Years of wand’ring, sad and lone,
Since that pure angelic spirit
Joined the seraphs round the throne.
O’er her grave beside the ocean,
Lovingly the stars still shine,
While the tide’s wild song of gladness
Seems to bear her voice divine.
Oft in dreams I see my lost one,
Hear her voice as soft and low
As a strain of far-off music;--
But the dawn brings back my woe.
Bowed with unutterable grief,--grief that was so severe that it choked
back every tear into my heart,--I buried my head in my arms to shut
out both sight and sound, and wept as tearless grief alone can weep.
The angel-images of the two that had gone Home, forever to await
the happier marriage in eternal union there, I saw looking down
compassionately, while the two mourners left behind were constantly
reaching upwards toward those loved ones beyond their ken in the dim
unknown, and sometimes almost touching the finger-tips of the hands
unseen! Yes; and the music! I heard it over, and over, and over again,
sometimes near, sometimes far, always sweet and tremulous, sometimes
sounding in my ear, sometimes dying away and echoing back from the
dome of that Home above.
When again my fevered eyes looked upon the page, I wondered if it could
be that these embodiments of both verse and music could be changing
so rapidly, or if the change had been going on constantly without my
notice. Both transformed--I know not now what to call them--had now
become so small that I could scarcely distinguish their bodies through
the spirit-like halo. And that halo every moment grew more and more
human--no, not human; but, though an embodying spirit, it grew more and
more like a disembodied human soul. Less and less visible became the
body of each, more and more like a human soul became the halo of each
as the first wove itself away into the final web.--
Oh, my heart is sad and lone
And it sighs with heaving groan
As it dreams its dreams of woe
Of the silent long ago.
But I’ve reached the river’s brink;
Soon I’ll dip the golden oar,
And beneath the waves will sink
All those happy days of yore.
Soon I’ll greet my bright Lenore
Where we’ll meet to part no more;
Soon I’ll reach the golden sands
Where I’ll clasp her angel hands;
Soon I’ll kiss her seraph brow
On that bright angelic shore,
Where I’ll dream no more, as now,
Of those happy days of yore.
The two spirits, thus transforming, were passing away, slipping,
slipping away from me back into the mysteriousness whence they came, I
felt, as both moved across the page to dirge-like yet a kind of happy
and hope-inspiring music. The music of each was so blended with that of
the other that I could scarcely distinguish the words of the two as the
second soul-dreamer mused through the melody.--
Lost! ah lost!--But not forever:
I have reached the golden strand;
Soon beyond the crystal ocean
We will wander hand in hand;
Soon across the deep, dark waters
I will go to claim my own
From among the shining angels,
Where she waits for me alone.
We will part no more forever
Underneath that heavenly dome;
Love and joy shall reign together
In that bright eternal home.
But look--look!--there, there just before you. See! see it struggling
to rise away. Oh, what wonderful transformation can this be!
As both neared the close, their bodies grew imperceptible, the
web-woven words more and more brightly illuminated, and the haloing
spirit larger, and larger, more and more distinct, yet more and more
attenuated, until--no, no! it--but yes! I must believe it, must believe
my eyes!--each took on the form of an angel! As the last word of each
was woven, simultaneously, and as the low, faint, plaintive echoes of
the music went trembling through the blue distance that still trembles
in unison with the hearts of millions, the two _meistersingers_,
perfect in angel form with a rarer beauty than I ever saw before, the
rarest beauty I ever expect to see, shone radiantly in the night for a
moment, like a glory struck out of darkness by a beam from heaven, and
vanished like that glory passing out of darkness into heaven again.
With my eyes following these disembodied embodiments of Beauty, and my
palms out-reaching toward them, thus I sat until, when their passing
glory at the same time closed the portals through which they vanished
and gave the keys to memory, my nerves relaxed, the intense mingled
pain and rapture, which had never ceased, seemed to snap my very
heart-chords, and consciousness slid like lead into the lethean flow of
the river of oblivion.
