Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.
From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came Chanticleer’s muffled crow,
The stiff rails were softened to swan’s down,
And still fluttered down the snow.
I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.
I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.
Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, “Father, who makes it snow?”
And I told of the good All-father
Who cares for us here below.
Again I looked at the snow-fall
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o’er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.
I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar of our deep-plunged woe.
And again to the child I whispered,
“The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall!”
Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That _my_ kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.
* * * * *
FOURTH OF JULY ODE.
I.
OUR fathers fought for liberty,
They struggled long and well,
History of their deeds can tell――
But did they leave us free?
II.
Are we free from vanity,
Free from pride, and free from self,
Free from love of power and pelf,
From everything that’s beggarly?
III.
Are we free from stubborn will,
From low hate and malice small,
From opinion’s tyrant thrall?
Are none of us our own slaves still?
IV.
Are we free to speak our thought,
To be happy, and be poor,
Free to enter Heaven’s door,
To live and labor as we ought?
V.
Are we then made free at last
From the fear of what men say,
Free to reverence To-day,
Free from the slavery of the Past?
VI.
Our fathers fought for liberty,
They struggled long and well,
History of their deeds can tell――
But _ourselves_ must set us free.
* * * * *
THE DANDELION.
DEAR common flower, that grow’st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
First pledge of blithesome May,
Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,
High-hearted buccaneers, o’erjoyed that they
An Eldorado in the grass have found,
Which not the rich earth’s ample round
May match in wealth――thou art more dear to me
Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.
Gold such as thine ne’er drew the Spanish prow
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,
Nor wrinkled the lean brow
Of age, to rob the lover’s heart of ease;
’Tis the Spring’s largess, which she scatters now
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,
Though most hearts never understand
To take it at GOD’s value, but pass by
The offer’d wealth with unrewarded eye.
Thou art my trophies and mine Italy;
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;
The eyes thou givest me
Are in the heart, and heed not space or time;
Not in mid June the golden-cuirass’d bee
Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment
In the white lily’s breezy tint,
His conquer’d Sybaris, than I, when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.
Then think I of deep shadows on the grass――
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,
Where, as the breezes pass,
The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways――
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
Or whiten in the wind――of waters blue
That from the distance sparkle through
Some woodland gap――and of a sky above,
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.
My childhood’s earliest thoughts are link’d with thee;
The sight of thee calls back the robin’s song,
Who, from the dark old tree
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,
And I, secure in childish piety,
Listen’d as if I heard an angel sing
With news from heaven, which he did bring
Fresh every day to my untainted ears,
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.
How like a prodigal doth Nature seem,
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!
Thou teachest me to deem
More sacredly of every human heart,
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,
And with a child’s undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of GOD’s book.
* * * * *
THE ALPINE SHEEP.
It is proper, in connection with the writings of Lowell, to
insert the following poem by his wife, Maria White Lowell, a
singularly accomplished and beautiful woman, born July 8, 1821,
married to the poet Lowell in 1844, died on the 22d of October,
1853. In 1855 her husband had a volume of her poetry privately
printed, the character of which may be judged from the
following touching lines addressed to a friend after the loss
of a child.
WHEN on my ear your loss was knell’d,
And tender sympathy upburst,
A little spring from memory well’d,
Which once had quench’d my bitter thirst,
And I was fain to bear to you
A portion of its mild relief,
That it might be a healing dew,
To steal some fever from your grief.
After our child’s untroubled breath
Up to the Father took its way,
And on our home the shade of Death
Like a long twilight haunting lay,
And friends came round, with us to weep
Her little spirit’s swift remove,
The story of the Alpine sheep
Was told to us by one we love.
They, in the valley’s sheltering care,
Soon crop the meadow’s tender prime,
And when the sod grows brown and bare,
The shepherd strives to make them climb
To airy shelves of pasture green,
That hang along the mountain’s side,
Where grass and flowers together lean,
And down through mists the sunbeams slide.
But naught can tempt the timid things
The steep and rugged path to try,
Though sweet the shepherds calls and sings,
And sear’d below the pastures lie,
Till in his arms his lambs he takes,
Along the dizzy verge to go:
Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks,
They follow on o’er rock and snow.
And in these pastures, lifted fair,
More dewy-soft than lowland mead,
The shepherd drops his tender care,
And sheep and lambs together feed.
This parable, by Nature breathed,
Blew on me as the south wind free
O’er frozen brooks that flow unsheathed
From icy thraldom to the sea.
A blissful vision through the night
Would all my happy senses sway
Of the Good Shepherd on the height,
Or climbing up the starry way,
Holding our little lamb asleep,
While, like the murmur of the sea,
Sounded that voice along the deep,
Saying, “Arise and follow me.”
Illustration: SOUVENIR OF LOWELL
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
BAYARD TAYLOR.
RENOWNED POET, TRAVELER AND JOURNALIST.
THE subject of this sketch ♦began life as a farmer boy. He was born in
Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 11th, 1825. After a few years
study in country schools he was apprenticed to a West Chester printer,
with whom he remained until he learned that trade. In his boyhood
he wrote verses, and before he was twenty years of age published his
first book entitled, “Ximena and other Poems.” Through this book he
formed the acquaintance of Dr. Griswold, editor of “Graham’s Magazine,”
Philadelphia, who gave him letters of recommendation to New York,
where he received encouragement from N. P. Willis and Horace Greeley,
the latter agreeing to publish his letters from abroad in the event of
his making a journey, contemplated, to the old world.
♦ “begun” replaced with “began”
Thus encouraged he set out to make a tour of Europe, having less than
one hundred and fifty dollars to defray expenses. He was absent two
years, during which time he traveled over Europe on foot, supporting
himself entirely by stopping now and then in Germany to work at the
printer’s trade and by his literary correspondence, for which he
received only $500.00. He was fully repaid for this hardship, however,
by the proceeds of his book (which he published on his return in
1846), “Views Afoot, or Europe as Seen with Knapsack and Staff.” This
was regarded as one of the most delightful books of travel that had
appeared up to that time, and six editions of it were sold within
one year. It is still one of the most popular of the series of eleven
books of travel written during the course of his life. In 1848 he
further immortalized this journey and added to his fame by publishing
“Rhymes of Travel,” a volume of verse.
Taylor was an insatiable nomad, visiting in his travels the remotest
regions. “His wandering feet pressed the soil of all the continents,
and his observing eyes saw the strange and beautiful things of the
world from the equator to the frozen North and South;” and wherever
he went the world saw through his eyes and heard through his ears the
things he saw and heard. Europe, India, Japan, Central Africa, the
Soudan, Egypt, Palestine, Iceland and California contributed their
quota to the ready pen of this incessant traveler and rapid worker. He
was a man of buoyant nature with an eager appetite for new experiences,
a remarkable memory, and a talent for learning languages. His poetry
is full of glow and picturesqueness, in style suggestive of both
Tennyson and Shelly. His famous “Bedouin Song” is strongly imitative
of Shelly’s “Lines to an Indian Air.” He was an admirable parodist
and translator. His translation of “Faust” so closely adheres to
Goethe’s original metre that it is considered one of the proudest
accomplishments in American letters. Taylor is generally considered
first among our poets succeeding the generation of Poe, Longfellow and
Lowell.
The novels of the traveler, of which he wrote only four, the scenes
being laid in Pennsylvania and New York, possess the same eloquent
profusion manifest in his verse, and give the reader the impression
of having been written with the ease and dash which characterize
his stories of travel. In fact, his busy life was too much hurried
to allow the spending of much time on anything. His literary life
occupied only thirty-four years and in that time he wrote thirty-seven
volumes. He entered almost every department of literature and always
displayed high literary ability. Besides his volumes of travel and the
four novels referred to he was a constant newspaper correspondent, and
then came the greatest labor of all, poetry. This he regarded as his
realm, and it was his hope of fame. Voluminous as were the works of
travel and fiction and herculean the efforts necessary to do the prose
writing he turned off, it was, after all, but the antechamber to his
real labors. It was to poetry that he devoted most thought and most
time.
In 1877 Bayard Taylor was appointed minister to Berlin by President
Hayes, and died December 19th, 1878, while serving his country in that
capacity.
* * * * *
THE BISON-TRACK.
STRIKE the tent! the sun has risen; not a cloud has ribb’d the
dawn,
And the frosted prairie brightens to the westward, far and wan;
Prime afresh the trusty rifle――sharpen well the hunting-spear――
For the frozen sod is trembling, and a noise of hoofs I hear!
Fiercely stamp the tether’d horses, as they snuff the
morning’s fire,
And their flashing heads are tossing, with a neigh of keen
desire;
Strike the tent――the saddles wait us! let the bridle-reins be
slack,
For the prairie’s distant thunder has betray’d the bison’s
track!
See! a dusky line approaches; hark! the onward-surging roar,
Like the din of wintry breakers on a sounding wall of shore!
Dust and sand behind them whirling, snort the foremost of the
van,
And the stubborn horns are striking, through the crowded
caravan.
Now the storm is down upon us――let the madden’d horses go!
We shall ride the living whirlwind, though a hundred leagues
it blow!
Though the surgy manes should thicken, and the red eyes’ angry
glare
Lighten round us as we gallop through the sand and rushing air!
Myriad hoofs will scar the prairie, in our wild, resistless
race,
And a sound, like mighty waters, thunder down the desert space:
Yet the rein may not be tighten’d, nor the rider’s eye look
back――
Death to him whose speed should slacken on the madden’d
bison’s track!
Now the trampling herds are threaded, and the chase is close
and warm
For the giant bull that gallops in the edges of the storm:
Hurl your lassoes swift and fearless――swing your rifles as we
run!
Ha! the dust is red behind him; shout, my brothers, he is won!
Look not on him as he staggers――’tis the last shot he will
need;
More shall fall, among his fellows, ere we run the bold
stampede――
Ere we stem the swarthy breakers――while the wolves, a hungry
pack,
Howl around each grim-eyed carcass, on the bloody bison-track!
* * * * *
THE SONG OF THE CAMP.
