On Stadthuys gazing down,
On fort, and cabbage-plots, and all
The quaintly gabled town;
These flapped their wings and shifted backs,
As ancient scrolls determine,
To scare the savage Hackensacks,
Paumanks, and other vermin.
At night the loyal settlers lay
Betwixt their feather-beds;
In hose and breeches walked by day,
And smoked, and wagged their heads.
No changeful fashions came from France,
The vrouwleins to bewilder;
No broad-brimmed burgher spent for pants
His every other guilder.
In petticoats of linsey-red,
And jackets neatly kept,
The vrouws their knitting-needles sped
And deftly spun and swept.
Few modern-school flirtations there
Set wheels of scandal trundling,
But youths and maidens did their share
Of staid, old-fashioned bundling.
—The New Year opened clear and cold;
The snow, a Flemish ell
In depth, lay over Beeckman’s Wold
And Wolfert’s frozen well.
Each burgher shook his kitchen-doors,
Drew on his Holland leather,
Then stamped through drifts to do the chores,
Beshrewing all such weather.
But—after herring, ham, and kraut—
To all the gathered town
The Dominie preached the morning out,
In Calvanistic gown;
While tough old Peter Stuyvesant
Sat pewed in foremost station,—
The potent, sage, and valiant
Third Governor of the nation.
Prayer over, at his mansion hall,
With cake and courtly smile
He met the people, one and all,
In gubernatorial style;
Yet missed, though now the day was old,
An ancient fellow-feaster,—
Heer Govert Loockermans, that bold
Brewer and burgomeester;
Who, in his farm-house, close without
The picket’s eastern end,
Sat growling at the twinge of gout
That kept him from his friend.
But Peter strapped his wooden peg,
When tea and cake were ended
(Meanwhile the sound remaining leg
Its high jack-boot defended),
A woolsey cloak about him threw,
And swore, by wind and limb,
Since Govert kept from Peter’s view,
Peter would visit him;
Then sallied forth, through snow and blast,
While many a humble greeter
Stood wondering whereaway so fast
Strode bluff Hardkoppig Pieter.
Past quay and cowpath, through a lane
Of vats and mounded tans,
He puffed along, with might and main,
To Govert Loockermans;
Once there, his right of entry took,
And hailed his ancient crony:
“Myn Gott! in dese Manhattoes, Loock,
Ve gets more snow as money!”
To which, till after whiffs profound,
The other answered not;
At last there came responsive sound:
“Yah, Peter; yah, Myn Gott!”
Then goedevrouw Marie sat her guest
Beneath the chimney-gable,
And courtesied, bustling at her best
To spread the New Year’s table.
She brought the pure and genial schnapps,
That years before had come—
In the “Nieuw Nederlandts,” perhaps—
To cheer the settlers’ home;
The long-stemmed pipes; the fragrant roll
Of pressed and crispy Spanish;
Then placed the earthen mugs and bowl,
Nor long delayed to vanish.
Thereat, with cheery nod and wink,
And honors of the day,
The trader mixed the Governor’s drink
As evening sped away.
That ancient room! I see it now:
The carven nutwood dresser;
The drawers, that many a burgher’s vrouw
Begrudged their rich possessor;
The brace of high-backed leathern chairs,
Brass-nailed at every seam;
Six others, ranged in equal pairs;
The bacon hung abeam;
The chimney-front, with porcelain shelft;
The hearty wooden fire;
The picture, on the steaming delft,
Of David and Goliah.
I see the two old Dutchmen sit
Like Magog and his mate,
And hear them, when their pipes are lit,
Discuss affairs of state:
The clique that would their sway demean;
The pestilent importation
Of wooden nutmegs, from the lean
And losel Yankee nation.
But when the subtle juniper
Assumed its sure command,
They drank the buxom loves that were,—
They drank the Motherland;
They drank the famous Swedish wars,
Stout Peter’s special glory,
While Govert proudly showed the scars
Of Indian contests gory.
Erelong, the berry’s power awoke
Some music in their brains,
And, trumpet-like, through rolling smoke,
Rang long-forgotten strains,—
Old Flemish snatches, full of blood,
Of phantom ships and battle;
And Peter, with his leg of wood,
Made floor and casement rattle.
Then round and round the dresser pranced,
The chairs began to wheel,
And on the board the punch-bowl danced
A Netherlandish reel;
Till midnight o’er the farm-house spread
Her New-Year’s skirts of sable,
And, inch by inch, each puzzled head
Dropt down upon the table.
But still to Peter, as he dreamed,
That table spread and turned;
The chimney-log blazed high, and seemed
To circle as it burned;
The town into the vision grew
From ending to beginning;
Fort, wall, and windmill met his view,
All widening and spinning.