How long I sat there, drowned in unrefreshing forgetfulness allied
to sleep, I have no recollection, and no possible means of knowing.
When again I opened my eyes, the morning was far spent. There was a
dull pain in my head, but the circumstances I have just related were
all so vivid that the whole scene instantly flashed across my mind. I
thought surely it must be a dream. Could it be? I was sitting in my
night-dress. I got up from my chair and went to my bed-room. There was
my bed, just as I had left it when I rose to follow the strange spirit
that controlled me. I went to the wall where I had seen the spider.
True enough, there was the thread, but no longer illuminated, just
where I had seen it. I put my hand to my forehead as one often does in
wondering. When I removed it, there, clinging to my forefinger, was
the web that had clung to my forehead. No, I had not been asleep and
dreamed all this; that was plain enough. I returned to my chair. There
on my desk, as I involuntarily glanced at the well-remembered spot, I
saw a still more remarkable confirmation of my having been awake; for
there lay the whole poem that I had seen woven by the first spirit, as
perfect in every way as if it had been written by human hand. But the
characters were no longer illuminated. They had burnt into the paper,
and were as black as my own ink. They were all made out, too, in my
own style of handwriting, though I declare and affirm to all the world
that never before this occurrence had I written one line of poetry.
Perhaps it would have been better for me and for you if I had stopped
with this--palmed it off as my own on account of the similarity of
handwriting; and if I had never trifled with the tricks of the muses
thereafter.
I looked on my desk for the other poem, but alas! it could not be
found; for, as I have said before, it was only _psychologically_
present to me, while it was _really_ present to some one else. In a
few days I had the most remarkable confirmation of this--even more
remarkable than what I have related in the preceding.
By the very next mail (I was teaching in the country and got my mail
but once a week, on Saturday) I received a letter from my old chum,
dated May 8, 1885. As I opened it, behold! that identical poem that I
had in my mind seen wrought by the second spirit of beauty fell on my
table. In a letter of sixteen quarto pages, he told one substantially
the same experience of himself with two spirit-singers--one of them
present, the other psychologically present, each unconscious of the
other, yet each influencing the other in some indefinable way--as I
have here related.
In speaking of the vanishing of the two spirit-forms, he wrote:--
“I firmly believe those two spirits were none other than the
angel-forms of the two maidens the poems celebrate; that they have
woven their spirits of beauty into these two embodiments of verse that
we mortals may be the better for it; and that, when they vanished, they
entered these two poems, where they still abide.”
Strange, but this is the same thought that I had had, and still do
have. I most sincerely believe it is the only correct conclusion,
though I cannot solve the mysteries that are connected with it. Indeed,
it would be sacrilege to attempt it.
I still have these original manuscripts that were thus mysteriously
wrought. They are lying here on the desk before me as I write; and as
I glance across this page at them, the whole scene of that memorable
night, more vivid, far, far more vivid than my pen has delineated it
for you, comes flashing across my brain. In this quick, bright light
of memory, reason marshals the long line of causes that produced this
psychological phenomenon; I follow the approaching lines with my
mind’s eye, until I am lost in the dim distance of their vanishing
perspective, then return, follow again, only to lose myself in the same
unfathomable mystery, and so again and again. Though I know some of
the causes that produced it, I cannot reach the hidden ones. I could
almost fancy still that I had dreamed all this did not these original
manuscripts before me constantly remind me of the reality of what I
have here set down. They are free for the inspection of all who wish
to verify the facts I have related.
I challenge the world to produce two such similar poems, good, bad, or
indifferent, written under such remarkable circumstances.
The events I have here recorded are the events of my boyhood, or early
manhood, rather, faithfully told. I have long hesitated to publish them
for fear that there might be a few in these days of fiction who would
doubt their reality. But what makes them a hundredfold more wonderful
to me is the truth of all their seemingly impossible facts.