“GIVE us a song!” the soldiers cried,
The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
Grew weary of bombarding.
The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay, grim and threatening, under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belched its thunder.
There was a pause. A guardsman said,
“We storm the forts to-morrow,
Sing while we may, another day
Will bring enough of sorrow.”
There lay along the battery’s side,
Below the smoking cannon,
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde,
And from the banks of Shannon.
They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain’s glory;
Each heart recalled a different name
But all sang “Annie Lawrie.”
Voice after voice caught up the song,
Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong,――
Their battle-eve confession.
Dear girl, her name he dared not speak,
But, as the song grew louder,
Something on the soldier’s cheek
Washed off the stains of powder.
Beyond the darkening ocean burned
The bloody sunset’s embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned
How English love remembers.
And once again a fire of hell
Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot, and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars!
And Irish Nora’s eyes are dim
For a singer, dumb and gory;
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of “Annie Lawrie.”
Sleep, soldier! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing;
The bravest are the tenderest,――
The loving are the daring.
* * * * *
BEDOUIN SONG.
FROM the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
_Till the sun grows cold,_
_And the stars are old,_
_And the leaves of the Judgment_
_Book unfold!_
Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
_Till the sun grows cold,_
_And the stars are old,_
_And the leaves of the Judgment_
_Book unfold!_
My steps are nightly driven,
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
_Till the sun grows cold,_
_And the stars are old,_
_And the leaves of the Judgment_
_Book unfold!_
* * * * *
THE ARAB TO THE PALM.
NEXT to thee, O fair gazelle,
O Beddowee girl, beloved so well;
Next to the fearless Nedjidee,
Whose fleetness shall bear me again to thee;
Next to ye both I love the Palm,
With his leaves of beauty, his fruit of balm;
Next to ye both I love the Tree
Whose fluttering shadow wraps us three
With love, and silence, and mystery!
Our tribe is many, our poets vie
With any under the Arab sky;
Yet none can sing of the Palm but I.
The marble minarets that begem
Cairo’s citadel-diadem
Are not so light as his slender stem.
He lifts his leaves in the sunbeam’s glance
As the Almehs lift their arms in dance――
A slumberous motion, a passionate sign,
That works in the cells of the blood like wine.
Full of passion and sorrow is he,
Dreaming where the beloved may be.
And when the warm south-winds arise,
He breathes his longing in fervid sighs――
Quickening odors, kisses of balm,
That drop in the lap of his chosen palm.
The sun may flame and the sands may stir,
But the breath of his passion reaches her.
O Tree of Love, by that love of thine,
Teach me how I shall soften mine!
Give me the secret of the sun,
Whereby the wooed is ever won!
If I were a King, O stately Tree,
A likeness, glorious as might be,
In the court of my palace I’d build for thee!
With a shaft of silver, burnished bright,
And leaves of beryl and malachite.
With spikes of golden bloom a-blaze,
And fruits of topaz and chrysoprase:
And there the poets, in thy praise,
Should night and morning frame new lays――
New measures sung to tunes divine;
But none, O Palm, should equal mine!
* * * * *
LIFE ON THE NILE.
――――“The life thou seek’st
Thou’lt find beside the eternal Nile.”
――_Moore’s Alciphron._
THE Nile is the Paradise of travel. I thought I had already fathomed
all the depths of enjoyment which the traveler’s restless life
could reach――enjoyment more varied and exciting, but far less serene
and enduring, than that of a quiet home; but here I have reached
a fountain too pure and powerful to be exhausted. I never before
experienced such a thorough deliverance from all the petty annoyances
of travel in other lands, such perfect contentment of spirit, such
entire abandonment to the best influences of nature. Every day opens
with a _jubilate_, and closes with a thanksgiving. If such a balm and
blessing as this life has been to me, thus far, can be felt twice in
one’s existence, there must be another Nile somewhere in the world.
Other travelers undoubtedly make other experiences and take away
other impressions. I can even conceive circumstances which would
almost destroy the pleasure of the journey. The same exquisitely
sensitive temperament, which in our case has not been disturbed by a
single untoward incident, might easily be kept in a state of constant
derangement by an unsympathetic companion, a cheating dragoman,
or a fractious crew. There are also many trifling _desagrémens_,
inseparable from life in Egypt, which some would consider a source
of annoyance; but, as we find fewer than we were prepared to meet, we
are not troubled thereby.
* * * * *
Our manner of life is simple, and might even be called monotonous;
but we have never found the greatest variety of landscape and
incident so thoroughly enjoyable. The scenery of the Nile, thus far,
scarcely changes from day to day, in its forms and colors, but only
in their disposition with regard to each other. The shores are either
palm-groves, fields of cane and dourra, young wheat, or patches of
bare sand blown out from the desert. The villages are all the same
agglomerations of mud walls, the tombs of the Moslem saints are the
same white ovens, and every individual camel and buffalo resembles its
neighbor in picturesque ugliness. The Arabian and Libyan Mountains,
now sweeping so far into the foreground that their yellow cliffs
overhang the Nile, now receding into the violet haze of the horizon,
exhibit little difference of height, hue, or geological formation.
Every new scene is the turn of a kaleidoscope, in which the same
objects are grouped in other relations, yet always characterized by
the most perfect harmony. These slight yet ever-renewing changes are
to us a source of endless delight. Either from the pure atmosphere,
the healthy life we lead, or the accordant tone of our spirits, we
find ourselves unusually sensitive to all the slightest touches,
the most minute rays, of that grace and harmony which bathes every
landscape in cloudless sunshine. The various groupings of the
palms, the shifting of the blue evening shadows on the rose-hued
mountain-walls, the green of the wheat and sugar-cane, the windings
of the great river, the alternations of wind and calm,――each of these
is enough to content us, and to give every day a different charm from
that which went before. We meet contrary winds, calms, and sand-banks,
without losing our patience; and even our excitement in the swiftness
and grace with which our vessel scuds before the north wind, is
mingled with a regret that our journey is drawing so much the more
swiftly to its close. A portion of the old Egyptian repose seems to be
infused into our natures; and lately, when I saw my face in a mirror,
I thought I perceived in its features something of the patience and
resignation of the sphinx.
* * * * *
My friend, the Howadji, in whose “Nile Notes” the Egyptian atmosphere
is so perfectly reproduced, says that “conscience falls asleep on the
Nile.” If by this he means that artificial quality which bigots and
sectarians call conscience, I quite agree with him, and do not blame
the Nile for its soporific powers. But that simple faculty of the soul,
native to all men, which acts best when it acts unconsciously, and
leads our passions and desires into right paths without seeming to
lead them, is vastly strengthened by this quiet and healthy life.
There is a cathedral-like solemnity in the air of Egypt; one feels
the presence of the altar, and is a better man without his will. To
those rendered misanthropic by disappointed ambition, mistrustful by
betrayed confidence, despairing by unassuageable sorrow, let me repeat
the motto which heads this chapter.
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.
POET, AND THE MOST NOTED MAGAZINIST OF HIS DAY.
IT is perhaps unfortunate for Willis that he was such a devotee of
fashion and form as to attain a reputation for “foppishness.” Almost
all men of genius have some habit or besetting sin which renders them
personally more or less unpopular and sometimes even odious to the
public eye. The noted poet, Coleridge, of England, had the opium habit,
and many people who know this cannot divest their minds of a certain
loathing for the man when they come to read his poems. The drink
habit of Edgar Allen Poe and other unfortunate facts in his personal
life have created a popular prejudice also against this brilliant but
erratic genius. A like prejudice exists against the poet naturalist,
Thoreau, whose isolation from men and attempt to live on a mere
pittance has prejudiced many minds against the reading of his
profitable productions; for it has been said that no man ever lived
closer to the heart of nature than did this friend of the birds, the
insects, animals, flowers, mountains and rivers. It is doubtful if any
man in literature has lived a purer life or possessed in his sphere
a more exalted genius, given us so close an insight into nature, or
awakened a more enthusiastic study of the subject.
Therefore let us look with a deserving charity upon the personal
pride, or “foppishness,” if we may call it such, of the poet, Willis.
He certainly deserves more general reputation as a poet than modern
critics are disposed to accord him. Many of his pieces are of an
extraordinary grade of merit, signifying a most analytical and poetic
mind, and evincing a marked talent and facility for versification and
prose writing executed in a style of peculiar grace and beauty.
Nathaniel Parker Willis was born in Portland, January 20th 1806. The
family traces its ancestry back to the fifteenth century in England,
and for more than two hundred years prior to his birth both his
paternal and maternal ancestors had lived in New England. The poet’s
father was for several years publisher and editor of the Easton
“Argus,” a political paper established at Portland, Maine, in 1803.
He founded a religious paper, the Boston “Recorder,” in 1816, which he
conducted for twenty years, and he was also the founder of the first
child’s newspaper in the world, which is the now famous and widely
circulated “Youth’s Companion.” Willis was six years old when his
father removed to Boston. He had the best educational facilities
from private tutors and select schools, completing his course at Yale
College, where he graduated in 1827. While in college he published
several religious poems ♦under the signature of “Roy,” gaining in
one instance a prize of fifty dollars for the best poem. After his
graduation Willis became the editor of a series of volumes published
by S. G. Goodrich, entitled “The Legendary.” He next established the
“American Monthly Magazine” which he merged after two years into the
New York “Mirror,” to which paper his “Pencilings by the Way” were
contributed during a four year’s tour in Europe, on which journey he
was attached to the American legation at Paris, and with a diplomatic
passport visited the various capitals of Europe and the East. During
this sojourn, in 1835, he married Miss Mary Stace, daughter of a
Waterloo officer.
