Poems / Household Edition

     Once I wished I might rehearse
     Freedom's paean in my verse,
     That the slave who caught the strain
     Should throb until he snapped his chain,
     But the Spirit said, 'Not so;
     Speak it not, or speak it low;
     Name not lightly to be said,
     Gift too precious to be prayed,
     Passion not to be expressed
     But by heaving of the breast:
     Yet,—wouldst thou the mountain find
     Where this deity is shrined,
     Who gives to seas and sunset skies
     Their unspent beauty of surprise,
     And, when it lists him, waken can
     Brute or savage into man;
     Or, if in thy heart he shine,
     Blends the starry fates with thine,
     Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee,
     And makes thy thoughts archangels be;
     Freedom's secret wilt thou know?—
     Counsel not with flesh and blood;
     Loiter not for cloak or food;
     Right thou feelest, rush to do.'

     SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL, CONCORD, JULY 4, 1857

     O tenderly the haughty day
       Fills his blue urn with fire;
     One morn is in the mighty heaven,
       And one in our desire.

     The cannon booms from town to town,
       Our pulses beat not less,
     The joy-bells chime their tidings down,
       Which children's voices bless.

     For He that flung the broad blue fold
       O'er-mantling land and sea,
     One third part of the sky unrolled
       For the banner of the free.

     The men are ripe of Saxon kind
       To build an equal state,—
     To take the statute from the mind
       And make of duty fate.

     United States! the ages plead,—
       Present and Past in under-song,—
     Go put your creed into your deed,
       Nor speak with double tongue.

     For sea and land don't understand,
       Nor skies without a frown
     See rights for which the one hand fights
       By the other cloven down.

     Be just at home; then write your scroll
       Of honor o'er the sea,
     And bid the broad Atlantic roll,
       A ferry of the free.

     And henceforth there shall be no chain,
       Save underneath the sea
     The wires shall murmur through the main
       Sweet songs of liberty.

     The conscious stars accord above,
       The waters wild below,
     And under, through the cable wove,
       Her fiery errands go.

     For He that worketh high and wise.
       Nor pauses in his plan,
     Will take the sun out of the skies
       Ere freedom out of man.

     READ IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY 1, 1863

     The word of the Lord by night
     To the watching Pilgrims came,
     As they sat by the seaside,
     And filled their hearts with flame.

     God said, I am tired of kings,
     I suffer them no more;
     Up to my ear the morning brings
     The outrage of the poor.

     Think ye I made this ball
     A field of havoc and war,
     Where tyrants great and tyrants small
     Might harry the weak and poor?

     My angel,—his name is Freedom,—
     Choose him to be your king;
     He shall cut pathways east and west
     And fend you with his wing.

     Lo! I uncover the land
     Which I hid of old time in the West,
     As the sculptor uncovers the statue
     When he has wrought his best;

     I show Columbia, of the rocks
     Which dip their foot in the seas
     And soar to the air-borne flocks
     Of clouds and the boreal fleece.

     I will divide my goods;
     Call in the wretch and slave:
     None shall rule but the humble.
     And none but Toil shall have.

     I will have never a noble,
     No lineage counted great;
     Fishers and choppers and ploughmen
     Shall constitute a state.

     Go, cut down trees in the forest
     And trim the straightest boughs;
     Cut down trees in the forest
     And build me a wooden house.

     Call the people together,
     The young men and the sires,
     The digger in the harvest-field,
     Hireling and him that hires;

     And here in a pine state-house
     They shall choose men to rule
     In every needful faculty,
     In church and state and school.

     Lo, now! if these poor men
     Can govern the land and sea
     And make just laws below the sun,
     As planets faithful be.

     And ye shall succor men;
     'Tis nobleness to serve;
     Help them who cannot help again:
     Beware from right to swerve.

     I break your bonds and masterships,
     And I unchain the slave:
     Free be his heart and hand henceforth
     As wind and wandering wave.

     I cause from every creature
     His proper good to flow:
     As much as he is and doeth,
     So much he shall bestow.

     But, laying hands on another
     To coin his labor and sweat,
     He goes in pawn to his victim
     For eternal years in debt.

     To-day unbind the captive,
     So only are ye unbound;
     Lift up a people from the dust,
     Trump of their rescue, sound!

