Poems

BY THE SEA

I walked with her I love by the sea,The deep came up with its chanting waves,Making a music so great and freeThat the will and the faith, which were dead in me,Awoke and rose from their graves.Chanting, and with a regal sweepOf their ’broidered garments up and downThe strand, came the mighty waves of the deep,Dragging the wave-worn drift from its sleepAlong the sea-sands bare and brown.“O my soul, make the song of the sea!” I cried.“How it comes, with its stately tread,And its dreadful voice, and the splendid prideOf its regal garments flowing wideOver the land!” to my soul I said.My soul was still; the deep went down.“What hast thou, my soul,” I cried,“In thy song?” “The sea-sands bare and brown,With broken shells and sea-weed strown,And stranded drift,” my soul replied.

SAINT CHRISTOPHER

In the narrow Venetian street,On the wall above the garden gate(Within, the breath of the rose is sweet,And the nightingale sings there, soon and late),Stands Saint Christopher, carven in stone,With the little child in his huge caress,And the arms of the baby Jesus thrownAbout his gigantic tenderness;And over the wall a wandering growthOf darkest and greenest ivy clings,And climbs around them, and holds them bothIn its netted clasp of knots and rings,Clothing the saint from foot to beardIn glittering leaves that whisper and danceTo the child, on his mighty arm upreared,With a lusty summer exuberance.To the child on his arm the faithful saintLooks up with a broad and tranquil joy;His brows and his heavy beard aslantUnder the dimpled chin of the boy,Who plays with the world upon his palm,And bends his smiling looks divineOn the face of the giant mild and calm,And the glittering frolic of the vine.He smiles on either with equal grace,–On the simple ivy’s unconscious life,And the soul in the giant’s lifted face,Strong from the peril of the strife:For both are his own,–the innocenceThat climbs from the heart of earth to heaven,And the virtue that gently rises thenceThrough trial sent and victory given.Grow, ivy, up to his countenance,But it cannot smile on my life as on thine;Look, Saint, with thy trustful, fearless glance,Where I dare not lift these eyes of mine.Venice, 1863.

ELEGY ON JOHN BUTLER HOWELLS

Who died, “with the first song of the birds,” Wednesday morning, April 27, 1864.

IIn the early morning when I wakeAt the hour that is sacred for his sake,And hear the happy birds of springIn the garden under my window sing,And through my window the daybreak blowsThe sweetness of the lily and rose,A dormant anguish wakes with day,And my heart is smitten with strange dismay:Distance wider than thine, O sea,Darkens between my brother and me!IIA scrap of print, a few brief lines,The fatal word that swims and shinesOn my tears, with a meaning new and dread,Make faltering reason know him dead,And I would that my heart might feel it too,And unto its own regret be true;For this is the hardest of all to bear,That his life was so generous and fair,So full of love, so full of hope,Broadening out with ample scope,And so far from death, that his dying seemsThe idle agony of dreamsTo my heart, that feels him living yet,–And I forget, and I forget.IIIHe was almost grown a man when he passedAway, but when I kissed him lastHe was still a child, and I had creptUp to the little room where he slept,And thought to kiss him good-by in his sleep;But he was awake to make me weepWith terrible homesickness, beforeMy wayward feet had passed the door.Round about me clung his embrace,And he pressed against my face his face,As if some prescience whispered him thenThat it never, never should be again.IVOut of far-off days of boyhood dim,When he was a babe and I played with him,I remember his looks and all his ways;And how he grew through childhood’s grace,To the hopes, and strifes, and sports, and joys,And innocent vanity of boys;I hear his whistle at the door,His careless step upon the floor,His song, his jest, his laughter yet,–And I forget, and I forget.VSomewhere in the graveyard that I know,Where the strawberries under the chestnuts grow,They have laid him; and his sisters setOn his grave the flowers their tears have wet;And above his grave, while I write, the songOf the matin robin leaps sweet and strongFrom the leafy dark of the chestnut-tree;And many a murmuring honey-beeOn the strawberry blossoms in the grassStoops by his grave and will not pass;And in the little hollow beneathThe slope of the silent field of death,The cow-bells tinkle soft and sweet,And the cattle go by with homeward feet,And the squirrel barks from the sheltering limb,At the harmless noises not meant for him;And Nature, unto her loving heartHas taken our darling’s mortal part,Tenderly, that he may be,Like the song of the robin in the tree,The blossoms, the grass, the reeds by the shore,A part of Summer evermore.VII write, and the words with my tears are wet,–But I forget, O, I forget!Teach me, Thou that sendest this pain,To know and feel my loss and gain!Let me not falter in beliefOn his death, for that is sorest grief:O, lift me above this wearing strife,Till I discern his deathless life,Shining beyond this misty shore,A part of Heaven evermore.Venice, Wednesday Morning, at Dawn,May 16, 1864.

