Miscellaneous Poems.

The golden sea its mirror spread Beneath the golden skies, And but a narrow strip between Of land and shadow lies. The cloud-like rocks, the rock-like clouds Dissolved in glory float, And midway of the radiant flood, Hangs silently the boat. The sea is but another sky, The sky a sea as well, And which is earth and which is heaven, The eye can scarcely tell. So when for us life’s evening hour, Soft fading shall descend, May glory, born of earth and heaven, The earth and heaven blend. Flooded with peace the spirits float, With silent rapture glow, Till where earth ends and heaven begins, The soul shall scarcely know.

Am I a king, that I should call my own This splendid ebon throne? Or by what reason, or what right divine, Can I proclaim it mine? Only, perhaps, by right divine of song It may to me belong; Only because the spreading chestnut tree Of old was sung by me. Well I remember it in all its prime, When in the summer-time The affluent foliage of its branches made A cavern of cool shade. There by the blacksmith’s forge beside the street Its blossom white and sweet Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive, And murmured like a hive. And when the winds of autumn, with a shout, Tossed its great arms about, The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath, Dropped to the ground beneath. And now some fragments of its branches bare, Shaped as a stately chair, Have by my hearthstone found a home at last, And whisper of the Past. The Danish king could not in all his pride Repel the ocean tide, But seated in this chair, I can in rhyme Roll back the tide of Time. I see again, as one in vision sees, The blossoms and the bees, And hear the children’s voices shout and call, And the brown chestnuts fall. I see the smithy with its fires aglow, I hear the bellows blow, And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat The iron white with heat! And thus, dear children, have ye made for me This day a jubilee, And to my more than threescore years and ten Brought back my youth again. The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, And in it are enshrined The precious keepsakes, into which are wrought The giver’s loving thought. Only your love and your remembrance could Give life to this dead wood, And make these branches, leafless now so long, Blossom again in song.

Is it so far from thee Thou canst no longer see In the Chamber over the Gate That old man desolate, Weeping and wailing sore For his son who is no more? O Absalom, my son! Is it so long ago That cry of human woe From the walled city came, Calling on his dear name, That it has died away In the distance of to-day? O Absalom, my son! There is no far nor near, There is neither there nor here, There is neither soon nor late, In that Chamber over the Gate, Nor any long ago To that cry of human woe, O Absalom, my son! From the ages that are past The voice comes like a blast, Over seas that wreck and drown, Over tumult of traffic and town; And from ages yet to be Come the echoes back to me, O Absalom, my son! Somewhere at every hour The watchman on the tower Looks forth, and sees the fleet Approach of the hurrying feet Of messengers that bear The tidings of despair. O Absalom, my son! He goes forth from the door, Who shall return no more. With him our joy departs; The light goes out in our hearts; In the Chamber over the Gate We sit disconsolate. O Absalom, my son! That ’tis a common grief Bringing but slight relief; Ours is the bitterest loss, Ours is the heaviest cross; And for ever the cry will be, “Would God I had died for thee O Absalom, my son!”

Four limpid lakes—four Naiades Or sylvan deities are these, In flowing robes of azure dressed, Four lovely handmaids that uphold Their shining mirrors, rimmed with gold, To the fair city in the West. By day the coursers of the Sun Drink of these waters as they run Their swift diurnal round on high; By night the constellations glow Far down the hollow deeps below, And glimmer in another sky. Fair Lakes, serene and full of light, Fair town, arrayed in robes of white, How visionary ye appear! All like a floating landscape seems In cloud-land or the land of dreams Bathed in a golden atmosphere.

In St. Luke’s Gospel we are told How Peter in the days of old Was sifted; And now, though ages intervene, Sin is the same, while time and scene Are shifted. Satan desires us, great and small, As wheat, to sift us, and we all Are tempted; Not one, however rich or great, Is by his station or estate Exempted. No house so safely guarded is But he, by some device of his, Can enter; No heart hath armour so complete But he can pierce with arrows fleet Its centre. For all at last the cock will crow Who hear the warning voice, but go Unheeding, Till thrice and more they have denied The Man of Sorrows, crucified And bleeding. One look of that pale suffering face Will make us feel the deep disgrace Of weakness; We shall be sifted till the strength Of self-conceit be changed at length To meekness. Wounds of the soul, though healed, will ache, The reddening scars remain, and make Confession; Lost innocence returns no more; We are not what we were before Transgression. But noble souls, through dust and heat, Rise from disaster and defeat The stronger, And conscious still of the Divine Within them, he on earth supine No longer.

