SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN LITERATURE.
Reading edition
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
Who, that reads poetry at all, has not read and admired “Snow-Bound?” “That exquisite poem has no prototype in English literature unless Burns’ ‘Cotter’s Saturday Night’ be one, and it will be long, I fear, before it will have a companion piece. Out of materials of the slightest order, really common-place, Mr. Whittier had made a poem that will live, and can no more be rivaled by any winter poetry that may be written hereafter, than ‘Thanatopsis’ can be rivaled as a meditation on the universality of death. The characters of this little idyl are carefully drawn.… Everything is naturally introduced, and the reflections, which are manly and pathetic, are among the finest that Mr. Whittier has ever written. ‘Snow-Bound’ at once authenticated itself as an idyl of New England life and manners.”—(Abridged) R. H. Stoddard.
The Vaudois Teacher.
“Oh lady fair, these silks of mine are beautiful and rare, The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty’s queen might wear; And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whose radiant light they vie; I have brought them with me a weary way,—will my gentle lady buy?” And the lady smiled on the worn old man through the dark and clustering curls Which veiled her brow as she bent to view his silks and glittering pearls; And she placed their price in the old man’s hand, and lightly turned away; But she paused at the wanderer’s earnest call,—“My gentle lady, stay!” “Oh lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer luster flings, Than the diamond flash of the jeweled crown on the lofty brow of kings; A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay, Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a blessing on thy way.” The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her form of grace was seen, Where her eyes shone clear, and her dark locks waved their clasping pearls between. “Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveler gray and old,— And name the price of thy precious gem, and my page shall count thy gold.” The cloud went off from the pilgrim’s brow, as a small and meager book, Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his folded robe he took. “Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove as such to thee! Nay, keep thy gold, I ask it not, for the Word of God is free.” The hoary traveler went his way, but the gift he left behind Hath had its pure and perfect work on that high-born maiden’s mind; And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the lowliness of truth, And given her human heart to God in its beautiful hour of youth.
Providence.
I know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, Assured alone that life and death His mercy underlies. And if my heart and flesh are weak To bear an untried pain, The bruised reed He will not break, But strengthen and sustain. No offering of my own I have, No works my faith to prove; I can but give the gifts He gave, And plead His love for love. And so beside the silent sea I wait the muffled oar; No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on shore. I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I can not drift Beyond his love and care. And thou, O Lord, by whom are seen Thy creatures as they be, Forgive me if too close I lean My human heart on Thee.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
As in the case of Hood, the fun in Holmes is always jostling the pathos. After some comic picture or grotesque phrase or quick thrust, the reader comes suddenly upon a stanza of perfect beauty of form with the gentlest touch of natural feeling. To illustrate this, it may be pardonable to quote even from so well known a poem as “The Last Leaf:”
I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches and all that Are so queer. The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has prest In their bloom; And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb.
The last stanza is a pearl so perfect that one can not conceive it as having been made; it seems that it must have been created.—Francis H. Underwood.
It is difficult to imagine the time when any of the characteristic poems of Holmes will slumber on the shelves of antiquaries. They must be eternally new to the new generations, because they are founded in nature, constructed with art, animated by the noblest qualities of intellect and feeling—uniting the wit of Heine with the freshness of Beranger—and are finished as few poems have been finished since the odes of Horace.—Scribner’s Monthly.
The Prisoned Nautilus.
This is the ship of pearl, which poets feign,— Sails the unshadow’d main,— The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wreck’d is the ship of pearl! And every chamber’d cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies reveal’d,— Its iris’d ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unseal’d! Year after year behold the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year’s dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:— Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast Till thou at length are free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea.
“The Boys.”
Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? If there has take him out, without making a noise, Hang the Almanac’s cheat, and the Catalogue’s spite! Old Time is a liar! We’re twenty to-night! We’re twenty! We’re twenty! Who says we are more? He’s tipsy,—young jackanapes! show him the door! “Gray temples at twenty?” Yes! white if we please; Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there’s nothing can freeze! Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! Look close,—you will see not a sign of a flake! We want some new garlands for those we have shed,— And these are white roses in place of the red. We’ve a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, Of talking (in public) as if we were old:— That boy we call “Doctor” and this we call “Judge;” It’s a neat little fiction,—of course it’s all fudge. That fellow’s the “Speaker,”—the one on the right; “Mr. Mayor,” my young one, how are you to-night? That’s our “Member of Congress,” we say when we chaff; There’s the “Reverend” What’s-his-name?—don’t make me laugh. That boy with the grave mathematical look Made believe he had written a wonderful book, And the Royal Society thought it was true! So they chose him right in,—a good joke it was too! There’s a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain, That could harness a team with a logical chain; When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, We called him “The Justice,” but now he’s “The Squire.” And there’s a nice youngster of excellent pith,— Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,— Just read on his medal, “My country,” “of thee!” You hear that boy laughing?—You think he’s all fun; But the angels laugh too, at the good he has done; The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all! Yes, we’re boys, always playing with tongue or with pen; And I sometimes have asked, shall we ever be men? Shall we always be youthful, and laughing and gay, Till the last dear companion drops smiling away? Then here’s to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! The stars of its winter, the dews of its May! And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, Dear Father, take care of thy children, The Boys.
