Poems: Descriptive, Dramatic, Legendary and Contemplative, by William Gilmore Simms, Esq. In Two Volumes: Vol. II. I. Southern Passages and Pictures; II. Historical and Dramatic Sketches; III. Scripture Legends; IV. Francesca Da Rimini:
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(title page) Poems: Descriptive, Dramatic, Legendary and Contemplative, by William Gilmore Simms, Esq. In Two Volumes: Vol. II. I. Southern Passages and Pictures; II. Historical and Dramatic Sketches; III. Scripture Legends; IV. Francesca Da Rimini
(spine) Simms' Poetical Works Vol. II.
Simms, William Gilmore, 1806-1870.
[5], 6-360, [361-372] p.
Charleston, S. C.
Published By John Russell
1853
Call number PS2845 .P6 1853 (Rare Book Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
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POEMS
DESCRIPTIVE, DRAMATIC, LEGENDARY
AND
CONTEMPLATIVE
BY
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS, ESQ.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
I. SOUTHERN PASSAGES AND PICTURES
II. HISTORICAL AND DRAMATIC SKETCHES
III. SCRIPTURE LEGENDS
IV. FRANCESCA DA RIMINI
CHARLESTON, S. C.
PUBLISHED BY JOHN RUSSELL
1853
Page verso
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853,
By W. GILMORE SIMMS.
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Page 5
SOUTHERN PASSAGES AND PICTURES.
FLIGHT TO NATURE.
SICK of the crowd, the toil, the strife,
Sweet Nature, how I turn to thee,
Seeking for renovated life,
By brawling brook and shady tree!
I knew thy rocks had spells of old,
To soothe the wanderer's woe to calm,
And in thy waters, clear and cold,
My fev'rish brow would seek for balm.
I've bent beneath thy ancient oak,
And sought for slumber in its shade,
And, as the clouds above me broke,
I dream'd to find the boon I pray'd;
For light--a blessed light--was given,
Wide streaming round me from above,
And in the deep, deep vaults of heaven,
There shone, methought, a look of love.
And, through the long, long summer hours,
When every bird had won its wing,
How sweet to think, amidst thy flowers,
That youth might yet renew its spring;--
Page 6
That sacred season of the heart,
When every pulse with hope is strong,
And, still untaught by selfish art,
Truth fears no guile, and love no wrong.
And who, but nature's self, could yield
The blessing in the prayer I made,
Throned in her realm of wood and field,
Of rocky realm and haunted shade?
Who, but that magic queen, whose sway
Drives winter from his path of strife,
Whilst all her thousand fingers play,
With bud and bird, in games of life!
With these a kindred life I ask,--
Not wealth that mortals vainly seek;
But, in heaven's sunshine let me bask,
My heart as glowing as my cheek;--
An idle heart, that would not heed
That chiding voice, when duty comes,
To drag the soul, but freshly freed,
Back to cold toils and weary glooms.
No lure she finds in mortal schemes,
Which wiser fancies still reprove,--
Far happier in her woodland dreams,
With one sweet teacher, taught by love!
Thou, Nature, that magician be,
Restore each dream that taught the boy,
That warm'd his hope, that made him free,
While wisdom took the shape of joy;
Page 7
And I will bless thee with a song,
As fond as hers, that idle bird,
That sings above me all day long,
As if she knew I watch'd and heard.
THE BROOKLET.
A LITTLE farther on there is a brook,
Where the breeze loiters ever. The great oaks
Have roof'd it with their arms and affluent leaves,
So that the sunbeam rifles not its fount,
While the shade cools it. You may hear it now,
A low faint murmur, as through pebbly paths,
In soft and sinuous progress it flows on,
In streams that make division as they go,
Still parting, still uniting, in one song,
The sweetest mortals know, of constancy.
Thither, ah, thither, if thy heart be sad!--
That song will bring thee solace. Or, if hope
That may not yet find name for what it seeks,
Inspires thee with a dream whose essence brings
Fruition in its keeping,--still, the strain
That's murmur'd by yon brooklet, is the best,--
Having a voice for fancy at its birth,
That keeps it wakeful on its own sweet wings.
And thou wilt gather, for whatever mood
That makes thee fond or thoughtful, a sweet tone
Beguiling thy best sympathies, and still
Leaving in thy keeping, as thou seek'st thy home,
A kindlier sense of what is in thy path.
Page 8
Beside these banks, through the whole livelong day,
Ere yet I noted much the flight of time,
And knew him but in ballad books and songs,
Nor cared to know him better,--I have lain,
Nursing delicious reveries that made
All being but a circle of bright flowers,
With love the centre, sov'ran of that realm,
And I a happy inmate, with the rest.
There, with sweet thoughts, all liquid like the stream
That still inspired their progress, clear and bright,
I lay as one who slept, through happy hours,
Unvex'd by din of duty, unrebuked
By chiding counsellor to youthful cares,
That ever seeks to plant on boyish brow
The winter that has silver'd all its own.
And thus, in long delight, with the rapt soul
Shaping its own elysium of the peace
That harbor'd in the solitude, the eye
Grew momently familiar with sweet forms,
That offer'd to the genius of the place,
Making all consecrate to gentleness.
How came the thrush to whistle as he drank,
Heeding not me, and darting through the copse,
Only to bring his loved one on his wing,
To gather like refreshment? Squirrels dropt
Their nuts adown the bankside where I lay,
And, leaping to recover them, ere yet
They rolled into the brooklet and away,
Swept over me, and with fantastic play
Drew up the feathery brush above their heads,--
And their gray orbs, with bright intelligence,
Cast round them, while from hand to hand they frisk'd
The prize, which none might covet but to feed
Such nimble harlequins. The dove at noon
Page 9
Couch'd in thick bristly covering of the pine,
Sought here its sweet siesta, wooing sleep,
By plaintive iteration of sad notes,
That might be still a sensible happiness:--
And sometimes, meek intruder on my realm,
Through yonder thick emerging, half in light
And half in shadow, stole the timid fawn,
That came down to the basin's edge to drink,
Now lapping, and now turning to the bank,
Cropping the young blade of the coming spring
And heedless, as I lay along unstirr'd,
Of any stranger--sauntering through the shade,
Even where I crouch'd,--having a quiet mood,
And not disturbing, while beholding mine.
Thou smil'st; and on thy lip the speaking thought
Looks still like censure--deems my hours misspent,
And saddens into warning. A shrewd thought,
I will not combat with an argument,
But leave the worldly policy to boast,
That such an errantry as this life of mine,
Hath found its fit sarcasm, well rebuked.
And yet there is a something in the life
Thou mock'st, as idle still and profligate,
Something to life compensative, and dear
To feelings that are fashion'd not by man.
Ah! the delicious sadness of the hours,
Spent by this brooklet--ah! the dreams they brought,
Of other hopes and beings--the sweet truths,
That still subdued the heart to patientness,
And made all flexible in the youthful will,
That else had been most passionate and rash.
I know the toils that gather on my path,
And I will grapple them with a strength that shows
Page 10
A love for the encounter, not the less
For hours thus wasted in the solitude,
And fancies born of dreams--and 'twill not more
Impair the resolute courage of my heart,
Wrestling with toil, in conflicts of the race,
If still, in pauses of the fight, I dream
Of this dear idlesse,--gazing on that brook
So sweet in shade, thus singing on its way,
Like some dear child, all thoughtless, as it goes
From shadow into sunlight and is lost.
SABBATH IN THE FOREST.
1. FREEDOM OF THE SABBATH.
LET us escape! This is our holiday--
God's day, devote to rest; and, through the wood
We'll wander, and, perchance, find heavenly food:
So, profitless, it shall not pass away.
'Tis life, but with sweet difference, methinks,
Here, in the forest;--from the crowd set free,
The spirit, like escaping song-bird, drinks
Fresh sense of music from its liberty.
Thoughts crowd about us with the trees--the shade
Holds teachers that await us: in our ear,
Unwonted, but sweet voices do we hear,
That with rare excellence of tongue persuade:
They do not chide our idlesse,--were content,
If all our walks were half so innocent.
Page 11
FLOWERS AND TREES.
MARCH is profuse in violets--at our feet
They cluster,--not in pride, but modesty;
The damsel pauses as she passes by,
Plucks them with smiles, and calls them very sweet.
But such beguile me not! The trees are mine,
These hoary-headed masters;--and I glide,
Humbled, beneath their unpresuming pride,
And wist not much what blossoms bud or shine.
I better love to see you grandsire oak,
Old Druid-patriarch, lone among his race,--
With blessing, out-stretch'd arms, as giving grace
When solemn rites are said, or bread is broke:
Decay is at his roots,--the storm has been
Among his limbs,--but the old top is green.
3. THE SAME SUBJECT.
THE pine with its green honors; cypress gray,
Bedded in waters; crimsoning with bloom
The maple, that, irreverently gay,
Too soon, methinks, throws off his winter gloom;
The red bud, lavish in its every spray,
Glowing with promise of the exulting spring;
And over all, the laurel, like some king,
Conscious of strength and stature, born for sway.
I care not for their species--never look
For class or order in pedantic book,--
Enough that I behold them--that they lead
To meek retreats of solitude and thought,
Declare me from the world's day-labors freed,
And bring me tidings books have never brought.
Page 12
4. RELIGIOUS MUSINGS.
THE mighty and the massy of the wood
Compel my worship: satisfied I lie,
With naught in sight but forest, earth, and sky,
And give sweet sustenance to precious mood!--
'Tis thus from visible but inanimate things,
We gather mortal reverence. They declare
In silence, a persuasion we must share,
Of hidden sources, spiritual springs,
Fountains of deep intelligence, and powers,
That man himself implores not; and I grow
From wonder into worship, as the show,
Majestic, but unvoiced, through noteless hours,
Imposes on my soul, with musings high,
That, like Jacob's Ladder, lifts them to the sky!
5. SOLACE OF THE WOODS.
WOODS, waters, have a charm to soothe the ear,
When common sounds have vex'd it. When the day
Grows sultry, and the crowd is in thy way,
And working in thy soul much coil and care--
Betake thee to the forests. In the shade
Of pines, and by the side of purling streams
That prattle all their secrets in their dreams,
Unconscious of a listener--unafraid--
Thy soul shall feel their freshening, and the truth
Of nature then, reviving in thy heart,
Shall bring thee the best feelings of thy youth,
When in all natural joys thy joy had part,
Ere lucre and the narrowing toils of trade
Had turn'd thee to the thing thou wast not made.
Page 13
6. POETRY OF THE FOREST.
THESE haunts are sacred,--for the vulgar mood
Loves not seclusion. Here the very day
Seems in a Sabbath dreaminess to brood:
The groves breathe slumber--the great tree-tops sway
Drowsily, with the idle-going wind;
And sweetest images before my mind
Persuade me into pleasure with their play.
Here, fancies of the present and the past
Delight to mingle, 'till the palpable seems
Inseparate from the glory in my dreams,
And golden with the halo round it cast;
Thus do I live with Rosalind, thus stray
With Jacques; and churning o'er some native rhyme,
Persuade myself it smacks of the old time.
THE LOST PLEIAD.
I.
NOT in the sky,
Where it was seen
So long in eminence of light serene,--
Nor on the white tops of the glistering wave,
Nor down, in mansions of the hidden deep,
Though beautiful in green
And crystal, its great caves of mystery,--
Shall the bright watcher have
Her place, and, as of old, high station keep!
Page 14
II.
Gone! gone!
Oh! never more, to cheer
The mariner, who holds his course alone
On the Atlantic, through the weary night,
When the stars turn to watchers, and do sleep,
Shall it again appear,
With the sweet-loving certainty of light,
Down shining on the shut eyes of the deep!
III.
The upward-looking shepherd on the hills
Of Chaldea, night-returning, with his flocks,
He wonders why his beauty doth not blaze,
Gladding his gaze,--
And, from his dreary watch along the rocks,
Guiding him homeward o'er the perilous ways!
How stands he waiting still, in a sad maze,
Much wondering, while the drowsy silence fills
The sorrowful vault!--how lingers, in the hope that night
May yet renew the expected and sweet light,
So natural to his sight!
IV.
And lone,
Where, at the first, in smiling love she shone,
Brood the once happy circle of bright stars:
How should they dream, until her fate was known,
That they were ever confiscate to death?
That dark oblivion the pure beauty mars,
And, like the earth, its common bloom and breath,
That they should fall from high;
Their lights grow blasted by a touch, and die,--
All their concerted springs of harmony
Snapt rudely, and the generous music gone!
Page 15
V.
Ah! still the strain
Of wailing sweetness fills the saddening sky;
The sister stars, lamenting in their pain
That one of the selectest ones must die,--
Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest!
Alas! 'tis ever thus the destiny.
Even Rapture's song hath evermore a tone
Of wailing, as for bliss too quickly gone.
The hope most precious is the soonest lost,
The flower most sweet is first to feel the frost.
Are not all short-lived things the loveliest?
And, like the pale star, shooting down the sky,
Look they not ever brightest, as they fly
From the lone sphere they blest!
FIRST DAY OF SPRING.
OH! thou bright and beautiful day,
First bright day of the virgin spring,
Bringing the slumbering life into play,
Giving the leaping bird his wing.
Thou art round me now in all thy hues,
Thy robe of green, and thy scented sweets,
In thy bursting buds, in thy blessing dews,
In every form that my footstep meets.
I hear thy voice in the lark's clear note,
In the cricket's chirp at the evening hour;
In the zephyr's sighs that around me float,
In the breathing bud and the opening flower.
Page 16
I see thy forms o'er the parting earth,
In the tender shoots of the grassy blade,
In the thousand plants that spring to birth,
On the valley's side in the home of shade.
I feel thy promise in all my veins,
They bound with a feeling long suppress'd,
And, like a captive who breaks his chains,
Leap the glad hopes in my heaving breast.
There are life and joy in thy coming, Spring,
Thou hast no tidings of gloom and death,
But buds thou shakest from every wing,
And sweets thou breathest with every breath.
BALLAD.
