PROMETHEUS.

And me thou drivest to madness with thy follies.

Come with me to my tower on Caucasus:

See there my forges in the roaring caverns,

Beneficent to man, and taste the joy

That springs from labor. Read with me the stars,

And learn the virtues that lie hidden in plants,

And all things that are useful.

EPIMETHEU5.

O my brother!

I am not as thou art. Thou dost inherit

Our father's strength, and I our mother's weakness:

The softness of the Oceanides,

The yielding nature that cannot resist.

PROMETHEUS.

Because thou wilt not.

EPIMETHEUS.

Nay; because I cannot.

PROMETHEUS.

Assert thyself; rise up to thy full height;

Shake from thy soul these dreams effeminate,

These passions born of indolence and ease.

Resolve, and thou art free. But breathe the air

Of mountains, and their unapproachable summits

Will lift thee to the level of themselves.

EPIMETHEUS.

The roar of forests and of waterfalls,

The rushing of a mighty wind, with loud

And undistinguishable voices calling,

Are in my ear!

PROMETHEUS.

O, listen and obey.

EPIMETHEUS.

Thou leadest me as a child, I follow thee.

(They go out.)

CHORUS OF OREADES.

Centuries old are the mountains;

Their foreheads wrinkled and rifted

Helios crowns by day,

Pallid Selene by night;

From their bosoms uptossed

The snows are driven and drifted,

Like Tithonus' beard

Streaming dishevelled and white.

Thunder and tempest of wind

Their trumpets blow in the vastness;

Phantoms of mist and rain,

Cloud and the shadow of cloud,

Pass and repass by the gates

Of their inaccessible fastness;

Ever unmoved they stand,

Solemn, eternal, and proud,

VOICES OF THE WATERS.

Flooded by rain and snow

In their inexhaustible sources,

Swollen by affluent streams

Hurrying onward and hurled

Headlong over the crags,

The impetuous water-courses,

Rush and roar and plunge

Down to the nethermost world.

Say, have the solid rocks

Into streams of silver been melted,

Flowing over the plains,

Spreading to lakes in the fields?

Or have the mountains, the giants,

The ice-helmed, the forest-belted,

Scattered their arms abroad;

Flung in the meadows their shields?

VOICES OF THE WINDS.

High on their turreted cliffs

That bolts of thunder have shattered,

Storm-winds muster and blow

Trumpets of terrible breath;

Then from the gateways rush,

And before them routed and scattered

Sullen the cloud-rack flies,

Pale with the pallor of death.

Onward the hurricane rides,

And flee for shelter the shepherds;

White are the frightened leaves,

Harvests with terror are white;

Panic seizes the herds,

And even the lions and leopards,

Prowling no longer for prey,

Crouch in their caverns with fright.

VOICES OF THE FOREST.

Guarding the mountains around

Majestic the forests are standing,

Bright are their crested helms,

Dark is their armor of leaves;

Filled with the breath of freedom

Each bosom subsiding, expanding,

Now like the ocean sinks,

Now like the ocean upheaves.

Planted firm on the rock,

With foreheads stern and defiant,

Loud they shout to the winds,

Loud to the tempest they call;

Naught but Olympian thunders,

That blasted Titan and Giant,

Them can uproot and o'erthrow,

Shaking the earth with their fall.

CHORUS OF OREADES.

These are the Voices Three

Of winds and forests and fountains,

Voices of earth and of air,

Murmur and rushing of streams,

Making together one sound,

The mysterious voice of the mountains,

Waking the sluggard that sleeps,

Waking the dreamer of dreams.

These are the Voices Three,

That speak of endless endeavor,

Speak of endurance and strength,

Triumph and fulness of fame,

Sounding about the world,

An inspiration forever,

Stirring the hearts of men,

Shaping their end and their aim.

VII

THE HOUSE OF EPIMETHEUS

PANDORA.

Left to myself I wander as I will,

And as my fancy leads me, through this house,

Nor could I ask a dwelling more complete

Were I indeed the Goddess that he deems me.

No mansion of Olympus, framed to be

The habitation of the Immortal Gods,

Can be more beautiful. And this is mine

And more than this, the love wherewith he crowns me.

As if impelled by powers invisible

And irresistible, my steps return

Unto this spacious hall. All corridors

And passages lead hither, and all doors

But open into it. Yon mysterious chest

Attracts and fascinates me. Would I knew

What there lies hidden! But the oracle

Forbids. Ah me! The secret then is safe.

So would it be if it were in my keeping.

A crowd of shadowy faces from the mirrors

That line these walls are watching me. I dare not

Lift up the lid. A hundred times the act

Would be repeated, and the secret seen

By twice a hundred incorporeal eyes.

(She walks to the other side of the hall.)

My feet are weary, wandering to and fro,

My eyes with seeing and my heart with waiting.

I will lie here and rest till he returns,

Who is my dawn, my day, my Helios.

(Throws herself upon a couch, and falls asleep.)

ZEPHYRUS.

Come from thy caverns dark and deep.

O son of Erebus and Night;

All sense of hearing and of sight

Enfold in the serene delight

And quietude of sleep!

Set all the silent sentinels

To bar and guard the Ivory Gate,

And keep the evil dreams of fate

And falsehood and infernal hate

Imprisoned in their cells.

But open wide the Gate of Horn,

Whence, beautiful as planets, rise

The dreams of truth, with starry eyes,

And all the wondrous prophecies

And visions of the morn.

CHORUS OF DREAMS FROM THE IVORY GATE.

Ye sentinels of sleep,

It is in vain ye keep

Your drowsy watch before the Ivory Gate;

Though closed the portal seems,

The airy feet of dreams

Ye cannot thus in walls incarcerate.

We phantoms are and dreams

Born by Tartarean streams,

As ministers of the infernal powers;

O son of Erebus

And Night, behold! we thus

Elude your watchful warders on the towers!

From gloomy Tartarus

The Fates have summoned us

To whisper in her ear, who lies asleep,

A tale to fan the fire

Of her insane desire

To know a secret that the Gods would keep.

This passion, in their ire,

The Gods themselves inspire,

To vex mankind with evils manifold,

So that disease and pain

O'er the whole earth may reign,

And nevermore return the Age of Gold.

PANDORA (waking).

A voice said in my sleep: "Do not delay:

Do not delay; the golden moments fly!

The oracle hath forbidden; yet not thee

Doth it forbid, but Epimetheus only!"

I am alone. These faces in the mirrors

Are but the shadows and phantoms of myself;

They cannot help nor hinder. No one sees me,

Save the all-seeing Gods, who, knowing good

And knowing evil, have created me

Such as I am, and filled me with desire

Of knowing good and evil like themselves.

(She approaches the chest.)

I hesitate no longer. Weal or woe,

Or life or death, the moment shall decide.

(She lifts the lid. A dense mist rises from

the chest, and fills the room. PANDORA

falls senseless on the floor. Storm without.)

CHORUS OF DREAMS FROM THE GATE OF HORN.

Yes, the moment shall decide!

It already hath decided;

And the secret once confided

To the keeping of the Titan

Now is flying far and wide,

Whispered, told on every side,

To disquiet and to frighten.

Fever of the heart and brain,

Sorrow, pestilence, and pain,

Moans of anguish, maniac laughter,

All the evils that hereafter

Shall afflict and vex mankind,

All into the air have risen

From the chambers of their prison;

Only Hope remains behind.

VIII

IN THE GARDEN

EPIMETHEUS.

The storm is past, but it hath left behind it

Ruin and desolation. All the walks

Are strewn with shattered boughs; the birds are silent;

The flowers, downtrodden by the wind, lie dead;

The swollen rivulet sobs with secret pain,

The melancholy reeds whisper together

As if some dreadful deed had been committed

They dare not name, and all the air is heavy

With an unspoken sorrow! Premonitions,

Foreshadowings of some terrible disaster

Oppress my heart. Ye Gods, avert the omen!

PANDORA (coming from the house).

O Epimetheus, I no longer dare

To lift mine eyes to thine, nor hear thy voice,

Being no longer worthy of thy love.

EPIMETHEUS.

What hast thou done?

PANDORA.

Forgive me not, but kill me.

EPIMETHEUS.

What hast thou done?

PANDORA.

I pray for death, not pardon.

EPIMETHEUS.

What hast thou done?

PANDORA.

I dare not speak of it.

EPIMETHEUS.

Thy pallor and thy silence terrify me!

PANDORA.

I have brought wrath and ruin on thy house!

My heart hath braved the oracle that guarded

The fatal secret from us, and my hand

Lifted the lid of the mysterious chest!

EPIMETHEUS.

Then all is lost! I am indeed undone.

PANDORA.

I pray for punishment, and not for pardon.

EPIMETHEUS.

Mine is the fault not thine. On me shall fall

The vengeance of the Gods, for I betrayed

Their secret when, in evil hour, I said

It was a secret; when, in evil hour,

I left thee here alone to this temptation.

Why did I leave thee?

PANDORA.

Why didst thou return?

Eternal absence would have been to me

The greatest punishment. To be left alone

And face to face with my own crime, had been

Just retribution. Upon me, ye Gods,

Let all your vengeance fall!

EPIMETHEUS.

On thee and me.

I do not love thee less for what is done,

And cannot be undone. Thy very weakness

Hath brought thee nearer to me, and henceforth

My love will have a sense of pity in it,

Making it less a worship than before.

PANDORA.

Pity me not; pity is degradation.

Love me and kill me.

EPIMETHEUS.

Beautiful Pandora!

Thou art a Goddess still!

PANDORA.

I am a woman;

And the insurgent demon in my nature,

That made me brave the oracle, revolts

At pity and compassion. Let me die;

What else remains for me?

EPIMETHEUS.

Youth, hope, and love:

To build a new life on a ruined life,

To make the future fairer than the past,

And make the past appear a troubled dream.

Even now in passing through the garden walks

Upon the ground I saw a fallen nest

Ruined and full of rain; and over me

Beheld the uncomplaining birds already

Busy in building a new habitation.

PANDORA.

Auspicious omen!

EPIMETHEUS.

May the Eumenides

Put out their torches and behold us not,

And fling away their whips of scorpions

And touch us not.

PANDORA.

Me let them punish.

Only through punishment of our evil deeds,

Only through suffering, are we reconciled

To the immortal Gods and to ourselves.

CHORUS OF THE EUMENIDES.

Never shall souls like these

Escape the Eumenides,

The daughters dark of Acheron and Night!

Unquenched our torches glare,

Our scourges in the air

Send forth prophetic sounds before they smite.

Never by lapse of time

The soul defaced by crime

Into its former self returns again;

For every guilty deed

Holds in itself the seed

Of retribution and undying pain.

Never shall be the loss

Restored, till Helios

Hath purified them with his heavenly fires;

Then what was lost is won,

And the new life begun,

Kindled with nobler passions and desires.

THE HANGING OF THE CRANE

I

The lights are out, and gone are all the guests

That thronging came with merriment and jests

To celebrate the Hanging of the Crane

In the new house,--into the night are gone;

But still the fire upon the hearth burns on,

And I alone remain.

O fortunate, O happy day,

When a new household finds its place

Among the myriad homes of earth,

Like a new star just sprung to birth,

And rolled on its harmonious way

Into the boundless realms of space!

So said the guests in speech and song,

As in the chimney, burning bright,

We hung the iron crane to-night,

And merry was the feast and long.

II

And now I sit and muse on what may be,

And in my vision see, or seem to see,

Through floating vapors interfused with light,

Shapes indeterminate, that gleam and fade,

As shadows passing into deeper shade

Sink and elude the sight.

For two alone, there in the hall,

As spread the table round and small;

Upon the polished silver shine

The evening lamps, but, more divine,

The light of love shines over all;

Of love, that says not mine and thine,

But ours, for ours is thine and mine.

They want no guests, to come between

Their tender glances like a screen,

And tell them tales of land and sea,

And whatsoever may betide

The great, forgotten world outside;

They want no guests; they needs must be

Each other's own best company.

III

The picture fades; as at a village fair

A showman's views, dissolving into air,

Again appear transfigured on the screen,

So in my fancy this; and now once more,

In part transfigured, through the open door

Appears the selfsame scene.

Seated, I see the two again,

But not alone; they entertain

A little angel unaware,

With face as round as is the moon;

A royal guest with flaxen hair,

Who, throned upon his lofty chair,

Drums on the table with his spoon,

Then drops it careless on the floor,

To grasp at things unseen before.

Are these celestial manners? these

The ways that win, the arts that please?

Ah yes; consider well the guest,

And whatsoe'er he does seems best;

He ruleth by the right divine

Of helplessness, so lately born

In purple chambers of the morn,

As sovereign over thee and thine.

He speaketh not; and yet there lies

A conversation in his eyes;

The golden silence of the Greek,

The gravest wisdom of the wise,

Not spoken in language, but in looks

More legible than printed books,

As if he could but would not speak.

And now, O monarch absolute,

Thy power is put to proof; for, lo!

Resistless, fathomless, and slow,

The nurse comes rustling like the sea,

And pushes back thy chair and thee,

And so good night to King Canute.