     Pay ransom to the owner
     And fill the bag to the brim.
     Who is the owner? The slave is owner,
     And ever was. Pay him.

     O North! give him beauty for rags,
     And honor, O South! for his shame;
     Nevada! coin thy golden crags
     With Freedom's image and name.

     Up! and the dusky race
     That sat in darkness long,—
     Be swift their feet as antelopes.
     And as behemoth strong.

     Come, East and West and North,
     By races, as snow-flakes,
     And carry my purpose forth,
     Which neither halts nor shakes.

     My will fulfilled shall be,
     For, in daylight or in dark,
     My thunderbolt has eyes to see
     His way home to the mark.

     I

     Low and mournful be the strain,
     Haughty thought be far from me;
     Tones of penitence and pain,
     Meanings of the tropic sea;
     Low and tender in the cell
     Where a captive sits in chains.
     Crooning ditties treasured well
     From his Afric's torrid plains.
     Sole estate his sire bequeathed,—
     Hapless sire to hapless son,—
     Was the wailing song he breathed,
     And his chain when life was done.

       What his fault, or what his crime?
     Or what ill planet crossed his prime?
     Heart too soft and will too weak
     To front the fate that crouches near,—
     Dove beneath the vulture's beak;—
     Will song dissuade the thirsty spear?
     Dragged from his mother's arms and breast,
     Displaced, disfurnished here,
     His wistful toil to do his best
     Chilled by a ribald jeer.
     Great men in the Senate sate,
     Sage and hero, side by side,
     Building for their sons the State,
     Which they shall rule with pride.
     They forbore to break the chain
     Which bound the dusky tribe,
     Checked by the owners' fierce disdain,
     Lured by 'Union' as the bribe.
     Destiny sat by, and said,
     'Pang for pang your seed shall pay,
     Hide in false peace your coward head,
     I bring round the harvest day.'

     II

     Freedom all winged expands,
     Nor perches in a narrow place;
     Her broad van seeks unplanted lands;
     She loves a poor and virtuous race.
     Clinging to a colder zone
     Whose dark sky sheds the snowflake down,
     The snowflake is her banner's star,
     Her stripes the boreal streamers are.
     Long she loved the Northman well;
     Now the iron age is done,
     She will not refuse to dwell
     With the offspring of the Sun;
     Foundling of the desert far,
     Where palms plume, siroccos blaze,
     He roves unhurt the burning ways
     In climates of the summer star.
     He has avenues to God
     Hid from men of Northern brain,
     Far beholding, without cloud,
     What these with slowest steps attain.
     If once the generous chief arrive
     To lead him willing to be led,
     For freedom he will strike and strive,
     And drain his heart till he be dead.

     III

     In an age of fops and toys,
     Wanting wisdom, void of right,
     Who shall nerve heroic boys
     To hazard all in Freedom's fight,—
     Break sharply off their jolly games,
     Forsake their comrades gay
     And quit proud homes and youthful dames
     For famine, toil and fray?
     Yet on the nimble air benign
     Speed nimbler messages,
     That waft the breath of grace divine
     To hearts in sloth and ease.
     So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
     So near is God to man,
     When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
     The youth replies, I can.

     IV

     O, well for the fortunate soul
     Which Music's wings infold,
     Stealing away the memory
     Of sorrows new and old!
     Yet happier he whose inward sight,
     Stayed on his subtile thought,
     Shuts his sense on toys of time,
     To vacant bosoms brought.
     But best befriended of the God
     He who, in evil times,
     Warned by an inward voice,
     Heeds not the darkness and the dread,
     Biding by his rule and choice,
     Feeling only the fiery thread
     Leading over heroic ground,
     Walled with mortal terror round,
     To the aim which him allures,
     And the sweet heaven his deed secures.
     Peril around, all else appalling,
     Cannon in front and leaden rain
     Him duty through the clarion calling
     To the van called not in vain.

       Stainless soldier on the walls,
     Knowing this,—and knows no more,—
     Whoever fights, whoever falls,
     Justice conquers evermore,
     Justice after as before,—
     And he who battles on her side,
     God, though he were ten times slain,
     Crowns him victor glorified,
     Victor over death and pain.

