Complete Poetical Works

TELEMACHUS VERSUS MENTOR

     Don't mind me, I beg you, old fellow,—I'll do very well here alone;     You must not be kept from your "German" because I've dropped in like        a stone.     Leave all ceremony behind you, leave all thought of aught but        yourself;     And leave, if you like, the Madeira, and a dozen cigars on the shelf.     As for me, you will say to your hostess—well, I scarcely need give        you a cue.     Chant my praise!  All will list to Apollo, though Mercury pipe to a        few.     Say just what you please, my dear boy; there's more eloquence lies        in youth's rash     Outspoken heart-impulse than ever growled under this grizzling        mustache.     Go, don the dress coat of our tyrant,—youth's panoplied armor for        fight,—     And tie the white neckcloth that rumples, like pleasure, and lasts        but a night;     And pray the Nine Gods to avert you what time the Three Sisters        shall frown,     And you'll lose your high-comedy figure, and sit more at ease in        your gown.     He's off!  There's his foot on the staircase.  By Jove, what a bound!        Really now     Did I ever leap like this springald, with Love's chaplet green on my        brow?     Was I such an ass?  No, I fancy.  Indeed, I remember quite plain     A gravity mixed with my transports, a cheerfulness softened my pain.     He's gone!  There's the slam of his cab door, there's the clatter        of hoofs and the wheels;     And while he the light toe is tripping, in this armchair I'll tilt        up my heels.     He's gone, and for what?  For a tremor from a waist like a teetotum        spun;     For a rosebud that's crumpled by many before it is gathered by one.     Is there naught in the halo of youth but the glow of a passionate     race—'Midst the cheers and applause of a crowd—to the goal of a        beautiful face?     A race that is not to the swift, a prize that no merits enforce,     But is won by some faineant youth, who shall simply walk over the        course?     Poor boy! shall I shock his conceit?  When he talks of her cheek's        loveliness,     Shall I say 'twas the air of the room, and was due to carbonic excess?     That when waltzing she drooped on his breast, and the veins of her        eyelids grew dim,     'Twas oxygen's absence she felt, but never the presence of him?     Shall I tell him first love is a fraud, a weakling that's strangled        in birth,     Recalled with perfunctory tears, but lost in unsanctified mirth?     Or shall I go bid him believe in all womankind's charm, and forget     In the light ringing laugh of the world the rattlesnake's gay        castanet?     Shall I tear out a leaf from my heart, from that book that forever        is shut     On the past?  Shall I speak of my first love—Augusta—my Lalage?        But     I forget.  Was it really Augusta?  No. 'Twas Lucy!  No.  Mary!        No.  Di!     Never mind! they were all first and faithless, and yet—I've forgotten        just why.     No, no!  Let him dream on and ever.  Alas! he will waken too soon;     And it doesn't look well for October to always be preaching at June.     Poor boy!  All his fond foolish trophies pinned yonder—a bow from        HER hair,     A few billets-doux, invitations, and—what's this?  My name, I        declare!     Humph!  "You'll come, for I've got you a prize, with beauty and money        no end:     You know her, I think; 'twas on dit she once was engaged to your        friend;     But she says that's all over."  Ah, is it?  Sweet Ethel! incomparable        maid!     Or—what if the thing were a trick?—this letter so freely displayed!—     My opportune presence!  No! nonsense!  Will nobody answer the bell?     Call a cab!  Half past ten.  Not too late yet.  Oh, Ethel!  Why don't        you go?  Well?     "Master said you would wait"–  Hang your master!  "Have I ever a        message to send?"     Yes, tell him I've gone to the German to dance with the friend of        his friend.