What phantom is this, that appears Through the purple mists of the years Itself but a mist like these? A woman of cloud and of fire; It is she; it is Helen of Tyre, The town in the midst of the seas! O Tyre! in thy crowded streets The phantom appears and retreats, And the Israelites, that sell Thy lilies and lions of brass, Look up as they see her pass, And murmur “Jezebel!” Then another phantom is seen At her side, in a grey gabardine, With beard that floats to his waist; It is Simon Magus, the Seer; He speaks, and she pauses to hear The words he utters in haste. He says: “From this evil fame, From this life of sorrow and shame, I will lift thee and make thee mine! Thou hast been Queen Candace, And Helen of Troy, and shalt be The Intelligence Divine!” Oh, sweet as the breath of morn, To the fallen and forlorn Are whispered words of praise; For the famished heart believes The falsehood that tempts and deceives, And the promise that betrays. So she follows from land to land The wizard’s beckoning hand, As a leaf is blown by the gust, Till she vanishes into night! O reader, stoop down and write With thy finger in the dust. O town in the midst of the seas, With thy rafts of cedar trees, Thy merchandise and thy ships, Thou, too, art become as nought, A phantom, a shadow, a thought, A name upon men’s lips.

I thought this Pen would arise From the casket where it lies— Of itself would arise, and write My thanks and my surprise. When you gave it me under the pines, I dreamed these gems from the mines Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine Would glimmer as thoughts in the lines; That this iron link from the chain Of Bonnivard might retain Some verse of the Poet who sang Of the prisoner and his pain; That this wood from the frigate’s mast Might write me a rhyme at last, As it used to write on the sky The song of the sea and the blast. But motionless as I wait, Like a Bishop lying in state Lies the Pen, with its mitre of gold, And its jewels inviolate. Then I must speak, and say That the light of that summer day In the garden under the pines Shall not fade and pass away. I shall see you standing there, Caressed by the fragrant air, With the shadow on your face, And the sunshine on your hair. I shall hear the sweet low tone Of a voice before unknown, Saying, “This is from me to you— From me, and to you alone.” And in words not idle and vain I shall answer, and thank you again For the gift, and the grace of the gift, O beautiful Helen of Maine! And for ever this gift will be As a blessing from you to me, As a drop of the dew of your youth On the leaves of an aged tree.

As the birds come in the spring, We know not from where; As the stars come at evening From the depths of the air; As the rain comes from the cloud, And the brook from the ground; As suddenly, low or loud, Out of silence a sound; As the grape comes to the vine, The fruit to the tree; As the wind comes to the pine, And the tide to the sea; As come the white sails of ships O’er the ocean’s verge; As comes the smile to the lips; The foam to the surge; So come to the Poet his songs, All hitherward blown From the misty land, that belongs To the vast Unknown. His, and not his, are the lays He sings;—and their fame Is his, and not his;—and the praise And the pride of a name. For voices pursue him by day, And haunt him by night, And he listens, and needs must obey, When the angel says: “Write!”

I see amid the fields of Ayr A ploughman, who in foul or fair Sings at his task, So clear we know not if it is The laverock’s song we hear or his, Nor care to ask. For him the ploughing of those fields A more ethereal harvest yields Than sheaves of grain: Songs flush with purple bloom the rye; The plover’s call, the curlew’s cry, Sing in his brain. Touched by his hand, the wayside weed Becomes a flower; the lowliest reed Beside the stream Is clothed with beauty; gorse and grass And heather, where his footsteps pass, The brighter seem. He sings of love, whose flame illumes The darkness of lone cottage rooms; He feels the force, The treacherous under-tow and stress, Of wayward passions, and no less The keen remorse. At moments, wrestling with his fate, His voice is harsh, but not with hate; The brushwood hung Above the tavern door lets fall Its bitter leaf, its drop of gall, Upon his tongue. But still the burden of his song Is love of right, disdain of wrong; Its master chords Are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood; Its discords but an interlude Between the words. And then to die so young, and leave Unfinished what he might achieve! Yet better sure Is this than wandering up and down, An old man, in a country town, Infirm and poor. For now he haunts his native land As an immortal youth; his hand Guides every plough; He sits beside each ingle-nook; His voice is in each rushing brook, Each rustling bough. His presence haunts this room to-night, A form of mingled mist and light, From that far coast. Welcome beneath this roof of mine! Welcome! this vacant chair is thine, Dear guest and ghost!

