In our youth, are still shining as tender and true;
The midnight is sounding its slumberous bell,
And I come to the one who has loved me so well.
Wake, darling, wake, for my vigil is done:
What shall dissever our lives which are one?
Say, while the rose listens under her breath,
“Naught until death, darling, naught until death!”
THE TRYST.
Sleeping, I dreamed that thou wast mine,
In some ambrosial lovers’ shrine.
My lips against thy lips were pressed,
And all our passion was confessed;
So near and dear my darling seemed,
I knew not that I only dreamed.
Waking, this mid and moonlit night,
I clasp thee close by lover’s right.
Thou fearest not my warm embrace,
And yet, so like the dream thy face
And kisses, I but half partake
The joy, and know not if I wake.
VIOLET EYES.
One can never quite forget
Eyes like yours, May Margaret,
Eyes of dewy violet!
Nothing like them, Margaret,
Save the blossoms newly born
Of the May and of the Morn.
Oft my memory wanders back
To those burning eyes and black,
Whose heat-lightnings once could move
Me to passion, not to love;
Longer in my heart of hearts
Linger those disguiséd arts,
Which, betimes, a hazel pair
Used upon me unaware;
And the wise and tender gray—
Eyes wherewith a saint might pray—
Speak of pledges that endure
And of faith and vigils pure;
But for him who fain would know
All the fire the first can show,
All the art, or friendship fast,
Of the second and the last,—
And would gain a subtler worth,
Part of Heaven, part of Earth,—
He these mingled rays can find
In but one immortal kind:
In those eyes of violet,
In _your_ eyes, May Margaret!
THE DOORSTEP.
The conference-meeting through at last,
We boys around the vestry waited
To see the girls come tripping past
Like snow-birds willing to be mated.
Not braver he that leaps the wall
By level musket-flashes litten,
Than I, who stepped before them all
Who longed to see me get the mitten.
But no, she blushed and took my arm!
We let the old folks have the highway,
And started toward the Maple Farm
Along a kind of lovers’ by-way.
I can’t remember what we said,
’Twas nothing worth a song or story;
Yet that rude path by which we sped
Seemed all transformed and in a glory.
The snow was crisp beneath our feet,
The moon was full, the fields were gleaming;
By hood and tippet sheltered sweet,
Her face with youth and health was beaming.
The little hand outside her muff,—
O sculptor, if you could but mould it!—
So lightly touched my jacket-cuff,
To keep it warm I had to hold it.
To have her with me there alone,—
’Twas love and fear and triumph blended.
At last we reached the foot-worn stone
Where that delicious journey ended.
The old folks, too, were almost home;
Her dimpled hand the latches fingered,
We heard the voices nearer come,
Yet on the doorstep still we lingered.
She shook her ringlets from her hood
And with a “Thank you, Ned,” dissembled,
But yet I knew she understood
With what a daring wish I trembled.
A cloud passed kindly overhead,
The moon was slyly peeping through it,
Yet hid its face, as if it said,
“Come, now or never! do it! _do it!_”
My lips till then had only known
The kiss of mother and of sister,
But somehow, full upon her own
Sweet, rosy, darling mouth,—I kissed her!
Perhaps ’twas boyish love, yet still,
O listless woman, weary lover!
To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill
I’d give—but who can live youth over?
FUIT ILIUM.
One by one they died,—
Last of all their race;
Nothing left but pride,
Lace, and buckled hose.
Their quietus made,
On their dwelling-place
Ruthless hands are laid:
Down the old house goes!
See the ancient manse
Meet its fate at last!
Time, in his advance,
Age nor honor knows;
Axe and broadaxe fall,
Lopping off the Past:
Hit with bar and maul,
Down the old house goes!
Sevenscore years it stood:
Yes, they built it well,
Though they built of wood,
When that house arose.
For its cross-beams square
Oak and walnut fell;
Little worse for wear,
Down the old house goes!
