And the portals of heaven seemed opening wide
As the music grew sweeter and nearer each note
And rose and fell like the swell of the tide.
Ah the beautiful, beautiful stars of that night,
And the beautiful music they left in my heart
Shall brighten and brighten forever and aye
And never forever my soul shall depart.
At the soft dream-touch of the finger-tips
On the harps of air by the heavenly throng,
The deep silence merged into soft music-waves,
And I heard in my heart this beautiful song:--
Dream, dream,
Youth and maiden,
Beam, beam,
Stars love-laden.--
We are the beautiful portals of love,
Beautiful, beautiful portals above
Whence all the glories of heaven shine:
Turn your eyes, turn, turn, turn your eyes,
Turn them to the happy skies
And drink with them sweet love divine.
Dream, dream,
Youth and maiden,
Beam, beam,
Stars love-laden.--
Youth, in the depths of thy soul do thou pray,
Pray for thy guidance in Love’s lighted way,
Kneeling at radiant Love’s holy shrine:
Turn thine eyes, turn, turn, turn thine eyes,
Turn them to the happy skies
And drink with them sweet love divine.
Dream, dream,
Youth and maiden,
Beam, beam,
Stars love-laden.--
Maiden, still not the sweet throbs of thy heart,--
Throbs _his_ caresses and words sweetly start,--
When he is hoping and longing for thine:
Turn thine eyes, turn, turn, turn thine eyes,
Turn them to the happy skies
And drink with them sweet love divine.
Dream, dream,
Youth and maiden,
Beam, beam,
Stars love-laden.--
Youth, seek the heart of the one at thy side
And into thy sky shall a bright vision glide,--
A star that shall ever for thee alone shine:
Turn thine eyes, turn, turn, turn thine eyes,
Turn them to the happy skies
And drink with them sweet love divine.
I woke from the dream at the tide of the morn,
And beheld the sweet vision that filled my dreams.--
That vision, My Star, thro’ a long, happy life
Is guiding my steps with its golden beams.
No longer, no longer a vision or dream,
I clasp My Sweet Love to my heart all my own;--
But still I can hear the sweet music that fell
From the stars that night on our hearts alone.
I WONDER.
I wonder sometimes if ever
The music God has sent
Will get into my heart and stay there
As I think he surely meant.
Can the voice of Laughter enter
The form where Death has been?--
Whence the spirit of Love has departed,
Can Music’s charms come in?
There’s an ache in my heart that daily
Goes out in earnest quest
Of the spirit of Love that has left me
In the sadness of unrest.
Oh, I wonder sometimes if ever
That spirit of Love will return,
And rekindle my heart’s dead ashes,--
Inspirit the dust of the urn.
I fear that the spirit would enter
The ashes in ghostly quest,
And set but the bones into motion,
The ghost of Love at the best.
Are the rivers, I wonder, ever
Brought back by the clouds from the sea
To flow in the same old channels
Over the dregs and debris?
The love of my heart has departed--
The river has run to the sea;--
And I wonder sometimes if its waters
Will ever come back to me.
Lo, there in my heart’s dead channels
Lie the stagnant pools of Time;
And I see the debris at the bottom,
The dregs and the rotting slime.
I wonder if ever the rivers,
The rivers that run to the sea,
Flow just as sweet on returning
Over the dregs and debris?
Somehow, a thought in my spirit
Comes up from the stagnant fen
That the music of Heaven shall never
Be heard in its waters again!
Yet I wonder each day as I wander
Along where the stream used to be
If the waters won’t sometime come back there
And dredge out the dregs and debris.
It may be! ’Tis a long time coming,--
Too long, I fear,--too long!--
For Love’s River must sing its music
In hearts that have never gone wrong.
Oh, will the Waters returning,
Borne by the Clouds from the Sea,
Run just as sweetly as ever
Over the Dregs and Debris?
IF SO, PEACE TILL NEXT NEW-YEAR.
(A DIRGE.)
The New Year!--hark! the bell!--oh it
Is at last here!
A solemn hush! The world sits still
With breath abated as the poet
Of the New Year
Takes an anti-bilious pill!
