The poetical works of Edmund Clarence Stedman

by Edmund Clarence Stedman

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

ALECTRYÔN.

Great Arês, whose tempestuous godhood found

Delight in those thick-tangled solitudes

Of Hebrus, watered tracts of rugged Thrace,—

Great Arês, scouring the Odrysian wilds,

There met Alectryôn, a Thracian boy,

Stalwart beyond his years, and swift of foot

To hunt from morn till eve the white-toothed boar.

“What hero,” said the war-God, “joined his blood

With that of Hæmian nymph, to make thy form

So fair, thy soul so daring, and thy thews

So lusty for the contest on the plains

Wherein the fleet Odrysæ tame their steeds?”

From that time forth the twain together chased

The boar, or made their coursers cleave the breadth

Of yellow Hebrus, and, through vales beyond,

Drove the hot leopard foaming to his lair.

And day by day Alectryôn dearer grew

To the God’s restless spirit, till from Thrace

He bore him, even to Olympos; there

Before him set immortal food and wine,

That fairer youth and lustier strength might serve

His henchman; bade him bear his arms, and cleanse

The crimsoned burnish of his brazen car:

So dwelt the Thracian youth among the Gods.

There came a day when Arês left at rest

His spear, and smoothed his harmful, unhelmed brow,

Calling Alectryôn to his side, and said:

“The shadow of Olympos longer falls

Through misty valleys of the lower world;

The Earth shall be at peace a summer’s night;

Men shall have calm, and the unconquered host

Peopling the walls of Troas, and the tribes

Of Greece, shall sleep sweet sleep upon their arms;

For Aphroditê, queen of light and love,

Awaits me, blooming in the House of Fire,

Girt with the cestus, infinite in grace,

Dearer than battle and the joy of war:

She, for whose charms I would renounce the sword

Forever, even godhood, would she wreathe

My brows with myrtle, dwelling far from Heaven.

Hêphæstos, the lame cuckold, unto whose

Misshapen squalor Zeus hath given my queen,

To-night seeks Lemnos, and his sooty vault

Roofed by the roaring surge; wherein, betimes,

He and his Cyclops pound the ringing iron,

Forging great bolts for Zeus, and welding mail,

White-hot, in shapes for Heroes and the Gods.

Do thou, Alectryôn, faithful to my trust,

Hie with me to the mystic House of Fire.

Therein, with wine and fruitage of her isle,

Sweet odors, and all rarest sights and sounds,

My Paphian mistress shall regale us twain.

But when the feast is over, and thou seest

Arês and Aphroditê pass beyond

The portals of that chamber whence all winds

Of love flow ever toward the fourfold Earth,

Watch by the entrance, sleepless, while we sleep;

And warn us ere the glimpses of the Dawn;

Lest Hêlios, the spy, may peer within

Our windows, and to Lemnos speed apace,

In envy clamoring to the hobbling smith,

Hêphæstos, of the wrong I do his bed.”

Thus Arês; and the Thracian boy, well pleased,

Swore to be faithful to his trust, and liege

To her, the perfect queen of light and love.

So saying, they reached the fiery, brazen gates,

Encolumned high by Heaven’s artisan,

Hêphæstos, rough, begrimed, and halt of foot,—

Yet unto whom was Aphroditê given

By Zeus, because from his misshapen hands

All shapely things found being; but the gift

Brought him no joyance, nor made pure his fame,

Like those devices which he wrought himself,

Grim, patient, unbeloved.

There passed they in

At portals of the high, celestial House,

And on beyond the starry-golden court,

Through amorous hidden ways, and winding paths

Set round with splendors, to the spangled hall

Of secret audience for noble guests.

Here Charis labored, so Hêphæstos bade,

Moulding the room’s adornments; here she built

Low couches, framed in ivory, overlain

With skins of pard and panther, and the fleece

Of sheep which graze the low Hesperian isles;

And in the midst a cedarn table spread,

Whereon the loves of all the elder Gods

Were wrought in gold and silver; and the light

Of quenchless rubies sparkled over all.