♦ ‘unter’ replaced with ‘under’
After his marriage Mr. Willis returned to this country with his wife
and established a home on the Susquehanna River, which he called
Glenmary, the latter part of the word being in honor of his wife. Here
he hoped to spend the remainder of his days quietly in such literary
work as pleased his taste, but the resources from which his support
came were swept away in a financial disaster and he was forced to
return to active life. He disposed of his country seat, removed to New
York, and in connection with Dr. Porter established the “Corsair,” a
weekly journal. In the interest of this publication Mr. Willis made a
second journey to England, engaging Mr. Thackeray and other well-known
writers as contributors. While absent he published a miscellany of his
magazine stories with the title of “Loiterings of Travel” and also two
of his plays. On returning to New York he found that Dr. Porter had
suddenly abandoned their project in discouragement and he formed a new
connection with the “Evening Mirror.” Soon after this the death of his
wife occurred, his own health failed, and he went abroad determining
to spend his life in Germany. On reaching Berlin he was attached to
the American legation, but went away on a leave of absence to place
his daughter in school in England. In the meantime his health grew so
precarious that instead of returning to Berlin he sailed for America,
where he spent the remainder of his life in contributing to various
magazines. He established a home, “Idlewild,” in the highlands of the
Hudson beyond West Point, where he died in 1867 on his sixty-first
birthday.
Throughout his life Mr. Willis was an untiring worker and his days
were no doubt ended much earlier than if he had taken proper rest.
“The poetry of Mr. Willis,” says Duyckinck, “is musical and original.
His religious poems belong to a class of composition which critics
might object to did not experience show them to be pleasing and
profitable interpreters to many minds. The versification of these
poems is of remarkable smoothness. Indeed they have gained the
author’s reputation where his nicer poems would have failed to be
appreciated. On the other hand his novel in rhyme, ‘Lady Jane,’ is
one of the very choicest of the numerous poems cast in the model
of ‘Don Juan;’ while his dramas are delicate creations of sentiment
and passion with a relic of the old poetic Elizabethan stage.” As a
traveler Mr. Willis has no superior in representing the humors and
experiences of the world. He is sympathetic, witty, observant, and at
the same time inventive. That his labors were pursued through broken
health with unremitting diligence is another claim to consideration
which the public should be prompt to acknowledge.
* * * * *
DAVID’S LAMENT FOR ABSALOM.
THE waters slept. Night’s silvery veil hung low
On Jordan’s bosom, and the eddies curled
Their glassy rings beneath it, like the still,
Unbroken beating of the sleeper’s pulse.
The reeds bent down the stream: the willow leaves
With a soft cheek upon the lulling tide,
Forgot the lifting winds; and the long stems
Whose flowers the water, like a gentle nurse
Bears on its bosom, quietly gave way,
And leaned, in graceful attitude, to rest.
How strikingly the course of nature tells
By its light heed of human suffering,
That it was fashioned for a happier world.
King David’s limbs were weary. He had fled
From far Jerusalem: and now he stood
With his faint people, for a little space,
Upon the shore of Jordan. The light wind
Of morn was stirring, and he bared his brow,
To its refreshing breath; for he had worn
The mourner’s covering, and had not felt
That he could see his people until now.
They gathered round him on the fresh green bank
And spoke their kindly words: and as the sun
Rose up in heaven, he knelt among them there,
And bowed his head upon his hands to pray.
Oh! when the heart is full,――when bitter thoughts
Come crowding thickly up for utterance,
And the poor common words of courtesy,
Are such a very mockery――how much
The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer!
He prayed for Israel: and his voice went up
Strongly and fervently. He prayed for those,
Whose love had been his shield: and his deep tones
Grew tremulous. But, oh! for Absalom,――
For his estranged, misguided Absalom.――
The proud bright being who had burst away
In all his princely beauty, to defy
The heart that cherished him――for him he poured
In agony that would not be controlled
Strong supplication, and forgave him there,
Before his God, for his deep sinfulness.
* * * * *
The pall was settled. He who slept beneath
Was straightened for the grave: and as the folds
Sank to the still proportions, they betrayed
The matchless symmetry of Absalom.
His hair was yet unshorn, and silken curls
Were floating round the tassels as they swayed
To the admitted air, as glossy now
As when in hours of gentle dalliance, bathing
The snowy fingers of Judea’s girls.
His helm was at his feet: his banner soiled
With trailing through Jerusalem, was laid,
Reversed, beside him; and the jeweled hilt
Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade,
Rested like mockery on his covered brow.
The soldiers of the king trod to and fro,
Clad in the garb of battle; and their chief,
The mighty Joab, stood beside the bier,
And gazed upon the dark pall steadfastly,
As if he feared the slumberer might stir.
A slow step startled him. He grasped his blade
As if a trumpet rang: but the bent form
Of David entered, and he gave command
In a low tone to his few followers,
And left him with his dead. The King stood still
Till the last echo died: then, throwing off
The sackcloth from his brow, and laying back
The pall from the still features of his child,
He bowed his head upon him, and broke forth
In the resistless eloquence of woe:
“Alas! my noble boy! that thou should’st die,――
Thou who wert made so beautifully fair!
That death should settle in thy glorious eye,
And leave his stillness in this clustering hair――
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb;
My proud boy, Absalom!
“Cold is thy brow, my son! and I am chill
As to my bosom I have tried to press thee――
How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill,
Like a rich harp string, yearning to caress thee――
And hear thy sweet ‘_My father_,’ from these dumb
And cold lips, Absalom!
“The grave hath won thee. I shall hear the gush
Of music, and the voices of the young:
And life will pass me in the mantling blush,
And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung,――
But thou no more with thy sweet voice shall come
To meet me, Absalom!
“And, oh! when I am stricken, and my heart
Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken,
How will its love for thee, as I depart,
Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token!
It were so sweet, amid death’s gathering gloom,
To see thee, Absalom!
“And now farewell. ’Tis hard to give thee up,
With death so like a gentle slumber on thee;
And thy dark sin――oh! I could drink the cup
If from this woe its bitterness had won thee.
May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home,
My lost boy, Absalom!”
He covered up his face, and bowed himself
A moment on his child; then giving him
A look of melting tenderness, he clasped
His hands convulsively, as if in prayer:
And as if strength were given him of God,
He rose up calmly and composed the pall
Firmly and decently,――and left him there,
As if his rest had been a breathing sleep.
* * * * *
THE DYING ALCHEMIST.
THE night-wind with a desolate moan swept by,
And the old shutters of the turret swung
Creaking upon their hinges; and the moon,
As the torn edges of the clouds flew past,
Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes
So dimly, that the watchful eye of death
Scarcely was conscious when it went and came.
The fire beneath his crucible was low,
Yet still it burned: and ever, as his thoughts
Grew insupportable, he raised himself
Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals
With difficult energy; and when the rod
Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye
Felt faint within its socket, he shrank back
Upon his pallet, and, with unclosed lips,
Muttered a curse on death!
The silent room,
From its dim corners, mockingly gave back
His rattling breath; the humming in the fire
Had the distinctness of a knell; and when
Duly the antique horologe beat one,
He drew a phial from beneath his head,
And drank. And instantly his lips compressed,
And, with a shudder in his skeleton frame,
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat
Upright, and communed with himself:
“I did not think to die
Till I had finished what I had to do;
I thought to pierce th’ eternal secret through
With this my mortal eye;
I felt,――Oh, God! it seemeth even now――
This cannot be the death-dew on my brow;
Grant me another year,
God of my spirit!――but a day,――to win
Something to satisfy this thirst within!
I would _know_ something here!
Break for me but one seal that is unbroken!
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken!
“Vain,――vain,――my brain is turning
With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick,
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick,
And I am freezing,――burning,――
Dying! Oh, God! if I might only live!
My phial――――Ha! it thrills me,――I revive.
“Aye,――were not man to die,
He were too mighty for this narrow sphere!
Had he but time to brood on knowledge here,――
Could he but train his eye,――
Might he but wait the mystic word and hour,――
Only his Maker would transcend his power!
“This were indeed to feel
The soul-thirst slacken at the living stream,――
To live, Oh, God! that life is but a dream!
And death――――Aha! I reel,――
Dim,――dim,――I faint, darkness comes o’er my eye,――
Cover me! save me!――――God of heaven! I die!”
’Twas morning, and the old man lay alone.
No friend had closed his eyelids, and his lips,
Open and ashy pale, th’ expression wore
Of his death struggle. His long silvery hair
Lay on his hollow temples, thin and wild,
His frame was wasted, and his features wan
And haggard as with want, and in his palm
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe
Of the last agony had wrung him sore.
The storm was raging still. The shutter swung,
Creaking as harshly in the fitful wind,
And all without went on,――as aye it will,
Sunshine or tempest, reckless that a heart
Is breaking, or has broken, in its change.
The fire beneath the crucible was out.
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them, and the small rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on th’ alembic’s rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at its master’s will.
And thus had passed from its unequal frame
A soul of fire,――a sun-bent eagle stricken.
From his high soaring, down,――an instrument
Broken with its own compass. Oh, how poor
Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies,
Like the adventurous bird that hath outflown
His strength upon the sea, ambition wrecked,――
A thing the thrush might pity, as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest.
* * * * *
THE BELFRY PIGEON.
ON the cross-beam under the Old South bell
The nest of a pigeon is builded well,
In summer and winter that bird is there,
Out and in with the morning air.
I love to see him track the street,
With his wary eye and active feet;
And I often watch him as he springs,
Circling the steeple with easy wings,
Till across the dial his shade has passed,
And the belfry edge is gained at last.
’Tis a bird I love, with its brooding note,
And the trembling throb in its mottled throat;
There’s a human look in its swelling breast.
And the gentle curve of its lowly crest;
And I often stop with the fear I feel,
He runs so close to the rapid wheel.
Whatever is rung on that noisy bell,
Chime of the hour or funeral knell,
The dove in the belfry must hear it well.
When the tongue swings out to the midnight moon,
When the sexton cheerily rings for noon,
When the clock strikes clear at morning light,
When the child is waked with “nine at night,”
When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air,
Filling the spirit with tones of prayer,
Whatever tale in the bell is heard,
He broods on his folded feet, unstirred,
Or, rising half in his rounded nest,
He takes the time to smooth his breast;
Then drops again, with filmed eyes,
And sleeps as the last vibration dies.
Sweet bird! I would that I could be
A hermit in the crowd like thee!