     V

     Blooms the laurel which belongs
     To the valiant chief who fights;
     I see the wreath, I hear the songs
     Lauding the Eternal Rights,
     Victors over daily wrongs:
     Awful victors, they misguide
     Whom they will destroy,
     And their coming triumph hide
     In our downfall, or our joy:
     They reach no term, they never sleep,
     In equal strength through space abide;
     Though, feigning dwarfs, they crouch and creep,
     The strong they slay, the swift outstride:
     Fate's grass grows rank in valley clods,
     And rankly on the castled steep,—
     Speak it firmly, these are gods,
     All are ghosts beside.

     Two well-assorted travellers use
     The highway, Eros and the Muse.
     From the twins is nothing hidden,
     To the pair is nought forbidden;
     Hand in hand the comrades go
     Every nook of Nature through:
     Each for other they were born,
     Each can other best adorn;
     They know one only mortal grief
     Past all balsam or relief;
     When, by false companions crossed,
     The pilgrims have each other lost.

     Roving, roving, as it seems,
     Una lights my clouded dreams;
     Still for journeys she is dressed;
     We wander far by east and west.

     In the homestead, homely thought,
     At my work I ramble not;
     If from home chance draw me wide,
     Half-seen Una sits beside.

     In my house and garden-plot,
     Though beloved, I miss her not;
     But one I seek in foreign places,
     One face explore in foreign faces.

     At home a deeper thought may light
     The inward sky with chrysolite,
     And I greet from far the ray,
     Aurora of a dearer day.

     But if upon the seas I sail,
     Or trundle on the glowing rail,
     I am but a thought of hers,
     Loveliest of travellers.

     So the gentle poet's name
     To foreign parts is blown by fame,
     Seek him in his native town,
     He is hidden and unknown.

     SICUT PATRIBUS, SIT DEUS NOBIS

     The rocky nook with hilltops three
       Looked eastward from the farms,
     And twice each day the flowing sea
       Took Boston in its arms;
     The men of yore were stout and poor,
     And sailed for bread to every shore.

     And where they went on trade intent
       They did what freemen can,
     Their dauntless ways did all men praise,
       The merchant was a man.
     The world was made for honest trade,—
     To plant and eat be none afraid.

     The waves that rocked them on the deep
       To them their secret told;
     Said the winds that sung the lads to sleep,
       'Like us be free and bold!'
     The honest waves refused to slaves
     The empire of the ocean caves.

     Old Europe groans with palaces,
       Has lords enough and more;—
     We plant and build by foaming seas
       A city of the poor;—
     For day by day could Boston Bay
     Their honest labor overpay.

     We grant no dukedoms to the few,
       We hold like rights, and shall;—
     Equal on Sunday in the pew,
       On Monday in the mall,
     For what avail the plough or sail,
     Or land or life, if freedom fail?

     The noble craftsman we promote,
       Disown the knave and fool;
     Each honest man shall have his vote,
       Each child shall have his school.
     A union then of honest men,
     Or union never more again.

     The wild rose and the barberry thorn
       Hung out their summer pride,
     Where now on heated pavements worn
       The feet of millions stride.

     Fair rose the planted hills behind
       The good town on the bay,
     And where the western hills declined
       The prairie stretched away.

     What care though rival cities soar
       Along the stormy coast,
     Penn's town, New York and Baltimore,
       If Boston knew the most!

     They laughed to know the world so wide;
       The mountains said, 'Good-day!
     We greet you well, you Saxon men,
       Up with your towns and stay!'
     The world was made for honest trade,—
     To plant and eat be none afraid.

     'For you,' they said, 'no barriers be,
       For you no sluggard rest;
     Each street leads downward to the sea,
       Or landward to the west.'

     O happy town beside the sea,
       Whose roads lead everywhere to all;
     Than thine no deeper moat can be,
       No stouter fence, no steeper wall!

     Bad news from George on the English throne;
       'You are thriving well,' said he;
     'Now by these presents be it known
       You shall pay us a tax on tea;
     'Tis very small,—no load at all,—
     Honor enough that we send the call.

     'Not so,' said Boston, 'good my lord,
       We pay your governors here
     Abundant for their bed and board,
       Six thousand pounds a year.
     (Your Highness knows our homely word)
       Millions for self-government,
       But for tribute never a cent.'