Thus far came Arês and Alectryôn,

First leaving shield and falchion at the door,

That naught of violence should haunt that air

Serene, but laughter-loving peace, and joys

The meed of Gods, once given men to know.

Then, from her daïs in the utmost hall,

Shone toward them Aphroditê, not by firm,

Imperial footfalls, but in measureless

Procession, even as, wafted by her doves,

She kissed the faces of the yearning waves

From Cyprus to the high Thessalian mount,

Claiming her throne in Heaven; so light she stept,

Untended by her Graces; only he,

Erôs, th’ eternal child, with welcomings

Sprang forward to Arês, like a beam of light

Flashed from a coming brightness, ere it comes;

And the ambrosial mother to his glee

Joined her own joy, coy as she glided near

Arês, till Arês closed her in his arms

An instant, with the perfect love of Gods.

And the wide chamber gleamed with their delight,

And infinite tinkling laughters rippled through

Far halls, wherefrom no boding echoes came.

But when the passion of their meeting fell

To dalliance, the mighty lovers, sunk

Within those ivory couches golden-fleeced,

Made wassail at the wondrous board, and held

Sweet stolen converse till the middle night.

And soulless servitors came gliding in,

Handmaidens, wrought of gold, the marvellous work

Of lame Hêphæstos; having neither will,

Nor voice, yet bearing on their golden trays

Lush fruits and Cyprian wine, and, intermixt,

Olympian food and nectar, earth with heaven.

These Erôs and Alectryôn took therefrom,

And placed before the lovers; and, meanwhile,

Melodious breathings from unfingered lutes,

Warblings from unseen nightingales, and songs

From lips uncrimsoned, scattered music round.

So fled the light-shod moments, hour by hour,

While the grim husband clanged upon his forge

In lurid caverns of the distant isle,

Unboding, and unheeded in his home,

Save with a scornful jest. Till now the crown

Of Artemis shone at her topmost height:

Then rose the impassioned lovers, with rapt eyes

Fixed each on each, and passed beyond the hall,

Through curtains of that chamber whence all winds

Of love flow ever toward the fourfold Earth;

At whose dim vestibule Alectryôn

Disposed him, mindful of his master’s word;

But Erôs, heavy-eyed, long since had slept,

Deep-muffled in the softness of his plumes.

And all was silence in the House of Fire.

Only Alectryôn, through brazen bars,

Watched the blue East for Eôs, she whose torch

Should warn him of the coming of the Sun.

Even thus he kept his vigils; but, ere half

Her silvery downward path the Huntress knew,

His senses by that rich immortal food

Grew numbed with languor. Then the shadowy hall’s

Deep columns glimmered, interblent with dreams,—

Thick forests, running waters, darkling caves

Of Thrace; and half in thought he grasped the bow;

Hunted once more within his native wilds,

Cheering the hounds; until before his eyes

The drapery of all nearer pictures fell,

And his limbs drooped. Whereat the imp of Sleep,

Hypnos, who hid him at the outer gate,

Slid in with silken-sandalled feet, and laid

A subtle finger on his lids. And so,

Crouched at the warder-post, Alectryôn slept.

Meanwhile the God and Goddess, recking nought

Of evil, trusting to the faithful boy,

Sank satiate in the calm of trancéd rest.

And past the sleeping warder, deep within

The portals of that chamber whence all winds

Of love flow ever toward the fourfold Earth,

Hypnos kept on, walking, yet half afloat

In the sweet air; and fluttering with cool wings

Above their couch fanned the reposeful pair

To slumber. Thus, a careless twilight hour,

Unknowing Eôs and her torch, they slept.

Ill-fated rest! Awake, ye fleet-winged Loves,

Your mistress! Eôs, rouse the sleeping God,

And warn him of the coming of the Day!

Alectryôn, wake! In vain: Eôs swept by,

Radiant, a blushing finger on her lips.

In vain! Close on her flight, from furthest East,

The peering Hêlios drove his lambent car,

Casting the tell-tale beams on earth and sky,

Until Olympos laughed within his light,

And all the House of Fire grew roofed with gold;

And through its brazen windows Hêlios gazed

Upon the sleeping lovers: thence away

To Lemnos flashed, across the rearward sea,

A messenger, from whom the vengeful smith,

Hêphæstos, learned the story of his wrongs;

Whence afterward rude scandal spread through Heaven.

