Sailed into harbor, as they tell,
With silk "gossoon" astream aboon--
And Nora in her calm did croon,
And softly tell: "I knew it well,
His head it tosseth with weed and shell."
TO W.
I.
"Neural and hæmal arch," you say,
"Tell out man's history to-day,
Brain and mechanics have their way."
Is structure then sole test of kin?
The ape from man, in form and skin,
Is far as holiness from sin!
Emotion swears with hand uplift,
That beauty is no mere makeshift,
Significance divine its drift.
Beauty of sound, articulate speech,
Lories and pyes might simians teach,
These, therefore, nearer to man reach;
While nightingale and mocking-bird,
Approach, in music's heavenly word,
Closer than mammal e'er conferred.
II.
Were structure and function parallel,
The word might break the mystic spell,
But function doth its test compel.
Upward to man the beaver deft
In structure gains of tail bereft--
But if there were no house-skill left!--
And if in structure beavers be
In tooth and larynx nearer me
Than flirting blackbird in ash-tree,
His song beyond all such control
Comes up in kindred echo-roll,
With those that tremble in my soul.
III.
True, in mechanics there is seen
A gross resemblance in the mien
Of ape and man--thought nigh unclean!
But grosser want of function's shewn
Of human attribute and tone,--
Sweet rhythmic utterance unknown;
Beauty of form, proportion fair,
And dignity--all wanting there,
Though neural and hæmal arch compare!
IV.
Of structure, all you find is that
A function it performs, whereat
A thus or thus of sight's come at.
And yet you truly know far more--
Feeling from out her open door
Affirms, in speech of beauty's lore:
"O, awesome!" "beauteous!" "pleasant too!"
"Inspiriting!" "ennobling!" "true!"
Or contrariwise--each as is due.
But no account of this you take;
Your thoughts are polarized, and make
An open sea of a tiny lake.
V.
You don't believe the colors of birds
And insects are God's painted words
To please the master of His herds!
"Mere marks ancestral, once of use,
Now useless as an empty cruse--
Derived, but not designed," your truce.
Yet why such skilful pains bestow,
That colors _once_ had use, to shew?
Vain zeal, since that you cannot know.
Fruitless your words! Is it not plain,
"Designed" or not, like April rain,
The end achieved _is_ man's high gain?
VI.
'Tis folly to attempt truth's goal
With logic got of half the soul,--
Truth will not have the half, but whole.
Beauty, God's gladness seen in time,
Lights up Truth's calm white face sublime
With radiance of the golden prime!
Shall you and I look down for light?
Nay, upward let us fix our sight,
Downward's the awful gulf of night.
MARIE DEPURE.
Not with her outward eyes, but with her mind,
Her living soul, her faith,--for she was blind--
Marie Depure, with simple, loving heart,
Had seen the Christ, and chosen the good part.
She never thought with Milton, in his pride,
"Does God exact day labor, light denied?"
But gave her willing hands as one who saw,
Deftly to plait for use the yellow straw.
With humble workers of her craft she wrought
For daily bread, and Christ's great lesson taught,
That love the life far more than meat regards,
And body, more than raiment sweet with nards.
For when the pastor, who, like John, had leaned
Upon the Master's breast, spoke words that yeaned
The pity of his heart for those that sit
In heathen night, nor know Christ's torch is lit;
Marie Depure, her soul winged like a dove
Eager to bear the news of light and love,
Gave of her humble toil more than they all,--
Since love makes willing answer to Love's call.
Amazed, the man of God to Marie said:
"Your gift is great, a part I take instead;"
But she, with sweet insistence, spake him, "Nay,
I'm richer far than those who see the day.
"These workers of the golden straw buy oil,
When darkness falls, that they may see to toil;
But I am blind, I need no oil for light,--
I give this love-lit lamp for darker night."
Marie Depure! A sweet and gracious beam
Speed from thy burning lamp, a Christ-like gleam,
To those who in the darkness sit, and some
Who, without serving, pray, "Thy Kingdom Come!"
"BY THE LOVE."
AN EASTER IDYLL.
Twelve months agone
The beauteous face, all white with pity as
A wave with foam, sank in the dusk of death.
Four summers and the wafture of the fifth
Had poured their cataract of gold far down
The shining shoulders of the seraph boy,
While love, a father's and a mother's, hung
Above its laughter like a thing divine.
O golden head that drifted down to death!
Sweet eye and voice by silence swift devoured!
Dawn's kiss upon the forehead of the day!
The fresh-blown surge of grief was stilled,
And halcyon hope her azure wings outspread
As all the hollow sky on Easter morn
Was, like a lily, filled with golden light.
