THE MOURNING SHEPHERDS
The tambour' is silent, O god of the Nile!
The harp has been hung in acacian shade.
We are bowed to the earth, we are broken and bent,
And the blade of our fathers in dust has been laid.
We came, as the simoom creeps over the plain;
We came, as the tiger its covert forsakes;
As the hurricane brushes the dust from the brakes;
As the lightning leaps out and the thunder-god shakes.
We are shorn of our strength as with plague we are smote;
The axe has been wrenched from the hands that are brawn,
And the arms whose strong sinews till now were unbent
Have been broken as brittles; our prowess is gone.
O! thou bright shining god! with thy scintles of gold;
If thy children have gathered the glow of thy face,
If thy kisses, ere warmed to the lips that are cold,
O we pray! let us feel thy impassioned embrace.
We are journeying forth to the cradle of morn,
Where thy lids feel the weight of their slumbering still;
We would kneel at thy bed where the seasons are born,
And learn from thy lips the whole law of thy will.
Have we sinned in thy sight? have we slackened our pace?
Are we paying the forfeit in wormwood of shame?
We draw nearer to thee, and our lives we would place
In the hands of the Maker, that out of thy flame
We may gather that fire that shall glow with thy love;
And will never grow dim through the future of years,
That shall make us like thee, and our fealty prove
'Till we learn to forget this dark trackhood of tears.
As we turn to the East, wilt thou smile on our way?
Wilt thou lessen the distance between us and thee?
Or our hearts remain hungry, the shadow still stay
With its wizard arm lifted to smite as we flee.
We doubt thee no longer—we know thou wilt aid;
We turn to the path where thy morning rays shine;
We will seek thy first footfall, and all unafraid,
We feel thee, we love thee, we know we are thine.
We leave the old life, with the graves of our kin,
We turn from the sunset of dampness and death,
We turn where the light with its god doth begin,
And the praise of the day-king embalms every breath;
Where the sun slakes his thirst with the dew of the flowers,
Where the night flees before him far into the west,
Where the honey-dew clings to the fruit-laden hours,
Where the soul sets its table, with Joy as its guest.
So does our faith stand out against our grief;
So does our hope grow up into belief.
One God? Yes, Father, Thou! and only One.
We praise thee; yet, our praise is only done,
When we extol thee for the gift of faith.
Not every one can name thee; but each breath
May be enladen with the thought of praise
And all adore thy attributes—the ways
That they adore thee are not always thine;
Yet, do they bend to thy great thoroughfare and shine
With light from the Eternal throne; 'tis well,
Nor otherwise than good—it can but swell
The choral of thy praise; and in the end
These thousand thoughts of Deity, in thee, not fail to blend.
THE JOURNEY.
O thou! who charmed the demons in the breast
Of Saul, and set the universal voice
Of all the earth to thy unflagging song;
Thou royal shepherd! bend for us across
The bridge of ages thy leant lips, and pour
The echo of thy music on our souls.
And Thou of Nazareth! whose very life
Was as the cadence of a well-strung harp,
Thyself the instrument, upon whose strings,
Ten thousand symphonies are left entranced;
Pour in the empty vial of our verse,
Some of thy soul of music, and let shine
Through every darkened crevice of the heart,
Rays of celestial sunshine. Not in vain
Our humble dalliance, if thou set the charm
Of thine approval. Let our song be praise
And devotate our hands, that there be left
No tissue, but is animate of Thee!
The seas reach out to clasp each other's hands,
The greater and the less, and leap the sands
That tear in two their waters; but not so
She of the Nile; her rights will not forego.
The hand that rocks the crib of empire holds
A charm, that locks the East and West in one
The track of nations is her beaten path,
And undisputed, till the earth be done.
Man may disturb it, but the hand of God
Has placed a thousand tokens on this sod.
The flocks are gathered, and the flight began,
Old Uri and attendants in the van;
The portents were of good as far as seen,
Each breast a shrine of hope; thus early man
Gave little time to sorrow—after years
Were left for its fruition; light of heart,
These early-planted germlets of the earth,
Took their reverses in the better part
Of hardihood; they had thus early learned,
That in the chafe of fortune there is gain;
That scars are coronets, though they be burned
Deep in the brow of care; each gem a pain.
Our philosophic age with heavy draught,
Drinks deep in phantasies, but fails to learn
The wiser lesson of this early craft,
To catch the wheel of fortune with each turn.
East over Syria they bent their steps,
Meeting Euphrates many leagues above
Where Babylon since molded into form
Her mystical proportions; and so strove
Persistently the mastery of earth.