But they, the lovers, startled from sweet sleep

By garish Day, stood timorous and mute,

Even as a regal pair, the hart and hind,

When first the keynote of the clarion horn

Pierces their covert, and the deep-mouthed hound

Bays, following on the trail; then, with small pause

For amorous partings, sped in diverse ways.

She, Aphroditê, clothed in pearly cloud,

Dropt from Olympos to the eastern shore;

Thence floated, half in shame, half laughter-pleased,

Southward across the blue Ægæan sea,

That had a thousand little dimpling smiles

At her discomfort, and a thousand eyes

To shoot irreverent glances. But her conch

Passed the Eubœan coasts, and softly on

By rugged Dêlos, and the gentler slope

Of Naxos, to Icarian waves serene;

Thence sailed betwixt fair Rhodos, on the left,

And windy Carpathos, until it touched

Cyprus; and soon the conscious Goddess found

Her bower in the hollow of the isle;

And wondering nymphs in their white arms received

Their white-armed mistress, bathing her fair limbs

In fragrant dews, twining her lucent hair

With roses, and with kisses soothing her;

Till, glowing in fresh loveliness, she sank

To stillness, tended in the sacred isle,

And hid herself awhile from all her peers.

But angry Arês faced the treacherous Morn,

Spurning the palace tower; nor looked behind,

Disdainful of himself and secret joys

That stript him to the laughter of the Gods.

Toward the East he made, and overhung

The broad Thermaic gulf; then, shunning well

The crags of Lemnos, by Mount Athôs stayed

A moment, mute; thence hurtled sheer away,

Across the murmuring Northern sea, whose waves

Are swollen in billows ruffled with the cuffs

Of endless winds; so reached the shores of Thrace,

And spleen pursued him in the tangled wilds.

Hither at eventide remorseful came

Alectryôn; but the indignant God,

With harsh revilings, changed him to the Cock,

That evermore, remembering his fault,

Heralds with warning voice the coming Day.

THE TEST.

Seven women loved him. When the wrinkled pall

Enwrapt him from their unfulfilled desire

(Death, pale, triumphant rival, conquering all,)

They came, for that last look, around his pyre.

One strewed white roses, on whose leaves were hung

Her tears, like dew; and in discreet attire

Warbled her tuneful sorrow. Next among

The group, a fair-haired virgin moved serenely,

Whose saintly heart no vain repinings wrung,

Reached the calm dust, and there, composed and queenly,

Gazed, but the missal trembled in her hand:

“That’s with the past,” she said, “nor may I meanly

Give way to tears!” and passed into the land.

The third hung feebly on the portals, moaning,

With whitened lips, and feet that stood in sand,

So weak they seemed,—and all her passion owning.

The fourth, a ripe, luxurious maiden, came,

Half for such homage to the dead atoning

By smiles on one who fanned a later flame

In her slight soul, her fickle steps attended.

The fifth and sixth were sisters; at the same

Wild moment both above the image bended,

And with immortal hatred each on each

Glared, and therewith her exultation blended,

To know the dead had ’scaped the other’s reach!

Meanwhile, through all the words of anguish spoken,

One lowly form had given no sound of speech,

Through all the signs of woe, no sign nor token;

But when they came to bear him to his rest,

They found her beauty paled,—her heart was broken:

And in the Silent Land his shade confest

That she, of all the seven, loved him best.

THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW.

Once more on the fallow hillside, as of old, I lie at rest

For an hour, while the sunshine trembles through the walnut-tree to the west,—

Shakes on the rocks and fragrant ferns, and the berry-bushes around;

And I watch, as of old, the cattle graze in the lower pasture-ground.

Of the Saxon months of blossom, when the merle and mavis sing,

And a dust of gold falls everywhere from the soft mid-summer’s wing,

I only know from my poets, or from pictures that hither come,

Sweet with the smile of the hawthorn-hedge and the scent of the harvest-home.

But July in our own New England—I bask myself in its prime,

As one in the light of a face he loves, and has not seen for a time!