IV

As one who walking in a forest sees

A lovely landscape through the parted frees,

Then sees it not, for boughs that intervene

Or as we see the moon sometimes revealed

Through drifting clouds, and then again concealed,

So I behold the scene.

There are two guests at table now;

The king, deposed and older grown,

No longer occupies the throne,--

The crown is on his sister's brow;

A Princess from the Fairy Isles,

The very pattern girl of girls.

All covered and embowered in curls,

Rose-tinted from the Isle of Flowers,

And sailing with soft, silken sails

From far-off Dreamland into ours.

Above their bowls with rims of blue

Four azure eyes of deeper hue

Are looking, dreamy with delight;

Limpid as planets that emerge

Above the ocean's rounded verge,

Soft-shining through the summer night.

Steadfast they gaze, yet nothing see

Beyond the horizon of their bowls;

Nor care they for the world that rolls

With all its freight of troubled souls

Into the days that are to be.

V

Again the tossing boughs shut out the scene,

Again the drifting vapors intervene,

And the moon's pallid disk is hidden quite;

And now I see the table wider grown,

As round a pebble into water thrown

Dilates a ring of light.

I see the table wider grown,

I see it garlanded with guests,

As if fair Ariadne's Crown

Out of the sky had fallen down;

Maidens within whose tender breasts

A thousand restless hopes and fears,

Forth reaching to the coming years,

Flutter awhile, then quiet lie

Like timid birds that fain would fly,

But do not dare to leave their nests;--

And youths, who in their strength elate

Challenge the van and front of fate,

Eager as champions to be

In the divine knight-errantry

Of youth, that travels sea and land

Seeking adventures, or pursues,

Through cities, and through solitudes

Frequented by the lyric Muse,

The phantom with the beckoning hand,

That still allures and still eludes.

O sweet illusions of the brain!

O sudden thrills of fire and frost!

The world is bright while ye remain,

And dark and dead when ye are lost!

VI

The meadow-brook, that seemeth to stand still,

Quickens its current as it nears the mill;

And so the stream of Time that lingereth

In level places, and so dull appears,

Runs with a swifter current as it nears

The gloomy mills of Death.

And now, like the magician's scroll,

That in the owner's keeping shrinks

With every wish he speaks or thinks,

Till the last wish consumes the whole,

The table dwindles, and again

I see the two alone remain.

The crown of stars is broken in parts;

Its jewels, brighter than the day,

Have one by one been stolen away

To shine in other homes and hearts.

One is a wanderer now afar

In Ceylon or in Zanzibar,

Or sunny regions of Cathay;

And one is in the boisterous camp

Mid clink of arms and horses' tramp,

And battle's terrible array.

I see the patient mother read,

With aching heart, of wrecks that float

Disabled on those seas remote,

Or of some great heroic deed

On battle-fields where thousands bleed

To lift one hero into fame.

Anxious she bends her graceful head

Above these chronicles of pain,

And trembles with a secret dread

Lest there among the drowned or slain

She find the one beloved name.

VII

After a day of cloud and wind and rain

Sometimes the setting sun breaks out again,

And touching all the darksome woods with light,

Smiles on the fields, until they laugh and sing,

Then like a ruby from the horizon's ring

Drops down into the night.

What see I now? The night is fair,

The storm of grief, the clouds of care,

The wind, the rain, have passed away;

The lamps are lit, the fires burn bright,

The house is full of life and light:

It is the Golden Wedding day.

The guests come thronging in once more,

Quick footsteps sound along the floor,

The trooping children crowd the stair,

And in and out and everywhere

Flashes along the corridor

The sunshine of their golden hair.

On the round table in the hall

Another Ariadne's Crown

Out of the sky hath fallen down;

More than one Monarch of the Moon

Is drumming with his silver spoon;

The light of love shines over all.

O fortunate, O happy day!

The people sing, the people say.

The ancient bridegroom and the bride,

Smiling contented and serene

Upon the blithe, bewildering scene,

Behold, well pleased, on every side

Their forms and features multiplied,

As the reflection of a light

Between two burnished mirrors gleams,

Or lamps upon a bridge at night

Stretch on and on before the sight,

Till the long vista endless seems.

MORITURI SALUTAMUS

POEM FOR THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLASS OF 1825

IN BOWDOIN COLLEGE

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,

Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.--OVID, Fastorum, Lib. vi.

"O Caesar, we who are about to die

Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry

In the arena, standing face to face

With death and with the Roman populace.

O ye familiar scenes,--ye groves of pine,

That once were mine and are no longer mine,--

Thou river, widening through the meadows green

To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,--

Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose

Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose

And vanished,--we who are about to die

Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky,

And the Imperial Sun that scatters down

His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.

Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear!

We are forgotten; and in your austere

And calm indifference, ye little care

Whether we come or go, or whence or where.

What passing generations fill these halls,

What passing voices echo front these walls,

Ye heed not; we are only as the blast,

A moment heard, and then forever past.

Not so the teachers who in earlier days

Led our bewildered feet through learning's maze;

They answer us--alas! what have I said?

What greetings come there from the voiceless dead?

What salutation, welcome, or reply?

What pressure from the hands that lifeless lie?

They are no longer here; they all are gone

Into the land of shadows,--all save one.

Honor and reverence, and the good repute

That follows faithful service as its fruit,

Be unto him, whom living we salute.

The great Italian poet, when he made

His dreadful journey to the realms of shade,

Met there the old instructor of his youth,

And cried in tones of pity and of ruth:

"O, never from the memory of my heart

Your dear, paternal image shall depart,

Who while on earth, ere yet by death surprised,

Taught me how mortals are immortalized;

How grateful am I for that patient care

All my life long my language shall declare."

To-day we make the poet's words our own

And utter them in plaintive undertone;

Nor to the living only be they said,

But to the other living called the dead,

Whose dear, paternal images appear

Not wrapped in gloom, but robed in sunshine here;

Whose simple lives, complete and without flaw,

Were part and parcel of great Nature's law;

Who said not to their Lord, as if afraid

"Here is thy talent in a napkin laid,"

But labored in their sphere, as men who live

In the delight that work alone can give.

Peace be to them; eternal peace and rest,

And the fulfilment of the great behest:

"Ye have been faithful over a few things,

Over ten cities shall ye reign as kings."

And ye who fill the places we once filled,

And follow in the furrows that we tilled,

Young men, whose generous hearts are beating high,

We who are old, and are about to die,

Salute you; hail you; take your hands in ours,

And crown you with our welcome as with flowers!

How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams

With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!

Book of Beginnings, Story without End,

Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!

Aladdin's Lamp, and Fortunatus' Purse,

That holds the treasures of the universe!

All possibilities are in its hands,

No danger daunts it, and no foe withstands;

In its sublime audacity of faith,

"Be thou removed!" it to the mountain saith,

And with ambitious feet, secure and proud,

Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud!

As ancient Priam at the Scaean gate

Sat on the walls of Troy in regal state

With the old men, too old and weak to fight,

Chirping like grasshoppers in their delight

To see the embattled hosts, with spear and shield,

Of Trojans and Achaians in the field;

So from the snowy summits of our years

We see you in the plain, as each appears,

And question of you; asking, "Who is he

That towers above the others? Which may be

Atreides, Menelaus, Odysseus,

Ajax the great, or bold Idomeneus?"

Let him not boast who puts his armor on

As he who puts it off, the battle done.

Study yourselves; and most of all note well

Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel.

Not every blossom ripens into fruit;

Minerva, the inventress of the flute,

Flung it aside, when she her face surveyed

Distorted in a fountain as she played;

The unlucky Marsyas found it, and his fate

Was one to make the bravest hesitate.

Write on your doors the saying wise and old,

"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere--"Be bold;

Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess

Than the defect; better the more than less;

Better like Hector in the field to die,

Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly,

And now, my classmates; ye remaining few

That number not the half of those we knew,

Ye, against whose familiar names not yet

The fatal asterisk of death is set,

Ye I salute! The horologe of Time

Strikes the half-century with a solemn chime,

And summons us together once again,

The joy of meeting not unmixed with pain.

Where are the others? Voices from the deep

Caverns of darkness answer me: "They sleep!"

I name no names; instinctively I feel

Each at some well-remembered grave will kneel,

And from the inscription wipe the weeds and moss,

For every heart best knoweth its own loss.

I see their scattered gravestones gleaming white

Through the pale dusk of the impending night;

O'er all alike the impartial sunset throws

Its golden lilies mingled with the rose;

We give to each a tender thought, and pass

Out of the graveyards with their tangled grass,

Unto these scenes frequented by our feet

When we were young, and life was fresh and sweet.

What shall I say to you? What can I say

Better than silence is? When I survey

This throng of faces turned to meet my own,

Friendly and fair, and yet to me unknown,

Transformed the very landscape seems to be;

It is the same, yet not the same to me.

So many memories crowd upon my brain,

So many ghosts are in the wooded plain,

I fain would steal away, with noiseless tread,

As from a house where some one lieth dead.

I cannot go;--I pause;--I hesitate;

My feet reluctant linger at the gate;

As one who struggles in a troubled dream

To speak and cannot, to myself I seem.

Vanish the dream! Vanish the idle fears!

Vanish the rolling mists of fifty years!

Whatever time or space may intervene,

I will not be a stranger in this scene.

Here every doubt, all indecision, ends;

Hail, my companions, comrades, classmates, friends!

Ah me! the fifty years since last we met

Seem to me fifty folios bound and set

By Time, the great transcriber, on his shelves,

Wherein are written the histories of ourselves.

What tragedies, what comedies, are there;

What joy and grief, what rapture and despair!

What chronicles of triumph and defeat,

Of struggle, and temptation, and retreat!

What records of regrets, and doubts, and fears

What pages blotted, blistered by our tears!

What lovely landscapes on the margin shine,

What sweet, angelic faces, what divine

And holy images of love and trust,

Undimmed by age, unsoiled by damp or dust!

Whose hand shall dare to open and explore

These volumes, closed and clasped forevermore?

Not mine. With reverential feet I pass;

I hear a voice that cries, "Alas! alas!

Whatever hath been written shall remain,

Nor be erased nor written o'er again;

The unwritten only still belongs to thee:

Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be."

As children frightened by a thundercloud

Are reassured if some one reads aloud

A tale of wonder, with enchantment fraught,

Or wild adventure, that diverts their thought,

Let me endeavor with a tale to chase

The gathering shadows of the time and place,

And banish what we all too deeply feel

Wholly to say, or wholly to conceal.

In mediaeval Rome, I know not where,

There stood an image with its arm in air,

And on its lifted finger, shining clear,

A golden ring with the device, "Strike here!"

Greatly the people wondered, though none guessed

The meaning that these words but half expressed,

Until a learned clerk, who at noonday

With downcast eyes was passing on his way,

Paused, and observed the spot, and marked it well,

Whereon the shadow of the finger fell;

And, coming back at midnight, delved, and found

A secret stairway leading under ground.

Down this he passed into a spacious hall,

Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall;

And opposite in threatening attitude

With bow and shaft a brazen statue stood.

Upon its forehead, like a coronet,

Were these mysterious words of menace set:

"That which I am, I am; my fatal aim

None can escape, not even yon luminous flame!"

Midway the hall was a fair table placed,

With cloth of gold, and golden cups enchased

With rubies, and the plates and knives were gold,

And gold the bread and viands manifold.

Around it, silent, motionless, and sad,

Were seated gallant knights in armor clad,

And ladies beautiful with plume and zone,

But they were stone, their hearts within were stone;

And the vast hall was filled in every part

With silent crowds, stony in face and heart.

Long at the scene, bewildered and amazed

The trembling clerk in speechless wonder gazed;

Then from the table, by his greed made bold,

He seized a goblet and a knife of gold,

And suddenly from their seats the guests upsprang,

The vaulted ceiling with loud clamors rang,

The archer sped his arrow, at their call,

Shattering the lambent jewel on the wall,

And all was dark around and overhead;--

Stark on the door the luckless clerk lay dead!

The writer of this legend then records

Its ghostly application in these words:

The image is the Adversary old,

Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold;

Our lusts and passions are the downward stair

That leads the soul from a diviner air;

The archer, Death; the flaming jewel, Life;

Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife;

The knights and ladies, all whose flesh and bone

By avarice have been hardened into stone;

The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelf

Tempts from his books and from his nobler self.

The scholar and the world! The endless strife,

The discord in the harmonies of life!

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,

And all the sweet serenity of books;

The market-place, the eager love of gain,

Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain!

But why, you ask me, should this tale be told

To men grown old, or who are growing old?

It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late

Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.

Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles

Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides

Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,

When each had numbered more than fourscore years,

And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,

Had but begun his Characters of Men.

Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,

At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;

Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,

Completed Faust when eighty years were past.

These are indeed exceptions; but they show

How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow

Into the arctic regions of our lives.

Where little else than life itself survives.

As the barometer foretells the storm

While still the skies are clear, the weather warm,

So something in us, as old age draws near,

Betrays the pressure of the atmosphere.

The nimble mercury, ere we are aware,

Descends the elastic ladder of the air;

The telltale blood in artery and vein

Sinks from its higher levels in the brain;

Whatever poet, orator, or sage

May say of it, old age is still old age.