     The cargo came! and who could blame
       If Indians seized the tea,
     And, chest by chest, let down the same,
       Into the laughing sea?
     For what avail the plough or sail,
     Or land or life, if freedom fail?

     The townsmen braved the English king,
       Found friendship in the French,
     And honor joined the patriot ring
       Low on their wooden bench.

     O bounteous seas that never fail!
       O day remembered yet!
     O happy port that spied the sail
       Which wafted Lafayette!
     Pole-star of light in Europe's night,
     That never faltered from the right.

     Kings shook with fear, old empires crave
       The secret force to find
     Which fired the little State to save
       The rights of all mankind.

     But right is might through all the world;
       Province to province faithful clung,
     Through good and ill the war-bolt hurled,
       Till Freedom cheered and joy-bells rung.

     The sea returning day by day
       Restores the world-wide mart;
     So let each dweller on the Bay
       Fold Boston in his heart,
     Till these echoes be choked with snows,
     Or over the town blue ocean flows.

     Let the blood of her hundred thousands
       Throb in each manly vein;
     And the wits of all her wisest,
       Make sunshine in her brain.
     For you can teach the lightning speech,
     And round the globe your voices reach.

     And each shall care for other,
       And each to each shall bend,
     To the poor a noble brother,
       To the good an equal friend.

     A blessing through the ages thus
       Shield all thy roofs and towers!
     GOD WITH THE FATHERS, SO WITH US,
       Thou darling town of ours!

     Every day brings a ship,
     Every ship brings a word;
     Well for those who have no fear.
     Looking seaward, well assured
     That the word the vessel brings
     Is the word they wish to hear.

     They brought me rubies from the mine,
       And held them to the sun;
     I said, they are drops of frozen wine
       From Eden's vats that run.

     I looked again,—I thought them hearts
       Of friends to friends unknown;
     Tides that should warm each neighboring life
       Are locked in sparkling stone.

     But fire to thaw that ruddy snow,
       To break enchanted ice,
     And give love's scarlet tides to flow,—
       When shall that sun arise?

     I

     Of Merlin wise I learned a song,—
     Sing it low or sing it loud,
     It is mightier than the strong,
     And punishes the proud.
     I sing it to the surging crowd,—
     Good men it will calm and cheer,
     Bad men it will chain and cage—
     In the heart of the music peals a strain
     Which only angels hear;
     Whether it waken joy or rage
     Hushed myriads hark in vain,
     Yet they who hear it shed their age,
     And take their youth again.

     II

     Hear what British Merlin sung,
     Of keenest eye and truest tongue.
     Say not, the chiefs who first arrive
     Usurp the seats for which all strive;
     The forefathers this land who found
     Failed to plant the vantage-ground;
     Ever from one who comes to-morrow
     Men wait their good and truth to borrow.
     But wilt thou measure all thy road,
     See thou lift the lightest load.
     Who has little, to him who has less, can spare,
     And thou, Cyndyllan's son! beware
     Ponderous gold and stuffs to bear,
     To falter ere thou thy task fulfil,—
     Only the light-armed climb the hill.
     The richest of all lords is Use,
     And ruddy Health the loftiest Muse.
     Live in the sunshine, swim the sea,
     Drink the wild air's salubrity:
     When the star Canope shines in May,
     Shepherds are thankful and nations gay.
     The music that can deepest reach,
     And cure all ill, is cordial speech:
     Mask thy wisdom with delight,
     Toy with the bow, yet hit the white.
     Of all wit's uses, the main one
     Is to live well with who has none.

     (Musa loquitur.)

     I hung my verses in the wind,
     Time and tide their faults may find.
     All were winnowed through and through,
     Five lines lasted sound and true;
     Five were smelted in a pot
     Than the South more fierce and hot;
     These the siroc could not melt,
     Fire their fiercer flaming felt,
     And the meaning was more white
     Than July's meridian light.
     Sunshine cannot bleach the snow,
     Nor time unmake what poets know.
     Have you eyes to find the five
     Which five hundred did survive?

