OBERON.
Oberon, Elferon,
Pleasant Prince of Faery!
He should scarce be sung of me,—
Me, his humblest follower
Wheresoe’er a branch may stir
Signing, “This way hath he gone,
Oberon, Elferon,
Pleasant Prince of Faery!”
He should scarce be sung of me;
Yet, because, of his high grace,
I had glimpse once of his face,—
Moment sweet to think upon!—
I his celebrant will be.
Blood of Pan is in his veins,
And oft he goes in great Pan’s guise;
But not of Pan is all his mood,
Godlike-careless, dreamy-wise:
Conscious he of mortal pains!
He hath shadows in his eyes
Such as under hemlocks brood;
In his voice he hath a tone
Like unto the dark pine’s moan;
Northland bore him, not the South!
Yet rare laughters hath his mouth,
Birch-leaf laughters, rippling light.
Clear the sense of every sign
Is unto his perfect sight,
Sight as May-day morning young:
Sounds unto his hearing fine
Are as words of some known tongue.
Cuckoo-flower by Avon’s brim,
Muskrose rich, or eglantine,
Saith nor more nor less to him
Than arbutus softly saith
With its blush and with its breath.
Nightingale in Attic wood
Is no deeper understood
Than our bent-browed mocker gray,
With his bright eye cool and clear,
Sad and tender, wild and gay,
Dashing skeptic cavalier!
He hath not the virtue missed
In our violet’s amethyst,
All unscented as it grows:
Healings hid in jewel-tints
Of wing and petal well he knows!
Gems the shining black-bird shows
On his purple as he goes,
And the blue jay’s sapphire-glints,
And the burning, cordial gold
Of the oriole blithe and bold.
He can read the cipher-prints
On the vans of butterflies,
On the eggs of tiniest wren;
He can read the scarred rock’s hints
And the legends of the skies;
And he can read the hearts of men.
Ah, since thou hast smiled on me,
Though thy face no more I see,
Never win thy benison,
I must follow, follow thee,—
Oberon, Elferon,
Pleasant Prince of Poesy!
THE ACCOLADE.
A SONG FOR THE BEGINNING.
A Commencement Poem, read to the Graduating Class at Smith College, June 18th, 1884.
I.
Now filled was all the sum
Of serving years, and past, forever past,
All duties, all delights, of young esquires:
And to the altar and the hour at last,—
The hour, the altar, of his dear desires,—
Clear-shriven and whitely clad the youth was come.
II.
Full many a squire was in that household bred
To arms and honor and sweet courtesy,
Who wore that sojourn’s fragrant memory
As amulet in after-battles dread;
And meeting in kings’ houses joyously,
Or, wounded, in the sedge beside a lake,
Such men were bounden brothers, for the sake
Of the blade that knighted and the board that fed.
III.
To eastward builded was the oratory:
There all the warm spring night,—while in the wood
The buds were swelling in the brooding dark,
And dreaming of a lordlier dawn the lark,—
Paced to and fro the youth, and dreamed on glory,
And watched his arms. Great knights in mailéd hood
On steeds of stone sat ranged along the aisle,
And frowned upon the aspirant: “Who is he
Would claim the name and join the company
Of slayers of Soldans swart and Dragons grim,
Not ignorant of wanded wizards’ guile,
And deserts parched, and waters wide to swim?”
He halted at the challenge of the dead.
Anon, in twilight, fancy feigned a smile
To curve the carven lips, as though they said,
“Oh welcome, brother, of whom the world hath need!
Ere the recorded deed
We trembled, hoped, and doubted, even as thou.”
And therewithal he lifted up his brow,
Uplift from hesitance and humble fear,
And saw how with the splendor of the sun
The glimmering oriel blossomed rosy-clear;
And lo, the Vigil of the Arms was done!
IV.
Now, mass being said, before the priest he brought
That glittering prophecy, his untried sword.
In some mysterious forge the blade was wrought,
By shadowy arms of force that baffle thought
Wrought curiously in the dim under-world;
And all along the sheath processions poured,
Thronged shapes of earth’s weird morn
Ere yet the hammer of Thor was downward hurled:
Not less it had for hilt the Cross of Christ the Lord,
And must thereby in battle aye be borne.
V.
Cool-sprinkled with the consecrated wave,
That blade was blessed, that it should strike to save;
And next, pure hands of youth in hands of age
Were held upon the page
Of the illuminate missal, full of prayers,—
Rich fields, wherethrough the river of souls has rushed
Long, long, to have its passion held and hushed
In the breast of that calm sea whereto it fares:
And steadfastly the aspirant vow did plight
To bear the sword, or break it, for the Right;
And living well his life, yet hold it light,—
Yea, for that sovereign sake a worthless thing.
VI.
Thereon a troop of maids began to bring,
With flutter as of many-colored doves,
The hauberk that right martially did ring,
And weight of linkéd gloves,
And helmet plumed, and spurs ablaze with gold.
Each gave in gracious wise her guiding word,
As bade or fresh caprice, or usance old:
As, Ride thou swift by golden Honor spurred
Or, Be thou faithful, fortunate, and bold.
But scarce for his own heart the aspirant heard.
VII.
And armed, all save the head,
He kneeled before his master gray and good.
Like some tall, noble, ancient ship he stood,
That once swept o’er the tide
With banners, and freight of heroes helmeted
For worthy war, and music breathing pride.
Now, the walled cities won,
And storms withstood, and all her story spun,
She towers in sand beside some sunny bay,
Whence in the silvery morn new barks go sailing gay.