THANKSGIVING

ILord, for the erring thoughtNot into evil wrought:Lord, for the wicked willBetrayed and baffled still:For the heart from itself kept,Our thanksgiving accept.IIFor ignorant hopes that wereBroken to our blind prayer:For pain, death, sorrow, sentUnto our chastisement:For all loss of seeming good,Quicken our gratitude.

A SPRINGTIME

One knows the spring is coming:There are birds; the fields are green;There is balm in the sunlight and moonlight,And dew in the twilights between.But over there is a silence,A rapture great and dumb,That day when the doubt is ended,And at last the spring is come.Behold the wonder, O silence!Strange as if wrought in a night,–The waited and lingering glory,The world-old, fresh delight!O blossoms that hang like winter,Drifted upon the trees,O birds that sing in the blossoms,O blossom-haunting bees,–O green, green leaves on the branches,O shadowy dark below,O cool of the aisles of orchards,Woods that the wild flowers know,–O air of gold and perfume,Wind, breathing sweet and sun,O sky of perfect azure–Day, Heaven and Earth in one!–Let me draw near thy secret,And in thy deep heart seeHow fared, in doubt and dreaming,The spring that is come in me.For my soul is held in silence,A rapture, great and dumb,–For the mystery that lingered,The glory that is come!1861.

IN EARLIEST SPRING

Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles,Lion-like, March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath,Through all the moaning chimneys, and thwart all the hollows and anglesRound the shuddering house, threating of winter and death.But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadowThrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that liftBud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow,Deep in the oak’s chill core, under the gathering drift.Nay, to earth’s life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire(How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes,–Rapture of life ineffable, perfect,–as if in the brier,Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose.

THE BOBOLINKS ARE SINGING

Out of its fragrant heart of bloom,–The bobolinks are singing!Out of its fragrant heart of bloomThe apple-tree whispers to the room,“Why art thou but a nest of gloom,While the bobolinks are singing?”The two wan ghosts of the chamber there,–The bobolinks are singing!The two wan ghosts of the chamber thereCease in the breath of the honeyed air,Sweep from the room and leave it bare,While the bobolinks are singing.Then with a breath so chill and slow,–The bobolinks are singing!Then with a breath so chill and slow,It freezes the blossoms into snow,The haunted room makes answer low,While the bobolinks are singing.“I know that in the meadow-land,–The bobolinks are singing!I know that in the meadow-landThe sorrowful, slender elm-trees stand,And the brook goes by on the other hand,While the bobolinks are singing.“But ever I see, in the brawling stream,–The bobolinks are singing!But ever I see in the brawling streamA maiden drowned and floating dim,Under the water, like a dream,While the bobolinks are singing.“Buried, she lies in the meadow-land!–The bobolinks are singing!Buried, she lies in the meadow-land,Under the sorrowful elms where they stand.Wind, blow over her soft and bland,While the bobolinks are singing.“O blow, but stir not the ghastly thing,–The bobolinks are singing!O blow, but stir not the ghastly thingThe farmer saw so heavily swingFrom the elm, one merry morn of spring,While the bobolinks were singing.“O blow, and blow away the bloom,–The bobolinks are singing!O blow, and blow away the bloomThat sickens me in my heart of gloom,That sweetly sickens the haunted room,While the bobolinks are singing!”

PRELUDE.

(TO AN EARLY BOOK OF VERSE.)