     I am the Muse who sung alway
     By Jove, at dawn of the first day.
     Star-crowned, sole-sitting, long I wrought
     To fire the stagnant earth with thought:
     On spawning slime my song prevails,
     Wolves shed their fangs, and dragons scales;
     Flushed in the sky the sweet May-morn,
     Earth smiled with flowers, and man was born.
     Then Asia yeaned her shepherd race,
     And Nile substructs her granite base,—
     Tented Tartary, columned Nile,—
     And, under vines, on rocky isle,
     Or on wind-blown sea-marge bleak,
     Forward stepped the perfect Greek:
     That wit and joy might find a tongue,
     And earth grow civil, HOMER sung.

       Flown to Italy from Greece,
     I brooded long and held my peace,
     For I am wont to sing uncalled,
     And in days of evil plight
     Unlock doors of new delight;
     And sometimes mankind I appalled
     With a bitter horoscope,
     With spasms of terror for balm of hope.
     Then by better thought I lead
     Bards to speak what nations need;
     So I folded me in fears,
     And DANTE searched the triple spheres,
     Moulding Nature at his will,
     So shaped, so colored, swift or still,
     And, sculptor-like, his large design
     Etched on Alp and Apennine.

       Seethed in mists of Penmanmaur,
     Taught by Plinlimmon's Druid power,
     England's genius filled all measure
     Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure,
     Gave to the mind its emperor,
     And life was larger than before:
     Nor sequent centuries could hit
     Orbit and sum of SHAKSPEARE'S wit.
     The men who lived with him became
     Poets, for the air was fame.

       Far in the North, where polar night
     Holds in check the frolic light,
     In trance upborne past mortal goal
     The Swede EMANUEL leads the soul.
     Through snows above, mines underground,
     The inks of Erebus he found;
     Rehearsed to men the damned wails
     On which the seraph music sails.
     In spirit-worlds he trod alone,
     But walked the earth unmarked, unknown,
     The near bystander caught no sound,—
     Yet they who listened far aloof
     Heard rendings of the skyey roof,
     And felt, beneath, the quaking ground;
     And his air-sown, unheeded words,
     In the next age, are flaming swords.

       In newer days of war and trade,
     Romance forgot, and faith decayed,
     When Science armed and guided war,
     And clerks the Janus-gates unbar,
     When France, where poet never grew,
     Halved and dealt the globe anew,
     GOETHE, raised o'er joy and strife,
     Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life
     And brought Olympian wisdom down
     To court and mart, to gown and town.
     Stooping, his finger wrote in clay
     The open secret of to-day.

       So bloom the unfading petals five,
     And verses that all verse outlive.

     SUNG AT THE SECOND CHURCH, AT THE ORDINATION
     OF REV. CHANDLER ROBBINS

     We love the venerable house
       Our fathers built to God;—
     In heaven are kept their grateful vows,
       Their dust endears the sod.

     Here holy thoughts a light have shed
       From many a radiant face,
     And prayers of humble virtue made
       The perfume of the place.

     And anxious hearts have pondered here
       The mystery of life,
     And prayed the eternal Light to clear
       Their doubts, and aid their strife.

     From humble tenements around
       Came up the pensive train,
     And in the church a blessing found
       That filled their homes again;

     For faith and peace and mighty love
       That from the Godhead flow,
     Showed them the life of Heaven above
       Springs from the life below.

     They live with God; their homes are dust;
       Yet here their children pray,
     And in this fleeting lifetime trust
       To find the narrow way.

     On him who by the altar stands,
       On him thy blessing fall,
     Speak through his lips thy pure commands,
       Thou heart that lovest all.

     Winters know
     Easily to shed the snow,
     And the untaught Spring is wise
     In cowslips and anemonies.
     Nature, hating art and pains,
     Baulks and baffles plotting brains;
     Casualty and Surprise
     Are the apples of her eyes;
     But she dearly loves the poor,
     And, by marvel of her own,
     Strikes the loud pretender down.
     For Nature listens in the rose
     And hearkens in the berry's bell
     To help her friends, to plague her foes,
     And like wise God she judges well.
     Yet doth much her love excel
     To the souls that never fell,
     To swains that live in happiness
     And do well because they please,
     Who walk in ways that are unfamed,
     And feats achieve before they're named.