Swift through the hush of death the thrill of life
Touched the still chords of the fair mother's heart,
And woke unquenchable desire to lay
White lilies from the darksome mother-earth
Upon the tomb, where circled, like a dove,
Her wingëd hopes,--the tomb where long ago
White angels watched the birth of Life anew.
Beside the lilied mound she lingered long.
Her rising soul pushed at the gates of death,
Till, like a creek from which the moon has drunk
The tide, they yawned empty and bare of hope.
All spectral grew her heart with tearless grief
As some sweet plot of lichens reft of rain.
"There are no angels now," she said, "to roll
The stone away. O that He now were here
To raise my dead, if 'tis not all a myth!"
And as she spoke she lift a bitter face
Into the eyes of the bright Easter day.
Not far away she saw a little child
Of scarce five years, and drawing near she knew
Him one who never felt a mother's kiss,--
Now sitting at the grave where one long month
Had slept his father,--kith nor kin bequeathed
The boy in the wide circle of the earth.
She knew that, rose and rosebud on one stem,
Father and child had crimsoned life with love,
And that the wind of death had snatched
The rose and left the unsheltered bud alone;
Yet blinded by the night of her own grief
Scarce had she seen his golden day's eclipse.
Now swift she marked the tender mobile lips,
The spirit-light aglow in eye, on brow,
And the rare beauty of the noble face.
"Is your name Mary," fearlessly he asked,
"Who with the angels talked when the great stone
Was rolled away?--" "O no, dear child," she said,--
"Whom are you looking for?" With reverent mien,
Yet eager voice, "For Jesus," said the child.
"O Jesus is not here, my darling boy,
He's risen, you know." "Yes," said the wistful face,
"I've waited here all day for Him to come
And raise my father up. I thought perhaps
He sent you, 'tis so late, to bid me stay
A little--O 'tis never too late for
Jesus!" he said, and brushed away the tear;
"He's sure to come, for 'tis the Rising-Day."
The woman stoopt to kiss the wondrous boy,
And sat beside him there upon the grave,
And sobbed like organ swept by the master's hand.
"What makes you cry?--perhaps your father's here
To be raised up?" "No darling,--but my child."
He stroked the woman's hand: "Don't cry," he said,
"Jesus does not forget the Rising-Day,
He'll surely come and give to you your child
And me my father--He will come to-night.
I saw the two men who from Emmaus came,
Go by at early morn, and Jesus will
Meet them, and turn and this way come, as they
In wonder all about His dying talk,
And rising too. The men will know Him not,
But I shall, and will call to Him to stop
And raise my father up." "How shall you know
Him, my dear boy?" she asked. "O by His smile,
And by the picture father shewed me once,
But" (with his hand upon his heaving breast)
"I'll know Him best by the love I keep in here."
"Shall you?" she said, "and are you sure you'll know
Your father?" "My own father!" said the boy,
With wondering voice, "I'll know him by the love,
And so will you your child. They will not look
The same, for Jesus did not, but they knew
Him by His love." And finer grew the face
As the fond lingering voice, in love's own tones,
Repeated: "And we'll know them by the love."
Moveless a moment, as the tide at full,
Her heart hung in a balance, and as its
Tremulous deeps swayed to the signs of heaven,
Its wave broke o'er the banks of self to life.
"Philip," she cried, and clasped him in her arms,
"Jesus has gone to heaven, and I am sent
By Him to take you to your father now.
Come!" With faith strong as is the noonday sight,
Instant the child clasped home her trembling hand,
And passed without the gates, nor backward lookt.
Silent he went, for expectation held
Him fast, and a great light was on her face.
Entering her home, she bade that food be given
The famished boy; and when the maid brought milk,
Honey and bread with broilëd fish, he said,
With exultation: "Now I know this is
The house--it's all here just the same, and He'll
Be here to-night." With wingëd feet the wife
Sped up the stair to meet her husband's step,
And in a rapture told him all, and of
The wonder-heart below. "Heaven, a fair child,
An angel boy, has sent our stone to roll
Away! For us his vision is no less
Than for himself. O husband, this is life's
Supremest hour for us!--'_I shall know him
By the love_,' sweetly he says."--"It shall be
So indeed!" cried the father's yearning heart.
As she returned, the child most eager said,
In a sweet voice half-sob, but full of hope,
"O wash my face and comb my hair, before
I see my father--'tis not too late yet?"
The touch of the ineffable child-trust
Pierced deep her heart, yet with assuring tones
The words fell: "Philip, come, let us now go
To him."
The arras opened on a face
Noble and winsome sweet, though smiles were close
To tears. As azure bird on mountain stream
Halts a brief moment on some jutting crag,
Ere as a flash of streaming light it cleaves
The dewy darkness of the trickling dell;
So for a moment halted the sweet child,
Took one step forward, and then leapt into
The arms where death-shade once was deep as night,
But where commingling love now glads the gloom,
All lit by the sweet azure of the heart.
