The poetical works of Edmund Clarence Stedman

by Edmund Clarence Stedman

EARLY POEMS.

BOHEMIA.
A PILGRIMAGE.

I.

When buttercups are blossoming,

The poets sang, ’tis best to wed:

So all for love we paired in Spring—

Blanche and I—ere youth had sped,

For Autumn’s wealth brings Autumn’s wane.

Sworn fealty to royal Art

Was ours, and doubly linked the chain,

With symbols of her high domain,

That twined us ever heart to heart;

And onward, like the Babes in the Wood,

We rambled, till before us stood

The outposts of Bohemia.

II.

For, roaming blithely many a day,

Eftsoons our little hoard of gold,

Like Christian’s follies, slipt away,

Unloosened from the pilgrim’s hold,

But left us just as blithe and free;

Whereat our footsteps turned aside

From lord and lady of degree,

And bore us to that brave countree

Where merrily we now abide,—

That proud and humble, poor and grand,

Enchanted, golden Gypsy-Land,

The Valley of Bohemia.

III.

Together from the higher clime,

By terraced cliff and copse along,

Adown the slant we stept, in time

To many another pilgrim’s song,

And came where faded far away,

Each side, the kingdom’s ancient wall,

From breaking unto dying day;

Beyond, the magic valley lay,

With glimpse of shimmering stream and fall;

And here, between twin turrets, ran,

Built o’er with arch and barbacan,

The entrance to Bohemia.

IV.

Beneath the lichened parapet

Grim-sculptured Gog and Magog bore

The Royal Arms,—Hope’s Anchor, set

In azure, on a field of or,

With pendent mugs, and hands that wield

A lute and tambour, graven clear;

What seemed a poet’s scroll revealed

The antique legend of the shield:

Cambrinus. Rex. helde. Wassaille. here.

Joyned. with. ye. Kinge. of. Yvetot.

O. worlde-worne. Pilgrim. passe. belowe.

To. entre. fayre. Bohemia.

V.

No churlish warder barred the gate,

Nor other pass was needed there

Than equal heart for either fate,

And barren scrip, and hope to spare.

Through the gray archway, hand in hand,

We walked, beneath the rampart high,

And on within the wondrous land;

There, changed as by enchanter’s wand,

My sweetheart, fairer to the eye

Than ever, moved along serene

In hood and cloak,—a gypsy queen,

Born princess of Bohemia!

VI.

A fairy realm! where slope and stream,

Champaign and upland, town and grange,

Like shadowy shiftings of a dream,

Forever blend and interchange;

A magic clime! where, hour by hour,

Storm, cloud, and sunshine, fleeting by,

Commingle, and, through shine and shower,

Bright castles, lit with rainbows, tower,

Emblazoning the distant sky

With glimmering glories of a land

Far off, yet ever close at hand

As hope, in brave Bohemia.

VII.

On either side the travelled way,

Encamped along the sunny downs,

The blithesome, bold Bohemians lay;

Or hid, in quaintly-gabled towns,

At smoke-stained inns of musty date,

And spider-haunted attic nooks

In empty houses of the great,

Still smacking of their ancient state,—

Strewn round with pipes and mouldy books,

And robes and buskins over-worn,

That well become the careless scorn

And freedom of Bohemia.

VIII.

For, loving Beauty, and, by chance,

Too poor to make her all in all,

They spurn her half-way maintenance,

And let things mingle as they fall;

Dissevered from all other climes,

Yet compassing the whole round world,

Where’er are jests, and jousts at rhymes,

True love, and careless, jovial times,

Great souls by jilting Fortune whirled,

Men that were born before their day,

Kingly, without a realm to sway,

Yet monarchs in Bohemia;

IX.

And errant wielders of the quill;

And old-world princes, strayed afar,

In thread-bare exile chasing still

The glimpses of a natal star;

And Woman—taking refuge there

With woman’s toil, and trust, and song,

And something of a piquant air

Defiant, as who must and dare

Steer her own shallop, right or wrong.

A certain noble nature schools,

In scorn of smaller, mincing rules,

The maidens of Bohemia.

X.

But we pursued our pilgrimage

Far on, through hazy lengths of road,

Or crumbling cities gray with age;

And stayed in many a queer abode,

Days, seasons, years,—wherein were born

Of infant pilgrims, one, two, three;

And ever, though with travel worn,

Nor garnered for the morrow’s morn,

We seemed a merry company,—

We, and the mates whom friendship, or

What sunshine fell within our door,

Drew to us in Bohemia.

XI.

For Ambrose—priest without a cure—

Christened our babes, and drank the wine

He blessed, to make the blessing sure;

And Ralph, the limner—half-divine

The picture of my Blanche he drew,

As Saint Cecilia ’mong the caves,—

She singing; eyes a holy blue,

Upturned and rapturous; hair, in hue,

Gold rippled into amber waves.

There, too, is wayward, wild Annette,

Danseuse and warbler and grisette,

True daughter of Bohemia,

XII.

But all by turns and nothing long;

And Rose, whose needle gains her bread;

And bookish Sibyl,—she whose tongue

The bees of Hybla must have fed;

And one—a poet—nowise sage

For self, but gay companion boon

And prophet of the golden age;

He joined us in our pilgrimage

Long since, one early Autumn noon

When, faint with journeying, we sate

Within a wayside hostel-gate

To rest us in Bohemia.

XIII.

In rusty garb, but with an air

Of grace, that hunger could not whelm,

He told his wants, and—“Could we spare

Aught of the current of the realm—

A shilling?”—which I gave; and so

Came talk, and Blanche’s kindly smile;

Whereat he felt his heart aglow,

And said: “Lo, here is silver! lo,

Mine host hath ale! and it were vile,

If so much coin were spent by me

For bread, when such good company

Is gathered in Bohemia.”

XIV.

Richer than Kaiser on his throne,

A royal stoup he bade them bring;

And so, with many of mine own,

His shilling vanished on the wing;

And many a skyward-floating strain

He sang, we chorusing the lay

Till all the hostel rang again;

But when the day began to wane,

Along the sequel of our way

He kept us pace; and, since that time,

We never lack for song and rhyme

To cheer us, in Bohemia.

XV.

And once we stopped a twelvemonth, where

Five-score Bohemians began

Their scheme to cheapen bed and fare,

Upon a late-discovered plan;

“For see,” they said, “the sum how small

By which one pilgrim’s wants are met!

And if a host together fall,

What need of any cash at all?”

Though how it worked I half forget,

Yet still the same old dance and song

We found,—the kindly, blithesome throng

And joyance of Bohemia.

XVI.

Thus onward through the Magic Land,

With varying chance. But once there past

A mystic shadow o’er our band,

Deeper than Want could ever cast,

For, oh, it darkened little eyes!

We saw our youngest darling die,

Then robed her in her palmer’s guise,

And crossed the fair hands pilgrim-wise,

And, one by one, so tenderly,

Came Ambrose, Sibyl, Ralph, and Rose,

Strewing each sweetest flower that grows

In wildwoods of Bohemia.

XVII.

But last the Poet, sorrowing, stood

Above the tiny clay, and said:

“Bright little Spirit, pure and good,

Whither so far away hast fled?

Full soon thou tryest that other sphere:

Whate’er is lacking in our lives

Thou dost attain; for Heaven is near,

Methinks, to pilgrims wandering here,

As to that one who never strives

With fortune,—has not come to know

The pride and pain that dwell so low

In valleys of Bohemia.”

XVIII.

He ceased, and pointed solemnly

Through western windows; and we saw

That lustrous castle of the sky

Gleam, touched with flame; and heard with awe,

About us, gentle whisperings

Of unseen watchers hovering near

Our dead, and rustling angel wings!

Now, whether this or that year brings

The valley’s end, or, haply, here

Our pilgrimage for life must last,

We know not; but a sacred past

Has hallowed all Bohemia.

THE DIAMOND WEDDING.

O love! Love! Love! what times were those,

Long ere the age of belles and beaux

And Brussels lace and silken hose,

When, in the green Arcadian close,

You married Psyche, under the rose,

With only the grass for bedding!

Heart to heart, and hand in hand,

You followed Nature’s sweet command—

Roaming lovingly through the land,

Nor sighed for a Diamond Wedding.

So have we read, in classic Ovid,

How Hero watched for her beloved,

Impassioned youth, Leander.

She was the fairest of the fair,

And wrapt him round with her golden hair,

Whenever he landed cold and bare,

With nothing to eat and nothing to wear

And wetter than any gander;

For Love was Love, and better than money;

The slyer the theft, the sweeter the honey;

And kissing was clover, all the world over,

Wherever Cupid might wander.