MY DEFEAT.
_Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue._
WHITTIER: _My Triumph_.
In the universe swept by the eyes of my soul,
Swim a myriad luminous stars and suns;
And swift through my brains burning æther they roll
Like the infinite trains of the heavenly ones.
In my dreams I outstretch my vain arms with delight
For the forms of the angels that sing round my bed;
But alas! for the chorus of seraphs take flight
And beckon me whither but angels may tread.
And I muse with my heart when my mind sits a-dream
While vibrations of light from the heavenly cars
Fleet swift thro’ the arms of my soul in bright gleam,
And leave me upreaching for aye tow’rd the stars.
THERE’S A LAUGH.
There’s the laugh of the fiend that shrivels the heart,
That burns out the eyes from their sockets of fire,
That crackles the skin and parches the breath
And bellows and shrieks with demoniac ire.
There’s the laugh of the hobgoblin, demon of night,
That frightens the children to silence their sobs,
That rings in their ears to the end of life,
And at night in their hearts like the death-watch throbs.
There’s the wild, screeching laugh from the madman’s lips
When his eyes wildly start from his reechy brain,
That haunts us, tho’ try to forget as we will,
And pierces the heart with a dagger of pain.
There’s the unearthly laugh and the sickening leer
Of the idiot--wretched Unfortunate! dead
Before born, the live sepulchre of unknown crimes,
The tomb of the lives generations have led!
There’s the blasting, blistering, withering laugh
That blights e’en the heart wherein it is born,
That bubbles and sputters and hisses and spits
As it falls from the scorching lips of scorn.
There’s a strange, weird laugh, even tho’ from a child,
That gurgles and sticks in the sleeper’s thick breath,
That startles the shivering silence with awe
And dies in the throat like the rattle of death.
There’s a laugh, like the wind’s cracked whistle, that creaks
And squeaks on the worn-out pipes of old age;
And a sigh heaves up from the heart full sad,
For we know what the ominous sounds presage.
There’s the free, wild laugh that bounds as the deer--
As free as the leap of the hart and as wild--
’Tis the laugh that I love with my heart and my soul,
The sweet, wild laugh of an innocent child.
There’s the laugh that I love, the balm of tired hearts,
That quiets the fluttering temples of care;
’Tis the soft, soothing laugh from the sweet lips of Love,
And it falls like a blessing that answers prayer.
There’s the sweetest of laughs full of music divine
That gladdens the heart and the throbbing brain;
I would give--oh what would I not, were it mine,
But to hear the sweet laugh of my mother again.
TO SLEEP.
Soft on thy breast
Where the soul in oblivious quiet may dream
While it sweeps up to heaven on a star-born beam,
There would I rest,
So peacefully rest,
Oh rest,
Rest!--
Asleep on thy breast,
Asweep to the blest
In a dream
On the gleam
Of a star
In the cradle-rocked billows of azure afar.
WHEEL AND SHUTTLE.
_Spin: God will send thee flax._--PROVERB.
[Although differing slightly from his literal experience,
nevertheless to the boy, long ago grown to manhood, who used
to cling to his mother’s dress, and fretfully toddle back and
forth as she patiently sent the big wheel whirring and then
ran backwards with her lengthening thread, then forwards, and
so on, hour after hour, spinning threads for the home-loom,
this poem, with its application to life, has in it the
pleasing scent of the roses of recollection, intoxicating even
to sadness.]
“Spin, spin!”
The warp is in
And the shuttle never slacks:
Let thy fingers never rest,
Heed the weaver’s stern behest,
“Spin, spin!”
While the woof is weaving in,
God will send thee flax.
“Spin, spin!”
The wheels begin,
And the distaff never lacks:
Let thy spindle’s endless thrum
Fill the shuttles as they hum
“Spin, spin!”
While the woof is weaving in,
God will send thee flax.
“Spin, spin!”--
Thy fingers thin
Let the carded threads relax!
Lo! the wheel is standing dumb,
For the loom has ceased its grum
“Spin, spin!”--
Aye, the woof is woven in,
God has sent thee flax!
THE PRESS OF PENURY.