Again the perfect blue of the sky; the fresh green woods; the call

Of the crested jay; the tangled vines that cover the frost-thrown wall:

Sounds and shadows remembered well! the ground-bee’s droning hum;

The distant musical tree-tops; the locust beating his drum;

And the ripened July warmth, that seems akin to a fire which stole,

Long summers since, through the thews of youth, to soften and harden my soul.

Here it was that I loved her—as only a stripling can,

Who doats on a girl that others know no mate for the future man;

It was well, perhaps, that at last my pride and honor outgrew her art,

That there came an hour, when from broken chains I fled—with a broken heart.

’Twas well: but the fire would still flash up in sharp, heat-lightning gleams,

And ever at night the false, fair face shone into passionate dreams;

The false, fair form, through many a year, was somewhere close at my side,

And crept, as by right, to my very arms and the place of my patient bride.

Bride and vision have passed away, and I am again alone;

Changed by years; not wiser, I think, but only different grown:

Not so much nearer wisdom is a man than a boy, forsooth,

Though, in scorn of what has come and gone, he hates the ways of his youth.

In seven years, I have heard it said, a soul shall change its frame;

Atom for atom, the man shall be the same, yet not the same;

The last of the ancient ichor shall pass away from his veins,

And a new-born light shall fill the eyes whose earlier lustre wanes.

In seven years, it is written, a man shall shift his mood;

Good shall seem what was evil, and evil the thing that was good:

Ye that welcome the coming and speed the parting guest,

Tell me, O winds of summer! am I not half-confest?

For along the tide of this mellow month new fancies guide my helm,

Another form has entered my heart as rightful queen of the realm;

From under their long black lashes new eyes—half-blue, half-gray—

Pierce through my soul, to drive the ghost of the old love quite away.

Shadow of years! at last it sinks in the sepulchre of the past,—

A gentle image and fair to see; but was my passion so vast?

“For you,” I said, “be you false or true, are ever life of my life!”

Was it myself or another who spoke, and asked her to be his wife?

For here, on the dear old hillside, I lie at rest again,

And think with a quiet self-content of all the passion and pain,

Of the strong resolve and the after-strife; but the vistas round me seem

So little changed that I hardly know if the past is not a dream.

Can I have sailed, for seven years, far out in the open world;

Have tacked and drifted here and there, by eddying currents whirled;

Have gained and lost, and found again; and now, for a respite, come

Once more to the happy scenes of old, and the haven I voyaged from?

Blended, infinite murmurs of True Love’s earliest song,

Where are you slumbering out of the heart that gave you echoes so long?

But chords that have ceased to vibrate the swell of an ancient strain

May thrill with a soulful music when rightly touched again.

Rock and forest and meadow,—landscape perfect and true!

O, if ourselves were tender and all unchangeful as you,

I should not now be dreaming of seven years that have been,

Nor bidding old love good by forever, and letting the new love in!

ESTELLE.

“How came he mad?”—Hamlet.

Of all the beautiful demons who fasten on human hearts

To fetter the bodies and souls of men with exquisite, mocking arts,

The cruellest, and subtlest, and fairest to mortal sight,

Is surely a woman called Estelle, who tortures me day and night.

The first time that I saw her she passed with sweet lips mute,

As if in scorn of the vacant praise of those who made her suit;

A hundred lustres flashed and shone as she rustled through the crowd,

And a passion seized me for her there,—so passionless and proud.

The second time that I saw her she met me face to face;

Her bending beauty answered my bow in a tremulous moment’s space;

With an upward glance that instantly fell she read me through and through,

And found in me something worth her while to idle with and subdue;

Something, I know not what: perhaps the spirit of eager youth,

That named her a queen of queens at once, and loved her in very truth;

That threw its pearl of pearls at her feet, and offered her, in a breath,

The costliest gift a man can give from his cradle to his death.

The third time that I saw her—this woman called Estelle—

She passed her milk-white arm through mine and dazzled me with her spell;

A blissful fever thrilled my veins, and there, in the moon-beams white,

I yielded my soul to the fierce control of that maddening delight!