So thousands of years have come and gone,

And still the moon is shining on,

Still Hymen’s torch is lighted;

And hitherto, in this land of the West,

Most couples in love have thought it best

To follow the ancient way of the rest,

And quietly get united.

But now, True Love, you’re growing old—

Bought and sold, with silver and gold,

Like a house, or a horse and carriage!

Midnight talks,

Moonlight walks,

The glance of the eye and sweetheart sigh,

The shadowy haunts with no one by,

I do not wish to disparage;

But every kiss

Has a price for its bliss,

In the modern code of marriage;

And the compact sweet

Is not complete,

Till the high contracting parties meet

Before the altar of Mammon;

And the bride must be led to a silver bower,

Where pearls and rubies fall in a shower

That would frighten Jupiter Ammon!

I need not tell

How it befell,

(Since Jenkins has told the story

Over and over and over again,

In a style I cannot hope to attain,

And covered himself with glory!)

How it befell, one Summer’s day,

The King of the Cubans strolled this way,—

King January’s his name, they say,—

And fell in love with the Princess May,

The reigning belle of Manhattan;

Nor how he began to smirk and sue,

And dress as lovers who come to woo,

Or as Max Maretzek and Jullien do,

When they sit, full-bloomed, in the ladies’ view,

And flourish the wondrous baton.

He wasn’t one of your Polish nobles,

Whose presence their country somehow troubles,

And so our cities receive them;

Nor one of your make-believe Spanish grandees,

Who ply our daughters with lies and candies,

Until the poor girls believe them.

No, he was no such charlatan—

Count de Hoboken Flash-in-the-pan,

Full of gasconade and bravado,

But a regular, rich Don Rataplan

Santa Claus de la Muscovado

Señor Grandissimo Bastinado!

His was the rental of half Havana

And all Matanzas; and Santa Anna,

Rich as he was, could hardly hold

A candle to light the mines of gold

Our Cuban owned, choke-full of diggers;

And broad plantations, that, in round figures,

Were stocked with at least five thousand niggers!

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may!”

The Señor swore to carry the day,

To capture the beautiful Princess May,

With his battery of treasure;

Velvet and lace she should not lack;

Tiffany, Haughwout, Ball & Black,

Genin and Stewart, his suit should back,

And come and go at her pleasure;

Jet and lava—silver and gold—

Garnets—emeralds rare to behold—

Diamonds—sapphires—wealth untold—

All were hers, to have and to hold;

Enough to fill a peck-measure!

He didn’t bring all his forces on

At once, but like a crafty old Don,

Who many a heart had fought and won,

Kept bidding a little higher;

And every time he made his bid,

And what she said, and all they did—

’Twas written down,

For the good of the town,

By Jeems, of The Daily Flyer.

A coach and horses, you’d think, would buy

For the Don an easy victory;

But slowly our Princess yielded.

A diamond necklace caught her eye,

But a wreath of pearls first made her sigh.

She knew the worth of each maiden glance,

And, like young colts, that curvet and prance,

She led the Don a deuce of a dance,

In spite of the wealth he wielded.

She stood such a fire of silks and laces,

Jewels, and golden dressing-cases,

And ruby brooches, and jets and pearls,

That every one of her dainty curls

Brought the price of a hundred common girls;

Folks thought the lass demented!

But at last a wonderful diamond ring,

An infant Koh-i-noor, did the thing,

And, sighing with love, or something the same,

(What’s in a name?)

The Princess May consented.

Ring! ring the bells, and bring

The people to see the marrying!

Let the gaunt and hungry and ragged poor

Throng round the great Cathedral door,

To wonder what all the hubbub’s for,

And sometimes stupidly wonder

At so much sunshine and brightness, which

Fall from the church upon the rich,

While the poor get all the thunder.

Ring! ring, merry bells, ring!

O fortunate few,

With letters blue,

Good for a seat and a nearer view!

Fortunate few, whom I dare not name;

Dilettanti! Crême de la crême!

We commoners stood by the street façade

And caught a glimpse of the cavalcade;

We saw the bride

In diamonded pride,

With jewelled maidens to guard her side,—

Six lustrous maidens in tarletan.

She led the van of the caravan;

Close behind her, her mother

(Dressed in gorgeous moire antique,

That told, as plainly as words could speak,

She was more antique than the other,)

Leaned on the arm of Don Rataplan

Santa Claus de la Muscovado

Señor Grandissimo Bastinado.

Happy mortal! fortunate man!

And Marquis of El Dorado!

In they swept, all riches and grace,

Silks and satins, jewels and lace;

In they swept from the dazzled sun,

And soon in the church the deed was done.

Three prelates stood on the chancel high;

A knot that gold and silver can buy

Gold and silver may yet untie,

Unless it is tightly fastened;

What’s worth doing at all’s worth doing well,

And the sale of a young Manhattan belle

Is not to be pushed or hastened;

So two Very-Reverends graced the scene,

And the tall Archbishop stood between,

By prayer and fasting chastened.

The Pope himself would have come from Rome,

But Garibaldi kept him at home.

Haply these robed prelates thought

Their words were the power that tied the knot;

But another power that love-knot tied,

And I saw the chain round the neck of the bride,—

A glistening, priceless, marvellous chain,

Coiled with diamonds again and again,

As befits a diamond wedding;

Yet still ’twas a chain, and I thought she knew it,

And half-way longed for the will to undo it,

By the secret tears she was shedding.

But isn’t it odd, to think whenever

We all go through that terrible River,—

Whose sluggish tide alone can sever

(The Archbishop says) the Church decree,

By floating one into Eternity

And leaving the other alive as ever,—

As each wades through that ghastly stream,

The satins that rustle and gems that gleam

Will grow pale and heavy, and sink away

To the noisome River’s bottom-clay;

Then the costly bride and her maidens six

Will shiver upon the banks of the Styx,

Quite as helpless as they were born,—

Naked souls, and very forlorn;

The Princess, then, must shift for herself,

And lay her royalty on the shelf;

She, and the beautiful Empress, yonder,

Whose robes are now the wide world’s wonder,

And even ourselves, and our dear little wives,

Who calico wear each morn of their lives,

And the sewing girls, and les chiffoniers,

In rags and hunger,—a gaunt array,—

And all the grooms of the caravan—

Ay, even the great Don Rataplan

Santa Claus de la Muscovado

Señor Grandissimo Bastinado—

That gold-encrusted, fortunate man!—

All will land in naked equality:

The lord of a ribboned principality

Will mourn the loss of his cordon.

Nothing to eat, and nothing to wear

Will certainly be the fashion there!

Ten to one, and I’ll go it alone,

Those most used to a rag and bone,

Though here on earth they labor and groan,

Will stand it best, as they wade abreast

To the other side of Jordan.

PENELOPE.

Not thus, Ulysses, with a tender word,

Pretence of state affairs, soft blandishment,

And halt assurances, canst thou evade

My heart’s discernment. Think not such a film

Hath touched these aged eyes, to make them lose

The subtlest mood of those even now adroop,

Self-conscious, darkling from my nearer gaze.

Full well I know thy mind, O man of wiles!

O man of restless yearnings—fate-impelled,

Fate-conquering—like a waif thrown back and forth

O’er many waters! Oft I see thee stand

At eve, a landmark on the outer cliff,

Looking far westward; later, when the feast

Smokes in the hall, and nimble servants pass

Great bowls of wine, and ancient Phemeus sings

The deeds of Peleus’ son, thy right hand moves

Straight for its sword-hilt, like a ship for home;

Then, when thou hearest him follow in the song

Thine own miraculous sojourn of long years

Through stormy seas, weird islands, and the land

Of giants, and the gray companions smite

Their shields, and cry, What do we longer here?

Afloat! and let the great waves bear us on!

I know thou growest weary of the realm,

Thy wife, thy son, the people, and thy fame.

I too have had my longings. Am I not

Penelope, who, when Ulysses came

To Sparta, and Icarius bade her choose

Betwixt her sire and wooer, veiled her face

And stept upon the galley silver-oared,

And since hath kept thine Ithacensian halls?

Then when the hateful Helen fled to Troy

With Paris, and the Argive chieftains sailed

Then ships to Aulis, I would have thee go—

Presaging fame, and power, and spoils of war.

So ten years passed; meanwhile I reared thy son

To know his father’s wisdom, and, apart

Among my maidens, wove the yellow wool.

But then, returning one by one, they came,—

The island-princes; high-born dames of Crete

And Cephalonia saw again their lords;

Only Ulysses came not; yet the war

Was over, and his vessels, like a troop

Of cranes in file, had spread their wings for home.