Out of the Press of Penury
The choicest wines have flowed
To rouse a nation’s blood
To statesmanship or poesy.
(Nor less to hearts the poet’s cause
Than statesman’s counseling:--
If but a people sing,
I care not who shall make the laws.)
With every cycling sun that slips
Through all its winding turns,
Some Lincoln or some Burns
Still lifts his spirit to our lips.
HALLOWEEN.
AN INVITATION SENT TO A LADY, OCT. 31.
I wad na gang alane to-night
An’ leave alane a lassie
Where pixies, elves, an’ goblins fight
An’ drink their bogie tassie.
Sae come wi’ me an’ gang awa’
Where oufe nor spook nor bogle
Hae ought o’ ill or guid to do
But flichter, blink, an’ ogle.
Oh we’ll be merry like the lave
Tho’ Halloween be eerie,
An’ crack an’ jauk an’ giddy ’have
Wi’ Mrs. C---- till weary.
LIFE.
_What is life?--’Tis a delicate shell
Thrown up by Eternity’s flow
On Time’s bank of quicksand to dwel.
And a moment its loveliness show.
Gone back to the elements grand
Is the billow that cast it ashore:
See! another is washing the strand,
And the beautiful shell is no more!_
--_D. A._
What is life?--’Tis the billow of bells
That the sea of eternity bears;
And in rapturous music it swells
As it kisses the sands of the years.
But the ripples are breaking in foam,--
And the billow has ceased to be!
List! the billow, gone back to its home,
Is tolling down deep in the sea!
BORROWING BRAINS.
“Lend me your brains, lend me your brains,”
Screeched a highwayman goblin ’way down in his throat
As deep as he ever could dig up a note.
And his whole gang creaked and hoarsely screaked
Like a hinge that was rusty, and constantly shrieked
“Lend us your brains, lend us your brains,”
As they seized my mare’s head at the bit by the reins
And a long-haired loon with a razory spoon
Clipped open my scalp just over my crown,
And the skull the same place, running crosswise and down;
And they hinged the two pieces with screechy brass bands
Where they singed off my hair by the touch of their hands:
And oh the pains, the pains, the pains,
When they flapped down the cover just back o’ my brains.
My mother came by with a heart-rending cry,
And a wretch popped his eyes from the crown of his hat
As he squealed, “You’ll never again do that!”
And he sharpened his spoon on the sole of his shoon,
Did the long-beard lout by the liquidy moon;
And he severed her brain and her heart in twain
While the rest held me there in my helpless pain.
And the long-beard loons with their long-eared spoons
Stood up on the top of my topless crown
And then leaped to the depths of the hollow turned down.
Oh they teetered and twinged on the part that was hinged,
And they shrieked with delight till the very air cringed
As they sang in their glee how smart they would be
When they got all my brains in their noddles, you see.
And they reached their long spoons, the reechy old loons,
’Way into the cavity made in my head,
And scraped, and scraped till they thought I was dead.
Oh the pains, the pains, the terrible pains
When they spooned from my skull every speck of my brains,
Then with spoons for their pries dragged both of my eyes
Through that hole in my head of such terrible size.
Oh they thought they would be such poets, you see,
And such wonderful, marvelous scholars, you know,
When they planted my brains in their noddles to grow!
But my--oh--oh! what fools they were though!
For poets, you know, are like underdone dough--
And oh--my--oh! what fools they were though
When they planted my brains in their noddles to grow!
But they crammed every grain, their ill-gotten gain,
Clear down in the pokes of their pocket-like ears,
And turned over my eyes to their sages and seers.
But they soon rued they had the brains I had had
For they drove every one of them stark staring mad;
For the goblins, you see, went crazy, like me,
As mad as a March hare ever could be.
To my greatest surprise they brought back my eyes
And put them both back as they always had been.
Since _Thought_ made them crazy, as each one had seen,
They restored me my brains with the greatest of _pains_,
And handed me back my mare’s bridle-reins;
Then away and up through the atmosphere flew
And left me as sound and as solid as new!
And there _was_ no loon with a goblin spoon,
And there never has been and never will be.