So stately stood the Knight:
And with a mighty arm, and with a blade
Reconsecrate at fiery fonts of fight,
He on the bowed neck gave the accolade.
Yet kneeled the youth bewildered, for the stroke
Seemed severance sharp of kind companionships;
And the strange pain of parting in him woke;
And as at midnight when a branch down dips
By sudden-swaying tempest roughly stirred,
Some full-fledged nested bird,
Being shaken forth, though fain of late to fly,
Now flickers with weak wing and wistful cry,—
So flickered his desires
’Twixt knighthood, and delights and duties of esquires.
But even as with the morrow will uprise,
Assured by azure skies,
The bird, and dart, and swim in buoyant air,—
Uprose his soul, and found the future free and fair!
VIII.
And girded with Farewell and with Godspeed
He sprang upon his steed.
And forth he fared along the broad bright way;
And mild was the young sun, and wild the breeze,
That seemed to blow to lands no eye had seen;
And Pentecost had kindled all the trees
To tremulous thin whispering flames of green,
And given to each a sacred word to say;
And wind-fine voices of the wind-borne birds
Were ever woven in among their words.
Soft-brooding o’er the hamlet where it lay,
The circling hills stood stoled with holy white,
For orchards brake to blossom in the night;
And all the morning was one blown blue flower,
And all the world was at its perfect hour.
So fared he gladly, and his spirit yearned
To do some deed fit for the deep new day.
And on the broad bright way his armor burned,
And showed him still, a shifting, waning star,
To sight that followed far.
Till, last, the fluctuant wood the flash did whelm,
That flood-like rolled in light and shadow o’er his helm.
IX.
I know not more: nor if that helm did rust
In weed of some drear wilderness down-thrust,
Where in the watches lone
Heaven’s host beheld him lying overthrown,
While God yet judged him victor, God whose laws
Note not the event of battle, but the cause.
I know not more: nor if the nodding prize
Of lustrous laurels ere that helm did crown,
While God yet judged him vanquished, God whose eyes
Saw how his Demon smote his Angel down
In some forgotten field and left him low.
Only the perfect hour is mine to know.
X.
O you who forth along the highway ride,
Whose quest the whispering wood shall close around,
Be all adventure high that may betide,
And gentle all enchantments therein found!
I would my song were as a trumpet-sound
To nerve you and speed, and weld its notes with power
To the remembrance of your perfect hour;
To ring again and again, and to recall
With the might of music, all:
The prescience proud, the morning aspiration,
But most the unuttered vow, the inward consecration!
THE OLIVE BOUGH.
A SONG FOR THE END.
A Memorial Poem, read to the Associate Alumnae of the New York Normal College, June 30th, 1883.
I.
As when, pursued by some swift Wind and bold
Freed from the hollow dark Æolian hold,
A cloud across the face of heaven is blown,
And sunshine ceases from the fields, as mown
By that long shadow sweeping o’er the wold,
And the kind world turns cold—
So o’er our chosen day
Sails now a shadowing cloud that sweeps the sun away.
Our chosen day, to Memory dedicate:
To Memory, goddess great,
A Proserpine that mid the dip and swell
Of her wide meadows dim with asphodel
Keeps aye one circle blest
Lit with purpureal light unlike the rest:
The field of our first youth, as luminous
Through soberer recollections, as the place
Where looked the Dardan on his father’s face
In the land nebulous.
The verdure of that valley is Spring’s own
Ampler the air—then, limits were not known
To us that breathed it; all that since has been
Has its free freshness to our spirits proved.
Oh circle blest indeed!
Dear, dear the faces that therein have moved,—
Sad, sad to know it changelessly decreed
We may no more behold them, save therein!
II.
It was men’s wont of old,
Ere spoken was the Vale, deep, three-fold,
From the full heart above the unanswering lip
Of the bronze urn, in water clear to dip
A branch, and sprinkle all with pure light spray:
Or broken bough of bay
Or olive called the happy, since it yields
Fruit in unnumbered fields:
For thus they deemed the influence done away
Of barren Death, that else a spell might lay
On the warm living, subtly to annul
Their powers, and strike their fortunes cold and dull.
And we, who seek the soul in each old sign,
Pleased if we may divine
Likeness in difference, Proteus in disguise,
And gazing backward with anointed eyes
Across deep ages and the gulfs of race
Know yet a brother’s face,—
We hail, in this the antique olive gray,
A meaning of to-day.
III.
For surely this pale bough, with hoary leaf,
Is symbol of one still thought that is ours
After the fire of grief:
Thought not unhappy, fruitful thought, that showers
A lustral rain of gentle tears and pure,
Breaking the spell of Death, that else were sure
To chain our living powers,
To lock Joy fettered in the frozen breast:
The one calm thought, the peaceful thought, They rest.
They rest: brief rest was theirs
Ere set of sun, and long and full of cares
The laboring day. ’Tis now as night, soft night,
Descending and enfolding, whereon bright
Old hours of toil are shining, sanctified
To stars that light and guide!
IV.
Ah, not with numbing of one noble hope
Turn we from facing Death inexorable,
But with strong souls and stable!
Deep heaven hath surely scope
To hold each earnest hour, a jewel new,
A star to light and guide:
And Toil, that shears all knotted puzzles through,
A stellar sword against the dark descried
Shall burn, like Perseus’ blade whereby the Gorgon died
Far, far the Colchian shores,
Weary the mid-sea laboring at the oars,
And hard to pass the rough Symplegades:
But, sail and storm-beat spars
And wave-worn rudder pictured all in stars,
Shines the ship Argo still above the Southern seas!