"As thy heart bleedeth, so my heart hath bled,
As I have need of thee,
Thou needest me."
That night Van Elsen kissed the baby feet,
And, kneeling by the narrow winding sheet,
Praised Him with fervent breath
Who conquered death.
FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT.
WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOOR-YARD BLOOMED.
[THE DEATH OF LINCOLN.]
1.
When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed,
And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,
I mourned and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilacs blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.
2.
O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night--O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappeared--O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless--O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul!
3.
In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the whitewashed
palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich
green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I
love,
With every leaf a miracle;--and from this bush in the door-yard,
With delicate-colored blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break.
4.
In the swamp in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
Solitary the thrush,
The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.--
Song of the bleeding throat,
Death's outlet song of life (for well, dear brother, I know,
If thou wast not granted to sing thou wouldst surely die).
5.
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,
Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peeped from
the ground, spotting the gray débris,
Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless
grass,
Passing the yellow-speared wheat, every grain from its shroud in the
dark-brown fields up-risen,
Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,
Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,
Night and day journeys a coffin.
6.
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,
With the pomp of the inlooped flags, with the cities draped in black,
With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veiled women standing,
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the
unbared heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong
and solemn,
With all the mournful voices of the dirges poured around the coffin,
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs--where amid these you
journey,
With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang,
Here, coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.
7.
(Nor for you, for one alone,--
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring;
For, fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you, O sane and
sacred death.
All over bouquets of roses,
O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,
But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,
Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes,
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,
For you and the coffins all of you, O death.)
8.
O western orb sailing the heaven,
Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walked,
As I walked in silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night,
As you drooped from the sky low down as if to my side (while the other
stars all looked on),
As we wandered together the solemn night (for something, I know not
what, kept me from sleep),
As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you
were of woe,
As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent
night,
As I watched where you passed and was lost in the netherward black of
the night,
As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you, sad orb.
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.
9.
Sing on there in the swamp,
O singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes, I hear your call,
I hear, I come presently, I understand you;
But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detained me,
The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.
10.
O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?
Sea-winds blown from east and west,
Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till there on
the prairies meeting,
These and with these and the breath of my chant,
I'll perfume the grave of him I love.
11.
O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun,
burning, expanding the air,
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of
the trees prolific,
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a
wind-dapple here and there,
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and
shadows,
And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward
returning.
12.
Lo, body and soul--this land,
My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and
the ships,
The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio's
shores and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies covered with grass and corn.
Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,
The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,
The gentle soft-born measureless light,
The miracle spreading, bathing all, the fulfilled noon,
The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
13.
Sing on, sing on, you gray-brown bird!
Sing from the swamps, the recesses; pour your chant from the bushes,
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
Sing on, dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
O liquid and free and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul--O wondrous singer!
You only I hear--yet the star holds me (but will soon depart),
Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.
14.
Now while I sat in the day and looked forth,
In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and the
farmers preparing their crops,
In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests.
In the heavenly aerial beauty (after the perturbed winds and the storms),
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices
of children and women,
The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sailed,
And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with
labor,
And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its
meals and minutia of daily usages,
And the streets how their throbbings throbbed, and the cities pent--lo,
then and there,
Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,
Appeared the cloud, appeared the long black trail,
And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.
Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,
And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,
And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of
companions,
I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.
And the singer so shy to the rest received me,
The gray-brown bird I know received us comrades three,
And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.
From deep secluded recesses,
From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,
Came the carol of the bird.
And the charm of the carol rapt me,
As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,
And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.
_Come, lovely and soothing death.
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the, day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate death_.
_Praised be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death_.
_Dark mother, always gliding near with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly._
_Approach, strong deliveress!
When it is so, when thou, hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O death_.
_From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee, I propose, saluting thee, adornments and feastings for
thee;
And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night--_
_The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veiled death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee_.
_Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the
prairies wide,
Over the dense-packed cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O death_.
15.
To the tally of my soul,
Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,
With pure deliberate notes spreading, filling the night,
Loud in the pines and cedars dim.
Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,
And I with my comrades there in the night.
While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,
As to long panoramas of visions.
And I saw askant the armies,
I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags,
Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierced with missiles I saw
them,
And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody.
And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs (and all in silence),
And the staffs all splintered and broken.
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them;
I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
But I saw they were not as was thought,
They themselves were fully at rest, they suffered not:
The living remained and suffered, the mother suffered,
And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffered,
And the armies that remained suffered.
16.
Passing the visions, passing the night,
Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands,
Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul,
Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,
As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding
the night,
Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting
with joy,
Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,
As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.
I cease from my song for thee,
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous, with silver face in the night.
Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo aroused in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe.
With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the
dead I loved so well.
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and this for his
dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
WALT WHITMAN.
IF I SHOULD DIE TO-NIGHT.
If I should die to-night,
My friends would look upon my quiet face
Before they laid it in its resting-place,
And deem that death had left it almost fair;
And, laying snow-white flowers against my hair.
Would smooth it down with tearful tenderness,
And fold my hands with lingering caress--
Poor hands, so empty and so cold to-night!
