The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Volume 1

                ____________________

     Far into Wartburg, through all Italy,
     In every town the Pope sent messengers,
     Riding in furious haste; among them, one
     Who bore a branch of dry wood burst in bloom;
     The pastoral rod had borne green shoots of spring,
     And leaf and blossom.  God is merciful.

        Note.—In spite of my unwillingness to imply any possible
        belief of mine that the preceding unrhymed narratives can
        enter into competition with the elaborate poems of the author
        of "The Earthly Paradise," yet the similarity of subjects,
        and the imputation of plagiarism already made in private
        circles, induce me to remark that "Admetus" was completed
        before the publication of the "Love of Alcestis," and
        "Tannhauser" before the "Hill of Venus."

                                                      Emma Lazarus.

     The little and the great are joined in one
     By God's great force.  The wondrous golden sun
     Is linked unto the glow-worm's tiny spark;
     The eagle soars to heaven in his flight;
     And in those realms of space, all bathed in light,
     Soar none except the eagle and the lark.

     Gray earth, gray mist, gray sky:
     Through vapors hurrying by,
     Larger than wont, on high
       Floats the horned, yellow moon.
     Chill airs are faintly stirred,
     And far away is heard,
     Of some fresh-awakened bird,
       The querulous, shrill tune.

     The dark mist hides the face
     Of the dim land: no trace
     Of rock or river's place
       In the thick air is drawn;
     But dripping grass smells sweet,
     And rustling branches meet,
     And sounding water greet
       The slow, sure, sacred dawn.

     Past is the long black night,
     With its keen lightnings white,
     Thunder and floods: new light
       The glimmering low east streaks.
     The dense clouds part: between
     Their jagged rents are seen
     Pale reaches blue and green,
       As the mirk curtain breaks.

     Above the shadowy world,
     Still more and more unfurled,
     The gathered mists upcurled
       Like phantoms melt and pass.
     In clear-obscure revealed,
     Brown wood, gray stream, dark field:
     Fresh, healthy odors yield
       Wet furrows, flowers, and grass.

     The sudden, splendid gleam
     Of one thin, golden beam
     Shoots from the feathered rim
       Of yon hill crowned with woods.
     Down its embowered side,
     As living waters slide,
     So the great morning tide
       Follows in sunny floods.

     From bush and hedge and tree
     Joy, unrestrained and free,
     Breaks forth in melody,
       Twitter and chirp and song:
     Alive the festal air
     With gauze-winged creatures fair,
     That flicker everywhere,
       Dart, poise, and flash along.

     The shining mists are gone,
     Slight films of gold swift-blown
     Before the strong, bright sun
       Or the deep-colored sky:
     A world of life and glow
     Sparkles and basks below,
     Where the soft meads a-row,
       Hoary with dew-fall, lie.

     Does not the morn break thus,
     Swift, bright, victorious,
     With new skies cleared for us,
       Over the soul storm-tost?
     Her night was long and deep,
     Strange visions vexed her sleep,
     Strange sorrows bade her weep:
       Her faith in dawn was lost.

     No halt, no rest for her,
     The immortal wanderer
     From sphere to higher sphere,
       Toward the pure source of day.
     The new light shames her fears,
     Her faithlessness, her tears,
     As the new sun appears
       To light her godlike way.

     I give God thanks that I, a lean old man,
     Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen pains
     By austere penance and continuous toil,
     Now rest in spirit, and possess "the peace
     Which passeth understanding." Th' end draws nigh,
     Though the beginning is yesterday,
     And a broad lifetime spreads 'twixt this and that—
     A favored life, though outwardly the butt
     Of ignominy, malice, and affront,
     Yet lighted from within by the clear star
     Of a high aim, and graciously prolonged
     To see at last its utmost goal attained.
     I speak not of mine Order and my House,
     Here founded by my hands and filled with saints—
     A white society of snowy souls,
     Swayed by my voice, by mine example led;
     For this is but the natural harvest reaped
     From labors such as mine when blessed by God.
     Though I rejoice to think my spirit still
     Will work my purposes, through worthy hands,
     After my bones are shriveled into dust,
     Yet have I gleaned a finer, sweeter fruit
     Of holy satisfaction, sure and real,
     Though subtler than the tissue of the air—
     The power completely to detach the soul
     From her companion through this life, the flesh;
     So that in blessed privacy of peace,
     Communing with high angels, she can hold,
     Serenely rapt, her solitary course.