Whether or not this happened to me,
It needn’t at all happen this way to all:
But whatever you do, or whatever befall,
_Un-less the gob-lins get your night-mare’s reins,
Don’t ev-er nor ev-er go lend-ing your brains!_
SLEEP.
Dear Nurse that foldeth weary Nature to
Thy heart, and from tired eyes shutteth out the light,
E’en as a mother at the fall of night
Doth take her child upon her lap to undo
The snarls and tangles of the day, and woo
Away the sun-bred ills, and balm the sight
With visions of another world all bright,
Dear soothing healing Sleep! ’tis thee I sue.
Come, fold your arms about my Sweetheart-Wife;
Balm up her eyes that stare at staring Night;
Seal down her lids with sweet, refreshing gleams,
Or visions, rather, of the happy life
We’ve planned together; and leave her not till the light
Of morn, with me, shall kiss her from her dreams.
TO A WILD-ROSE BOUQUET.
Wild roses down the lane
Sweet Laeda gave in June,
To glad me
And to sad me,
Like shine and mingled rain
Atween the clouds aboon.
SONG ON THE SEA.
Merrily, merrily over the wave
We’ll laugh and we’ll sing as we’re bounding along,
Merrily, merrily, joyous and brave
We’ll echo the music of waves in our song:--
Roll, roll, break, break,
Over the merrily musical waves,
Roll, roll, wake, wake
All the glad echoes that hide in their caves.
Rocking and rolling the sea is our home
And joyous we shout from our billow-rocked boat;
Cleaving the breakers white-feathered with foam
We’ll set the sweet echoes of ocean afloat:--
Roll, roll, break, break,
Over the merrily musical waves,
Roll, roll, wake,
All the glad echoes that hide in their caves.
Merrily, merrily out of their caves
We’ll call the glad echoes sweet laughing along;
Merrily, merrily out on the waves
We’ll mingle the musical sea with our song:--
Roll, roll, break, break,
Over the merrily musical waves,
Roll, roll, wake, wake
All the glad echoes that hide in their caves.
WOODLAND LAY.
Oh come to the woodland where joys reign supreme,
Where the zephyr’s soft kiss lightly touches the brow,
And the sun gently drops thro’ the leaves in a dream
And sleeps in the shade of the wide-spreading bough.
Let the world plod along with its stern, solemn face,
With its brow deeply wrinkled with thought and with care;
Let the pleasures of life to-day’s business replace
While we list to the charm of its wild, joyous air.
The murm’ring of brooks, the singing of birds,
The whisper of winds and the leaves soft reply,
The bleating of flocks and the lowing of herds,
The breathing of nature from earth to the sky--
All combine to make music with cadence as sweet
To the ear of the mortal, as the music of spheres,
Gentle wooed from the harp at Infinity’s feet
And as softly let fall on angelical ears.
Like the soft flakes of snow as they fall on the deep,
The rhythmical notes adown tremblingly go
On the listening air, and as silently sleep
In the ocean of joys, where they melt as the snow.
IN THE ANGELS’ KEEP.
Let me not look on the dear, dead face,
I would not remember her so;
For her eyes are closed, and her hands are still,
And her lips can’t speak, you know!
Let me remember her just as she lived,
And just as I’ll meet her above--
With eyes that could talk and a touch that could soothe,
And a heart that was full of love.
Let me remember her not as one dead,
But as one that has fallen asleep;
She will wake in the morning, I know, at my call,
Awake in the angels’ keep!
THOUGHT.
_Thought alone is eternal._--YOUNG.
’Tis the whisp’ring of angels, the brush of their wings;
’Tis the flight of a soul from its fetters of clay
To the lighthouse of gold where the seraph Hope sings
And flings out its notes on life’s billowed bay.
’Tis the touch of Christ’s hand that upraiseth the dead;
’Tis the breath breathed of God in the nostrils of man;--
The stream that shall rise from its mould-made bed
And join with the clouds whence in rain-drops it ran.
Tinged with sadness of mortals, it smells of the grave;
But the Childhood of Faith and the Mother of Hope,
It beckons to fields where the palm-groves wave
And the joy-studded gates of Jerusalem ope.