WHAT THE WOLF REALLY SAID TO LITTLE RED RIDING-HOOD

     Wondering maiden, so puzzled and fair,     Why dost thou murmur and ponder and stare?     "Why are my eyelids so open and wild?"     Only the better to see with, my child!     Only the better and clearer to view     Cheeks that are rosy and eyes that are blue.     Dost thou still wonder, and ask why these arms     Fill thy soft bosom with tender alarms,     Swaying so wickedly?  Are they misplaced     Clasping or shielding some delicate waist?     Hands whose coarse sinews may fill you with fear     Only the better protect you, my dear!     Little Red Riding-Hood, when in the street,     Why do I press your small hand when we meet?     Why, when you timidly offered your cheek,     Why did I sigh, and why didn't I speak?     Why, well: you see—if the truth must appear—     I'm not your grandmother, Riding-Hood, dear!

HALF AN HOUR BEFORE SUPPER

     "So she's here, your unknown Dulcinea, the lady you met on the train,     And you really believe she would know you if you were to meet her        again?"     "Of course," he replied, "she would know me; there never was        womankind yet     Forgot the effect she inspired.  She excuses, but does not forget."     "Then you told her your love?" asked the elder.  The younger looked        up with a smile:     "I sat by her side half an hour—what else was I doing the while?     "What, sit by the side of a woman as fair as the sun in the sky,     And look somewhere else lest the dazzle flash back from your own to        her eye?     "No, I hold that the speech of the tongue be as frank and as bold as        the look,     And I held up herself to herself,—that was more than she got from        her book."     "Young blood!" laughed the elder; "no doubt you are voicing the mode        of To-Day:     But then we old fogies at least gave the lady some chance for delay.     "There's my wife (you must know),—we first met on the journey from        Florence to Rome:     It took me three weeks to discover who was she and where was her home;     "Three more to be duly presented; three more ere I saw her again;     And a year ere my romance BEGAN where yours ended that day on the        train."     "Oh, that was the style of the stage-coach; we travel to-day by        express;     Forty miles to the hour," he answered, "won't admit of a passion        that's less."     "But what if you make a mistake?" quoth the elder.  The younger half        sighed.     "What happens when signals are wrong or switches misplaced?" he        replied.     "Very well, I must bow to your wisdom," the elder returned, "but        submit     Your chances of winning this woman your boldness has bettered no whit.     "Why, you do not at best know her name.  And what if I try your ideal     With something, if not quite so fair, at least more en regle and real?     "Let me find you a partner.  Nay, come, I insist—you shall follow—        this way.     My dear, will you not add your grace to entreat Mr. Rapid to stay?     "My wife, Mr. Rapid—  Eh, what!  Why, he's gone—yet he said he        would come.     How rude!  I don't wonder, my dear, you are properly crimson and        dumb!"

WHAT THE BULLET SANG

     O joy of creation           To be!     O rapture to fly           And be free!     Be the battle lost or won,     Though its smoke shall hide the sun,     I shall find my love,—the one           Born for me!     I shall know him where he stands,           All alone,     With the power in his hands           Not o'erthrown;     I shall know him by his face,     By his godlike front and grace;     I shall hold him for a space,           All my own!     It is he—O my love!           So bold!     It is I—all thy love           Foretold!     It is I.  O love! what bliss!     Dost thou answer to my kiss?     O sweetheart! what is this           Lieth there so cold?

