Earlier Poems.
[My Brother.]
Oh, brier rose clamber;
And cover the chamber—
The chamber, so dreary and lone—
Where with meekly-closed lips,
And eyes in eclipse,
My brother lies under the stone.
Oh, violets, cover,
The narrow roof over,
Oh, cover the window and door!
For never the lights,
Through the long days and nights,
Make shadows across the floor!
The lilies are blooming,
The lilies are white,
Where his play haunts used to be;
And the sweet cherry blossoms
Blow over the bosoms
Of birds in the old roof tree.
When I hear on the hills
The shout of the storm,
In the valley the roar of the river;
I shiver and shake,
On the hearth stone warm,
As I think of his cold “forever.”
His white hands are folded,
And never again,
With the song of the robin or plover,
When the Summer has come,
With her bees and her grain,
Will he play in the meadow clover.
Oh, dear little brother,
My sweet little brother,
In the palace above the sun,
Oh, pray the good angels,
The glorious evangels,
To take me—when life is done.
[My Father.]
In Memoriam, 1857.
The late George D. Prentice in speaking of this poem used the following language: “To our minds there is nothing in all the In Memoriam of Tennyson more beautiful than the following holy tribute to a dead father from our young correspondent at Pleasant Grove.” The poem was first published in the “Louisville Journal” of which Mr. Prentice was the editor.
Transcriber’s note: The original text referred to the “Louirville Journal” (clearly an erratum).
My Father! Orphan lips unknown
To love’s sweet uses sob the word
My father! dim with anguish, heard
In Heaven between a storm of moan
And the white calm that faith hath fixed
For solace, far beyond the world,
Where, all our starry dreams unfurled,
We drink the wine of peace unmixed.
Mine! folded in the awful trust
That draws the world’s face down in awe,
Holding her breath, as if she saw
God’s secret written in the dust—
My father! oh, the dreary years
The dreary winds have wailed across
Since his path, from the hills of loss,
Wound, shining, o’er the golden spheres.
What time the Angel at our door
Said soft, between our orphan-moan—
Arise! oh, soul! the night is done
And day hath bloomed forevermore!
I locked my icy hand across
My sobbing heart and sadly cried—
I lose thee in the glorified—
The world is darkened with my loss!
Oh, Angel! cried I—wrath complete!
With awful brows and eyes intense!
(For faith’s white robe of reverence
Slid noiseless to my sorrow’s feet)
Oh, Angel, help me out of strife!
I could have borne all mortal pain—
I could have lived my life in vain—
But this hath touched my inner life!
And eighteen hundred fifty-seven
Hath filled a decade of slow years
Since first my orphan cries and tears
Broke wild across the walls of Heaven.
This eve his grave is winter-white!
And ’twixt the snow-wind’s stormy thrills
I hear across the Northern hills
The solemn footsteps of the night!
Blow wind! Oh, wind, blow wild and high!
Blow o’er the dismal space of woods—
Blow down the roaring Northern floods
And let the dreary day go by!
Blow, wind, from out the shining West,
And wrap the hazy world in glow—
Blow wind and drift about my snow
The summer of his endless rest!
For he has fallen fast asleep
And cannot give me moan for moan—
My heart is heavy as a stone
And there is no one left to weep!
My soul is heavy and doth lie
Reaching up from my wretchedness—
Reaching up blindly for redress
The stern gray walls of entity!
Once in the golden spring-time hours,
In the sweet garden of my youth,
There fell a seed of bitter truth
That sprang and shadowed all the flowers—
Alone! The roses died apace
And pale the mournful violet blew—
Only the royal lily grew
And glorified the lonesome place!
In me the growth of human ills
Than human love had reached no higher,
But Seraphim with lips of fire
Have won me to the shining hills—
I cannot hide my soul in art—
I cannot mend my life’s defect—
This thunderous space of intellect
God gave me for a peaceful heart!
Hush! oh, my mournful heart, be still,
The heavy night is coming on,
But heavier lie the shadows drawn
About his grave so low and chill—
From out the awful sphere of God,
Oh, deathly wind, blow soft and low!