WHITE-ENTHRONED ABOVE ME.
(ON A SMALL WHITE-ROSE BOUQUET PRESENTED BY A LADY AND PLACED
IN PALGRAVE’S “GOLDEN TREASURY,” OPPOSITE “THE SLEEPING
BEAUTY.”)
White roses, sweet white roses
Fair Leda smiles atween,
No soul your lily-light encloses
So pure as hers, I ween.
Here lie and dream, sweet, pure white roses
That blessed the heart of June,
And ope the budding love that closes
Around her soul aboon.
THE LONE WAYSIDE WILD ROSE.
I passed along a wilding lane
Where weeds and straying flowers grew,
Where clover-blooming meadows threw
Sweet love upon the winds in vain.
Lonely by the wayside wild
Where the earth all trodden lay,
There peeped a wild rose, one bright day,
And stretched its palms like a pleading child.
Day after day, day after day
It drank of love from heaven and earth
And lifted itself from a timid birth
To a beautiful soul in sweet array.
It breathed from out of its opening soul
The breath that heaven has given the rose,
The sweetest by far that mortal knows,
And drank sweet love from the night’s dew-bowl.
The tint of the fleecy clouds of morn
Came out of the flushing tide of its heart,
And lay on its cheek with artless art--
The fairest blush that ever was born.
’Twas when the rose was full in bloom
I passed along that wilding lane
When love upon the winds was vain,
The desert air its deathless tomb.
I loved the flower and said, “Alas!
’Tis sad to know such love must die,
Such sweetness with the mould must lie,
Such beauty into death must pass!”
I plucked the flower from off its stem
And said, “Sweet Flower! Life were Death
Without thy beauty and thy breath--
The heart must wither else for them.”
I plucked the flower--blest wild rose!--
I set it blooming in my heart,
And said, “Should my sweet rose depart
To-day--the night its dear life close,
“The love it leaves shall ever live,
Shall ever grow, and bloom and bloom,
Shall go with me thro’ Death’s dark gloom,
And hope of glad reunion give.”
The flower, blooming, lived and grew;--
That sweet wild rose is blooming still;
Its beauties every corner fill
That life and love and heart e’er knew.
And should my fond heart ever break,
That sweet wild rose would never die;--
’Twould spring from the mould where it might lie
And the fairest bloom immortal take!
TWENTY.
May the twenties yet triple,
And then add their half,
Still preserving the ripple
And ring of your laugh.
And may every bright twinkle
That falls from your eye
Serve to smooth out each wrinkle,
The track of a sigh.
When the twenties shall twinkle
And ten more shall run,
I hope every cute wink’ll
Still shine out with fun.
Oh the triple of twenty
Plus none less than ten!
May you be the same dainty
Sweet girly-girl then!
BEAUTIFUL MAY.
Oh ’tis May,
Beautiful May,
Month of beautiful May,
Beautiful month of May.
Wild flowers blooming,
Grasses growing,
Wild brooks flowing,
Pheasants booming--
Oh ’tis May,
Beautiful May
Lovelier far than month of June,
Beautiful May!
And every day
Is putting the strings of life in tune.
May-buds peep
At robins chattering
To their mates
And those asleep,
Always flattering
With nodding pates
And promises free
The farmer asnooze
That they will keep
From others the news
That cherries are in the tree.
The playful dawn
Is after the moon,
And the moon is running away.
Oh the stars like sheep are all running away
After the moon,
Away from the dawn,
Away from the dawn of the month of May,
Away, away, away.
With skip and play
They dance away
After the dizzy moon
That pales with the pallor of fright so soon
At the brightening sight,
Affright of the light
Of the morn of a lovelier month than June,
So soon, soon, soon.
Oh sweet May,
Beautiful May
Thus brightens her face each day,
And lets the light of her tresses stray
Into each part
Of the earth’s dark heart
Where flashes like lashes from diamonds play
--Astray each day at play.
The light from her eyes
In the spring’s emprise
Sinks deep in the soul of the sands;
And with glittering, flying hands
Every one
Of the sands doth run
And lift into life the clod from its bonds
That climbs to a soul like man’s.