In March the earliest bluebird cameAnd caroled from the orchard-treeHis little tremulous songs to me,And called upon the summer’s name,And made old summers in my heartAll sweet with flower and sun again;So that I said, “O, not in vainShall be thy lay of little art,“Though never summer sun may glow,Nor summer flower for thee may bloom;Though winter turn in sudden gloom,And drowse the stirring spring with snow”;And learned to trust, if I should callUpon the sacred name of Song,Though chill through March I languish long,And never feel the May at all,Yet may I touch, in some who hear,The hearts, wherein old songs asleepWait but the feeblest touch to leapIn music sweet as summer air!I sing in March brief bluebird lays,And hope a May, and do not know:May be, the heaven is full of snow,–May be, there open summer days.

THE MOVERS.

SKETCH

Parting was over at last, and all the good-bys had been spoken.Up the long hillside road the white-tented wagon moved slowly,Bearing the mother and children, while onward before them the fatherTrudged with his gun on his arm, and the faithful house-dog beside him,Grave and sedate, as if knowing the sorrowful thoughts of his master.April was in her prime, and the day in its dewy awaking:Like a great flower, afar on the crest of the eastern woodland,Goldenly bloomed the sun, and over the beautiful valley,Dim with its dew and shadow, and bright with its dream of a river,Looked to the western hills, and shone on the humble procession,Paining with splendor the children’s eyes, and the heart of the mother.Beauty, and fragrance, and song filled the air like a palpable presence.Sweet was the smell of the dewy leaves and the flowers in the wild-wood,Fair the long reaches of sun and shade in the aisles of the forest.Glad of the spring, and of love, and of morning, the wild birds were singing:Jays to each other called harshly, then mellowly fluted together;Sang the oriole songs as golden and gay as his plumage;Pensively piped the querulous quails their greetings unfrequent,While, on the meadow elm, the meadow lark gushed forth in music,Rapt, exultant, and shaken with the great joy of his singing;Over the river, loud-chattering, aloft in the air, the kingfisherHung, ere he dropped, like a bolt, in the water beneath him;Gossiping, out of the bank flew myriad twittering swallows;And in the boughs of the sycamores quarrelled and clamored the blackbirds.Never for these things a moment halted the Movers, but onward,Up the long hillside road the white-tented wagon moved slowly.Till, on the summit, that overlooked all the beautiful valley,Trembling and spent, the horses came to a standstill unbidden;Then from the wagon the mother in silence got down with her children,Came, and stood by the father, and rested her hand on his shoulder.Long together they gazed on the beautiful valley before them;Looked on the well-known fields that stretched away to the woodlands,Where, in the dark lines of green, showed the milk-white crest of the dogwood,Snow of wild-plums in bloom, and crimson tints of the red-bud;Looked on the pasture-fields where the cattle were lazily grazing,–Soft, and sweet, and thin came the faint, far notes of the cow-bells,–Looked on the oft-trodden lanes, with their elder and blackberry borders,Looked on the orchard, a bloomy sea, with its billows of blossoms.Fair was the scene, yet suddenly strange and all unfamiliar,As are the faces of friends, when the word of farewell has been spoken.Long together they gazed; then at last on the little log-cabin–Home for so many years, now home no longer forever–Rested their tearless eyes in the silent rapture of anguish.Up on the morning air no column of smoke from the chimneyWavering, silver and azure, rose, fading and brightening ever;Shut was the door where yesterday morning the children were playing;Lit with a gleam of the sun the window stared up at them blindly.Cold was the hearthstone now, and the place was forsaken and empty.Empty? Ah no! but haunted by thronging and tenderest fancies,Sad recollections of all that had been, of sorrow or gladness.Still they sat there in the glow of the wide red fire in the winter,Still they sat there by the door in the cool of the still summer evening,Still the mother seemed to be singing her babe there to slumber,Still the father beheld her weep o’er the child that was dying,Still the place was haunted by all the Past’s sorrow and gladness!Neither of them might speak for the thoughts that came crowding their hearts so,Till, in their ignorant trouble aloud the children lamented;Then was the spell of silence dissolved, and the father and motherBurst into tears and embraced, and turned their dim eyes to the Westward.Ohio, 1859.

