|
|
| I
will accomplish that and this,
And make myself a thorn to Things—
Lords, councillors and tyrant
kings—
Who sit upon their thrones and kiss
The
rod of Fortune; and are crowned
|
5 |
The
sovereign masters of the earth
To scatter blight and death and
dearth
Wherever mortal man is found.
I will do this and that, and break
The backbone of their large conceit,
|
10 |
And
loose the sandals from their feet,
And show ’tis holy ground they shake.
So I sang in my earlier days,
Ere I had learned to look abroad
[Page 1]
And see that more than monarchs
trod
|
15 |
Upon
the form I fain would raise.
Ere I, in looking toward the land
That broke a triple diadem,
That grasped at Freedom’s
garment hem,
Had seen her, sword and torch in hand,
|
20 |
A
freedom-fool: ere I had grown
To know that Love is freedom’s
strength—
France taught the world that truth
at length!—
And Peace her chief foundation stone.
Since then, I temper so my song
|
25 |
That
it may never speak for blood;
May never say that ill is good;
Or say that right may spring from wrong:
Yet am what I have ever been—
A friend of Freedom, staunch and
true,
|
30 |
Who
hate a tyrant, be he—you—
A people,—sultan, czar, or queen.
And then the Freedom-haters came
And questioned of my former song,
If now I held it right,
or wrong:
|
35 |
And
still my answer was the same:— [Page
2]
The good still moveth towards the good:
The ill still moveth towards the
ill:
But who affirmeth that we will
Not form a nobler brotherhood
|
40 |
When
communists, fanatics, those
Who howl their “vives”
to Freedom’s name
And yet betray her unto shame,
Are dead and coffined with her foes.
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
“I
go,” said Love to his friends one day,
“To a balmy island known
to me,
To a happy island leagues away
Set star-fair far in a Southern
sea.
For there the mate that affection means
|
5 |
To
give my heart has waited long:
She calls—I go to those sweeter scenes
Of life and love and summer and
song.
Those sweeter scenes where the wild grape grows
To thrill the throat of the land
with wine: [Page 3]
|
10 |
Where
all is sweet as is the rose
To the bee that hangs to its heart
divine!”
He built a boat of deep-sea shell,
Or meet for calm, or common gale;
He bade us all a kind farewell,
|
15 |
Then
took the tiller and spread the sail.
We watched him off—the wind blew free,
Like electric spark he sped from
the shore;
He crossed the bar; he won the sea;
Then night came down and closed
him o’er.
|
20 |
*
*
*
*
*
|
|
Well,
days and weeks and months grew old,
A year grew perfect and complete,
Ere to our ears the tidings rolled
Of Love and Love’s too dark
defeat.
The maiden wearied of his delay,—
|
25 |
For
adverse grew both wind and tide,—
And said, “I will meet him on the way
And guide him here!” She
smiled in pride;
For she was royal, and had ships
And men to mark her least command;
[Page 4]
|
30 |
And
ere the word had left her lips,
Her barge was ready to leave the
land.
|
|
*
*
*
*
*
|
|
And
she sailed Northward far and fast,
And he sailed Southward steady
and true:
They came together at length, but passed
|
35 |
Each
other one night, and neither knew.
So he sailed Southward o’er the main,
And she sailed towards the Pole-star
fair,
Till storms arose and wrecked them twain,
And no one knows the when or where!
|
40 |
Ah, me! How often, or first or last,
The lover and loved—the
fitting two—
Have met on Life’s large sea, and passed
Each other forever, while neither
knew! [Page 5]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
Yes,
love of mine, and fair as any fair—
Song of my soul, and soul of all
this song!
I will forgive thee, though thou makest bare
And bleak my life:—yea,
by thy glorious hair
And violet eyes, I will forgive the wrong.
|
5 |
I will forgive thee, even as I expect
To be forgiven of all my own ill
deeds
By Him who holds all people His elect,—
Who judges kindly, caring not
for creeds.
I do forgive! Albeit it hurts the heart
|
10 |
To
say—It might have been!—still o’er
and o’er;
To ask, yet find no aid in any art,
To know that we must walk life’s
ways apart—
O lovelessness of love!—for evermore. [Page
6]
|
|
—————
|
|
| |
|
Ah,
love is deathless! we do cheat
Ourselves who say that we forget
Old fancies: last love may be sweet,
First love is sweeter yet.
And day by day more sweet it grows
|
5 |
Forevermore,
like precious wine,
As Time’s thick cobwebs o’er it close,
Until it is divine.
Grows dearer every day and year,
Let other loves come, go at will:
|
10 |
Although
the last love may be dear,
First love is dearer still. [Page
7]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
Standing
on tiptoe ever since my youth
Striving to grasp the future
just above,
I hold at length the only future—Truth,
And Truth is Love.
I feel as one who being awhile confined
|
5 |
Sees
drop to dust about him all his bars:—
The clay grows less, and, leaving it, the mind
Dwells with the stars. [Page
8]
|
|
—————
|
|
“Ah Me! The Mighty Love.”
|
|
Ah,
me! the mighty love that I have borne
To thee, sweet Song! A perilous
gift was it
My mother gave me that September morn
When sorrow, song, and life
were at one altar lit.