More was unknown. Then many a winter’s night

The servants piled great fagots, smeared with tar,

High on the palace-roof; with mine own hands

I fired the heaps, that, haply, far away

On the dark waters, might my lord take heart

And know the glory of his kingly towers.

So winter passed; and summer came and went,

And winter and another summer; then—

Alas, how many weary months and days!

But he I loved came not. Meanwhile thou knowest

Pelasgia’s noblest chiefs, with kingly gifts

And pledge of dower, gathered in the halls;

But still this heart kept faithful, knowing yet

Thou wouldst return, though wrecked on alien shores.

And great Athenè often in my dreams

Shone, uttering words of cheer. But, last of all,

The people rose, swearing a king should rule,

To keep their ancient empery of the isles

Inviolate and thrifty: bade me choose

A mate, nor longer dally. Then I prayed

Respite, until the web within my loom,

Of gold and purple curiously devised

For old Laertes’ shroud, should fall complete

From hands still faithful to his blood. Thou knowest

How like a ghost I left my couch at night,

Unravelling the labor of the day,

And warded off the fate, till came that time

When my lost sea-king thundered in his halls,

And with long arrows clove the suitors’ hearts.

So constant was I! now not thirty moons

Go by, and thou forgettest all. Alas!

What profit is there any more in love?

What thankless sequel hath a woman’s faith!

Yet if thou wilt,—in these thy golden years,

Safe-housed in royalty, like a god revered

By all the people,—if thou yearnest yet

Once more to dare the deep and Neptune’s hate,

I will not linger in a widowed age;

I will not lose Ulysses, hardly found

After long vigils; but will cleave about

Thy neck, with more than woman’s prayers and tears,

Until thou take me with thee. As I left

My sire, I leave my son, to follow where

Ulysses goeth, dearer for the strength

Of that great heart which ever drives him on

To large experience of newer toils!

Trust me, I will not any hindrance prove,

But, like Athenè’s helm, a guiding star,

A glory and a comfort! O, be sure

My heart shall take its lesson from thine own!

My voice shall cheer the mariners at their oars

In the night watches; it shall warble songs,

Whose music shall o’erpower the luring airs

Of Nereïd or Siren. If we find

Those isles thou namest, where the golden fount

Gives youth to all who taste it, we will drink

Deep draughts, until the furrows leave thy brow,

And I shall walk in beauty, as when first

I saw thee from afar in Sparta’s groves.

But if Charybdis seize our keel, or swift

Black currents bear us down the noisome wave

That leads to Hades, till the vessel sink

In Stygian waters, none the less our souls

Shall gain the farther shore, and, hand in hand,

Walk from the strand across Elysian fields,

’Mong happy thronging shades, that point and say:

“There go the great Ulysses, loved of gods,

And she, his wife, most faithful unto death!”

THE SINGER.

O lark! sweet lark!

Where learn you all your minstrelsy?

What realms are those to which you fly?

While robins feed their young from dawn till dark,

You soar on high,—

Forever in the sky.

O child! dear child!

Above the clouds I lift my wing

To hear the bells of Heaven ring;

Some of their music, though my flights be wild,

To Earth I bring;

Then let me soar and sing!

HELIOTROPE.

I walk in the morning twilight,

Along a garden-slope,

To the shield of moss encircling

My beautiful Heliotrope.

O sweetest of all the flowerets

That bloom where angels tread!

But never such marvellous odor

From heliotrope was shed,

As the passionate exhalation,

The dew of celestial wine,

That floats in tremulous languor

Around this darling of mine.

For, only yester-even,

I saw the dearest scene!

I heard the delicate footfall,

The step of my love, my queen.

Along the walk she glided:

I made no sound nor sign,

But ever, at the turning

Of her star-white neck divine,

I shrunk in the shade of the cypress,

And crouched in the swooning grass,

Like some Arcadian shepherd

To see an Oread pass.

But when she came to the border

At the end of the garden-slope,

She bent, like a rose-tree, over

That beautiful Heliotrope.

The cloud of its subtile fragrance

Entwined her in its wreath,

And all the while commingled

With the incense of her breath.

And so she glistened onward,

Far down the long parterre,

Beside the statue of Hesper,

And a hundred times more fair.

But ah! her breath had added

The perfume that I find

In this, the sweetest of flowerets,

And the paragon of its kind.

I drink deep draughts of its nectar;

I faint with love and hope!

Oh, what did she whisper to you,

My beautiful Heliotrope?

ROSEMARY.

“There’s Rosemary, that’s for Remembrance.”

Years ago, when a summer sun

Warmed the greenwood into life,

I went wandering with one

Soon to be my wife.

Birds were mating, and Love began

All the copses to infold;

Our two souls together ran

Melting in one mould.

Skies were bluer than ever before:

It was joy to love you then,

And to know I loved you more

Than could other men!

Winds were fresh and your heart was brave,

Sang to mine a sweet refrain,

And for every pledge I gave

Pledged me back again.

How it happened I cannot tell,

But there came a cursed hour,

When some hidden shape of hell

Crept within our bower.

Sudden and sharply either spoke

Bitter words of doubt and scorn;

Pride the golden linklets broke,—

Left us both forlorn.

Seven long years have gone since then,

And I suffered, but, at last,

Rose and joined my fellow-men,

Crushing down the past.

Far away over distant hills,

Now I know your life is led;

Have you felt the rust that kills?

Are your lilies dead?

Summer and winter you have dwelt,

Like a statue, cold and white;

None, of all the crowd who knelt,

Read your soul aright.

O, I knew the tremulous swell

Of its secret undertone!

That diviner music fell

On my ear alone!

Ever in dreams we meet with tears:

Lake and mountain—all are past:

With the stifled love of seven long years

Hold each other fast!

Though the glamoury of the night

Fades with morning far away,

Oftentimes a strange delight

Haunts the after-day.

Even now, when the summer sun

Warms the greenwood far within,

Even now my fancies run

On what might have been.

SUMMER RAIN.

Yestermorn the air was dry

As the winds of Araby,

While the sun, with pitiless heat,

Glared upon the glaring street,

And the meadow fountains sealed,

Till the people everywhere,

And the cattle in the field,

And the birds in middle air,

And the thirsty little flowers,

Sent to heaven a fainting prayer

For the blessed summer showers.

Not in vain the prayer was said;

For at sunset, overhead,

Sailing from the gorgeous West,

Came the pioneers, abreast,

Of a wondrous argosy,—

The Armada of the sky!

Far along I saw them sail,

Wafted by an upper gale;

Saw them, on their lustrous route,

Fling a thousand banners out:

Yellow, violet, crimson, blue,

Orange, sapphire,—every hue

That the gates of Heaven put on,

To the sainted eyes of John,

In that hallowed Patmos isle

Their skyey pennons wore; and while

I drank the glory of the sight

Sunset faded into night.

Then diverging, far and wide,

To the dim horizon’s side,

Silently and swiftly there,

Every galleon of the air,

Manned by some celestial crew,

Out its precious cargo threw,

And the gentle summer rain

Cooled the fevered Earth again.

Through the night I heard it fall

Tenderly and musical;

And this morning not a sigh

Of wind uplifts the briony leaves,

But the ashen-tinted sky

Still for earthly turmoil grieves,

While the melody of the rain,

Dropping on the window-pane,

On the lilac and the rose,

Round us all its pleasance throws,

Till our souls are yielded wholly

To its constant melancholy,

And, like the burden of its song,

Passionate moments glide along.

Pinks and hyacinths perfume

All our garden-fronted room;

Hither, close beside me, Love!

Do not whisper, do not move.

Here we two will softly stay,

Side by side, the livelong day.

Lean thy head upon my breast:

Ever shall it give thee rest,

Ever would I gaze to meet

Eyes of thine up-glancing, Sweet!

What enchanted dreams are ours!

While the murmur of the showers

Dropping on the tranquil ground,

Dropping on the leaves and flowers,

Wraps our yearning souls around

In the drapery of its sound.

Still the plenteous streamlets fall:

Here two hearts are all in all

To each other; and they beat

With no evanescent heat,

Put softly, steadily, hour by hour,

With the calm, melodious power

Of the gentle summer rain,

That in Heaven so long hath lain,

And from out that shoreless sea

Pours its blessings tenderly.

Freer yet its currents swell!

Here are streams that flow as well,

Rivulets of the constant heart;

But a little space apart

Glide they now, and soon shall run,

Love-united, into one.

It shall chance, in future days,

That again the lurid rays

Of that hidden sun shall shine

On the floweret and the vine,

And again the meadow-springs

Fly away on misty wings:

But no glare of Fate adverse

Shall on us achieve its curse,

Never any baneful gleam

Waste our clear, perennial stream;

For its fountains lie below

That malign and ominous glow,—

Lie in shadowy grottoes cool,

Where all kindly spirits rule;

Calmly ever shall it flow

Toward the waters of the sea,—

That serene Eternity!