And at many a trysting afterwards she wove my heart-strings round

Her delicate fingers, twisting them, and chanting low as she wound;

The rune she sang rang sweet and clear like the chime of a witch’s bell;

Its echo haunts me even now, with the word, Estelle! Estelle!

Ah, then, as a dozen before me had, I lay at last at her feet,

And she turned me off with a calm surprise when her triumph was all complete:

It made me wild, the stroke which smiled so pitiless out of her eyes,

Like lightning fallen, in clear noonday, from cloudless and bluest skies!

The whirlwind followed upon my brain and beat my thoughts to rack:

Who knows the many a month I lay ere memory floated back?

Even now, I tell you, I wonder whether this woman called Estelle

Is flesh and blood, or a beautiful lie, sent up from the depths of hell.

For at night she stands where the pallid moon streams into this grated cell,

And only gives me that mocking glance when I speak her name—Estelle!

With the old resistless longing often I strive to clasp her there,

But she vanishes from my open arms and hides I know not where.

And I hold that if she were human she could not fly like the wind,

But her heart would flutter against my own, in spite of her scornful mind:

Yet, oh! she is not a phantom, since devils are not so bad

As to haunt and torture a man long after their tricks have made him mad!

EDGED TOOLS.

Well, Helen, quite two years have flown

Since that enchanted, dreamy night,

When you and I were left alone,

And wondered whether they were right

Who said that each the other loved;

And thus debating, yes and no,

And half in earnest, as it proved,

We bargained to pretend ’twas so.

Two sceptic children of the world,

Each with a heart engraven o’er

With broken love-knots, quaintly curled,

Of hot flirtations held before;

Yet, somehow, either seemed to find,

This time, a something more akin

To that young, natural love,—the kind

Which comes but once, and breaks us in.

What sweetly stolen hours we knew,

And frolics perilous as gay!

Though lit in sport, Love’s taper grew

More bright and burning day by day.

We knew each heart was only lent,

The other’s ancient scars to heal:

The very thought a pathos blent

With all the mirth we tried to feel.

How bravely, when the time to part

Came with the wanton season’s close,

Though nature with our mutual art

Had mingled more than either chose,

We smothered Love, upon the verge

Of folly, in one last embrace,

And buried him without a dirge,

And turned, and left his resting-place.

Yet often (tell me what it means!)

His spirit steals upon me here,

Far, far away from all the scenes

His little lifetime held so dear;

He comes: I hear a mystic strain

In which some tender memory lies;

I dally with your hair again;

I catch the gleam of violet eyes.

Ah, Helen! how have matters been

Since those rude obsequies, with you?

Say, is my partner in the sin

A sharer of the penance too?

Again the vision’s at my side:

I drop my head upon my breast,

And wonder if he really died,

And why his spirit will not rest.

THE SWALLOW.

Had I, my love declared, the tireless wing

That wafts the swallow to her northern skies,

I would not, sheer within the rich surprise

Of full-blown Summer, like the swallow, fling

My coyer being; but would follow Spring,

Melodious consort, as she daily flies,

Apace with suns, that o’er new woodlands rise

Each morn—with rains her gentler stages bring.

My pinions should beat music with her own;

Her smiles and odors should delight me ever,

Gliding, with measured progress, from the zone

Where golden seas receive the mighty river,

Unto yon lichened cliffs, whose ridges sever

Our Norseland from the arctic surge’s moan.

REFUGE IN NATURE.

When the rude world’s relentless war has pressed

Fiercely upon them, and the hot campaign

Closes with battles lost, some yield their lives,

Or linger in the ruins of the fight—

Unwise, and comprehending not their fate,

Nor gathering that affluent recompense

Which the all-pitying Earth has yet in store.

Surely such men have never known the love

Of Nature; nor had recourse to her fount

Of calm delights, whose influences heal

The wounded spirits of her vanquished sons;

Nor ever—in those fruitful earlier days,

Wherein her manifest forms do most enrich

Our senses void of subtler cognizance—

Wandered in summer fields, climbed the free hills,

Pursued the murmuring music of her streams,

And found the borders of her sounding sea.