A gift more perilous that the priest’s: his
lore
|
5 |
Is
all of books and to his books extends;
And what they see and know he knows—no more,
And with their knowing all
his knowing ends.
A gift more perilous than the painter’s: he
In his divinest moments
only sees
|
10 |
The
inhumanities of color, we
Feel each and all the inhumanities.
[Page 9]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
Wisdom
immortal from immortal Jove
Shadows more beauty with
her virgin brows
Than is between the pleasant breasts of Love
Who makes at will and breaks
her random vows,
And hath a name all earthly names above:
|
5 |
The
noblest are her offspring; she controls
The times and seasons—yea,
all things that are—
The heads and hands of men, their hearts and souls,
And all that moves upon
our mother star,
And all that pauses ’twixt the peaceful poles.
|
10 |
Nor
is she dark and distant, coy and cold,—
But all in all to all who
seek her shrine
In utter truth, like to that king of old
Who wooed and won—yet by no right divine.
[Page 10]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
The
Past!—In even our oldest songs
Regret for older past appears,—
The Past with all its bitter wrongs,
And bitter, buried years:
With all its woes and crimes and shames,—
|
5 |
Its
rule of sword, and king, and cowl—
Its scourges, tortures, axes, flames,
And myriad murders foul!
The Future! To our latest lays
A common strain of longing
clings
|
10 |
For
future nights, and future days,
And future thoughts and
things.
The Future! Who of us will see
This Future,—in its
brightness bask—
Ye ask the Future?—Let it be!
|
15 |
Ye
know not what ye ask.
The Present! Ah, the mightiest mind
Holds only that. We may
not see
The dim days, or the undefined
And unformed ages yet to
be:
|
20 |
Enough
for us that if we do
The present deed that should
be done,
The three shall open to our view—
Past, Present, Future—One!
[Page 11]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
On Life’s
sea! Full soon
The evening cometh—cheerless,
sad and cold;
Past is the golden splendor of the noon,
The darkness comes apace—and
I grow old.
Yet the ship of Fate
|
5 |
Drives
onward o’er the waters mountain high!
And now the day goes out the western gate
And not a star is smiling
in the sky.
Gloom before—behind!
Rude billows battling with
an iron shore
|
10 |
On
either hand: anon, the chilling wind
Smiting the cordage with
an angry roar.
Then the compass veers
And doth avail not: for
the dust of earth
Hath marred its beauty, and the rust of years
|
15 |
Hath
made its mechanism of little worth.
And tho’ oft I gaze
Into the lost, yet ever
lovely Past,
And strive to call a power from perished days
With which to dare the midnight
and the blast, [Page 12]
|
20 |
The power flies my hand;
And my sad heart grows wearier
day by day,
Beholding not the lights which line the land
And throw their smile upon
the desert way:
For the star of Hope
|
25 |
Shed
but one beam along the lonely path,
Then slid behind the clouds adown the slope,
And set forever in a sea
of wrath!
Yet the ship moves on—
Aye, ever on! still drifting
with the tide,
|
30 |
With
Faith alone to look or lean upon,
As pilot o’er the
waters wild and wide.
Yet for all, I feel
My bark shall bound on billows
gentler rolled.
Be Faith my pilot, then, until the keel
|
35 |
| Shall
kiss and clasp the glittering sands of gold! [Page
13] |
|
—————
|
|
|
|
You
ask for fame or power?
Then up, and take for text:—
This is my hour,
And not the next, nor next!
Oh, wander not in ways
|
5 |
Of
ease or indolence!
Swift come the days,
And swift the days go hence.
Strike! while the hand is strong:
Strike! while you can and
may:
|
10 |
Strength
goes ere long,—
Even yours will pass away.
Sweet seem the fields, and green,
In which you fain would
lie:
Sweet seems the scene
|
15 |
That
glads the idle eye:
Soft seems the path you tread,
And balmy soft the air,—
Heaven overhead
And all the earth seems
fair: [Page 14]
|
20 |
But, would your heart aspire
To noble things,—to
claim
Bard’s, statesman’s fire—
Some measure of their fame;
Or, would you seek and find
|
25 |
The
secret of success
With mortal kind?
Then, up from idleness!
Up—up! all fame, all power
Lies in this golden text:—
|
30 |
This
is my hour—
And not the next,
nor next! [Page 15]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
West
wind, come from the west land,
Fair and far!
Come from the fields of the best land
Upon our star!
Come, and go to my sister
|
5 |
Over
the sea:
Tell her how much I have missed her,
Tell her for me!
Odors of lilies and roses—
Set them astir;
|
10 |
Cull
them from gardens and closes,—
Give them to her!
Say I have loved her, and love her:
Say that I prize
Few on the earth here above her,
|
15 |
Few
in the skies!
Bring her, if worth the bringing,
A brother’s kiss:
Should she ask for a song of his singing,
Give her this! [Page
16]
|
20 |
—————
|
|
|
|
We sneer
and we laugh with the lip—the most of us do
it,
Whenever a brother goes
down like a weed with the tide;
We point with the finger and say—Oh, we knew
it! we knew it!