       Ye know, O saints of heaven, what I have borne
     Of discipline and scourge; the twisted lash
     Of knotted rope that striped my shrinking limbs;
     Vigils and fasts protracted, till my flesh
     Wasted and crumbled from mine aching bones,
     And the last skin, one woof of pain and sores,
     Thereto like yellow parchment loosely clung;
     Exposure to the fever and the frost,
     When 'mongst the hollows of the hills I lurked
     From persecution of misguided folk,
     Accustoming my spirit to ignore
     The burden of the cross, while picturing
     The bliss of disembodied souls, the grace
     Of holiness, the lives of sainted men,
     And entertaining all exalted thoughts,
     That nowise touched the trouble of the hour,
     Until the grief and pain seemed far less real
     Than the creations of my brain inspired.
     The vision, the beatitude, were true:
     The agony was but an evil dream.
     I speak not now as one who hath not learned
     The purport of those lightly-bandied words,
     Evil and Fate, but rather one who knows
     The thunders of the terrors of the world.
     No mortal chance or change, no earthly shock,
     Can move or reach my soul, securely throned
     On heights of contemplation and calm prayer,
     Happy, serene, no less actual joy
     Of present peace than faith in joys to come.

       This soft, sweet, yellow evening, how the trees
     Stand crisp against the clear, bright-colored sky!
     How the white mountain-tops distinctly shine,
     Taking and giving radiance, and the slopes
     Are purpled with rich floods of peach-hued light!
     Thank God, my filmy, old dislustred eyes
     Find the same sense of exquisite delight,
     My heart vibrates to the same touch of joy
     In scenes like this, as when my pulse danced high,
     And youth coursed through my veins!  This the one link
     That binds the wan old man that now I am
     To the wild lad who followed up the hounds
     Among Ravenna's pine-woods by the sea.
     For there how oft would I lose all delight
     In the pursuit, the triumph, or the game,
     To stray alone among the shadowy glades,
     And gaze, as one who is not satisfied
     With gazing, at the large, bright, breathing sea,
     The forest glooms, and shifting gleams between
     The fine dark fringes of the fadeless trees,
     On gold-green turf, sweet-brier, and wild pink rose!
     How rich that buoyant air with changing scent
     Of pungent pine, fresh flowers, and salt cool seas!
     And when all echoes of the chase had died,
     Of horn and halloo, bells and baying hounds,
     How mine ears drank the ripple of the tide
     On the fair shore, the chirp of unseen birds,
     The rustling of the tangled undergrowth,
     And the deep lyric murmur of the pines,
     When through their high tops swept the sudden breeze!
     There was my world, there would my heart dilate,
     And my aspiring soul dissolve in prayer
     Unto that Spirit of Love whose energies
     Were active round me, yet whose presence, sphered
     In the unsearchable, unbodied air,
     Made itself felt, but reigned invisible.
     This ere the day that made me what I am.
     Still can I see the hot, bright sky, the sea
     Illimitably sparkling, as they showed
     That morning.  Though I deemed I took no note
     Of heaven or earth or waters, yet my mind
     Retains to-day the vivid portraiture
     Of every line and feature of the scene.
     Light-hearted 'midst the dewy lanes I fared
     Unto the sea, whose jocund gleam I caught
     Between the slim boles, when I heard the clink
     Of naked weapons, then a sudden thrust
     Sickening to hear, and then a stifled groan;
     And pressing forward I beheld the sight
     That seared itself for ever on my brain—
     My kinsman, Ser Ranieri, on the turf,
     Fallen upon his side, his bright young head
     Among the pine-spurs, and his cheek pressed close
     Unto the moist, chill sod: his fingers clutched
     A handful of loose weeds and grass and earth,
     Uprooted in his anguish as he fell,
     And slowly from his heart the thick stream flowed,
     Fouling the green, leaving the fair, sweet face
     Ghastly, transparent, with blue, stony eyes
     Staring in blankness on that other one
     Who triumphed over him.  With hot desire
     Of instant vengeance I unsheathed my sword
     To rush upon the slayer, when he turned
     In his first terror of blood-guiltiness.