She breathes on the air,
And the sweet winds wear
Her blooms in their billowy hair,
And pour out their perfumes and nectars rare
Distilled in the cup
That the goddesses sup
For the beautiful dutiful May so fair,
So rare and fairy fair.
She drinks of the stream,
And the glad waters gleam
With delight as they leap to her lips.
She creeps up the mountains and merrily sips
Of the fountains that spring
From the snows as they string
Up their bows for a shot at the lower rock-crypts
Where the sun like the dew-drop drips.
She skims to the plain
And frightens the train
That the winter has left on guard.
She whistles her bird-notes soft and hard
And calls from retreat
The bickering feet
Of the green that the winter in prison has barred,
--Sweet, te-weet, wheat.
DEEP UNTO DEEP.
A DOUBLE THRENODY.
Oh the bounding of the billows of the sea
Rolls the rhythm of their music unto me;
And a footstep that has fallen on the lea
Seems to echo from the boundless, soundless deep.
But the breaking of the billows--the billows as they leap,
Makes the silence of my sorrow with them weep;
While the echoes of the grottoes--the grottoes wildly start,
Ever throbbing to the music of my heart;--
Throbbing to the threnode,
Rocking to the rhythm,
Moaning to the music of my heart,--
Threnode throbbing ever,
Rhythm rocking ever,
Music moaning ever in my heart.
Oh my Love is on the billows of the sea,
Sending messages along the waves to me;
And the ever-singing shells along the lea
With my longing heart a constant chorus keep.
But the breaking of the message--the message from the deep,
Makes the silence of my sorrow inly weep;
While the moaning shells intoning, intoning griefs impart
Ever sobbing to the silence of my heart;--
Sobbing to the silence,
Intoning to the moaning,
Breaking to the breaking of my heart,--
Silent sobbing ever,
Grief intoning ever,
Breaking, breaking ever in my heart.
A HUMPTY-DUMPTY IDIOTIC CHAP.
There was once a little humpty-dumpty idiotic chap,
Who had both a mug an’ muzzle most remarkable to see.
An’ he couldn’t do a solitary thing but grin an’ gap,
But he done that simply awful an’ he done it constantly.
His tater head was sorto’ meller like a punkin over-ripe
An’ his yaller face was puckered like a lemon with the gripe;
An’ his front teeth like stalites--or what you call ’em--always gave
To the cavity behind them the appearance of a cave,--
Jist forever an’ forever from life’s earliest beginnin’
Simply nachelly a-grinnin’ an’ a-grinnin an’ a-grinnin’.
Well, you see, _he_ couldn’t help it, couldn’t help it not a bit,
’Cause for some peculiar reason he was born jist that-a-way.
An’ if Nater marks a feller he had better jist submit,
’Cause she wants that mark for somepm, an’ she’s goin to have it
stay.
Caint no doctor make a rose-bud of a busted-thistle mouth,
Nor he caint turn north a foot that’s got to growin’ sorto’ south.
Spect this chap inside him knowed it wa’n’t no earthly kind o’ use
To be squeezin’ on a lemon that didn’t have a bit o’ juice;
--Maybe ’lowed his ugly mug ’ould be a doin’ less of sinnin’
If he’d leave it jist a-grinnin’ an’ a-grinnin’ an’ a-grinnin’.
’Course he didn’t reason on it, cause he didn’t have no sense;
But I kindo’ sorto’ reckon that he done like others do--
Jist set down up where he’d clum on top o’ Nater’s ol worm-fence
An’ let the sun bile down onto him an’ soak him clean plum thro’
an’ thro’
While with busy boom an’ buzz the plunder’n’ bug an’ bumble-bee
Went a-nosin’ thro’ the clover where the rosy-posies be.
An’ with one eye squinted up an’ t’other squinted down plum shet,
Up on top the fence, I spect, twixt brute an’ human there he set,
An’ jist let the whirly-gigy world whirl off its spindle spinnin’
While he joyed hisself a-grinnin’ an’ a-grinnin’ an’ a-grinnin’.