My soul is weary and would go
Where never foot of mortal trod!
[At the Nightfall.]
I muse alone in the fading light,
Where the mournful winds forever
Sweep down from the dim old hills of night,
Like the wail of a haunted river.
Alone! by the grave of a buried love,
The ghostly mist is parted,
Where the stars shine faint in the blue above,
Like the smile of the broken-hearted.
The living turn from my fond embrace,
As if no love were needed;
The tears I wept on thy young dead face
Were never more unheeded
Than my wild prayer for peace unwon—
One pure affection only,
One faithful heart to lean upon,
When life is sad and lonely.
The low grassy roof, my glorious dead,
Is bright with the buttercup’s blossom,
And the night-blooming roses burn dimly and red
On the green sod that covers thy bosom.
Thy pale hands are folded, oh beautiful saint,
Like lily-buds chilly and dew-wet,
And the smile on thy lip is as solemn and faint
As the beams of a norland sunset.
The angel that won thee a long time ago
To the shore of the glorious immortals,
In the sphere of the starland shall wed us, I know,
When I pass through the beautiful portals.
[The Midnight Chime.]
Suggested by the tolling of the bell on the sash factory in Port Deposit on a stormy night in January, 1856.
The rain is the loudest and wildest
Of rains that ever fell;
And the winds like an army of chanters
Through the desolate pine-woods swell,
And hark! through the shout of the tempest,
The sound of the midnight bell.
Now close on the storm it rises,
Now sadly it sinks with a moan—
Like a human heart in its anguish,
Crushing a fruitless groan—
Like a soul that goes wailing and pining,
Thro’ the motherless world, alone.
Is it hung in an ancient turret?
Is it swung by a mortal hand?
Is it chiming in woe or gladness,
Its symphonies sweet and grand?
Is it rung for a shadowy sorrow,
In the shadowy phantom land?
Alas for the beautiful guesses
That live in a poet’s rhyme—
’Tis only the bell of the factory
Tolling its woe sublime;
And the wind is the ghostly ringer,
Ringing the midnight chime.
Toll, mournful bell of the tempest,
Through my dreams by sleep unblest;
My bosom is throbbing as madly
To surges of wild unrest—
E’en as thy heart of iron
Is beating thy brazen breast!
[May-Thalia.]
To Thomas Hempstead.
Thy lay—a sweet sung bridal hymn,
Wedding the Old year to the New,
’Mid starry buds, and silver dew,
And brooks, and birds in woodlands dim—
That touched the hidden veins of thought
With the electric force of strife,
Thrilled the dumb marble of my life
Unto a perfect beauty wrought.
And straight, unclasping from my brow
The thorny crown of lost delight,
The solemn grandeur of the night
Flashed on me from old years, as now.
The budding of my days is past!
And May sits weeping in the shade
The weeds on April’s grave have made,
Blown slantwise in the sobbing blast.
Ah me! but in the Poet’s heart
Some pools of troubled water lie!
The hidden founts of agony,
That keep the better springs apart.
What comfort is there in the Earth!
What height, or depth, where we may hide
Our life long anguish, and abide
The ripening unto newer birth!
But Poet, in thy song is power
To lift the flood gates of my woe,
And bid its solemn surging flow
Far from the triumph of this hour.
Yea, rising from life’s evil things,
My soul, long blinded from the light,
Starlit across the purple night
Sweeps the red lightning of her wings!
I will be free! there is a strength
In the full blowing of our youth
To climb the rosied hills of truth
From the dry desert’s burning length.
From far a voice shouts to my fate
As shout the choiring Angels, when
The fiery cross of suffering men
Falls broken at the narrow gate!
Be brave! be noble, and sublime
Thyself unto a higher aim—
Keeping thy nature white of blame
In all the dreary walks of time!
Oh musty creeds in mouldy books!
Blind teachers of the blind are ye—
A plainer wisdom talks with me
In God’s full psalmody of brooks.
The rustling of a leaf hath force
To wake the currents of my blood,
That sweep, a wild Niagara-flood,
Hurled headlong in its fiery course.
