Poems / Household Edition

     Power that by obedience grows,
     Knowledge which its source not knows,
     Wave which severs whom it bears
     From the things which he compares,
     Adding wings through things to range,
     To his own blood harsh and strange.

     O what are heroes, prophets, men,
     But pipes through which the breath of Pan doth blow
     A momentary music. Being's tide
     Swells hitherward, and myriads of forms
     Live, robed with beauty, painted by the sun;
     Their dust, pervaded by the nerves of God,
     Throbs with an overmastering energy
     Knowing and doing. Ebbs the tide, they lie
     White hollow shells upon the desert shore,
     But not the less the eternal wave rolls on
     To animate new millions, and exhale
     Races and planets, its enchanted foam.

     Dark flower of Cheshire garden,
       Red evening duly dyes
     Thy sombre head with rosy hues
       To fix far-gazing eyes.
     Well the Planter knew how strongly
       Works thy form on human thought;
     I muse what secret purpose had he
       To draw all fancies to this spot.

     In the turbulent beauty
       Of a gusty Autumn day,
     Poet on a sunny headland
       Sighed his soul away.

     Farms the sunny landscape dappled,
       Swandown clouds dappled the farms,
     Cattle lowed in mellow distance
       Where far oaks outstretched their arms.

     Sudden gusts came full of meaning,
       All too much to him they said,
     Oh, south winds have long memories,
       Of that be none afraid.

     I cannot tell rude listeners
       Half the tell-tale South-wind said,—
     'T would bring the blushes of yon maples
       To a man and to a maid.

     They put their finger on their lip,
         The Powers above:
       The seas their islands clip,
       The moons in ocean dip,
     They love, but name not love.

       October woods wherein
     The boy's dream comes to pass,
     And Nature squanders on the boy her pomp,
     And crowns him with a more than royal crown,
     And unimagined splendor waits his steps.
     The gazing urchin walks through tents of gold,
     Through crimson chambers, porphyry and pearl,
     Pavilion on pavilion, garlanded,
     Incensed and starred with lights and airs and shapes,
     Color and sound, music to eye and ear,
     Beyond the best conceit of pomp or power.

     [Knows he who tills this lonely field
       To reap its scanty corn,
     What mystic fruit his acres yield
       At midnight and at morn?]

     That field by spirits bad and good,
       By Hell and Heaven is haunted,
     And every rood in the hemlock wood
       I know is ground enchanted.

     [In the long sunny afternoon
       The plain was full of ghosts:
     I wandered up, I wandered down,
       Beset by pensive hosts.]

     For in those lonely grounds the sun
       Shines not as on the town,
     In nearer arcs his journeys run,
       And nearer stoops the moon.

     There in a moment I have seen
       The buried Past arise;
     The fields of Thessaly grew green,
       Old gods forsook the skies.

     I cannot publish in my rhyme
       What pranks the greenwood played;
     It was the Carnival of time,
       And Ages went or stayed.

     To me that spectral nook appeared
       The mustering Day of Doom,
     And round me swarmed in shadowy troop
       Things past and things to come.

     The darkness haunteth me elsewhere;
       There I am full of light;
     In every whispering leaf I hear
       More sense than sages write.

     Underwoods were full of pleasance,
       All to each in kindness bend,
     And every flower made obeisance
       As a man unto his friend.

     Far seen, the river glides below,
       Tossing one sparkle to the eyes:
     I catch thy meaning, wizard wave;
       The River of my Life replies.

     Let me go where'er I will,
     I hear a sky-born music still:
     It sounds from all things old,
     It sounds from all things young,
     From all that's fair, from all that's foul,
     Peals out a cheerful song.

     It is not only in the rose,
     It is not only in the bird,
     Not only where the rainbow glows,
     Nor in the song of woman heard,
     But in the darkest, meanest things
     There alway, alway something sings.

     'T is not in the high stars alone,
     Nor in the cup of budding flowers,
     Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone,
     Nor in the bow that smiles in showers,
     But in the mud and scum of things
     There alway, alway something sings.

     A Queen rejoices in her peers,
     And wary Nature knows her own
     By court and city, dale and down,
     And like a lover volunteers,
     And to her son will treasures more
     And more to purpose freely pour
     In one wood walk, than learned men
     Can find with glass in ten times ten.

