Poems

by Alexander Smith

The world is old,—Oh! very old,—
The wild winds weep and rave;
The world is old, and grey, and cold,
Let it drop into its grave!

Our ears, Sir Bookworm, hunger for thy song.

WALTER.

I have a strain of a departed bard;
One who was born too late into this world.
A mighty day was past, and he saw nought
But ebbing sunset and the rising stars,—
Still o'er him rose those melancholy stars!
Unknown his childhood, save that he was born
'Mong woodland waters full of silver breaks;
That he grew up 'mong primroses moon-pale
In the hearts of purple hills; that he o'er ran
Green meadows golden in the level sun,
A bright-haired child; and that, when these he left
To dwell within a monstrous city's heart,
The trees were gazing up into the sky,
Their bare arms stretched in prayer for the snows.
When first we met, his book was six months old,
And eagerly his name was buzzed abroad;
Praises fell thick on him. Men said, "This Dawn
Will widen to a clear and boundless Day;
And when it ripens to a sumptuous west
With a great sunset 'twill be closed and crowned."
Lady! he was as far 'bove common men
As a sun-steed, wild-eyed and meteor-maned,
Neighing the reeling stars, is 'bove a hack
With sluggish veins of mud. More tremulous
Than the soft star that in the azure east
Trembles with pity o'er bright bleeding day,
Was his frail soul; I dwelt with him for years;
I was to him but Labrador to Ind;
His pearls were plentier than my pebble-stones.
He was the sun, I was that squab—the earth,
And basked me in his light until he drew
Flowers from my barren sides. Oh! he was rich,
And I rejoiced upon his shore of pearls,
A weak enamoured sea. Once did he say,
"My Friend! a Poet must ere long arise,
And with a regal song sun-crown this age,
As a saint's head is with a halo crown'd;—
One, who shall hallow Poetry to God
And to its own high use, for Poetry is
The grandest chariot wherein king-thoughts ride;—
One, who shall fervent grasp the sword of song
As a stern swordsman grasps his keenest blade,
To find the quickest passage to the heart.
A mighty Poet whom this age shall choose
To be its spokesman to all coming times.
In the ripe full-blown season of his soul,
He shall go forward in his spirit's strength,
And grapple with the questions of all time,
And wring from them their meanings. As King Saul
Called up the buried prophet from his grave
To speak his doom, so shall this Poet-king
Call up the dead Past from its awful grave
To tell him of our future. As the air
Doth sphere the world, so shall his heart of love—
Loving mankind, not peoples. As the lake
Reflects the flower, tree, rook, and bending heaven,
Shall he reflect our great humanity;
And as the young Spring breathes with living breath
On a dead branch, till it sprouts fragrantly
Green leaves and sunny flowers, shall he breathe life
Through every theme he touch, making all Beauty
And Poetry for ever like the stars."
His words set me on fire; I cried aloud,
"Gods! what a portion to forerun this Soul!"
He grasped my hand,—I looked upon his face,—
A thought struck all the blood into his cheeks,
Like a strong buffet. His great flashing eyes
Burned on mine own. He said, "A grim old king,
Whose blood leapt madly when the trumpets brayed
To joyous battle 'mid a storm of steeds,
Won a rich kingdom on a battle-day;
But in the sunset he was ebbing fast,
Ringed by his weeping lords. His left hand held
His white steed, to the belly splashed with blood,
That seemed to mourn him with its drooping head;
His right, his broken brand; and in his ear
His old victorious banners flap the winds.
He called his faithful herald to his side,—
'Go! tell the dead I come!' With a proud smile,
The warrior with a stab let out his soul,
Which fled and shrieked through all the other world,
'Ye dead! My master comes!' And there was pause
Till the great shade should enter. Like that herald,
Walter, I'd rush across this waiting world
And cry, 'He comes!'" Lady, wilt hear the song?
[Sings.