The moaning of the wind hath power
To stir the anthem of my soul,
Unto a mightier thunder roll
Than ever shook a triumph hour.
Betwixt the gorgeous twilight bars
Rare truths flow from melodious lips—
God’s all-sublime Apocalypse—
His awful poem writ in stars!
Each ray that spends its burning might
In the alembic of the morn,
Is, in the Triune splendors, born
Of the great uncreated light!
To me the meanest creeping thing
Speaks with a loud Evangel tongue,
Of the far climes forever young
In His all-glorious blossoming.
And thus, oh Poet! hath thy lay—
Woven of brightest buds and flowers
Blowing, in breezy South-land bowers,
Against the blushing face of May—
A passion, and a power, that thrills
My hidden nature unto strife,
To battle bravely, for the life
Across the dim Eternal hills!
[Memories.]
While the wild north hills are reddening
In the sunset’s fiery glow,
And along the dreary moorlands,
Shine the stormy drifts of snow,
Sit I in my voiceless chamber
From the household ones apart,
And again is Memory lighting
The pale ruins of my heart.
And again are white hands sweeping,
Wildly, its invisible chords,
With the burden of a sorrow
That I may not wed to words.
Vainly I this day have striven,
List’ning to the snow-wind’s roll,
To forget the haunting music
That is throbbing in my soul.
Not my pleasant household duties,
Nor the rosied light of Morn,
Nor the banners of the sunset
On the wintry hills forlorn,
Could unclasp the starry yearning
From my mortal, weary breast,
Nor interpret the weird meaning
Of the phantom’s wild unrest.
All last night I heard the crickets
Chirping on the lonely hearth,
And I thought of him that lieth
In the embraces of the earth;
Till the lights died in the village,
And the armies of the snow,
In the bitter woods of midnight
Tracked the wild winds to and fro.
Oh my lover, safely folded
In the shadow of the grave,
While about my low-roofed dwelling
Moaning gusts of winter rave.
Well I know thy pale hands, folded
In the silence of long years,
Cannot give me back caresses
For my sacrifice of tears.
Oh ye dark and vexing phantoms—
Ghostly memories that arise,
Keeping ever ’twixt my spirit
And the beauty of the skies—
Memories of a faded splendor,
And a lost hope, long ago,
Ere my April grew to blushing
And my heavy heart to woe.
Saw ye in your solemn marches
From the citadel of death,
In our bridal halls of beauty
Burning still the lamp of faith?
Doth a watcher, pale and patient,
Folded from the tempest’s wrath,
Wait the coming of my footsteps
Down the grave’s long, lonesome path?
No reply!—the dreary shadows
Lengthen from the silent hills,
And a heavy boding sorrow
Still my aching bosom fills.
Now the moon is up in beauty,
Walking on a starry hight,
While her trailing vesture brightens
The gray hollows of the night.
Things of evil go out from me,
Leave this silence-haunted room,
Full enough of darkness keepeth
In the chamber of his tomb.
Full enough of shadow lieth
In that dim futurity—
In that wedding night, where, meekly,
My beloved waits for me!
[The Old Homestead.]
I remember the dear little cabin
That stood by the weather-brown mill,
And the beautiful wavelets of sunshine
That flowed down the slope of the hill,
And way down the winding green valley,
And over the meadow—smooth shorn,—
How the dew-drops lay flashing and gleaming
On the pale rosy robes of the morn.
How the blush-blossoms shook on the upland,
Like a red-cloud of sunset afar,
And the lilies gleamed up from the marsh pond
Like the pale silver rim of a star;
How the brook chimed a beautiful chorus,
With the birds that sang high in the trees;
And how the bright shadows of sunset
Trailed goldenly down on the breeze.
I remember the mossy-rimmed springlet,
That gushed in the shade of the oaks,
And how the white buds of the mistletoe,
Fell down at the woodman’s strokes,
On the morning when cruel Sir Spencer
Came down with his haughty train,
To uproot the old kings of the greenwood
That shadowed his golden grain.