BY the brooklet, grove and meadow,
Where together once we stray'd,
Do I wander, fond as ever,
Haunting still each secret shade;
And, that thus content I wander,
Where such precious joys were mine,
Do I know that thou art with me,
And my spirit walks with thine.
In the murmur of the brooklet,
Still thy well-known voice I hear,
And the whisper in the tree-top,
Tells me that thy form is near;
Page 17
Thou hast left me, at departing,
All that earth could never take,
And, still comforted, I wander
Through these shadows for thy sake.
Were I guilty of a passion
Which thy beauty could survive,
Still I feel thy gentle presence
Must the earthly fancy shrive;
And, discoursing with thy spirit,
Oh! I feel that earth has naught
To compensate the forgetting
Of the sweetness thou hast taught.
SONNET.--BY THE SWANANNOA.
Is it not lovely, while the day flows on
Like some unnoticed water through the vale,
Sun-sprinkled,--and, across the fields, a gale,
Ausonian, murmurs out an idle tale,
Of groves deserted late, but lately won?
How calm the silent mountains, that, around,
Bend their blue summits, as if group'd to hear
Some high ambassador from foreign ground,--
To hearken, and, most probably, confound!
While, leaping onward, with a voice of cheer,
Glad as some schoolboy ever on the bound,
The lively Swanannoa sparkles near;--
A flash and murmur mark him as he roves,
Now foaming white o'er rocks, now glimpsing soft through groves.
Page 18
TO TIME.
GRAY monarch of the waste of years,
Mine eyes have told thy steps in tears,
Yet yield I not to feeble fears,
In watching now thy flight:
The pangs that follow'd still thy blow
Have lost their edge with frequent woe,
And stronger must the courage grow
That's fed by constant fight.
The neck long used to weighty yoke,
The tree once shiver'd by the stroke,
The heart by frequent torture broke--
These fear no later blight.
Oh! mine hath been a mournful song,--
My neck hath felt the burden long,--
My tree was shiver'd,--weak and strong,
Beneath the bolt went down!--
The Fate that thus took early sway,
Hath spared of mine but little prey,
For old and young were torn away,
Ere manhood's wing had flown;--
I saw the noble sire, who stood
Majestic, as in crowded wood,
The pine--and after him, the brood,
All perish in thy frown.
So, count my hopes--so, tell my fears,
And ask what now this life endears,
To him who gave, with many tears,
Each blossom of his love;
Page 19
Whose store in heaven, so precious grown,
He counts each earthly moment flown,
As loss of something from his own,
In treasures shrined above.
Denied to seek--to see--his store,
Yet daily adding more and more,
Some precious plant, that, left before,
The spoiler rends at last.
Not hard the task to number now
The few that live to feel the blow;
The perish'd,--count them on my brow,
With white hairs overcast.
White hairs--while yet each limb is strong
To help the right and crush the wrong--
Ere youth, in manhood's struggling throng,
Had well begun his way:--
Thought premature, that still denied
The boy's exulting sports--the pride,
That, with the blood's unconscious tide,
Knows but to shout and play;
Youth, that in love's first gush was taught
To see his best affection brought
To tears, and woe, and death,--
While yet the fire was in his eye,
That told of passion's victory,
And, in his ear, the first sweet sigh,
From beauty's laboring breath.
And manhood now,--and loneliness,--
With, oh! how few to love and bless,
Save those who, in their dear duresse,
Look down from heaven's high towers;
The stately sire, the gentle dame,
Page 20
The maid who first awoke the flame,
That gave to both a mutual claim,
Soon forfeited, as ours--
And all those dearest buds of bloom,
That simply sought on earth a tomb,
From birth to death, with rapid doom,
A bird-flight wing'd for fate:
How thick the shafts!--how sure the aim!--
What other passion wouldst thou tame,
Oh! Time, within this heart of flame,
Elastic, not elate?
Is't pride?--methinks 'tis joy to bend;--
My foe--he can no more offend;--
My friend is false;--I love my friend;--
I love my foeman too!--
'Tis man I love;--nor him alone,
The brute, the bird,--its joy or moan,
Not heedless, to my heart hath gone--
I feel with all I view.
Wouldst have me worthy?--make me so,
By frequent bruise and overthrow;--
But spare on other hearts the blow,
Spare, from the cruel pang, the woe,
My innocent--my bright!
On me thy vengeance! 'Tis my crime
That needs the scourge, and, in my prime,
'Twere fruitful of improving time,
Thy hands should not be light.
I bend me willing to the thrall,
Whate'er the doom will bear it all,--
Drink of the bitter cup of gall,
Nor once complain of thee;
Page 21
Will poverty avail to chide,
Or sickness bend the soul of pride,
Or social scorn, still evil-eyed?--
Have, then, thy will of me!
But spare the woman and the child!--
Let me not see their features mild
Distorted,--hear their accents wild,
In agonizing pain--
Too much of this!--I thought me sure,
In frequent pang and loss before;--
I still have something to endure,--
And tremble, and--refrain!
On every shore they watch thy wing,--
To some the winter, some the spring,
Thou bring'st, or yet art doom'd to bring,
In rapid-rolling years:
How many seek thee, smiling now,
Who soon shall look with clouded brow,
Heart fill'd with bitter doubt and woe,
And eyes with gathering tears!--
But late, they fancied,--life's parade
Still moving on,--that, not a shade
Thou flung'st on bower and sunny glade,
In which they took delight:--
Sharp satirist--methinks I see
Thy glance in sternest mockery;--
They little think, not seeing thee,
How fatal is thy flight;--
What feathers grow beneath thy wing,
What darts--how poison'd--from what spring
Of sorrow, and how keen the sting,--
How cureless still the blight.
Page 22
Enough!--the cry has had its way,
As thou hast had!--'tis not the lay
Of vain complaint,--no idle play
Of fancy-dreaming care:
A mocking bitter like thine own,
Wells up from fountains, deep and lone,
Where sorrow, by sepulchral stone,
Sits watching thy career.
Thou'st mock'd my hope and dash'd my joy,
With keen rebuke and sad alloy--
The father, son--the man, the boy,
All, all! have felt the rod:--
Perchance, not all thy work in vain,
In softening soul, subduing brain,
If, suffering, I submit to pain,--
That minister of God.
THE TRAVELLER'S REST.
FOR hours we wander'd o'er the beaten track,
A dreary stretch of sand, that, in the blaze
Of noonday, seem'd to launch sharp arrows back,
As fiery as the sun's. Our weary steeds
Falter'd, with drooping heads, along the plain,
Looking from side to side most wistfully,
For shade and water. We could feel for them,
Having like thirst; and, in a desperate mood,
Gloomy with toil, and parching with the heat,
I had thrown down my burden by the way,
And slept, as man may never sleep but once,
Page 23
Yielding without a sigh,--so utterly
Had the strong will, beneath the oppressive care,
Fail'd of the needed energy for life,--
When, with a smile, the traveller by my side,
A veteran of the forest and true friend,
Whose memory I recall with many a tear,
Laid his rough hand most gently on mine own,
And said, in accents still encouraging:--
"Faint not,--a little farther we shall rest,
And find sufficient succor from repose,
For other travel: vigor will come back,
And sweet forgetfulness of all annoy,
With a siesta in the noontide hour,
Shelter'd by ample oaks. A little while
Will bring us to the sweetest spot in the woods,
Named aptly, 'Traveller's Rest.' There, we shall drink
Of the pure fountain, and beneath the shade
Of trees, that murmur lessons of content
To streams impatient as they glide from sight,
Forget the long day's weariness, o'er steppes
Of burning sand, with thirst that looks in vain
For the cool brooklet. All these paths I know
From frequent travail, when my pulse, like yours,
Beat with an ardor soon discomfited,
Unseason'd by endurance. Through a course
Of toil, I now can think upon with smiles,
Which brought but terror when I felt it first,
I grew profound in knowledge of the route,
Marking each wayside rock, each hill of clay,
Blazed shaft, or blighted thick, and forked tree,
With confidence familiar as you found
In bookish lore and company. Cheer up,
Page 24
Our pathway soon grows pleasant. We shall reach--
Note well how truly were my lessons conn'd,--
A little swell of earth, which, on these plains,
Looks proudly like a hill. This having pass'd,
The land sinks suddenly--the groves grow thick,
And, in the embrace of May, the giant wood
Puts on new glories. Shade from these will soothe
Thy overwearied spirit, and anon,
The broad blaze on the trunk of a dark pine
That strides out on the highway to our right,
Will guide us where, in woodland hollow, keeps
One lonely fountain; such as those of yore,
The ancient poets fabled as the home,
Each of its nymph; a nymph of chastity,
Whose duty yet is love. A thousand times,
When I was near exhausted as yourself,
That gash upon the pine-tree strengthen'd me,
As showing where the waters might be found,
Otherwise voiceless. Thanks to the rude man--
Rude in the manners of his forest life,
But frank and generous,--whose benevolent heart--
Good kernel in rough outside,--counsels him,
As in the ages of the Patriarch,
To make provision for the stranger's need.
His axe, whose keen edge blazons on the tree
Our pathway to the waters that refresh,
Was in that office consecrate, and made
Holier than knife, in hands of bearded priest,
That smote, in elder days, the innocent lamb,
In sacrifice to Heaven!
"Now, as we glide,
The forest deepens round us. The bald tracts,
Sterile, or glittering but with profitless sands,
Page 25
Depart; and through the glimmering woods behold
A darker soil, that on its bosom bears
A nobler harvest. Venerable oaks,
Whose rings are the successive records, scored
By Time, of his dim centuries; pines that lift,
And wave their coronets of green aloft,
Highest to heaven of all the aspiring wood;
And cedars, that with slower worship rise--
Less proudly, but with better grace, and stand
More surely in their meekness;--how they crowd,
As if 'twere at our coming, on the path!--
Not more majestic, not more beautiful,
The sacred shafts of Lebanon, though sung
By Princes, to the music of high harps,
Midway from heaven;--for these, as they, attest
HIS countenance who, to glory over all,
Adds grace in the highest, and above these groves
Hung brooding, when, beneath the creative word,
They freshen'd into green, and towering grew,
Memorials of his presence as his power!
--Alas! the forward vision! a few years
Will see these shafts o'erthrown. The profligate hands
Of avarice and of ignorance will despoil
The woods of their old glories; and the earth,
Uncherish'd, will grow barren, even as the fields,
Vast still, and beautiful once, and rich as these,
Which, in my own loved home, half desolate,
Attest the locust rule,--the waste, the shame,
The barbarous cultivation--which still robs
The earth of its warm garment and denies
Fit succor, which might recompense the soil,
Whose inexhaustible bounty, fitly kept,
Was meant to fill the granaries of man,
Through all earth's countless ages.
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"How the sward
Thickens in matted green. Each tufted cone
Gleams with its own blue jewel, dropt with white,
Whose delicate hues and tints significant,
Wake tenderness within the virgin's heart.
In love's own season. In each mystic cup
She reads sweet meaning, which commends the flower
Close to her tremulous breast. Nor seems it there
Less lovely than upon its natural couch,
Of emerald bright,--and still its hues denote
Love's generous spring-time, which, like generous youth,
Clouds never the dear aspect of its green,
With sickly doubts of what the autumn brings."
Boy as I was, and speaking still through books--
Not speaking from myself--I said: "Alas!
For this love's spring-time--quite unlike the woods,
It never knows but one; and, following close,
The long, long years of autumn, with her robes
Of yellow mourning, and her faded wreath
Of blighted flowers, that, taken from her heart,
She flings upon the grave-heap where it rots!"
"Ah! fie!" was straightway the reply of him,
The old benevolent master, who had seen,
Through thousand media yet withheld from me,
The life I had but dream'd of--"this is false!--
Love hath its thousand spring-times like the flowers,
If we are dutiful to our own hearts,
And nurse the truths of life, and not its dreams.
But not in hours like this, with such a show
Around us, of earth's treasures, to despond,
To sink in weariness and to brood on death.
Oh! be no churl, in presence of the Queen
Page 27
Of this most beautiful country, to withhold
Thy joy,--when all her court caparison'd,
Comes to her coronation in such suits
Of holiday glitter. It were sure a sin
In sight of Heaven, when now the humblest shrub
By the maternal bounty is set forth,
As for a bridal, with a jewell'd pomp
Of flowers in blue enamel--lustrous hues
Brightening upon their bosoms like sweet tints,
Caught from dissolving rainbows, as the sun
Rends with his ruddy shafts their violet robes,--
When gay vines stretching o'er the streamlet's breast
Link the opposing pines and arch the space,
Between, with a bright canopy of charms,
Whose very least attraction wears a look
Of life and fragrance!--when the pathway gleams,
As spread for march of Princess of the East,
With gems of living lustre--ravishing hues
Of purple, as if blood-dipp'd in the wounds
Of Hyacinthus,--him Apollo loved,
And slew though loving:--now, when over all
The viewless nymphs that tend upon the streams,
And watch the upward growth of April flowers,
Wave ever, with a hand that knows not stint,
Yet suffers no rebuke for profligate waste,
Their aromatic censers, 'till we breathe
With difficult delight;--not now to gloom
With feeble cares and individual doubts,
Of cloud to-morrow. It were churlish here,
Ungracious in the sovereign Beauty's sight,
Who rules this realm, the dove-eyed sovran, Spring!
This hour to sympathy--to free release
From toil, and sorrow, and doubt, and all the fears
That hang about the horizon of the heart,
Page 28
Making it feel its sad mortality,
Even when most sweet its joy--she hath decreed:
Let us obey her, though no citizens.
"How grateful grows the shade--mix'd shade of trees,
And clouds, that drifting o'er the sun's red path,
Curtain his awful brows! Ascend yon hill,
And we behold the valley from whose breast
Flows the sweet brooklet. Yon emblazon'd pine
Marks the abrupt transition to the shade,
Where, welling from the bankside, it steals forth,
A voice without a form. Through grassy slopes,
It wanders on unseen, and seems no more
Than their own glitter; yet, behold it now,
Where, jetting through its green spout, it bounds forth,
Capricious, as if doubtful where to flow,--
A pale white streak--a glimmering, as it were,
Cast by some trembling moonbow through the woods!