THROUGH THE MEADOW

The summer sun was soft and bland,As they went through the meadow land.The little wind that hardly shookThe silver of the sleeping brookBlew the gold hair about her eyes,–A mystery of mysteries!So he must often pause, and stoop,And all the wanton ringlets loopBehind her dainty ear–empriseOf slow event and many sighs.Across the stream was scarce a step,–And yet she feared to try the leap;And he, to still her sweet alarm,Must lift her over on his arm.She could not keep the narrow way,For still the little feet would stray,And ever must he bend t’ undoThe tangled grasses from her shoe,–From dainty rosebud lips in pout,Must kiss the perfect flowér out!Ah! little coquette! Fair deceit!Some things are bitter that were sweet.

GONE

Is it the shrewd October windBrings the tears into her eyes?Does it blow so strong that she must fetchHer breath in sudden sighs?The sound of his horse’s feet grows faint,The Rider has passed from sight;The day dies out of the crimson west,And coldly falls the night.She presses her tremulous fingers tightAgainst her closéd eyes,And on the lonesome threshold there,She cowers down and cries.

THE SARCASTIC FAIR

Her mouth is a honey-blossom,No doubt, as the poet sings;But within her lips, the petals,Lurks a cruel bee, that stings.

RAPTURE

In my rhyme I fable anguish,Feigning that my love is dead,Playing at a game of sadness,Singing hope forever fled,–Trailing the slow robes of mourning,Grieving with the player’s art,With the languid palms of sorrowFolded on a dancing heart.I must mix my love with death-dust,Lest the draught should make me mad;I must make believe at sorrow,Lest I perish, over-glad.

DEAD

ISomething lies in the roomOver against my own;The windows are lit with a ghastly bloomOf candles, burning alone,–Untrimmed, and all aflareIn the ghastly silence there!IIPeople go by the door,Tiptoe, holding their breath,And hush the talk that they held before,Lest they should waken Death,That is awake all nightThere in the candlelight!IIIThe cat upon the stairsWatches with flamy eyeFor the sleepy one who shall unawaresLet her go stealing by.She softly, softly purrs,And claws at the banisters.IVThe bird from out its dreamBreaks with a sudden song,That stabs the sense like a sudden scream;The hound the whole night longHowls to the moonless sky,So far, and starry, and high.

THE DOUBT

She sits beside the low window,In the pleasant evening-time,With her face turned to the sunset,Reading a book of rhyme.And the wine-light of the sunset,Stolen into the dainty nook,Where she sits in her sacred beauty,Lies crimson on the book.O beautiful eyes so tender,Brown eyes so tender and dear,Did you leave your reading a momentJust now, as I passed near?Maybe, ’tis the sunset flushesHer features, so lily-pale;Maybe, ’tis the lover’s passion,She reads of in the tale.O darling, and darling, and darling,If I dared to trust my thought;If I dared to believe what I must not,Believe what no one ought,–We would read together the poemOf the Love that never died,The passionate, world-old storyCome true, and glorified.

THE THORN

“Every Rose, you sang, has its Thorn,But this has none, I know.”She clasped my rival’s RoseOver her breast of snow.I bowed to hide my pain,With a man’s unskilful art;I moved my lips, and could not sayThe Thorn was in my heart!

THE MYSTERIES

Once on my mother’s breast, a child, I crept,Holding my breath;There, safe and sad, lay shuddering, and weptAt the dark mystery of Death.Weary and weak, and worn with all unrest,Spent with the strife,–O mother, let me weep upon thy breastAt the sad mystery of Life!

THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS

“The day had been one of dense mists and rains, and much of General Hooker’s battle was fought above the clouds, on the top of Lookout Mountain.”–

General Meig’s Report of the Battle before Chattanooga.Where the dews and the rains of heaven have their fountain,Like its thunder and its lightning our brave burst on the foe,Up above the clouds on Freedom’s Lookout MountainRaining life-blood like water on the valleys down below.O, green be the laurels that grow,O sweet be the wild-buds that blow,In the dells of the mountain where the brave are lying low.Light of our hope and crown of our story,Bright as sunlight, pure as starlight shall their deeds of daring glow,While the day and the night out of heaven shed their glory,On Freedom’s Lookout Mountain whence they routed Freedom’s foe.O, soft be the gales when they goThrough the pines on the summit where they blow,Chanting solemn music for the souls that passed below.

FOR ONE OF THE KILLED

There on the field of battleLies the young warrior dead:Who shall speak in the soldier’s honor?How shall his praise be said?Cannon, there in the battle,Thundered the soldier’s praise,Hark! how the volumed volleys echoDown through the far-off days!Tears for the grief of a father,For a mother’s anguish, tears;But for him that died in his country’s battle,Glory and endless years.

THE TWO WIVES.

(TO COLONEL J. G. M., IN MEMORY OF THE EVENT BEFORE ATLANTA.)

IThe colonel rode by his picket-lineIn the pleasant morning sun,That glanced from him far off to shineOn the crouching rebel picket’s gun.IIFrom his command the captain strodeOut with a grave salute,And talked with the colonel as he rode;–The picket levelled his piece to shoot.IIIThe colonel rode and the captain walked,–The arm of the picket tired;Their faces almost touched as they talked,And, swerved from his aim, the picket fired.IVThe captain fell at the horse’s feet,Wounded and hurt to death,Calling upon a name that was sweetAs God is good, with his dying breath.VAnd the colonel that leaped from his horse and kneltTo close the eyes so dim,A high remorse for God’s mercy felt,Knowing the shot was meant for him.VIAnd he whispered, prayer-like, under his breath,The name of his own young wife:For Love, that had made his friend’s peace with Death,Alone could make his with life.

BEREAVED

The passionate humming-birds clingTo the honeysuckles’ hearts;In and out at the open windowThe twittering house-wren darts,And the sun is bright.June is young, and warm, and sweet;The morning is gay and new;Glimmers yet the grass of the door-yard,Pearl-gray with fragrant dew,And the sun is bright.From the mill, upon the stream,A busy murmur swells;On to the pasture go the cattle,Lowing, with tinkling bells,And the sun is bright.She gathers his playthings up,And dreamily puts them by;Children are playing in the meadow,She hears their joyous cry,And the sun is bright.She sits and clasps her brow,And looks with swollen eyesOn the landscape that reels and dances,–To herself she softly cries,And the sun is bright.

THE SNOW-BIRDS

The lonesome graveyard lieth,A deep with silent wavesOf night-long snow, all white, and billowedOver the hidden graves.The snow-birds come in the morning,Flocking and fluttering low,And light on the graveyard brambles,And twitter there in the snow.The Singer, old and weary,Looks out from his narrow room:“Ah, me! but my thoughts are snow-birds,Haunting a graveyard gloom,“Where all the Past is buriedAnd dead, these many years,Under the drifted whitenessOf frozen falls of tears.“Poor birds! that know not summer,Nor sun, nor flowèrs fair,–Only the graveyard brambles,And graves, and winter air!”

VAGARY

Up and down the dusty street,I hurry with my burning feet;Against my face the wind-waves beat,Fierce from the city-sea of heat.Deep in my heart the vision is,Of meadow grass and meadow treesBlown silver in the summer breeze,And ripe, red, hillside strawberries.My sense the city tumult fills,–The tumult that about me reelsOf strokes and cries, and feet and wheels.Deep in my dream I list, and, hark!From out the maple’s leafy dark,The fluting of the meadow lark!About the throngéd street I go:There is no face here that I know;Of all that pass me to and froThere is no face here that I know.Deep in my soul’s most sacred place,With a sweet pain I look and traceThe features of a tender face,All lit with love and girlish grace.Some spell is on me, for I seemA memory of the past, a dreamOf happiness remembered dim,Unto myself that walk the streetScathed with the city’s noontide heat,With puzzled brain and burning feet.