For he dwelt in a lordly castle
That towered half-way up the hill,
And we in a poor little cabin
In the shade of the weather-brown mill,
Therefore the haughty Earl Spencer
Came down with his knightly train,
And uprooted our beautiful roof-trees
That shadowed his golden grain.
Ah! wearily sighed our mother,
When the mistletoe boughs lay shed;
But never the curse of the orphan
Was breathed on the rich man’s head;
And when again the gentle summer
Had gladdened the earth once more,
No branches of gnarled oaks olden
Made shadows across the floor.
[Gurtha.]
The lone winds creep with a snakish hiss
Among the dwarfish bushes,
And with deep sighing sadly kiss
The wild brook’s border rushes;
The woods are dark, save here and there
The glow-worm shineth faintly,
And o’er the hills one lonely star
That trembles white and saintly.
Ah! well I know this mournful eve
So like an evening olden;
With many a goodly harvest sheaf
The upland fields were golden;
The lily moon in bridal white
Leaned o’er the sea, her lover,
And stars with beauty filled the Night—
The wind sang in the clover.
The halls were bright with revelry,
The beakers red with wassail;
And music’s grandest symphony
Rung thro’ the ancient castle;
And she, the brightest of the throng,
With wedding-veil and roses,
Seemed like the beauty of a song
Between the organ’s pauses.
My memory paints her sweetly meek,
With her long sunny tresses,
And how the blushes on her cheek
Kissed back their warm caresses;
But like an angry cloud that cleaves
Down thro’ the mists of glory,
I see the flowers a pale hand weaves
Around a forehead gory.
The road was lone that lay between
His, and her father’s castle,
And many a stirrup-cup, I ween,
Quaffed he of generous wassail.
My soul drank in a larger draught
From the burning well of hate,
The hand that sped the murderous shaft
Was guided by my fate.
Red shadows lay upon the sward
That night, instead of golden—
And long the bride’s maids wait the lord
In the bridal-chamber olden;
Ah, well! pale hands unwove the flowers
That bound the milk-white forehead—
The star has sunk, the red moon glowers
Down slopes of blackness horrid.
[In Memoriam.]
John B. Abrahams, of Port Deposit, Aged 22 Years.
He giveth His beloved sleep.
—Psalms 127:2
From heaven’s blue walls the splendid light
Of signal-stars gleams far and bright
Down the abyssmal deeps of night.
Against the dim, dilating skies
Orion’s radiant mysteries
Of belt, and plume, and helmet rise—
I see—with flashing sword in hand,
With eyes sublime, and forehead grand—
The conquering constellation stand!
And on one purple tower the moon
Hangs her white lamp—the night wind’s rune
Floats faint o’er holt and black lagoon.
Far down the dimly shining bay
The drifting sea-fog, cold and gray,
Wraps all the golden ships away—
The fair-sailed ships, that in the glow
Of ghostly moon and vapor go,
Like wandering phantoms, to and fro!
With mournful thought I sit alone—
My heart is heavy as a stone,
And hath no utterance but a moan.
I think of him, who, being blest,
With pale hands crossed on silent breast,
Taketh his long unending rest;
While lone winds chant a funeral stave,
And pallid church-yard daisies wave
About his new unsodded grave.
The skies are solemn with their throng
Of choiring stars—and deep and strong
The river moans an undersong.
Oh mournful wind! Oh moaning river,
Oh golden planets, pausing never!
His lips have lost your song forever!
His lips, that done with pleadings vain—
And human sighing, born of pain—
Are hymning heav’ns triumphal strain.
The ages tragic Rhythm of change
Clashing on projects new and strange—
The tireless nations forward range—
Can ne’er disturb the perfect rest
Wherein he lieth—being blest,
With chill hands cross’d on silent breast.
Oh mourning heart! whose heavy plaint
Drifts down the deathly shadows faint,
Why weep ye for this risen saint?
His life’s pale ashes, under foot
That cling about the daisies’ root
Will bear at last most glorious fruit!