TOO LATE.

Crouch no more by the ivied walls,

Weep no longer over her grave,

Strew no flowers when evening falls:

Idly you lost what angels gave!

Sunbeams cover that silent mound

With a warmer hue than your roses’ red;

To-morrow’s rain will bedew the ground

With a purer stream than the tears you shed.

But neither the sweets of the scattered flowers,

Nor the morning sunlight’s soft command,

Nor all the songs of the summer showers,

Can charm her back from that distant land.

Tenderest vows are ever too late!

She, who has gone, can only know

The cruel sorrow that was her fate,

And the words that were a mortal woe.

Earth to earth, and a vain despair;

For the gentle spirit has flown away,

And you can never her wrongs repair,

Till ye meet again at the Judgment Day.

VOICE OF THE WESTERN WIND.

Voice of the western wind!

Thou singest from afar,

Rich with the music of a land

Where all my memories are;

But in thy song I only hear

The echo of a tone

That fell divinely on my ear

In days forever flown.

Star of the western sky!

Thou beamest from afar,

With lustre caught from eyes I knew,

Whose orbs were each a star;

But, oh, those eyes—too wildly bright—

No more eclipse thine own,

And never shall I find the light

Of days forever flown!

FLOOD-TIDE.

Just at sunrise, when the land-breeze cooled the fevered air once more,

From a restless couch I wandered to the sounding ocean shore;

Strolling down through furrowed sand-hills, while the splendor of the day

Flashed across the trembling waters to the West and far away.

There I saw, in distant moorings, many an anchored vessel tall;

Heard with cheery morning voices sailor unto sailor call.

Crowned with trailing plumes of sable, right afront my standing-place

Moved a swarthy ocean-steamer in her storm-resisting grace.

Prophet-like, she clove the waters toward the ancient mother-land,

And I heard her clamorous engine and the echo of command,

While the long Atlantic billows to my feet came rolling on,

With the multitudinous music of a thousand ages gone.

There I stood, with careless ankles half in sand and half in spray,

Till the baleful mist of midnight from my being passed away;

Then, with eager inhalations opening all my mantle wide,

Felt my spirit rise exultant with the rising of the tide;

Felt the joyous morning breezes run afresh through every vein,

Till the natural pulse of manhood beat the call-to-arms again.

Then came utterance self-condemning,—oh, how wild with sudden scorn

Of the chain that held me circling in a little round forlorn!

Of the sloth which, like a vapor, hugs the dull, insensate heart,

That can act in meek submission to the lowness of its part,—

In the broad terrestrial drama play the herald or the clown,

While the warrior wins his garlands and the monarch wears his crown!

“Shame” I said, “upon the craven who can rest, content to save

Paltry handfuls of the riches that his guardian-angel gave!

Shame upon all listless dreamers early hiding from the strife,

Sated with some little gleaning of the harvest-fields of life!

Shame upon God’s toiling thinkers, who make profit of their brains,

Getting store of scornful pittance for their slow-decaying pains!

Give me purpose, steadfast purpose, and the grandeur of a soul

Born to lead the van of armies or a people to control.

Let me float away and ever, from this shore of bog and mire,

On the mounting waves of effort, buoyed by the soul’s desire!

Would that it were mine to govern yon large wonder of our time:

Such a life were worth the living! thus to sail through every clime,

From a hundred spicy shorelands bearing treasures manifold;

Foremost to achieve discovery of the peerless lands of gold;

Or to thrid the crashing hummocks for the silent Northern Pole,

And those solemn open waters that beyond the ice-plains roll,—

Cold and shining sea of ages! like a silver fillet set

On the Earth’s eternal forehead, for her bridal coronet.

Or to close with some tall frigate, for my country and the right,

Gunwale grinding into gunwale through the rolling cloud of fight.

When the din of cannonading and the jarring war should cease,

From the lion’s mouth of battle there should flow the sweets of peace.

I should count repose in cities from my seventy years a loss,—

Resting only on the waters, like the dusk-winged albatross.

I should lay the wire-wrought cable—a ghostly depth below—

Along the marly summit of the plummet-found plateau;

To the old Antipodes with the olive branch should roam,

Joining swart Mongolian races to the ranks of Christendom.

Oftentimes our stately presence in a tyrant’s port should save

Captives, rash in freedom-loving, from the dungeon and the grave;

And a hymn should greet our coming, far across the orient sea,

Like the glad apostles’ anthem, when an angel set them free.

Such the nobler life heroic! life which ancient Homer sung

Of the sinewy Grecian worthies, when the blithesome Earth was young,

And a hundred marvellous legends lay about the misty land

Where the wanton Sirens carolled and the cliffs of Scylla stand.

How their lusty strokes made answer, when Ulysses held the helm,

And with subtle words of wisdom spake of many a wondrous realm!

Neither Circè, nor the languor of enchanted nights and days

Soothed their eager-eyed disquiet,—tamed their venturous, epic ways;

And the dread Sicilian monster, in his cavern by the shore,

Felt the shadow of their coming, and was blind for evermore.

So lived all those stalwart captains of the loyal Saxon blood,

Grasping morsels of adventure as an eagle grasps his food;

Fought till death for queen and country, hating Antichrist and Spain;

Sacked the rich Castilian cities of the glittering western main;

Hacked and hewed the molten idols of each gray cathedral pile,

And with Carthaginian silver dowered the virgin English isle.

Up and down the proud Antilles still the ringing echoes go:

Ho! a Raleigh! Ho! a Drake!—and, forever, Westward Ho!

Why should not my later pæan catch the swell of that refrain,

And, with bursts of fresh endeavor, send it down the age again?

But I know, that, while the mariner wafts along the golden year,

Broader continents of action open up in every sphere.

And I deem those noble also, who, with strong persuasive art,

Strike the chords of aspiration in a people’s lyric heart.

If in mine—of all republics the Atlantis and supreme—

There be little cause for mouthing on the old, undying theme—

Yet I falter while I say it:—ours of every crime the worst!

For the long revenge of Heaven crying loud and calling first:

But if fiery Carolina and all the sensual South,

Like the world before the deluge, laugh to scorn the warning mouth,—

In the lap of hoary Europe lie her children ill at rest,

Reaching hands of supplication to their brethren of the West;

Pale about the lifeless fountain of their ancient freedom, wait

Till the angel move its waters and avenge their stricken state.

Let me then, a new crusader, to the eastward set my face,

Wake the fires of old tradition on each sacred altar-place,

Till a trodden people rouse them, with a clamor as divine

As the winds of autumn roaring through the clumps of forest-pine.

I myself would seize their banner; they should follow where it led,

To the triumph of the victors or the pallor of the dead.

It were better than to conquer—from the light of life to go

With such words as once were uttered, off the isle of Floreo:

Here die I, Sir Richard Grenvile, of a free and joyful mood:

Ending earth for God and honor, as a valiant soldier should!

But my present life—what is it? mated, housed, like other men;

Thoughtful of the cost of feeding, valiant only with the pen;

Lying, walled about with custom, on an iron bed of creeds;

Peering out through grated windows at the joy my spirit needs.

And I hear the sound of chanting,—mailed men are passing by;

Crumble, walls, and loosen, fetters! I will join them, ere I die!”

So the sleeping thoughts of boyhood oped their eyes and newly stirred,

And my muscles cried for usage, till the man their plainings heard:

While the star that lit me ever in the dark and thorny ways,

Mine by natal consecration, by the choice of after days,—

Seen through all the sorrow thickening round the hopes of younger years,—

Rayless grew, and left me groping in the valley of my tears.

Seaward now the steamer hovered; seaward far her pennons trailed,

Where the blueness of the heavens at the clear horizon paled;

Where the mingled sky and water faded into fairy-land,

Smaller than her tiny model, deftly launched from childhood’s hand.

With a statelier swell and longer, up the glacis of the shore,

Came the waves that leapt so freshly in their youth, an hour before.

So I made an end and, turning, reached a scallop-crested rock,

In the stormy spring-tides hurling back the tumult of their shock.

There reclining, gazed a moment at the pebbles by my feet,

Left behind the billowy armies on their oceanward retreat;

Thousands lying close together, where the hosts a passage wore,

Many-hued, and tesselated in a quaint mosaic floor.

Thinking then upon their fitness,—each adjusted to its place,

Fairly strewn, and smoothed by Nature with her own exceeding grace,—

All at once some unseen warder drew the curtains wide apart,

That awhile had cast their shadow on the picture of my heart;

Told me—“Thou thyself hast said it; in thy calling be of cheer:

Broader continents of action open up in every sphere!