It is the waning, not the crescent moon;

The dusk of evening, not the blaze of noon:

It is not strength, but weakness; not desire,

But its surcease; not the fierce heat of fire,

The burning and consuming element,

But that of ashes and of embers spent,

In which some living sparks we still discern,

Enough to warm, but not enough to burn.

What then? Shall we sit idly down and say

The night hath come; it is no longer day?

The night hath not yet come; we are not quite

Cut off from labor by the failing light;

Something remains for us to do or dare;

Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear;

Not Oedipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,

Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode

Out of the gateway of the Tabard inn,

But other something, would we but begin;

For age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress,

And as the evening twilight fades away

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

A BOOK OF SONNETS

THREE FRIENDS OF MINE

I

When I remember them, those friends of mine,

Who are no longer here, the noble three,

Who half my life were more than friends to me,

And whose discourse was like a generous wine,

I most of all remember the divine

Something, that shone in them, and made us see

The archetypal man, and what might be

The amplitude of Nature's first design.

In vain I stretch my hands to clasp their hands;

I cannot find them. Nothing now is left

But a majestic memory. They meanwhile

Wander together in Elysian lands,

Perchance remembering me, who am bereft

Of their dear presence, and, remembering, smile.

II

In Attica thy birthplace should have been,

Or the Ionian Isles, or where the seas

Encircle in their arms the Cyclades,

So wholly Greek wast thou in thy serene

And childlike joy of life, O Philhellene!

Around thee would have swarmed the Attic bees;

Homer had been thy friend, or Socrates,

And Plato welcomed thee to his demesne.

For thee old legends breathed historic breath;

Thou sawest Poseidon in the purple sea,

And in the sunset Jason's fleece of gold!

O, what hadst thou to do with cruel Death,

Who wast so full of life, or Death with thee,

That thou shouldst die before thou hadst grown old!

III

I stand again on the familiar shore,

And hear the waves of the distracted sea

Piteously calling and lamenting thee,

And waiting restless at thy cottage door.

The rocks, the sea-weed on the ocean floor,

The willows in the meadow, and the free

Wild winds of the Atlantic welcome me;

Then why shouldst thou be dead, and come no more?

Ah, why shouldst thou be dead, when common men

Are busy with their trivial affairs,

Having and holding? Why, when thou hadst read

Nature's mysterious manuscript, and then

Wast ready to reveal the truth it bears,

Why art thou silent! Why shouldst thou be dead?

IV

River, that stealest with such silent pace

Around the City of the Dead, where lies

A friend who bore thy name, and whom these eyes

Shall see no more in his accustomed place,

Linger and fold him in thy soft embrace

And say good night, for now the western skies

Are red with sunset, and gray mists arise

Like damps that gather on a dead man's face.

Good night! good night! as we so oft have said

Beneath this roof at midnight in the days

That are no more, and shall no more return.

Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to bed;

I stay a little longer, as one stays

To cover up the embers that still burn.

V

The doors are all wide open; at the gate

The blossomed lilacs counterfeit a blaze,

And seem to warm the air; a dreamy haze

Hangs o'er the Brighton meadows like a fate,

And on their margin, with sea-tides elate,

The flooded Charles, as in the happier days,

Writes the last letter of his name, and stays

His restless steps, as if compelled to wait.

I also wait; but they will come no more,

Those friends of mine, whose presence satisfied

The thirst and hunger of my heart. Ah me!

They have forgotten the pathway to my door!

Something is gone from nature since they died,

And summer is not summer, nor can be.

CHAUCER

An old man in a lodge within a park;

The chamber walls depicted all around

With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound.

And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the lark,

Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark

Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound;

He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound,

Then writeth in a book like any clerk.

He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote

The Canterbury Tales, and his old age

Made beautiful with song; and as I read

I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note

Of lark and linnet, and from every page

Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead.

SHAKESPEARE

A vision as of crowded city streets,

With human life in endless overflow;

Thunder of thoroughfares; trumpets that blow

To battle; clamor, in obscure retreats,

Of sailors landed from their anchored fleets;

Tolling of bells in turrets, and below

Voices of children, and bright flowers that throw

O'er garden-walls their intermingled sweets!

This vision comes to me when I unfold

The volume of the Poet paramount,

Whom all the Muses loved, not one alone;--

Into his hands they put the lyre of gold,

And, crowned with sacred laurel at their fount,

Placed him as Musagetes on their throne.

MILTON

I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold

How the voluminous billows roll and run,

Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun

Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled,

And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold

All its loose-flowing garments into one,

Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun

Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold.

So in majestic cadence rise and fall

The mighty undulations of thy song,

O sightless bard, England's Maeonides!

And ever and anon, high over all

Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and strong,

Floods all the soul with its melodious seas.

KEATS

The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep;

The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told!

The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold

To the red rising moon, and loud and deep

The nightingale is singing from the steep;

It is midsummer, but the air is cold;

Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold

A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep.

Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white,

On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name

Was writ in water." And was this the meed

Of his sweet singing? Rather let me write:

"The smoking flax before it burst to flame

Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed."

THE GALAXY

Torrent of light and river of the air,

Along whose bed the glimmering stars are seen

Like gold and silver sands in some ravine

Where mountain streams have left their channels bare!

The Spaniard sees in thee the pathway, where

His patron saint descended in the sheen

Of his celestial armor, on serene

And quiet nights, when all the heavens were fair.

Not this I see, nor yet the ancient fable

Of Phaeton's wild course, that scorched the skies

Where'er the hoofs of his hot coursers trod;

But the white drift of worlds o'er chasms of sable,

The star-dust that is whirled aloft and flies

From the invisible chariot-wheels of God.

THE SOUND OF THE SEA

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,

And round the pebbly beaches far and wide

I heard the first wave of the rising tide

Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;

A voice out of the silence of the deep,

A sound mysteriously multiplied

As of a cataract from the mountain's side,

Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.

So comes to us at times, from the unknown

And inaccessible solitudes of being,

The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;

And inspirations, that we deem our own,

Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing

Of things beyond our reason or control.

A SUMMER DAY BY THE SEA

The sun is set; and in his latest beams

Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold,

Slowly upon the amber air unrolled,

The falling mantle of the Prophet seems.

From the dim headlands many a lighthouse gleams,

The street-lamps of the ocean; and behold,

O'erhead the banners of the night unfold;

The day hath passed into the land of dreams.

O summer day beside the joyous sea!

O summer day so wonderful and white,

So full of gladness and so full of pain!

Forever and forever shalt thou be

To some the gravestone of a dead delight,

To some the landmark of a new domain.

THE TIDES

I saw the long line of the vacant shore,

The sea-weed and the shells upon the sand,

And the brown rocks left bare on every hand,

As if the ebbing tide would flow no more.

Then heard I, more distinctly than before,

The ocean breathe and its great breast expand,

And hurrying came on the defenceless land

The insurgent waters with tumultuous roar.

All thought and feeling and desire, I said,

Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of song

Have ebbed from me forever! Suddenly o'er me

They swept again from their deep ocean bed,

And in a tumult of delight, and strong

As youth, and beautiful as youth, upbore me.

A SHADOW

I said unto myself, if I were dead,

What would befall these children? What would be

Their fate, who now are looking up to me

For help and furtherance? Their lives, I said,

Would be a volume wherein I have read

But the first chapters, and no longer see

To read the rest of their dear history,

So full of beauty and so full of dread.

Be comforted; the world is very old,

And generations pass, as they have passed,

A troop of shadows moving with the sun;

Thousands of times has the old tale been told;

The world belongs to those who come the last,

They will find hope and strength as we have done.

A NAMELESS GRAVE

"A soldier of the Union mustered out,"

Is the inscription on an unknown grave

At Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave,

Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout

Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout

Of battle, when the loud artillery drave

Its iron wedges through the ranks of brave

And doomed battalions, storming the redoubt.

Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea

In thy forgotten grave! with secret shame

I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn,

When I remember thou hast given for me

All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name,

And I can give thee nothing in return.

SLEEP

Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound

Seems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught;

Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought

As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound

The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound;

For I am weary, and am overwrought

With too much toil, with too much care distraught,

And with the iron crown of anguish crowned.

Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek,

O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released

I breathe again uninterrupted breath!

Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek

Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast

Whereof the greater mystery is death!

THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE

Taddeo Gaddi built me. I am old,

Five centuries old. I plant my foot of stone

Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own

Was planted on the dragon. Fold by fold

Beneath me as it struggles. I behold

Its glistening scales. Twice hath it overthrown

My kindred and companions. Me alone

It moveth not, but is by me controlled,

I can remember when the Medici

Were driven from Florence; longer still ago

The final wars of Ghibelline and Guelf.

Florence adorns me with her jewelry;

And when I think that Michael Angelo

Hath leaned on me, I glory in myself.

IL PONTE VECCHIO DI FIRENZE

Gaddi mi fece; il Ponte Vecchio sono;

Cinquecent' anni gia sull' Arno pianto

Il piede, come il suo Michele Santo

Pianto sul draco. Mentre ch' io ragiono

Lo vedo torcere con flebil suono

Le rilucenti scaglie. Ha questi affranto

Due volte i miei maggior. Me solo intanto

Neppure muove, ed io non l' abbandono.

Io mi rammento quando fur cacciati

I Medici; pur quando Ghibellino

E Guelfo fecer pace mi rammento.

Fiorenza i suoi giojelli m' ha prestati;

E quando penso ch' Agnolo il divino

Su me posava, insuperbir mi sento.

NATURE

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,

Leads by the hand her little child to bed,

Half willing, half reluctant to be led,

And leave his broken playthings on the floor,

Still gazing at them through the open door,

Nor wholly reassured and comforted

By promises of others in their stead,

Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;

So Nature deals with us, and takes away

Our playthings one by one, and by the hand

Leads us to rest so gently, that we go

Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,

Being too full of sleep to understand

How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

IN THE CHURCHYARD AT TARRYTOWN

Here lies the gentle humorist, who died

In the bright Indian Summer of his fame!

A simple stone, with but a date and name,

Marks his secluded resting-place beside

The river that he loved and glorified.

Here in the autumn of his days he came,

But the dry leaves of life were all aflame

With tints that brightened and were multiplied.

How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!

Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,

Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;

Dying, to leave a memory like the breath

Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,

A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.

ELIOT'S OAK

Thou ancient oak! whose myriad leaves are loud

With sounds of unintelligible speech,

Sounds as of surges on a shingly beach,

Or multitudinous murmurs of a crowd;

With some mysterious gift of tongues endowed,

Thou speakest a different dialect to each;

To me a language that no man can teach,

Of a lost race, long vanished like a cloud.

For underneath thy shade, in days remote,

Seated like Abraham at eventide

Beneath the oaks of Mamre, the unknown

Apostle of the Indians, Eliot, wrote

His Bible in a language that hath died

And is forgotten, save by thee alone.

THE DESCENT OF THE MUSES

Nine sisters, beautiful in form and face,

Came from their convent on the shining heights

Of Pierus, the mountain of delights,

To dwell among the people at its base.

Then seemed the world to change. All time and space,

Splendor of cloudless days and starry nights,

And men and manners, and all sounds and sights,

Had a new meaning, a diviner grace.

Proud were these sisters, but were not too proud

To teach in schools of little country towns

Science and song, and all the arts that please;

So that while housewives span, and farmers ploughed,

Their comely daughters, clad in homespun gowns,

Learned the sweet songs of the Pierides.

VENICE

White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest

So wonderfully built among the reeds

Of the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds,

As sayeth thy old historian and thy guest!

White water-lily, cradled and caressed

By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds

Lifting thy golden filaments and seeds,

Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest!

White phantom city, whose untrodden streets

Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting

Shadows of palaces and strips of sky;

I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets

Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud uplifting

In air their unsubstantial masonry.

THE POETS

O ye dead Poets, who are living still

Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,

And ye, O living Poets, who are dead

Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,

Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,

With drops of anguish falling fast and red

From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,

Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil?

Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song

Have something in them so divinely sweet,

It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;

Not in the clamor of the crowded street,

Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,

But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

PARKER CLEAVELAND

WRITTEN ON REVISITING BRUNSWICK IN THE SUMMER OF 1875

Among the many lives that I have known,

None I remember more serene and sweet,

More rounded in itself and more complete,

Than his, who lies beneath this funeral stone.

These pines, that murmur in low monotone,

These walks frequented by scholastic feet,

Were all his world; but in this calm retreat

For him the Teacher's chair became a throne.

With fond affection memory loves to dwell

On the old days, when his example made

A pastime of the toil of tongue and pen;

And now, amid the groves he loved so well

That naught could lure him from their grateful shade,

He sleeps, but wakes elsewhere, for God hath said, Amen!

THE HARVEST MOON

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes

And roofs of villages, on woodland crests

And their aerial neighborhoods of nests

Deserted, on the curtained window-panes

Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes

And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!

Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,

With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!

All things are symbols: the external shows

Of Nature have their image in the mind,

As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;

The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,

Only the empty nests are left behind,

And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

TO THE RIVER RHONE

Thou Royal River, born of sun and shower

In chambers purple with the Alpine glow,

Wrapped in the spotless ermine of the snow

And rocked by tempests!--at the appointed hour

Forth, like a steel-clad horseman from a tower,

With clang and clink of harness dost thou go

To meet thy vassal torrents, that below

Rush to receive thee and obey thy power.