Crossing the Tigris but a span below,
Where Taurus from his fountains feeds the stream,
They traverse Persia with its after-glow
Of conquest; where Ispahan gave touch,
To chords that deify the voice of song,
And mellow through the ages, if so much
As but an echo would inspire the tongue,
With that enchantment, that rolls down the course
Of her great history. We seek in vain
Another Cyrus, or another force
Of Scripture fulfillment, with lesser pain,
And Time's repleted garner has no riper grain.
Still East they cross the Amoo, and above
Where now, Bokhara's languor and repose
Invites the Sclavic hordes in summer quest
Of forage. And Belor, giant like, still throws
Its shadow o'er the landscape; and the Koosh
Shortens the noon of summer, from the South;
A thousand sparkling torrents downward rush,
And pour their waste of waters in the mouth
Of Indus. They cross where Belor melts its snow,
To placid Cashgar's arms, sending below
A current to the waste of farther Nor.
They stand on Cobis' southern girt, and drink
The final retrospective of the West;
And keep the gloomy borders to the brink
Of far-off Koulon, where the Argoon lends
Its mite of wastage to the vast Amour;
And the impetuous Shilka, swiftly sends
Its tribute to the master of Mantchoor.
One winter they had spent upon the way,
Within the vale of Cashgar, where the flocks
Found generous herbage; but they could not stay
Longer than opening spring, when from the rocks
And passes of the Koosh, a savage tribe
Came fiercely on them; and again the fire
From Uri's sacred pebble, as a bribe
Saved them from ruin, and the warlike ire
Of Lama's devotees, for even then
On upper Ind, his worship had begun;
But superstition, ranks us all as men,
And mystery doth mold us into one.
The Argoon and the Shilka passed; they keep
Their steady march, down Armour's limpid tide.
Yet summer wastes to autumn. Seasons creep
So noiselessly, that our souls are open wide,
If we set watch upon them; unaware
They find us napping, in our wakeful age;
And how much more, in the unrisen sun
Of ancient man! We wonder that the page
Is not more blurred and blotted in the years
That are far gone, when knowledge only bubbled up through tears.
A Winter on the Amour near the sea;
The Frost King strokes his heavy beard in glee,
In surfeit of his triumph, o'er the foe
That dares invade his borders; and the snow
Scatters its fleecy fullness o'er the land,
Hiding the face of Nature with its hand
So cold and clasping. O 'tis very hard!
To see familiar faces pass the ward
Of our immediate contact, and the earth
Draw back into its arms, with tightening girth
Our loved ones. But 'tis a heavier lot
To see our mother Earth, whose faithful breast
Has never failed to aid; so chilled in death
That it cannot respond, though it be rest,
Recuperent and needful; still the same
When we are starving for its warm caress,
And cannot spare its nursing, when our claim
Is mortal, and we feel the strong hand press
Our vitals; and we labor for our breath;
And Famine lends its wizard hand, to fill the tooth of death.
Old Uri vainly calls the shining god;
Though it may light his altar, still the flame
Is but a weakling; and the weary host
Were wrangling at his impotence, and tame
His efforts to assuage them. He had taught
His followers of a near approach; the sun
Seemed coy of his endeavors, for the thought
Of zone or solstice, had not then begun,
And Winter was their time of penance, when
Their god rode low, and frowned him out of sight.
They offered for his anger many gifts,
And set their watchmen to outwake the night.
In question of his rising. Why should he
Keep so much closer the horizon's rim
When they were in his quest, and sought the verge
Of farthest empire, in their reach of him?
O empty arms! and ever reaching out,
Fold in the blessings that your hands enclose.
There is nor reason, nor excuse for doubt,
The river of God's love so near you flows.
Your very feet are on the water's brink,
His very arms are all around you thrown,
You touch him in your timidness, and shrink
To his embraces; no human soul was ever yet alone.
They settle down to Winter, and their flocks
Must furnish sustenance, until the sun
Shall break their penance, and embrown the locks
Of the o'ergristled seasons; and this won,
They counsel further movement. Uri speaks:
"Sons of the Summer God, I little thought
When we set out from Egypt, that our feet
Would be thus bruised and bled; but it is well.
We learn the lesson of our latent sin;
This trial of our faith will make us whole,
If we but draw the diamond out of it.
We have not vainly trod the heavy press
Of our affliction, if we firmly breast
The waters. I have kept faithful watch—
We are but self-styled lords, and forfeit much
Of our asserted masterhood; the birds
Make many less mistakes—we used to note
The flight of waterfowl in Egypt. Why
Should we not learn their wisdom in this clime?