     She is gamesome and good,
     But of mutable mood,—
     No dreary repeater now and again,
     She will be all things to all men.
     She who is old, but nowise feeble,
     Pours her power into the people,
     Merry and manifold without bar,
     Makes and moulds them what they are,
     And what they call their city way
     Is not their way, but hers,
     And what they say they made to-day,
     They learned of the oaks and firs.
     She spawneth men as mallows fresh,
     Hero and maiden, flesh of her flesh;
     She drugs her water and her wheat
     With the flavors she finds meet,
     And gives them what to drink and eat;
     And having thus their bread and growth,
     They do her bidding, nothing loath.
     What's most theirs is not their own,
     But borrowed in atoms from iron and stone,
     And in their vaunted works of Art
     The master-stroke is still her part.

     The sun goes down, and with him takes
     The coarseness of my poor attire;
     The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame
     Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher.

     Pale Northern girls! you scorn our race;
     You captives of your air-tight halls,
     Wear out indoors your sickly days,
     But leave us the horizon walls.

     And if I take you, dames, to task,
     And say it frankly without guile,
     Then you are Gypsies in a mask,
     And I the lady all the while.

     If on the heath, below the moon,
     I court and play with paler blood,
     Me false to mine dare whisper none,—
     One sallow horseman knows me good.

     Go, keep your cheek's rose from the rain,
     For teeth and hair with shopmen deal;
     My swarthy tint is in the grain,
     The rocks and forest know it real.

     The wild air bloweth in our lungs,
     The keen stars twinkle in our eyes,
     The birds gave us our wily tongues,
     The panther in our dances flies.

     You doubt we read the stars on high,
     Nathless we read your fortunes true;
     The stars may hide in the upper sky,
     But without glass we fathom you.

     Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
     Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
     And marching single in an endless file,
     Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
     To each they offer gifts after his will,
     Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.
     I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
     Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
     Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
     Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
     Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.

     If I could put my woods in song
     And tell what's there enjoyed,
     All men would to my gardens throng,
     And leave the cities void.

     In my plot no tulips blow,—
     Snow-loving pines and oaks instead;
     And rank the savage maples grow
     From Spring's faint flush to Autumn red.

     My garden is a forest ledge
     Which older forests bound;
     The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,
     Then plunge to depths profound.

     Here once the Deluge ploughed,
     Laid the terraces, one by one;
     Ebbing later whence it flowed,
     They bleach and dry in the sun.

     The sowers made haste to depart,—
     The wind and the birds which sowed it;
     Not for fame, nor by rules of art,
     Planted these, and tempests flowed it.

     Waters that wash my garden-side
     Play not in Nature's lawful web,
     They heed not moon or solar tide,—
     Five years elapse from flood to ebb.

     Hither hasted, in old time, Jove,
     And every god,—none did refuse;
     And be sure at last came Love,
     And after Love, the Muse.

     Keen ears can catch a syllable,
     As if one spake to another,
     In the hemlocks tall, untamable,
     And what the whispering grasses smother.

     Aeolian harps in the pine
     Ring with the song of the Fates;
     Infant Bacchus in the vine,—
     Far distant yet his chorus waits.

     Canst thou copy in verse one chime
     Of the wood-bell's peal and cry,
     Write in a book the morning's prime,
     Or match with words that tender sky?

     Wonderful verse of the gods,
     Of one import, of varied tone;
     They chant the bliss of their abodes
     To man imprisoned in his own.

     Ever the words of the gods resound;
     But the porches of man's ear
     Seldom in this low life's round
     Are unsealed that he may hear.

     Wandering voices in the air
     And murmurs in the wold
     Speak what I cannot declare,
     Yet cannot all withhold.

     When the shadow fell on the lake,
     The whirlwind in ripples wrote
     Air-bells of fortune that shine and break,
     And omens above thought.

     But the meanings cleave to the lake,
     Cannot be carried in book or urn;
     Go thy ways now, come later back,
     On waves and hedges still they burn.

     These the fates of men forecast,
     Of better men than live to-day;
     If who can read them comes at last
     He will spell in the sculpture, 'Stay.'