"Here let us rest. A shade like that of towers,
Wrought by the Moor in matchless arabesque,
Makes the fantastic ceiling,--leaves and stems,
Half-form'd, yet flowery tendrils, that shoot out,
Each wearing its own jewel,--that above
O'erhangs; sustain'd by giants of the wood,
Erect and high, like warriors gray with years,
Who lift their massive shields of holiest green,
On fearless arms, that still defy the sun,
And foil his arrows. At our feet they fall,
Harmless and few, and of the fresh turf make
A rich mosaic. Tremblingly, they creep,
Half-hidden only, to the blushing shoots
Of pinks, that never were abroad before,
And shrink from such warm instance. Here are flowers,
Page 29
Pied, blue, and white, with creepers that uplift
Their green heads, and survey the world around--
As modest merit, still ambitionless--
Only to crouch again; yet each sustains
Some treasure, which, were earth less profligate,
Or rich, were never in such keeping left.
And here are daisies, violets that peep forth
When winds of March are blowing, and escape
Their censure in their fondness. Thousands more,--
Look where they spread around us--at our feet--
Nursed on the mossy trunks of massive trees,
Themselves that bear no flowers--and by the stream--
Too humble and too numerous to have names!
"There is no sweeter spot along the path,
In all these western forests,--sweet for shade,
Or beauty, or reflection--sights and sounds--
All that can charm the wanderer, or o'ercome
His cares of travel. Here we may repose,
Subdued by gentlest murmurs of the noon,
Nor feel its heat, nor note the flight of hours,
That never linger here. How sweetly falls
The purring prattle of the stream above,
Where, roused by petty strife with vines and flowers,
It wakes with childish anger, nor forbears
Complaint, even when, beguiled by dear embrace,
It sinks to slumber in its bed below!
The red-bird's song now greets us from yon grove,
Where, starring all around with countless flowers,
Thick as the heavenly host, the dogwood glows,
Array'd in virgin white. There, mid the frowns
Of sombrous oaks, and where the cedar's glooms
Tell of life's evening shades, unchidden shines
The maple's silver bough, that seems to flash
Page 30
A sudden moonlight; while its wounded arms,
Stream with their own pure crimson, strangely bound
With yellow wreaths, flung o'er its summer hurts,
By the lascivious jessamine, that, in turn,
Capricious, creeps to the embrace of all.
"The eye unpain'd with splendor--with unrest
That mocks the free rapidity of wings,
Just taught to know their uses and go forth,
Seeking range but no employment--hath no quest
That Beauty leaves unsatisfied. The lull
Of drowsing sounds, from leaf, and stream, and tree
Persuades each sense, and to forgetfulness
Beguiles the impetuous thought. Upon the air
Sweetness hangs heavy, like the incense cloud
O'er the high altar, when cathedral rites
Are holiest, and our breathing for a while
Grows half suspended. Sullen, in the sky,
With legions thick, and banners broad unfurl'd,
The summer tempest broods. Below him wheels,
Like some fierce trooper of the charging host,
One fearless vulture. Earth beside us sleeps,
Having no terror; though an hour may bring
A thousand fiery bolts to break her rest.
"How natural is the face of woods and vales,
Trees, and the unfailing waters, spite of years,
Time's changes, and the havoc made by storm!
The change is all in man. Year after year,
I look for the old landmarks on my route,
And seldom look in vain. A darker moss
Coats the rough outside of the old gray rock;--
Some broad arm of the oak is wrench'd away,
By storm and thunder--through the hill-side wears
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A deeper furrow,--and the streams descend,
Sometimes, in wilder torrents than before--
But still they serve as guides o'er ancient paths,
For wearied wanderers. Still do they arise,
In groups of grandeur, an old family,
These great magnificent trees, that, as I look,
Fill me with loftiest thoughts, such as one feels
Beholding the broad wing of some strong bird,
Poised on its centre, motionless in air,
Yet sworn its master still. Not in our life,
Whose limit, still inferior, mocks our pride,
Reach they this glorious stature. At their feet,
Our young, grown aged like ourselves, may find
Their final couches, ere one vigorous shaft
Yields to the stroke of time. Beneath mine eyes,
All that makes beautiful this place of peace,
Wears the peculiar countenance which first
Won my delight and wonder as I came--
Then scarcely free from boyhood,--wild as he,
The savage Muscoghee, who, in that day,
Was master of these plains. His hunting range
Grasp'd the great mountains of the Cherokee,
The Apalachian ridge--extended west
By Talladega's valleys--by the streams
Of Tallas-hatchie--through the silent woods
Of gray Emuckfau, and where, deep in shades,
Rise the clear brooks of Autossee that flow
To Tallapoosa;--names of infamy
In Indian chronicle! 'Twas here they fell,
The numerous youth of Muscoghee,--the strong--
Patriarchs of many a tribe--dark seers renown'd,
As deeply read in savage mystery--
The Prophet Monohoee--priest as famed,
Among his tribe, as any that divined
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In Askelon or Ashdod;--stricken to the earth,
Body and spirit, in repeated strife,
With him, that iron-soul'd old chief, who came
Plunging from Tennessee.
"Below they stretch'd,
In sovran mastery o'er the wood and stream,
'Till the last waves of Choctawhatchie slept,
Subsiding, in the gulf. Such was the realm
They traversed, in that season of my youth,
When first beside this pleasant stream I sank,
In noontide slumber. What is now their realm,
And where are now their warriors? Streams that once
Soothed their exhaustion, satisfied their thirst--
Woods that gave shelter--plains o'er which they sped
In mimic battle--battle-fields whereon
Their bravest chieftains perish'd--trees that bore
The fruits they loved but rear'd not;--these remain,
But yield no answer for the numerous race,--
Gone with the summer breezes--with the leaves
Of perish'd autumn;--with the cloud that frowns
This moment in the heavens, and, ere the night,
Borne forward in the grasp of chainless winds,
Is speeding on to ocean.
"Wandering still--
That sterile and most melancholy life,--
They skirt the turbid streams of Arkansas,
And hunt the buffalo to the rocky steeps
Of Saladanha; and, on lonely nooks,
Ridge-barrens, build their little huts of clay,
As frail as their own fortunes. Dreams, perchance,
Restore the land they never more shall see;
Or, in meet recompense, bestow them tracts
Page 33
More lovely--vast, unmeasured tracts, that lie
Beyond those peaks, that, in the northern heavens,
Rise blue and perilous now. There, rich reserves
Console them in the future for the past;
And, with a Christian trust, the Pagan dreams
His powerful gods will recompense his faith,
By pleasures, in degree as exquisite
As the stern suffering he hath well endured.
His forest fancy, not untaught to soar,
Already, in his vision of midnight, sees
The fertile valleys; on his sight arise
Herds of the shadowy deer; and, from the copse,
Slow stealing, he beholds, with eager gaze,
The spirit-hunter gliding toward his prey,
In whose lithe form, and practised art, he views
Himself!--a noble image of his youth
That never more shall fail!
"We may not share
His rapture; for if thus the might of change
Mocks the great nation, sweeps them from the soil
Which bore, but could not keep--what is't with us,
Who muse upon their fate? Darkly, erewhile,
Thou spok'st of death and change, and I rebuked
The mood that scorn'd the present good--still fond
To brood above the past. Yet, in my heart,
Grave feelings rise to chide the undesert,
That knew not well to use the power I held,
In craving that to come. Have these short years
Wrought thus disastrously upon my strength,
As on the savage? What have I done to build
My better home of refuge; where the heart,
By virtue taught, by conscience made secure,
May safely find an altar, 'neath whose base
Page 34
The tempest rocks in vain? The red-man's fate
Belong'd to his performance. They who know
How to destroy alone, and not to raise,
Leaving a ruin for a monument,
Must perish as the brute. But I was taught
The nobler lesson, that, for man alone,
The maker gives the example of his power,
That he may build on him. What work of life--
The moral monument of the Christian's toil--
Stands, to maintain my memory after death,
Amongst the following footsteps? Sadly, the ear
Receives his question, who, with sadder speech,
Makes his own answer. Unperforming still,
He yet hath felt the mighty change that moves,
Progressive, as the march of mournful hours,
Still hurrying to the tomb. 'Tis on his cheek,
No more the cheek of boyhood--in his eye,
That laughs not with its wonted merriment,
And in his secret heart. 'Tis over all
He sees and feels--o'er all that he hath loved,
And fain would love, and must remember still!
Those gray usurpers, Death and Change, have been
Familiar in his household, and he stands,
Of all that grew around his innocent hearth,
Alone--the last! And this hath made him now
An exile,--better pleased with woods and streams,
Wild ocean, and the rocks that vex his waves,
Than, sitting in the city's porch, to hear
The hurry, and the thoughtless hum of trade!
"The charm is broken and the 'Traveller's Rest!'
The sun no longer beats with noonday heat
Above the pathway, and the evening bird,
Short wheeling through the air, on whirring wing,
Page 35
Counsels our flight with his. Another draught--
And to these pleasant waters--to the groves
That shelter'd--to the gentle breeze that soothed,
Even as a breath from heaven--to all sweet sights,
Melodious sounds and murmurs, that arise
To cheer the sadden'd spirit at its need--
Be thanks and blessing; gratitude o'er all,
To God in the Highest! He it is who guides
The unerring footstep--prompts the wayward heart
To kindly office--shelters from the sun--
Withholds the storm,--and, with his leaves and flowers,
Sweet freshening streams and ministry of birds,
Sustains, and succors, and invigorates;--
To Him, the praise and homage--Him o'er all!"
THE MOCK-BIRD.
WHAT has winter left for thee,
That, within the ancient tree,
Thou dost linger, in thy gray,
Sober vestments, like some friar,
Haunting still the old abbaye,
Wasted by the strife and fire?
Wherefore house thee thus alone,
When the other tribes have gone?--
With them to the forest speed:
Leave to human heart the grief,
That in woe and dusky weed,
When winter twilight's cold and brief,
Walks sad with hooded Thought, through perish'd wood and leaf.
Page 36
Sure I know thee!--thou art he,
That, with reckless minstrelsy,
Lately sung--while all the grove,
By the spring-buds won to joy,
Bathed in fragrance, breathed of love--
Ditty of a wild annoy;
Mocking all with scornful strain,
Till the passion grew to pain,
And each humbler warbler fled,
Silent, in his shame and fear,
Thou the while, with wing outspread,
Sweetly voiced in spite of sneer,
Throned on the topmost bough, or darting wild through air.
Thou hast pleasures. I have seen,
When the buxom spring was green,
How thy nest was tended--how
Thou didst gather straw and blade,
And, within the ancient bough,
Sit, the stem and leaf to braid.--
Patient was thy watch, and stern
Lesson might the serpent learn,--
Crawling where thy young ones lie,
With his cruel, keen desire,--
From thy eagle-raging eye,
Showing all thy soul on fire,
While talon, beak and wing declared the warrior's ire.
Patient, as thy young ones grow,
Use of feeble wings to show,
How, to glide from bough to bough,
How with gradual flight, to bear,
Poised on spreading pinion now,
Through the yielding heart of air;
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And, when free of wing, and high,
Winging, singing, through the sky,--
Then, with thy triumphant strain,
Matchless in unmeasured might,
As if born of madden'd brain,
Ecstasied with deep delight,
Whirling in voice aloft, in far, capricious flight.
Why the cynic temper?--why
Still that strain of mockery?
Art thou truer? Dost thou sneer,
As thou haply know'st that none
Of the love songs spring must hear,
Speaks fidelity but one?
Thou art constant--that I know--
To thy young ones,--to the foe,--
To thy mate, and to the tree,
That beside my window-sill,
Many a year, has been to thee
Cottage-home and empire still,--
Thou wast the sovereign there, and ever hadst thy will.
Still maintain it--thou alone,
Of the birds, when summer's gone,
Keep'st thy dwelling, hold'st thy place,
As if in thy breast there grew
Something, which, to human race,
Kept thee dedicate and true.
Cynical thy song, but mine
Might be cynical like thine,
Could I deem with thee, that all
Of the vows in spring we hear,
Were forgotten by the fall;--
But I shrink from doubt so drear;--
I yield my heart to faith, and love when thou wouldst sneer.
Page 38
AUTUMN TWILIGHT.
THERE is a soft haze hanging on you hill,
Tinged with a purple light. How beautiful,
And yet, how cold! 'Tis the first robe put on,
With gloomy foretaste of a gloomier hour,
By the sad Autumn. Well may she repine,--
With heavy dread of winter at her heart,
Adverse to present sweetness as to hope,
Which never cheers her fortunes. She is doom'd--
Survivor of a race that left no heirs,
And she, the mourner of the beautiful,
Whose treasure, in the past to which she glides,
Was but a bright decay, a perishing bloom,
The bounty of a love whose dearest gifts
Best show in desolation. The sweet green,
The summer flush of love--the golden bloom
That came with flowers in April, and brought sweets
Whose purity might teach a faith that life
Were also in their breathing--all are gone!
The green grows pallid--the warm, virgin flush,
That was in summer's eye, and on her cheek,
A glory all too precious for a dream,--
Too precious far for mortal certainty--
Fleets all--as keen, the breezes from the hills
Sweep icily o'er the meadows. All the bright hues,
That graced the flowers and hemispheric crowns
Of trees grown haughty in a birthday dress,
Seem vanishing with the sunset. The last rays
That drink their purple brightness with their lives,
Fade upwards through the forest--a sad flush,
That lothly leaves the twilight, and a while
Lingers upon the hill-tops, as surveying
Page 39
The empires that it forfeits. Now the winds,
Slow rising as from caverns of the night,
With trailing robes of darkness, and broad arms,
Stretched out, in action suited to the dirge
That speaks the mournful ruin of their homes,
Wail heavily through the branches; while the leaves,
Saddest of mourners! flung on summer's grave,
Lament her in the silence of true grief!
Ah! mock me not that thus I mourn with them;
The sad heart's wisdom is to weep enough!--
I hear your lesson, but of what avail?