       .  .  .  .  .  .  .

     Within my heart a something snapped and brake.
     What was it but the chord of rapturous joy
     For ever stilled?  I tottered and would fall,
     Had I not leaned against the friendly pine;
     For all realities of life, unmoored
     From their firm anchorage, appeared to float
     Like hollow phantoms past my dizzy brain.
     The strange delusion wrought upon my soul
     That this had been enacted ages since.
     This very horror curdled at my heart,
     This net of trees spread round, these iron heavens,
     Were closing over me when I had stood,
     Unnumbered cycles back, and fronted HIM,
     My father; and he felt mine eyes as now,
     Yet saw me not; and then, as now, that form,
     The one thing real, lay stretched between us both.
     The fancy passed, and I stood sane and strong
     To grasp the truth.  Then I remembered all—
     A few fierce words between them yester eve
     Concerning some poor plot of pasturage,
     Soon silenced into courteous, frigid calm:
     This was the end.  I could not meet him now,
     To curse him, to accuse him, or to save,
     And draw him from the red entanglement
     Coiled by his own hands round his ruined life.
     God pardon me!  My heart that moment held
     No drop of pity toward this wretched soul;
     And cowering down, as though his guilt were mine,
     I fled amidst the savage silences
     Of that grim wood, resolved to nurse alone
     My boundless desolation, shame, and grief.

       There, in that thick-leaved twilight of high noon,
     The quiet of the still, suspended air,
     Once more my wandering thoughts were calmly ranged,
     Shepherded by my will.  I wept, I prayed
     A solemn prayer, conceived in agony,
     Blessed with response instant, miraculous;
     For in that hour my spirit was at one
     With Him who knows and satisfies her needs.
     The supplication and the blessing sprang
     From the same source, inspired divinely both.
     I prayed for light, self-knowledge, guidance, truth,
     And these like heavenly manna were rained down
     To feed my hungered soul.  His guilt was mine.
     What angel had been sent to stay mine arm
     Until the fateful moment passed away
     That would have ushered an eternity
     Of withering remorse?  I found the germs
     In mine own heart of every human sin,
     That waited but occasion's tempting breath
     To overgrow with poisoned bloom my life.
     What God thus far had saved me from myself?
     Here was the lofty truth revealed, that each
     Must feel himself in all, must know where'er
     The great soul acts or suffers or enjoys,
     His proper soul in kinship there is bound.
     Then my life-purpose dawned upon my mind,
     Encouraging as morning.  As I lay,
     Crushed by the weight of universal love,
     Which mine own thoughts had heaped upon myself,
     I heard the clear chime of a slow, sweet bell.
     I knew it—whence it came and what it sang.
     From the gray convent nigh the wood it pealed,
     And called the monks to prayer.  Vigil and prayer,
     Clean lives, white days of strict austerity:
     Such were the offerings of these holy saints.
     How far might such not tend to expiate
     A riotous world's indulgence?  Here my life,
     Doubly austere and doubly sanctified,
     Might even for that other one atone,
     So bound to mine, till both should be forgiven.