If I should die to-night,
My friends would call to mind, with loving thought,
Some kindly deed the icy hands had wrought;
Some gentle word the frozen lips had said;
Errands on which the willing feet had sped;
The memory of my selfishness and pride,
My hasty words, would all be put aside,
And so I should be loved and mourned to-night.
If I should die to-night,
Even hearts estranged would turn once more to me,
Recalling other days remorsefully;
The eyes that chill me with averted glance
Would look upon me as of yore, perchance,
And soften, in the old familiar way;
For who could war with dumb, unconscious clay?
So I might rest, forgiven of all, to-night.
Oh, friends, I pray to-night,
Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow--
The way is lonely; let me feel them now.
Think gently of me; I am travel-worn;
My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn.
Forgive, oh, hearts estranged, forgive, I plead!
When dreamless rest is mine I shall not need
The tenderness for which I long to-night.
BELLE E. SMITH.
AWAKENING.
Down to the borders of the silent land
He goes with halting feet;
He dares not trust; he cannot understand
The blessedness complete
That waits for God's beloved at his right hand.
He dreads to see God's face, for though the pure
Beholding him are blest,
Yet in his sight no evil can endure;
And still with fear oppressed
He looks within and cries, "Who can be sure?"
The world beyond is strange; the golden streets,
The palaces so fair,
The seraphs singing in the shining seats,
The glory everywhere,--
And to his soul he solemnly repeats
The visions of the Book. "Alas!" he cries,
"That world is all too grand;
Among those splendors and those majesties
I would not dare to stand;
For me a lowlier heaven would well suffice!"
Yet, faithful in his lot this saint has stood
Through service and through pain;
The Lord Christ he has followed, doing good;
Sure, dying must be gain
To one who living hath done what he could.
The light is fading in the tired eyes,
The weary race is run;
Not as the victor that doth seize the prize.
But as the fainting one,
He nears the verge of the eternities.
And now the end has come, and now he sees
The happy, happy shore;
O fearful, and faint, distrustful soul, are these
The things thou fearedst before--
The awful majesties that spoiled thy peace?
This land is home; no stranger art thou here;
Sweet and familiar words
From voices silent long salute thine ear;
And winds and songs of birds,
And bees and blooms and sweet perfumes are near.
The seraphs--they are men of kindly mien;
The gems and robes--but signs
Of minds all radiant and of hearts washed clean;
The glory--such as shines
Wherever faith or hope or love is seen.
And he, O doubting child! the Lord of grace
Whom thou didst fear to see--
He knows thy sin--but look upon his face!
Doth it not shine on thee
With a great light of love that fills the place?
O happy soul, be thankful now and rest!
Heaven is a goodly land;
And God is love; and those he loves are blest;--
Now thou dost understand;
The least thou hast is better than the best
That thou didst hope for; now upon thine eyes
The new life opens fair;
Before thy feet the Blessed journey lies
Through homelands everywhere;
And heaven to thee is all a sweet surprise.
WASHINGTON GLADDEN.
BEYOND THE SMILING AND THE WEEPING.
Beyond the smiling and the weeping
I shall be soon;
Beyond the waking and the sleeping,
Beyond the sowing and the reaping,
I shall be soon.
_Love, rest, and home!
Sweet hope!
Lord, tarry not, but come._
Beyond the blooming and the fading
I shall be soon;
Beyond the shining and the shading,
Beyond the hoping and the dreading,
I shall be soon.
_Love, rest, and home!_ etc.
Beyond the rising and the setting
I shall be soon;
Beyond the calming and the fretting,
Beyond remembering and forgetting,
I shall be soon.
_Love, rest, and home!_ etc.
Beyond the gathering and the strowing
I shall be soon;
Beyond the ebbing and the flowing.
Beyond the coming and the going,
I shall be soon.
_Love, rest, and home!_ etc.
Beyond the parting and the meeting
I shall be soon;
Beyond the farewell and the greeting,
Beyond this pulse's fever beating,
I shall be soon.
_Love, rest, and home!_ etc.
Beyond the frost chain and the fever
I shall be soon;
Beyond the rock waste and the river,
Beyond the ever and the never,
I shall be soon.
_Love, rest, and home!
Sweet hope!
Lord, tarry not, but come._
HORATIUS BONAR.
THE LAND O' THE LEAL.
I'm wearing awa', Jean,
Like snaw when it's thaw, Jean;
I'm wearing awa',
To the land o' the leal.
There's nae sorrow there, Jean,
There's neither cauld nor care, Jean,
The day is aye fair
In the land o' the leal.
Ye were aye leal and true, Jean;
Your task's ended noo, Jean,
And I'll welcome you
To the land o' the leal.
Our bonnie bairn 's there, Jean,
She was baith guid and fair, Jean:
O, we grudged her right sair
To the land o' the leal!
Then dry that tearfu' ee, Jean,
My soul langs to be free, Jean,
And angels wait on me
To the land o' the leal!
Now fare ye weel, my ain Jean,
This warld's care is vain, Jean;
We'll meet and aye be fain
In the land o' the leal.
CAROLINA, BARONESS NAIRNE.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
"I am dying, Egypt, dying."--SHAKESPEARE'S
_Antony and Cleopatra_, Act iv. Sc. 13.