Rending board and plank,
Men with crowbars ply,
Opening fissures dank,
Striking deadly blows.
From the gabled roof
How the shingles fly!
Keep you here aloof,—
Down the old house goes!
Holding still its place,
There the chimney stands,
Stanch from top to base,
Frowning on its foes.
Heave apart the stones,
Burst its iron bands!
How it shakes and groans!
Down the old house goes!
Round the mantel-piece
Glisten Scripture tiles;
Henceforth they shall cease
Painting Egypt’s woes,
Painting David’s fight,
Fair Bathsheba’s smiles,
Blinded Samson’s might,—
Down the old house goes!
On these oaken floors
High-shoed ladies trod;
Through those panelled doors
Trailed their furbelows:
Long their day has ceased;
Now, beneath the sod,
With the worms they feast,—
Down the old house goes!
Many a bride has stood
In yon spacious room;
Here her hand was wooed
Underneath the rose;
O’er that sill the dead
Reached the family tomb:
All, that were, have fled,—
Down the old house goes!
Once, in yonder hall,
Washington, they say,
Led the New-Year’s ball,
Stateliest of beaux.
O that minuet,
Maids and matrons gay!
Are there such sights yet?
Down the old house goes!
British troopers came
Ere another year,
With their coats aflame,
Mincing on their toes;
Daughters of the house
Gave them haughty cheer,
Laughed to scorn their vows,—
Down the old house goes!
Doorway high the box
In the grass-plot spreads;
It has borne its locks
Through a thousand snows;
In an evil day,
From those garden-beds
Now ’tis hacked away,—
Down the old house goes!
Lo! the sycamores,
Scathed and scrawny mates,
At the mansion doors
Shiver, full of woes;
With its life they grew,
Guarded well its gates;
Now their task is through,—
Down the old house goes!
On this honored site
Modern trade will build,—
What unseemly fright
Heaven only knows!
Something peaked and high,
Smacking of the guild:
Let us heave a sigh,—
Down the old house goes!
COUNTRY SLEIGHING.
A NEW SONG TO AN OLD TUNE.
In January, when down the dairy
The cream and clabber freeze,
When snow-drifts cover the fences over,
We farmers take our ease.
At night we rig the team,
And bring the cutter out;
Then fill it, fill it, fill it, fill it,
And heap the furs about.
Here friends and cousins dash up by dozens,
And sleighs at least a score;
There John and Molly, behind, are jolly,—
Nell rides with me, before.
All down the village street
We range us in a row:
Now jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle,
And over the crispy snow!
The windows glisten, the old folks listen
To hear the sleigh-bells pass;
The fields grow whiter, the stars are brighter,
The road is smooth as glass.
Our muffled faces burn,
The clear north-wind blows cold,
The girls all nestle, nestle, nestle,
Each in her lover’s hold.
Through bridge and gateway we’re shooting straightway,
Their tollman was too slow!
He’ll listen after our song and laughter
As over the hill we go.
The girls cry, “Fie! for shame!”
Their cheeks and lips are red,
And so, with kisses, kisses, kisses,
They take the toll instead.
Still follow, follow! across the hollow
The tavern fronts the road.
Whoa, now! all steady! the host is ready,—
He knows the country mode!
The irons are in the fire,
The hissing flip is got;
So pour and sip it, sip it, sip it,
And sip it while ’tis hot.
Push back the tables, and from the stables
Bring Tom, the fiddler, in;
All take your places, and make your graces,
And let the dance begin.
The girls are beating time
To hear the music sound;
Now foot it, foot it, foot it, foot it,
And swing your partners round.
Last couple toward the left! all forward!
Cotillons through, let’s wheel:
First tune the fiddle, then down the middle
In old Virginia Reel.
Play Money Musk to close,
Then take the “long chassé,”
While in to supper, supper, supper,
The landlord leads the way.
The bells are ringing, the ostlers bringing
The cutters up anew;
The beasts are neighing; too long we’re staying,
The night is half-way through.