     Day! hast thou two faces,
     Making one place two places?
     One, by humble farmer seen,
     Chill and wet, unlighted, mean,
     Useful only, triste and damp,
     Serving for a laborer's lamp?
     Have the same mists another side,
     To be the appanage of pride,
     Gracing the rich man's wood and lake,
     His park where amber mornings break,
     And treacherously bright to show
     His planted isle where roses glow?
     O Day! and is your mightiness
     A sycophant to smug success?
     Will the sweet sky and ocean broad
     Be fine accomplices to fraud?
     O Sun! I curse thy cruel ray:
     Back, back to chaos, harlot Day!

     You shall not be overbold
     When you deal with arctic cold,
     As late I found my lukewarm blood
     Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood.
     How should I fight? my foeman fine
     Has million arms to one of mine:
     East, west, for aid I looked in vain,
     East, west, north, south, are his domain.
     Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home;
     Must borrow his winds who there would come.
     Up and away for life! be fleet!—
     The frost-king ties my fumbling feet,
     Sings in my ears, my hands are stones,
     Curdles the blood to the marble bones,
     Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense,
     And hems in life with narrowing fence.
     Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,—
     The punctual stars will vigil keep,—
     Embalmed by purifying cold;
     The winds shall sing their dead-march old,
     The snow is no ignoble shroud,
     The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.

       Softly,—but this way fate was pointing,
     'T was coming fast to such anointing,
     When piped a tiny voice hard by,
     Gay and polite, a cheerful cry,
     Chic-chic-a-dee-de! saucy note
     Out of sound heart and merry throat,
     As if it said, 'Good day, good sir!
     Fine afternoon, old passenger!
     Happy to meet you in these places,
     Where January brings few faces.'

       This poet, though he live apart,
     Moved by his hospitable heart,
     Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort,
     To do the honors of his court,
     As fits a feathered lord of land;
     Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand,
     Hopped on the bough, then, darting low,
     Prints his small impress on the snow,
     Shows feats of his gymnastic play,
     Head downward, clinging to the spray.

       Here was this atom in full breath,
     Hurling defiance at vast death;
     This scrap of valor just for play
     Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray,
     As if to shame my weak behavior;
     I greeted loud my little savior,
     'You pet! what dost here? and what for?
     In these woods, thy small Labrador,
     At this pinch, wee San Salvador!
     What fire burns in that little chest
     So frolic, stout and self-possest?
     Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine;
     Ashes and jet all hues outshine.
     Why are not diamonds black and gray,
     To ape thy dare-devil array?
     And I affirm, the spacious North
     Exists to draw thy virtue forth.
     I think no virtue goes with size;
     The reason of all cowardice
     Is, that men are overgrown,
     And, to be valiant, must come down
     To the titmouse dimension.'

       'T is good will makes intelligence,
     And I began to catch the sense
     Of my bird's song: 'Live out of doors
     In the great woods, on prairie floors.
     I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea,
     I too have a hole in a hollow tree;
     And I like less when Summer beats
     With stifling beams on these retreats,
     Than noontide twilights which snow makes
     With tempest of the blinding flakes.
     For well the soul, if stout within,
     Can arm impregnably the skin;
     And polar frost my frame defied,
     Made of the air that blows outside.'

       With glad remembrance of my debt,
     I homeward turn; farewell, my pet!
     When here again thy pilgrim comes,
     He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs.
     Doubt not, so long as earth has bread,
     Thou first and foremost shalt be fed;
     The Providence that is most large
     Takes hearts like thine in special charge,
     Helps who for their own need are strong,
     And the sky doats on cheerful song.
     Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant
     O'er all that mass and minster vaunt;
     For men mis-hear thy call in Spring,
     As 't would accost some frivolous wing,
     Crying out of the hazel copse, Phe-be!     And, in winter, Chic-a-dee-dee!     I think old Caesar must have heard
     In northern Gaul my dauntless bird,
     And, echoed in some frosty wold,
     Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold.
     And I will write our annals new,
     And thank thee for a better clew,
     I, who dreamed not when I came here
     To find the antidote of fear,
     Now hear thee say in Roman key,
     Paean! Veni, vidi, vici.