With head thrown back, and questioning eyes agaze:
"Father--you're--changed!" he said, "but by the love,
We know each other--by the love, the love!"
The father's heaving heart did echo sweet,
"The love, the love!"
And nestling down upon
The manly breast, the curly head, soft-stroked,
And soothed with all the lullabies of love,
Was rocked, like harbored sail, to rest of sleep,
Lapt in the love which fed his simple faith,
And poured a golden Easter in the heart
Of her who groped in darkness 'mong the tombs.
NOTES.
Page 17. _and erst "rose noble" bore thy grace._--The
"rose noble," an ancient English gold coin, first minted
by Edward III., was stamped with the figure of the rose.
19. _The phantom of the buried tide._--This phenomenon
is not infrequently seen in the evenings of the last of
August or early September. It is caused by the condensation
of the invisible vapor of the air resting on the
dyked lands--the former sea-bed. As the condensed
vapor lies close upon the ground, the illusion of a full
sea is complete in the moonlight, the shore line and
creeks being perfectly traced.
28. _The title deeds of these rich shores are thine._--Geologists
affirm that Partridge Island is older than the
mainland, or than the other islands mentioned.
29. TENNYSON ROCK.--This rock is the pinnacle of
Pinnacle Island (one of the Five Islands, Basin of
Minas). The rock is solitary, and nearly two hundred
feet high at low water,--a seated figure strongly resembling,
as seen from the Basin, Lord Tennyson in his old
age--with his cloak about him.
32. GLOOSCAP.--The divine man of the Micmac Indians.
His home was on the shores of the Basin of
Minas, particularly at Partridge Island, the Five Islands,
and Blomidon. He sailed away "into the west," because
of the wickedness of men and beasts, not to return till
they should heed his voice. (See "Legends of the
Micmacs," gathered by the late Rev. Silas Tertius Rand,
D.D., LL.D, of Hantsport, Nova Scotia, and published
by Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.)
40. DAY AND NIGHT.--The last three lines of the
sonnet refer to the "afterglow," which often appears (at
Minas Basin) from half an hour to an hour or more after
the first sunset colors have entirely faded into dusk.
45. MAYFLOWER.--_The Trailing Arbutus._
48. THE GHOST FLOWER.--The _monotropa uniflora_,--a
true flower, not a fungus. It grows in the deep
shadows, the entire flower and stalk being colorless and
wax-like. It has white, wax-like bracts in place of green
leaves. The cup nods, and stalk and flower together
often form an interrogation point (which fact, it will be
observed, determines the cast of the sonnet). The flower
is widely known as the Ghost Flower, but is often called
Indian Pipe.
52. MCMASTER UNIVERSITY.--Founded as a distinctively
Christian university, by the late William
McMaster, of Toronto, merchant, founder of the Bank
of Commerce, and a member of the Senate of the
Dominion of Canada.
54. _Areopagus ... Furies._--The sessions of the
Areopagus, the highest judicial court at Athens, were
held on Mars' Hill. The Cave of the Furies was
beneath the same rock.
66. _And shewed the prints of palfrey's shoe._--These
tiny horse-shoe prints, many of them sharp and perfect
even to the nail-heads, may be seen in abundance on the
branches of any horse-chestnut tree.
82. _Had I two loaves of bread_,--Mohammed. _Or let
me die_--Wordsworth,--uttered in view of his emotion at
the sight of the rainbow.
84. THE DRAGONFLY.--The species of neuropterous
insects referred to in the poem deposit their eggs in
water. The grub lives at the bottom of the lake or
pond, creeping on the submerged parts of aquatic plants
and feeding on aquatic insects. When the final transformation
is about to take place, the body of the insect
becomes swollen until, lighter than the water, it rises to
the surface. As its skin dries, it splits at the back, and
the perfect insect comes forth, with body and wings quite
soft and moist. When dry, the wings expand, until
presently the insect spreads them, and soaring upwards,
begins to dart to and fro in the full enjoyment of its new
and wondrous life.
115. _The moon at her utmost poised._--The moon is in
meridian at high water in the Bay of Fundy.
159. "BY THE LOVE": AN EASTER IDYLL.--The
story on which this poem is founded was published in
the _Congregationalist_, by Helen Strong Thompson, as a
true incident of the Easter of 1894.
Transcriber's Notes
Words surrounded by _ are italicized.
Small capitals are presented as all capitals in this e-text.
Apparent printer's errors and inconsistent spellings have been retained.
End of Project Gutenberg's At Minas Basin and Other Poems, by Theodore H. Rand