Wrap close the buffalo-robes,
We’re all aboard once more;
Now jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle,
Away from the tavern-door
So follow, follow, by hill and hollow,
And swiftly homeward glide.
What midnight splendor! how warm and tender
The maiden by your side!
The sleighs drop far apart,
Her words are soft and low;
Now, if you love her, love her, love her,
’Tis safe to tell her so.
PAN IN WALL STREET.
A. D. 1867.
Just where the Treasury’s marble front
Looks over Wall Street’s mingled nations;
Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont
To throng for trade and last quotations;
Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
Outrival, in the ears of people,
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled
From Trinity’s undaunted steeple,—
Even there I heard a strange, wild strain
Sound high above the modern clamor,
Above the cries of greed and gain,
The curbstone war, the auction’s hammer;
And swift, on Music’s misty ways,
It led, from all this strife for millions,
To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days
Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians.
And as it stilled the multitude,
And yet more joyous rose, and shriller,
I saw the minstrel, where he stood
At ease against a Doric pillar:
One hand a droning organ played,
The other held a Pan’s-pipe (fashioned
Like those of old) to lips that made
The reeds give out that strain impassioned.
’Twas Pan himself had wandered here
A-strolling through this sordid city,
And piping to the civic ear
The prelude of some pastoral ditty!
The demigod had crossed the seas,—
From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr,
And Syracusan times,—to these
Far shores and twenty centuries later.
A ragged cap was on his head;
But—hidden thus—there was no doubting
That, all with crispy locks o’erspread,
His gnarléd horns were somewhere sprouting;
His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes,
Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them,
And trousers, patched of divers hues,
Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.
He filled the quivering reeds with sound,
And o’er his mouth their changes shifted,
And with his goat’s-eyes looked around
Where’er the passing current drifted;
And soon, as on Trinacrian hills
The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him,
Even now the tradesmen from their tills,
With clerks and porters, crowded near him.
The bulls and bears together drew
From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley,
As erst, if pastorals be true,
Came beasts from every wooded valley;
The random passers stayed to list,—
A boxer Ægon, rough and merry,
A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst
With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry.
A one-eyed Cyclops halted long
In tattered cloak of army pattern,
And Galatea joined the throng,—
A blowsy, apple-vending slattern;
While old Silenus staggered out
From some new-fangled lunch-house handy,
And bade the piper, with a shout,
To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy!
A newsboy and a peanut-girl
Like little Fauns began to caper:
His hair was all in tangled curl,
Her tawny legs were bare and taper;
And still the gathering larger grew,
And gave its pence and crowded nigher,
While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew
His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.
O heart of Nature, beating still
With throbs her vernal passion taught her,—
Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,
Or by the Arethusan water!
New forms may fold the speech, new lands
Arise within these ocean-portals,
But Music waves eternal wands,—
Enchantress of the souls of mortals!
So thought I,—but among us trod
A man in blue, with legal baton,
And scoffed the vagrant demigod,
And pushed him from the step I sat on.
Doubting I mused upon the cry,
“Great Pan is dead!”—and all the people
Went on their ways:—and clear and high
The quarter sounded from the steeple.
ANONYMA.
HER CONFESSION.
If I had been a rich man’s girl,
With my tawny hair, and this wanton art
Of lifting my eyes in the evening whirl
And looking into another’s heart;
Had love been mine at birth, and friends
Caressing and guarding me night and day,
With doctors to watch my finger-ends,
And a parson to teach me how to pray;
If I had been reared as others have,—
With but a tithe of these looks, which came
From my reckless mother, now in her grave,
And the father who grudged me even his name,—
Why, I should have station and tender care,
Should ruin men in the high-bred way,
Passionless, smiling at their despair,
And marrying where my vantage lay.
As it is, I must have love and dress,
Jewelled trinkets, and costly food,
For I was born for plenteousness,
Music and flowers, and all things good.