The cowpaths, leading to the docks,
Grew broader, whirling past,
And checkered into shining blocks,—
A city fair and vast;
Stores, churches, mansions, overspread
The metamorphosed island,
While not a beaver showed his head
From Swamp to Kalchook highland.
Eftsoons the picture passed away;
Hours after, Peter woke
To see a spectral streak of day
Gleam in through fading smoke;
Still slept old Govert, snoring on
In most melodious numbers;
No dreams of Eighteen Sixty-One
Commingled with his slumbers.
But Peter, from the farm-house door,
Gazed doubtfully around,
Rejoiced to find himself once more
On sure and solid ground.
The sky was somewhat dark ahead,
Wind east, and morning lowery;
And on he pushed, a two-miles’ tread,
To breakfast at his Bouwery.
TRANSLATION.
TRANSLATION.
JEAN PROUVAIRE’S SONG AT THE BARRICADE.
“While the men were making cartridges and the women lint; while a
large frying-pan, full of melted pewter and lead, destined for the
bullet-mould, was smoking over a burning furnace; while the videttes
were watching the barricades with arms in their hands; while Enjolras,
whom nothing could distract, was watching the videttes,—Combeferre,
Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, a few others
besides, sought each other and got together, as in the most peaceful days
of their student-chats, and in a corner of this wine-shop changed into a
casemate, within two steps of the redoubt which they had thrown up, their
carbines, primed and loaded, resting on the backs of their chairs, these
gallant young men, so near their last hour, began to sing love-rhymes....
The hour, the place, these memories of youth recalled, the few stars
which began to shine in the sky, the funereal repose of these deserted
streets, the imminence of the inexorable event, gave a pathetic charm to
these rhymes, murmured in a low tone in the twilight by Jean Prouvaire,
who, as we have said, was a sweet poet.”—_Les Miserables: Saint Denis_,
Book XII. Chapter VI.
Do you remember our charming times,
When we were both at the age which knows,
Of all the pleasures of Paris, none
Like making love in one’s Sunday clo’es;
When all your birthdays, added to mine,
A total of forty would not bring,
And when, in our humble and cosey roost,
All, even the Winter, to us was Spring?
Rare days! then prudish Manuel stalked,
Paris feasted each saintsday in;
Foy thundered away; and—ah, your waist
Pricked me well with a truant pin!
Every one ogled you. At Prado’s,
Where you and your briefless barrister dined,
You were so fair that the roses, I thought,
Turned to look at you from behind.
They seemed to whisper: “How handsome she is!
What wavy tresses! what sweet perfume!
Under her mantle she hides her wings;
Her flower of a bonnet is just in bloom!”
I roamed with you, pressing your dainty arm,
And the passers thought that Love, in play,
Had mated, in unison so sweet,
The gallant April with gentle May.
We lived so coseyly, all by ourselves,
On love,—that choice forbidden fruit,—
And never a word my lips could speak
But your heart already had followed suit.
The Sarbonne was that bucolic place
Where night till day my passion throve:
’Tis thus that an ardent youngster makes
The Student’s Quarter a Realm of Love.
O Place Maubert! O Place Dauphine!
Sky-parlor reaching heavenward far,
In whose depths, when you drew your stocking on,
I saw a twinkling morning-star.
Hard-learned Plato I’ve long forgot:
Neither Malebranche nor Lamennais
Could teach me such faith in Providence
As the flower which in your bosom lay.
You were my servant and I your slave:
O golden attic! O joy, to lace
Your corset; to watch you showing, at morn,
The ancient mirror your youthful face!
Ah! who indeed could ever forget
That sky and dawn commingling still;
That rìbbony, flowery, gauzy glory,
And Love’s sweet nonsense talked at will?
Our garden a pot of tulips was;
Your petticoat curtained the window-pane;
I took the earthen bowl of my pipe
And gave you a cup of porcelain.
What huge disasters to make us fun!
Your muff afire; your tippet lost;
And that cherished portrait of Shakespeare, sold,
One hungry evening, at half its cost.
I was a beggar and you were kind:
A kiss from your fair round arms I’d steal,
While the folio-Dante we gayly spread
With a hundred chestnuts, our frugal meal.
And oh! when first my favored mouth
A kiss to your burning lips had given,
You were dishevelled and all aglow;
I, pale with rapture, believed in Heaven.
Do you remember our countless joys,
Those neckerchiefs rumpled every day?
Alas, what sighs from our boding hearts
The infinite skies have borne away!
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE AND OTHER POEMS.