With wings to fly to wood and glen,
Thy lot, like mine, is cast with men;
And daily, with unwilling feet,
I tread, like thee, the crowded street;
But, unlike me, when day is o’er,
Thou canst dismiss the world, and soar;
Or, at a half-felt wish for rest,
Canst smooth the feathers on thy breast,
And drop, forgetful, to thy nest.
I would that in such wings of gold,
I could my weary heart up-fold;
I would I could look down unmoved,
(Unloving as I am unloved,)
And while the world throngs on beneath,
Smooth down my cares, and calmly breathe;
And never sad with others’ sadness,
And never glad with others’ gladness,
Listen, unstirred, to knell or chime,
And, lapped in quiet, bide my time.
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
POET AND JOURNALIST.
WITH no commanding antecedents to support him, Richard Henry Stoddard
has, step by step, fought his way to a position which is alike
creditable to his indomitable energy and his genius. Stoddard was born
July 2, 1825, at Hingham, Mass. His father was a sea-captain, who,
while the poet was yet in his early youth, sailed for Sweden. Tidings
of his vessel never came back,――this was in 1835. The mother removed,
the same year, with her son to New York, where he attended the public
schools of the city. Necessity compelled the widow, as soon as his age
permitted, to put young Stoddard to work, and he was placed in an iron
foundry to learn this trade. “Here he worked for some years,” says one
of his biographers, “dreaming in the intervals of his toil, and even
then moulding his thoughts into the symmetry of verse while he moulded
the moulten metal into shapes of grace.” At the same time he pursued a
course of private reading and study, and began to write poems and
sketches for his own pleasure.
It was in 1847 that the earliest blossoms of his genius appeared in
the “Union Magazine,” which gave evidence that his mind as well as his
body was toiling. In 1848 he issued a small volume of poems entitled,
“Footprints,” which contained some pieces of merit; but he afterwards
suppressed the entire edition. About this time his health failed and,
to recuperate, he gave up, temporarily, his mechanical vocation; but
literature took such possession of him that he never returned to the
foundry.
In 1852 he issued his second volume entitled, “Poems,” and became a
regular contributor to the magazines. In 1860 he was made literary
editor of the “New York World,” which position he retained until 1870,
and since 1880 he has held a similar position on the “New York Mail
and Express.” He, also, from 1853 to 1873 held a government position
in the Custom House of New York. During this time Mr. Stoddard also
edited a number of works with prefaces and introductions by himself,
among which may be mentioned the “Bric-a-Brac Series.” Prominent
titles of the author’s own books are “Songs of Summer,” which appeared
in 1856; “The King’s Bell,” a series of most delicate suggestive
pictures, (1862); “Abraham Lincoln, A Horatian Ode,” (1865); “The
Book of the East,” poems, (1871); a collective edition entitled,
“Poems,” (1880), and “The Lion’s Cub,” poems, (1890).
One of our most eminent literary critics declares: “Mr. Stoddard’s
mind is essentially poetical. All his works are stamped with
earnestness. His style is characterized by purity and grace of
expression. He is a master of rythmical melody and his mode of
treating a subject is sometimes exquisitely subtle. In his poems there
is no rude writing. All is finished and highly glazed. The coloring
is warm, the costumes harmonious, the grouping symmetrical. His poetry
always possesses a spiritual meaning. Every sound and sight in nature
is to him a symbol which strikes some spiritual chord. The trees that
wave at his window, and the moon that silvers his roof are to him
things that play an intimate part in his existence. Thus in all his
poems will be found an echo from an internal to an external nature,
the harmony resulting from the intimate union of both.”
Mrs. Elizabeth Stoddard, the wife of the author, has shared
heartily in the literary labors of her husband, assisting him in his
compilations, and is, herself, author of numerous contributions to the
magazines and a number of pleasing poems. She has also written several
novels.
A dinner was given to Mr. Stoddard by the Author’s Club at the Hotel
Savoy on March 25th, 1897, at which more than one hundred and fifty
persons gathered to do honor to the venerable poet. Mr. E. C. Stedman,
the poet, presided, and good talk abounded. It is impossible in this
space to give any extended note of the addresses. Letters of regret
were received from many friends of Mr. Stoddard who were unable to
be present, including Bishop Potter, Professor Charles Eliot Norton,
Dr. Andrew D. White, William Allen Butler, Donald G. Mitchell, James
Whitcomb Riley and others.
The admirable letter of Donald G. Mitchell (the famous Ik Marvel),
closed in these words:
“There is not one of you who has a truer relish for the charming ways
in which that favorite poet can twist our good mother-English into
resonant shapes of verse. I pray you to tell him so, and that only the
weakness of age――quickened by this wintry March――keeps me from putting
in an ‘Adsum,’ at the roll-call of your guests.”
The “Hoosier Poet” sent these lines to represent him:
O princely poet! kingly heir
Of gifts divinely sent――
Your own――nor envy anywhere,
Nor voice of discontent.
Though, of ourselves, all poor are we,
And frail and weak of wing,
Your height is ours――your ecstasy,
Your glory, where you sing.
Most favored of the gods and great
In gifts beyond our store,
We covet not your rich estate,
But prize our own the more.
The gods give as but gods may do;
We count our riches thus――
They gave their richest gifts to you,
And then gave you to us.
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.
Mr. Stoddard responded to Mr. Riley and others in the poem quoted
below, which shows the vigor of mind and spirit enjoyed by this
venerable poet of three score years and ten and five, on whom the
snows of three-quarters of a century have fallen so lightly that they
seem but to have mellowed rather than weakened his powers.
* * * * *
A CURTAIN CALL.
GENTLEMEN: If I have any right
To come before you here to-night
It is conferred on me by you,
And more for what I tried to do
Than anything that I have done.
A start, perhaps, a race not won!
But ’tis not wholly lost, I see,
For you, at least, believe in me.
Comrades, nay, fellows, let me say,
Since life at most is but a play,
And we are players, one and all,
And this is but a curtain call,
If I were merely player here,
And this assumption of his part,
I might pretend to drop a tear,
And lay my hand upon my heart
And say I could not speak, because
I felt so deeply your applause!
I cannot do this, if I would;
I can but thank you, as I should,
And take the honors you bestow――
A largess, not a lawful claim;
My share thereof is small, I know,
But from your hands to-night is fame――
A precious crown in these pert days
Of purchased or of self-made bays;
You give it――I receive it, then,
Though rather for your sake than mine.
A long and honorable line
Is yours――the Peerage of the Pen,
Founded when this old world was young,
And need was to preserve for men
(Lost else) what had been said and sung,
Tales our forgotten fathers told,
Dimly remembered from of old,
Sonorous canticles and prayers,
Service of elder gods than theirs
Which they knew not; the epic strain
Wherein dead peoples lived again!
A long, unbroken line is ours;
It has outlived whole lines of kings,
Seen mighty empires rise and fall,
And nations pass away like flowers――
Ruin and darkness cover all!
Nothing withstands the stress and strain,
The endless ebb and flow of things,
The rush of Time’s resistless wings!
Nothing? One thing, and not in vain,
One thing remains: Letters remain!
Your art and mine, yours more than mine,
Good fellows of the lettered line,
To whom I owe this Curtain Call,
I thank you all, I greet you all.
Noblesse oblige! But while I may,
Another word, my last, maybe:
When this life-play of mine is ended,
And the black curtain has descended,
Think kindly as you can of me,
And say, for you may truly say,
“This dead player, living, loved his part,
And made it noble as he could,
Not for his own poor personal good,
But for the glory of his art!”
* * * * *
HYMN TO THE BEAUTIFUL.
MY heart is full of tenderness and tears,
And tears are in mine eyes, I know not why;
With all my grief, content to live for years,
Or even this hour to die.
My youth is gone, but that I heed not now;
My love is dead, or worse than dead can be;
My friends drop off like blossoms from a bough,
But nothing troubles me,
Only the golden flush of sunset lies
Within my heart like fire, like dew within my eyes!
Spirit of Beauty! whatsoe’er thou art,
I see thy skirts afar, and feel thy power;
It is thy presence fills this charméd hour,
And fills my charmed heart;
Nor mine alone, but myriads feel thee now,
That know not what they feel, nor why they bow;
Thou canst not be forgot,
For all men worship thee, and know it not;
Nor men alone, but babes with wondrous eyes,
New-comers on the earth, and strangers from the skies!
We hold the keys of Heaven within our hands,
The gift and heirloom of a former state,
And lie in infancy at Heaven’s gate,
Transfigured in the light that streams along the lands!
Around our pillows golden ladders rise,
And up and down the skies,
With winged sandals shod,
The angels come, and go, the messengers of God!
Nor do they, fading from us, e’er depart,――
It is the childish heart;
We walk as heretofore,
Adown their shining ranks, but see them nevermore!
Not Heaven is gone, but we are blind with tears,
Groping our way along the downward slope of years!
From earliest infancy my heart was thine;
With childish feet I trod thy temple aisle;
Not knowing tears, I worshipped thee with smiles,
Or if I ever wept, it was with joy divine!
By day, and night, on land, and sea, and air,――
I saw thee everywhere!
A voice of greeting from the wind was sent;
The mists enfolded me with soft white arms;
The birds did sing to lap me in content,
The rivers wove their charms,
And every little daisy in the grass
Did look up in my face, and smile to see me pass!
Not long can Nature satisfy the mind,
Nor outward fancies feed its inner flame;
We feel a growing want we cannot name,
And long for something sweet, but undefined;
The wants of Beauty other wants create,
Which overflow on others soon or late;
For all that worship thee must ease the heart,
By Love, or Song, or Art:
Divinest Melancholy walks with thee,
Her thin white cheek forever leaned on thine;
And Music leads her sister Poesy,
In exultation shouting songs divine!
But on thy breast Love lies,――immortal child!――
Begot of thine own longings, deep and wild:
The more we worship him, the more we grow
Into thy perfect image here below;
For here below, as in the spheres above,
All Love is Beauty, and all Beauty, Love!
Not from the things around us do we draw
Thy light within; within the light is born;
The growing rays of some forgotten morn,
And added canons of eternal law.