Since, while it teaches worthlessness of grief,
It still acknowledges the pregnant cause
That, in the very uselessness of tears,
Compels our tears most freely. You discourse,
To feeling, with a counsel that prevents
All feeling; and unless you stifle her,
You teach most idly. Never yet was grief
Fit moralist,--and that philosophy,
Which will not take its color from the heart
It seeks to fortify against the cloud,
Reaches no sacred chord of sympathy,
Responsive with sweet echoes. All your laws
Teach sorrow when you teach her hopelessness.
To bid the sacred current cease to flow,
'Tis needful first you freeze it; and what gain,
To him with dear affections, o'er whose grave,
He still encourages dear memories,
That feeling should be made secure from hurt,
By gross and cold insensibility?
Foregoing nature, what do we acquire
But forfeiture? As well persuade the flower
To grow to stone, lest, rifled by the storm,
Its premature bloom shall perish. If unwise
Page 40
To yield to sorrow the sole sovereignty,
As little wise to substitute for this,
The apathy, that, still rejecting grief,
Grows ignorant of all rapture. You declaim--
With the grave studied eloquence of books,
Writ by cold monks in the ascetic cell,
That life is full of changes.--Be it so!
These changes ever are from joy to woe,
And woe to joy again. To conquer one
Is scarce to know the other. In your calm,
'Tis easy to declare that things of life,
By the inevitable laws of things,
Are also things of death; but not the less
Find we a sacred certainty of grief,
Even in this very knowledge. Death, you say,
Still harvests forms that love, not less than forms
That simply live; and folly 'tis to mourn,
That the dear life whose presence was a joy
And fragrance, that forever brought us joy,
Is destined to as sure an apathy
As the poor flowers we tread on.
Happy he,
Perchance--and yet I think not--who can thus
Prose calmly over nature, and the fate
Of her dear offspring in whatever fields.
But mine is not this happiness;--nor mine,
The thought that happiness may light her fire,
From such dry chips of doctrine. The rich sap,
May from the wounded tree gush forth in tears,
The green rind feel its hurts, and something lose
Of verdure in the injury which it feels.
But teach the bough, how better were it lopt,
And flung into the fire, than suffering thus,
From the keen hurts of the too wanton axe
Page 41
The wound will heal. You point me to the scars;
But while it still hath rind for newer hurts,
And fresh sap still to flow from other wounds,
The scars are but in proof of strength to bear,
As well as hurts to suffer. Tears, for me,
Bring sweet relief for what is lost or borne,
As teaching still of sensibilities
For future feeling; whether joy or woe,
Or gain or loss;--and, in this consciousness,
One finds a better solace for the past,
Than in that cold philosophy which stills
The too susceptible pulse, lest it should throb,
Some day, with fever. Yet, that fever throb,
Itself, declares the warm vitality
Still looking forth with hope.
And still you chide,
That grief should waste upon inferior things,
Leaves of the forest, flowers of the summer day,
Fruits of a season's tribute, and frail fancies
Born of the dew and sunshine, for the hour,
The sorrows that might find excuse, if given
For loss of human treasure--forms and greatness,
Which fill society with sense of virtue,
And still commend to love that fierce ambition
That makes even love a sacrifice in turn!
Alas! we know not what is worthy, what is great,
And weep from fancy, rather than from law;
And fancy is a law, and in our feelings
Hath charter'd rights, and shapes them at her pleasure,
To make us weep, if need be; tears and sorrows
Being as much her proper properties,
As sunshine and gay laughter, sport and flight.
Yet have I something of a plea beyond,
In the condition which has shut me out
Page 42
From much, that, in the common social life,
Commends itself unto humanity,
As only worth its care. Mine was a lot
Peculiar in its loneliness of aim,
If not distinction. Childhood found me first
A sad bewilder'd orphan--one who stood
Alone among his fellow,--and when wrong'd,
Knew not the lap in which to hide his head,
Nor friendly ear in which to pour complaint.
I had no parent's tendance. Never mine
A sister's lips have hallow'd while they press'd;--
No brother call'd me his;--no natural ties
Embraced, and train'd, and cherish'd my wild youth,
Which still went erring into devious ways,
Sorrowing as much as sinning, in a mood
That craved love only for its guide to goodness;--
And this alone it found not--or in vain!--
And thus, with strong affections, still in exile,
Denied where they sought favor, I have turn'd
To the inanimate, unspeaking creatures,
That grew about or wanton'd in my path--
Having no scorn or hatred in their hearts--
Having no voice of censure on their tongues--
For that most needed sympathy of nature,
Which answer'd best the hunger in my heart.
Thus were my footsteps won into the forest,
Thus did I seek these groves as if in worship,
With regular tendance, and a meek observance,
That suffer'd not the chant of winds, the sighing,
That seem'd most human, in the pine's great branches,--
The fall of leaf, the shadows of the thicket,
Or flutter of the gay bird o'er the pathway,--
To 'scape me;--moralizing at each motion,
Something, that as it soothed the troubled feeling,
Page 43
Was surely not philosophy. My rambles
Still brought me what I sought;--and these pale flowers,
And the green leaves, now yellow, at our feet,
Were something more to me than leaves and flowers.
They were my kindred. Now, that they are gone,
I weep them as a loss of family,
And tread among them with a cautious step,
A sad, slow motion, and with trembling heart,
As I were reading, in some ancient church-yard,
The names of dear ones precious to my childhood.
BALLAD.
OH! bury him quickly, and utter no word
Of the memory sadden'd by sorrow so long;
But when the cold stranger shall say that he err'd,
Then tell the dark tale of his crueller wrong.
We may not approve, but when others condemn,
'Twere crime that defence of his heart to forbear,
And show that his faults were all prompted by them,--
They could goad him to danger, then fly from him then
You saw him for many long days ere he fell,
In chains and in solitude, sad but serene;
'Tis grateful to know that he battled it well,
While his spirit grew strong in the gloom of the scene.
They thought him all callous to feeling and shame,--
Ah! little they knew him;--the spirit he bore
Once aim'd at, and sigh'd for, as lofty a fame
As shines on the pages of history's lore.
Page 44
But pile the dank sod which no stone shall adorn,
No hand ever freshen with shrub or with flower;
We bury him coldly--we leave him forlorn--
And midnight was never more dark than this hour.
It is but a year since all proudly he stood,
Brave, bright, unassuming--the sought, the preferr'd--
Upheld by the strong, and beloved by the good--
Now--bury him quickly, and utter no word!
HAST THOU A SONG FOR A FLOWER.
I.
HAST thou a song for a flower,
Such as, if breathed in its ear,
Would waken in beauty's own bower
The spirit most fit to be there?
Then, minstrel, I challenge thy power--
Such song, if thou hast, sing it here!--
Here, where the breeze o'erwearied,
With his travel o'er ocean creeps,
And on the green leaf by her lattice,
Sinks languidly down and sleeps.
II.
For her the sweet music thou bringest
Must in a true spirit be wrought,
And the passion of mine thou singest
Must be pure as the child's first thought.
If none such within thee springest,
Away, for thy presence is naught.
Page 45
Far better the breeze, at waking,
Should tell her that hopeless I come,
With itself, to the leaf at her lattice,
And laid me down, dreaming but dumb.
ENIGMA.
I AM most potent of all earthly powers,
Save one. I penetrate the loftiest towers,
As freely as the cottage, in all hours;
I paralyze the strongest with a spell;
Soothe the most suffering; shut the fatal knell
From out the ears of misery; beguile
The saddest mourner to a hopeful smile;
Bring cheerful guests into the solitude,
That minister unto the sufferer's mood,
So that he straight forgets what gave him pain,
And wins the strength and hope of youth again.
No will can combat mine, no might withstand;
And man before me bows throughout the land,
As at a tyrant's progress; yet with joy,
For that I sway to succor, not destroy.
Yet, do I arm myself with terrors still,
When they are needful. I can bring the thrill,
Of fear or horror, to the guilty soul,
And make him hear the far-off thunders roll,
As at his feet; can swift around him group,
Even at a whisper, a most terrible troop
Of his assailing enemies. My spell,
Most strong when softest, is invincible.
You strive with me in vain. I stretch a wing,
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Unseen above you. In your ears I sing,
In most unnoted accents. Round your neck
I weave such subtle chains as never break,
Save with my satisfied purpose. Your white breast,
You do unfold me, whether as a guest,
Obtrusive, or implored and much caress'd.
You may not shut from me your secret thought,
Your passion or your guilt. Unask'd, unsought,
You whisper to me your best hope and fear,
What you endure of grief, what joys endear,
And whom you love and hate. And I, who hear,
Still keep your secret;--to your service bound,
Still faithful, still unbidden, I am found,
Whene'er the season calls me, or the place;
An angel you may hold me, or a grace;
Devoted as the first, and as the last,
Still blessing--though the sights I bring may blast!
My bond of service never shall be broke,
Till I no more may spell, or thou invoke,
Then, when perforce I leave thee, I resign
Thy charge to one, a kinswoman of mine,
Of greater powers, but hostile still to thine.
SONNET.
SYMPATHY BETWEEN THE PAST AND FUTURE.
WOULD we go forward boldly, and gain heart
For farther progress, we must pause a while,
And gaze upon the path, for many a mile,
We follow'd when we first grew bold to start;--
That so much has been traversed, is a goad
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To fresh endeavor; and the eye grows bright,
With expectation, as the baffled sight
Would vainly compass all the o'er-trodden road;--
The pathways of the future will grow clear,
When the first fresh beginnings of the march
Lie bright beneath the broad and sheltering arch;
And, repossess'd of childhood, we are near
Heaven's sources,--for the true humanity
Keeps past and future still in either eye.
TO THE BREEZE.
AFTER A PROTRACTED CALM IN THE GULF OF MEXICO.
I.
THOU com'st at last! Our sorrow is at end;
Thou com'st, and hast our blessing, pleasant breeze.
Yet where hast thou been wandering, fickle friend?
Where, when the midnight gather'd to her brow
Her pale and silent minister, wast thou?
On what far, sullen, solitary seas,
Piping the mariner's requiem, didst thou tend
The home-returning bark,
Curling the white foam o'er her plunging prow,--
White, when the rolling waves about her all were dark?
II.
Ah! thou didst woo her sweetly as she lay,
Still idly rocking on the unconscious deep;
Thou sought'st her with a breath
Of spicy odor from Sonora's vales;
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And, with the sweetest of imploring gales,
That seem'd like life to death,
Filling her yellow sails,
Beguiled her on her way.
With sudden voice, like that of mountain bird
Singing, thou wok'st her from her dreary sleep,
Until her every pulse of life grew stirr'd:
Her fluttering pennant was the first to fly,
Then the great vans swell'd out delightedly,
And, with the song of land he loves to hear,
Thou bad'st the mariner cheer!
III.
Oh! well thou know'st the mission that is thine,
And, when in sluggish bonds old ocean slept,
Making of life no sign,--
While the faint moaning o'er his breast that crept
Seem'd like the breathings of eternity
Above the grave of the unburied Time,--
Then didst thou clothe thyself in wings of prime,
Then speed thy work of mercy.--How the tar,
His form reclined along the burning deck,
Stretch'd ever more his eager eye afar,
Still watching for thy coming--for the speck,
Marking thy shadow, from some giant steep,
Down darting to the embraces of the deep!
IV.
Late, but not faithless to thy charge, thy flight
Soon came to bless his sight.
So long a fond and watching worshipper,
He knew to hail thy coming, nor to err,
No matter what thy shape, or whence thy wing.
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Thou wert his passion. By the dearest names
He did implore thy presence: "My sweet breeze,
Whither! oh whither!"--I have heard him sing
Rudely, but with a strength that feeling tames
To fondness in rough natures--"My delight!
Where art thou--where, oh! beauty of the seas,--
My breeze, my pleasant breeze!"
V.
Were all the charms by mortal passion sung
As worthy of the tongue!
Ah! breath of life to nature, thou art sure
The image of that ever young and pure,
Superior spirit, which, when all was dim,
Ere yet creation sang her choral hymn,
And darkness brooded o'er the stagnant deep,
Moved on the waters, waking them from sleep,
And rousing them to purposes of Him
For whom all wings have flight!
Born in the solemn night,
Ere skies had birth in bright,
With uncreated watchers for the sight,--
Thine was the music, through the firmament
By the fond nature sent,
To hail the happy birth,
And guide to sea and earth
The glorious wing, the blessing eye of light!
VI.
Music to us no less,
Thou com'st in our distress,
To ope the pathway, all made clear by thee,
Through the wide waste of sea!
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Soothing, thou bring'st to him who goes alone
Unwatch'd and unremember'd o'er the wave,
Perchance his grave!
Should he there perish, to thy simple moan
What hope to add, from human tenderness,
One fond imploring tone!
VII.
I bless thee, gentle breeze!
Sweet minister to many a fond desire,
Thou bear'st me to my sire,
Thou, and these rolling seas!
What, O dear God of this great element,
Are we before thee, that its breath is sent,
Obedient to young love and eager hope?
But that its pinion with our path is blent,
We had been doom'd, blind, weak, and dark, to grope,
Where plummet's cast is vain, and human art
Lacking all chart!
LYRICAL BALLAD.
IF the fruit of the tree was delicious,
Yet how keen was the bitter it brought;
As the zephyr, though sweet, is capricious,
With blight as with luxury fraught:
Who roves in a garden, ungrateful
For the tendance that nourish'd its bloom?
Better fly to the wilderness hateful,
Where nothing is false but the gloom!
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We are still the vain creatures of vision,
Where the eyes only torture the soul;
Our worship still meets with derision,
And we gain, but by flying the goal.
He dreams not, the victim, self-banish'd
From the shrine which has mock'd at his prayer,
That 'tis only when pleasure has vanish'd
He safely may harbor with Care!
The doubt that still hangs o'er the dreaming,
Spoils the rapture that follows its show;
As the flash of the lightning, whose gleaming
Reveals the deep blackness below:
The spirit of Love, thus, in flying,
Still glooms the sad Being it woos,
And finds its best solace in sighing,
With a doubt of the heart it subdues!
THE NEW MOON.