But thou—when, in the multitudinous lists

Of traffic, all thine own is forfeited

At some wild hazard, or by weakening drains

Poured from thee; or when, striving for the meed

Of place, thou failest, and the lesser man

By each ignoble method wins thy due;

When the injustice of the social world

Environs thee; when ruthless public scorn,

Black slander, and the meannesses of friends

Have made the bustling practice of the world

To thee a discord and a mockery;

Or even if that last extremest pang

Be thine, and, added to such other woes,

The loss of that forever faithful love

Which else had balanced all: the putting out,

Untimely, of the light in dearest eyes;—

At such a time thou well may’st count the days

Evil, and for a season quit the field;

Yet not surrendering all human hopes,

Nor the rich physical life which still remains

God’s boon and thy sustainer. It were base

To join alliance with the hosts of Fate

Against thyself, crowning their victory

By loose despair, or seeking rest in death.

More wise, betake thee to those sylvan haunts

Thou knewest when young, and, once again a child,

Let their perennial loveliness renew

Thy natural faith and childhood’s heart serene.

Forgetting all the toilsome pilgrimage,

Awake from strife and shame, as from a dream

Dreamed by a boy, when under waving trees

He sleeps and dreams a languid afternoon.

Once more from these harmonious beauties gain

Repose and ransom, and a power to feel

The immortal gladness of inanimate things.

There is the mighty Mother, ever young

And garlanded, and welcoming her sons.

There are her thousand charms to soothe thy pain,

And merge thy little, individual woe

In the broad health and happy fruitfulness

Of all that smiles around thee. For thy sake

The woven arches of her forests breathe

Perpetual anthems, and the blue skies smile

Between, to heal thee with their infinite hope.

There are her crystal waters: lave thy brows,

Hot with long turmoil, in their purity;

Wash off the battle-dust from those poor limbs

Blood-stained and weary. Holy sleep shall come

Upon thee; waking, thou shalt find in bloom

The lilies, fresh as in the olden days;

And once again, when Night unveils her stars,

Thou shalt have sight of their high radiance,

And feel the old, mysterious awe subdue

The phantoms of thy pain.

And from that height

A voice shall whisper of the faith, through which

A man may act his part until the end.

Anon thy ancient yearning for the fight

May come once more, tempered by poise of chance,

And guided well with all experience.

Invisible hands may gird thy armor on,

And Nature put new weapons in thy hands,

Sending thee out to try the world again,—

Perchance to conquer, being cased in mail

Of double memories; knowing smaller griefs

Can add no sorrow to the woful past;

And that, howbeit thou mayest stand or fall,

Earth proffers men her refuge everywhere,

And Heaven’s promise is for aye the same.

MONTAGU.

Queen Katherine of Arragon

In gray Kimbolton dwelt,

A joyous bride, ere bluff King Hal

To Anne’s beauty knelt.

Still in her haughty Spanish eyes

Their childhood’s lustre shone,

That lit with love two royal hearts,

And won the English throne.

From gray Kimbolton’s castle-gate

She rode, each summer’s day,

And blithely led the greenwood chase

With hawk and hound away.

And ever handsome Montagu,

Her Master of the Horse,

To guard his mistress kept her pace

O’er heather, turf, and gorse.

O, who so brave as Montagu

To leap the hedges clear!

And who so fleet as he to find

The coverts of the deer!

And who so wild as Montagu,

To seek his sovereign’s love!

More hopeless than a child, who craves

The brightest star above.

Day after day her presence fed

The fever at his heart;

Yet loyally the young knight scorned

To play a traitor’s part.

Only, when at her palfrey’s side

He bowed him by command,

Lightening her footfall to the earth,

He pressed her dainty hand;

A tender touch, as light as love,

Soft as his heart’s desire;

But aye, in Katherine’s artless blood,

It woke no answering fire.

King Hal to gray Kimbolton came

Erelong, and true love’s sign,

Unused in colder Arragon,

She prayed him to divine:

“Canst tell me, Sire,” she said, “what mean

The gentry of your land,

When softly, thus, and thus, they take

And press a lady’s hand?”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Hal, “but tell me, Chick,

Each answering in course,

Do any press your hand?” “O yes,

My Master of the Horse.”