My friend, you think this a strange, strange story, I know. Indeed,
I think so too; far more strange to me than to you, for I have felt
the truth of it and you have only read it. As true as these two poems
exist, the circumstances under which they were written are far, far
more strange to me than I can possibly make the story; far, far more
strange to me than the weirdest, most wonderful story pen can write.
I have therefore published this account of an incident of my life
that it may please some with the strange facts that they will take
for mere fancy; that it may waken some to the knowledge that in our
most rational moments we are by no means independent, our minds are
by no means our own, but are influenced by circumstances, by the
psychological action of the minds of our most intimate friends, and
by the spiritual power within us and at the same time above us; that
it may teach others that out of the most despised creatures of God’s
making and care, the Soul of Beauty may come and wed itself to Use by
weaving its life into an angel-image of Love that shall dwell in the
human heart forever.
BOY BARDS.
TO E. L. H.
Together we thought,
Together we wrought;
And ever and ever
The golden days were fraught
With the light and life of Time
That dripped like dews
From the heart of our Muse
Between the buds of rhyme.
Oh never, no never
Such rainbow colors were caught
From the dripping clouds in pain--
So sweet distraught
With the iris wrought
Of the mingled shine and rain.
Oh never, no never
Such scent in the summer was caught
From the morning-glory’s bloom
Where the humming-bird
Has gently stirred
The leaves by the open room.
THE GREATEST THING ON EARTH.
I.
FROM SUN TO SUN.
From sun to sun
Till life is done
We still aspire,
Still have some wish not gratified;
With every breath--
E’en unto death--
We still reach higher,
Our hearts are still unsatisfied.
II.
WHAT THE STRIVING?
What means this striving,
This toil, this endless labor,
This bargaining with our neighbor,
This too fast living,
This wishing, this longing,
This constant thronging
Of thoughts of--what?
Gods! I know not!--
What means it all,
Philosopher,
This rise and fall,
This hope and fear,
This constant changing station
Of every man and nation,
Or rich
Or poor,
With koh-i-noor
Or bacon flitch,
Still envying some other,
Still striving ’gainst some brother
And justling
And hustling
And rushing
And pushing
As by a mighty cyclone hurled
Headlong midway the narrow world,
And as it were
Made all too small
For half to gyrate in,
Or even half begin--
What means it all,
Philosopher?
The rich, the poor,
The high, the low,
The good, the bad,
(And who can tell?)
Keep bickering
And dickering
And chaffering
On everything
They buy and sell
For more and more
Of earth, as though
Gone staring mad.
Whether the cause
Be unequal laws
Of God, or man, or neither one, or both,
Activity o’ermatching tardy sloth,
Some must rise and some must fall
In the strife of all for all.
III.
THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH OURS.
That there should be unjust division
Of wealth and life and station
Needs, calm, deliberate decision
Of every man and nation.
The world is too much ours,
And we too much of it.
The times are out of joint;
The heart is out of tune,
And needs the Master’s hand.
Like churlish curs we stand
And guard our little own,
And watch Death’s finger point
To Woes, while Pleasures sit
And glass the glossing hours.
Like demons, too, we rave
Because our neighbors have
One jot or tittle more than we;
And curse ourselves as slaves
Dumb driven to our graves
Fast bound from light of liberty.
The remedy lies not in force,
Nor in the frenzy of the hour
Engendered by the unreasoning mob.
’Tis in a nobler, gentler course
Of a higher, nobler power
New-born at every true heart-throb.
IV.
HAND AND HEART.
No vain philosophy,
That flows from ailing springs of earth
Can cure the cankered ills of mortal clay.
No, naught save that eternal fountain’s spray
That gives the heart immortal birth
Can heal humanity.
In every heart at birth
That fountain bubbles up
To purify this earth
With life and love and hope.
But in the hearts of all,
Ere life is scarce begun,
Some clay of earth must fall
To dim the mirrored sun.
True, all (’tis law) must labor;
But with the hand alone?
