"As torrents in summer,
Half dried in their channels,
Suddenly rise, though the
Sky is still cloudless,
For rain has been falling
Far off at their fountains;
"So hearts that are fainting
Grow full to o'erflowing,
And they that behold it
Marvel, and know not
That God at their fountains
Far off has been raining."
With this exquisitely beautiful strain of the abbess the Saga ends.
The theologian muses aloud upon creeds and churches, then tells a
fearful tragedy of Spain,--the story of a father who betrays his
daughter to the fires of Torquemada. It chills the heart to think that
such unspeakable ruin of a human soul was ever wrought by any system
that even professed to be Christian. Moloch was truly divine, compared
with the God of the Spanish Inquisition. But the gloom of the tragedy is
not allowed to linger. The poet scatters it by the story of the merry
"Birds of Killingworth," which appears elsewhere in the pages of this
number of the "Atlantic." The blithe beauty of the verses is
captivating, and the argument of the shy preceptor is the most poetic
plea that ever wooed a world to justice. What an airy felicity in the
lines,--
"'Tis always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents from shore to shore
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore."
And so, amid sunshine and the carolling of birds, the legendary rural
romance of the Yankee shore, we turn the page, and find, with real
sorrow, that the last tale is told in the Wayside Inn. The finale is
brief. The guests arose and said good night. The drowsy squire remains
to rake the embers of the fire. The scattered lamps gleam a moment at
the windows. The Red Horse inn seems, in the misty night, the sinking
constellation of the Bear,--and then,
"Far off the village-clock struck one."
So ends this ripe and mellow work, leaving the reader like one who
listens still for pleasant music i' the air which sounds no more. Those
who will may compare it with the rippling strangeness of "Hiawatha," the
mournfully rolling cadence of "Evangeline," the mediæval romance of "The
Golden Legend." For ourselves, its beauty does not clash with theirs.
The simple old form of the group of guests telling stories, the thread
of so many precious rosaries, has a new charm from this poem. The Tabard
inn is gone; but who, henceforth, will ride through Sudbury town without
seeing the purple light shining around the Red Horse tavern?
The volume closes with a few poems, classed as "Birds of Passage." It is
the "second flight,"--the first being those at the end of the "Miles
Standish" volume. Some of these have a pathos and interest which all
will perceive, but the depth and tenderness of which not all can know.
"The Children's Hour" is a strain of parental love, which haunts the
memory with its melody, its sportive, affectionate, and yearning lay.
"They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his mouse-tower on the Rhine.
"Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old moustache as I am
Is not a match for you all?"
Here, too, is the grand ballad of "The Cumberland," and the delicate
fancy of "The Snow-Flakes," expressing what every sensitive observer has
so often felt,--that the dull leaden trouble of the winter sky finds the
relief in snow that the suffering human heart finds in expression. Then
there is "A Day of June," an outburst of the fulness of life and love in
the beautiful sunny weather of blossoms on the earth and soft clouds in
the sky.
"O life and love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?"
To this poem the date is added, June, 1860.
And here, at length, is the last poem. We pause as we reach it, and turn
back to the first page of "Outre-Mer." "'Lystenyth, ye godely gentylmen,
and all that ben hereyn!' I am a pilgrim benighted on my way, and crave
a shelter till the storm is over, and a seat by the fireside in this
honorable company. As a stranger I claim this courtesy at your hands,
and will repay your hospitable welcome with tales of the countries I
have passed through in my pilgrimage." It is the gay confidence of
youth. It is the bright prelude of the happy traveller and scholar, to
whom the very quaint conceits and antiquated language of romance are
themselves romantic, and who makes himself a bard and troubadour. Hope
allures him; ambition spurs him; conscious power assures him. His eager
step dances along the ground. His words are an outburst of youth and
joy. Thirty years pass by. What sober step pauses at the Wayside Inn? Is
this the jocund Pilgrim of Outre-Mer? The harp is still in his strong
hand. It sounds yet with the old tenderness and grace and sweetness. But
this is the man, not the boy. This is the doubtful tyro no longer, but
the wise master, honored and beloved. To how many hearts has his song
brought peace! How like a benediction in all our homes his music falls!
Ah! not more surely, when the stretched string of the full-tuned harp
snaps in the silence, the cords of every neighboring instrument respond,
than the hearts which love the singer and his song thrill with the
heart-break of this last poem:--
"O little feet, that such long years
Must wander on through doubts and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load!
I, nearer to the wayside inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
Am weary, thinking of your road."
* * * * *