Before the sun sank low, and Winter came
(Led by a providence that makes all things
To minister our wants), I watched the birds,
And many, turned to East, across the sea.
We lose our way sometimes, they never do;
They are much closer children to the sun
Than we, by their dependence—we need help
As much as any feathered wingster does—
And yet we push it back, when we might reach
And find a steady hand. Let us go to
And make us ships; that when the Spring
Shall beckon back to life the dormant earth,
And all the birds turn back in countermarch,
We fly against their flight, and reach the clime
From whence the sun has warned them to return
To this cold country of the nether earth.
"Behold! these rugged trees stand stout for us,
And ready for our architrave; and we
Were better wont to labor than to dole
Our time in murmurs at our fate. Up! up!
And do! and though we suffer overmuch,
Our labor shall not vainly mock at us.
Even old Kohen saw a journey South,
When he did burn our eyes, as he went up,
And he saw fat and plenty in the land
Where his prophetic eye did cast our lot;
And we will not mistrust what leads to light,
Though it be lifted in a demon's hand."
The forests gave to them their virgin palms,
And they did rudely shape them into crafts;
Made ready for the flood, when the warm sun
Should waken nature with enlivening draughts;
But Spring wore into Summer, ere the birds
Gave the unspoken pledge of their return.
The sun, still coy, refused to climb as high
As it had done in Egypt; still they burn
With new-born hope, as they float down to sea,
And, moving counter to their winged friends,
Cross to Lopatka, where they only wait
Replenishment, which nature always sends,
Where faith is instinct as in lower life,
(The birds teach providence, without a chance,)
And so they wander on, to the Aleutes;
Passing and calling, as they still advance,
They reach to where Alaska strikes the sea,
In severance to meet them. They kept on,
Feeding on eggs of seabirds, and the meats
That everywhere supplied them. They have gone
So far on Nature's very track, and now
A narrow river beckons their research,
And they pass upward, till a mountain range
Confronts their passage, like a royal perch
From which the gods might frown their hardihood,
For this intrusion of another world.
But they have battled with the plague and flood;
And though Olympus all his thunders hurled,
They had not turned; they saw the earnest need
Of pushing forward ere the sun turned back,
And so they crossed to where the eastern slope,
Feeds the McKenzie. Here an easy track
Leads down and cuts the stronger range in two,
A little while among its shadows grope,
When the broad prospect opened to their view.
They follow the receding sun in hope,
Still bearing to the east their steady trend,
Hoping to win their God to close embrace;
And morn and eve around their altars bend
In thankfulness, that they still see his face.
Through many valleys, virgin to their sight,
And many lakes, whose bosoms never stirred
To man, the weak pretender of God's might;
But nature spreads her happy hearth with beast and flower and bird.
PART SECOND.
AZTLAN.
THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
Father of Waters! Nilus of the West!
Thou holdst thy secrets from the sons of men;
A knowledge of the past which none would wrest
Or wish to circumscribe with tongue or pen
To the weak bonds of history; but rather stand
With old De Soto on thy banks, and reverence the hand
That drew the fetters from thy limbs, and set thee first at birth,
On thy unmuzzled pilgrimage, without a peer on earth.
Better thy unbroke seal, if it would teach
The ponderous worm of destiny, called man;
How great things may be hidden from his reach,
And mighty things be silent, that his span
Is but a hand-breadth to the great unknown,
A thistle-down, before the breezes blown,
That silent and unseen God turns the mighty mill,
And on the brow of giant force he writes his words, "Be still."
The possibles of time, are all thine own.
Thou hast not reared thy monuments of stone
To overtop the pyramids, yet wrought
In shapely mounds, thy sculpturehood, and caught
From flying Time, the lustre of his wing,
Which gives the semblance of perpetual Spring
To thy vast lap of luxuries; in thee
(Since man first pinioned thee to history)
Is found the acme of a world's desire.
Thy unknown crucial test, has passed the fire
Of many fading centuries; let none inquire
The secrets of thy conquest: be thou shut up with God,
The master molding of his hand—the jewel of his rod!
Yet in the book of Nature there is writ,
Without exception, all her energies,
As line by line, her page becomes enlit;
Yielding to man some new and glad surprise,
As Agassiz, together works with her,
To make the earth, her own interpreter;
And such a giant, must not hope to hide
The unfading Sanscrit, written on its side.
Thy brow wast glistered with the frost of years,
Ere man's first rapture, at the sight of thee;
Yet, were thy banks unswelled, by falling tears
Till he tore back thy splendid tapestry—
The bison and the deer unfrighted came
To lave upon thy borders, all were tame,
In their untoilsome frolics; and the beasts and birds
Made rolic at thy feet, in songs not marred with words.