1869.
Affectionately Enscribed
TO
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE.
PRELUDE.
_Poet, wherefore hither bring_
_Old romance, while others sing_
_Sweeter idyls of to-day?_
_Why not picture in your lay_
_Western woods and waters grand,_
_Clouds and skies of this fair land?_
_Are there fairer far away?_
I have many another song
Of those regions where belong,
First of all, my heart and home.
If for once my fancy roam,
Trust me, in the land I view
Falls the sunshine, falls the dew,
And the Spring and Summer come.
_Why from yonder stubble glean_
_Ancient names of King and Queen,_
_Knightly men and maidens fair?_
_Are there in our time no rare_
_Beauteous women, heroes brave?_
_Is there naught this side the grave_
_Worth the dust you gather there?_
Nay, but these were human too,
Strong or wayward, false or true.
Art will seek through every clime
For her picture or her rhyme;
Yes, nor looking far around,
But to-day I sought and found
These who lived in that old time.
_Why should we again be told_
_Dross will mingle with all gold?_
_That which time nor test can stain_
_Was not smelted quite in vain._
_What of Albert’s blameless heart,_
_Arthur’s old heroic part,_
_Saxon Alfred’s glorious reign?_
Yes, my Prince was such as they,
Part of gold, and part of clay,
Though his metal shone as bright,
And his dross was hid from sight.
He who brightest is, and best,
Still may fear the secret test
That shall try his heart aright.
Let me, then, of what befell
Hearts that loved, my story tell.
Turn the leaf that lies between
You who listen and the scene!
Your pity for the Lady, since
She died of sorrow; spare my Prince;
Love to the last my gentle Queen!
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE.
Long since, there was a Princess of the blood,
Sole heiress to the crown her father wore,—
Plucked from a dying stem, that one fair bud
Put forth, and withered ere it others bore;
And scarce the King her blossomed youth had seen,
When he, too, slept the sleep, and she was Queen.
Hers was a goodly realm, not stretched afar
In desert wilds by wolf and savage scoured,
But locked in generous limits, strong in war,
Serene in peace, with mountains walled and towered,
Fed by the tilth of many a fertile plain,
And veined with streams that proudly sought the main.
The open sea bore commerce to her marts,
Tumbling half round her borders with its tide;
Her vessels shot the surge; all noble arts
Of use and beauty in her towns were plied;
Her court was regal; lords and ladies lit
The palace with their graces and their wit.
Wise councillors devised each apt decree
That gained the potent sanction of her hand;
Great captains led her arms on shore and sea;
She was the darling of a loyal land;
Poets sang her praises, and in hut and hall
Her excellence was the discourse of all.
Her pride was suited to her high estate,
Her gentleness was equal with her youth,
Her wisdom in her goodness found its mate;
Her beauty was not that which brings to ruth
Men’s lives, yet pure and luminous;—and fair
Her locks, and over all a sovereign air.
Without, she bore herself as rulers should,
Queenly in walk and gesture and attire;
Within, she nursed her flower of maidenhood,
Sweet girlish thoughts and virginal desire:
No woman’s head so keen to work its will
But that the woman’s heart is mistress still.
Three years she ruled a nation well content
To have a maiden queen; then came a day
When those on whom her councils chiefly leant
Began to speak of marriage, and to pray
Their sovereign not to hold herself alone,
Nor trust the tenure of an heirless throne;
And then the people took the cry, nor lack
Was there of courtly suitors far or near,—
Kings, dukes, crown-princes,—swift upon the track,
Like huntsmen closing round a royal deer.
These she regarded not, but still, among
Her maids and missals, to her freedom clung.
And with the rest there came a puissant king,
Whose country pressed against her own domain,—
In strength its equal, but continuing
Its dearest foe through many a martial reign.
He sued to join his hand and realm with hers,
And end these wars; then all her ministers
Pleaded his suit; but, asking yet for grace,
And that her hand might wait upon her heart,
She halted, till the proud king turned his face
Homeward; and still the people, for their part,
Waited her choice, nor grudged her sex’s share
Of coyness to a queen so young and fair.
There was a little State that nestled close
Beside her boundaries, as wont to claim,
Though free, protection there from outer foes,
A Principality—at least in name—
Whose ruler was her father’s life-long friend
And firm ally, a statesman skilled to lend
Shrewd counsel, and who made, in days gone by,
A visit to this court, and with him led
His son, a gentle Prince, of years anigh
Her own,—twelve summers shone from either head;
And while their elders moved from place to place,—
The field-review, the audience, the chase,—
The Princess and the Prince, together thrown,
With their companions held a mimic court,
And with that sweet equality, the crown
Of Childhood,—which discovers in its sport
No barriers of rank or wealth or power,—
He named himself her consort. From that hour
The mindful Princess never quite forgot
Those joyous days, nor him, the fair-haired Prince;
And though she well had learned her greater lot,
And haply from his thought had passed long since
Her girlish image, chance, that moves between
Two courts, had brought his portrait to the Queen.