And now thou movest in triumphal march,

A king among the rivers! On thy way

A hundred towns await and welcome thee;

Bridges uplift for thee the stately arch,

Vineyards encircle thee with garlands gay,

And fleets attend thy progress to the sea!

THE THREE SILENCES OF MOLINOS

TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

Three Silences there are: the first of speech,

The second of desire, the third of thought;

This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught

With dreams and visions, was the first to teach.

These Silences, commingling each with each,

Made up the perfect Silence, that he sought

And prayed for, and wherein at times he caught

Mysterious sounds from realms beyond our reach.

O thou, whose daily life anticipates

The life to come, and in whose thought and word

The spiritual world preponderates.

Hermit of Amesbury! thou too hast heard

Voices and melodies from beyond the gates,

And speakest only when thy soul is stirred!

THE TWO RIVERS

I

Slowly the hour-hand of the clock moves round;

So slowly that no human eye hath power

To see it move! Slowly in shine or shower

The painted ship above it, homeward bound,

Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground;

Yet both arrive at last; and in his tower

The slumberous watchman wakes and strikes the hour,

A mellow, measured, melancholy sound.

Midnight! the outpost of advancing day!

The frontier town and citadel of night!

The watershed of Time, from which the streams

Of Yesterday and To-morrow take their way,

One to the land of promise and of light,

One to the land of darkness and of dreams!

II

O River of Yesterday, with current swift

Through chasms descending, and soon lost to sight,

I do not care to follow in their flight

The faded leaves, that on thy bosom drift!

O River of To-morrow, I uplift

Mine eyes, and thee I follow, as the night

Wanes into morning, and the dawning light

Broadens, and all the shadows fade and shift!

I follow, follow, where thy waters run

Through unfrequented, unfamiliar fields,

Fragrant with flowers and musical with song;

Still follow, follow; sure to meet the sun,

And confident, that what the future yields

Will be the right, unless myself be wrong.

III

Yet not in vain, O River of Yesterday,

Through chasms of darkness to the deep descending,

I heard thee sobbing in the rain, and blending

Thy voice with other voices far away.

I called to thee, and yet thou wouldst not stay,

But turbulent, and with thyself contending,

And torrent-like thy force on pebbles spending,

Thou wouldst not listen to a poet's lay.

Thoughts, like a loud and sudden rush of wings,

Regrets and recollections of things past,

With hints and prophecies of things to be,

And inspirations, which, could they be things,

And stay with us, and we could hold them fast,

Were our good angels,--these I owe to thee.

IV

And thou, O River of To-morrow, flowing

Between thy narrow adamantine walls,

But beautiful, and white with waterfalls,

And wreaths of mist, like hands the pathway showing;

I hear the trumpets of the morning blowing,

I hear thy mighty voice, that calls and calls,

And see, as Ossian saw in Morven's halls,

Mysterious phantoms, coming, beckoning, going!

It is the mystery of the unknown

That fascinates us; we are children still,

Wayward and wistful; with one hand we cling

To the familiar things we call our own,

And with the other, resolute of will,

Grope in the dark for what the day will bring.

BOSTON

St. Bototlph's Town! Hither across the plains

And fens of Lincolnshire, in garb austere,

There came a Saxon monk, and founded here

A Priory, pillaged by marauding Danes,

So that thereof no vestige now remains;

Only a name, that, spoken loud and clear,

And echoed in another hemisphere,

Survives the sculptured walls and painted panes.

St. Botolph's Town! Far over leagues of land

And leagues of sea looks forth its noble tower,

And far around the chiming bells are heard;

So may that sacred name forever stand

A landmark, and a symbol of the power,

That lies concentred in a single word.

ST. JOHN'S, CAMBRIDGE

I stand beneath the tree, whose branches shade

Thy western window, Chapel of St. John!

And hear its leaves repeat their benison

On him, whose hand if thy stones memorial laid;

Then I remember one of whom was said

In the world's darkest hour, "Behold thy son!"

And see him living still, and wandering on

And waiting for the advent long delayed.

Not only tongues of the apostles teach

Lessons of love and light, but these expanding

And sheltering boughs with all their leaves implore,

And say in language clear as human speech,

"The peace of God, that passeth understanding,

Be and abide with you forevermore!"

MOODS

Oh that a Song would sing itself to me

Out of the heart of Nature, or the heart

Of man, the child of Nature, not of Art,

Fresh as the morning, salt as the salt sea,

With just enough of bitterness to be

A medicine to this sluggish mood, and start

The life-blood in my veins, and so impart

Healing and help in this dull lethargy!

Alas! not always doth the breath of song

Breathe on us. It is like the wind that bloweth

At its own will, not ours, nor tarries long;

We hear the sound thereof, but no man knoweth

From whence it comes, so sudden and swift and strong,

Nor whither in its wayward course it goeth.

WOODSTOCK PARK

Here in a little rustic hermitage

Alfred the Saxon King, Alfred the Great,

Postponed the cares of king-craft to translate

The Consolations of the Roman sage.

Here Geoffrey Chaucer in his ripe old age

Wrote the unrivalled Tales, which soon or late

The venturous hand that strives to imitate

Vanquished must fall on the unfinished page.

Two kings were they, who ruled by right divine,

And both supreme; one in the realm of Truth,

One in the realm of Fiction and of Song.

What prince hereditary of their line,

Uprising in the strength and flush of youth,

Their glory shall inherit and prolong?

THE FOUR PRINCESSES AT WILNA

A PHOTOGRAPH

Sweet faces, that from pictured casements lean

As from a castle window, looking down

On some gay pageant passing through a town,

Yourselves the fairest figures in the scene;

With what a gentle grace, with what serene

Unconsciousness ye wear the triple crown

Of youth and beauty and the fair renown

Of a great name, that ne'er hath tarnished been!

From your soft eyes, so innocent and sweet,

Four spirits, sweet and innocent as they,

Gaze on the world below, the sky above;

Hark! there is some one singing in the street;

"Faith, Hope, and Love! these three," he seems to say;

"These three; and greatest of the three is Love."

HOLIDAYS

The holiest of all holidays are those

Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;

The secret anniversaries of the heart,

When the full river of feeling overflows;--

The happy days unclouded to their close;

The sudden joys that out of darkness start

As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart

Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!

White as the gleam of a receding sail,

White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,

White as the whitest lily on a stream,

These tender memories are;--a Fairy Tale

Of some enchanted land we know not where,

But lovely as a landscape in a dream.

WAPENTAKE

TO ALFRED TENNYSON

Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine;

Not as a knight, who on the listed field

Of tourney touched his adversary's shield

In token of defiance, but in sign

Of homage to the mastery, which is thine,

In English song; nor will I keep concealed,

And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed,

My admiration for thy verse divine.

Not of the howling dervishes of song,

Who craze the brain with their delirious dance,

Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart!

Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong,

To thee our love and our allegiance,

For thy allegiance to the poet's art.

THE BROKEN OAR

Once upon Iceland's solitary strand

A poet wandered with his book and pen,

Seeking some final word, some sweet Amen,

Wherewith to close the volume in his hand.

The billows rolled and plunged upon the sand,

The circling sea-gulls swept beyond his ken,

And from the parting cloud-rack now and then

Flashed the red sunset over sea and land.

Then by the billows at his feet was tossed

A broken oar; and carved thereon he read,

"Oft was I weary, when I toiled at thee";

And like a man, who findeth what was lost,

He wrote the words, then lifted up his head,

And flung his useless pen into the sea.

THE CROSS OF SNOW

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,

A gentle face--the face of one long dead--

Looks at me from the wall, where round its head

The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.

Here in this room she died; and soul more white

Never through martyrdom of fire was led

To its repose; nor can in books be read

The legend of a life more benedight.

There is a mountain in the distant West

That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines

Displays a cross of snow upon its side.

Such is the cross I wear upon my breast

These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes

And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

**************

BIRDS OF PASSAGE

FLIGHT THE FOURTH

CHARLES SUMNER

Garlands upon his grave,

And flowers upon his hearse,

And to the tender heart and brave

The tribute of this verse.

His was the troubled life,

The conflict and the pain,

The grief, the bitterness of strife,

The honor without stain.

Like Winkelried, he took

Into his manly breast

The sheaf of hostile spears, and broke

A path for the oppressed.

Then from the fatal field

Upon a nation's heart

Borne like a warrior on his shield!--

So should the brave depart.

Death takes us by surprise,

And stays our hurrying feet;

The great design unfinished lies,

Our lives are incomplete.

But in the dark unknown

Perfect their circles seem,

Even as a bridge's arch of stone

Is rounded in the stream.

Alike are life and death,

When life in death survives,

And the uninterrupted breath

Inspires a thousand lives.

Were a star quenched on high,

For ages would its light,

Still travelling downward from the sky,

Shine on our mortal sight.

So when a great man dies,

For years beyond our ken,

The light he leaves behind him lies

Upon the paths of men.

TRAVELS BY THE FIRESIDE

The ceaseless rain is falling fast,

And yonder gilded vane,

Immovable for three days past,

Points to the misty main,

It drives me in upon myself

And to the fireside gleams,

To pleasant books that crowd my shelf,

And still more pleasant dreams,

I read whatever bards have sung

Of lands beyond the sea,

And the bright days when I was young

Come thronging back to me.

In fancy I can hear again

The Alpine torrent's roar,

The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,

The sea at Elsinore.

I see the convent's gleaming wall

Rise from its groves of pine,

And towers of old cathedrals tall,

And castles by the Rhine.

I journey on by park and spire,

Beneath centennial trees,

Through fields with poppies all on fire,

And gleams of distant seas.

I fear no more the dust and heat,

No more I feel fatigue,

While journeying with another's feet

O'er many a lengthening league.

Let others traverse sea and land,

And toil through various climes,

I turn the world round with my hand

Reading these poets' rhymes.

From them I learn whatever lies

Beneath each changing zone,

And see, when looking with their eyes,

Better than with mine own.

CADENABBIA

LAKE OF COMO

No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks

The silence of the summer day,

As by the loveliest of all lakes

I while the idle hours away.

I pace the leafy colonnade

Where level branches of the plane

Above me weave a roof of shade

Impervious to the sun and rain.

At times a sudden rush of air

Flutters the lazy leaves o'erhead,

And gleams of sunshine toss and flare

Like torches down the path I tread.

By Somariva's garden gate

I make the marble stairs my seat,

And hear the water, as I wait,

Lapping the steps beneath my feet.

The undulation sinks and swells

Along the stony parapets,

And far away the floating bells

Tinkle upon the fisher's nets.

Silent and slow, by tower and town

The freighted barges come and go,

Their pendent shadows gliding down

By town and tower submerged below.

The hills sweep upward from the shore,

With villas scattered one by one

Upon their wooded spurs, and lower

Bellaggio blazing in the sun.

And dimly seen, a tangled mass

Of walls and woods, of light and shade,

Stands beckoning up the Stelvio Pass

Varenna with its white cascade.

I ask myself, Is this a dream?

Will it all vanish into air?

Is there a land of such supreme

And perfect beauty anywhere?

Sweet vision! Do not fade away;

Linger until my heart shall take

Into itself the summer day,

And all the beauty of the lake.

Linger until upon my brain

Is stamped an image of the scene,

Then fade into the air again,

And be as if thou hadst not been.

MONTE CASSINO

TERRA DI LAVORO

Beautiful valley! through whose verdant meads

Unheard the Garigliano glides along;--

The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds,

The river taciturn of classic song.

The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest,

Where mediaeval towns are white on all

The hillsides, and where every mountain's crest

Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall.

There is Alagna, where Pope Boniface

Was dragged with contumely from his throne;

Sciarra Colonna, was that day's disgrace

The Pontiff's only, or in part thine own?

There is Ceprano, where a renegade

Was each Apulian, as great Dante saith,

When Manfred by his men-at-arms betrayed

Spurred on to Benevento and to death.

There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town,

Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light

Still hovers o'er his birthplace like the crown

Of splendor seen o'er cities in the night.

Doubled the splendor is, that in its streets

The Angelic Doctor as a school-boy played,

And dreamed perhaps the dreams, that he repeats

In ponderous folios for scholastics made.

And there, uplifted, like a passing cloud

That pauses on a mountain summit high,

Monte Cassino's convent rears its proud

And venerable walls against the sky.

Well I remember how on foot I climbed

The stony pathway leading to its gate;

Above, the convent bells for vespers chimed,

Below, the darkening town grew desolate.

Well I remember the low arch and dark,

The court-yard with its well, the terrace wide,

From which, far down, the valley like a park

Veiled in the evening mists, was dim descried.

The day was dying, and with feeble hands

Caressed the mountain-tops; the vales between

Darkened; the river in the meadowlands

Sheathed itself as a sword, and was not seen.

The silence of the place was like a sleep,

So full of rest it seemed; each passing tread

Was a reverberation from the deep

Recesses of the ages that are dead.

