THE OLIVE BOUGH.
A SONG FOR THE END.
A Memorial Poem, read to the Associate Alumnae of the New York Normal College, June 30th, 1883.
I.
As when, pursued by some swift Wind and bold
Freed from the hollow dark Æolian hold,
A cloud across the face of heaven is blown,
And sunshine ceases from the fields, as mown
By that long shadow sweeping o’er the wold,
And the kind world turns cold—
So o’er our chosen day
Sails now a shadowing cloud that sweeps the sun away.
Our chosen day, to Memory dedicate:
To Memory, goddess great,
A Proserpine that mid the dip and swell
Of her wide meadows dim with asphodel
Keeps aye one circle blest
Lit with purpureal light unlike the rest:
The field of our first youth, as luminous
Through soberer recollections, as the place
Where looked the Dardan on his father’s face
In the land nebulous.
The verdure of that valley is Spring’s own
Ampler the air—then, limits were not known
To us that breathed it; all that since has been
Has its free freshness to our spirits proved.
Oh circle blest indeed!
Dear, dear the faces that therein have moved,—
Sad, sad to know it changelessly decreed
We may no more behold them, save therein!
II.
It was men’s wont of old,
Ere spoken was the Vale, deep, three-fold,
From the full heart above the unanswering lip
Of the bronze urn, in water clear to dip
A branch, and sprinkle all with pure light spray:
Or broken bough of bay
Or olive called the happy, since it yields
Fruit in unnumbered fields:
For thus they deemed the influence done away
Of barren Death, that else a spell might lay
On the warm living, subtly to annul
Their powers, and strike their fortunes cold and dull.
And we, who seek the soul in each old sign,
Pleased if we may divine
Likeness in difference, Proteus in disguise,
And gazing backward with anointed eyes
Across deep ages and the gulfs of race
Know yet a brother’s face,—
We hail, in this the antique olive gray,
A meaning of to-day.
III.
For surely this pale bough, with hoary leaf,
Is symbol of one still thought that is ours
After the fire of grief:
Thought not unhappy, fruitful thought, that showers
A lustral rain of gentle tears and pure,
Breaking the spell of Death, that else were sure
To chain our living powers,
To lock Joy fettered in the frozen breast:
The one calm thought, the peaceful thought, They rest.
They rest: brief rest was theirs
Ere set of sun, and long and full of cares
The laboring day. ’Tis now as night, soft night,
Descending and enfolding, whereon bright
Old hours of toil are shining, sanctified
To stars that light and guide!
IV.
Ah, not with numbing of one noble hope
Turn we from facing Death inexorable,
But with strong souls and stable!
Deep heaven hath surely scope
To hold each earnest hour, a jewel new,
A star to light and guide:
And Toil, that shears all knotted puzzles through,
A stellar sword against the dark descried
Shall burn, like Perseus’ blade whereby the Gorgon died
Far, far the Colchian shores,
Weary the mid-sea laboring at the oars,
And hard to pass the rough Symplegades:
But, sail and storm-beat spars
And wave-worn rudder pictured all in stars,
Shines the ship Argo still above the Southern seas!