     One musician is sure,
     His wisdom will not fail,
     He has not tasted wine impure,
     Nor bent to passion frail.
     Age cannot cloud his memory,
     Nor grief untune his voice,
     Ranging down the ruled scale
     From tone of joy to inward wail,
     Tempering the pitch of all
     In his windy cave.
     He all the fables knows,
     And in their causes tells,—
     Knows Nature's rarest moods,
     Ever on her secret broods.
     The Muse of men is coy,
     Oft courted will not come;
     In palaces and market squares
     Entreated, she is dumb;
     But my minstrel knows and tells
     The counsel of the gods,
     Knows of Holy Book the spells,
     Knows the law of Night and Day,
     And the heart of girl and boy,
     The tragic and the gay,
     And what is writ on Table Round
     Of Arthur and his peers;
     What sea and land discoursing say
     In sidereal years.
     He renders all his lore
     In numbers wild as dreams,
     Modulating all extremes,—
     What the spangled meadow saith
     To the children who have faith;
     Only to children children sing,
     Only to youth will spring be spring.

       Who is the Bard thus magnified?
     When did he sing? and where abide?

       Chief of song where poets feast
     Is the wind-harp which thou seest
     In the casement at my side.

       Aeolian harp,
     How strangely wise thy strain!
     Gay for youth, gay for youth,
     (Sweet is art, but sweeter truth,)
     In the hall at summer eve
     Fate and Beauty skilled to weave.
     From the eager opening strings
     Rung loud and bold the song.
     Who but loved the wind-harp's note?
     How should not the poet doat
     On its mystic tongue,
     With its primeval memory,
     Reporting what old minstrels told
     Of Merlin locked the harp within,—
     Merlin paying the pain of sin,
     Pent in a dungeon made of air,—
     And some attain his voice to hear,
     Words of pain and cries of fear,
     But pillowed all on melody,
     As fits the griefs of bards to be.
     And what if that all-echoing shell,
     Which thus the buried Past can tell,
     Should rive the Future, and reveal
     What his dread folds would fain conceal?
     It shares the secret of the earth,
     And of the kinds that owe her birth.
     Speaks not of self that mystic tone,
     But of the Overgods alone:
     It trembles to the cosmic breath,—
     As it heareth, so it saith;
     Obeying meek the primal Cause,
     It is the tongue of mundane laws.
     And this, at least, I dare affirm,
     Since genius too has bound and term,
     There is no bard in all the choir,
     Not Homer's self, the poet sire,
     Wise Milton's odes of pensive pleasure,
     Or Shakspeare, whom no mind can measure,
     Nor Collins' verse of tender pain,
     Nor Byron's clarion of disdain,
     Scott, the delight of generous boys,
     Or Wordsworth, Pan's recording voice,—
     Not one of all can put in verse,
     Or to this presence could rehearse
     The sights and voices ravishing
     The boy knew on the hills in spring,
     When pacing through the oaks he heard
     Sharp queries of the sentry-bird,
     The heavy grouse's sudden whir,
     The rattle of the kingfisher;
     Saw bonfires of the harlot flies
     In the lowland, when day dies;
     Or marked, benighted and forlorn,
     The first far signal-fire of morn.
     These syllables that Nature spoke,
     And the thoughts that in him woke,
     Can adequately utter none
     Save to his ear the wind-harp lone.
     Therein I hear the Parcae reel
     The threads of man at their humming wheel,
     The threads of life and power and pain,
     So sweet and mournful falls the strain.
     And best can teach its Delphian chord
     How Nature to the soul is moored,
     If once again that silent string,
     As erst it wont, would thrill and ring.

       Not long ago at eventide,
     It seemed, so listening, at my side
     A window rose, and, to say sooth,
     I looked forth on the fields of youth:
     I saw fair boys bestriding steeds,
     I knew their forms in fancy weeds,
     Long, long concealed by sundering fates,
     Mates of my youth,—yet not my mates,
     Stronger and bolder far than I,
     With grace, with genius, well attired,
     And then as now from far admired,
     Followed with love
     They knew not of,
     With passion cold and shy.
     O joy, for what recoveries rare!
     Renewed, I breathe Elysian air,
     See youth's glad mates in earliest bloom,—
     Break not my dream, obtrusive tomb!
     Or teach thou, Spring! the grand recoil
     Of life resurgent from the soil
     Wherein was dropped the mortal spoil.