For, more than thirteen centuries ago,

Benedict fleeing from the gates of Rome,

A youth disgusted with its vice and woe,

Sought in these mountain solitudes a home.

He founded here his Convent and his Rule

Of prayer and work, and counted work as prayer;

The pen became a clarion, and his school

Flamed like a beacon in the midnight air.

What though Boccaccio, in his reckless way,

Mocking the lazy brotherhood, deplores

The illuminated manuscripts, that lay

Torn and neglected on the dusty floors?

Boccaccio was a novelist, a child

Of fancy and of fiction at the best!

This the urbane librarian said, and smiled

Incredulous, as at some idle jest.

Upon such themes as these, with one young friar

I sat conversing late into the night,

Till in its cavernous chimney the woodfire

Had burnt its heart out like an anchorite.

And then translated, in my convent cell,

Myself yet not myself, in dreams I lay,

And, as a monk who hears the matin bell,

Started from sleep; already it was day.

From the high window I beheld the scene

On which Saint Benedict so oft had gazed,--

The mountains and the valley in the sheen

Of the bright sun,--and stood as one amazed.

Gray mists were rolling, rising, vanishing;

The woodlands glistened with their jewelled crowns;

Far off the mellow bells began to ring

For matins in the half-awakened towns.

The conflict of the Present and the Past,

The ideal and the actual in our life,

As on a field of battle held me fast,

Where this world and the next world were at strife.

For, as the valley from its sleep awoke,

I saw the iron horses of the steam

Toss to the morning air their plumes of smoke,

And woke, as one awaketh from a dream.

AMALFI

Sweet the memory is to me

Of a land beyond the sea,

Where the waves and mountains meet,

Where, amid her mulberry-trees

Sits Amalfi in the heat,

Bathing ever her white feet

In the tideless summer seas.

In the middle of the town,

From its fountains in the hills,

Tumbling through the narrow gorge,

The Canneto rushes down,

Turns the great wheels of the mills,

Lifts the hammers of the forge.

'T is a stairway, not a street,

That ascends the deep ravine,

Where the torrent leaps between

Rocky walls that almost meet.

Toiling up from stair to stair

Peasant girls their burdens bear;

Sunburnt daughters of the soil,

Stately figures tall and straight,

What inexorable fate

Dooms them to this life of toil?

Lord of vineyards and of lands,

Far above the convent stands.

On its terraced walk aloof

Leans a monk with folded hands,

Placid, satisfied, serene,

Looking down upon the scene

Over wall and red-tiled roof;

Wondering unto what good end

All this toil and traffic tend,

And why all men cannot be

Free from care and free from pain,

And the sordid love of gain,

And as indolent as he.

Where are now the freighted barks

From the marts of east and west?

Where the knights in iron sarks

Journeying to the Holy Land,

Glove of steel upon the hand,

Cross of crimson on the breast?

Where the pomp of camp and court?

Where the pilgrims with their prayers?

Where the merchants with their wares,

And their gallant brigantines

Sailing safely into port

Chased by corsair Algerines?

Vanished like a fleet of cloud,

Like a passing trumpet-blast,

Are those splendors of the past,

And the commerce and the crowd!

Fathoms deep beneath the seas

Lie the ancient wharves and quays,

Swallowed by the engulfing waves;

Silent streets and vacant halls,

Ruined roofs and towers and walls;

Hidden from all mortal eyes

Deep the sunken city lies:

Even cities have their graves!

This is an enchanted land!

Round the headlands far away

Sweeps the blue Salernian bay

With its sickle of white sand:

Further still and furthermost

On the dim discovered coast

Paestum with its ruins lies,

And its roses all in bloom

Seem to tinge the fatal skies

Of that lonely land of doom.

On his terrace, high in air,

Nothing doth the good monk care

For such worldly themes as these,

From the garden just below

Little puffs of perfume blow,

And a sound is in his ears

Of the murmur of the bees

In the shining chestnut-trees;

Nothing else he heeds or hears.

All the landscape seems to swoon

In the happy afternoon;

Slowly o'er his senses creep

The encroaching waves of sleep,

And he sinks as sank the town,

Unresisting, fathoms down,

Into caverns cool and deep!

Walled about with drifts of snow,

Hearing the fierce north-wind blow,

Seeing all the landscape white,

And the river cased in ice,

Comes this memory of delight,

Comes this vision unto me

Of a long-lost Paradise

In the land beyond the sea.

THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS

Up soared the lark into the air,

A shaft of song, a winged prayer,

As if a soul, released from pain,

Were flying back to heaven again.

St. Francis heard; it was to him

An emblem of the Seraphim;

The upward motion of the fire,

The light, the heat, the heart's desire.

Around Assisi's convent gate

The birds, God's poor who cannot wait,

From moor and mere and darksome wood

Came flocking for their dole of food.

"O brother birds," St. Francis said,

"Ye come to me and ask for bread,

But not with bread alone to-day

Shall ye be fed and sent away.

"Ye shall be fed, ye happy birds,

With manna of celestial words;

Not mine, though mine they seem to be,

Not mine, though they be spoken through me.

"O, doubly are ye bound to praise

The great Creator in your lays;

He giveth you your plumes of down,

Your crimson hoods, your cloaks of brown.

"He giveth you your wings to fly

And breathe a purer air on high,

And careth for you everywhere,

Who for yourselves so little care!"

With flutter of swift wings and songs

Together rose the feathered throngs,

And singing scattered far apart;

Deep peace was in St. Francis' heart.

He knew not if the brotherhood

His homily had understood;

He only knew that to one ear

The meaning of his words was clear.

BELISARIUS

I am poor and old and blind;

The sun burns me, and the wind

Blows through the city gate

And covers me with dust

From the wheels of the august

Justinian the Great.

It was for him I chased

The Persians o'er wild and waste,

As General of the East;

Night after night I lay

In their camps of yesterday;

Their forage was my feast.

For him, with sails of red,

And torches at mast-head,

Piloting the great fleet,

I swept the Afric coasts

And scattered the Vandal hosts,

Like dust in a windy street.

For him I won again

The Ausonian realm and reign,

Rome and Parthenope;

And all the land was mine

From the summits of Apennine

To the shores of either sea.

For him, in my feeble age,

I dared the battle's rage,

To save Byzantium's state,

When the tents of Zabergan,

Like snow-drifts overran

The road to the Golden Gate.

And for this, for this, behold!

Infirm and blind and old,

With gray, uncovered head,

Beneath the very arch

Of my triumphal march,

I stand and beg my bread!

Methinks I still can hear,

Sounding distinct and near,

The Vandal monarch's cry,

As, captive and disgraced,

With majestic step he paced,--

"All, all is Vanity!"

Ah! vainest of all things

Is the gratitude of kings;

The plaudits of the crowd

Are but the clatter of feet

At midnight in the street,

Hollow and restless and loud.

But the bitterest disgrace

Is to see forever the face

Of the Monk of Ephesus!

The unconquerable will

This, too, can bear;--I still

Am Belisarius!

SONGO RIVER

Nowhere such a devious stream,

Save in fancy or in dream,

Winding slow through bush and brake

Links together lake and lake.

Walled with woods or sandy shelf,

Ever doubling on itself

Flows the stream, so still and slow

That it hardly seems to flow.

Never errant knight of old,

Lost in woodland or on wold,

Such a winding path pursued

Through the sylvan solitude.

Never school-boy in his quest

After hazel-nut or nest,

Through the forest in and out

Wandered loitering thus about.

In the mirror of its tide

Tangled thickets on each side

Hang inverted, and between

Floating cloud or sky serene.

Swift or swallow on the wing

Seems the only living thing,

Or the loon, that laughs and flies

Down to those reflected skies.

Silent stream! thy Indian name

Unfamiliar is to fame;

For thou hidest here alone,

Well content to be unknown.

But thy tranquil waters teach

Wisdom deep as human speech,

Moving without haste or noise

In unbroken equipoise.

Though thou turnest no busy mill,

And art ever calm and still,

Even thy silence seems to say

To the traveller on his way:--

"Traveller, hurrying from the heat

Of the city, stay thy feet!

Rest awhile, nor longer waste

Life with inconsiderate haste!

"Be not like a stream that brawls

Loud with shallow waterfalls,

But in quiet self-control

Link together soul and soul"

************

KERAMOS

Turn, turn, my wheel? Turn round and round

Without a pause, without a sound:

So spins the flying world away!

This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,

Follows the motion of my hand;

Far some must follow, and some command,

Though all are made of clay!

Thus sang the Potter at his task

Beneath the blossoming hawthorn-tree,

While o'er his features, like a mask,

The quilted sunshine and leaf-shade

Moved, as the boughs above him swayed,

And clothed him, till he seemed to be

A figure woven in tapestry,

So sumptuously was he arrayed

In that magnificent attire

Of sable tissue flaked with fire.

Like a magician he appeared,

A conjurer without book or beard;

And while he plied his magic art--

For it was magical to me--

I stood in silence and apart,

And wondered more and more to see

That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay

Rise up to meet the master's hand,

And now contract and now expand,

And even his slightest touch obey;

While ever in a thoughtful mood

He sang his ditty, and at times

Whistled a tune between the rhymes,

As a melodious interlude.

Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change

To something new, to something strange;

Nothing that is can pause or stay;

The moon will wax, the moon will wane,

The mist and cloud will turn to rain,

The rain to mist and cloud again,

To-morrow be to-day.

Thus still the Potter sang, and still,

By some unconscious act of will,

The melody and even the words

Were intermingled with my thought

As bits of colored thread are caught

And woven into nests of birds.

And thus to regions far remote,

Beyond the ocean's vast expanse,

This wizard in the motley coat

Transported me on wings of song,

And by the northern shores of France

Bore me with restless speed along.

What land is this that seems to be

A mingling of the land and sea?

This land of sluices, dikes, and dunes?

This water-net, that tessellates

The landscape? this unending maze

Of gardens, through whose latticed gates

The imprisoned pinks and tulips gaze;

Where in long summer afternoons

The sunshine, softened by the haze,

Comes streaming down as through a screen;

Where over fields and pastures green

The painted ships float high in air,

And over all and everywhere

The sails of windmills sink and soar

Like wings of sea-gulls on the shore?

What land is this? Yon pretty town

Is Delft, with all its wares displayed;

The pride, the market-place, the crown

And centre of the Potter's trade.

See! every house and room is bright

With glimmers of reflected light

From plates that on the dresser shine;

Flagons to foam with Flemish beer,

Or sparkle with the Rhenish wine,

And pilgrim flasks with fleurs-de-lis,

And ships upon a rolling sea,

And tankards pewter topped, and queer

With comic mask and musketeer!

Each hospitable chimney smiles

A welcome from its painted tiles;

The parlor walls, the chamber floors,

The stairways and the corridors,

The borders of the garden walks,

Are beautiful with fadeless flowers,

That never droop in winds or showers,

And never wither on their stalks.

Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief;

What now is bud wilt soon be leaf,

What now is leaf will soon decay;

The wind blows east, the wind blows west;

The blue eyes in the robin's nest

Will soon have wings and beak and breast,

And flutter and fly away.

Now southward through the air I glide,

The song my only pursuivant,

And see across the landscape wide

The blue Charente, upon whose tide

The belfries and the spires of Saintes

Ripple and rock from side to side,

As, when an earthquake rends its walls,

A crumbling city reels and falls.

Who is it in the suburbs here,

This Potter, working with such cheer,

In this mean house, this mean attire,

His manly features bronzed with fire,

Whose figulines and rustic wares

Scarce find him bread from day to day?

This madman, as the people say,

Who breaks his tables and his chairs

To feed his furnace fires, nor cares

Who goes unfed if they are fed,

Nor who may live if they are dead?

This alchemist with hollow cheeks

And sunken, searching eyes, who seeks,

By mingled earths and ores combined

With potency of fire, to find

Some new enamel, hard and bright,

His dream, his passion, his delight?

O Palissy! within thy breast

Burned the hot fever of unrest;

Thine was the prophets vision, thine

The exultation, the divine

Insanity of noble minds,

That never falters nor abates,

But labors and endures and waits,

Till all that it foresees it finds,

Or what it cannot find creates!

Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar

A touch can make, a touch can mar;

And shall it to the Potter say,

What makest thou. Thou hast no hand?

As men who think to understand

A world by their Creator planned,

Who wiser is than they.

Still guided by the dreamy song,

As in a trance I float along

Above the Pyrenean chain,

Above the fields and farms of Spain,

Above the bright Majorcan isle,

That lends its softened name to art,--

A spot, a dot upon the chart,

Whose little towns, red-roofed with tile,

Are ruby-lustred with the light

Of blazing furnaces by night,

And crowned by day with wreaths of smoke.

Then eastward, wafted in my flight

On my enchanter's magic cloak,

I sail across the Tyrrhene Sea

Into the land of Italy,

And o'er the windy Apennines,

Mantled and musical with pines.

The palaces, the princely halls,

The doors of houses and the walls

Of churches and of belfry towers,

Cloister and castle, street and mart,

Are garlanded and gay with flowers

That blossom in the fields of art.