Off to the wars her gallant went,

And pushed the foremost dikes,

And gashed his fair young form against

A score of Flemish pikes.

Heart’s blood ebbed fast; but Montagu,

Dipping a finger, wove

These red words in his shield: “Dear Queen,

I perish of your love!”

Kimbolton, after many a year,

Again met Katherine’s view:

The banished wife, with half a sigh,

Remembered Montagu.

WILD WINDS WHISTLE.

1.

Sir Ulric a Southern dame has wed;

Wild winds whistle and snow is come;

He has brought her home to his bower and bed.

Hither and thither the birds fly home.

Her hair is darker than thick of night;

Wild winds whistle, &c.

Her hands are fair, and her step is light.

Hither and thither, &c.

From out his castel in the North

Sir Ulric to hunt rode lightly forth.

Three things he left her for good or ill,—

A bonny bird that should sing at will,

With carol sweeter than silver bell,

Day and night in the old castel;

A lithe little page to gather flowers;

And a crystal dial to mark the hours.

2.

Lady Margaret watched Sir Ulric speed

Away to the chase on his faithful steed.

From morning till night, the first day long,

She sat and listened the bonny bird’s song.

The second day long, with fingers fair,

She curled and combed her page’s hair.

The third day’s sun rose up on high;

By the dial she was seated nigh:

She loathed the bird and the page’s face,

And counted the shadow’s creeping pace.

3.

The strange knight drew his bridle-rein;

He looked at the sky and he looked at the plain.

“O lady!” he said, “’twas a sin and shame

To leave for the chase so fair a dame.

“O lady!” he said, “we two will flee

To the blithesome land of Italie;

“There the orange grows, and the fruitful vine,

And a bower of myrtle shall be thine.”

He has taken her hand and kissed her mouth:

Now Ho! sing Ho! for the sunny South.

He has kissed her mouth and clasped her waist:

Now, good gray steed, make haste, make haste!

4.

Sir Ulric back from the chase has come,

And sounds the horn at his castel-home.

Or ever he drew his bridle-rein,

He saw the dial split in twain;

The bonny blithe bird was stark and dead,

And the lithe little page hung down his head.

The lithe little page hung down his head;

Wild winds whistle and snow is come;

“O where, Sir Page, has my lady fled?”

Hither and thither the birds fly home.

PETER STUYVESANT’S NEW YEAR’S CALL.
1 JAN. A. C. 1661.

Where nowadays the Battery lies,

New York had just begun,

A new-born babe, to rub its eyes,

In Sixteen Sixty-One.

They christened it Nieuw Amsterdam,

Those burghers grave and stately,

And so, with schnapps and smoke and psalm,

Lived out their lives sedately.

Two windmills topped their wooden wall,

On Stadthuys gazing down,

On fort, and cabbage-plots, and all

The quaintly gabled town;

These flapped their wings and shifted backs,

As ancient scrolls determine,

To scare the savage Hackensacks,

Paumanks, and other vermin.

At night the loyal settlers lay

Betwixt their feather-beds;

In hose and breeches walked by day,

And smoked, and wagged their heads.

No changeful fashions came from France,

The vrouwleins to bewilder;

No broad-brimmed burgher spent for pants

His every other guilder.

In petticoats of linsey-red,

And jackets neatly kept,

The vrouws their knitting-needles sped

And deftly spun and swept.

Few modern-school flirtations there

Set wheels of scandal trundling,

But youths and maidens did their share

Of staid, old-fashioned bundling.

—The New Year opened clear and cold;

The snow, a Flemish ell

In depth, lay over Beeckman’s Wold

And Wolfert’s frozen well.

Each burgher shook his kitchen-doors,

Drew on his Holland leather,

Then stamped through drifts to do the chores,

Beshrewing all such weather.

But—after herring, ham, and kraut—

To all the gathered town

The Dominie preached the morning out,

In Calvanistic gown;

While tough old Peter Stuyvesant

Sat pewed in foremost station,—

The potent, sage, and valiant

Third Governor of the nation.