"BEND thy bow, Dian! shoot thy silver shaft
Through the dark bosom of yon murky cloud,
That, like a shroud,
Hangs heavy o'er the dwelling of sweet night!"
And the sky laugh'd,
Even as I spake the words; and, in the west,
The columns of her mansion shone out bright!
A glory hung above Eve's visible brow,
The maiden empress!--and she glided forth
In beauty, looking down on the tranced earth,
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So fondly, that its rivulets below
Gush'd out to hail her, as if then first blest
With the soft motion of their voiceless birth.
A sudden burst of brightness o'er me broke--
The rugged crags of the dull cloud were cleft
By her sharp arrow, and the edges left,--
How sweetly wounded!--silver'd with the stroke;
Thus making a fit pathway for her march
Through the blue arch!
FOREST REVERIE BY STARLIGHT.
THE night has settled down. A dewy hush
Hangs o'er the forest, save when fitful gusts
Vex the tall pines with murmurs. Spring is here,
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
And voice of many minstrels. Balmy airs
Creep gently to my bosom, and beguile
Each feeling into freshness. I will forth,
And gaze upon the stars--the uncounted stars--
Holding high watch in heaven--still high, still bright,
Though the storm gathers round the sacred hill,
And shakes the cottage roof-tree. There they shine,
In well-remember'd youth. They bear me back,
With strange persuasiveness, to the old time
And happy hours of boyhood. There's no change
In all their virgin glory. Clouds that roll,
And congregate in the azure deeps of heaven,
In wild debate and darkness, pass away,
Leaving them bright in the same beauty still,
Defying, in the progress of the years,
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All change; and rising ever from the night,
In soft and dewy splendor as at first,
When, golden footprints of the Eternal steps,
They paved the walks of heaven, and grew to eyes
Beckoning the feet of man. Ah! would his eyes
Behold them, with meet yearning to pursue
The holy heights they counsel! Would his soul
Claim kindred with the happy forms that now
Walk by their blessed guidance--walk in heaven,
In paths of the Good Shepherd! Then were earth
Deserving of their beauty: then were man,
Already following, step by step, their points
To the One Presence--at each onward step
Leaving new lights that cheer his brother on,
In a like progress. Happily they shine,
As in his hours of music and of youth,
When every breath of the fresh-coming breeze,
And every darting vision of the cloud,
Gleam of the day and glimmer of the night,
Brought to the craving spirit harmony,
And bless'd each fond assurance of the hope
With sweetest confirmation. Still they shine,
And dear the story of their early prime--
And his--the conscious worshipper may read
In their enduring presence. Happiest tales
Of innocence and joy, events and hours,
That never more return. These they record,
Renew and hallow, with their own pure rays,
When blight of age is on the frame--when grief
Weighs the vex'd heart to earth--when all beside,
The father, and the mother, and the friend,
Speak in decaying syllables--dread proof
Of worse decay!--and that sad chronicler,
Feeble and failing in excess of years,
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Old Memory, tottering from his mossy cell,
Stops with the imperfect legend on his lips,
And drowses into dream. No change like this
Falls on their golden-eyed veracity,
Takes from the silvery truths that line their lips,
Or stales their lovely aspects. Well they know
The years they never feel; see, without dread,
The storm that rises and the bolt that falls,
The age that chills, the apathy that chokes,
The death that withers all that blooms below,
Yet smile they on as ever, sweetly bright,
Serene, in their security from all
The change that troubles man!
Yet, hill and tree
Change with the season--with the alter'd heart,
And weak and withering muscle. Ancient groves,
That shelter'd me in childhood, have given place
To gaudy gardens; and the solemn oaks,
That heard the first prayers of my youthful heart
For greatness, and a life beyond their own--
Lo! in their stead, a maiden's slender hand
Tutors green vines, and purple buds, and flowers,
As frail as her own fancies. At each step
I miss some old companion of my walks,
Memorial of the happy hours of youth,
Whose presence had brought back a thousand joys,
And images that took the shape of joys--
The loveliest masquers, and all innocent--
That vanish'd with the rest. I would recall,
But vainly, each lost presence; and the sigh
That mourns the dear memorials now no more,
Counsels desires that to the mortal eye
Commend no mortal images. The thought
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Grasps vainly, right and left, whereon to hold,
And droops, as one grown hopeless of support,
That once, with native strength for every strife,
Scorn'd succor from without. The earth denies
Her bosom for repose--the shade is gone
That offer'd grateful shelter to the eye;
And the dear aspects, which had each its birth
Twinn'd with some proud affection,--they depart,
In mournful robes of shadow that disguise
Each lineament of love.
Ah! not with these,
The perishing things that suffer from decay,
Seek we the sweet memorials of our youth--
The youth that seem'd immortal--youth that bloom'd
With hues and hopes of heaven,--firing its heart
With aspirations for eternal life,
Perpetual triumphs, and the ambitious thirst
Still for new fields and empires of domain!
In tokens of the soul--that craving thirst
That earth supplies not--in the undying things,
That man can never change--that mock his fate
With never-changing sweet serenity,
Assured of a security that builds
Upon the steadfast rock, 'gainst which the storm
Beats through successive ages, but to prove
How fast its bulwarks--how eternally
Sunk in the innate principle of things,
It draws, as to the inevitable heart,
Its growth from all the rest!--to these we turn
For the memorials precious to our youth:--
That season when the Fancy is a god--
Hope a conviction--Love an instinct--Truth,
The generous friend that ever by our side,
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Hath still the sweetest story for the ear,
And wins us on our way!
Ah! stars,--though taught,
That ye too, in the inevitable doom,
Must perish like the rest--grow dim and fade,
Having no eyes of beauty for the eyes
That look to ye in beauty--yet your light
Brings back all boyhood's blessings! In my heart
Stand up the old divinities anew.
I hear their well-known voices, see their eyes
Shining once more in mine, and straight forget
That I have wept their loss in many tears,
Mix'd with reproaches--bitter, sad regrets,
Self-chidings, and the memory of wrongs,
Endured, inflicted, suffer'd, and avenged!
As I behold ye now, ye bring me back
The treasures of my boyhood. All is mine
That I had once surrender'd. Scarce a scene
Of childish prank or merriment, but comes,
With all the freshness of the infant time,
Back to my recollection. The old school,
The noisy rabble, the tumultuous cries--
The green, remember'd in the wintry day,
For the encounter of the flying ball--
The marble play, the hoop, the top, the kite,
And, when the ambition prompted higher games,
The battle-array and conflict--friends and foes
Mix'd in the wild melée, with shouts of might
Triumphant o'er the clamors of retreat!
These, in their regular seasons, with their deeds,
Their incidents of happiness or pain,
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In the revival of old memories,
Your lovely lights restore: nor these alone!
The chroniclers of riper years ye grow,
And loftier thoughts and fancies; when my heart
First took ye for sweet counsellors, and loved
To wander in your evening lights, and dream
Of other eyes that watch'd ye from afar,
At the same hour--and of another heart
That gush'd in yearning sympathy with mine!
And, as the years flew by--as I became
Warier, yet more devoted--fix'd and strong--
Growing in the affections and the thoughts
When growth had ceased in stature--then, when life,
Wing'd with impetuous passions, darted by--
And voices grew into a spell, that hung,
Through the dim hours of night, about the heart,
Making it tremble strangely;--when dark eyes
Were planets, having power upon the soul,
As fated, dimly, at nativity;--
And older men were monitors too dull
For passionate youth,--and all our oracles
Were still mysterious counsellors to love,
And faith, and confident trust for all who brought
The meet credential of a faith like ours,
Gushing with sweetest overflow, and fond
Of its own tears and weaknesses.--Ah! then,
How precious was your language! What dear strains
Of promise ye pour'd forth,--in sounds that made
The impatient soul leap upward into flight,
The skies stoop down and yield to every wish,
While earth, embraced by heaven, instinct with love,
And blessing, had forgot all fears of death!
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The brightness of your age, in every change,
Mocks that which palsies man. Dim centuries
That saw your fresh beginnings with delight,
Are swallow'd in the ocean-flood of years,
Or crowd with ruin the gray sands of Time,
Who still, with appetite and thirst unslaked--
Active but unappeased--voracious still,
Must swallow what remains. Sweet images,
Whose memories wake our song--whose forms abide--
The heart's ideal standards of delight--
Are gone to people those dim realms of shade,
Where rules the Past--that sovereign, single-eyed,
Whose back is on the sun!
Ah! when all these--
The joys we have recorded, and the forms
Whose very names were blessings--forms of youth,
Of childhood, and the hours we know not twice,
Which won us first, and carried us away
To strange conceits of coming happiness,
But to be thought on as delusions all,
Yet such delusions as we still must love!--
When these have parted from us--when the sky
Hath lost the charm of its ethereal blue,
And the nights lose their freshness--and the trees
No longer have a welcome shade for love--
And the moon wanes into a paler bright,
And all the poetry that stirr'd the leaves,
And all the perfume that was on the flowers--
Music upon the winds--wings in the void--
The carpeted valley's wealth of green--the dew
That morning flings on the enamell'd moss--
The hill-side, the acclivity, the grove--
Sweeter that Solitude is sleeping there!--
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Are gone, as the last hope of misery:--
When the last dream of a deluded life
Hath left us to awaken--not to feel
The golden morning, but the appalling night,
When sight itself is weariness, and hope
No longer rifles from the barren path
One flower of promise!--when disease is nigh,
And every bone is racking--and the thought
Is of dry, nauseous, ineffectual drugs,
Which we must painfully swallow--but in vain--
And not a hand is nigh to quench the thirst
With one poor cup of water,--or our prayer
Is answer'd with indifferent mood, that shows
The moderate service irksome--when the eye
Strains for the closing heavens, and the fair sky
Which it is losing,--and dread images,
Meetly successive, of the sable pall,
The melancholy carriage, and the clod,
Make us to shudder with a stifling fear;--
When we have bade adieu to earthly things,
Fought through that long last struggle, still the worst,
Wrestling with self,--and winning that best boon,
Of resignation to the sovereign will,
We may no longer baffle or delude,--
And offer'd up our prayer of penitence,
Doubtful of its acceptance, yet prepared,
As well as our condition will admit,
For the last change in an unhappy life!--
Oh! then methinks 'twould still rejoice mine eyes,
Would they throw wide my casement, and permit
A last fond gaze upon the placid sky,
And all the heavenly watchers which have seen
My fair beginning, and my rising youth,
And my tall manhood. Oh! dear friend that hear'st
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This chant--thy office may be soon to ask,
How shall I soothe the suffering which I see?--
With what sweet service to the friend I love,
But have not power to save, prepare his couch,
And robe him for his rest? Think of this song,
And of thy own sweet thoughts and sympathies.
Give him to see the blessed skies--the Night--
Her azure garments glowing with great eyes,
That look on him with love;--and, at the hour
Which brings thee to thy parting, it will glad
Thy heart, in that sad struggle, to behold
Their sweet serene of smiles. 'Twill bear thee back,
With all the current of thy better thoughts,
To the pure practice of thy innocent years.--
Repentant, then, of errors, evil deeds,
Imaginings of darkness, thou wilt weep
Over thy recollections; and thy tears,
The purest tribute of thy contrite heart,
Will be as a sweet prayer sent up to heaven!
INSCRIPTION FOR THERMOPYLÆ.
STRANGER! thou stand'st upon Thermopylæ!
The pass that led into the heart of Greece,
But gave no passage save through greater hearts:
They keep it still.--Their graves are at thy feet.
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BY THE EDISTO.
RIVER, that still go'st brightly,
Though sweeping to the sea,
And chantest daily, nightly,
Thy own dirge-melody;
Methinks thy murmur strengthens
The purpose in my soul,
And, as thy progress lengthens,
I seem to see my goal.
I seek, as thou, the ocean,
Great sea of human life,
Won by its wild commotion,
And striving with its strife:
Vainly, we fondly linger
Where green shades woo our stay;
We both obey a finger
That points us on our way.
Yet, downward as thou rovest,
How glad thy waters make
The green banks which thou lovest,
And the zephyrs where they wake!
They wake among thy willows,
And they laugh with welcome still,
As thy downward-lapsing billows
Lift their lilies with a thrill.
The blue-bird stoops to carol,
As thy glittering streams go by,
And the bay-tree and the laurel
Bend above thee with a sigh;
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But the sigh is of a pleasure
That may take no wilder voice;
And the great pines share the treasure,
And, to welcome thee, rejoice.
If thus my course may gladden
While I hurry to the deep,
Sure my heart shall never sadden
When 'tis swallow'd up in sleep;
I, too, shall hear sweet voices,
That requite me as I run,
And the pleasant thought rejoices,
I shall only grieve when gone.
THE APPROACH OF SUMMER.
Now, darting through green leaves, and bringing flowers,
Fresh blooming, borrow'd from a thousand bowers
Where nature fills her lap with fruits, and gleams
The carpet of the prairies, stars and streams,--
Comes forth, all wantoning in joyous dreams,
With eye that laughs in beauty, golden hair,
Curling and floating o'er a neck as fair
As the young moon, when in the dusky vale
She lifts her virgin crescent, soft and pale,--
The flush'd and revelling Summer. At her glance
Sinks the old wizard, Winter, into trance;
No more the mighty potentate, who shook
His icy sceptre over field and brook,
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But, tottering into apathy, that goes,
Soulless and sad, to polar home of snows;
The realm usurp'd made glad in his decline,
Made free to bourgeon in its flower and vine;
The steel-bound waters rescued where he lay,
And leaping, flashing, to the smiles of day,
With all their little billows out at play;--
Birds gladsome singing round the cottage tree,
And hope and heart, for once, at liberty,
Mingling in joyous anthems which make air
All musical with love, that might be prayer.
Give the heart freedom! Let the soul take wing
With the soft promise of the golden Spring;
From book and study, forth;--uplift the eye
To the blue beauties in the morning sky;
Forget that Toil hath had his task decreed,
The daily labor, for the daily need;
Give Hope new charm in respite from its chain,
Thought fresher impulse in unlaboring brain;
No duty rules that Drudgery shall not find
Some moments grateful to the unfetter'd mind;
The heart's sweet Sabbath must not be denied,
Now, when boon Nature smiles on all beside!