Here Gubbio's workshops gleam and glow

With brilliant, iridescent dyes,

The dazzling whiteness of the snow,

The cobalt blue of summer skies;

And vase and scutcheon, cup and plate,

In perfect finish emulate

Faenza, Florence, Pesaro.

Forth from Urbino's gate there came

A youth with the angelic name

Of Raphael, in form and face

Himself angelic, and divine

In arts of color and design.

From him Francesco Xanto caught

Something of his transcendent grace,

And into fictile fabrics wrought

Suggestions of the master's thought.

Nor less Maestro Giorgio shines

With madre-perl and golden lines

Of arabesques, and interweaves

His birds and fruits and flowers and leaves

About some landscape, shaded brown,

With olive tints on rock and town.

Behold this cup within whose bowl,

Upon a ground of deepest blue

With yellow-lustred stars o'erlaid,

Colors of every tint and hue

Mingle in one harmonious whole!

With large blue eyes and steadfast gaze,

Her yellow hair in net and braid,

Necklace and ear-rings all ablaze

With golden lustre o'er the glaze,

A woman's portrait; on the scroll,

Cana, the Beautiful! A name

Forgotten save for such brief fame

As this memorial can bestow,--

A gift some lover long ago

Gave with his heart to this fair dame.

A nobler title to renown

Is thine, O pleasant Tuscan town,

Seated beside the Arno's stream;

For Lucca della Robbia there

Created forms so wondrous fair,

They made thy sovereignty supreme.

These choristers with lips of stone,

Whose music is not heard, but seen,

Still chant, as from their organ-screen,

Their Maker's praise; nor these alone,

But the more fragile forms of clay,

Hardly less beautiful than they,

These saints and angels that adorn

The walls of hospitals, and tell

The story of good deeds so well

That poverty seems less forlorn,

And life more like a holiday.

Here in this old neglected church,

That long eludes the traveller's search,

Lies the dead bishop on his tomb;

Earth upon earth he slumbering lies,

Life-like and death-like in the gloom;

Garlands of fruit and flowers in bloom

And foliage deck his resting place;

A shadow in the sightless eyes,

A pallor on the patient face,

Made perfect by the furnace heat;

All earthly passions and desires

Burnt out by purgatorial fires;

Seeming to say, "Our years are fleet,

And to the weary death is sweet."

But the most wonderful of all

The ornaments on tomb or wall

That grace the fair Ausonian shores

Are those the faithful earth restores,

Near some Apulian town concealed,

In vineyard or in harvest field,--

Vases and urns and bas-reliefs,

Memorials of forgotten griefs,

Or records of heroic deeds

Of demigods and mighty chiefs:

Figures that almost move and speak,

And, buried amid mould and weeds,

Still in their attitudes attest

The presence of the graceful Greek,--

Achilles in his armor dressed,

Alcides with the Cretan bull,

And Aphrodite with her boy,

Or lovely Helena of Troy,

Still living and still beautiful.

Turn, turn, my wheel! 'T is nature's plan

The child should grow into the man,

The man grow wrinkled, old, and gray;

In youth the heart exults and sings,

The pulses leap, the feet have wings;

In age the cricket chirps, and brings

The harvest home of day.

And now the winds that southward blow,

And cool the hot Sicilian isle,

Bear me away. I see below

The long line of the Libyan Nile,

Flooding and feeding the parched land

With annual ebb and overflow,

A fallen palm whose branches lie

Beneath the Abyssinian sky,

Whose roots are in Egyptian sands,

On either bank huge water-wheels,

Belted with jars and dripping weeds,

Send forth their melancholy moans,

As if, in their gray mantles hid,

Dead anchorites of the Thebaid

Knelt on the shore and told their beads,

Beating their breasts with loud appeals

And penitential tears and groans.

This city, walled and thickly set

With glittering mosque and minaret,

Is Cairo, in whose gay bazaars

The dreaming traveller first inhales

The perfume of Arabian gales,

And sees the fabulous earthen jars,

Huge as were those wherein the maid

Morgiana found the Forty Thieves

Concealed in midnight ambuscade;

And seeing, more than half believes

The fascinating tales that run

Through all the Thousand Nights and One,

Told by the fair Scheherezade.

More strange and wonderful than these

Are the Egyptian deities,

Ammonn, and Emeth, and the grand

Osiris, holding in his hand

The lotus; Isis, crowned and veiled;

The sacred Ibis, and the Sphinx;

Bracelets with blue enamelled links;

The Scarabee in emerald mailed,

Or spreading wide his funeral wings;

Lamps that perchance their night-watch kept

O'er Cleopatra while she slept,--

All plundered from the tombs of kings.

Turn, turn, my wheel! The human race,

Of every tongue, of every place,

Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay,

All that inhabit this great earth,

Whatever be their rank or worth,

Are kindred and allied by birth,

And made of the same clay.

O'er desert sands, o'er gulf and bay,

O'er Ganges and o'er Himalay,

Bird-like I fly, and flying sing,

To flowery kingdoms of Cathay,

And bird-like poise on balanced wing

Above the town of King-te-tching,

A burning town, or seeming so,--

Three thousand furnaces that glow

Incessantly, and fill the air

With smoke uprising, gyre on gyre

And painted by the lurid glare,

Of jets and flashes of red fire.

As leaves that in the autumn fall,

Spotted and veined with various hues,

Are swept along the avenues,

And lie in heaps by hedge and wall,

So from this grove of chimneys whirled

To all the markets of the world,

These porcelain leaves are wafted on,--

Light yellow leaves with spots and stains

Of violet and of crimson dye,

Or tender azure of a sky

Just washed by gentle April rains,

And beautiful with celadon.

Nor less the coarser household wares,--

The willow pattern, that we knew

In childhood, with its bridge of blue

Leading to unknown thoroughfares;

The solitary man who stares

At the white river flowing through

Its arches, the fantastic trees

And wild perspective of the view;

And intermingled among these

The tiles that in our nurseries

Filled us with wonder and delight,

Or haunted us in dreams at night.

And yonder by Nankin, behold!

The Tower of Porcelain, strange and old,

Uplifting to the astonished skies

Its ninefold painted balconies,

With balustrades of twining leaves,

And roofs of tile, beneath whose eaves

Hang porcelain bells that all the time

Ring with a soft, melodious chime;

While the whole fabric is ablaze

With varied tints, all fused in one

Great mass of color, like a maze

Of flowers illumined by the sun.

Turn, turn, my wheel! What is begun

At daybreak must at dark be done,

To-morrow will be another day;

To-morrow the hot furnace flame

Will search the heart and try the frame,

And stamp with honor or with shame

These vessels made of clay.

Cradled and rocked in Eastern seas,

The islands of the Japanese

Beneath me lie; o'er lake and plain

The stork, the heron, and the crane

Through the clear realms of azure drift,

And on the hillside I can see

The villages of Imari,

Whose thronged and flaming workshops lift

Their twisted columns of smoke on high,

Cloud cloisters that in ruins lie,

With sunshine streaming through each rift,

And broken arches of blue sky.

All the bright flowers that fill the land,

Ripple of waves on rock or sand,

The snow on Fusiyama's cone,

The midnight heaven so thickly sown

With constellations of bright stars,

The leaves that rustle, the reeds that make

A whisper by each stream and lake,

The saffron dawn, the sunset red,

Are painted on these lovely jars;

Again the skylark sings, again

The stork, the heron, and the crane

Float through the azure overhead,

The counterfeit and counterpart

Of Nature reproduced in Art.

Art is the child of Nature; yes,

Her darling child, in whom we trace

The features of the mother's face,

Her aspect and her attitude,

All her majestic loveliness

Chastened and softened and subdued

Into a more attractive grace,

And with a human sense imbued.

He is the greatest artist, then,

Whether of pencil or of pen,

Who follows Nature. Never man,

As artist or as artisan,

Pursuing his own fantasies,

Can touch the human heart, or please,

Or satisfy our nobler needs,

As he who sets his willing feet

In Nature's footprints, light and fleet,

And follows fearless where she leads.

Thus mused I on that morn in May,

Wrapped in my visions like the Seer,

Whose eyes behold not what is near,

But only what is far away,

When, suddenly sounding peal on peal,

The church-bell from the neighboring town

Proclaimed the welcome hour of noon.

The Potter heard, and stopped his wheel,

His apron on the grass threw down,

Whistled his quiet little tune,

Not overloud nor overlong,

And ended thus his simple song:

Stop, stop, my wheel! Too soon, too soon

The noon will be the afternoon,

Too soon to-day be yesterday;

Behind us in our path we cast

The broken potsherds of the past,

And all are ground to dust a last,

And trodden into clay!

*************

BIRDS OF PASSAGE

FLIGHT THE FIFTH

THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD

Warm and still is the summer night,

As here by the river's brink I wander;

White overhead are the stars, and white

The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder.

Silent are all the sounds of day;

Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets,

And the cry of the herons winging their way

O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets.

Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass

To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes,

Sing him the song of the green morass;

And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.

Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern,

And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking;

For only a sound of lament we discern,

And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.

Sing of the air, and the wild delight

Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you,

The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight

Through the drift of the floating mists that infold you.

Of the landscape lying so far below,

With its towns and rivers and desert places;

And the splendor of light above, and the glow

Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces.

Ask him if songs of the Troubadours,

Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter,

Sound in his ears more sweet than yours,

And if yours are not sweeter and wilder and better.

Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate,

Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting,

Some one hath lingered to meditate,

And send him unseen this friendly greeting;

That many another hath done the same,

Though not by a sound was the silence broken;

The surest pledge of a deathless name

Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.

A DUTCH PICTURE

Simon Danz has come home again,

From cruising about with his buccaneers;

He has singed the beard of the King of Spain,

And carried away the Dean of Jaen

And sold him in Algiers.

In his house by the Maese, with its roof of tiles,

And weathercocks flying aloft in air,

There are silver tankards of antique styles,

Plunder of convent and castle, and piles

Of carpets rich and rare.

In his tulip-garden there by the town,

Overlooking the sluggish stream,

With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown,

The old sea-captain, hale and brown,

Walks in a waking dream.

A smile in his gray mustachio lurks

Whenever he thinks of the King of Spain,

And the listed tulips look like Turks,

And the silent gardener as he works

Is changed to the Dean of Jaen.

The windmills on the outermost

Verge of the landscape in the haze,

To him are towers on the Spanish coast,

With whiskered sentinels at their post,

Though this is the river Maese.

But when the winter rains begin,

He sits and smokes by the blazing brands,

And old seafaring men come in,

Goat-bearded, gray, and with double chin,

And rings upon their hands.

They sit there in the shadow and shine

Of the flickering fire of the winter night;

Figures in color and design

Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine,

Half darkness and half light.

And they talk of ventures lost or won,

And their talk is ever and ever the same,

While they drink the red wine of Tarragon,

From the cellars of some Spanish Don,

Or convent set on flame.

Restless at times with heavy strides

He paces his parlor to and fro;

He is like a ship that at anchor rides,

And swings with the rising and falling tides,

And tugs at her anchor-tow.

Voices mysterious far and near,

Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,

Are calling and whispering in his ear,

"Simon Danz! Why stayest thou here?

Come forth and follow me!"

So he thinks he shall take to the sea again

For one more cruise with his buccaneers,

To singe the beard of the King of Spain,

And capture another Dean of Jaen

And sell him in Algiers.

CASTLES IN SPAIN

How much of my young heart, O Spain,

Went out to thee in days of yore!

What dreams romantic filled my brain,

And summoned back to life again

The Paladins of Charlemagne

The Cid Campeador!

And shapes more shadowy than these,

In the dim twilight half revealed;

Phoenician galleys on the seas,

The Roman camps like hives of bees,

The Goth uplifting from his knees

Pelayo on his shield.

It was these memories perchance,

From annals of remotest eld,

That lent the colors of romance

To every trivial circumstance,

And changed the form and countenance

Of all that I beheld.

Old towns, whose history lies hid

In monkish chronicle or rhyme,

Burgos, the birthplace of the Cid,

Zamora and Valladolid,

Toledo, built and walled amid

The wars of Wamba's time;

The long, straight line of the high-way,

The distant town that seems so near,

The peasants in the fields, that stay

Their toil to cross themselves and pray,

When from the belfry at midday

The Angelus they hear;

White crosses in the mountain pass,

Mules gay with tassels, the loud din

Of muleteers, the tethered ass

That crops the dusty wayside grass,

And cavaliers with spurs of brass

Alighting at the inn;

White hamlets hidden in fields of wheat,

White cities slumbering by the sea,

White sunshine flooding square and street,

Dark mountain-ranges, at whose feet

The river-beds are dry with heat,--

All was a dream to me.

Yet something sombre and severe

O'er the enchanted landscape reigned;

A terror in the atmosphere

As if King Philip listened near,

Or Torquemada, the austere,

His ghostly sway maintained.

The softer Andalusian skies

Dispelled the sadness and the gloom;

There Cadiz by the seaside lies,

And Seville's orange-orchards rise,

Making the land a paradise

Of beauty and of bloom.

There Cordova is hidden among

The palm, the olive, and the vine;

Gem of the South, by poets sung,

And in whose Mosque Ahmanzor hung

As lamps the bells that once had rung

At Compostella's shrine.