     Who saw the hid beginnings
       When Chaos and Order strove,
     Or who can date the morning.
       The purple flaming of love?

     I saw the hid beginnings
       When Chaos and Order strove,
     And I can date the morning prime
       And purple flame of love.

     Song breathed from all the forest,
       The total air was fame;
     It seemed the world was all torches
       That suddenly caught the flame.

            *       *       *

     Is there never a retroscope mirror
       In the realms and corners of space
     That can give us a glimpse of the battle
       And the soldiers face to face?

     Sit here on the basalt courses
       Where twisted hills betray
     The seat of the world-old Forces
       Who wrestled here on a day.

            *       *       *

     When the purple flame shoots up,
       And Love ascends his throne,
     I cannot hear your songs, O birds,
       For the witchery of my own.

     And every human heart
       Still keeps that golden day
     And rings the bells of jubilee
       On its own First of May.

     I have trod this path a hundred times
     With idle footsteps, crooning rhymes.
     I know each nest and web-worm's tent,
     The fox-hole which the woodchucks rent,
     Maple and oak, the old Divan
     Self-planted twice, like the banian.
     I know not why I came again
     Unless to learn it ten times ten.
     To read the sense the woods impart
     You must bring the throbbing heart.
     Love is aye the counterforce,—
     Terror and Hope and wild Remorse,
     Newest knowledge, fiery thought,
     Or Duty to grand purpose wrought.
       Wandering yester morn the brake,
     I reached this heath beside the lake,
     And oh, the wonder of the power,
     The deeper secret of the hour!
     Nature, the supplement of man,
     His hidden sense interpret can;—
     What friend to friend cannot convey
     Shall the dumb bird instructed say.
     Passing yonder oak, I heard
     Sharp accents of my woodland bird;
     I watched the singer with delight,—
     But mark what changed my joy to fright,—
     When that bird sang, I gave the theme;
     That wood-bird sang my last night's dream,
     A brown wren was the Daniel
     That pierced my trance its drift to tell,
     Knew my quarrel, how and why,
     Published it to lake and sky,
     Told every word and syllable
     In his flippant chirping babble,
     All my wrath and all my shames,
     Nay, God is witness, gave the names.

     A patch of meadow upland
       Reached by a mile of road,
     Soothed by the voice of waters,
       With birds and flowers bestowed.

     Hither I come for strength
       Which well it can supply,
     For Love draws might from terrene force
       And potencies of sky.

     The tremulous battery Earth
       Responds to the touch of man;
     It thrills to the antipodes,
       From Boston to Japan.

     The planets' child the planet knows
       And to his joy replies;
     To the lark's trill unfolds the rose,
       Clouds flush their gayest dyes.

     When Ali prayed and loved
       Where Syrian waters roll,
     Upward the ninth heaven thrilled and moved;
       At the tread of the jubilant soul.

     In my garden three ways meet,
       Thrice the spot is blest;
     Hermit-thrush comes there to build,
       Carrier-doves to nest.

     There broad-armed oaks, the copses' maze,
       The cold sea-wind detain;
     Here sultry Summer overstays
       When Autumn chills the plain.

     Self-sown my stately garden grows;
       The winds and wind-blown seed,
     Cold April rain and colder snows
       My hedges plant and feed.

     From mountains far and valleys near
       The harvests sown to-day
     Thrive in all weathers without fear,—
       Wild planters, plant away!

     In cities high the careful crowds
       Of woe-worn mortals darkling go,
     But in these sunny solitudes
       My quiet roses blow.

     Methought the sky looked scornful down
       On all was base in man,
     And airy tongues did taunt the town,
       'Achieve our peace who can!'

     What need I holier dew
       Than Walden's haunted wave,
     Distilled from heaven's alembic blue,
       Steeped in each forest cave?

     [If Thought unlock her mysteries,
       If Friendship on me smile,
     I walk in marble galleries,
       I talk with kings the while.]

     How drearily in College hall
       The Doctor stretched the hours,
     But in each pause we heard the call
       Of robins out of doors.

     The air is wise, the wind thinks well,
       And all through which it blows,
     If plants or brain, if egg or shell,
       Or bird or biped knows;

     And oft at home 'mid tasks I heed,
       I heed how wears the day;
     We must not halt while fiercely speed
       The spans of life away.