The painter’s picture, the rapt poet’s song,
The sculptor’s statue, never saw the Day;
Not shaped and moulded after aught of clay,
Whose crowning work still does its spirit wrong;
Hue after hue divinest pictures grow,
Line after line immortal songs arise,
And limb by limb, out-starting stern and slow,
The statue wakes with wonder in its eyes!
And in the master’s mind
Sound after sound is born, and dies like wind,
That echoes through a range of ocean caves,
And straight is gone to weave its spell upon the waves!
The mystery is thine,
For thine the more mysterious human heart,
The temple of all wisdom, Beauty’s shrine,
The oracle of Art!
Earth is thine outer court, and Life a breath;
Why should we fear to die, and leave the earth?
Not thine alone the lesser key of Birth,――
But all the keys of Death;
And all the worlds, with all that they contain
Of Life, and Death, and Time, are thine alone;
The universe is girdled with a chain,
And hung below the throne
Where Thou dost sit, the universe to bless,――
Thou sovereign smile of God, eternal loveliness!
* * * * *
A DIRGE.
A FEW frail summers had touched thee,
As they touch the fruit;
Not so bright as thy hair the sunshine,
Not so sweet as thy voice the lute.
Hushed the voice, shorn the hair, all is over:
An urn of white ashes remains;
Nothing else save the tears in our eyes,
And our bitterest, bitterest pains!
We garland the urn with white roses,
Burn incense and gums on the shrine,
Play old tunes with the saddest of closes,
Dear tunes that were thine!
But in vain, all in vain;
Thou art gone――we remain!
* * * * *
THE SHADOW OF THE HAND.
YOU were very charming, Madam,
In your silks and satins fine;
And you made your lovers drunken,
But it was not with your wine!
There were court gallants in dozens,
There were princes of the land,
And they would have perished for you
As they knelt and kissed your hand――
_For they saw no stain upon it,_
_It was such a snowy hand!_
But for me――I knew you better,
And, while you were flaunting there,
I remembered some one lying,
With the blood on his white hair!
He was pleading for you, Madam,
Where the shriven spirits stand;
But the Book of Life was darkened,
By the Shadow of a Hand!
_It was tracing your perdition,_
_For the blood upon your hand!_
* * * * *
A SERENADE.
THE moon is muffled in a cloud,
That folds the lover’s star,
But still beneath thy balcony
I touch my soft guitar.
If thou art waking, Lady dear,
The fairest in the land,
Unbar thy wreathed lattice now,
And wave thy snowy hand.
She hears me not; her spirit lies
In trances mute and deep;――
But Music turns the golden key
Within the gate of Sleep!
Then let her sleep, and if I fail
To set her spirit free!
My song shall mingle in her dream,
And she will dream of me!
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
WALT WHITMAN.
AUTHOR OF “LEAVES OF GRASS.”
PERHAPS the estimates of critics differ more widely respecting the
merits or demerits of Whitman’s verse than on that of any other
American or English poet. Certain European critics regard him as the
greatest of all modern poets. Others, both in this country and abroad,
declare that his so called poems are not poems at all, but simply
a bad variety of prose. One class characterizes him the “poet of
democracy; the spokesman of the future; full of brotherliness and hope,
loving the warm, gregarious pressure of the crowd and the touch of his
comrade’s elbow in the ranks.” The other side, with equal assurance,
assert that the Whitman _culte_ is the passing fad of a few literary
men, and especially of a number of foreign critics like Rosetti,
Swinburne and Buchanan, who were determined to find something
unmistakably American――that is, different from anything else――and
Whitman met this demand both in his personality and his verse. They
further declared that his poetry was superlatively egotistical, his
principal aim being always to laud himself. This criticism they prove
by one of his own poems entitled “Walt Whitman,” in which he boldly
preaches his claim to the love of the masses by declaring himself a
“typical average man” and therefore “not individual” but “universal.”
Perhaps it is better in the scope of this article to leave Walt
Whitman between the fires of his laudators on one side and of his
decriers on the other. Certainly the canons of poetic art will never
consent to the introduction of some things that he has written into
the treasure-house of the muses. For instance,――
“And (I) remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck
and ankles;
He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and passed
North.”
These worse than prosaic lines do not require a critic to declare them
devoid of any element of poetry. But on the other hand, that Whitman
had genius is undeniable. His stalwart verse was often beautifully
rhythmic and the style which he employed was nobly grand. Time will
sift the wheat from the chaff, consuming the latter and preserving the
golden grains of true poetry to enrich the future garners of our great
American literature. No one of the many tributes to Lincoln, not even
Lowell’s noble eulogy, is more deeply charged with exalted feeling
than is Whitman’s dirge for Abraham Lincoln written after the death of
the President, in which the refrain “O Captain, my Captain,” is truly
beautiful. Whitman was no mean master in ordinary blank verse, to
which he often reverted in his most inspiring passages.
One of the chief charms of Whitman’s poetry consists in the fact that
the author seems to feel, himself, always happy and cheerful, and he
writes with an ease and abandon that is pleasant to follow. Like one
strolling about aimlessly amid pleasing surroundings, he lets his
fancy and his senses play and records just what they see or dictate.
This characteristic, perhaps, accounts for the fact that his single
expressions are often unsurpassed for descriptive beauty and truth,
such as the reference to the prairies, “where herds of buffalo make
a crawling spread of the square miles.” Whoever used a more original
and striking figure? Many of his poems strikingly remind one in their
constructions (but not in religious fervor) to the Psalms of David.
There is also often a depth of passion and an intoxication in his
rhythmic chant that is found perhaps in no other writer, as this
specimen, personifying night, will illustrate:
“Press close, bare-bosomed night! Press close, magnetic,
nourishing night!
Night of the South wind! Night of the few larger stars! still,
nodding night! Mad, naked, summer night!”
Again, Whitman was always hopeful. Like Emerson, he renounced all
allegiance to the past, and looked confidently to the future. And this
reminds us that Emerson wrote the introductory to the first edition
of “Leaves of Grass,” which suggests that that writer may have exerted
no small influence in forming Whitman’s style, for the vagueness of
his figures, his disconnected sentences, and occasionally his verbiage,
are not unlike those of the “Concord Prophet.” Again, the question
arises, did he not seek, like Emerson, to be the founder of a school
of authorship? His friendliness toward young authors and his treatment
of them indicate this, and the following he has raised up attests the
success he attained, whether sought or unsought. But the old adage,
“like king like people,” has a deal of truth in it; and as Whitman
was inferior to Emerson in the exaltation of his ideals, and the
unselfishness and sincerity of his nature, so his followers must fall
short of the accomplishments of those who sat at the feet of “the good
and great Emerson.”
Walt Whitman was born at West Hills, Long Island, May 31, 1819,
and was educated at the public schools of Brooklyn and New York.
Subsequently he followed various occupations, among which were those
of printer, teacher, carpenter, journalist, making in the meantime
extended tours in Canada and the United States. During the Civil War
he served as a volunteer nurse in the army hospitals, and at the close
was appointed as government clerk at Washington. In 1873 he had a
severe paralytic attack, which was followed by others, and he took
up his residence in Camden, New Jersey, where he died in 1892. He was
never married.
Mr. Whitman’s principal publications are “Leaves of Grass,” issued
first in 1855, but he continued to add to and revise it, the “finished
edition,” as he called it, appearing in 1881. Succeeding this came
“Drum Taps,” “Two Rivulets,” “Specimen Days and Collect,” “November
Boughs,” “Sands at Seventy.” “Democratic Vista” was a prose work
appearing in 1870. “Good-Bye, My Fancy,” was his last book, prepared
between 1890 and his death. His complete poems and prose have also
been collected in one volume.
Two recent biographies of the poet have been published: one by John
Burroughs, entitled “Walt Whitman, a Study;” the other, “Walt Whitman,
the Man,” by Thomas Donaldson. The titles indicate the difference in
the two treatments. Both biographers are great admirers of Whitman.
* * * * *
DAREST THOU NOW, O SOUL.
The following poems are from “Leaves of Grass” and are
published by special permission of Mr. Horace L. Trauble,
Mr. Whitman’s literary executor.
DAREST thou now, O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?
No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that
land.
I know it not, O soul,
Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land.
Till when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.
Then we burst forth, we float,
In Time and Space, O soul, prepared for them,
Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil,
O soul.
* * * * *
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up――for you the flag is flung――for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths――for you the shores
a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and
done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
* * * * *
IN ALL, MYSELF.
FROM “SONG OF MYSELF.”
The following lines have been commented upon as presenting a
strange and erratic combination of the most commonplace prose
with passionate and sublime poetic sentiment.
I AM the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are
with me;
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I
translate into a new tongue.
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.
I chant the chant of dilation or pride,
We have had ducking and deprecation about enough,
I show that size is only development.
Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?
It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there everyone, and
still pass on.
I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea, half-held by the night.
Press close bare-blossom’d night――press close magnetic
nourishing night!
Night of the South winds――night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night――mad naked summer night.
Smile, O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of the departed sunset――earth of the mountain misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with
blue!
Earth of the shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my
sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth――rich apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.
Prodigal, you have given me love――therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable, passionate love.
* * * * *
OLD IRELAND.
FAR hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave an ancient sorrowful mother,
Once a queen, now lean and tatter’d seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevel’d round her shoulders,
At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,
Long silent, she too long silent, mourning her shrouded hope
and heir,
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow because most
full of love.
Yet a word, ancient mother,
You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground with
forehead between your knees;
O you need not sit there veil’d in your old white hair so
dishevel’d,
For know you the one you mourn is not in that grave;
It was an illusion, the son you love was not really dead;
The Lord is not dead, he is risen again, young and strong,
in another country,
Even while you wept there by your fallen harp by the grave,
What you wept for was translated, pass’d from the grave;
The winds favor’d and the sea sail’d it;
And now, with rosy and new blood,
Moves to-day in a new country.
* * * * *
PÆAN OF JOY.
FROM “THE MYSTIC TRUMPETER.”