THE OLD CAMP-FIRE

     Now shift the blanket pad before your saddle back you fling,     And draw your cinch up tighter till the sweat drops from the ring:     We've a dozen miles to cover ere we reach the next divide.     Our limbs are stiffer now than when we first set out to ride,     And worse, the horses know it, and feel the leg-grip tire,     Since in the days when, long ago, we sought the old camp-fire.     Yes, twenty years!  Lord! how we'd scent its incense down the trail,     Through balm of bay and spice of spruce, when eye and ear would fail,     And worn and faint from useless quest we crept, like this, to rest,     Or, flushed with luck and youthful hope, we rode, like this, abreast.     Ay! straighten up, old friend, and let the mustang think he's nigher,     Through looser rein and stirrup strain, the welcome old camp-fire.     You know the shout that would ring out before us down the glade,     And start the blue jays like a flight of arrows through the shade,     And sift the thin pine needles down like slanting, shining rain,     And send the squirrels scampering back to their holes again,     Until we saw, blue-veiled and dim, or leaping like desire,     That flame of twenty years ago, which lit the old camp-fire.     And then that rest on Nature's breast, when talk had dropped, and slow     The night wind went from tree to tree with challenge soft and low!     We lay on lazy elbows propped, or stood to stir the flame,     Till up the soaring redwood's shaft our shadows danced and came,     As if to draw us with the sparks, high o'er its unseen spire,     To the five stars that kept their ward above the old camp-fire,—     Those picket stars whose tranquil watch half soothed, half shamed        our sleep.     What recked we then what beasts or men around might lurk or creep?     We lay and heard with listless ears the far-off panther's cry,     The near coyote's snarling snap, the grizzly's deep-drawn sigh,     The brown bear's blundering human tread, the gray wolves' yelping        choir     Beyond the magic circle drawn around the old camp-fire.     And then that morn!  Was ever morn so filled with all things new?     The light that fell through long brown aisles from out the kindling        blue,     The creak and yawn of stretching boughs, the jay-bird's early call,     The rat-tat-tat of woodpecker that waked the woodland hall,     The fainter stir of lower life in fern and brake and brier,     Till flashing leaped the torch of Day from last night's old camp-fire!     Well, well! we'll see it once again; we should be near it now;     It's scarce a mile to where the trail strikes off to skirt the slough,     And then the dip to Indian Spring, the wooded rise, and—strange!     Yet here should stand the blasted pine that marked our farther range;     And here—what's this?  A ragged swab of ruts and stumps and mire!     Sure this is not the sacred grove that hid the old camp-fire!     Yet here's the "blaze" I cut myself, and there's the stumbling ledge,     With quartz "outcrop" that lay atop, now leveled to its edge,     And mounds of moss-grown stumps beside the woodman's rotting chips,     And gashes in the hillside, that gape with dumb red lips.     And yet above the shattered wreck and ruin, curling higher—     Ah yes!—still lifts the smoke that marked the welcome old camp-fire!     Perhaps some friend of twenty years still lingers there to raise     To weary hearts and tired eyes that beacon of old days.     Perhaps but stay; 'tis gone! and yet once more it lifts as though     To meet our tardy blundering steps, and seems to MOVE, and lo!     Whirls by us in a rush of sound,—the vanished funeral pyre     Of hopes and fears that twenty years burned in the old camp-fire!     For see, beyond the prospect spreads, with chimney, spire, and roof,—     Two iron bands across the trail clank to our mustang's hoof;     Above them leap two blackened threads from limb-lopped tree to tree,     To where the whitewashed station speeds its message to the sea.     Rein in!  Rein in!  The quest is o'er.  The goal of our desire     Is but the train whose track has lain across the old camp-fire!