Prayer over, at his mansion hall,

With cake and courtly smile

He met the people, one and all,

In gubernatorial style;

Yet missed, though now the day was old,

An ancient fellow-feaster,—

Heer Govert Loockermans, that bold

Brewer and burgomeester;

Who, in his farm-house, close without

The picket’s eastern end,

Sat growling at the twinge of gout

That kept him from his friend.

But Peter strapped his wooden peg,

When tea and cake were ended

(Meanwhile the sound remaining leg

Its high jack-boot defended),

A woolsey cloak about him threw,

And swore, by wind and limb,

Since Govert kept from Peter’s view,

Peter would visit him;

Then sallied forth, through snow and blast,

While many a humble greeter

Stood wondering whereaway so fast

Strode bluff Hardkoppig Pieter.

Past quay and cowpath, through a lane

Of vats and mounded tans,

He puffed along, with might and main,

To Govert Loockermans;

Once there, his right of entry took,

And hailed his ancient crony:

“Myn Gott! in dese Manhattoes, Loock,

Ve gets more snow as money!”

To which, till after whiffs profound,

The other answered not;

At last there came responsive sound:

“Yah, Peter; yah, Myn Gott!”

Then goedevrouw Marie sat her guest

Beneath the chimney-gable,

And courtesied, bustling at her best

To spread the New Year’s table.

She brought the pure and genial schnapps,

That years before had come—

In the “Nieuw Nederlandts,” perhaps—

To cheer the settlers’ home;

The long-stemmed pipes; the fragrant roll

Of pressed and crispy Spanish;

Then placed the earthen mugs and bowl,

Nor long delayed to vanish.

Thereat, with cheery nod and wink,

And honors of the day,

The trader mixed the Governor’s drink

As evening sped away.

That ancient room! I see it now:

The carven nutwood dresser;

The drawers, that many a burgher’s vrouw

Begrudged their rich possessor;

The brace of high-backed leathern chairs,

Brass-nailed at every seam;

Six others, ranged in equal pairs;

The bacon hung abeam;

The chimney-front, with porcelain shelft;

The hearty wooden fire;

The picture, on the steaming delft,

Of David and Goliah.

I see the two old Dutchmen sit

Like Magog and his mate,

And hear them, when their pipes are lit,

Discuss affairs of state:

The clique that would their sway demean;

The pestilent importation

Of wooden nutmegs, from the lean

And losel Yankee nation.

But when the subtle juniper

Assumed its sure command,

They drank the buxom loves that were,—

They drank the Motherland;

They drank the famous Swedish wars,

Stout Peter’s special glory,

While Govert proudly showed the scars

Of Indian contests gory.

Erelong, the berry’s power awoke

Some music in their brains,

And, trumpet-like, through rolling smoke,

Rang long-forgotten strains,—

Old Flemish snatches, full of blood,

Of phantom ships and battle;

And Peter, with his leg of wood,

Made floor and casement rattle.

Then round and round the dresser pranced,

The chairs began to wheel,

And on the board the punch-bowl danced

A Netherlandish reel;

Till midnight o’er the farm-house spread

Her New-Year’s skirts of sable,

And, inch by inch, each puzzled head

Dropt down upon the table.

But still to Peter, as he dreamed,

That table spread and turned;

The chimney-log blazed high, and seemed

To circle as it burned;

The town into the vision grew

From ending to beginning;

Fort, wall, and windmill met his view,

All widening and spinning.

The cowpaths, leading to the docks,

Grew broader, whirling past,

And checkered into shining blocks,—

A city fair and vast;

Stores, churches, mansions, overspread

The metamorphosed island,

While not a beaver showed his head

From Swamp to Kalchook highland.

Eftsoons the picture passed away;

Hours after, Peter woke

To see a spectral streak of day

Gleam in through fading smoke;

Still slept old Govert, snoring on

In most melodious numbers;

No dreams of Eighteen Sixty-One

Commingled with his slumbers.

But Peter, from the farm-house door,

Gazed doubtfully around,

Rejoiced to find himself once more

On sure and solid ground.

The sky was somewhat dark ahead,

Wind east, and morning lowery;

And on he pushed, a two-miles’ tread,

To breakfast at his Bouwery.