     What boots it here of Thebes or Rome
       Or lands of Eastern day?
     In forests I am still at home
       And there I cannot stray.

     In the deep heart of man a poet dwells
     Who all the day of life his summer story tells;
     Scatters on every eye dust of his spells,
     Scent, form and color; to the flowers and shells
     Wins the believing child with wondrous tales;
     Touches a cheek with colors of romance,
     And crowds a history into a glance;
     Gives beauty to the lake and fountain,
     Spies oversea the fires of the mountain;
     When thrushes ope their throat, 't is he that sings,
     And he that paints the oriole's fiery wings.
     The little Shakspeare in the maiden's heart
     Makes Romeo of a plough-boy on his cart;
     Opens the eye to Virtue's starlike meed
     And gives persuasion to a gentle deed.

     Six thankful weeks,—and let it be
     A meter of prosperity,—
     In my coat I bore this book,
     And seldom therein could I look,
     For I had too much to think,
     Heaven and earth to eat and drink.
     Is he hapless who can spare
     In his plenty things so rare?

     Have ye seen the caterpillar
       Foully warking in his nest?
     'T is the poor man getting siller,
       Without cleanness, without rest.

     Have ye seen the butterfly
       In braw claithing drest?
     'T is the poor man gotten rich,
       In rings and painted vest.

     The poor man crawls in web of rags
       And sore bested with woes.
     But when he flees on riches' wings,
       He laugheth at his foes.

     Philosophers are lined with eyes within,
     And, being so, the sage unmakes the man.
     In love, he cannot therefore cease his trade;
     Scarce the first blush has overspread his cheek,
     He feels it, introverts his learned eye
     To catch the unconscious heart in the very act.

     His mother died,—the only friend he had,—
     Some tears escaped, but his philosophy
     Couched like a cat sat watching close behind
     And throttled all his passion. Is't not like
     That devil-spider that devours her mate
     Scarce freed from her embraces?

     Gravely it broods apart on joy,
     And, truth to tell, amused by pain.

     Who knows this or that?
     Hark in the wall to the rat:
     Since the world was, he has gnawed;
     Of his wisdom, of his fraud
     What dost thou know?
     In the wretched little beast
     Is life and heart,
     Child and parent,
     Not without relation
     To fruitful field and sun and moon.
     What art thou? His wicked eye
     Is cruel to thy cruelty.

     Fall, stream, from Heaven to bless; return as well;
     So did our sons; Heaven met them as they fell.

     (AFTER TALIESSIN)

     The heavy blue chain
     Of the boundless main
     Didst thou, just man, endure.

     I have an arrow that will find its mark,
     A mastiff that will bite without a hark.

     1823-1834

     I love thy music, mellow bell,
       I love thine iron chime,
     To life or death, to heaven or hell,
       Which calls the sons of Time.

     Thy voice upon the deep
       The home-bound sea-boy hails,
     It charms his cares to sleep,
       It cheers him as he sails.

     To house of God and heavenly joys
       Thy summons called our sires,
     And good men thought thy sacred voice
       Disarmed the thunder's fires.

     And soon thy music, sad death-bell,
       Shall lift its notes once more,
     And mix my requiem with the wind
       That sweeps my native shore.

     1823.

     I am not poor, but I am proud,
       Of one inalienable right,
     Above the envy of the crowd,—
       Thought's holy light.

     Better it is than gems or gold,
       And oh! it cannot die,
     But thought will glow when the sun grows cold,
       And mix with Deity.

     BOSTON, 1823.

     When success exalts thy lot,
     God for thy virtue lays a plot:
     And all thy life is for thy own,
     Then for mankind's instruction shown;
     And though thy knees were never bent,
     To Heaven thy hourly prayers are sent,
     And whether formed for good or ill,
     Are registered and answered still.

     1826 [?].