Dead he lay among his books! The peace of God was in his looks. As the statues in the gloom Watch o’er Maximilian’s tomb, So those volumes from their shelves Watched him silent as themselves. Ah! his hand will never more Turn their storied pages o’er, Never more his lips repeat Songs of theirs, however sweet. Let the lifeless body rest! He is gone who was its guest; Gone, as travellers haste to leave An inn, nor tarry until eve. Traveller! in what realms afar In what planet, in what star, In what vast, aërial space Shines the light upon thy face? In what gardens of delight Rest thy weary feet to-night? Poet! thou whose latest verse Was a garland on thy hearse; Thou hast sung, with organ tone, In Deukalion’s life thine own;⁠[59] On the ruins of the past Blooms the perfect flower at last. Friend! but yesterday the bells Rang for thee their loud farewells; And to-day they toll for thee, Lying dead beyond the sea; Lying dead among thy books, The peace of God in all thy looks!

What an image of peace and rest Is this little church among its graves! All is so quiet; the troubled breast, The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed, Here may find the repose it craves. See how the ivy climbs and expands Over this humble hermitage, And seems to caress with its little hands The rough grey stones, as a child that stands Caressing the wrinkled cheeks of age! You cross the threshold; and dim and small Is the space that serves for the Shepherd’s Fold; The narrow aisle, the bare white wall, The pews, and the pulpit quaint and tall, Whisper and say, “Alas! we are old.” Herbert’s Chapel at Bemerton, Hardly more spacious is than this; But Poet and Pastor, blent in one, Clothed with a splendour as of the sun, That lowly and holy edifice. It is not the wall of stone without That makes the building small or great, But the soul’s light shining round about, And the faith that overcometh doubt, And the love that stronger is than hate. Were I a pilgrim in search of peace, Were I a pastor of Holy Church, More than a bishop’s diocese Should I prize this place of rest and release From further longing and further search. Here would I stay, and let the world With its distant thunder roar and roll; Storms do not rend the sail that is furled; Nor like a dead leaf tossed and whirled In an eddy of wind is the anchored soul.

How cold are thy baths, Apollo! Cried the African monarch the splendid, As down to his death in the hollow Dark dungeons of Rome he descended, Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended; How cold are thy baths, Apollo! How cold are thy baths, Apollo! Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended, As the vision that lured him to follow With the mist and the darkness blended, And the dream of his life was ended; How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

MAIDEN. O weathercock on the village spire, With your golden feathers all on fire, Tell me, what can you see from your perch, Above there over the towers of the church? WEATHERCOCK. I can see the roofs and the streets below, And the people moving to and fro, And beyond, without either roof or street, The great salt sea and the fishermen’s fleet. I can see a ship come sailing in Beyond the headlands and harbour of Lynn, And a young man standing on the deck With a silken ’kerchief round his neck. Now he is pressing it to his lips, And now he is kissing his finger tips, And now he is lifting and waving his hand, And blowing the kisses toward the land. MAIDEN. Ah, that is the ship from over the sea, That is bringing my lover back to me; Bringing my lover so fond and true, Who does not change with the wind like you. WEATHERCOCK. If I change with all the winds that blow, It is only because they made me so; And people would think it wondrous strange If I, a weathercock, should not change. O pretty maiden, so fine and fair, With your dreamy eyes and your golden hair, When you and your lover meet to-day, You will thank me for looking some other way.

Behold! a giant am I! Aloft here in my tower With my granite jaws I devour The maize, and the wheat, and the rye, And grind them into flour. I look down over the farms; In the fields of grain I see The harvest that is to be; And I fling to the air my arms, For I know it is all for me. I hear the sound of flails, Far off from the threshing-floors In barns, with their open doors, And the wind, the wind in my sails Louder and louder roars. I stand here in my place, With my foot on the rock below, And whichever way it may blow I meet it face to face As a brave man meets his foe. And while we wrestle and strive, My master the miller stands And feeds me with his hands; For he knows who makes him thrive, Who makes him lord of lands. On Sundays I take my rest; Church-going bells begin Their low melodious din; I cross my arms on my breast, And all is peace within.