Where the winds play,--where great green branches wave.
And lilies softly lapse upon the wave,--
Forth with the Sun, with heart that sings within,
In sense of joy that hath no taint of sin;
A song of Summer born, that feels, instinct,
How near with Earth the soul of man is link'd,
And thus through earth with heaven, that still foreshows,
In bright, sweet symbols, how the future glows,
How freshly, gladsomely, and purely Bliss
May yet, in man's true life, atone for this!
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Spirits of holiest gift have been at range,
O'er stream and forest, to effect this change;--
What potent spells, what breath of balm, they brought,
By which the magic of this birth was wrought;--
How did they whisper on the bankside, where
Lurk'd all the hooded flowers, in shame and fear;
Hush'd through long months of winter, while the sway
Of that cold tyrant threaten'd still his prey,
'Till that warm whisper to the clod which hid,
Brought each sweet virgin to unclose her lid,
And won the nun-like daisy from her cell,
In sweet obedience to the grateful spell,--
Blessing the shrine that shelter'd her so well!
What legions of bright angels, far and wide,
Have sped, that earth should waken up in pride;
A single breath, one short sweet night--the moon
Of April only watching through its noon--
And, with the dawn, how wondrous was the show
That hail'd the sun from thousand plains below;
With song,--though faint, how sweet!--and scents so rare,
As if the flowers were wedded to the air,
That nothing did but drink of the delight,
With wings diffused in never-resting flight,
As conscious, in the rapture of such taste,
Of no fatigue, in all that world of waste.
Oh! with a range as wide as his, we speed
To each fair empire of the newly freed;
With hearts as free as any of the race,
That glow and gladden in the sun's embrace.
How spreads the various picture as we go!
Hills greenly stretch aloft, and vales below;
The mountain wears no more the brow of age,
And nature flies her gloomy hermitage,
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Now desolate no longer,--to abide,
With birds and blossoms, by the brooklet's side;
How prattle the glad waters, as she brings,
Her gayest buds to nurture at their springs;
Pleased with the song of kindred, which declares
Her joy in these, and all her beauties theirs!
Banks, on each side, slope down with fringe of green,
To kiss the silvery waves that sing between,
Sing with fit chant to the cathedral trees,
Through which, still sleepless, trolls the thoughtless breeze,
With music most like that of swarming bees!
The song is still an echo to the toil,--
The heart is tutor'd when the sinews moil;
Mere song were something vicious,--but the strain
That tells of solace for the limbs and brain--
Which call for respite for due service done,
In fields of meet succession with the sun,--
This brings a healthful nurture, and, if right
The duty done, we look for the delight.
The charm that still beguiles us at the close
Of the day-labor, freshening its repose,
Is the sweet nourishment for strength anew,
The future toil, or conquest, to pursue.
Thus sings the earth at seasons,--thus we hear
The bird and insect joyous far and near;
A choral hymn the nation's toil preludes,
And the glad creature frolics ere it broods.
Full of a sweet and wise intelligence,
Not simply fashion'd for the idiot's sense,
The voices that we hear from plain and grove,
They speak in gladness, for they breathe of love;
And love is the great duty which implies
Toil for the drudge and study for the wise;
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Both earnest ever in the fond pursuit,
That, in the very tillage, finds the fruit!
Earth has a labor in her womb below!--
The watchful ear may catch the murmuring flow
Of mingling strifes and sounds,--the strifes of toil,
Of those who sing and serve, for those who moil.
The mighty mother, with mysterious art,
Hath fashion'd well each agent in her mart;
Various in product, as in office, still,
Each, without murmur, follows at her will;
No void unfill'd beneath her searching eye,
No realm unwatch'd, of water, earth, or sky;--
There runs the lizard o'er the freshest flowers,
As death gives shadow to our sunniest hours;--
There, the gay butterfly, on varied wing,
Pursues the insect that it cannot sting;--
There goes the coiling serpent, with raised crest,
And warning rattle, to his slimy nest,--
Vex'd by pursuit he slowly wins his way,
Nor seems unwilling to prolong his stay,--
Too closely press'd he would not shun the strife,
And he who takes, must battle for, his life.
Turn where the dove,--meet contrast!--with his mate
Just won, delighted with his new estate,
Lingers beside the path a fearless thing,
Nor claims the succor of his idle wing.
Nature endows him with the season's sense,
Where all is breathing hope and confidence,--
And, heedful of her interest, man decrees
His safety from the fowler. Thus we seize
Our sweetest lessons of preserving good,
From the dumb nature and unthinking mood,--
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For it were base to wrong the faith implied,
Which seeks our steps, nor hurries once aside,
Though life is dearer now, so full of love,
And fear is the first instinct of the dove!
NIGHT STORM.
THIS tempest sweeps the Atlantic!--Nevasink
Is howling to the Capes! Grim Hatteras cries
Like thousand damned ghosts, that on the brink
Lift their dark hands and threat the threatening skies;
Surging through foam and tempest, old Román
Hangs o'er the gulf, and, with his cavernous throat,
Pours out the torrent of his wolfish note,
And bids the billows bear it where they can!
Deep calleth unto deep, and, from the cloud,
Launches the bolt, that, bursting o'er the sea,
Rends for a moment the thick pitchy shroud,
And shows the ship the shore beneath her lea:--
Start not, dear wife, no dangers here betide,--
And see, the boy still sleeping at your side!
"WELL," SANG A BLUE-EYED DAMSEL.
I.
"WELL," sang a blue-eyed damsel, half hidden by a wood
Of bearded oaks, that on the banks of Etiwando stood;
"Give me such days of beauty forever by these shores,
Such glimpses of this noble stream as to the sea it pours;
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The palm, the pine, the song of birds, and this gay realm of flowers,
That sweetens now, with smile and scent, this ancient home of ours;
And not your Texian world of wealth, your wild and wondrous gleams,
Your giant herds, your mighty birds, your silver-bedded streams;
No, nor the glimpse of golden spoils, that tempt the eager eye,
As half display'd, in Mexique vales, with scarce a guard they lie,
Shall move me to repine with thoughts that pomp and wealth bedeck,
No more, with rich and jewell'd pride, our Carolina's neck.
II.
For, stately in her beauty still, and stainless in her fante,
She rises like a queen of grace, while others sink in shame;
The wealth so dear in other eyes, the bribe that wins the rest,
Shows basely in her matron glance, moves scorn within her breast;
True to her proud example still, her sons pursue their way,
And wisdom gives their counsels weight, and virtue yields them sway:
Ah! shall her daughters heed the prize of selfish, stranger lands,
Nor all prefer, which she bestows, whose nobler worth commands?
What though her sons no wealth declare when they approach to woo,
Yet sprung from noble stocks they come, and like their sires are true;
With one of these, but build for me my cottage on these shores,
And all the wealth of Mexico, and Texas too, be yours."
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NATURE'S FAVORITE.
SOME men are Nature's favorites; they were born
Beneath the canopy of trees in May,
When Beauty fills the sky, and from the bud
Breathes the fresh odor; when the merry birds
Go singing through the air, and whirls aloft,
In maddest paroxysms of delight,
The wanton mimic of a thousand tongues,
Pouring a torrent of impetuous song
That stuns the grove to silence. She has been
The gentle mother, leading them away
From the immure of the unnatural town,
To the free homestead of the ancient trees;
Bestowing them the life that there alone
Makes life a dear romance. They have gone forth
And brought her flowers, and fill'd her lap with them;
And she has told them, of the life of each,
Most ravishing stories. Oh! how very sweet
Thus to be taught! No-musty books--no rules,
In dull, damp dungeons, shutting out the sky,
And drudging the free fancy with a weight
That leaves it wingless after.--'Tis my joy
That I have thus been tutored! Nature came
And took me for her charge when I was young,
And brought me up herself. I was not taught
Vain histories of schoolmen--men of cloud
And vapor, with philosophies of straw,
That strive in bubble-hunting. Ancient tongues
That, having answer'd for their day, had gone
Into forgetfulness, ne'er tortured mine!
Destined for life--the present and the real--
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Condemn'd to its necessities, and full
Of all its glorious conquests--its new truths
And coming victories--I was not vex'd
With frigid phantoms of philosophy
At midnight in my chamber--ghosts of doubt
And speculation, that, in all their eyes,
No speculation wore--when the broad heavens
Were hung with forms of rare intelligence,
Teachers of heart and fancy--twiring forms,
The herds of eyes, the numerous flocking stars,
Gazing down on me, and imploring mine!
The present was my own! I made it mine,--
Enjoying it, the past was mine as well;--
I lived the life of the world, as still the world
Has render'd life to the living--yielding man
Experience of his father in his own;
Trod the same ground that they had travell'd o'er,
The sage and soldier of dim ages gone,
In the same company.--What did I need,
With the same feelings and affections fill'd--
For I drew milk from breasts which they had drawn--
To toil through their adventures? They were mine,
Already in my progress. I was taught
By the same tutor--happy that I was!
SONNETS.--DAWNINGS OF FANCY.
I.
VOICES are on the winds!--I hear them now
Foating around me, musical and sweet
As are the waves of ocean when they meet,
Combing and flashing round some sunny prow;--
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Then, as if seeking softer melody,
Back shrinking from the lately sought embrace;
Even as the new-won virgin, bashfully,
Love in her heart, but fear upon her face!
How exquisite, and yet how sad withal,
These murmurs, that fond meeting, and faint fall!
They swell upon my spirit's ear by night,
And morning brings them on her purple wings,--
Oh, Fancy!--as if feeding at thy springs,
They took from thee all voices of delight.
II.
Nor only of delight! The music swells
To sorrow, as the rosy day declines;
And folding up his wing among the vines,
The wandering zephyr of his garden tells
By the Euphrates.--Exiled from its flowers,
His wing is weary--he forgets its powers,
And his heart sinks with the decaying light,--
Most wretched, the Capricious! three long hours!
Ere dawn he plumes his wing for fresher flight,
Dreams of enduring joys in other bowers,
And wild his song of rapture that same night!
Rapture in sadness finds his fit repose,
As toil in sleep; and Fancy's self rebels,
Denied her evening bower and brief repose.
III.
Whoso denies this wholesome, natural want,
Endangers her existence! She must bask
Among the woods she rifles,--free from task,
The master's eye, and hard command,--and nap,
Where nature yields her groves and matron lap;--
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Where birds sing slumber, and the hunted doe,
Assured of safety, stops a while to pant!
Thus resting she arises, prompt and strong,
With eye all vigor,--wing prepared to go,
Rapt, heavenward, in the upward-gushing song!--
Poised like the great sea-eagle in his state,
Sovereign 'mongst rolling clouds, careering free,
Or, like the meeker lark, at heaven's own gate,
That, in her love, proclaims her liberty.
SONNETS.--POPULAR MISDIRECTION.
I.
HOW went the cry in Greece, an ominous sound,
When Elatea fell--disaster dread,
Presaging Choeronea! Is the tale read--
Is there no moral in the history found,
That we grope on, with tidings each day brought
Of outposts lost to the enemy--our foe
That saps our liberties through the popular thought,
And in our stupor, brings our virtue low.
Yet may we not despair--a nation sleeps
Not always:--she may need repose for strength,
And, at the perilous moment, break at length
Her bonds, as from his lair the lion leaps
To conquest, in the pride of all his powers:--
Ah! Choeronea never shall be ours!
II.
We are no more a people of the free;
A change is on our fortunes--we forget
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The high design that made our liberty
A thing of hope and wonder, and have set
Our hearts on earthly idols, vanities,
The childish wants of fashion, and a crowd
Of sordid appetites that clamor loud,
The eager ear of emptiness to please.
The nobler toils that only to high thought,
Patience and inward struggle yield the prize,
Are ours no longer;--we no more devise
Conquests of self and fortune;--all unwrought
That glorious vein our fathers struck of yore,
Which, left unwork'd, but makes us doubly poor.
III.
Sudden, the mighty nation goes not down,
There is no mortal fleetness in its fate;
Time,--many omens--still anticipate
The peril that removes its iron crown
And shakes its homes with ruin! Centuries
Fleet by in the long struggle; and great men
Rush mounted to the breach where victory lies,
And personal virtue brings us life again!
Were it not thus, my country!--were this hope
Not ours,--the present were a fearful time;
Vainly we summon mighty hearts to cope
With thy oppressors,--vanity and crime--
These ride thee, as upon some noble beast,
The scoundrel jackal, hurrying to his feast.
IV.
Would we recall our virtues and our peace?
The ancient teraphim we must restore;
Bring back the household gods we loved of yore,
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And bid our yearning for strange idols cease.
Our worship still is in the public way,--
Our altars are the market-place;--our prayer
Strives for meet welcome in our neighbor's ear,
And heaven affects us little while we pray.
We do not call on God, but man, to hear;--
Nor even on his affections;--we have lost
The sweet humility of our home desires,
And flaunt in foreign fashions at rare cost;
Nor God our souls, nor man our hearts inspires,
Nor aught that should to God or man be dear.
THE FIRST DREAM OF LOVE.
I.
SOFT, oh! how softly sleeping
Shadow'd by beauty she lies,
Dreams, as of rapture, creeping,
Smile by smile, over her eyes;
Lips, oh! how sweetly parting,
As if the delight between,
With its own warm pulses starting,
Strove to go forth and be seen.
II.
'Tis Love, born newly of fancy,
Brushing her heart with his plume,
That wakes, with his necromancy,
On the tale-telling cheek the bloom;--
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Ah! long as a fancy gladden,
Sweet Love, the delighted heart,
Nor ever with passion madden,
Nor ever with hope depart.
HAUNTED WOODS.--A FRAGMENT.
THESE woods have all been haunted, and the power
Of spells still harbors in each tree and flower;
The groves still keep, and hide, a various race,
Whom we should vainly labor to displace;
Nor were it wise, so long as we deplore
The failing virtues that we knew before;
Those precious sympathies that loved to find,
In speechless nature, voices for mankind:
That still acknowledged spirits in the beam,
Gnomes in the mountain, undines in the stream;
Dryads in woods, not near so wild as these,
And sweet, sad nymphs, that hide in ancient trees!