This from her cabinet she took one morn,
When they still urged the suit of that old king,
And said, half jesting, with a pretty scorn,
“Why mate your wilful Queen with mouldering
And crabbed Age? Now were he shaped like this,
With such a face, he were not so amiss.
“Queens are but women; ’tis a sickly year
That couples frost and thaw, our minstrels sing.”—
“Ho!” thought the graybeards, “sets the wind so near?”
And thought again: “Why not? the schemeful king
Perchance would rule us where he should be ruled;
A humbler consort will be sooner schooled.”
Forewarned are those whom Fortune’s gifts await.
Ere waned a moon the elder prince had learned—
From half the weathercocks which gilt the state,
Spying the wind and shifting where it turned—
That for love’s simple sake his son could gain
The world’s chief prize, which kings had sought in vain.
How could he choose but clutch it? Yet the son
Seemed worthy, for his parts were of that mould
Oft-failing Nature strives to join in one,
And shape a hero,—pure and wise and bold:
In arts and arms the wonder of his peers,
The flower of princes, prince of cavaliers;
Tall, lithe of form, and of a Northern mien,
Gentle in speech and thought,—while thus he shone,
A rising star, though chosen of a queen,
Why seek the skies less tranquil than his own?
Why should he climb beside her perilous height,
And in that noonday blaze eclipse his light?
Ah, why?—one’s own life may be bravely led,
But not another’s. Yet, as to and fro
The buzzing private embassies were sped,
And when the Queen’s own pages, bowing low,
Told in his ear a sweet and secret story,
The Prince, long trained to seek his house’s glory,
Let every gracious sentence seem a plume
Of love and beckoning beauty for his helm.
So passed a season; then the cannon’s boom
And belfry’s peal delivered to the realm
The Queen’s betrothal, and the councils met,
And for the nuptial rites a day was set.
* * * * *
Now when the time grew ripe, the favored Prince
Rides forth, and through the little towns that mourn
His loss, and past the boundaries; and, since
To ape the pomp to which he was not born
Seemed in his soul a foolish thing and vain,
A few near comrades, only, made his train.
Nor pressed the populace along the ways;
But—for he wished it so—unheralded
He rode from post to post through many days,
Yet gained a greatness as the distance fled,
As some dim comet, drawing near its bound,
Takes lustre from the orb it courses round.
And league by league his fantasies outran
His progress, brooding on his mistress’ power,
Until his own estate the while began
To seem of lesser worth each passing hour;
And with misdoubt this fortune weighed him down,
As though a splendid mantle had been thrown
About him, which he knew not well to wear,
And might not forfeit. Yet he spurred apace,
And reached a country-seat that bordered near
The Capital. Here, for a little space,
He was to rest from travel, and await
His day of entrance at the city’s gate.
Upon these grounds a gray-haired noble dwelt,
A ribboned courtier of the former reign;
A tedious proper man, who glibly knelt
To royalty,—this ancient chamberlain,—
Yoked with a girlish wife, and, for the rest,
Proud of the charge that made a prince his guest.
The highway ran beside a greenwood keep
That reached, herefrom, quite to the city’s edge;
Across, the fields with golden corn were deep;
The level sunset pierced the wayside hedge;
The banks were all abloom; a pheasant whirred
Far in the bush; anon, some tuneful bird
Broke into song, or, from a covert dark,
A bounding deer its dappled haunches showed
As though it heard the stag-hound’s distant bark.
The wistful Prince with loitering purpose bode,
And thought how good it were to spend one’s life
Far off from men, nor jostled with their strife.
Even as he mused he saw his host ahead,
Speeding to welcome him, in lordly wont,
And all the household in a line bestead;
And lightly with that escort, at the front,
A peerless woman rode across the green;
Then the Prince thought, “It surely is the Queen,
Who comes to meet me of her loving grace!”
And his blood mounted; but he knew how fair
The royal locks, and, when she neared his place,
He saw the lady’s prodigal dark hair
And wondrous loveliness were wide apart
From the sweet, tranquil picture next his heart.
And when the chamberlain, with halted suit,
Made reverence, and was answered courteous-wise,
The lady to her knightly guest’s salute
Turned her face full, so that he marked her eyes,—
How dewy gray beneath each long, black lid,
And danger somewhere in their light lay hid.