Reference has been made to the similarity in style manifested
in some of Whitman’s poems to the style of the Psalmist.
Certain parts of the two selections following justify the
criticism.
NOW trumpeter for thy close,
Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet,
Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope,
Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future,
Give me for once its prophecy and joy.
O glad, exulting, culminating song!
A vigor more than earth’s is in thy notes,
Marches of victory――man disenthral’d――the conqueror at last,
Hymns to the universal God from universal man――all joy!
A reborn race appears――a perfect world, all joy!
Women and men in wisdom, innocence and health――all joy!
Riotous, laughing bacchanals fill’d with joy!
War, sorrow, suffering gone――the rank earth purged――nothing
but joy left!
The ocean fill’d with joy――the atmosphere all joy!
Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of
life!
Enough to merely be! enough to breathe!
Joy! joy! all over joy!
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON.
POET AND SCIENTIST.
DURING the past forty years Indiana has been prolific in producing
prominent men. General Lew Wallace, James Whitcomb Riley, Joaquin
Miller and Maurice Thompson are among the prominent men of letters who
are natives of the “Hoosier State.”
Maurice Thompson is claimed as belonging to both the North and South,
and his record, perhaps, justifies this double claim. He was born at
Fairfield, Indiana, September 9th, 1844, but his parents removed to
Kentucky during his childhood and subsequently to Northern Georgia.
He grew up in the latter state, and was so thoroughly Southern in
sentiment that he enlisted and fought in the Confederate Army. At the
end of the war, however, he returned to Indiana, where he engaged with
a Railway Surveying Party in which he proved himself so efficient that
he was raised from a subordinate to the head position in that work,
which he followed for some years. After a course of study in law,
he began his practice in Crawfordsville, Indiana, the same town in
which General Lew Wallace lived. It was from this section that he was
elected to the legislature in 1879.
Maurice Thompson is not only a man of letters, but is a scientist of
considerable ability. In 1885, he was appointed chief of the State
Geological Survey. He was also a Naturalist devoting much attention to
ornithology. Many of his poems and most delightful prose sketches are
descriptive of bird life.
Mr. Thompson has traveled much in the United States, and his writings
in various periodicals as well as his books have attracted wide
attention for their original observation and extensive information
while they are excelled by few modern writers for poetic richness and
diction.
The first book published by this author was entitled “Hoosier Mosaics”
which appeared in 1875. Since then he has issued quite a number of
volumes among which are “The Witchery of Archey;” “The Tallahassee
Girl;” “His Second Campaign;” “Songs of Fair Weather;” “At Loves
Extremes;” “By Ways and Bird Notes;” “The Boy’s Book of Sports;” “A
Banker of Bankersville;” “Sylvan Secrets;” “The Story of Louisiana;”
“A Fortnight of Folly.”
In 1890 Mr. Thompson published “Bankers of Boonville” and the same
year became a staff writer for the New York Independent.
* * * * *
CERES.¹
(THE GODDESS OF GRAIN.)
THE wheat was flowing ankle-deep
Across the field from side to side;
And dipping in the emerald waves,
The swallows flew in circles wide.
The sun, a moment flaring red,
Shot level rays athwart the world,
Then quenched his fire behind the hills,
With rosy vapors o’er him curled.
A sweet, insinuating calm,――
A calm just one remove from sleep,
Such as a tranquil watcher feels,
Seeing mild stars at midnight sweep
Through splendid purple deeps, and swing
Their old, ripe clusters down the west
To where, on undiscovered hills,
The gods have gathered them to rest,――
A calm like that hung over all
The dusky groves, and, filtered through
The thorny hedges, touched the wheat
Till every blade was bright with dew.
Was it a dream? We call things dreams
When we must needs do so, or own
Belief in old, exploded myths,
Whose very smoke has long since flown.
Was it a dream? Mine own eyes saw,
And Ceres came across the wheat
That, like bright water, dimpled round
The golden sandals of her feet.
¹ By permission of “Houghton, Mifflin & Co.”
* * * * *
DIANA.¹
(THE GODDESS OF THE CHASE.)
SHE had a bow of yellow horn
Like the old moon at early morn.
She had three arrows strong and good,
Steel set in feathered cornel wood.
Like purest pearl her left breast shone
Above her kirtle’s emerald zone;
Her right was bound in silk well-knit,
Lest her bow-string should sever it.
Ripe lips she had, and clear gray eyes,
And hair pure gold blown hoyden-wise.
Across her face like shining mist
That with dawn’s flush is faintly kissed.
Her limbs! how matched and round and fine!
How free like song! how strong like wine!
And, timed to music wild and sweet,
How swift her silver-sandalled feet!
Single of heart and strong of hand,
Wind-like she wandered through the land.
No man (or king or lord or churl)
Dared whisper love to that fair girl.
And woe to him who came upon
Her nude, at bath, like Acteon!
So dire his fate, that one who heard
The flutter of a bathing bird,
What time he crossed a breezy wood,
Felt sudden quickening of his blood;
Cast one swift look, then ran away
Far through the green, thick groves of May;
Afeard, lest down the wind of spring
He’d hear an arrow whispering!
¹ By permission of “Houghton, Mifflin & Co.”
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
WITHOUT the rich imagination of Stoddard, or the versatility of
Stedman, Mr. Aldrich surpasses them both in delicate and artistic
skill. His jewelled lines, exquisitely pointed, express a single mood
or a dainty epigram with a pungent and tasteful beauty that places him
easily at the head of our modern lyrical writers.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich was born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, November
11, 1836. In childhood he was taken to Louisiana, where he remained
a number of years, his father being a merchant at New Orleans. After
returning to Portsmouth, he was preparing for college when his father
suddenly died, making it necessary for him to relinquish this design,
to take a position of immediate remuneration, which he found in his
uncle’s counting house in New York. This pursuit he found so far
removed from the bent of his mind, however, that he gave it up after
three years to take a situation as a reader in a New York publishing
house. During his mercantile career he contributed to the current
press, and afterwards became attached to various periodicals as
contributor or in an editorial capacity. Among others, he worked on
N. P. Willis’ “Home Journal,” the “Illustrated News,” and the “New
York Evening Mirror.” During the Civil War he was for a time with the
Army of the Potomac, as a newspaper correspondent. In 1865, he married,
and removed to Boston, where he edited “The Weekly Journal” every
Saturday. He remained with this paper until 1874. In 1881 he succeeded
William Dean Howells as editor of the “Atlantic Monthly.” This
position he resigned in 1890 in order to devote himself to personal
literary work and travel. The degree of A. M. was conferred upon him
in 1883 by Yale, and in 1896 by Harvard University.
Mr. Aldrich had published one volume of verse, “The Bells” (1854),
a collection of juvenile verses, before the “Ballad of Baby Bell
and Other Poems” appeared in 1858, and made his reputation as a poet.
Other volumes of his poetry issued at the following dates are entitled:
“Pampinea and Other Poems” (1861), “Cloth of Gold and Other Poems”
(1873), “Flower and Thorn” (1876), “Friar Jerome’s Beautiful Book”
(1881), “Mercedes and Later Lyrics” (1883), “Wyndham Towers” (1889),
“Judith and Holofernes, a Poem” (1896).
Among the prose works of the author we mention “Out of His Head, a
Romance” (1862), “The Story of a Bad Boy” (1869),――which became at
once a favorite by its naturalness and purity of spirit,――“♦Marjorie
Daw and Other People” (1873), “Prudence Palfrey” (1874), “The Queen
of Sheba” (1877), “The Stillwater Tragedy” (1880), “From Ponkapog to
Pesth” (1883), “The Sisters Tragedy” (1890), “An Old Town by the Sea;”
and “Two Bites at a Cherry and other Tales” (1893), “Unguarded Gates”
(1895). “Complete Works,” in eight volumes, were published in 1897.
Mr. Aldrich is said to be a man of the world as well as a man of
letters and his personal popularity equals his literary reputation.
We cannot better illustrate his companionable nature and close this
sketch than by presenting the following pen picture of an incident,
clipped from a recent magazine:
♦ ‘Majorie’ replaced with ‘Marjorie’
During a visit to England, upon one occasion, Mr. Aldrich was the
guest of William Black, with a number of other well known people. An
English journalist of some distinction, who had no time to keep in
touch with the personality of poets, met Mr. Aldrich, and they became
excellent friends. They went on long shooting expeditions together,
and found each other more than good companions. The last night of
their stay came, and after dinner Mr. Black made a little speech,
in which he spoke of Mr. Aldrich’s poetry in a graceful fashion. The
London journalist gave a gasp, and looked at Mr. Aldrich, who rose to
make a response, as if he had never seen him before. As the poet sat
down he leaned over him, and said:――
“Say, Aldrich, are you the man who writes books?”
“Yes,” Mr. Aldrich said. “I am glad you don’t know, for I am sure you
liked me for myself.”
Illustration: THOMAS B. ALDRICH’S STUDY.
* * * * *
ALEC YEATON’S SON.¹
GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720.
THE wind it wailed, the wind it moaned,
And the white caps flecked the sea;
“An’ I would to God,” the skipper groaned,
“I had not my boy with me!”
Snug in the stern-sheets, little John
Laughed as the scud swept by;
But the skipper’s sunburnt cheek grew wan
As he watched the wicked sky.
“Would he were at his mother’s side!”
And the skipper’s eyes were dim.
“Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide,
What would become of him!
“For me――my muscles are as steel,
For me let hap what may:
I might make shift upon the keel
Until the break o’ day.
“But he, he is so weak and small,
So young, scarce learned to stand――
O pitying Father of us all,
I trust him in thy hand!
“For Thou, who markest from on high
A sparrow’s fall――each one!――
Surely, O Lord, thou’lt have an eye
On Alec Yeaton’s son!”
Then, steady, helm! Right straight he sailed
Towards the headland light:
The wind it moaned, the wind it wailed,
And black, black fell the night.
Then burst a storm to make one quail
Though housed from winds and waves――
They who could tell about that gale
Must rise from watery graves!