But over all the rest supreme,

The star of stars, the cynosure,

The artist's and the poet's theme,

The young man's vision, the old man's dream,--

Granada by its winding stream,

The city of the Moor!

And there the Alhambra still recalls

Aladdin's palace of delight;

Allah il Allah! through its halls

Whispers the fountain as it falls,

The Darro darts beneath its walls,

The hills with snow are white.

Ah yes, the hills are white with snow,

And cold with blasts that bite and freeze;

But in the happy vale below

The orange and pomegranate grow,

And wafts of air toss to and fro

The blossoming almond-trees.

The Vega cleft by the Xenil,

The fascination and allure

Of the sweet landscape chains the will;

The traveller lingers on the hill,

His parted lips are breathing still

The last sigh of the Moor.

How like a ruin overgrown

With flower's that hide the rents of time,

Stands now the Past that I have known,

Castles in Spain, not built of stone

But of white summer clouds, and blown

Into this little mist of rhyme!

VITTORIA COLONNA.

VITTORIA COLONNA, on the death of her hushand, the Marchese di

Pescara, retired to her castle at Ischia (Inarime), and there

wrote the Ode upon his death, which gained her the title of

Divine.

Once more, once more, Inarime,

I see thy purple hills!--once more

I hear the billows of the bay

Wash the white pebbles on thy shore.

High o'er the sea-surge and the sands,

Like a great galleon wrecked and cast

Ashore by storms, thy castle stands,

A mouldering landmark of the Past.

Upon its terrace-walk I see

A phantom gliding to and fro;

It is Colonna,--it is she

Who lived and loved so long ago.

Pescara's beautiful young wife,

The type of perfect womanhood,

Whose life was love, the life of life,

That time and change and death withstood.

For death, that breaks the marriage band

In others, only closer pressed

The wedding-ring upon her hand

And closer locked and barred her breast.

She knew the life-long martyrdom,

The weariness, the endless pain

Of waiting for some one to come

Who nevermore would come again.

The shadows of the chestnut-trees,

The odor of the orange blooms,

The song of birds, and, more than these,

The silence of deserted rooms;

The respiration of the sea,

The soft caresses of the air,

All things in nature seemed to be

But ministers of her despair;

Till the o'erburdened heart, so long

Imprisoned in itself, found vent

And voice in one impassioned song

Of inconsolable lament.

Then as the sun, though hidden from sight,

Transmutes to gold the leaden mist,

Her life was interfused with light,

From realms that, though unseen, exist,

Inarime! Inarime!

Thy castle on the crags above

In dust shall crumble and decay,

But not the memory of her love.

THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE

In that desolate land and lone,

Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone

Roar down their mountain path,

By their fires the Sioux Chiefs

Muttered their woes and griefs

And the menace of their wrath.

"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,

"Revenue upon all the race

Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"

And the mountains dark and high

From their crags re-echoed the cry

Of his anger and despair.

In the meadow, spreading wide

By woodland and riverside

The Indian village stood;

All was silent as a dream,

Save the rushing a of the stream

And the blue-jay in the wood.

In his war paint and his beads,

Like a bison among the reeds,

In ambush the Sitting Bull

Lay with three thousand braves

Crouched in the clefts and caves,

Savage, unmerciful!

Into the fatal snare

The White Chief with yellow hair

And his three hundred men

Dashed headlong, sword in hand;

But of that gallant band

Not one returned again.

The sudden darkness of death

Overwhelmed them like the breath

And smoke of a furnace fire:

By the river's bank, and between

The rocks of the ravine,

They lay in their bloody attire.

But the foemen fled in the night,

And Rain-in-the-Face, in his flight

Uplifted high in air

As a ghastly trophy, bore

The brave heart, that beat no more,

Of the White Chief with yellow hair.

Whose was the right and the wrong?

Sing it, O funeral song,

With a voice that is full of tears,

And say that our broken faith

Wrought all this ruin and scathe,

In the Year of a Hundred Years.

TO THE RIVER YVETTE

O lovely river of Yvette!

O darling river! like a bride,

Some dimpled, bashful, fair Lisette,

Thou goest to wed the Orge's tide.

Maincourt, and lordly Dampierre,

See and salute thee on thy way,

And, with a blessing and a prayer,

Ring the sweet bells of St. Forget.

The valley of Chevreuse in vain

Would hold thee in its fond embrace;

Thou glidest from its arms again

And hurriest on with swifter pace.

Thou wilt not stay; with restless feet

Pursuing still thine onward flight,

Thou goest as one in haste to meet

Her sole desire, her head's delight.

O lovely river of Yvette!

O darling stream! on balanced wings

The wood-birds sang the chansonnette

That here a wandering poet sings.

THE EMPEROR'S GLOVE

"Combien faudrait-il de peaux d'Espagne pour faire un gant de

cette grandeur?" A play upon the words gant, a glove, and Gand,

the French for Ghent.

On St. Baron's tower, commanding

Half of Flanders, his domain,

Charles the Emperor once was standing,

While beneath him on the landing

Stood Duke Alva and his train.

Like a print in books of fables,

Or a model made for show,

With its pointed roofs and gables,

Dormer windows, scrolls and labels,

Lay the city far below.

Through its squares and streets and alleys

Poured the populace of Ghent;

As a routed army rallies,

Or as rivers run through valleys,

Hurrying to their homes they went

"Nest of Lutheran misbelievers!"

Cried Duke Alva as he gazed;

"Haunt of traitors and deceivers,

Stronghold of insurgent weavers,

Let it to the ground be razed!"

On the Emperor's cap the feather

Nods, as laughing he replies:

"How many skins of Spanish leather,

Think you, would, if stitched together

Make a glove of such a size?"

A BALLAD OF THE FRENCH FLEET

OCTOBER, 1746

MR. THOMAS PRINCE loquitur.

A fleet with flags arrayed

Sailed from the port of Brest,

And the Admiral's ship displayed

The signal: "Steer southwest."

For this Admiral D'Anville

Had sworn by cross and crown

To ravage with fire and steel

Our helpless Boston Town.

There were rumors in the street,

In the houses there was fear

Of the coming of the fleet,

And the danger hovering near.

And while from mouth to mouth

Spread the tidings of dismay,

I stood in the Old South,

Saying humbly: "Let us pray!

"O Lord! we would not advise;

But if in thy Providence

A tempest should arise

To drive the French fleet hence,

And scatter it far and wide,

Or sink it in the sea,

We should be satisfied,

And thine the glory be."

This was the prayer I made,

For my soul was all on flame,

And even as I prayed

The answering tempest came;

It came with a mighty power,

Shaking the windows and walls,

And tolling the bell in the tower,

As it tolls at funerals.

The lightning suddenly

Unsheathed its flaming sword,

And I cried: "Stand still, and see

The salvation of the Lord!"

The heavens were black with cloud,

The sea was white with hail,

And ever more fierce and loud

Blew the October gale.

The fleet it overtook,

And the broad sails in the van

Like the tents of Cushan shook,

Or the curtains of Midian.

Down on the reeling decks

Crashed the o'erwhelming seas;

Ah, never were there wrecks

So pitiful as these!

Like a potter's vessel broke

The great ships of the line;

They were carried away as a smoke,

Or sank like lead in the brine.

O Lord! before thy path

They vanished and ceased to be,

When thou didst walk in wrath

With thine horses through the sea!

THE LEAP OF ROUSHAN BEG

Mounted on Kyrat strong and fleet,

His chestnut steed with four white feet,

Roushan Beg, called Kurroglou,

Son of the road and bandit chief,

Seeking refuge and relief,

Up the mountain pathway flew.

Such was Kyrat's wondrous speed,

Never yet could any steed

Reach the dust-cloud in his course.

More than maiden, more than wife,

More than gold and next to life

Roushan the Robber loved his horse.

In the land that lies beyond

Erzeroum and Trebizond,

Garden-girt his fortress stood;

Plundered khan, or caravan

Journeying north from Koordistan,

Gave him wealth and wine and food.

Seven hundred and fourscore

Men at arms his livery wore,

Did his bidding night and day.

Now, through regions all unknown,

He was wandering, lost, alone,

Seeking without guide his way.

Suddenly the pathway ends,

Sheer the precipice descends,

Loud the torrent roars unseen;

Thirty feet from side to side

Yawns the chasm; on air must ride

He who crosses this ravine.

Following close in his pursuit,

At the precipice's foot,

Reyhan the Arab of Orfah

Halted with his hundred men,

Shouting upward from the glen,

"La Illah illa Allah!"

Gently Roushan Beg caressed

Kyrat's forehead, neck, and breast;

Kissed him upon both his eyes;

Sang to him in his wild way,

As upon the topmost spray

Sings a bird before it flies.

"O my Kyrat, O my steed,

Round and slender as a reed,

Carry me this peril through!

Satin housings shall be thine,

Shoes of gold, O Kyrat mine,

O thou soul of Kurroglou!

"Soft thy skin as silken skein,

Soft as woman's hair thy mane,

Tender are thine eyes and true;

All thy hoofs like ivory shine,

Polished bright; O, life of mine,

Leap, and rescue Kurroglou!"

Kyrat, then, the strong and fleet,

Drew together his four white feet,

Paused a moment on the verge,

Measured with his eye the space,

And into the air's embrace

Leaped as leaps the ocean surge.

As the ocean surge o'er sand

Bears a swimmer safe to land,

Kyrat safe his rider bore;

Rattling down the deep abyss

Fragments of the precipice

Rolled like pebbles on a shore.

Roushan's tasselled cap of red

Trembled not upon his head,

Careless sat he and upright;

Neither hand nor bridle shook,

Nor his head he turned to look,

As he galloped out of sight.

Flash of harness in the air,

Seen a moment like the glare

Of a sword drawn from its sheath;

Thus the phantom horseman passed,

And the shadow that he cast

Leaped the cataract underneath.

Reyhan the Arab held his breath

While this vision of life and death

Passed above him. "Allahu!"

Cried he. "In all Koordistan

Lives there not so brave a man

As this Robber Kurroglou!"

HAROUN AL RASCHID

One day, Haroun Al Raschid read

A book wherein the poet said:--

"Where are the kings, and where the rest

Of those who once the world possessed?

"They're gone with all their pomp and show,

They're gone the way that thou shalt go.

"O thou who choosest for thy share

The world, and what the world calls fair,

"Take all that it can give or lend,

But know that death is at the end!"

Haroun Al Raschid bowed his head:

Tears fell upon the page he read.

KING TRISANKU

Viswamitra the Magician,

By his spells and incantations,

Up to Indra's realms elysian

Raised Trisanku, king of nations.

Indra and the gods offended

Hurled him downward, and descending

In the air he hung suspended,

With these equal powers contending.

Thus by aspirations lifted,

By misgivings downward driven,

Human hearts are tossed and drifted

Midway between earth and heaven.

A WRAITH IN THE MIST

"Sir, I should build me a fortification, if I

came to live here." --BOSWELL'S Johnson.

On the green little isle of Inchkenneth,

Who is it that walks by the shore,

So gay with his Highland blue bonnet,

So brave with his targe and claymore?

His form is the form of a giant,

But his face wears an aspect of pain;

Can this be the Laird of Inchkenneth?

Can this be Sir Allan McLean?

Ah, no! It is only the Rambler,

The Idler, who lives in Bolt Court,

And who says, were he Laird of Inchkenneth,

He would wall himself round with a fort.

THE THREE KINGS

Three Kings came riding from far away,

Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;

Three Wise Men out of the East were they,

And they travelled by night and they slept by day,

For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.

The star was so beautiful, large, and clear,

That all the other stars of the sky

Became a white mist in the atmosphere,

And by this they knew that the coming was near

Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy.

Three caskets they bore on their saddle-bows,

Three caskets of gold with golden keys;

Their robes were of crimson silk with rows

Of bells and pomegranates and furbelows,

Their turbans like blossoming almond-trees.

And so the Three Kings rode into the West,

Through the dusk of night, over hill and dell,

And sometimes they nodded with beard on breast

And sometimes talked, as they paused to rest,

With the people they met at some wayside well.

"Of the child that is born," said Baltasar,

"Good people, I pray you, tell us the news;

For we in the East have seen his star,

And have ridden fast, and have ridden far,

To find and worship the King of the Jews."

And the people answered, "You ask in vain;

We know of no king but Herod the Great!"

They thought the Wise Men were men insane,

As they spurred their horses across the plain,

Like riders in haste, and who cannot wait.

And when they came to Jerusalem,

Herod the Great, who had heard this thing,

Sent for the Wise Men and questioned them;

And said, "Go down unto Bethlehem,

And bring me tidings of this new king."

So they rode away; and the star stood still,

The only one in the gray of morn

Yes, it stopped, it stood still of its own free will,

Right over Bethlehem on the hill,

The city of David where Christ was born.

And the Three Kings rode through the gate and the guard,

Through the silent street, till their horses turned

And neighed as they entered the great inn-yard;

But the windows were closed, and the doors were barred,

And only a light in the stable burned.