Alone I walk the peopled city, Where each seems happy with his own; Oh! friends, I ask not for your pity— I walk alone. No more for me yon lake rejoices, Though moved by loving airs of June; Oh! birds, your sweet and piping voices Are out of tune. In vain for me the elm tree arches Its plumes in many a feathery spray; In vain the evening’s starry marches And sunlit day. In vain your beauty, Summer flowers; Ye cannot greet these cordial eyes; They gaze on other fields than ours— On other skies. The gold is rifled from the coffer, The blade is stolen from the sheath; Life has but one more boon to offer, And that is—Death. Yet well I know the voice of Duty, And, therefore, life and health must crave, Though she who gave the world its beauty Is in her grave. I live, O lost one! for the living Who drew their earliest life from thee, And wait, until with glad thanksgiving I shall be free. For life to me is as a station Wherein apart a traveller stands— One absent long from home and nation, In other lands. And I, as he who stands and listens, Amid the twilight’s chill and gloom, To hear, approaching in the distance, The train for home. For death shall bring another mating, Beyond the shadows of the tomb, On yonder shores a bride is waiting Until I come. In yonder field are children playing, And there—oh! vision of delight!— I see the child and mother straying In robes of white. Thou, then, the longing heart that breakest, Stealing the treasures one by one, I’ll call Thee blessed when thou makest The parted—one.

Until we meet again! That is the meaning Of the familiar words that men repeat At parting in the street. Ah, yes, till then! but when death intervening Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain We wait for the Again! The friends who leave us do not feel the sorrow Of parting as we feel it who must stay Lamenting day by day, And knowing, when we wake upon the morrow, We shall not find in its accustomed place The one belovèd face. It were a double grief, if the departed, Being released from earth, should still retain A sense of earthly pain; It were a double grief if the true-hearted Who loved us here, should on the farther shore Remember us no more. Believing, in the midst of our afflictions, That death is a beginning, not an end, We cry to them, and send Farewells, that better might be called predictions, Being foreshadowings of the future thrown Into the vast Unknown. Faith overleaps the confines of our reason, And if by faith, as in old times was said, Women received their dead Raised up to life, then only for a season Our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain Until we meet again.

With favouring winds, o’er sunlit seas, We sailed for the Hesperides, The land where golden apples grow; But that, ah! that was long ago. How far since then the ocean streams Have swept us from the land of dreams. That land of fiction and of truth, The lost Atlantis of our youth! Whither, ah, whither? Are not these The tempest-haunted Hebrides, Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar, And wreck and sea-weed line the shore? Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle! Here in thy harbours for awhile We lower our sails; awhile we rest From the unending, endless quest.

Still through Egypt’s desert places Flows the lordly Nile; From its banks the great stone faces, Gaze with patient smile; Still the pyramids imperious Pierce the cloudless skies, And the Sphinx stares with mysterious, Solemn, stony eyes. But where are the old Egyptian Demigods and kings? Nothing left but an inscription Graven on stones and rings. Where are Helius and Hephoestus, Gods of eldest eld? Where is Hermes Trismegistus, Who their secrets held? Where are now the many hundred Thousand books he wrote? By the Thaumaturgists plundered, Lost in lands remote; In oblivion sunk for ever, As when o’er the land Blows a storm-wind, in the river Sinks the scattered sand. Something unsubstantial, ghostly, Seems this Theurgist, In deep meditation mostly Wrapped, as in a mist. Vague, phantasmal, and unreal, To our thought he seems, Walking in a world ideal, In the land of dreams. Was he one, or many, merging Name and fame in one, Like a stream, to which converging Many streamlets run? Till, with gathered power proceeding, Ampler sweep it takes, Downward the sweet waters leading From unnumbered lakes. By the Nile I see him wandering, Pausing now and then, On the mystic union pondering Between gods and men; Half-believing, wholly feeling, With supreme delight, How the gods, themselves concealing, Lift men to their height. Or in Thebes, the hundred-gated, In the thoroughfare Breathing, as if consecrated, A diviner air; And amid discordant noises, In the jostling throng, Hearing far, celestial voices Of Olympian song. Who shall call his dreams fallacious? Who has searched or sought All the unexplored and spacious Universe of thought? Who, in his own skill confiding, Shall with rule and line Mark the border-land dividing Human and divine? Trismegistus! three times greatest! How thy name sublime Has descended to this latest Progeny of time! Happy they whose written pages Perish with their lives, If amid the crumbling ages Still their name survives! Thine, O priest of Egypt, lately Found I in the vast, Weed-encumbered, sombre, stately Graveyard of the Past; And a presence moved before me On that gloomy shore, As a waft of wind, that o’er me Breathed, and was no more.

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest On this Field of the Grounded Arms, Where foes no more molest, Nor sentry’s shot alarms! Ye have slept on the ground before, And started to your feet At the cannon’s sudden roar, Or the drum’s redoubling beat. But in this camp of Death No sound your slumber breaks; Here is no fevered breath, No wound that bleeds and aches. All is repose and peace, Untrampled lies the sod; The shouts of battle cease, It is the Truce of God! Rest, comrades, rest and sleep! The thoughts of men shall be As sentinels to keep Your rest from danger free. Your silent tents of green We deck with fragrant flowers; Yours has the suffering been, The memory shall be ours.