But, see! we are better
than he was, and we will abide.
He walked in the way of his will—the way of
desire,
|
5 |
In
the Appian way of his will without ever a bend;
He walked in it long, but it led him at last to
the mire,—
But we who are stronger
will stand and endure to the end.
His thoughts were all visions—all fabulous
visions of flowers,
Of bird and of song and
of soul which is only a song;
|
10 |
His
eyes looked all at the stars in the firmament, ours
Were fixed on the earth
at our feet, so we stand and are strong.
He hated the sight and the sound and the sob of
the city;
He sought for his peace
in the wood and the musical wave;
He fell, and we pity him never, and why should we
pity—
|
15 |
Yea,
why should we mourn for him—we who still stand,
who are brave?
[Page 17]
Thus speak we and think not, we censure
unheeding, unknowing,—
Unkindly and blindly we
utter the words of the brain;
We see not the goal of our brother, we see but his
going,
And sneer at his fall if
he fall, and laugh at his pain.
|
20 |
Ah, me! the sight of the sod on the coffin lid,
And the sound, and the sob,
and the sigh of it as it falls!
Ah, me! the beautiful face forever hid
By four wild walls!
You hold it a matter of self-gratulation and praise
|
25 |
To
have thrust to the dust, to have trod on a heart
that was true,—
To have ruined it there in the beauty and bloom
of its days—
Very well! There is somewhere
a Nemesis waiting for you. [Page 18]
|
|
—————
|
|
“What Though, My Brother?”
|
|
What
though, my brother, to-day be drear
And dark and sad—
To-morrow, to-morrow will soon be here?
Perchance to make thee glad.
Sorrow and heaviness—these are things
|
5 |
That
come to men:
They come to the commons, they come to kings,
They come to go again.
Why should a season of bitterness bear
Thee down to dust?
|
10 |
To-day
may be foul yet to-morrow be fair;
Trust in to-morrow—trust!
And if to-morrow be darker yet
With pain and ill,
Though the heart be dry and the eyelids wet,
|
15 |
| Trust
in to-morrow still! [Page 19] |
|
—————
|
|
|
|
“Can
it be good to die?” you question, friend;
“Can it be good to
die, and move along
Still circling round and round, unknowing end,
Still circling round and
round amid the throng
Of golden orbs attended by their moons—
|
5 |
To
catch the intonation of their song
As on they flash, and scatter nights, and noons,
To worlds like ours, where
things like us belong?”
To me ’tis idle saying, “He
is dead,”
Or, “Now he sleepeth
and shall wake no more;
|
10 |
The
little flickering, fluttering life is fled,
Forever fled, and all that
was is o’er.”
I have a faith—that life and death are one,
That each depends upon the
self-same thread,
And that the seen and unseen rivers run
|
15 |
To
one calm sea, from one clear fountain-head.
I have a faith—that man’s most potent
mind
May cross the willow-shaded
stream nor sink;
I have a faith—when he has left behind
His earthly vesture on the
river’s brink, [Page 20]
|
20 |
When
all his little fears are torn away,
His soul may beat a pathway
through the tide,
And, disencumbered of its coward-clay,
Emerge immortal on the sunnier
side.
So, say:—It must be good to die, my friend!
|
25 |
It
must be good and more than good, I deem;
’Tis all the replication I may send—
For deeper swimming seek
a deeper stream.
It must be good, or reason is a cheat,
It must be good, or life
is all a lie,
|
30 |
It must
be good and more than living sweet,
It must be good—or
man would never die.
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
I. |
|
What reck we of the creeds of men?—
We see them—we shall
see again.
What reck we of the tempest’s shock?
What reck we where our anchor lock?
On golden marl or mould—
|
5 |
In salt-sea
flower or riven rock—
What matter—so it
hold? [Page 21]
|
|
II.
|
|
What
matters it the spot we fill
On Earth’s green sod
when all is said?—
When feet and hands and heart are still
|
10 |
And
all our pulses quieted?
When hate or love can kill nor thrill,—
When we are done with life
and dead?
|
|
III.
|
|
So we
be haunted night nor day
By any sin that we have
sinned,
|
15 |
What
matter where we dream away
The ages?—In the isles
of Ind,
In Tybee, Cuba, or Cathay,
Or in some world of winter
wind?
|
|
IV.
|
|
| It may
be I would wish to sleep |
20 |
Beneath
the wan, white stars of June,
And hear the southern breezes creep
Between me and the mellow
moon:
But so I do not wake to weep
At any night or any noon,
[Page 22]
|
25 |
V.
|
|
And
so the generous gods allow
Repose and peace from evil
dreams,
It matters little where or how
My couch be spread:—by
moving streams,
Or on some eminent mountain’s brow
|
30 |
| Kist
by the morn’s or sunset’s beams. |
|
VI.
|
|
For
we shall rest; the brain that plans,
That thought or wrought
or well or ill,
At gaze like Joshua’s moon shall stand,
Not working any work or
will,
|
35 |
While
eye and lip and heart and hand
Shall all be still—shall
all be still! [Page 23]
|
|
|