And cradled there in the scented hay,

In the air made sweet by the breath of kine,

The little child in the manger lay,

The child, that would be king one day

Of a kingdom not human but divine.

His mother Mary of Nazareth

Sat watching beside his place of rest,

Watching the even flow of his breath,

For the joy of life and the terror of death

Were mingled together in her breast.

They laid their offerings at his feet:

The gold was their tribute to a King,

The frankincense, with its odor sweet,

Was for the Priest, the Paraclete,

The myrrh for the body's burying.

And the mother wondered and bowed her head,

And sat as still as a statue of stone;

Her heart was troubled yet comforted,

Remembering what the Angel had said

Of an endless reign and of David's throne.

Then the Kings rode out of the city gate,

With a clatter of hoofs in proud array;

But they went not back to Herod the Great,

For they knew his malice and feared his hate,

And returned to their homes by another way.

SONG

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;

Home-keeping hearts are happiest,

For those that wander they know not where

Are full of trouble and full of care;

To stay at home is best.

Weary and homesick and distressed,

They wander east, they wander west,

And are baffled and beaten and blown about

By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;

To stay at home is best.

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;

The bird is safest in its nest;

O'er all that flutter their wings and fly

A hawk is hovering in the sky;

To stay at home is best.

THE WHITE CZAR

The White Czar is Peter the Great. Batyushka, Father dear, and

Gosudar, Sovereign, are titles the Russian people are fond of

giving to the Czar in their popular songs.

Dost thou see on the rampart's height

That wreath of mist, in the light

Of the midnight moon? O, hist!

It is not a wreath of mist;

It is the Czar, the White Czar,

Batyushka! Gosudar!

He has heard, among the dead,

The artillery roll o'erhead;

The drums and the tramp of feet

Of his soldiery in the street;

He is awake! the White Czar,

Batyushka! Gosudar!

He has heard in the grave the cries

Of his people: "Awake! arise!"

He has rent the gold brocade

Whereof his shroud was made;

He is risen! the White Czar,

Batyushka! Gosudar!

From the Volga and the Don

He has led his armies on,

Over river and morass,

Over desert and mountain pass;

The Czar, the Orthodox Czar,

Batyushka! Gosudar!

He looks from the mountain-chain

Toward the seas, that cleave in twain

The continents; his hand

Points southward o'er the land

Of Roumili! O Czar,

Batyushka! Gosudar!

And the words break from his lips:

"I am the builder of ships,

And my ships shall sail these seas

To the Pillars of Hercules!

I say it; the White Czar,

Batyushka! Gosudar!

"The Bosphorus shall be free;

It shall make room for me;

And the gates of its water-streets

Be unbarred before my fleets.

I say it; the White Czar,

Batyushka! Gosudar!

"And the Christian shall no more

Be crushed, as heretofore,

Beneath thine iron rule,

O Sultan of Istamboul!

I swear it; I the Czar,

Batyushka! Gosudar!"

DELIA

Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives,

When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives,

Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain,

But never will be sung to us again,

Is thy remembrance. Now the hour of rest

Hath come to thee. Sleep, darling; it is best.

ULTIMA THULE

DEDICATION

TO G.W.G.

With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas,

We sailed for the Hesperides,

The land where golden apples grow;

But that, ah! that was long ago.

How far, since then, the ocean streams

Have swept us from that land of dreams,

That land of fiction and of truth,

The lost Atlantis of our youth!

Whither, oh, whither? Are not these

The tempest-haunted Hebrides,

Where sea gulls scream, and breakers roar,

And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?

Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!

Here in thy harbors for a while

We lower our sails; a while we rest

From the unending, endless quest.

POEMS

BAYARD TAYLOR

Dead he lay among his books!

The peace of God was in his looks.

As the statues in the gloom

Watch o'er Maximilian's tomb,

So those volumes from their shelves

Watched him, silent as themselves.

Ah! his hand will nevermore

Turn their storied pages o'er;

Nevermore his lips repeat

Songs of theirs, however sweet.

Let the lifeless body rest!

He is gone, who was its guest;

Gone, as travellers haste to leave

An inn, nor tarry until eve.

Traveller! in what realms afar,

In what planet, in what star,

In what vast, aerial space,

Shines the light upon thy face?

In what gardens of delight

Rest thy weary feet to-night?

Poet! thou, whose latest verse

Was a garland on thy hearse;

Thou hast sung, with organ tone,

In Deukalion's life, thine own;

On the ruins of the Past

Blooms the perfect flower at last.

Friend! but yesterday the bells

Rang for thee their loud farewells;

And to-day they toll for thee,

Lying dead beyond the sea;

Lying dead among thy books,

The peace of God in all thy looks!

THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE

Is it so far from thee

Thou canst no longer see,

In the Chamber over the Gate,

That old man desolate,

Weeping and wailing sore

For his son, who is no more?

O Absalom, my son!

Is it so long ago

That cry of human woe

From the walled city came,

Calling on his dear name,

That it has died away

In the distance of to-day?

O Absalom, my son!

There is no far or near,

There is neither there nor here,

There is neither soon nor late,

In that Chamber over the Gate,

Nor any long ago

To that cry of human woe,

O Absalom, my son!

From the ages that are past

The voice sounds like a blast,

Over seas that wreck and drown,

Over tumult of traffic and town;

And from ages yet to be

Come the echoes back to me,

O Absalom, my son!

Somewhere at every hour

The watchman on the tower

Looks forth, and sees the fleet

Approach of the hurrying feet

Of messengers, that bear

The tidings of despair.

O Absalom, my son!

He goes forth from the door

Who shall return no more.

With him our joy departs;

The light goes out in our hearts;

In the Chamber over the Gate

We sit disconsolate.

O Absalom, my son!

That 't is a common grief

Bringeth but slight relief;

Ours is the bitterest loss,

Ours is the heaviest cross;

And forever the cry will be

"Would God I had died for thee,

O Absalom, my son!"

FROM MY ARM-CHAIR

TO THE CHILDREN OF CAMBRIDGE

Who presented to me on my Seventy-second Birth-day, February 27,

1879, this Chair, made from the Wood of the Village Blacksmith's

Chestnut Tree.

Am I a king, that I should call my own

This splendid ebon throne?

Or by what reason, or what right divine,

Can I proclaim it mine?

Only, perhaps, by right divine of song

It may to me belong;

Only because the spreading chestnut tree

Of old was sung by me.

Well I remember it in all its prime,

When in the summer-time

The affluent foliage of its branches made

A cavern of cool shade.

There, by the blacksmith's forge, beside the street,

Its blossoms white and sweet

Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive,

And murmured like a hive.

And when the winds of autumn, with a shout,

Tossed its great arms about,

The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath,

Dropped to the ground beneath.

And now some fragments of its branches bare,

Shaped as a stately chair,

Have by my hearthstone found a home at last,

And whisper of the past.

The Danish king could not in all his pride

Repel the ocean tide,

But, seated in this chair, I can in rhyme

Roll back the tide of Time.

I see again, as one in vision sees,

The blossoms and the bees,

And hear the children's voices shout and call,

And the brown chestnuts fall.

I see the smithy with its fires aglow,

I hear the bellows blow,

And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat

The iron white with heat!

And thus, dear children, have ye made for me

This day a jubilee,

And to my more than three-score years and ten

Brought back my youth again.

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind,

And in it are enshrined

The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought

The giver's loving thought.

Only your love and your remembrance could

Give life to this dead wood,

And make these branches, leafless now so long,

Blossom again in song.

JUGURTHA

How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

Cried the African monarch, the splendid,

As down to his death in the hollow

Dark dungeons of Rome he descended,

Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended;

How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended,

As the vision, that lured him to follow,

With the mist and the darkness blended,

And the dream of his life was ended;

How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

THE IRON PEN

Made from a fetter of Bonnivard, the Prisoner of Chillon; the

handle of wood from the Frigate Constitution, and bound with a

circlet of gold, inset with three precious stones from Siberia,

Ceylon, and Maine.

I thought this Pen would arise

From the casket where it lies--

Of itself would arise and write

My thanks and my surprise.

When you gave it me under the pines,

I dreamed these gems from the mines

Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine

Would glimmer as thoughts in the lines;

That this iron link from the chain

Of Bonnivard might retain

Some verse of the Poet who sang

Of the prisoner and his pain;

That this wood from the frigate's mast

Might write me a rhyme at last,

As it used to write on the sky

The song of the sea and the blast.

But motionless as I wait,

Like a Bishop lying in state

Lies the Pen, with its mitre of gold,

And its jewels inviolate.

Then must I speak, and say

That the light of that summer day

In the garden under the pines

Shall not fade and pass away.

I shall see you standing there,

Caressed by the fragrant air,

With the shadow on your face,

And the sunshine on your hair.

I shall hear the sweet low tone

Of a voice before unknown,

Saying, "This is from me to you--

From me, and to you alone."

And in words not idle and vain

I shall answer and thank you again

For the gift, and the grace of the gift,

O beautiful Helen of Maine!

And forever this gift will be

As a blessing from you to me,

As a drop of the dew of your youth

On the leaves of an aged tree.

ROBERT BURNS

I see amid the fields of Ayr

A ploughman, who, in foul and fair,

Sings at his task

So clear, we know not if it is

The laverock's song we hear, or his,

Nor care to ask.

For him the ploughing of those fields

A more ethereal harvest yields

Than sheaves of grain;

Songs flush with Purple bloom the rye,

The plover's call, the curlew's cry,

Sing in his brain.

Touched by his hand, the wayside weed

Becomes a flower; the lowliest reed

Beside the stream

Is clothed with beauty; gorse and grass

And heather, where his footsteps pass,

The brighter seem.

He sings of love, whose flame illumes

The darkness of lone cottage rooms;

He feels the force,

The treacherous undertow and stress

Of wayward passions, and no less

The keen remorse.

At moments, wrestling with his fate,

His voice is harsh, but not with hate;

The brushwood, hung

Above the tavern door, lets fall

Its bitter leaf, its drop of gall

Upon his tongue.

But still the music of his song

Rises o'er all elate and strong;

Its master-chords

Are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood,

Its discords but an interlude

Between the words.

And then to die so young and leave

Unfinished what he might achieve!

Yet better sure

Is this, than wandering up and down

An old man in a country town,

Infirm and poor.

For now he haunts his native land

As an immortal youth; his hand

Guides every plough;

He sits beside each ingle-nook,

His voice is in each rushing brook,

Each rustling bough.

His presence haunts this room to-night,

A form of mingled mist and light

From that far coast.

Welcome beneath this roof of mine!

Welcome! this vacant chair is thine,

Dear guest and ghost!

HELEN OF TYRE

What phantom is this that appears

Through the purple mist of the years,

Itself but a mist like these?

A woman of cloud and of fire;

It is she; it is Helen of Tyre,

The town in the midst of the seas.

O Tyre! in thy crowded streets

The phantom appears and retreats,

And the Israelites that sell

Thy lilies and lions of brass,

Look up as they see her pass,

And murmur "Jezebel!"

Then another phantom is seen

At her side, in a gray gabardine,

With beard that floats to his waist;

It is Simon Magus, the Seer;

He speaks, and she pauses to hear

The words he utters in haste.

He says: "From this evil fame,

From this life of sorrow and shame,

I will lift thee and make thee mine;

Thou hast been Queen Candace,

And Helen of Troy, and shalt be

The Intelligence Divine!"

Oh, sweet as the breath of morn,

To the fallen and forlorn

Are whispered words of praise;

For the famished heart believes

The falsehood that tempts and deceives,

And the promise that betrays.

So she follows from land to land

The wizard's beckoning hand,

As a leaf is blown by the gust,

Till she vanishes into night.

O reader, stoop down and write

With thy finger in the dust.

O town in the midst of the seas,

With thy rafts of cedar trees,

Thy merchandise and thy ships,

Thou, too, art become as naught,

A phantom, a shadow, a thought,

A name upon men's lips.

ELEGIAC

Dark is the morning with mist; in the narrow mouth of the harbor

Motionless lies the sea, under its curtain of cloud;

Dreamily glimmer the sails of ships on the distant horizon,

Like to the towers of a town, built on the verge of the sea.

Slowly and stately and still, they sail forth into the ocean;

With them sail my thoughts over the limitless deep,

Farther and farther away, borne on by unsatisfied longings,

Unto Hesperian isles, unto Ausonian shores.

Now they have vanished away, have disappeared in the ocean;

Sunk are the towers of the town into the depths of the sea!

AU have vanished but those that, moored in the neighboring

roadstead,

Sailless at anchor ride, looming so large in the mist.

Vanished, too, are the thoughts, the dim, unsatisfied longings;

Sunk are the turrets of cloud into the ocean of dreams;

While in a haven of rest my heart is riding at anchor,

Held by the chains of love, held by the anchors of trust!

OLD ST. DAVID'S AT RADNOR

What an image of peace and rest

Is this little church among its graves!

All is so quiet; the troubled breast,

The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed,

Here may find the repose it craves.

See, how the ivy climbs and expands

Over this humble hermitage,

And seems to caress with its little hands

The rough, gray stones, as a child that stands

Caressing the wrinkled cheeks of age!