     I bear in youth the sad infirmities
     That use to undo the limb and sense of age;
     It hath pleased Heaven to break the dream of bliss
     Which lit my onward way with bright presage,
     And my unserviceable limbs forego.
     The sweet delight I found in fields and farms,
     On windy hills, whose tops with morning glow,
     And lakes, smooth mirrors of Aurora's charms.
     Yet I think on them in the silent night,
     Still breaks that morn, though dim, to Memory's eye,
     And the firm soul does the pale train defy
     Of grim Disease, that would her peace affright.
     Please God, I'll wrap me in mine innocence,
     And bid each awful Muse drive the damned harpies hence.

     CAMBRIDGE, 1827.

Be of good cheer, brave spirit; steadfastly
     Serve that low whisper thou hast served; for know,
     God hath a select family of sons
     Now scattered wide thro' earth, and each alone,
     Who are thy spiritual kindred, and each one
     By constant service to, that inward law,
     Is weaving the sublime proportions
     Of a true monarch's soul. Beauty and strength,
     The riches of a spotless memory,
     The eloquence of truth, the wisdom got
     By searching of a clear and loving eye
     That seeth as God seeth. These are their gifts,
     And Time, who keeps God's word, brings on the day
     To seal the marriage of these minds with thine,
     Thine everlasting lovers. Ye shall be
     The salt of all the elements, world of the world.

     I rake no coffined clay, nor publish wide
     The resurrection of departed pride.
     Safe in their ancient crannies, dark and deep,
     Let kings and conquerors, saints and soldiers sleep—
     Late in the world,—too late perchance for fame,
     Just late enough to reap abundant blame,—
     I choose a novel theme, a bold abuse
     Of critic charters, an unlaurelled Muse.

     Old mouldy men and books and names and lands
     Disgust my reason and defile my hands.
     I had as lief respect an ancient shoe,
     As love old things for age, and hate the new.
     I spurn the Past, my mind disdains its nod,
     Nor kneels in homage to so mean a God.
     I laugh at those who, while they gape and gaze,
     The bald antiquity of China praise.
     Youth is (whatever cynic tubs pretend)
     The fault that boys and nations soonest mend.

     1824.

     Ah Fate, cannot a man
       Be wise without a beard?
     East, West, from Beer to Dan,
       Say, was it never heard
     That wisdom might in youth be gotten,
     Or wit be ripe before 't was rotten?

     He pays too high a price
       For knowledge and for fame
     Who sells his sinews to be wise,
       His teeth and bones to buy a name,
     And crawls through life a paralytic
     To earn the praise of bard and critic.

     Were it not better done,
       To dine and sleep through forty years;
     Be loved by few; be feared by none;
       Laugh life away; have wine for tears;
     And take the mortal leap undaunted,
     Content that all we asked was granted?

     But Fate will not permit
       The seed of gods to die,
     Nor suffer sense to win from wit
       Its guerdon in the sky,
     Nor let us hide, whate'er our pleasure,
     The world's light underneath a measure.

     Go then, sad youth, and shine;
       Go, sacrifice to Fame;
     Put youth, joy, health upon the shrine,
       And life to fan the flame;
     Being for Seeming bravely barter
     And die to Fame a happy martyr.

     1824.

     A sterner errand to the silken troop
     Has quenched the uneasy blush that warmed my cheek;
     I am commissioned in my day of joy
     To leave my woods and streams and the sweet sloth
     Of prayer and song that were my dear delight,
     To leave the rudeness of my woodland life,
     Sweet twilight walks and midnight solitude
     And kind acquaintance with the morning stars
     And the glad hey-day of my household hours,
     The innocent mirth which sweetens daily bread,
     Railing in love to those who rail again,
     By mind's industry sharpening the love of life—
     Books, Muses, Study, fireside, friends and love,
     I loved ye with true love, so fare ye well!

       I was a boy; boyhood slid gayly by
     And the impatient years that trod on it
     Taught me new lessons in the lore of life.
     I've learned the sum of that sad history
     All woman-born do know, that hoped-for days,
     Days that come dancing on fraught with delights,
     Dash our blown hopes as they limp heavily by.
     But I, the bantling of a country Muse,
     Abandon all those toys with speed to obey
     The King whose meek ambassador I go.

     1826.