There are some natures housed so chaste within
Their placid dwellings that their heads control
The tumult of their hearts; and thus they win
A quittance from this pleading of the soul
For Love, whose service does so wound and heal;
How should they crave for what they cannot feel?
From passion and from pain enfranchised quite,
Alike from gain and never-stanched Regret,
Calm as the blind who have not seen the light,
The dumb who hear no precious voice; and yet
The sun forever pours his lambent fire
And the high winds are vocal with desire.
And there are those whose fervent souls are wed
To glorious bodies, panoplied for love,
Born to hear sweetest words that can be said,
To give and gather kisses, and to move
All men with longing after them,—to know
What flowers of paradise for lovers grow.
The Vestal, with her silvery content,
The Lesbian, with the passion and the pain,—
Which creature hath their one Creator lent
More light of heaven? Who would dare restrain
The beams of either? who the radiance mar
Of the white planet or the burning star?
If in its innocence a life is bound
With cords that thrall its birthright and design,
Let those whose hands the evil meshes wound
Pray that it cast no look beyond their line;
That no strong voice too late may enter in
Its prison-range, to teach what might have been.
Was there no conscious spirit thus to plead
For this bright lady, as the wondering guest
Closed with his welcomers, and each took heed
Of each, and horse to horse they rode abreast,
Nearing a fair and spacious house that stood,
Half hidden, in the edges of the wood?
And while, the last court-tidings running o’er,
Their talk on this and that at random fell,
And the trains joined behind, the lady bore
Her beauteous head askance, yet wist full well
How the Prince looked and spoke; unwittingly,
With the strange female sense and secret eye,
Made of him there her subtile estimate,
Forecast his lot, and thought how all things flow
To those who have a surfeit. Could the great,
The perfect Queen, she marvelled, truly know
And love him at his value? In his turn,
He read her face as ’twere a marble urn
Embossed with Truth and blushful Innocence,
Yet with the wild Loves carven in repose;
And as he looked he felt, and knew not whence,
A thought like this come as the wind that blows:
“A face to lose one’s life for; ay, and more,
To live for!”—So they reached the sculptured door
And casements gilded with the dying light.
That eve the host spread out a stately board,
And with his household far into the night
Feasted the Prince. The lady, next her lord,
Drooped like a musk-rose trained beside a tomb.
Loath was the guest that night to seek his room.
* * * * *
Ah! wherefore tell again an oft-told tale,—
That of the sleeping knight who lost his wage
In the enchanted land, though cased with mail,
And bore the sacred shrine an empty gage?
How this thing went it were not worth to view
But for the triple coil which thence outgrew;
How, with the morn, the ancient chamberlain
Made off, and on the marriage business moved;
How day by day those young hearts fed amain
Upon the food of lovers, till—they loved.
Beneath the mists of duty and degree
A warmth of passion crept deliciously
About the twain; and there, within the gleam
Of those gray languid eyes, his nearing fate
Seemed to the one a far, unquiet dream.
So when the heralds said, “All things await
Your princely coming,” the glad summons broke
Upon him like a harsh bell’s jangling stroke,
And waked him, and he knew he must be gone
And put that honeyed chalice quite away;
Yet once more met the lady, and alone,
It chanced, within the grounds. The two, that day,
Lured by a falling water’s sound, went deep
Beyond the sunlight, in the forest-keep.
Here from a range of wooded uplands leapt
A mountain brook and far-off meadows sought;
Now under firs and tasselled chestnuts crept,
Then on through jagged rocks a passage fought,
Until it clove this shadowy gorge and cool
In one white cataract,—with a dark, broad pool
Beneath, the home of mottled trout. One side
Rose the cliff’s hollowed height, and overhung
An open sward across that basin wide.
The liberal sun through slanting larches flung
Rich spots of gold upon the tufted ground,
And the great royal forest gloomed around.
The Prince, divided from the world so far,
Sat with the lady on a fallen tree;
They looked like lovers, yet a prison-bar
Between them had not made the two less free.
Only their eyes told what they could not say,
For still their lips spoke alien words that day.
She told a legend of an early king
Who knew the fairy of this wildwood glen,
And often sought her haunt, far off to fling
His grandeur, and be loved like common men.
He died long since, the lady said; but she,
Who could not die, how weary she must be!
They talked of the strange beauty of the spot,
The light that glinted through the ancient trees,
Their own young lives, the Prince’s future lot;
Then jested with false laughs. Like tangled bees,
Each other and themselves they sweetly stung;
They sung fond songs, and mocked the words they sung.