Here, to my faith, they still abide, and crown
The dark deep groves with beauties not their own:
Still, 'midst the sacred ring, in doubtful light,
The tricksy elves go dancing through the night;
Meet the capricious fairies, where they glide,
Sparkling in moonlight, by Saluda's side,
And, join'd in mimic battle, or in sport
More genial, find the happy night too short!
Thus the sad Indian, ever as he flew
O'er these smooth waters in his birch canoe,
Beheld afar, in light of summer eves,
Wild forms and faces glimmering through the leaves:
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Bright, star-like eyes flash'd out from thickest shades,
And, softly sudden, laugh'd ascending maids;
Strange antic shapes, half mingled with the pine,
Shriek'd out, as baffled in some foul design;
Shook their fierce torches at each flitting grace,
And stamp'd in fury o'er their trysting-place;
Trampled on flowers to fairy fingers dear,
And flouted joys they had not soul to share;--
Then fled to genial swamps and thickets dark,
Where the faint glow-worm shrouds her little spark.
An envious tribe, that, ere the white man came,
The dusky savage well had learn'd to name;
Mischievous elves, that charm'd his sylvan bow,
Warp'd the shaft, erring, sent against his foe;
'Wilder'd his footsteps in the search of prey,
And led his dog aside, the scentless way;
Still, when the day was done, beside him crept,
And fill'd his dreams with horror while he slept;
Nor gave him respite, till, with hallowing rite,
His priests, with incense, soothed the demon's spite!
In these the red-man's faith was no less strong
Than that which Allegmania kept so long:
A realm as various peopled, in his creed,
As Albion recognized, and knew indeed;
With native instincts, conscious of a tie,
'Twixt earth and air, that lifts humanity,
Supplying still a void between our race
And that we dream of in the world of space;
Showing faint glimpses, shapes of cloud and light,
Of fancy born, yet precious to the sight,
And still appealing, when we droop or dream,
To worlds and hopes which thus bestow their gleam;
A light, though faint, to show us where to rise,
And wings, though feeble, which may pierce the skies.
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Ah! from these woods they do not yet depart,
They win our worship still, they soothe our heart:
The ancient fancies still as strongly glow,
And still the antic shadows come and go;
Strange aspects haunt the forests, to our eyes,
As fill'd the red-man's home with mysteries;
We hear the wild chant of the eldritch race,
And see them flitting in their midnight chase:
They live for us as them. Our woodman sees,
Even now, quaint masks that lurk behind the trees;
Possess with spells that haunt him as he speeds,
Inspire his terrors, or arrest his deeds;
Until his soul grows full of faith, for which
His reason finds no answer and no speech:
He deems all true the red-man taught of spells,
Still loathly lingers where the demon dwells,
And still imagines that the charmed song,
Among the pines, will harbor in them long;
Not simply winds, communing with the boughs,
But sounds of brooding myriads, as they drowse.
THE STATESMAN.
WELL, if it be that Fortune's sun is setting,
And friends that cheer'd thee in thy happier day
Turn from thy griefs, thy glorious gifts forgetting,
And faithless prove when faith had been thy stay:
Thou art thine own mind's master, though forsaken
Of those who came and crouch'd while all was bright;
Thou bear'st a soul that storms have never shaken,
And resolute will to tread the path of right.
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And this is still to conquer, though we perish!
'Tis no defeat, when, steadfast in our hearts,
We yet, o'er all, the sacred purpose cherish,
Though every hope that grew with it departs;--
The will that moves us to the strife unquailing,
Still keeps the faith unchanging it believes;
Though in the hope that dream'd of conquest failing,
The future still avenges and--retrieves!
And, to thyself thus true in every fortune,
The very foes must honor who o'erthrow:
Calm, steadfast, firm--oh! why shouldst thou impórtune
The fate whose seasons ever come and go?
Thou hast no loss in ever-losing struggle,
For that thou strivest still in Duty's cause;
Rejecting still the bauble and the juggle,
True to thyself, the virtues and the laws.
SLEEPING CHILD.
MY little girl sleeps on my arm all night,
And seldom stirs, save, when with playful wile,
I bid her turn, and lift her lip to mine,--
Which, even as she sleeps, she does; and sometimes then,
Half muttering in her slumbers, she declares
Her love for me is boundless. Then I take
The precious promise closer to my arms,
And, by my action--for, in such a time,
My lips can find no utterance for my heart--
Give her assurance meet that she is there
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Most treasured of my jewels. Thus, tenderly,
Hour after hour, with no desire of sleep,
I watch above that large amount of hope,
With eyes made doubly vigilant by their tears,
Until the stars wane, and the yellow moon
Walks forth into the night.
THE GRAPE-VINE SWING.
LITHE and long as the serpent train,
Springing and clinging from tree to tree,
Now darting upward, now down again,
With a twist and a twirl that are strange to see:
Never took serpent a deadlier hold,
Never the cougar a wilder spring,
Strangling the oak with the boa's fold,
Spanning the beech with the condor's wing.
Yet no foe that we fear to seek--
The boy leaps wild to thy rude embrace;
Thy bulging arms bear as soft a cheek
As ever on lover's breast found place:
On thy waving train is a playful hold
Thou shalt never to lighter grasp persuade;
While a maiden sits in thy drooping fold,
And swings and sings in the noonday shade!
Oh! giant strange of our southern woods,
I dream of thee still in the well-known spot,
Though our vessel strains o'er the ocean floods,
And the northern forest beholds thee not;
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I think of thee still with a sweet regret,
As the cordage yields to my playful grasp--
Dost thou spring and cling in our woodlands yet?
Does the maiden still swing in thy giant clasp?
SONNET.--THE OLD MASTERS.
I REVERENCE these old masters--men who sung
Or painted, not for love of praise or fame;
Who heeded not the popular eye or tongue,
And craved no present honors for their name;
Who toil'd because they sorrow'd! In their hearts
The secret of their inspiration lay;--
When these were by the oppressor's minions wrang,
The terrible pang to utterance forced its way.
And hence it is, their passionate song imparts,
To him who listens, a like sensible woe,
That moves him much to turn aside and pray
As if his personal grief had present claim;--
Thus Danté found his muse,--the pride and shame
Of Florence;--Milton thus, and Michael Angelo!
SEASIDE SOLITUDE.
How, in this castled battlement that stands
A grim and ghastly giant o'er the sea,
As if to guard the subject smiling lands,
Safe kept in meet subjection, and so free,--
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How, with a silent sadness do I love,
When night winds all unfetter'd fly abroad,
And the pale moon, in peerless car above,
Moves onward like some melancholy god,
In very sadness of sublimity,
Bemoaning the great state which makes him lone;
How do I love to watch above the deep,
To hear winds whistle and the surges sweep,
And share the sadness and the silence then,
More full of speech for Thought than crowds of men;--
And drink in lessons of the great expanse,
That teaches still the far Eternity;
The world itself laid bare beneath the glance,
And all made subject to the soul and eye:
While still with choir of storm the great sea rolls
Its anthem, fitting conflicts of great souls;
A mighty heart of passion; even in sleep
Heaving with saddest moans, that show the strife how deep.
MENTAL SOLITUDE.
THE bells are gayly pealing, and the crowd,
The thoughtless and the happy, with light hearts,
Are moving by the casement:--I can hear
The rude din of their voices and the tramp
Of hurrying footsteps o'er the pavement nigh,
And my soul sickens in its solitude.
Each hath his own companion, and can bend,
As to a centre of enlivening warmth,
To some abode of happiness and mirth;--
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Greeted by pleasant voices,--words of cheer,
And hospitality,--whose outstretch'd hand
Draws in the smiling stranger at the door.
They go not singly by, as I should go,
But hanging on fond arms. They muse not thoughts
Of strange and timid sadness, such as mine;
But dreams of promised joys are in their souls,
And, in their ears, the music of kind words
That make them happy.
I, alas!--alone,
Of all this populous city, must remain,
Shut up in my dim chamber,--or, perchance,
If I dare venture out among the crowd,
Will be among, not of, them; and appear--
For that I have not walk'd with them before,
Nor been a sharer in their festivals--
As some strange monster brought from foreign climes
But to be baited with the thoughtless gaze,
The rude remark, cold eye and sneering lip,
Till I grow savage, and become, at last,
The rugged brute they do behold in me.
Talk not to me of solitude!--thou hast
But little of its meaning in thy thought,
And less in thy observance. It is not
To go abroad into the wilderness,
Or dart upon the ocean;--to behold
The broad expanse of prairie or of wood,
And deem,--for that the human form is not
A dweller on its bosom,--(with its shrill
And senseless clamor oft, breaking away
The melancholy of its sweet serene,
That, like a mantle, lifted by the breath
Of some presiding deity, o'erwraps,
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Making all mystery and gentleness,)--
That solitude is thine. Thy thought is vain!--
That is no desert, where the heart is free
To its own spirit-worship;--where the soul,
Untainted by the breath of busy life,
Converses with the elements, and grows
To a familiar notion of the skies,
Which are its portion. That is liberty!
And the sweet quiet of the waving woods,
The solemn song of ocean--the blue skies,
That hang like canopies above the plain,
And lend their richest hues to the fresh flowers
That carpet its broad bosom,--are most full
Of solace and the sweetest company!
I love these teeming voids,--their voiceless words,
So full of truest teaching. God is there,
Walking beside me, as, in elder times,
He walk'd beside the shepherds, and gave ear
To the first whisper'd doubts of early thought,
And prompted it aright. Such wilds to me
Seem full of friends and teachers. In the trees,
The never-ceasing billows, winds and leaves,
Feather'd and finny tribes,--all that I see,
All that I hear and fancy,--I have friends,
That soothe my heart to meekness, lift my soul
To loftiest hope, and, to my toiling mind,
Impart just thoughts and safest principles.
They have a language I can understand,
When man is voiceless, or with vexing words
Offends my judgment. They have melodies
That soothe my heart to peace, even as the dame
Soothes her dear infant with a song of sounds
That have no meaning for the older ear,
And mock the seeming wise. Even wint'ry clouds
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Have charms for me amid their cheerlessness,
And hang out images of love and light,
At evening, 'mong the stars,--or, ere the dusk
That specks so stilly the gray twilight's wing,
With many colors sweetly intermixt:--
And, when the breezes gather with the night,
And shake the roof-tree under which I sleep,
'Till the dried leaves enshroud me, then I hear
Voices of love and friendship in mine ear,
That speak to me in soothing, idle sounds,
And flatter me, I am not all alone.
Darting o'er ocean's blue domain, or far
In the deep woods, where the gaunt Choctaw yet
Lingers to perish;--galloping o'er the bald
Yet beautiful plain of prairie,--I become
Part of the world around me, and my heart
Forgets its singleness and solitude.
But, in the city's crowd, where I am one
'Mongst many,--many who delight to throw
The altar I have worshipp'd in the dust--
And trample my best offerings--and revile
My prayers--and scorn the tribute, which I still
Devoted with full heart and purest mind
To the all-wooing and all-visible God,
In nature ever present--having no mood
With mine, nor any sympathy with aught
That I have loved;--'tis there that I am taught
The essence and the form of solitude--
'Tis there that I am lonely!--'mid a world,
To feel I have no business in that world;
And when I hear men laughing, not to join,
Because their cause of mirth is hid from me:--
To feel the lights of the assembly glare
And fever all my senses, till I grow
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Stupid, or sad and boorish;--then return,
Sick of false joys and misnamed festivals,
To my own gloomy chambers, and old books
That counsel me no more, and cease to cheer,
And, like an aged dotard, with dull truths,
Significant of nothings, often told,
And told to be denied, that wear me out,
In patience, as in peace;--and then to lie,
And watch the lazy-footed night away,
With fretful nerve, that sorrows when it flies!--
To feel the day advancing which must bring
The weary night once more, that I had pray'd
Forever gone! To hear the laboring wind
Depart, in melting murmurs, with the tide,
And, ere the morn, to catch his sullen roar,
Mocking the ear, with watching overdone,
Returning from his rough lair on the seas!
If life be now denied me;--if I sit
Within my chamber when all other men
Are revelling;--if I must be alone,
Musing on idle minstrelsy and lore--
Weaving sad fancies with the fleeting hours,
And making fetters of the folding thoughts,
That crush into my heart, and canker there;--
If nature calls me to her company,
Takes up my time, teaches me legends strange,
Prattles of wild conceits that have no form,
Save in extravagant fancy of old years,
When spirits were abroad;--if still she leads
My steps away from the establish'd walks,
And, with seducing strains of syren song,
Beguiles my spirit far among the groves
Of fairy-trodden forests, that I may
Wrestle with dreams, that wear away my days,
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And make my nights a peopled realm which steals
Sleep from my eyes, and peace;--if she ordains
That I shall win no human blandishment,
Nor, in the present hour, as other men,
Find meet advantage:--she will sure provide,
Just recompense--a better sphere and life,
Atoning for the past, and full of hope
In a long future;--or she treats me now,
Unkindly, and I may not help complaint.
"SUCH, O BEAUTY!"
SUCH, O Beauty! the amorous strains
Sung in thy praises in happier hours;
Then the free spirit rejoiced in chains,
But only because they were framed of flowers;
When they grew strong, with flight of years,
To fetter the heart of the youthful rover,
The spirit felt troubled with many fears,
And the time for laughing in chains was over.
Beauty, yes!
The spirit felt troubled with many fears,
And the time for laughing in chains was over.
And yet, O Beauty! thy chains, though breaking,
And sterner grown in the strifes of men,
A look, or a lay of thine will waken
A rapture such as they kindled then;
And sad, in its very freedom sighing,
The spirit will turn for thy smile and say,
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Ah! better far in her bondage lying,
Than cheerlessly thus waste life away;
Beauty, yes!
Better far in thy bondage lying,
Than cheerlessly thus waste life away.
SONNETS.--THE CAPRICE OF THE SENSIBILITIES.