     And I behold once more
     My old familiar haunts; here the blue river,
     The same blue wonder that my infant eye
     Admired, sage doubting whence the traveller came,—
     Whence brought his sunny bubbles ere he washed
     The fragrant flag-roots in my father's fields,
     And where thereafter in the world he went.
     Look, here he is, unaltered, save that now
     He hath broke his banks and flooded all the vales
     With his redundant waves.
     Here is the rock where, yet a simple child,
     I caught with bended pin my earliest fish,
     Much triumphing,—and these the fields
     Over whose flowers I chased the butterfly
     A blooming hunter of a fairy fine.
     And hark! where overhead the ancient crows
     Hold their sour conversation in the sky:—
     These are the same, but I am not the same,
     But wiser than I was, and wise enough
     Not to regret the changes, tho' they cost
     Me many a sigh. Oh, call not Nature dumb;
     These trees and stones are audible to me,
     These idle flowers, that tremble in the wind,
     I understand their faery syllables,
     And all their sad significance. The wind,
     That rustles down the well-known forest road—
     It hath a sound more eloquent than speech.
     The stream, the trees, the grass, the sighing wind,
     All of them utter sounds of 'monishment
     And grave parental love.
     They are not of our race, they seem to say,
     And yet have knowledge of our moral race,
     And somewhat of majestic sympathy,
     Something of pity for the puny clay,
     That holds and boasts the immeasurable mind.
     I feel as I were welcome to these trees
     After long months of weary wandering,
     Acknowledged by their hospitable boughs;
     They know me as their son, for side by side,
     They were coeval with my ancestors,
     Adorned with them my country's primitive times,
     And soon may give my dust their funeral shade.

     CONCORD, June, 1827.

     The cup of life is not so shallow
     That we have drained the best,
     That all the wine at once we swallow
     And lees make all the rest.

     Maids of as soft a bloom shall marry
     As Hymen yet hath blessed,
     And fairer forms are in the quarry
     Than Phidias released.

     1827.

     Tell me, maiden, dost thou use
     Thyself thro' Nature to diffuse?
     All the angles of the coast
     Were tenanted by thy sweet ghost,
     Bore thy colors every flower,
     Thine each leaf and berry bore;
     All wore thy badges and thy favors
     In their scent or in their savors,
     Every moth with painted wing,
     Every bird in carolling,
     The wood-boughs with thy manners waved,
     The rocks uphold thy name engraved,
     The sod throbbed friendly to my feet,
     And the sweet air with thee was sweet.
     The saffron cloud that floated warm
     Studied thy motion, took thy form,
     And in his airy road benign
     Recalled thy skill in bold design,
     Or seemed to use his privilege
     To gaze o'er the horizon's edge,
     To search where now thy beauty glowed,
     Or made what other purlieus proud.

     1829.

     Though her eye seek other forms
     And a glad delight below,
     Yet the love the world that warms
     Bids for me her bosom glow.

     She must love me till she find
     Another heart as large and true.
     Her soul is frank as the ocean wind,
     And the world has only two.

     If Nature hold another heart
     That knows a purer flame than me,
     I too therein could challenge part
     And learn of love a new degree.

     1829.

     A dull uncertain brain,
     But gifted yet to know
     That God has cherubim who go
     Singing an immortal strain,
     Immortal here below.
     I know the mighty bards,
     I listen when they sing,
     And now I know
     The secret store
     Which these explore
     When they with torch of genius pierce
     The tenfold clouds that cover
     The riches of the universe
     From God's adoring lover.
     And if to me it is not given
     To fetch one ingot thence
     Of the unfading gold of Heaven
     His merchants may dispense,
     Yet well I know the royal mine,
     And know the sparkle of its ore,
     Know Heaven's truth from lies that shine—
     Explored they teach us to explore.

     1831.

     Why fear to die
     And let thy body lie
     Under the flowers of June,
       Thy body food
       For the ground-worms' brood
     And thy grave smiled on by the visiting moon.

     Amid great Nature's halls
     Girt in by mountain walls
     And washed with waterfalls
     It would please me to die,
       Where every wind that swept my tomb
       Goes loaded with a free perfume
     Dealt out with a God's charity.

     I should like to die in sweets,
     A hill's leaves for winding-sheets,
     And the searching sun to see
     That I am laid with decency.
     And the commissioned wind to sing
     His mighty psalm from fall to spring
     And annual tunes commemorate
     Of Nature's child the common fate.

     WILLIAMSTOWN, VERMONT, 1 June, 1831.