FEUERBILDER

The children sit by the firesideWith their little faces in bloom;And behind, the lily-pale mother,Looking out of the gloom,Flushes in cheek and foreheadWith a light and sudden start;But the father sits there silent,From the firelight apart.“Now, what dost thou see in the embers?Tell it to me, my child,”Whispers the lily-pale motherTo her daughter sweet and mild.“O, I see a sky and a moonIn the coals and ashes there,And under, two are walkingIn a garden of flowers so fair.“A lady gay, and her lover,Talking with low-voiced words,Not to waken the dreaming flowersAnd the sleepy little birds.”Back in the gloom the motherShrinks with a sudden sigh.“Now, what dost thou see in the embers?”Cries the father to the boy.“O, I see a wedding-processionGo in at the church’s door,–Ladies in silk and knights in steel,–A hundred of them, and more.“The bride’s face is as white as a lily,And the groom’s head is white as snow;And without, with plumes and tapers,A funeral paces slow.”Loudly then laughed the father,And shouted again for cheer,And called to the drowsy housemaidTo fetch him a pipe and beer.

AVERY.

[Niagara, 1853.]

IAll night long they heard in the houses beside the shore,Heard, or seemed to hear, through the multitudinous roar,Out of the hell of the rapids as ’twere a lost soul’s cries,–Heard and could not believe; and the morning mocked their eyes,Showing, where wildest and fiercest the waters leaped up and ranRaving round him and past, the visage of a manClinging, or seeming to cling, to the trunk of a tree that, caughtFast in the rocks below, scarce out of the surges raught.Was it a life, could it be, to yon slender hope that clung?Shrill, above all the tumult the answering terror rung.IIUnder the weltering rapids a boat from the bridge is drowned,Over the rocks the lines of another are tangled and wound;And the long, fateful hours of the morning have wasted soon,As it had been in some blessed trance, and now it is noon.Hurry, now with the raft! But O, build it strong and stanch,And to the lines and treacherous rocks look well as you launch!Over the foamy tops of the waves, and their foam-sprent sides,Over the hidden reefs, and through the embattled tides,Onward rushes the raft, with many a lurch and leap,–Lord! if it strike him loose from the hold he scarce can keep!No! through all peril unharmed, it reaches him harmless at last,And to its proven strength he lashes his weakness fast.Now, for the shore! But steady, steady, my men, and slow;Taut, now, the quivering lines; now slack; and so, let her go!Thronging the shores around stand the pitying multitude;Wan as his own are their looks, and a nightmare seems to broodHeavy upon them, and heavy the silence hangs on all,Save for the rapids’ plunge, and the thunder of the fall.But on a sudden thrills from the people still and pale,Chorussing his unheard despair, a desperate wail:Caught on a lurking point of rock it sways and swings,Sport of the pitiless waters, the raft to which he clings.IIIAll the long afternoon it idly swings and sways;And on the shore the crowd lifts up its hands and prays:Lifts to heaven and wrings the hands so helpless to save,Prays for the mercy of God on him whom the rock and the waveBattle for, fettered betwixt them, and who, amidst their strife,Struggles to help his helpers, and fights so hard for his life,–Tugging at rope and at reef, while men weep and women swoon.Priceless second by second, so wastes the afternoon,And it is sunset now; and another boat and the lastDown to him from the bridge through the rapids has safely passed.IVWild through the crowd comes flying a man that nothing can stay,Maddening against the gate that is locked athwart his way.“No! we keep the bridge for them that can help him. You,Tell us, who are you?” “His brother!” “God help you both! Pass through.”Wild, with wide arms of imploring he calls aloud to him,Unto the face of his brother, scarce seen in the distance dim;But in the roar of the rapids his fluttering words are lostAs in a wind of autumn the leaves of autumn are tossed.And from the bridge he sees his brother sever the ropeHolding him to the raft, and rise secure in his hope;Sees all as in a dream the terrible pageantry,–Populous shores, the woods, the sky, the birds flying free;Sees, then, the form,–that, spent with effort and fasting and fear,Flings itself feebly and fails of the boat that is lying so near,–Caught in the long-baffled clutch of the rapids, and rolled and hurledHeadlong on to the cataract’s brink, and out of the world.