Hold thy lot as great as any: each shall magnify his own,

Each shall find his time to enter, though unheralded and lone,

On the inner life’s arena—there to sound his battle-cry,

Self with self in secret tourney, underneath the silent sky.

Strong of faith in that mute umpire, some have conquered, and withstood

All the pangs of long endurance, the dear pains of fortitude;

Felt a harsh misapprehension gall the wounds of martyrdom;

In the present rancor measured even the scorn of days to come;

Known that never should the whiteness of their virtue shine revealed,

Never should the truer Future rub the tarnish from the shield.

That diviner abnegation hath not yet been asked of thee:

Art thou able to attain it, if perchance it were to be?

O, our feeble tests of greatness! Look for one so calm of soul

As to take the even chalice of his life and drink the whole.

Noble deeds are held in honor, but the wide world sorely needs

Hearts of patience to unravel this,—the worth of common deeds.”

As the darkened earth forever to the morning turns again;

As the dreaming soldier, after all the perilous campaign,

Struggling long with horse and rider, in his sleep smites fiercely out,

And, with sudden pang awaking, through the darkness peers about,—

Hearing but the crickets chirrup loud, beneath his chimney-stone,

Feeling but the warm heart throbbing, in the form beside his own,—

Then to knowledge of his hamlet, dearer for the toil he knows,

Comes at last, content to nestle in the sweets of his repose,

So fell I, from those high fancies, to the quiet of a heart

Knowing well how Duty maketh each one’s share the better part.

As again I looked about me—North and South, and East and West—

Now of all the wide world over still my haven seemed the best.

Calm, and slowly lifting upward, rose the eastern glory higher,

Gilding sea, and shore, and vessel, and the city-crowning spire.

Then the sailors shook their canvas to the dryness of the sun,

And along the harbor-channel glided schooners, one by one.

At the last I sought my cottage; there, before the garden gate,

By the lilac, stood my darling, looking for her truant mate.

Stooping at the porch, we entered;—where the morning meal was laid,

Turning over holy pages, one as pure and holy played,—

Little Paul, who links more firmly our two hearts than clasp of gold;

And I caught a blessed sentence, while I took him to my hold:

“Peace,” it said, “O restless spirit, eager as the climbing wave!

With my peace there flows a largesse such as monarchs never gave.”

1857.

APOLLO.

Vainly, O burning Poets!

Ye wait for his inspiration,

Even as kings of old

Stood by the oracle-gates.

Hasten back, he will say, hasten back

To your provinces far away!

There, at my own good time,

Will I send my answer to you.

Are ye not kings of song?

At last the god cometh!

The air runs over with splendor;

The fire leaps high on the altar;

Melodious thunders shake the ground.

Hark to the Delphic responses!

Hark! it is the god!

THE ORDEAL BY FIRE.

To many a one there comes a day

So black with maledictions, they

Hide every earthly hope away.

In earlier woes the sufferer bore,

Consolement entered at his door,

And raised him gently from the floor.

To this great anguish, newly come,

All former sorrows, in their sum,

Were but a faint exordium.

His days and nights are full of groans;

Sorely, and with a thousand moans,

For many wanderings he atones.

Old errors, vanquished for a space,

Rise up to smite him in the face

And threaten him with new disgrace.

And others, shadows of the first,

From slanderous charnel-houses burst,

Pursuing, cry, Thou art accurst!

Dear, feeble voices ask for bread;

The dross, for which he bowed his head

So long, has taken wings and fled.

The strong resources of his health

Have softly slipt away by stealth:

No future toil may bring him wealth.

Dreading the shadow of his shame,

False friends, who with the sunshine came,

Forego the mention of his name.

Thus on a fiery altar tost,

The harvests of his life are lost

In one consuming holocaust.

What can he, but to beat the air,

And, from the depth of his despair,

Cry “Is there respite anywhere?

“Is Life but Death? Is God unjust?

Shall all the castle of my trust

Dissolve, and crumble into dust?”

There are, who, with a wild desire

For slumber, blinded by the fire,

Sink in its ashes and expire.

God pity them! too harsh a test

Has made them falter; sore distrest,

They barter everything for rest.

But many, of a sterner mould,

Themselves within themselves infold,

Even make Death unloose his hold,

Although it were a grateful thing

To drain the cup his heralds bring,

And yield them to his ransoming;

To quaff the calm, Lethean wave,—

In passionless tenure of the grave

Forgetting all they could not save.

What angels hold them up, among

The ruins of their lives, so long?

What visions make their spirits strong?

In sackcloth, at the outer gate,

They chant the burden of their fate,

Yet are not wholly desolate.

A blessed ray from darkness won

It may be, even, to know the sun

Hath distant lands he shines upon;

It may be that they deem it vile

For one to mount his funeral pile,

Because the heavens cease to smile;

That scorn of cowardice holds fast,

Lighting the forehead to the last,

Though all of bravery’s hopes are past.

Perchance the sequence of an art

Leads to a refuge for the heart,—

A sanctuary far apart.

It may be that, in dearest eyes,

They see the light of azure skies,

And keep their faith in Paradise.

Thou, who dost feel Life’s vessel strand

Full-length upon the shifting sand,

And hearest breakers close at hand,

Be strong and wait! nor let the strife,

With which the winds and waves are rife,

Disturb that sacred inner life.

Anon thou shalt regain the shore,

And walk—though naked, maimed, and sore—

A nobler being than before!

No lesser griefs shall work thee ill;

No malice shall have power to kill:

Of woe thy soul has drunk its fill.

Tempests, that beat us to the clay,

Drive many a lowering cloud away,

And bring a clearer, holier day.

The fire, that every hope consumes,

Either the inmost soul entombs

Or evermore the face illumes!

Robes of asbestos do we wear;

Before the memories we bear,

The flames leap backward everywhere.

THE PROTEST OF FAITH.
TO REV. ⸺ ⸺

Dear Friend and Teacher,—not by word alone,

But by the plenteous virtues shining out

Along the zodiac of a good man’s life;

Dear gentle friend! from one so loved as you,—

Because so loving, and so finely apt

In tender ministry to a little flock,

With whom you joy and suffer ... and, withal,

So constant to the spirit of our time

That I must hold you of a different sort

From those dry lichens on the altar steps,

Those mutes in surplices, school-trained to sink

The ashes of their own experience

So low, in doctrinal catacombs, that none

Find token they can love and mourn like us,—

From such an one as you, I cannot brook

What from these mummies were a pleasant draught

Of bitter hyssop—pleasant unto me,

Drunk from a chalice worthier men have held

And emptied to the lees.

I cannot brook

The shake o’ the head and earnest, sorrowing glance,

Which often seem to say:—“Be wise in time!

Give up the iron key that locks your heart.

I grant you charity, and patient zeal,

And something of a young, romantic love

For what is good, as children love the fields

And birds and babbling brooks, they know not why.

You have your moral virtues, but you err:

To err is fatal. O, my heart is faint

Lest that sweet prize I win should not be yours!”

In some such wise I read your half-dropped thoughts;

Yet wondrous compensation falls to all,

And every soul has strongholds of its own,

Invisible, yet answering to its needs.

And even I may have a secret tower

Up storm-cleft Pisgah, whence I see beyond

Jordan, and far across the happy plains,

Where gleams the Holy City, like a queen,

The crown of all our hopes and perfect faith.

I may have gone somewhat within the veil,

Though few repose serenely in the light

Of that divinest splendor, till they shine,

With countenance aglow, like him of old,—

Prophet and priest and warrior, all in one.

But every human path leads on to God;

He holds a myriad finer threads than gold,

And strong as holy wishes, drawing us

With delicate tension upward to Himself.

You see the strand that reaches down to you;

Haply I see mine own, and make essay

To trace its glimmerings—up the shadowy hills

Forever narrowing to that unknown sky.

There grows a hedge about you pulpit-folk:

You reason ex cathedra. Little gain

Have we to clash in tourney on the least

Of points, wherewith you trammel down the Faith,

It being, at outset, understood right well

By lay knights-errant, that their Reverend foes,

Fore-pledged to hold their own, will sound their trumps,

Though spearless and unhorsed! Why take the field,

When, at the best, both sides go bowing off

With mutual courtesy, and fair white flags

Afloat at camp, and every fight is drawn?

As soon encounter statues, balanced well

Upon their granite, fashioned not to move,

And drawing all mankind to hold in awe

Their grim persistence.