In the street, the tide of being, how it surges, how it rolls!
God! what base ignoble faces, God! what bodies wanting souls,
'Mid this stream of human being, banked by houses tall and grim,
Pale I stand this shining morrow with a pant for woodlands dim,
To hear the soft and whispering rain, feel the dewy cool of leaves,
Watch the lightnings dart like swallows round the brooding thunder-eaves,
To lose the sense of whirling streets, 'mong breezy crests of hills,
Skies of larks, and hazy landscapes, with fine threads of silver rills,—
Stand with forehead bathed in sunset on a mountain's summer crown,
And look up and watch the shadow of the great night coming down,
One great life in my myriad veins, in leaves, in flowers, in cloudy cars,
Blowing, underfoot, in clover; beating, overhead, in stars!
Once I saw a blissful harvest-moon, but not through forest-leaves;
'Twas not whitening o'er a country, costly with the pilèd sheaves;
Rose not o'er the am'rous ocean, trembling round his happy isles;
It came circling large and queenly o'er yon roof of smoky tiles,
And I saw it with such feeling, joy in blood, in heart, in brain,
I would give to call the affluence of that moment back again,
Europe, with her cities, rivers, hills of prey, sheep-sprinkled downs,—
Ay, a hundred sheaves of sceptres! Ay, a planet's gathered crowns!
For with that resplendent harvest-moon, my inmost thoughts were shared
By a bright and shining maiden, hazel-eyed and golden-haired;
One blest hour we sat together in a lone and silent place,
O'er us, starry tears were trembling on the mighty midnight's face.
Gradual crept my arm around her, 'gainst my shoulder came her head,
And I could but draw her closer, whilst I tremulously said,—
"Passion as it runs grows purer, loses every tinge of clay,
As from Dawn all red and turbid flows the white transparent Day,
And in mingled lives of lovers, the array of human ills
Breaks their gentle course to music, as the stones break summer rills."
"You should give the world," she murmured, "such delicious thoughts as these."
"They are fit to line portmanteaus;" "Nay," she whispered, "Memories."
And thereat she looked upon me with a smile so full of grace,
All my blood was in a moment glowing in my ardent face!
Half-blind, I looked up to the host of palpitating stars,
'Gainst my sides my heart was leaping, like a lion 'gainst his bars,
For a thought was born within me, and I said within my mind,
"I will risk all in this moment, I will either lose or find."
"Dost thou love me?" then I whispered; for a minute after this,
I sat and trembled in great blackness—On my lips I felt a kiss;—
Than a roseleaf's touch 'twas lighter,—on her face her hands she prest,
And a heaven of tears and blushes was deep buried in my breast.
I could make her faith, my passion, a wide mark for scorn and sneers,
I could laugh a hollow laughter but for these hot bursting tears;
In the strong hand of my frenzy, laws and statutes snapt like reeds,
And furious as a wounded bull I tore at all the creeds;
I rushed into the desert, where I stood with hopeless eyes,
Glaring on vast desolations, barren sands, and empty skies!
Soon a trembling naked figure, to the earth my face was bowed,
For the curse of God gloomed o'er me like a bursting thunder-cloud.
Rolled away that fearful darkness, pass'd my weakness, pass'd my grief,
Washed with bitter tears I sat full in the sunshine of belief.
Weary eyes are looking eastward, whence the golden sun upsprings,
Cry the young and fervid spirits, clad with ardour as with wings,
"Life and Soul make wretched jangling, they should mingle to one Sire
As the lovely voices mingle in a holy temple choir.
O! those souls of ours, my brothers! prisoned now in mortal bars,
Have been riched by growth and travel, by the round of all the stars.
Soul, alas! is unregarded; Brothers! it is closely shut:
All unknown as royal Alfred in the Saxon neatherd's hut,
In the Dark house of the Body, cooking victuals, lighting fires,
Swelters on the starry stranger, to our nature's base desires.
From its lips is 't any marvel that no revelations come?
We have wronged it; we do wrong it—'tis majestically dumb!
God! our souls are aproned waiters! God! our souls are hired slaves:
Let us hide from Life, my Brothers! let us hide us in our graves.
O! why stain our holy childhoods? Why sell all for drinks and meats?
Why degrade, like those old mansions, standing in our pauper streets,
Lodgings once of kings and nobles, silken stirs and trumpet's din,
Now, where crouch 'mong rags and fever, shapes of squalor and of sin?"
Like a mist this wail surrounds me; Brothers, hush; the Lord Christ's hands
Ev'n now are stretched in blessing o'er the sea and o'er the lands.
Sit not like a mourner, Brother! by the grave of that dear Past,
Throw the Present! 'tis thy servant only when 'tis overcast,—
Give battle to the leaguèd world, if thou'rt worthy, truly brave,
Thou shalt make the hardest circumstance a helper or a slave,
As when thunder wraps the setting sun, he struggles, glows with ire,
Rifts the gloom with golden furrows, with a hundred bursts of fire,
Melts the black and thund'rous masses to a sphere of rosy light,
Then on edge of glowing heaven smiles in triumph on the night.
Lo! the song of Earth—a maniac's on a black and dreary road—
Rises up, and swells, and grandeurs, to the loud triumphal ode—
Earth casts off a slough of darkness, an eclipse of hell and sin,
In each cycle of her being, as an adder casts her skin;
Lo! I see long blissful ages, when these mammon days are done,
Stretching like a golden ev'ning forward to the setting sun.

He sat one winter 'neath a linden tree
In my bare orchard: "See, my friend," he said,
"The stars among the branches hang like fruit,
So, hopes were thick within me. When I'm gone
The world will like a valuator sit
Upon my soul, and say, 'I was a cloud
That caught its glory from a sunken sun,
And gradual burn'd into its native grey.'"
On an October eve, 'twas his last wish
To see again the mists and golden woods;
Upon his death-bed he was lifted up,
The slumb'rous sun within the lazy west
With their last gladness filled his dying eyes.
No sooner was he hence than critic-worms
Were swarming on the body of his fame,
And thus they judged the dead: "This Poet was
An April tree whose vermeil-loaded boughs
Promised to Autumn apples juiced and red,
But never came to fruit." "He is to us
But a rich odour,—a faint music-swell."
"Poet he was not in the larger sense;
He could write pearls, but he could never write
A Poem round and perfect as a star."
"Politic i' faith. His most judicious act
Was dying when he did; the next five years
Had fingered all the fine dust from his wings,
And left him poor as we. He died—'twas shrewd!
And came with all his youth and unblown hopes
On the world's heart, and touched it into tears."

LADY.

Would'st thou, too, be a poet?

WALTER.

Lady! ay!
A passion has grown up to be a King,
Ruling my being with as fierce a sway
As the mad sun the prostrate desert sands,
And it is that.