But sorrow comes with knowledge; 'tis the tree,
That bears the samest fruit in every zone—
The tale of Eden is no mystery,
The tree will verify wherever grown.
And yet, in God's own providence 'tis best,
That Eden be repeated East and West;
If knowledge in the first, brought sorrowhood to earth,
The power to laugh and cry, were purchased at one birth.
They stand upon thy borders: Mighty Stream!
We will not pry thy silent lips apart,
To ask thee when, and how, the Prophet's dream
Reached its fulfillment; treasured in thy heart,
Let it remain as many other things
Are left; our language lessens their effect,
And makes them small in words,—the very springs
Of our existence, are not shown correct,
When crowded into verbage,—so we lay
Our beys upon thee, and we feel 'tis thine;
Thine every secret, of the grand emprise,
With only one unlicensed hand, the Hand of the Divine.
It is enough that after waste and want
And weariness of spirit they have found
A rest upon thy margin, that thy arms
Are opened to enclose them, and the sound
Of human voices mingle with the notes
Of myriad waterfowl. The thousand throats
Of thy unmeasured pasture, blend in praise
To the All Father for the countless ways
That point his providence. The raven's cry
Strikes never vainly, thy omniscient ear,
No effort, but is answered "here am I,"
No prayer but finds the parent very near.
The unconscious hallelujahs of the plain,
The untaught praises of the lofty trees,
The waving upward palms of laden grain,
The mellow notes upon the evening breeze,
The "reveillies" from off the mountain tops,
The nightingale's "tattoo," the many lips
Touched only once by God, the faithful drops
That wear unceasing at the granite mine,
The praise that never sinks to prayer, the finger tips
That span the universal zone of life; all, all incline
To adoration. If we lose our way
(As these poor souls had done) we need but turn
To catch the choral of the passing day.
Behold on every branch and beam the altars burn!
And all things beckon us of God, if we but bend
The enquiring ear, and catch the keynote of the mighty song
That swells from all the universe; we too may blend
In the vast concord, happiest of the throng.
The rhythmal of the angels, is not far
From the first prattle of the infant's tongue
Both caught the glitter of the Eastern star;
The harps were both, by the same Master strung;
The glory of the one, glows from the face;
The other lifts, to meet its parent's kiss.
Not very far, the border land of bliss,
From every infant of the human race.
The sacred fane of childhood, when first reared,
How like a prophecy it should be read—
A thing to be adored, and sometimes feared!
So many unseen hands, smooth down the bed
Of infancy; we can but jostle with our utmost care
Against angelic presences that bend
And print their unseen kisses on the brow,
And with the infant earth, the Heavenly essence blend.
The wheel that never tires, and ever turns,
Crushing the neck of nations in its round,
Before whose tread, the star of empire burns,
Behind whose trend, the ridged and furrowed ground
Gives mute quiescence, to the Master hand;
This wheel rolls on; and now upon thy banks
Great River of the West the infant's cry
Is mingled with the forest din; thy ranks
Are opened to admit the "lullaby"
Of earth's last entity; thou did'st not groan
When buffalo and beaver found thy side,
Nor when thy trees, first echoed to the moan
Of the despondent turtle, to his bride;
And thou did'st smile on this invading race,
And open thy broad prairies, as the palm
Of some great hearted giant, to embrace
The sea-tossed wanderers, the healing balm
Of thy great heaving breast, rubbed almost out
The wrinkles from the faces of these sires
Of early Egypt; they forgot the drought
And mildew of their wanderings, and the fires
Of their thanksgiving altars, gave a zest
They never yet had felt; an empire spread
Around them, in the flush of its full growth
A bride, inviting the espousal bed.
Their ranks had been depleted; yet a few
Still lingered with the Prophet, who had stood
At the first altar; when the fervent sun
First answered their entreaty, and the blood
Was lapped by solar flame; and now, that peace
Enshrines their hearts, and plenty spreads their board,
They warm towards their leader, and return
To their old-fashioned loyalty; his word
Is sacred as the smiling of the sun
Whose burnished mirror likenesses their forms,
And in whose bosom after life is done,
The weary find a shelter from all storms.
Nor do they want a psalmist for his praise,
But he is found with ready harp and voice,
To turn the multitude, with rapturous gaze,
Upon the god of their unshaken choice.
Their morning song is mingled with the mirth,
That rolics from the sycamore and oak,
The song that swells the green and fruent earth,
That needs no trumpet's blare, nor kettle stroke.