If, indeed, I sin

In counting somewhat freely on that Love

From which, through rolling ages, worlds have sprung,

And—last and best of all—the lords of worlds,

Through type on type uplifted from the clay;

If I have been exultant in the thought

That such humanity came so near to God,

He held us as His children, and would find

Imperial progress through the halls of Time

For every soul,—why, then, my crescent faith

Clings round the promise; if it spread beyond,

You think, too far, I say that Peter sprang

Upon the waves of surging Galilee,

While all the eleven hugged the ship in fear:

The waters were as stone unto his feet

Until he doubted, even then the Christ

Put forth a blesséd hand, and drew him on

To closer knowledge!

So, if it be mine

First of us twain to pass the sable gates,

That guard so well their mysteries, and thou,

With some dear friend, may’st stand beside my grave,

Speak no such words as these:—“Not long ago

His voice rang out as cheerly as mine own;

And we were friends, and, far into the nights,

Would analyze the wisdom of old days

By all the tests of Science in her prime;

Anon would tramp afield, to fruits and flowers,

And the long prototypes of trees and beasts

Graven in sandstone; so, at last, would come,

Through lanes of talk, to that perennial tree,—

The Tree of Life, on which redemption hangs.

But there fell out of tune; we parted there,

He bolstering up a creed too broad for me!

I held him kindly for an ardent soul,

Who lacked not skill to make his argument

Seem fair and specious. But he groped in doubt:

His head and heart were young; he wandered off,

And fell afoul of all those theorists

Who soften down our dear New England faith

With German talk of ‘Nature,’ ‘inner lights

And harmonies’: so, taken with the wind

Of those high-sounding terms, he spoke at large,

And held discussion bravely till he died.

Here sleep his ashes; where his soul may be,

Myself, who loved him, do not care to think.”

The ecstasy of Faith has no such fears

As those you nurse for me! The marvellous love,

Which folds the systems in a flood of light,

Makes no crude works to shatter out of joint

Through all the future. O, believe, with me,

For every instinct in these hearts of ours

A full fruition hastens! O, believe

That promise greater than our greatest trust

And loftiest aspiration! Tell thy friend,

Beside my grave: “He did the best he could,

With earnest spirit polishing the lens

By which he took the heavens in his ken,

And through the empyrean sought for God;

He caught, or thought he caught, from time to time,

Bright glimpses of the Infinite, on which

He fed in rapturous and quiet joy,

That helped him keep a host of troubles down.

He went his way,—a different path from mine,

But took his place among the ranks of men

Who toil and suffer. If, in sooth, it be

Religion keeps us up, this man had that.

God grant his yearnings were a living faith!

Heaven lies above us: may we find him there

Beside the waters still, and crowned with palms!”

THE FRESHET.
A CONNECTICUT IDYL.

Last August, of a three weeks’ country tour,

Five dreamy days were passed amid old elms

And older mansions, and in leafy dales,

That knew us till our elders pushed us forth

To larger life,—as eagles push their young,

New-fledged and wondering, from the eyrie’s edge,

To cater for themselves.

I fell in, there,

With Gilbert Ripley, once my chum at Yale.

Poor Gilbert groaned along a double year,—

Read, spoke, boxed, fenced, rowed, trod the foot-ball ground,—

Loving the college library more than Greek,

His meerschaum most of all. But when we came

Together, gathered from the breathing-time

They give the fellows while the dog-days last,

He found the harness chafe; then grew morose,

And kicked above the traces, going home

Hardly a Junior, but a sounder man,

In mind and body, than a host who win

Your baccalaureate honors. There he stayed,

Half tired of bookmen, on his father’s farm,

And gladly felt the plough-helve. In a year

The old man gave his blessing to the son,

And left his life, as ’twere his harvest-field,

When work was over. Gilbert hugged the farm,

Now made his own, besides a pretty sum

In good State Sixes; partly worked the land,

With separate theories for every field,

And partly led the student-life of old,

Mouthing his Shakespeare’s ballads to himself

Among the meadow-mows; or, when he read

In the evening, found a picture of his bull,

Just brought from Devon, sleek as silk, loom in

Before his vision. Thus he weighed his tastes,

Each against each, in happiest equipoise.

The neighbor farmers seeing he had thrift

That would not run to waste, and pardoning all

Beyond their understanding, wished him well.

But when I saw him stride among his stock,—

Straight-shouldered cattle, breathing of the field,—

Saw him how blowze and hearty; then, at eve,

Close sitting by his mother in the porch,

Heard him discuss the methods of the times,

The need our country has of stalwart men,

Who scorn the counter and will till the land,

Strong-handed, free of thought,—I somehow felt

The man was noble, and his simple life

More like the pattern given in the Mount

Than mine, hedged close about with city life

And grim, conventional manners.

So much, then,

For Gilbert Ripley. Not to dwell too long

Upon his doings, let me tell the tale

I got from him, one hazy afternoon,

When he and I had wandered to the bridge,

New-built across our favorite of the streams

That skirt the village,—here three miles apart,

Twin currents, joining in a third below.

There memory’s shallop bore us dreamily,

Through changeful windings, to the long, long days

Of June vacations. How we boys would thrid

The alder thickets at the water’s edge,

Conjecturing forward, though the Present lay

Like Eden round us; for the Future shone—

The sun to which each young heart turned for light!

What wild conceits of great, oracular lives,

Ourselves would equal! but let that go by:

Each has gone by, in turn, to humbler fates.

Sometimes we angled, and our trolling hooks

Swung the gray pickerel from his reedy shoals.

Beyond a horseshoe bend, the current’s force

Wore out a deeper channel, where the shore

Fell off, precipitous, on the western side.

There dived the bathers; there I learned to swim,—

Flung far into the middle stream by one

Who watched my gaspings, laughing, till my limbs,

Half of themselves, struck out, and held me up.

Far down, a timbered dam, from bank to bank,

Shut back the waters in a shadowy lake,

About a mimic island. Languidly

The chestnuts still infoliate its space,

And still the whispering flags are intertwined

With whitest water-lilies near the marge.

Close by, the paper-mill, with murmurous wheel,

Still glistens through the branches, while its score

Of laughing maidens throng the copse at noon.

But we, with careless arms upon the rail,

Peered through and through the water; almost saw

Its silvery Naiads, from their wavering depths,

Gleam with strange faces upward; almost heard

Sweet voices carol: “Ah, you all come back!

We charm your childhood; then you roam away,

To float on alien waters, like the winds;

But, ah, you all come back,—come dreaming back!”

At last I broke the silence: “See,” I said

To Gilbert, “see how fair our dear old stream!

How calm, beneath the shadow of these piers,

It eddies in and out, and cools itself

In slumberous ripples whispering repose.”

But he made answer: “Yes, this August day

The wave is summer-charmed, the fields are hazed;

But in the callow Spring, when Easter winds

Are on us, laden with rain, these fickle streams—

More gentle now than in his cradled sleep

Some Alexander—take up arms, spread wide,

Leap high and cruel in a fierce campaign

Along their valleys. See this trellised bridge,

New-built, and firmer than the one from which

We fellows dropped the line:—that went away

Two years ago, like straw before a gale,

In the great April flood, of which you heard,

When George and Lucy Dorrance lost their lives.

I saw them perish. You remember her,—

She that was Lucy Hall,—a charming girl,

The fairest of our schoolmates, with a heart

Light as her smile and fastened all upon

The boy that won her; yet her glances fell

Among us, right and left, like shooting stars

In clear October nights when winds are still.

“That year our Equinoctial came along

Ere the snow left us. Under mountain pines

White drifts lay frozen like the dead, and down

Through many a gorge the bristling hemlocks crossed

Their spears above the ice-enfettered brooks;

But the pent river wailed, through prison walls,

For freedom and the time to rend its chains.

At last it came: five days a drenching rain

Flooded the country; snow-drifts fell away;

The brooks grew rivers, and the river here—

A ravenous, angry torrent—tore up banks,

And overflowed the meadows, league on league.

Great cakes of ice, four-square, with mounds of hay,

Fence-rails, and scattered drift-wood, and huge beams

From broken dams above us, mill-wheel ties,

Smooth lumber, and the torn-up trunks of trees,

Swept downward, strewing all the land about.

Sometimes the flood surrounded, unawares,

Stray cattle, or a flock of timorous sheep,

And bore them with it, struggling, till the ice

Beat shape and being from them. You know how

These freshets scour our valleys. So it raged

A night and day; but when the day grew night

The storm fell off; lastly, the sun went down

Quite clear of clouds, and ere he came again

The flood began to lower.

“Through the rise

We men had been at work, like water-sprites,

Lending a helping hand to cottagers

Along the lowlands. Now, at early morn,

The banks were sentry-lined with thrifty swains,

Who hauled great stores of drift-wood up the slope.