THE STATION-MASTER OF LONE PRAIRIE

     An empty bench, a sky of grayest etching,     A bare, bleak shed in blackest silhouette,     Twelve years of platform, and before them stretching     Twelve miles of prairie glimmering through the wet.     North, south, east, west,—the same dull gray persistence,     The tattered vapors of a vanished train,     The narrowing rails that meet to pierce the distance,     Or break the columns of the far-off rain.     Naught but myself; nor form nor figure breaking     The long hushed level and stark shining waste;     Nothing that moves to fill the vision aching,     When the last shadow fled in sullen haste.     Nothing beyond.  Ah yes!  From out the station     A stiff, gaunt figure thrown against the sky,     Beckoning me with some wooden salutation     Caught from his signals as the train flashed by;     Yielding me place beside him with dumb gesture     Born of that reticence of sky and air.     We sit apart, yet wrapped in that one vesture     Of silence, sadness, and unspoken care:     Each following his own thought,—around us darkening     The rain-washed boundaries and stretching track,—     Each following those dim parallels and hearkening     For long-lost voices that will not come back.     Until, unasked,—I knew not why or wherefore,—     He yielded, bit by bit, his dreary past,     Like gathered clouds that seemed to thicken there for     Some dull down-dropping of their care at last.     Long had he lived there.  As a boy had started     From the stacked corn the Indian's painted face;     Heard the wolves' howl the wearying waste that parted     His father's hut from the last camping-place.     Nature had mocked him: thrice had claimed the reaping,     With scythe of fire, of lands she once had sown;     Sent the tornado, round his hearthstone heaping     Rafters, dead faces that were like his own.     Then came the War Time.  When its shadow beckoned     He had walked dumbly where the flag had led     Through swamp and fen,—unknown, unpraised, unreckoned,—     To famine, fever, and a prison bed.     Till the storm passed, and the slow tide returning     Cast him, a wreck, beneath his native sky;     Here, at his watch, gave him the chance of earning     Scant means to live—who won the right to die.     All this I heard—or seemed to hear—half blending     With the low murmur of the coming breeze,     The call of some lost bird, and the unending     And tireless sobbing of those grassy seas.     Until at last the spell of desolation     Broke with a trembling star and far-off cry.     The coming train!  I glanced around the station,     All was as empty as the upper sky!     Naught but myself; nor form nor figure waking     The long hushed level and stark shining waste;     Naught but myself, that cry, and the dull shaking     Of wheel and axle, stopped in breathless haste!     "Now, then—look sharp!  Eh, what?  The Station-Master?     THAR'S NONE!  We stopped here of our own accord.     The man got killed in that down-train disaster     This time last evening.  Right there!  All aboard!"

THE MISSION BELLS OF MONTEREY

     O bells that rang, O bells that sang     Above the martyrs' wilderness,     Till from that reddened coast-line sprang     The Gospel seed to cheer and bless,     What are your garnered sheaves to-day?     O Mission bells!  Eleison bells!     O Mission bells of Monterey!     O bells that crash, O bells that clash     Above the chimney-crowded plain,     On wall and tower your voices dash,     But never with the old refrain;     In mart and temple gone astray!     Ye dangle bells!  Ye jangle bells!     Ye wrangle bells of Monterey!     O bells that die, so far, so nigh,     Come back once more across the sea;     Not with the zealot's furious cry,     Not with the creed's austerity;     Come with His love alone to stay,     O Mission bells!  Eleison bells!     O Mission bells of Monterey!* This poem was set to music by Monsieur Charles Gounod.

"CROTALUS"

(RATTLESNAKE BAR, SIERRAS)     No life in earth, or air, or sky;     The sunbeams, broken silently,     On the bared rocks around me lie,—     Cold rocks with half-warmed lichens scarred,     And scales of moss; and scarce a yard     Away, one long strip, yellow-barred.     Lost in a cleft!  'Tis but a stride     To reach it, thrust its roots aside,     And lift it on thy stick astride!     Yet stay!  That moment is thy grace!     For round thee, thrilling air and space,     A chattering terror fills the place!     A sound as of dry bones that stir     In the dead Valley!  By yon fir     The locust stops its noonday whir!     The wild bird hears; smote with the sound,     As if by bullet brought to ground,     On broken wing, dips, wheeling round!     The hare, transfixed, with trembling lip,     Halts, breathless, on pulsating hip,     And palsied tread, and heels that slip.     Enough, old friend!—'tis thou.  Forget     My heedless foot, nor longer fret     The peace with thy grim castanet!     I know thee!  Yes!  Thou mayst forego     That lifted crest; the measured blow     Beyond which thy pride scorns to go,     Or yet retract!  For me no spell     Lights those slit orbs, where, some think, dwell     Machicolated fires of hell!     I only know thee humble, bold,     Haughty, with miseries untold,     And the old Curse that left thee cold,     And drove thee ever to the sun,     On blistering rocks; nor made thee shun     Our cabin's hearth, when day was done,     And the spent ashes warmed thee best;     We knew thee,—silent, joyless guest     Of our rude ingle.  E'en thy quest     Of the rare milk-bowl seemed to be     Naught but a brother's poverty,     And Spartan taste that kept thee free     From lust and rapine.  Thou! whose fame     Searchest the grass with tongue of flame,     Making all creatures seem thy game;     When the whole woods before thee run,     Asked but—when all was said and done—     To lie, untrodden, in the sun!