     Dear brother, would you know the life,
     Please God, that I would lead?
     On the first wheels that quit this weary town
     Over yon western bridges I would ride
     And with a cheerful benison forsake
     Each street and spire and roof, incontinent.
     Then would I seek where God might guide my steps,
     Deep in a woodland tract, a sunny farm,
     Amid the mountain counties, Hants, Franklin, Berks,
     Where down the rock ravine a river roars,
     Even from a brook, and where old woods
     Not tamed and cleared cumber the ground
     With their centennial wrecks.
     Find me a slope where I can feel the sun
     And mark the rising of the early stars.
     There will I bring my books,—my household gods,
     The reliquaries of my dead saint, and dwell
     In the sweet odor of her memory.
     Then in the uncouth solitude unlock
     My stock of art, plant dials in the grass,
     Hang in the air a bright thermometer
     And aim a telescope at the inviolate sun.

     CHARDON ST., BOSTON, 1831.

Day by day returns
     The everlasting sun,
     Replenishing material urns
     With God's unspared donation;
     But the day of day,
     The orb within the mind,
     Creating fair and good alway,
     Shines not as once it shined.

            *       *       *

     Vast the realm of Being is,
     In the waste one nook is his;
     Whatsoever hap befalls
     In his vision's narrow walls
     He is here to testify.

     1831.

     There is in all the sons of men
     A love that in the spirit dwells,
     That panteth after things unseen,
     And tidings of the future tells.

     And God hath built his altar here
     To keep this fire of faith alive,
     And sent his priests in holy fear
     To speak the truth—for truth to strive.

     And hither come the pensive train
     Of rich and poor, of young and old,
     Of ardent youth untouched by pain,
     Of thoughtful maids and manhood bold.

     They seek a friend to speak the word
     Already trembling on their tongue,
     To touch with prophet's hand the chord
     Which God in human hearts hath strung.

     To speak the plain reproof of sin
     That sounded in the soul before,
     And bid you let the angels in
     That knock at meek contrition's door.

     A friend to lift the curtain up
     That hides from man the mortal goal,
     And with glad thoughts of faith and hope
     Surprise the exulting soul.

     Sole source of light and hope assured,
     O touch thy servant's lips with power,
     So shall he speak to us the word
     Thyself dost give forever more.

     June, 1831.

     Henceforth, please God, forever I forego
     The yoke of men's opinions. I will be
     Light-hearted as a bird, and live with God.
     I find him in the bottom of my heart,
     I hear continually his voice therein.

            *       *       *

     The little needle always knows the North,
     The little bird remembereth his note,
     And this wise Seer within me never errs.
     I never taught it what it teaches me;
     I only follow, when I act aright.

     October 9, 1832.

And when I am entombed in my place,
     Be it remembered of a single man,
     He never, though he dearly loved his race,
     For fear of human eyes swerved from his plan.

Oh what is Heaven but the fellowship
     Of minds that each can stand against the world
     By its own meek and incorruptible will?

The days pass over me
     And I am still the same;
     The aroma of my life is gone
     With the flower with which it came.

     1833.

     We are what we are made; each following day
     Is the Creator of our human mould
     Not less than was the first; the all-wise God
     Gilds a few points in every several life,
     And as each flower upon the fresh hillside,
     And every colored petal of each flower,
     Is sketched and dyed, each with a new design,
     Its spot of purple, and its streak of brown,
     So each man's life shall have its proper lights,
     And a few joys, a few peculiar charms,
     For him round in the melancholy hours
     And reconcile him to the common days.
     Not many men see beauty in the fogs
     Of close low pine-woods in a river town;
     Yet unto me not morn's magnificence,
     Nor the red rainbow of a summer eve,
     Nor Rome, nor joyful Paris, nor the halls
     Of rich men blazing hospitable light,
     Nor wit, nor eloquence,—no, nor even the song
     Of any woman that is now alive,—
     Hath such a soul, such divine influence,
     Such resurrection of the happy past,
     As is to me when I behold the morn
     Ope in such law moist roadside, and beneath
     Peep the blue violets out of the black loam,
     Pathetic silent poets that sing to me
     Thine elegy, sweet singer, sainted wife.

     March, 1833.