Sudden it came, as sudden went;
Ere half the night was sped,
The winds were hushed, the waves were spent,
And the stars shone overhead.
Now, as the morning mist grew thin,
The folk on Gloucester shore
Saw a little figure floating in
Secure, on a broken oar!
Up rose the cry, “A wreck! a wreck!
Pull, mates, and waste no breath!”――
They knew it, though ’t was but a speck
Upon the edge of death!
Long did they marvel in the town
At God His strange decree,
That let the stalwart skipper drown
And the little child go free!
¹ By special permission of the Author.
* * * * *
ON LYNN TERRACE.¹
ALL day to watch the blue wave curl and break,
All night to hear it plunging on the shore――
In this sea-dream such draughts of life I take,
I cannot ask for more.
Behind me lie the idle life and vain,
The task unfinished, and the weary hours;
That long wave softly bears me back to Spain
And the Alhambra’s towers!
Once more I halt in Andalusian Pass,
To list the mule-bells jingling on the height;
Below, against the dull esparto grass,
The almonds glimmer white.
Huge gateways, wrinkled, with rich grays and browns,
Invite my fancy, and I wander through
The gable-shadowed, zigzag streets of towns
The world’s first sailors knew.
Or, if I will, from out this thin sea-haze
Low-lying cliffs of lovely Calais rise;
Or yonder, with the pomp of olden days,
Venice salutes my eyes.
Or some gaunt castle lures me up its stair;
I see, far off, the red-tiled hamlets shine,
And catch, through slits of windows here and there,
Blue glimpses of the Rhine.
Again I pass Norwegian fjord and fjeld,
And through bleak wastes to where the sunset’s fires
Light up the white-walled Russian citadel,
The Kremlin’s domes and spires.
And now I linger in green English lanes,
By garden plots of rose and heliotrope;
And now I face the sudden pelting rains
On some lone Alpine slope.
Now at Tangier, among the packed bazars,
I saunter, and the merchants at the doors
Smile, and entice me: here are jewels like stars,
And curved knives of the Moors;
Cloths of Damascus, strings of amber dates;
What would Howadji――silver, gold, or stone?
Prone on the sun-scorched plain outside the gates
The camels make their moan.
All this is mine, as I lie dreaming here,
High on the windy terrace, day by day;
And mine the children’s laughter, sweet and clear,
Ringing across the bay.
For me the clouds; the ships sail by for me;
For me the petulant sea-gull takes its flight;
And mine the tender moonrise on the sea,
And hollow caves of night.
¹ By special permission of the Author.
* * * * *
SARGENT’S PORTRAIT OF EDWIN BOOTH AT “THE PLAYERS.”
By Permission of the Author.
WHAT face which no man ever saw
And from his memory banished quite,
With eyes in which are Hamlet’s awe
And Cardinal Richelieu’s subtle light
Looks from this frame. A master’s hand
Has set the master-player here,
In the fair temple¹ that he planned
Not for himself. To us most dear
This image of him! “It was thus
He looked; such pallor touched his cheek;
With that same grace he greeted us――
Nay, ’tis the man, could it but speak!”
Sad words that shall be said some day――
Far fall the day! O cruel Time,
Whose breath sweeps mortal things away,
Spare long this image of his prime,
That others standing in the place
Where, save as ghosts, we come no more,
May know what sweet majestic face
The gentle Prince of Players wore!
¹ The club-house in Gramercy Park, New York, was the gift
of Mr. Booth to the association founded by him and named
“The Players.”
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
“POET, EDITOR AND REFORMER.”
AMONG the current poets of America, few, perhaps, deserve more
favorable mention than the subject of this sketch. His poetry is
notable for its purity of sentiment and delicacy of expression. The
story of his life also is one to stimulate the ambition of youth,
who, in this cultured age, have not enjoyed the benefits of that
college training which has come to be regarded as one of the necessary
preliminaries to literary aspiration. This perhaps is properly so,
that the public may not be too far imposed upon by incompetent writers.
And while it makes the way very hard for him who attempts to scale the
walls and force his passage into the world of letters――having not this
passport through the gateway――it is the more indicative of the “real
genius” that he should assay the task in an heroic effort; and, if he
succeeds in surmounting them, the honor is all the greater, and the
laurel wreath is placed with more genuine enthusiasm upon the victor’s
brow by an applauding public.
Richard Watson Gilder does not enjoy the distinction of being a
college graduate. He received his education principally in Bellevue
Seminary, Bordentown, New Jersey (where he was born February 8, 1844),
under the tutelage of his father, Rev. Wm. H. Gilder. Mr. Gilder’s
intention was to become a lawyer and began to study for that
profession in Philadelphia; but the death of his father, in 1864, made
it necessary for him to abandon law to take up something that would
bring immediate remuneration. This opportunity was found on the staff
of the Newark, New Jersey, “Daily Advertiser,” with which he remained
until 1868, when he resigned and founded the “Newark Morning Register,”
with Newton Crane as joint editor. The next year, Mr. Gilder, then
twenty-five years of age, was called to New York as editor of “Hours
at Home,” a monthly journal.
His editorials in “Hours at Home” attracted public attention, and
some of his poems were recognized as possessing superior merit. Dr. G.
Holland, editor of “Scribner’s Monthly,” was especially drawn to the
rising young poet and when, in 1870, it became the “Century Magazine,”
Dr. Holland chose Mr. Gilder as his associate editor. On the death
of Dr. Holland, in 1881, Mr. Gilder became editor-in-chief. Under
his able management of its columns the popularity of the “Century”
has steadily advanced, the contribution of his pen and especially his
occasional poems adding no small modicum to its high literary standing.
His poetic compositions have been issued from time to time in book
form and comprised several volumes of poems, among which are “The New
Day;” “The Poet and His Master’; “Lyrics;” and “The Celestial Passion.”
Aside from his literary works, Mr. Gilder has been, in a sense, a
politician and reformer. By the word politician we do not mean the
“spoils-hunting partisan class,” but, like Bryant, from patriotic
motives he has been an independent champion of those principles which
he regards to be the interest of his country and mankind at large. He
comes by his disposition to mix thus in public affairs honestly. His
father, before him, was an editor and writer as well as a clergyman.
Thus “he was born,” as the saying goes, “with printer’s ink in his
veins.” When sixteen years of age (1860) he set up and printed a
little paper in New Jersey, which became the organ of the Bell and
Everett party in that section. Since that date he has manifested a
lively interest in all public matters, where he considered the public
good at stake. It was this disposition which forced him to the front
in the movement for the betterment of the condition of tenement-houses
in New York. He was pressed into the presidency of the Tenement-House
Commission in 1894, and through his zeal a thorough inspection was
made――running over a period of eight months――vastly improving the
comfort and health of those who dwell in the crowded tenements of New
York City. The influence of the movement has done much good also in
other cities.
Mr. Gilder also takes a deep interest in education, and our colleges
have no stauncher friend than he. His address on “Public Opinion” has
been delivered by invitation before Yale, Harvard and Johns Hopkins
Universities. We quote a paragraph from this address which clearly
sets forth his conception of public duty as it should be taught by our
institutions of learning:――
“Who will lift high the standard of a disinterested and righteous
public opinion if it is not the institutions of learning, great and
small, private and public, that are scattered throughout our country?
They are the responsible press, and the unsensational but fearless
pulpit――it is these that must discriminate; that must set the standard
of good taste and good morals, personal and public. They together
must cultivate fearless leaders, and they must educate and inspire
the following that makes leadership effectual and saving.”
As appears from the above Mr. Gilder is a man of exalted ideals.
He despises sham, hypocrisy and all “wickedness in high places.”
He regards no man with so much scorn as he who uses his office or
position to defend or shield law-breakers and enemies of the public.
In his own words,――
“He, only, is the despicable one
Who lightly sells his honor as a shield
For fawning knaves, to hide them from the sun.
Too nice for crime yet, coward, he doth yield
For crime a shelter. Swift to Paradise
The contrite thief, not Judas with his price!”
* * * * *
SONNET.
(AFTER THE ITALIAN.)
_From the “Five Books of Song.” (1894.) The Century Co._
I KNOW not if I love her overmuch;
But this I know, that when unto her face
She lifts her hand, which rests there, still, a space,
Then slowly falls――’tis I who feel that touch.
And when she sudden shakes her head, with such
A look, I soon her secret meaning trace.
So when she runs I think ’tis I who race.
Like a poor cripple who has lost his crutch
I am if she is gone; and when she goes,
I know not why, for that is a strange art――
As if myself should from myself depart.
I know not if I love her more than those
Who long her light have known; but for the rose
She covers in her hair, I’d give my heart.
* * * * *
THE LIFE MASK OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
_From “For the Country.” (1897.) The Century Co._
THIS bronze doth keep the very form and mold
Of our great martyr’s face. Yes, this is he:
That brow all wisdom, all benignity;
That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold
Like some harsh landscape all the summer’s gold;
That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea
For storms to beat on; the lone agony
Those silent, patient lips too well foretold.
Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men
As might some prophet of the elder day――
Brooding above the tempest and the fray
With deep-eyed thought, and more than mortal ken.
A power was his beyond the touch of art
Or armed strength――his pure and mighty heart.
* * * * *
SHERIDAN.
_From “For the Country.” (1897.) The Century Co._
QUIETLY, like a child
That sinks in slumber mild,
No pain or troubled thought his well-earned peace to mar,
Sank into endless rest our thunder-bolt of war.
Though his the power to smite
Quick as the lightning’s light,――
His single arm an army, and his name a host,――
Not his the love of blood, the warrior’s cruel boast.
But in the battle’s flame
How glorious he came!――
Even like a white-combed wave that breaks and tears the shore,
While wreck lies strewn behind, and terror flies before.
’Twas he,――his voice, his might,――
Could stay the panic flight,
Alone shame back the headlong, many-leagued retreat,
And turn to evening triumph morning’s foul defeat.
He was our modern Mars;
Yet firm his faith that wars
Ere long would cease to vex the sad, ensanguined earth,
And peace forever reign, as at Christ’s holy birth.