’Tis but the casket hid away
Neath roof of stone and burial clay;
The jewel shines in endless day!
And thus I gather for my tears
Sweet hope from faith in after years;
And far across the glimmering spheres
Height over height the heavens expand—
I see him in God’s Eden land,
With palms of vict’ry in his hand;
O’er brows of solemn breadth profound,
With fadeless wreaths of glory wound,
He stands a seraph, robed and crowned.
Aye! in a vision, see I now;
Christ’s symbol written on his brow—
Found worthy unto death art thou!
And ever in this heart of mine,
So won to glorious peace, divine
This vision of our lost shall shine;
Not with pale forehead in eclipse
With close-sealed lids and silent lips,
But grand in Life’s Apocalypse!
For very truly hath been said—
For the pale living—not the dead—
Should mourning’s bitterest tears be shed!
[Missive to ——.]
Purple shafts of sunset fire
Glory-crown the passionate sea,
Throbbing with a fierce desire
For the blue immensity.
Floods of pale and scarlet flame
Sweep the bases of the hills,
With a blushing unto shame
Thro’ their rosy bridal-thrills.
Slowly to the gorgeous West
Twilight paces from the East,
Like a dark, unbidden guest
Going to a marriage feast.
Dian—palaced in the blue—
O’er the eve-star, newly born,
Shakes a sweet baptismal dew
From her pearly drinking-horn.
Not the Ocean’s fiery soul
Throbbing up thro’ all his deeps—
Not the sunset tides that roll
Gloriously against the steeps
Of the hills, that to the stars
Lift their regal wedded brows,
Glittering, through the golden bars
Clasping close their nuptial snows.
Not the palace lights of Hesper
In the Queendom of the Moon,
Win me from that lovely vesper—
The last one of our last June.
Oh the golden-tressed minutes!
Oh the silver-footed hours!
Oh the thoughts that sang like linnets,
In a woodland full of flowers!
When my wild heart beat so lightly
It forgot its mortal shroud;
And an Angel trembled brightly
In the fold of every cloud.
Wo! That storms of sorrow-strife
Hold the pitying light apart,
And the golden waves of life
Beat against a breaking heart.
Saddest fate that e’er has been
Woven in the loom of years,
Our sworn faith has come between,
Heavy with the wine of tears.
Broken vow and slighted trust—
Hope’s white garments soiled and torn—
Passion trampled in the dust
By the iron heel of scorn.
Thou art dead, to me, as those
Folded safe from mortal strife;
Dead! as tho’ the grave-mould froze
The red rivers of thy life!
Oh! My Sweet! My Light! My Love!
With my grief co-heir sublime!
Storms and sorrows ever prove
True inheritors of Time.
Hush! An Angel holds my heart
From its breaking—tho’ I stand,
From the happy world apart,
On a broad and barren sand.
I will love thee tho’ I die!
Love thee, with my ancient faith!
For immortal voices cry:
Love is mightier than Death!
[Chick-A-Dee’s Song.]
Sweet, sweet, sweet!
High up in the budding vine
I’ve woven and hidden a dainty retreat
For this little brown darling of mine!
Along the garden borders,
Out of the rich dark mold,
The daffodils and jonquils
Are pushing their heads of gold;
And high in her bower-chamber
The little brown mother sits,
While to and fro, as the west winds blow,
Her pretty shadow flits.
Weet, weet, weet!
Safe in the branching vine,
Pillowed on woven grasses sweet,
Our pearly treasures shine;
And all day long in the sunlight,
By vernal breezes fanned,
The daffodil and the jonquil
Their jeweled discs expand;
And two and fro, as the west winds blow,
In the airy house a-swing,
The feeble life in the pearly eggs
She warms with brooding wing!
Sweet, sweet, sweet!
Under a flowery spray
Downy heads and little pink feet
Are cunningly tucked away!
Along the shining furrows,
The rows of sprouting corn
Flash in the sun, and the orchards
Are blushing red as morn;
And the time o’ the year for toil is here,
And idle song and play
With the jonquils, and the daffodils,
Must wait for another May.