TRAVELLER. Why dost thou wildly rush and roar, Mad River, O Mad River? Wilt thou not pause and cease to pour Thy hurrying, headlong waters o’er This rocky shelf for ever? What secret trouble stirs thy breast? Why all this fret and flurry? Dost thou not know that what is best In this too restless world is rest From over-work and worry? THE RIVER. What wouldst thou in these mountains seek, O stranger from the city? Is it, perhaps, some foolish freak Of thine, to put the words I speak Into a plaintive ditty? TRAVELLER. Yes; I would learn of thee thy song, With all its flowing numbers, And in a voice as fresh and strong As thine is, sing it all day long, And hear it in my slumbers. THE RIVER. A brooklet nameless and unknown Was I at first, resembling A little child, that all alone Comes venturing down the stairs of stone, Irresolute and trembling. Later, by wayward fancies led, For the wide world I panted; Out of the forest dark and dread, Across the open fields I fled, Like one pursued and haunted! I tossed my arms, I sang aloud, My voice exultant blending With thunder from the passing cloud, The wind, the forest bent and bowed, The rush of rain descending. I heard the distant ocean call, Imploring and entreating; Drawn onward, o’er this rocky wall, I plunged, and the loud waterfall Made answer to the greeting. And now, beset with many ills, A toilsome life I follow; Compelled to carry from the hills These logs to the impatient mills, Below there in the hollow. Yet something ever cheers and charms The rudeness of my labours; Daily I water with these arms The cattle of a hundred farms, And have the birds for neighbours. Men call me Mad, and well they may, When, full of rage and trouble, I burst my banks of sand and clay, And sweep their wooden bridge away, Like withered reeds and stubble. Now go and write thy little rhyme As of thine own creating. Thou seest the day is past its prime, I can no longer waste my time; The mills are tired of waiting.

“‘O traveller, stay thy weary feet; Drink of this fountain, pure and sweet; It flows for rich and poor the same. The go thy way, remembering still The wayside well beneath the hill, The cup of water in His name.’”

What say the Bells of San Blas To the ships that southward pass From the harbour of Mazatlan? To them it is nothing more Than the sound of surf on the shore— Nothing more to master or man. But to me, a dreamer of dreams, To whom what is and what seems Are often one and the same,— The Bells of San Blas to me Have a strange, wild melody, And are something more than a name. For bells are the voice of the Church; They have tones that touch and search The hearts of young and old; One sound to all, yet each Lends a meaning to their speech, And the meaning is manifold. They are a voice of the Past, Of an age that is fading fast, Of a power austere and grand, When the flag of Spain unfurled Its folds o’er this Western world, And the Priest was lord of the land. The chapel that once looked down On the little seaport town Has crumbled into dust; And on oaken beams below The bells swing to and fro, And are green with mould and rust. “Is, then, the old faith dead,” They say, “and in its stead Is some new faith proclaimed, That we are forced to remain Naked to sun and rain, Unsheltered and ashamed? “Once in our tower aloof, We rang over wall and roof Our warnings and our complaints; And round about us there, The white doves filled the air Like the white souls of the saints. “The saints! ah, have they grown Forgetful of their own? Are they asleep or dead, That open to the sky Their ruined Missions lie, No longer tenanted? “Oh, bring us back once more The vanished days of yore, When the world with faith was filled; Bring back the fervid zeal, The hearts of fire and steel, The hands that believe and build! “Then from our tower again We will send over land and main Our voices of command, Like exiled kings who return To their thrones, and the people learn That the Priest is lord of the land.” O Bells of San Blas, in vain Ye call back the Past again; The Past is deaf to your prayer! Out of the shadows of night The world rolls into light; It is daybreak everywhere.

“E venni dal martirio a questa pace.” These words the poet heard in Paradise, Uttered by one who, bravely dying here. In the true faith was living in that sphere Where the celestial cross of sacrifice Spread its protecting arms athwart the skies, And set thereon, like jewels crystal clear, The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear, Flashed their efflulgence on his dazzled eyes. Ah me! how dark the discipline of pain, Were not the suffering followed by the sense Of infinite rest and infinite release! This is our consolation: and again A great soul cries to us in our suspense, “I came from martyrdom unto this peace.”