To that same father I owe some thanks,
Seeing, at least, that blood will tell,
And keep me ever above the ranks
Of those who wallow where they fell.
True, there are weary, weary days
In the great hotel where I make my lair,
Where I meet the men with their brutal praise,
Or answer the women, stare for stare.
’Tis an even fight, and I’ll carry it through,—
Pit them against me, great and small:
I grant no quarter, nor would I sue
For grace to the softest of them all.
I cannot remember half the men
Whose sin has tangled them in my toils,—
All are alike before me then,
Part of my easily conquered spoils:
Tall or short, and dark or fair,
Rich or famous, haughty or fond,
There are few, I find, who will not forswear
The lover’s oath and the wedding bond.
Fools! what is it that drives them on
With their perjured lips on poison fed;
Vain of themselves, and cruel as stone,
How should they be so cheaply led?
Surely they know me as I am,—
Only a cuckoo, at the best,
Watching, careless of hate and shame,
To crouch myself in another’s nest.
But the women,—how they flutter and flout,
The stupid, terribly virtuous wives,
If I but chance to move about
Or enter within their bustling hives!
Buz! buz! in the scandalous gatherings,
When a strange queen lights amid their throng,
And their tongues have a thousand angry stings
To send her travelling, right or wrong.
Well, the earth is wide and open to all,
And money and men are everywhere,
And, as I roam, ’twill ill befall
If I do not gain my lawful share:
One drops off; but another will come
With as light a head and heavy a purse;
So long as I have the world for a home,
I’ll take my fortune, better or worse!
SPOKEN AT SEA.
THE LOG-BOOK OF THE STEAMSHIP VIRGINIA.
Twelve hundred miles and more
From the stormy English shore,
All aright, the seventh night,
On her course our vessel bore.
Her lantern shone ahead,
And the green lamp and the red
To starboard and to larboard
Shot their light.
Close on the midnight call
What a mist began to fall,
And to hide the ocean wide,
And to wrap us in a pall!
Beneath its folds we past:
Hidden were shroud and mast,
And faces, in near places
Side by side.
Sudden there also fell
A summons like a knell:
Every ear the words could hear,—
Whence spoken, who could tell?
“What ship is this? where bound?”
Gods, what a dismal sound!
A stranger, and in danger,
Sailing near.
“The Virginia, on her route
From the Mersey, seven days out;
Fore and aft, our trusty craft
Carries a thousand souls, about.”
“All these souls may travel still,
Westward bound, if so they will;
Bodies rather, I would gather!”
Loud he laughed.
“Who is’t that hails so rude,
And for what this idle mood?
Words like these, on midnight seas,
Bode no friend nor fortune good!”
“Care not to know my name,
But whence I lastly came,
At leisure, for my pleasure,
Ask the breeze.
“To the people of your port
Bear a message of this sort:
Say, I haste unto the West,
A sharer of their sport.
Let them sweep the houses clean:
Their fathers did, I ween,
When hearing of my nearing
As a guest!
“As by Halifax ye sail
And the steamship England hail,
Of me, then, bespeak her men;
She took my latest mail,—
’Twas somewhere near this spot:
Doubtless they’ve not forgot.
Remind them (if you find them!)
Once again.
“Yet that you all may know
Who is’t that hailed you so,
(Slow he saith, and under breath,)
I leave my sign below!”
Then from our crowded hold
A dreadful cry uprolled,
Unbroken, and the token,—
It was Death.
THE DUKE’S EXEQUY.
ARRAS, A. D. 1404.
Clothed in sable, crowned with gold,
All his wars and councils ended,
Philip lay, surnamed The Bold:
Passing-bell his quittance tolled,
And the chant of priests ascended.
Mailéd knights and archers stand,
Thronging in the church of Arras;
Nevermore at his command
Shall they scour the Netherland,
Nevermore the outlaws harass;
Naught is left of his array
Save a barren territory;
Forty years of generous sway
Sped his princely hoards away,
Bartered all his gold for glory.