But toward the bridge our village maidens soon

Came flocking, thick as swallows after storms,

When, with light wing, they skim the happy fields

And greet the sunshine. Danger mostly gone,

They watched the thunderous passage of the flood

Between the abutments, while the upper stream,

Far as they saw, lay like a seething strait,

From hill to hill. Below, with gradual fall

Through narrower channels, all was clash and clang

And inarticulate tumult. Through the grove

Yonder, our picnic-ground, the driving tide

Struck a new channel, and the craggy ice

Scored down its saplings. Following with the rest

Came George and Lucy, not three honeymoons

Made man and wife, and happier than a pair

Of cooing ring-doves in the early June.

“Two piers, you know, bore up the former bridge,

Cleaving the current, wedge-like, on the north;

Between them stood our couple, intergrouped

With many others. On a sudden loomed

An immolating terror from above,—

A floating field of ice, where fifty cakes

Had clung together, mingled with a mass

Of débris from the upper conflict, logs

Woven in with planks and fence-rails; and in front

One huge, old, fallen trunk rose like a wall

Across the channel. Then arose a cry

From all who saw it, clamoring, Flee the bridge!

Run shoreward for your lives! and all made haste,

Eastward and westward, till they felt the ground

Stand firm beneath them; but, with close-locked arms,

Lucy and George still looked, from the lower rail,

Toward the promontory where we stood,

Nor saw the death, nor seemed to hear the cry.

Run George! run Lucy! shouted all at once;

Too late, too late! for, with resistless crash,

Against both piers that mighty ruin lay

A space that seemed an hour, yet far too short

For rescue. Swaying slowly back and forth,

With ponderous tumult, all the bridge went off;

Piers, beams, planks, railings snapped their groaning ties

And fell asunder!

“But the middle part,

Wrought with great bolts of iron, like a raft

Held out awhile, whirled onward in the wreck

This way and that, and washed with freezing spray.

Faster than I can tell you, it came down

Beyond our point, and in a flash we saw

George, on his knees, close-clinging for dear life,

One arm around the remnant of the rail,

One clasping Lucy. We were pale as they,

Powerless to save; but even as they swept

Across the bend, and twenty stalwart men

Ran to and fro with clamor for A rope!

A boat!—their cries together reached the shore:

Save her! Save him!—so true Love conquers all.

Furlongs below they still more closely held

Each other, ’mid a thousand shocks of ice

And seething horrors; till, at last, the end

Came, where the river, scornful of its bed,

Struck a new channel, roaring through the grove.

There, dashed against a naked beech that stood

Grimly in front, their shattered raft gave up

Its precious charge; and then a mist of tears

Blinded all eyes, through which we seemed to see

Two forms in death-clasp whirled along the flood,

And all was over.

“Then from out the crowd

Certain went up the lane, and broke the news

To Lucy’s widowed mother; she spoke not,

Nor wept, nor murmured, but with stony glare

Took in her loss, like Niobe, and to bed

Moved stolidly and never rose again.

Old Farmer Dorrance gave a single groan,

And hurried down among us—all the man,

Though white with anguish—as we took our course

Around the meadows, searching for the dead.

“An eddying gulf ran up the hither bank,

Close by the paper-mill, and there the flood

Gave back its booty; there we found them laid,

Covered with floating leaves and twigs of trees,

Not many feet apart: so Love’s last clasp

Held lingeringly, until the cruel ice

Battered its fastenings. On a rustic bier,

Made of loose boughs and strewn with winter ferns,

We placed them, side by side, and bore them home.

The old man walked behind them, by himself,

And wrung his hands and bowed his head in tears.”

So Gilbert told his story; I, meanwhile,

Followed his finger’s pointing, as it marked

Each spot he mentioned, like a teacher’s wand.

But now the sun hung low; from many a field

The loitering kine went home with tinkling bells.

Slow-turning, toward the farm we made our way,

And met a host of maidens, merry-eyed,

Whom I knew not, yet caught a frequent glance

I seemed to know, that half-way brought to mind

Sweet eyes I loved to watch in school-boy days,—

Sweet sister-eyes to those that glistened now.

THE SLEIGH-RIDE.

Hark! the jingle

Of the sleigh-bells’ song!

Earth and air in snowy sheen commingle;

Swiftly throng

Norseland fancies, as we sail along.

Like the maiden

Of some fairy-tale,

Lying, spell-bound, in her diamond-laden

Bridal veil,

Sleeps the Earth beneath a garment pale.

High above us

Gleams the ancient moon,

Gleam the eyes of shining ones that love us:

Could their tune

Only fill our ears at heaven’s noon,

You and I, love,

With a wild delight,

Hearing that seraphic strain would die, love,

This same night,

Straight to join them in their starry height!

Closer nestle,

Dearest, to my side.

What enchantment, in our magic vessel

Thus to glide,

Making music, on a silver tide!

Jingle! jingle!

How the fields go by!

Earth and air in snowy sheen commingle,

Far and nigh;

Is the ground beneath us, or the sky?

Heavenward yonder,

In the lurid north,

From Valhalla’s gates that roll asunder,

Red and wroth,

Balder’s funeral flames are blazing forth.

O, what splendor!

How the hues expire!

All the elves of light their tribute render

To the pyre,

Clad in robes of gold and crimson fire.

Jingle! jingle!

Let the Earth go by!

With a wilder thrill our pulses tingle;

You and I

Will shout our loves, but aye forget to sigh!

THE BALLAD OF LAGER BIER.

In fallow college days, Tom Harland,

We both have known the ways of Yale,

And talked of many a nigh and far land,

O’er many a famous tap of ale.

There still they sing their Gaudeamus,

And see the road to glory clear;

But taps, that in our day were famous,

Have given place to Lager Bier.

Now, settled in this island-city,

We let new fashions have their weight;

Though none too lucky—more’s the pity!—

Can still beguile our humble state

By finding time to come together,

In every season of the year,

In sunny, wet, or windy weather,

And clink our mugs of Lager Bier.

On winter evenings, cold and blowing,

’Tis good to order “’alf-and-’alf”;

To watch the fire-lit pewter glowing,

And laugh a hearty English laugh;

Or even a sip of mountain whiskey

Can raise a hundred phantoms dear

Of days when boyish blood was frisky,

And no one heard of Lager Bier.

We’ve smoked in summer with Oscanyan,

Cross-legged in that defunct bazaar,

Until above our heads the banyan

Or palm-tree seemed to spread afar;

And, then and there, have drunk his sherbet,

Tinct with the roses of Cashmere:

That Orient calm! who would disturb it

With Norseland calls for Lager Bier?

There’s Paris chocolate,—nothing sweeter,

At midnight, when the dying strain,

Just warbled by La Favorita,

Still hugs the music-haunted brain;

Yet of all bibulous compoundings,

Extracts or brewings, mixed or clear,

The best, in substance and surroundings,

For frequent use, is Lager Bier.

Karl Schæffer is a stalwart brewer,

Who has above his vaults a hall,

Where—fresh-tapped, foaming, cool, and pure—

He serves the nectar out to all.

Tom Harland, have you any money?

Why, then, we’ll leave this hemisphere,

This western land of milk and honey,

For one that flows with Lager Bier.

Go, flaxen-haired and blue-eyed maiden,

My German Hebe! hasten through

Yon smoke-cloud, and return thou laden

With bread and cheese and bier for two.

Limburger suits this bearded fellow;

His brow is high, his taste severe:

But I’m for Schweitzer, mild and yellow,

To eat with bread and Lager Bier.

Ah, yes! the Schweitzer hath a savor

Of marjoram and mountain thyme,

An odoriferous, Alpine flavor;

You almost hear the cow-bells chime

While eating it, or, dying faintly,

The Ranz-des-vaches entrance the ear,

Until you feel quite Swiss and saintly,

Above your glass of Lager Bier.

Here comes our drink, froth-crowned and sunlit,

In goblets with high-curving arms,

Drawn from a newly opened runlet,

As bier must be, to have its charms.

This primal portion each shall swallow

At one draught, for a pioneer;

And thus a ritual usage follow

Of all who honor Lager Bier.

Glass after glass in due succession,

Till, borne through midriff, heart, and brain,

He mounts his throne and takes possession,—

The genial Spirit of the grain!

Then comes the old Berserker madness

To make each man a priest and seer,

And, with a Scandinavian gladness,

Drink deeper draughts of Lager Bier!

Go, maiden, fill again our glasses!

While, with anointed eyes, we scan

The blouse Teutonic lads and lasses,

The Saxon—Pruss—Bohemian,

The sanded floor, the cross-beamed gables,

The ancient Flemish paintings queer,

The rusty cup-stains on the tables,

The terraced kegs of Lager Bier.