ON WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT

DEAD AT PITTSFIELD, MASS., 1876     O poor Romancer—thou whose printed page,     Filled with rude speech and ruder forms of strife,     Was given to heroes in whose vulgar rage     No trace appears of gentler ways and life!—     Thou who wast wont of commoner clay to build     Some rough Achilles or some Ajax tall;     Thou whose free brush too oft was wont to gild     Some single virtue till it dazzled all;—     What right hast thou beside this laureled bier     Whereon all manhood lies—whereon the wreath     Of Harvard rests, the civic crown, and here     The starry flag, and sword and jeweled sheath?     Seest thou these hatchments?  Knowest thou this blood     Nourished the heroes of Colonial days—     Sent to the dim and savage-haunted wood     Those sad-eyed Puritans with hymns of praise?     Look round thee!  Everywhere is classic ground.     There Greylock rears.  Beside yon silver "Bowl"     Great Hawthorne dwelt, and in its mirror found     Those quaint, strange shapes that filled his poet's soul.     Still silent, Stranger?  Thou who now and then     Touched the too credulous ear with pathos, canst not speak?     Hast lost thy ready skill of tongue and pen?     What, Jester!  Tears upon that painted cheek?     Pardon, good friends!  I am not here to mar     His laureled wreaths with this poor tinseled crown—     This man who taught me how 'twas better far     To be the poem than to write it down.     I bring no lesson.  Well have others preached     This sword that dealt full many a gallant blow;     I come once more to touch the hand that reached     Its knightly gauntlet to the vanquished foe.     O pale Aristocrat, that liest there,     So cold, so silent!  Couldst thou not in grace     Have borne with us still longer, and so spare     The scorn we see in that proud, placid face?     "Hail and farewell!"  So the proud Roman cried     O'er his dead hero.  "Hail," but not "farewell."     With each high thought thou walkest side by side;     We feel thee, touch thee, know who wrought the spell!