Forth steps Flemish Margaret then,
Striding toward the silent ashes;
And the eyes of arméd men
Fill with startled wonder, when
On the bier her girdle clashes!
Swift she drew it from her waist,
And the purse and keys it carried
On the ducal coffin placed;
Then with proud demeanor faced
Sword and shield of him she married.
“No encumbrance of the dead
Must the living clog forever;
From thy debts and dues,” she said,
“From the liens of thy bed,
We this day our line dissever.
“From thy hand we gain release,
Know all present by this token!
Let the dead repose in peace,
Let the claims upon us cease
When the ties that bound are broken.
“Philip, we have loved thee long,
But, in years of future splendor,
Burgundy shall count among
Bravest deeds of tale and song
This, our widowhood’s surrender.”
Back the stately Duchess turned,
While the priests and friars chanted,
And the swinging incense burned:
Thus by feudal rite was earned
Greatness for a race undaunted.
THE HILLSIDE DOOR.
Sometimes within my hand
A Spirit puts the silver key
Of Fairyland:
From the dark, barren heath he beckons me,
Till by that hidden hillside door,
Where bards have passed before,
I seem to stand.
The portal opens wide:
In, through the wondrous, lighted halls,
Voiceless I glide
Where tinkling music magically falls,
And fair in fountained gardens move
The heroes, blest with love
And glorified.
Then by the meadows green,
Down winding walks of elf and fay,
I pass unseen:
There rest the valiant chieftains wreathed with bay;
Here maidens to their lovers cling,
And happy minstrels sing,
Praising their queen.
For where yon pillars are,
And birds with tuneful voices call,
There shines a star,—
The crown she wears, the Fairy Queen of all!
Led to that inmost, wooded haunt
By maidens ministrant,
I halt afar.
O joy! she sees me stand
Doubting, and calls me near her throne,
And waves her wand,
As in my dreams, and smiles on me alone.
O royal beauty, proud and sweet!
I bow me at her feet
To kiss that hand:
Ah woe! ah, fate malign!
By what a rude, revengeful gust,
From that fair shrine
Which holds my sovran mistress I am thrust!
Then comes a mocking voice’s taunt,
Crying, _Thou fool, avaunt!_
_She is not thine!_
And I am backward borne
By unseen awful hands, and cast,
In utter scorn,
Forth from that brightness to the midnight blast:
Not mine the minstrel-lover’s wreath,
But the dark, barren heath,
And heart forlorn.
AT TWILIGHT.
The sunset darkens in the west,
The sea-gulls haunt the bay,
And far and high the swallows fly
To watch the dying day.
Now where is she that once with me
The rippling waves would list?
And O for the song I loved so long,
And the darling lips I kist!
Yon twinkling sail may whiter gleam
Than falcon’s snowy wing,
Her lances far the evening-star
Beyond the waves may fling;
Float on, ah float, enchanted boat,
Bear true hearts o’er the main,
But I shall guide thy helm no more,
Nor whisper love again!
II.
POEMS OF NATURE.
WOODS AND WATERS.
“O ye valleys! O ye mountains!
O ye groves and crystal fountains!
How I love at liberty,
By turns, to come and visit ye!”
Come, let us burst the cerements and the shroud,
And with the livelong year renew our breath,
Far from the darkness of the city’s cloud
Which hangs above us like the pall of Death.
Haste, let us leave the shadow of his wings!
Off from our cares, a stolen, happy time!
Come where the skies are blue, the uplands green;
For hark! the robin sings
Even here, blithe herald, his auroral rhyme,
Foretelling joy, and June his sovereign queen.
See, in our pavéd courts her missal scroll
Is dropped astealth, and every verdant line,
Emblazoned round with Summer’s aureole,
Pictures to eager eyes, like thine and mine,
Her trees new-leaved and hillsides far away.