And is it Göttingen, or Gotha,

Or Munich’s ancient Wagner Brei,

Where each Bavarian drinks his quota,

And swings a silver tankard high?

Or some ancestral Gast-Haus lofty

In Nuremburg—of famous cheer

When Hans Sachs lived, and where, so oft, he

Sang loud the praise of Lager Bier?

For even now some curious glamour

Has brought about a misty change!

Things look, as in a moonlight dream, or

Magician’s mirror, quaint and strange.

Some weird, phantasmagoric notion

Impels us backward many a year,

And far across the northern ocean,

To Fatherlands of Lager Bier.

As odd a throng I see before us

As ever haunted Brocken’s height,

Carousing, with unearthly chorus,

On any wild Walpurgis-night;

I see the wondrous art-creations!

In proper guise they all appear,

And, in their due and several stations,

Unite in drinking Lager Bier.

I see in yonder nook a trio:

There’s Doctor Faust, and, by his side,

Not half so love-distraught as Io,

Is gentle Margaret, heaven-eyed;

That man in black beyond the waiter—

I know him by his fiendish leer—

Is Mephistophiles, the traitor!

And how he swigs his Lager Bier!

Strange if great Goethe should have blundered,

Who says that Margaret slipt and fell

In Anno Domini Sixteen Hundred,

Or thereabout; and Faustus,—well,

We won’t deplore his resurrection,

Since Margaret is with him here,

But, under her serene protection,

May boldly drink our Lager Bier.

That bare-legged gypsy, small and lithy,

Tanned like an olive by the sun,

Is little Mignon; sing us, prithee,

Kennst du das Land, my pretty one!

Ah, no! she shakes her southern tresses,

As half in doubt and more in fear;

Perhaps the elvish creature guesses

We’ve had too much of Lager Bier.

There moves, full-bodiced, ripe, and human,

With merry smiles to all who come,

Karl Schæffer’s wife,—the very woman

Whom Rubens drew his Venus from!

But what a host of tricksome graces

Play round our fairy Undine here,

Who pouts at all the bearded faces,

And, laughing, brings the Lager Bier.

“Sit down, nor chase the vision farther,

You’re tied to Yankee cities still!”

I hear you, but so much the rather

Should Fancy travel where she will.

Yet let the dim ideals scatter;

One puff, and lo! they disappear;

The comet, next, or some such matter,

We’ll talk above our Lager Bier.

Now, then, your eyes begin to brighten,

And marvellous theories to flow;

A philosophic theme you light on,

And, spurred and booted, off you go!

If e’er—to drive Apollo’s phaeton—

I need an earthly charioteer,

This tall-browed genius I will wait on,

And prime him first with Lager Bier.

But higher yet, in middle Heaven,

Your steed seems taking flight, my friend;

You read the secret of the Seven,

And on through trackless regions wend!

Don’t vanish in the Milky Way, for

This afternoon you’re wanted here;

Come back! come back! and help me pay for

The bread and cheese and Lager Bier.

HOW OLD BROWN TOOK HARPER’S FERRY.

John Brown in Kansas settled, like a steadfast Yankee farmer,

Brave and godly, with four sons, all stalwart men of might.

There he spoke aloud for freedom, and the Border-strife grew warmer,

Till the Rangers fired his dwelling, in his absence, in the night;

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Came homeward in the morning—to find his house burned down.

Then he grasped his trusty rifle and boldly fought for freedom;

Smote from border unto border the fierce, invading band;

And he and his brave boys vowed—so might Heaven help and speed ’em!—

They would save those grand old prairies from the curse that blights the land;

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Said, “Boys, the Lord will aid us!” and he shoved his ramrod down.

And the Lord did aid these men, and they labored day and even,

Saving Kansas from its peril; and their very lives seemed charmed,

Till the ruffians killed one son, in the blessed light of Heaven,—

In cold blood the fellows slew him, as he journeyed all unarmed;

Then Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Shed not a tear, but shut his teeth, and frowned a terrible frown!

Then they seized another brave boy,—not amid the heat of battle,

But in peace, behind his ploughshare,—and they loaded him with chains,

And with pikes, before their horses, even as they goad their cattle,

Drove him cruelly, for their sport, and at last blew out his brains;

Then Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Raised his right hand up to Heaven, calling Heaven’s vengeance down.

And he swore a fearful oath, by the name of the Almighty,

He would hunt this ravening evil that had scathed and torn him so;

He would seize it by the vitals; he would crush it day and night; he

Would so pursue its footsteps, so return it blow for blow,

That Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Should be a name to swear by, in backwoods or in town!

Then his beard became more grizzled, and his wild blue eye grew wilder,

And more sharply curved his hawk’s-nose, snuffing battle from afar;

And he and the two boys left, though the Kansas strife waxed milder,

Grew more sullen, till was over the bloody Border War,

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Had gone crazy, as they reckoned by his fearful glare and frown.

So he left the plains of Kansas and their bitter woes behind him,

Slipt off into Virginia, where the statesmen all are born,

Hired a farm by Harper’s Ferry, and no one knew where to find him,

Or whether he’d turned parson, or was jacketed and shorn;

For Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Mad as he was, knew texts enough to wear a parson’s gown.

He bought no ploughs and harrows, spades and shovels, and such trifles;

But quietly to his rancho there came, by every train,

Boxes full of pikes and pistols, and his well-beloved Sharp’s rifles;

And eighteen other madmen joined their leader there again.

Says Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

“Boys, we’ve got an army large enough to march and take the town!

“Take the town, and seize the muskets, free the negroes and then arm them;

Carry the County and the State, ay, and all the potent South.

On their own heads be the slaughter, if their victims rise to harm them—

These Virginians! who believed not, nor would heed the warning mouth.”

Says Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

“The world shall see a Republic, or my name is not John Brown.”

’Twas the sixteenth of October, on the evening of a Sunday:

“This good work,” declared the captain, “shall be on a holy night!”

It was on a Sunday evening, and before the noon of Monday,

With two sons, and Captain Stephens, fifteen privates—black and white,

Captain Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Marched across the bridged Potomac, and knocked the sentry down;

Took the guarded armory-building, and the muskets and the cannon;

Captured all the county majors and the colonels, one by one;

Scared to death each gallant scion of Virginia they ran on,

And before the noon of Monday, I say, the deed was done.

Mad Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

With his eighteen other crazy men, went in and took the town.

Very little noise and bluster, little smell of powder made he;

It was all done in the midnight, like the Emperor’s coup d’état.

“Cut the wires! Stop the rail-cars! Hold the streets and bridges!” said he,

Then declared the new Republic, with himself for guiding star,—

This Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown;

And the bold two thousand citizens ran off and left the town.

Then was riding and railroading and expressing here and thither;

And the Martinsburg Sharpshooters and the Charlestown Volunteers,

And the Shepherdstown and Winchester Militia hastened whither

Old Brown was said to muster his ten thousand grenadiers.

General Brown!

Osawatomie Brown!!

Behind whose rampant banner all the North was pouring down.

But at last, ’tis said, some prisoners escaped from Old Brown’s durance,

And the effervescent valor of the Chivalry broke out,

When they learned that nineteen madmen had the marvellous assurance—

Only nineteen—thus to seize the place and drive them straight about;

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Found an army come to take him, encamped around the town.

But to storm, with all the forces I have mentioned, was too risky;

So they hurried off to Richmond for the Government Marines,

Tore them from their weeping matrons, fired their souls with Bourbon whiskey,

Till they battered down Brown’s castle with their ladders and machines;

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Received three bayonet stabs, and a cut on his brave old crown.

Tallyho! the old Virginia gentry gather to the baying!

In they rushed and killed the game, shooting lustily away;

And whene’er they slew a rebel, those who came too late for slaying,

Not to lose a share of glory, fired their bullets in his clay;

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

Saw his sons fall dead beside him, and between them laid him down.

How the conquerors wore their laurels; how they hastened on the trial;

How Old Brown was placed, half dying, on the Charlestown court-house floor;

How he spoke his grand oration, in the scorn of all denial;

What the brave old madman told them,—these are known the country o’er.

“Hang Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,”

Said the judge, “and all such rebels!” with his most judicial frown.

But, Virginians, don’t do it! for I tell you that the flagon,

Filled with blood of Old Brown’s offspring, was first poured by Southern hands;

And each drop from Old Brown’s life-veins, like the red gore of the dragon,

May spring up a vengeful Fury, hissing through your slave-worn lands!

And Old Brown,

Osawatomie Brown,

May trouble you more than ever, when you’ve nailed his coffin down!

November, 1859.