome face grew sweeter,
In her soul she thought, ‘O being,
Fair and gracious and deep-seeing,
White man, great man, far above me,
What am I, that thou shouldst love me?’

She had learnt him with lips burning
(O for such a course of learning!)
Something of her speech,—'twas certain
Quite enough to woo and flirt in;
Words not easy of translation
They transfused into sensation,
Soon discovering and proving,
As a small experience teaches,
‘Bliss’ and ‘kiss,’ and other loving
Words, are common to all speeches!
Ah, the rapture! ah, the fleeting
Follies of each fond, mad meeting!
Smiling with red lips asunder,
Clapping hands at each fond blunder,
She instructed him right gaily
In her Indian patois daily,
Sweetly from his lips it sounded,
Help'd with those great azure eyes,
Till upon his heart she bounded
Panting praise with laughs and cries.
'Twas a speech antique and olden,
Full of gurgling notes, it ran
Like some river rippling golden
Down a vale Arcadian;
Like the voices of doves brooding;
Like a fountain's gentle moan;
Nothing commonplace intruding
On its regal monotone:
Sounds and symbols interblending
Like the heave of loving bosoms;
Consonants like strong boughs bending,
Snowing vowels down like blossoms!
Faltering in this tongue, he told her,
Sitting in a secret place,
While with bright head on his shoulder,
Luminous-eyed, she watch'd his face,
How, tho' every hour grown fonder,
Tho' his soul was still aflame,
Still, he sigh'd once more to wander
To the clime from whence he came;
Just once more to look upon it,
Just for one brief hour to con it,
Just to see his kin and others
In the Town where they did dwell.

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Just to say to his white brothers
One farewell, a last farewell.
Then to hasten back unto her,
And to live with her and die. . . ,
Sharp as steel his speech stabb'd thro' her,
Cold she sat without a cry,
On her heart her small hand pressing,
Breathing like a bird in pain,
Silent, tho' he smiled caressing,
Kiss'd, but kissing not again.

Then she waken'd, like one waking
From a trance, and with heart aching
Clung around him, as if dreading
Lest some hand should snatch him thence!
Then, upon his bosom shedding
Tears of ecstacy intense,
By her gods conjured him wildly
Never, never to depart!
O how meekly, O how mildly,
Answer'd back Eureka Hart!

But by slow degrees he coax'd her,
Night by night, and day by day,
With such specious spells he hoax'd her
That her first fear fled away.
Slow she yielded, still believing
Not for long he'd leave her lonely;
For he told her, still deceiving,
'Twas a little journey only.
Poor, dark bird! nought then knew she
Of this world's geography!

Troubled, shaken, half-demented,
Broken-hearted—she assented.
Since, by wind, and wave, and vapour,
By the shapes of earth and skies;
By the white moon's ghostly taper,
By the stars that like dead eyes
Watch it burning; by the mystic
Motion of the winds and woods;
By all dark and cabalistic
Shapes of tropic solitudes;
By the waters melancholy;
By God's hunting-fields of blue;
By all things that she deem'd holy
He had promised to be true!
Just to pay a flying visit
To connections close at hand,
Then to haste with love undying
Back unto that happy land.
'Twas enough! the Maid assented,
Thinking sadly, in her pain,
‘He will never be contented
Till he sees them once again.
Thither, thither let him wander;
When once more I feel his kiss,
His proud spirit will be fonder
Since my love hath granted this!’

‘Go!’ she cried, and her dark features
Kindled like a dying creature's,
And her heart rose, and her spirit
Cried as if for God to hear it—
Wildly in her arms she press'd him
To her bosom broken-hearted—
Call'd upon her gods, and blest him!
And Eureka Hart departed.

VI. The Paper.

Here should my second canto end—yet stay
Listen a little ere ye turn away.

By night they parted; and she cut by night
One large lock from his forehead, which with bright,
Warm lips she kiss'd; then kiss'd the lock of hair,
With one quick sob of passionate despair;
And he, with hand that shook a little now,
Still with that burning seal upon his brow,
While in that bitter agony they embraced,
He in her little hand a paper placed,
Whereon, at her fond prayer, he had writ plain,
‘Eureka Hart, Drowsietown, State of Maine.’
‘For,’ thought he, ‘I have promised soon or late
Hither to come again to her, my mate;
And I will keep my promise, sure, some day,
Unless I die or sicken by the way.
But no man knows what pathway he may tread,—
To-morrow—nay, ere dawn—I may be dead!
And she shall know, lest foul my fortune proves,
The name and country of the man she loves;
And since she wishes it, to cheer her heart,
It shall be written down ere I depart.’
And so it was; and while his kiss thrill'd thro' her,
With that loved lock of hair he gave it to her.

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Aye, so it was; for in the woods at dawn
He from his pouch had an old letter drawn,
One leaf of which was blank, and this he took,
And smiling at the woman's wondering look,
While quietly she murmur'd, ‘'Tis a charm!’
In hunter's fashion he had prick'd his arm,
And, having pen nor ink, had ta'en a spear
Of thorn for stylus, and in crimson clear,
His own heart's blood, had writ the words she sought.
And in that hour deep pity in him wrought,
And he believed that he his vows would keep,
Nor e'er be treacherous to a love so deep.
‘See!’ said he, as the precious words he gave,
‘Keep this upon thy bosom, and be brave.
As sure as that red blood belong'd to me,
I shall, If I live on, return to thee.
If death should find me while thou here dost wait,
Thou canst at least make question of my fate
Of any white man whose stray feet may fare
Down hither, showing him the words writ there.’
All this he said to her with faltering voice
In broken Indian, and in words less choice;
And quite persuaded of his good intent,
Shoulder'd his gun with a gay heart, and went.

And in that paper, while her fast tears fell,
She wrapt the lock of hair she loved so well,
And thrust it on her heart; and with sick sight,
Watch'd his great figure fade into the night;
Then raised her hands to her wild gods, that sped
Above her in a whirlwind overhead,
And the pines rock'd in tempest, and her form
Bent broken with the breathing of the storm.

O little paper! Blurr'd with secret tears!
O blood-red charm! O thing of hopes and fears!
Between two worlds a link, so faint, so slight,
The two worlds of the red man and the white!
Lie on her heart and soothe her soul's sad pain!

‘Eureka Hart, Drowsietown, State of Maine.’