I am dying, Egypt, dying.
Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
And the dark Plutonian shadows
Gather on the evening blast;
Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me,
Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear;
Listen to the great heart-secrets,
Thou, and thou alone, must hear.
Though my scarred and veteran legions
Bear their eagles high no more.
And my wrecked and scattered galleys
Strew dark Actium's fatal shore,
Though no glittering guards surround me,
Prompt to do their master's will,
I must perish like a Roman,
Die the great Triumvir still.
Let not Caesar's servile minions
Mock the lion thus laid low;
'T was no foeman's arm that felled him,
'T was his own that struck the blow:
His who, pillowed on thy bosom,
Turned aside from glory's ray,
His who, drunk with thy caresses,
Madly threw a world away.
Should the base plebeian rabble
Dare assail my name at Rome,
Where my noble spouse, Octavia,
Weeps within her widowed home,
Seek her; say the gods bear witness--
Altars, augurs, circling wings--
That her blood, with mine commingled,
Yet shall mount the throne of kings.
As for thee, star-eyed Egyptian!
Glorious sorceress of the Nile!
Light the path to Stygian horrors
With the splendors of thy smile.
Give the Caesar crowns and arches,
Let his brow the laurel twine;
I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,
Triumphing in love like thine.
I am dying, Egypt, dying;
Hark! the insulting foeman's cry.
They are coming--quick, my falchion!
Let me front them ere I die.
Ah! no more amid the battle
Shall my heart exulting swell;
Isis and Osiris guard thee!
Cleopatra--Rome--farewell!
WILLIAM HAINES LYTLE.
HABEAS CORPUS.[9]
My body, eh? Friend Death, how now?
Why all this tedious pomp of writ?
Thou hast reclaimed it sure and slow
For half a century, bit by bit.
In faith thou knowest more to-day
Than I do, where it can be found!
This shrivelled lump of suffering clay,
To which I now am chained and bound,
Has not of kith or kin a trace
To the good body once I bore;
Look at this shrunken, ghastly face:
Didst ever see that face before?
Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art;
Thy only fault thy lagging gait,
Mistaken pity in thy heart
For timorous ones that bid thee wait.
Do quickly all thou hast to do,
Nor I nor mine will hindrance make;
I shall be free when thou art through;
I grudge thee naught that thou must take!
Stay! I have lied: I grudge thee one,
Yes, two I grudge thee at this last,--
Two members which have faithful done
My will and bidding in the past.
I grudge thee this right hand of mine;
I grudge thee this quick-beating heart;
They never gave me coward sign,
Nor played me once a traitor's part.
I see now why in olden days
Men in barbaric love or hate
Nailed enemies' hands at wild crossways,
Shrined leaders' hearts in costly state:
The symbol, sign, and instrument
Of each soul's purpose, passion, strife,
Of fires in which are poured and spent
Their all of love, their all of life.
O feeble, mighty human hand!
O fragile, dauntless human heart!
The universe holds nothing planned
With such sublime, transcendent art!
Yes, Death, I own I grudge thee mine
Poor little hand, so feeble now;
Its wrinkled palm, its altered line,
Its veins so pallid and so slow--
(_Unfinished here_)
Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art:
I shall be free when thou art through.
Take all there is--take hand and heart:
There must be somewhere work to do.
HELEN HUNT JACKSON.
[9] Her last poem: 7 August, 1885.
FAREWELL, LIFE.
WRITTEN DURING SICKNESS, APRIL, 1845.
Farewell, life! my senses swim.
And the world is growing dim;
Thronging shadows cloud the light,
Like the advent of the night,--
Colder, colder, colder still,
Upward steals a vapor chill;
Strong the earthly odor grows,--
I smell the mold above the rose!
Welcome, life! the spirit strives!
Strength returns and hope revives;
Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn
Fly like shadows at the morn,--
O'er the earth there comes a bloom;
Sunny light for sullen gloom,
Warm perfume for vapor cold,--
smell the rose above the mold!
THOMAS HOOD.
FOR ANNIE.
Thank Heaven! the crisis,--
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last,--
And the fever called "Living"
Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know,
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length,--
But no matter!--I feel
I am better at length.
And I rest so composedly
Now, in my bed,
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead,--
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart,--ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
The sickness, the nausea,
The pitiless pain,
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain,--
With the fever called "Living"
That burned in my brain.
And O, of all tortures
_That_ torture the worst
Has abated,--the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the naphthaline river
Of Passion accurst!
I have drunk of a water
That quenches all thirst,
Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound.
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground,
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
And ah! let it never
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed,--
And, to _sleep_ you must slumber
In just such a bed.
My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting, its roses,--
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:
For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
About it, of pansies,--
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies,
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie,--
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast,--
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm,--
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.
And I lie so composedly
Now in my bed,
(Knowing her love,)
That you fancy me dead;--
And I rest so contentedly
Now in my bed,
(With her love at my breast,)
That you fancy me dead,--
That you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead:
But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars in the sky;
For it sparkles with Annie,--
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie,
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
THALATTA! THALATTA!
CRY OF THE TEN THOUSAND.