THE BIRDS OF CIRENCESTER

     Did I ever tell you, my dears, the way     That the birds of Cisseter—"Cisseter!" eh?     Well "Ciren-cester"—one OUGHT to say,     From "Castra," or "Caster,"     As your Latin master     Will further explain to you some day;     Though even the wisest err,     And Shakespeare writes "Ci-cester,"     While every visitor     Who doesn't say "Cissiter"     Is in "Ciren-cester" considered astray.     A hundred miles from London town—     Where the river goes curving and broadening down     From tree-top to spire, and spire to mast,     Till it tumbles outright in the Channel at last—     A hundred miles from that flat foreshore     That the Danes and the Northmen haunt no more—     There's a little cup in the Cotswold hills     Which a spring in a meadow bubbles and fills,     Spanned by a heron's wing—crossed by a stride—     Calm and untroubled by dreams of pride,     Guiltless of Fame or ambition's aims,     That is the source of the lordly Thames!     Remark here again that custom contemns     Both "Tames" and Thames—you must SAY "Tems!"     But WHY? no matter!—from them you can see     Cirencester's tall spires loom up o'er the lea.     A. D. Five Hundred and Fifty-two,     The Saxon invaders—a terrible crew—     Had forced the lines of the Britons through;     And Cirencester, half mud and thatch,     Dry and crisp as a tinder match,     Was fiercely beleaguered by foes, who'd catch     At any device that could harry and rout     The folk that so boldly were holding out.     For the streets of the town—as you'll see to-day—     Were twisted and curved in a curious way     That kept the invaders still at bay;     And the longest bolt that a Saxon drew     Was stopped ere a dozen of yards it flew,     By a turn in the street, and a law so true     That even these robbers—of all laws scorners!—     Knew you couldn't shoot arrows AROUND street corners.     So they sat them down on a little knoll,     And each man scratched his Saxon poll,     And stared at the sky, where, clear and high,     The birds of that summer went singing by,     As if, in his glee, each motley jester     Were mocking the foes of Cirencester,     Till the jeering crow and the saucy linnet     Seemed all to be saying: "Ah! you're not in it!"     High o'er their heads the mavis flew,     And the "ouzel-cock so black of hue;"     And the "throstle," with his "note so true"     (You remember what Shakespeare says—HE knew);     And the soaring lark, that kept dropping through     Like a bucket spilling in wells of blue;     And the merlin—seen on heraldic panes—     With legs as vague as the Queen of Spain's;     And the dashing swift that would ricochet     From the tufts of grasses before them, yet—     Like bold Antaeus—would each time bring     New life from the earth, barely touched by his wing;     And the swallow and martlet that always knew     The straightest way home.  Here a Saxon churl drew     His breath—tapped his forehead—an idea had got through!     So they brought them some nets, which straightway they filled     With the swallows and martlets—the sweet birds who build     In the houses of man—all that innocent guild     Who sing at their labor on eaves and in thatch—     And they stuck on their feathers a rude lighted match     Made of resin and tow.  Then they let them all go     To be free!  As a child-like diversion?  Ah, no!     To work Cirencester's red ruin and woe.     For straight to each nest they flew, in wild quest     Of their homes and their fledgelings—that they loved the best;     And straighter than arrow of Saxon e'er sped     They shot o'er the curving streets, high overhead,     Bringing fire and terror to roof tree and bed,     Till the town broke in flame, wherever they came,     To the Briton's red ruin—the Saxon's red shame!     Yet they're all gone together!  To-day you'll dig up     From "mound" or from "barrow" some arrow or cup.     Their fame is forgotten—their story is ended—     'Neath the feet of the race they have mixed with and blended.     But the birds are unchanged—the ouzel-cock sings,     Still gold on his crest and still black on his wings;     And the lark chants on high, as he mounts to the sky,     Still brown in his coat and still dim in his eye;     While the swallow or martlet is still a free nester     In the eaves and the roofs of thrice-built Cirencester.

LINES TO A PORTRAIT, BY A SUPERIOR PERSON

     When I bought you for a song,     Years ago—Lord knows how long!—     I was struck—I may be wrong—         By your features,     And—a something in your air     That I couldn't quite compare     To my other plain or fair         Fellow creatures.     In your simple, oval frame     You were not well known to fame,     But to me—'twas all the same—         Whoe'er drew you;     For your face I can't forget,     Though I oftentimes regret     That, somehow, I never yet         Saw quite through you.     Yet each morning, when I rise,     I go first to greet your eyes;     And, in turn, YOU scrutinize         My presentment.     And when shades of evening fall,     As you hang upon my wall,     You're the last thing I recall         With contentment.     It is weakness, yet I know     That I never turned to go     Anywhere, for weal or woe,         But I lingered     For one parting, thrilling flash     From your eyes, to give that dash     To the curl of my mustache,         That I fingered.     If to some you may seem plain,     And when people glance again     Where you hang, their lips refrain.         From confession;     Yet they turn in stealth aside,     And I note, they try to hide     How much they are satisfied         In expression.     Other faces I have seen;     Other forms have come between;     Other things I have, I ween,         Done and dared for!     But OUR ties they cannot sever,     And, though I should say it never,     You're the only one I ever         Really cared for!     And you'll still be hanging there     When we're both the worse for wear,     And the silver's on my hair         And off your backing;     Yet my faith shall never pass     In my dear old shaving-glass,     Till my face and yours, alas!         Both are lacking!