And that against a neighbor,
His heart our stepping stone?
Nay, with the hand and heart, the rather;
For each who climbs above
Must reach the door of Him our Father
On stepping-stones of love.
V.
COURTING THE CROWD.
Our wrongs we make that make us wrong:
We court the crowd; we tickle the public ear;
The crowd laughs, and we laugh with it always; we’re
Mere puppets dandled by the throng.
We jingle our laughter,--
The world follows after
As if it were money;
We bow in our sorrow,--
The world bids “good-morrow,”
Hey-nonny hey-nonny.
We praise and we flatter,--
The world with a clatter
Comes after the honey;
We ask when we’re needy,--
The world is too greedy,
Hey-nonny hey-nonny.
We’re loved while we’re living
If always we’re giving
The world something funny;
But dead, there’s erected,
A stone,--then neglected,
Hey-nonny hey-nonny.
So, so! the world is all a cheat
And yet we worship at its feet.
Deceived by dross of gold and gloss of art,
We too much court the hand and not the heart.
VI.
IMMORTAL AND GOD-GIVEN.
Sowing and reaping,
Glutting our greed,
Getting and keeping,
What do we need?
World ever spinning,
World never slack,
World ever winning,
What does it lack?
--What?
What not?--
--The greatest thing on earth,
The greatest, too, in heaven above,
The greatest good of greatest worth,
Immortal and God-given,--
Love!
Love that bids no stricken soul depart
With honeyed, sweet “good-morrow”;
Love that binds and balms the wounded heart
And sorrows, too, with sorrow.
Love that loves in field or shop or kirk,
Unselfish and ungreedy;
Love that teaches toilless hands to work,
And leaves no mortal needy.
Love that ne’er forgets a heart that sleeps,
Nor leaves its tomb neglected;
Love that laughs and weeps and ever keeps
The throne of Love erected.
VII.
ASKING HEARTS.
This pushing,
This driving,
This rushing,
This too fast living
Is an endless striving
Resulting from unsatisfied desire:
No peace, no rest,
An endless quest,
Forever reaching up for something higher,--
For the world is good by nature,
And though debased, still looks above.
(The heathen even hopes beyond this earth.)
Stamped in every line and feature,
There is the image still of Love,
Sweet Love, fast-graven in the heart at birth.
Our lives-long our asking hearts keep fretting:
We beat the tangles of the world’s wide wild-wood,
Remorsefully and endlessly regretting
The loss of that sweet innocence of childhood.
The world is like us.--We are it!
Time-long the noisy nations of the earth
Have searched, and only found regret
At the loss of Love the child-world had at birth.
And so, we strive, and strive,--we know not why.
And not attaining what the heart would have,
We set the hand to work; we sweat and slave;
Allured by lights around earth’s narrow zone
That, followed, fly, we follow on and on;
For fame and wealth and power we barter away
Our lives; we would be gods: but mortal clay
Still clings about our feet, still drags us down,
And fetters us to earth without a crown.
And so, still unattaining all through life,
We follow still the bootless, mortal strife,
And laugh, and weep, and flatter, and fret, and--die!--
Die still unsatisfied,
Some wish not gratified!
VIII.
THE CROWNING GLORY.
Labor night and day
Howsoe’er we may
And toil
And moil
With ceaseless sweating,
Forever fretting,
Still coping
In endless strife
And hoping
An easier life,
Yet with it all
Result must fall
Far short of aspiration.
’Tis the great Law of laws,
Nor far to seek the cause;
For in our heart of hearts we know
The Law of Life must needs be so
That man may climb
Through changing time
Above this clod
Of mouldy mortal earth
Back unto God,
His home of love at birth,
And find in endless life
Above
The crown of all our strife
Is Love,
--The crown of all creation.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious spelling, punctuation and printers’ errors haven been
silently corrected.
2. Where appropriate, original spelling has been retained.
3. Hyphenated and non-hyphenated words have been kept as in the
original.