Conscience.
Nature has placed thee on a changeful tide, To breast its waves, but not without a guide. Yet, as the needle will forget its aim, Jarred by the fury of the electric flame, As the true current it will falsely feel Warped from its axis by a freight of steel; So will thy Conscience lose its balanced truth, If passion’s lightning fall upon its youth; So the pure effluence quit its sacred hold, Girt round too deeply with magnetic gold. Go to yon town where busy science plies Her vast antennæ, feeling through the skies,— That little vernier on whose slender lines The midnight taper trembles as it shines, A silent index, tracks the planets march In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch, Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns, And marks the spot where Uranus returns. So, till by wrong or negligence effaced, The living index, which thy Maker traced, Repeats the line each starry virtue draws Through the wide circuit of creation’s laws. Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray Where the dark shadows of temptation stray; But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of light, And leaves thee wandering o’er the expanse of night.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
It is not necessary to say that Lowell is the first poet of the time, or of the country, although it would be possible to maintain that proposition with strong reasons; but it will be conceded, we think, by most who have the capacity of appreciating poetic genius, that in some of his strains he reaches a note as lofty and clear and pure as any this generation has produced, and has written what will have long life in the world, and be hoarded by the wise as treasures of thought and expression.—Boston Advertiser.
The wisdom and wit and insight and imagination of the book are as delightful as they are surprising. The most cynical critic will not despair of American literature, if American authors are to write such books.—G. W. Curtis.
The moving power of Mr. Lowell’s poetry, which we take to be its delicate apprehension of the spiritual essence in common things, is, in some of his poems, embodied in the fine organization of a purely poetic diction; in others, in the strong, broad language of popular feeling and humor; and we enjoy each the more for the presence of the other.—The Spectator (London).
Hunting a Theme.
Now I’ve a notion if a poet Beat up for themes, his verse will show it; I wait for subjects that haunt me, By day or night won’t let me be, And hang about me like a curse, Till they have made me into verse. … Make thyself rich, and then the Muse Shall court thy precious interviews; Shall take thy head upon her knee, And such enchantment lilt to thee That thou shalt hear the life-blood flow From farthest stars to grass-blades low.
In the Twilight.
Sometimes a breath floats by me, An odor from dreamland sent, That makes the ghost seem nigh me Of a splendor that came and went; Of a life lived somewhere, I know not In what diviner sphere, Of memories that stay not and go not, Like music once heard by an ear That can not forget or reclaim it,— A something, so shy, it would shame it To make it a show, A something too vague, could I name it, For others to know, As if I had lived it or dreamed it, As if I had acted or schemed it, Long ago! And yet, could I live it over, This life that stirs in my brain, Could I be both maiden and lover, Moon and tide, bee and clover, As I seem to have been, once again, Could I but speak and show it, This pleasure, more sharp than pain, That baffles and lures me so, The world should not lack a poet, Such as it had In the ages glad Long ago!
[The following exquisite lines are suggestive, and in strong contrast with the familiar rollicking stanzas in the serio-comic “Biglow Papers.”]
Longing.
The thing we long for, that we are, For one transcendent moment, Before the present poor and bare Can make its sneering comment. Still, through our paltry stir and strife Glows down the wished ideal, And longing moulds in clay what life Carves in the marble real; To let the new life in, we know, Desire must ope the portal; Perhaps the longing to be so Helps make the soul immortal. Longing is God’s fresh heavenward will With our poor earthward striving; We quench it that we may be still Content with merely living; But, would we learn that heart’s full scope Which we are hourly wronging, Our lives must climb from hope to hope, And realize the longing.
The world is impatient of distinction; it chafes against it, rails at it, insults it, hates it; it ends by receiving its influence, and by undergoing its law. This quality at last inexorably corrects the world’s blunders, and fixes the world’s ideals. It procures that the popular poet shall not finally pass for a Pindar, nor the popular historian for a Tacitus, nor the popular preacher for a Bossuet.—Matthew Arnold.