I.
TRUE,--love hath its perils and denials--takes
Its color from the cloud; and, with a will,
Born of capricious fancy, sometimes aches
With its own raptures, wild and wilful still;--
Is pleased to grieve o'er griefs that may not rise,
And finds a tempest in serenest skies;--
Suspects where it should worship, and grows cold
When most the mutual fire is warm and bright,--
And is, self-doom'd, a stranger to delight,
When most the entwining arms of truth would fold
The estranged one in the happiest heart-embrace!
But these are natural aspects in the strife
Of nature, worn by all of mortal race,
And prove far less of suffering than of life.
II.
It is, indeed, the nature that acquires,
Even from these changing aspects, a new birth;
Caprice is but the sleep of the desires,
As sadness is the sweet repose of mirth;--
And all the dear variety of earth
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Is so much fuel to renew her fires!
The eye that saddens now, unknowing why,
To-morrow, with as little consciousness,
Will blaze with freshest lustres,--as the sky,
Late sorrowing with a cloudy, cold distress,
Anon, in all her bright of blue appears!--
Love puts on strangest aspects, that confess
A nature, not a will; and in her tears
The very hope is born whose birth alone can bless!
III.
Not such are love's true sorrows;--in her fate
Lie deeper perils--dooms more desolate!--
Hers are the worst of fortune, since they grow
From the excessive exquisite in life,
She perils in the field of human strife;--
The sensibilities--the hopes that flow
From those superior fountains of the soul,
Where all is but a dying and a birth,
A resurrection and a sacrifice;
Which, though it happen on the lowliest hearth,
Is yet the breaking of a golden bowl,
Still destined to renewal,--for new ties
And other sunderings,--and that mortal pain,
To know that death and birth alike are vain!
IV.
That stroke which shatters the devoted heart,
Its faith in the beloved one--the sweet trust,
That felt him genial and believed him just,
And rudely rends the linkéd souls apart,
Denied the old communion--is the blow
Most mortal, that the mortal meets below!
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The death of the affections--the true life
That from humanity pluck'd the cruel sting,
Which, born of its first faltering, doom'd the strife
Heal'd only by the true heart's minist'ring!--
There is no other sorrow, born of love,
Which love itself can heal not;--and for this,
'Twere idle any ministry to prove,--
Since love, in loss of faith, hath lost all right to bliss!
V.
Thus is it that the heart which other woe
But strengthens with new tendrils,--when it shakes,
Doom'd to the lightning terrors of this blow,
Sinks, shivering with the bolt, and sudden breaks.
Fibres knit close as tendrils of the vine,
Lock'd fast and clinging to the upholding pine,--
Even as the faith is rent, which was the tree,
Fix'd steadfast and high-towering o'er all,
To which the affections clung, nor fear'd to fall,--
So perish all the hopes and sympathies:--
A thousand veins, and ruptured arteries
Lie sunder'd at the stroke, all bleeding free;
Wasting their precious streams upon the roots
Of the great tree that never more bears fruits!
VI.
No fruits, no life!--what matter if the tree
Still lifts a brow erect against the sky,
Great shaft and mighty branches,--if there be
No blossom, in his season, for the eye--
No green of leaf, no gorgeous pageantry,
Wooing the prolific and embracing air
To harbor in the noontide, and to brood
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Still murmuring music in his slumberous mood,
While birds sit swinging with their young ones there;
Their life a summer day or less--not long,
But still a life of blossom and of song,--
The blossom and the song being each a birth,
Born only of the fruit, and born of earth,
For earth, that still love's promise might be fair!
MOTHER AND CHILD.
THE wind blew wide the casement, and within--
It was the loveliest picture! a sweet child
Lay in its mother's arms, and drew its life,
In pauses, from the fountain,--the white round,
Part shaded by loose tresses, soft and dark,
Concealing, but still showing, the fair realm
Of so much rapture, as green shadowing trees
With beauty shroud the brooklet. The red lips
Were parted, and the cheek upon the breast
Lay close, and, like the young leaf of the flower,
Wore the same color--rich, and warm, and fresh:--
And such alone are beautiful. Its eye,
A full, blue gem, most exquisitely set,
Look'd archly on its world--the little imp,
As if it knew, even then, that such a wealth
Were not for all;--and with its playful hands
It drew aside the robe that hid its realm,
And peep'd and laugh'd aloud, and so it laid
Its head upon the shrine of such pure joys,
And laughing, slept. And while it slept, the tears
Of the sweet mother fell upon its cheek--
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Tears, such as fall from April skies, and bring
The sunlight after. They were tears of joy;
And the true heart of that young mother then
Grew lighter, and she sang unconsciously
The silliest ballad-song that ever yet
Subdued the nursery's voices, and brought sleep
To fold her sabbath wings above its couch.
COME, WHEN THE EVENING INTO SILENCE CLOSES.
I.
COME, when the evening into silence closes,
When the pale stars steal out upon the blue;
And watchful zephyrs to the virgin roses,
Descend in sweetest murmurs, bringing dew;
Come to the heart that sadly then declining,
Would need a soothing day has never known;
Come, like those stars upon the night-cloud shining,
And bless me with a beauty all thine own.
Beauty of songs and tears,
And blessed tremulous fears--
Beauty that shrinks from every gaze but one:
Ah! for the dear delight,
The music of thy sight,
I yield the day, the lonely day, and live for night alone.
II.
It is no grief that in the night hour only,
The love that is our solace may be sought;
Day mocks the soul that is in rapture lonely,
And voices break the spell with sorrow fraught;
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Better that single, silent star above us,
And still around us that subduing hush,
As of some brooding wing, ordain'd to love us,
That spells the troubled soul and soothes its gush;
Shadows that still beguile,
Sorrows that wear a smile,
Griefs that in dear delusions lead away--
And oh! that whispering tone,
Breathed, heard, by one alone,
That, as it dies--a wordless sound--speaks more than words can say
SONNETS.
OBJECTS WHICH INFLUENCE THE AMBITIOUS NATURE.
I. TROPHIES.--HOW PLANTED.
THE trophies which shine out for eager eyes,
In youth's first hour of progress, and delude
With promise dearest to ambition's mood,
Lie not within life's limits; but arise
Beyond the realm of sunset;--phantoms bright,
Glowing above the tomb; having their roots
Even in the worshipper's heart;--from whence their fruits,
And all that thence grows precious to man's sight!
Thence, too, their power to lure from beaten ways
That Love hath set with flowers; and thence the spell,
'Gainst which the blood denied may ne'er rebel,
That leads to sleepless nights and toilsome days,
And sacrifice of all those human joys,
That, to the ambitious nature, seem but toys.
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II. WHERE PLANTED.
It is the error of the impatient heart
To hope undying gifts, even while the strife
Is worst;--and, struggling 'gainst its mortal part,
The glorious Genius, laboring still for life,
Springs even from death to birth! 'Tis from his tomb
The amaranth rises which must wreathe his brow,
And crown his memory with unfading bloom!--
Rooted in best affections, it will grow,
Though water'd by sad tears, and watch'd by pride
Made humble in rejection! Love denied,
Shall tend it through all seasons, and shall give
Her never-failing tenderness,--though still
Be the proud spirit and the unyielding will,
That, through the mortal, made the immortal live!
III. TRIUMPH.
The grave but ends the struggle! Follows then
The triumph, which, superior to the doom,
Grows loveliest, and looks best, to mortal men,
Purple in beauty, towering o'er the tomb!
Oh! with the stoppage of the impulsive tide
That vex'd the impatient heart with needful strife,
The soul that is Hope's living leaps to life,
And shakes her fragrant plumage far and wide!
Eyes follow then in worship which but late
Frown'd in defiance;--and the timorous herd,
That sleekly waited for another's word,
Grow bold, at last, to bring,--obeying Fate,--
The tribute of their praise, but late denied,--
Tribute of homage which is sometimes--hate!
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IV. GLORY AND ENDURING FAME.
Thus Glory hath her being! Thus she stands
Star-crown'd--a high divinity of woe:
Her temples fill, her columns crown all lands,
Where lofty attribute is known below.
For her the smokes ascend, the waters flow,
The grave foregoes his prey, the soul goes free;
The gray rock gives out music,--hearthstones grow
To temples at her word--her footprints see,
On ruins, that are thus made holiest shrines,
Where Love may win devotion, and the heart,
That with the fire of Genius inly pines,
May find the guidance of a kindred art--
And, from the branch of that eternal tree,
Pluck fruits at once of death and immortality!
THE SWALLOWS.
WITH no signal of their coming,
With no promise of the spring,
With the dawning hark their humming,
And, across the window-pane,
See each gayly flashing wing,--
As delighted to discover,
While about the eaves they hover,
That all's safe at home again!
Such a merry, screaming clatter,
Such a chorus of delight;--
Something more must be the matter,
Than the simple certainty
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* The gourd or calabash, hung upon ash or cypress poles, being, as every one knows, the home usually assigned to the swallow at all Southern farmsteads.
Of the savage winter's flight,
And their ancient homes secure;
Still upon the slender ashes,
Hanging free their calabashes,*
And still wide each aperture!
† The swallow is cherished, as he protects the chicken from the hawk. This he does by darting above him, and descending rapidly, with flapping wings, above the eyes of the outlaw.
Friend of pigeon and of chicken,
Lately trembling at the hawk,
Well may that old ruffian sicken,
As he, slowly circling, sees
Those who come his sports to balk,--
Those that swift on arrowy pinion,
Drive him from his dread dominion,
And arrest his butcheries.†
Modest champions of the feeble,
Thus content in dwellings rude,
Joyful, and with happy treble,
Singing still in gladsome mood,
Ever happy, ever busy,
Whirling still in circles dizzy,
Making gay the solitude;--
Ye are welcome!--at your coming,
With your motion wild and glad,
Still rejoicing with your humming,
Hearts but lately all so sad;
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Tidings sweet ye bring to me,
Singing ever--Winter's flying,
Spring is nigh our buds supplying,
And the birds and blessings free!
SONNET.--DEATH IN YOUTH.
THEY tell us--whom the gods love die in youth!
'Tis something to die innocent and pure;
But death without performance is most sure
Ambition's martyrdom--worst death, in truth,
To the aspiring temper, fix'd in thought
Of high achievement! Happier far are they
Who, as the Prophet of the Ancients taught,
Hail the bright finish of a perfect day!
With fullest consummation of each aim,
That wrought the hope of manhood--with the crown
Fix'd to their mighty brows, of amplest fame--
Who smile at death's approaches and lie down
Calmly, as one beneath the shade-tree yields,
Satisfied of the morrow and green fields.
SUNSET PIECE.
ALL day had we been gliding o'er the seas,
With swan-like motion; for the skies were fair,
The waters smooth, or by a winning breeze,
But rippled into beauty far and near;
Our bark shot onward with a glad career,
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Like a brave steed with motion swift and free;
And now, as to the growing land we near,
Its headlands rising into majesty,
The mighty sun prepares to seek the embracing sea.
It is a sovereign's burial! O'er his brow
Hangs the imperial crown, a golden sphere;
While dark, in sullen majesty below,
The waters gathering in their mighty lair,
Rise, swelling into mountains! Far and near,
Mellow'd to soften'd twilight, a repose,
Sweet as the mild breath of the autumn air,
Is down upon the earth at evening's close:
No light too strongly beams, no breath too rudely blows.
But all above and all around,--the all
That links the visible to humanity--
Wound to a pleasant and seductive fall,
Woos the worn heart and wins the weary eye;
A pale star o'er yon steep acclivity,
Beckons the modest evening to her side,
Ere yet the dying monarch has thrown by
His purple, and, with glance of love and pride,
Sends peace throughout her empire, far and wide.
A freshness in the breeze, a pleasant breath,
As of a living odor, late from vales
Undimm'd by shadow, undeprived by death,
Of greenest verdure or of sweetest gales--
At fits it swells aloft, and then exhales
Away in music,--while a muttering sound,
As of the ocean when the tempest wails,
Breaks through the yielding tree-tops--all around
The day droops faintly clear, but purples still the ground.
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Far off, the tall rocks, in his latest glance,
Glow like Vesuvius! On each rugged brow
Capricious fires ascend, recede, advance,
Down sinking, then up rushing, as the flow
Of waves that seek the beach when seas are low,
Fond of old places! His sweet smile subdues
Their harsher aspects; warms with godlike glow,
The cold he may not conquer; 'till they lose
The aspects harsh and wild that still our steps refuse.
Love in his dying purpose, he relieves
The gloom of parting: thus, the cloud that far
Still follows on his footstep, now receives
His smile; and made all radiant like a star,
Glows in soft crimson and around his car
Curtains his couch as downward still he hies;--
Tempering the glorious light it may not mar,
The lovely drapery closes o'er his eyes,
Yet keeps his latest gift, his robe of thousand dyes.
Leap the wild billows round him as he goes,
Reddening their edges as in noonday pride;
Still struggling, as the giant girt by foes,
And failing but still fighting, eagle-eyed,
With full unfailing heart and sovereign stride,
Till the prevailing waters with wild roar,
Do homage to the glories they defied,--
Their realm of waste with fresh lights purpled o'er,
Borne far, from wave to wave, along the receding shore.
He sinks and in the heavens another star
Glides forth to her that beckon'd from the blue;
And the young moon in pearly-cinctured car,
Rides up where ocean's barriers bind the view.
Silvering the cloud she cannot quite subdue,
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Soothing the strife she may not hope to sway,
Her chaster livery chides the purple's hue,
And drapes the glare that made the garish day:
Thus Love doth Glory spell to choose her milder way.
SONNETS.--TO MY FRIEND.
I.
AMBITION owns no friend yet be thou mine!--
I have not much to win thee,--yet if song
Born of affection may one name prolong,
My lay shall seek to give a life to thine.
Let this requite thee for the honoring thought
That has forgiven me each capricious mood;
Dealt gently with my phrensies, school'd my blood,
And still with love my sad seclusion sought.
And when the gray sod rises o'er my breast,
Be thou the guardian of my deeds and name,
Defend me from the foes who hunt my fame,--