Ransom has come: out from this vaulted town,
Poor prisoners of a giant old and blind,
Into the breezy day,
Fleeing the sights and sounds that wear us down,
And in the fields our ancient solace find!
Again I hunger for the living wood,
The laurelled crags, the hemlocks hanging wide,
The rushing stream that will not be withstood,
Bound forward to wed him with the river’s tide:
O what wild leaps through many a fettered pass,
Through knotted ambuscade of root and rock,
How white the plunge, how dark the cloven pool!
Then to rich meadow-grass,
And pastures fed by tinkling herd and flock,
Till the wide stream receives its waters cool.
Again I long for lakes that lie between
High mountains, fringed about with virgin firs,
Where hand of man has never rudely been,
Nor plashing wheel the limpid water stirs;
There let us twain begin the world again
Like those of old; while tree, and trout, and deer
Unto their kindred beings draw our own,
Till more than haunts of men,
Than place and pelf, more welcome these appear,
And better worth sheer life than we had known.
Thither, ay, thither flee, O dearest friend,
From walls wherein we grow so wan and old!
The liberal Earth will still her lovers lend
Water of life and storied sands of gold.
Though of her perfect form thou hast secured
Thy will, some charm shall aye thine hold defy,
And day by day thy passion yet shall grow,
Even as a bridegroom, lured
By the unravished secret of her eye,
Reads the bride’s soul, yet never all can know.
And when from her embrace again thou’rt torn,
(Though well for her the world were thrown away!)
At thine old tasks thou’lt not be quite forlorn,
Remembering where is peace; and thou shalt say,
“I know where beauty has not felt the curse,—
Where, though I age, all round me is so young
That in its youth my soul’s youth mirrored seems;
Yes, in their rippling verse,
For all our toil, they have not falsely sung
Who said there still was rest beyond our dreams.”
TO BAYARD TAYLOR.
WITH A COPY OF THE ILIAD.
Bayard, awaken not this music strong,
While round thy home the indolent sweet breeze
Floats lightly as the summer breath of seas
O’er which Ulysses heard the Sirens’ song.
Dreams of low-lying isles to June belong,
And Circe holds us in her haunts of ease;
But later, when these high ancestral trees
Are sere, and such melodious languors wrong
The reddening strength of the autumnal year,
Yield to heroic words thy ear and eye;—
Intent on these broad pages thou shalt hear
The trumpets’ blare, the Argive battle-cry,
And see Achilles hurl his hurtling spear,
And mark the Trojan arrows make reply!
THE MOUNTAIN.
Two thousand feet in air it stands
Betwixt the bright and shaded lands,
Above the regions it divides
And borders with its furrowed sides.
The seaward valley laughs with light
Till the round sun o’erhangs this height;
But then the shadow of the crest
No more the plains that lengthen west
Enshrouds, yet slowly, surely creeps
Eastward, until the coolness steeps
A darkling league of tilth and wold,
And chills the flocks that seek their fold.
Not like those ancient summits lone,
Mont Blanc, on his eternal throne,—
The city-gemmed Peruvian peak,—
The sunset-portals landsmen seek,
Whose train, to reach the Golden Land,
Crawls slow and pathless through the sand,—
Or that, whose ice-lit beacon guides
The mariner on tropic tides,
And flames across the Gulf afar,
A torch by day, by night a star,—
Not thus, to cleave the outer skies,
Does my serener mountain rise,
Nor aye forget its gentle birth
Upon the dewy, pastoral earth.
But ever, in the noonday light,
Are scenes whereof I love the sight,—
Broad pictures of the lower world
Beneath my gladdened eyes unfurled.
Irradiate distances reveal
Fair nature wed to human weal;
The rolling valley made a plain;
Its checkered squares of grass and grain;
The silvery rye, the golden wheat,
The flowery elders where they meet,—
Ay, even the springing corn I see,
And garden haunts of bird and bee;
And where, in daisied meadows, shines
The wandering river through its vines,
Move specks at random, which I know
Are herds a-grazing to and fro.