Blest land, in whose dark hour
Arise to loftiest power
No dazzlers of the sword to play the tyrant’s part,
But patriot-soldiers, true and pure and high of heart!
Of such our chief of all;
And he who broke the wall
Of civil strife in twain, no more to build or mend;
And he who hath this day made Death his faithful friend.
And now above his tomb
From out the eternal gloom
“Welcome!” his ♦chieftain’s voice sounds o’er the cannon’s
knell;
And of the three one only stays to say “Farewell!”
♦ “chiftain’s” replaced with “chieftain’s”
* * * * *
SUNSET FROM THE TRAIN.¹
_From “Five Books of Song” (1894)._
BUT then the sunset smiled,
Smiled once and turned toward dark,
Above the distant, wavering line of trees that filed
Along the horizon’s edge;
Like hooded monks that hark
Through evening air
The call to prayer;――
Smiled once, and faded slow, slow, slow away;
When, like a changing dream, the long cloud-wedge,
Brown-gray,
Grew saffron underneath and, ere I knew,
The interspace, green-blue――
The whole, illimitable, western, skyey shore,
The tender, human, silent sunset smiled once more.
Thee, absent loved one, did I think on now,
Wondering if thy deep brow
In dreams of me were lifted to the skies,
Where, by our far sea-home, the sunlight dies;
If thou didst stand alone,
Watching the day pass slowly, slow, as here,
But closer and more dear,
Beyond the meadow and the long, familiar line
Of blackening pine;
When lo! that second smile;――dear heart, it was thine own.
¹ Copyright, The Century Co.
* * * * *
“O SILVER RIVER FLOWING TO THE SEA.”¹
_From “Five Books of Song” (1894)._
O SILVER river flowing to the sea,
Strong, calm, and solemn as thy mountains be!
Poets have sung thy ever-living power,
Thy wintry day, and summer sunset hour;
Have told how rich thou art, how broad, how deep,
What commerce thine, how many myriads reap
The harvest of thy waters. They have sung
Thy moony nights, when every shadow flung
From cliff or pine is peopled with dim ghosts
Of settlers, old-world fairies, or the hosts
Of savage warriors that once plowed thy waves――
Now hurrying to the dance from hidden graves;
The waving outline of thy wooded mountains,
Thy populous towns that stretch from forest fountains
On either side, far to the salty main,
Like golden coins alternate on a chain.
Thou pathway of the empire of the North,
Thy praises through the earth have traveled forth!
I hear thee praised as one who hears the shout
That follows when a hero from the rout
Of battle issues, “Lo, how brave is he,
How noble, proud, and beautiful!” But she
Who knows him best――“How tender!” So thou art
The river of love to me!
――Heart of my heart,
Dear love and bride――is it not so indeed?――
Among your treasures keep this new-plucked reed.
¹ Copyright, The Century Co.
* * * * *
“THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN.”¹
_From “Five Books of Song” (1894)._
THERE is nothing new under the sun;
There is no new hope or despair;
The agony just begun
Is as old as the earth and the air.
My secret soul of bliss
Is one with the singing stars,
And the ancient mountains miss
No hurt that my being mars.
I know as I know my life,
I know as I know my pain,
That there is no lonely strife,
That he is mad who would gain
A separate balm for his woe,
A single pity and cover;
The one great God I know
Hears the same prayer over and over.
I know it because at the portal
Of Heaven I bowed and cried,
And I said: “Was ever a mortal
Thus crowned and crucified!
My praise thou hast made my blame;
My best thou hast made my worst;
My good thou hast turned to shame;
My drink is a flaming thirst.”
But scarce my prayer was said
Ere from that place I turned;
I trembled, I hung my head,
My cheek, shame-smitten, burned;
For there where I bowed down
In my boastful agony,
I thought of thy cross and crown――
O Christ! I remembered thee.
¹ Copyright, The Century Co.
* * * * *
MEMORIAL DAY.¹
_From “Five Books of Song” (1894)._
SHE saw the bayonets flashing in the sun,
The flags that proudly waved; she heard the bugles calling;
She saw the tattered banners falling
About the broken staffs, as one by one
The remnant of the mighty army passed;
And at the last
Flowers for the graves of those whose fight was done.
She heard the tramping of ten thousand feet
As the long line swept round the crowded square;
She heard the incessant hum
That filled the warm and blossom-scented air――
The shrilling fife, the roll and throb of drum,
The happy laugh, the cheer. Oh glorious and meet
To honor thus the dead,
Who chose the better part,
Who for their country bled!
――The dead! Great God! she stood there in the street,
Living, yet dead in soul and mind and heart――
While far away
His grave was decked with flowers by strangers’ hands to-day.
¹ Copyright, The Century Co.
* * * * *
A WOMAN’S THOUGHT.¹
_From “Five Books of Song” (1894)._
I AM a woman――therefore I may not
Call him, cry to him,
Fly to him,
Bid him delay not!
And when he comes to me, I must sit quiet;
Still as a stone――
All silent and cold.
If my heart riot――
Crush and defy it!
Should I grow bold,
Say one dear thing to him,
All my life fling to him,
Cling to him――
What to atone
Is enough for my sinning!
This were the cost to me,
This were my winning――
That he were lost to me.
Not as a lover
At last if he part from me,
Tearing my heart from me,
Hurt beyond cure――
Calm and demure
Then must I hold me,
In myself fold me,
Lest he discover;
Showing no sign to him
By look of mine to him
What he has been to me――
How my heart turns to him,
Follows him, yearns to him,
Prays him to love me.
Pity me, lean to me,
Thou God above me!
¹ Copyright, The Century Co.
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
JOHN HAY.
AUTHOR OF “LITTLE BREECHES.”
ASIDE from General Lew Wallace and Edmund Clarence Stedman few
business men or politicians have made a brighter mark in literature
than the subject of this sketch.
John Hay was born at Salem, Indiana, October 8th, 1838. He was
graduated at Brown’s University at the age of twenty, studied law and
began to practice at Springfield, Illinois, in 1861. Soon after this
he was made private secretary of President Lincoln, which position
he filled throughout the latter’s administration. He also acted as
Lincoln’s adjutant and aid-de-camp, and it was in consequence of this
that he was brevetted colonel. He also saw service under Generals
Hunter and Gilmore as major and assistant adjutant general. After the
close of the war Mr. Hay was appointed United States ♦Secretary of
Legation at Paris, serving in this capacity from 1865 to 1867, when
he was appointed _charge d’affaires_, where he served for two years,
being removed to take a position as Secretary of Legation at Madrid,
where he remained until 1870, at which time he returned to the United
States and accepted an editorial position on the “New York Tribune.”
This he resigned and removed to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1875, where he
entered politics, taking an active part in the presidential campaigns
of 1876, 1880 and 1884. Under President Hayes he was appointed as
first assistant Secretary of State, which position he filled for
nearly three years, and has made his home at Washington since that
date. On March 17th, Mr. Hay was appointed by President McKinley as
ambassador to Great ♣Britain, where he was accorded the usual hearty
welcome tendered by the British to American ambassadors, many of
whom during the past fifty years having been men of high literary
attainment. Shortly after Mr. Hay’s arrival he was called upon to
deliver an address at the unveiling of the Walter Scott monument, in
which he did his country credit and maintained his own reputation as
an orator and a man of letters.
♦ ‘Secrectary’ replaced with ‘Secretary’
♣ ‘Britian’ replaced with ‘Britain’
As an author Mr. Hay’s first published works were the “Pike County
Ballads and Other Pieces” (1871), “Castilian Days” (1871), “Poems”
(1890), and, (in conjunction with Mr. Nicolay), “Abraham Lincoln:
a History,” which is regarded as the authoritative biography of
Mr. Lincoln. This was first published in serial form in the “Century
Magazine” from 1887 to 1889. Colonel Hay has also been a frequent
contributor to high class periodicals, and to him has been ascribed
the authorship of the anonymous novel “The Bread Winners,” which
caused such agitation in labor circles a few years ago.
Like many authors, Mr. Hay came into popularity almost by accident.
Certainly he had no expectation of becoming prominent when he wrote
his poem “Little Breeches;” yet that poem caused him to be remembered
by a wider class of readers, perhaps, than anything else he has
contributed to literature. The following account of how this poem
came to be written was published after Mr. Hay’s appointment to the
Court of St. James in 1897. The statement is given as made by Mr. A. L.
Williams, an acquaintance of Mr. Hay, who lives in Topeka, Kansas,
and knows the circumstances. “The fact is,” says Mr. Williams, “the
poem ‘Little Breeches’ and its reception by the American people make
it one of the most humorous features of this day. It was written as
a burlesque, and for no other purpose. Bret Harte had inaugurated a
maudlin literature at a time when the ‘litery’ people of the United
States were affected with hysteria. Under the inspiration of his
genius, to be good was commonplace, to be virtuous was stupid――only
gamblers, murderers and women of ill fame were heroic. Crime had
reached its apotheosis. John Hay believed that ridicule would help
cure this hysteria, and thus believing, wrote the burlesque, ‘Little
Breeches.’ Wanting to make the burlesque so broad that the commonest
intellect could grasp it, he took for his hero an unspeakably wretched
brat whom no angel would touch unless to drop over the walls into
Tophet, and made him the object of a special angelic miracle.
“Well, John sprung his ‘Little Breeches’ and then sat back with
his mouth wide open to join in the laugh which he thought it would
evoke from his readers. To his intense astonishment, people took
it seriously, and instead of laughing Bret Harte out of the field,
immediately made John Hay a formidable rival to that gentleman.”
Next to “Little Breeches” the poem “Jim Bludso,” perhaps, contributed
most to Mr. Hay’s reputation. Both of these selections will be found
in the succeeding pages.
* * * * *
LITTLE BREECHES.
I DON’T go much on religion,
I never ain’t had no show;
But I’ve got a middlin’ tight grip, sir,
On the handful o’ things I know.
I don’t pan out on the prophets
And free-will, and that sort of thing――
But I b’lieve in God and the angels,
Ever sence one night last spring.