       They sheltered me, not questioning the need
     That led me to their cloistered solitude.
     How rich, how freighted with pure influence,
     With dear security of perfect peace,
     Was the first day I passed within those walls!
     The holy habit of perpetual prayer,
     The gentle greetings, the rare temperate speech,
     The chastening discipline, the atmosphere
     Of settled and profound tranquillity,
     Were even as living waters unto one
     Who perisheth of thirst.  Was this the world
     That yesterday seemed one huge battlefield
     For brutish passions?  Could the soul of man
     Withdraw so easily, and erect apart
     Her own fair temple for her own high ends?
     But this serene contentment slowly waned
     As I discerned the broad disparity
     Betwixt the form and spirit of the laws
     That bound the order in strait brotherhood.
     Yet when I sought to gain a larger love,
     More rigid discipline, severer truth,
     And more complete surrender of the soul
     Unto her God, this was to my reproach,
     And scoffs and gibes beset me on all sides.
     In mine own cell I mortified my flesh,
     I held aloof from all my brethren's feasts
     To wrestle with my viewless enemies,
     Till they should leave their blessing on my head;
     For nightly was I haunted by that face,
     White, bloodless, as I saw it 'midst the ferns,
     Now staring out of darkness, and it held
     Mine eyes from slumber and my brain from rest
     And drove me from my straw to weep and pray.
     Rebellious thoughts such subtle torture wrought
     Upon my spirit that I lay day-long
     In dumb despair, until the blessed hope
     Of mercy dawned again upon my soul,
     As gradual as the slow gold moon that mounts
     The airy steps of heaven.  My faith arose
     With sure perception that disaster, wrong,
     And every shadow of man's destiny
     Are merely circumstance, and cannot touch
     The soul's fine essence: they exist or die
     Only as she affirms them or denies.

       This faith sustain me even to the end:
     It floods my heart with peace as surely now
     As on that day the friars drove me forth,
     Urging that my asceticism, too harsh,
     Endured through pride, would bring into reproach
     Their customs and their order.  Then began
     My exile in the mountains, where I bode
     A hunted man.  The elements conspired
     Against me, and I was the seasons' sport,
     Drenched, parched, and scorched and frozen alternately,
     Burned with shrewd frosts, prostrated by fierce heats,
     Shivering 'neath chilling dews and gusty rains,
     And buffeted by all the winds of heaven.
     Yet was this period my time of joy:
     My daily thoughts perpetual converse held
     With angels ministrant; mine ears were charmed
     With sweet accordance of celestial sounds,
     Song, harp and choir, clear ringing through the air.
     And visions were revealed unto mine eyes
     By night and day of Heaven's very courts,
     In shadowless, undimmed magnificence.
     I gave God thanks, not that He sheltered me,
     And fed me as He feeds the fowls of air—
     For had I perished, this too had been well—
     But for the revelation of His truth,
     The glory, the beatitude vouchsafed
     To exalt, to heal, to quicken, to inspire;
     So that the pinched, lean excommunicate
     Was crowned with joy more solid, more secure,
     Than all the comfort of the vales could bring.
     Then the good Lord touched certain fervid hearts,
     Aspiring toward His love, to come to me,
     Timid and few at first; but as they heard
     From mine own lips the precious oracles,
     That soothed the trouble of their souls, appeased
     Their spiritual hunger, and disclosed
     All of the God within them to themselves,
     They flocked about me, and they hailed me saint,
     And sware to follow and to serve the good
     Which my word published and my life declared.
     Thus the lone hermit of the mountain-top
     Descended leader of a band of saints,
     And midway 'twixt the summit and the vale
     I perched my convent.  Yet I bated not
     One whit of strict restraint and abstinence.
     And they who love me and who serve the truth
     Have learned to suffer with me, and have won
     The supreme joy that is not of the flesh,
     Foretasting the delights of Paradise.
     This faith, to them imparted, will endure
     After my tongue hath ceased to utter it,
     And the great peace hath settled on my soul.

         Small, shapeless drifts of cloud
     Sail slowly northward in the soft-hued sky,
       With blur half-tints and rolling summits bright,
     By the late sun caressed; slight hazes shroud
       All things afar; shineth each leaf anigh
         With its own warmth and light.

         O'erblown by Southland airs,
     The summer landscape basks in utter peace:
       In lazy streams the lazy clouds are seen;
     Low hills, broad meadows, and large, clear-cut squares
       Of ripening corn-fields, rippled by the breeze,
         With shifting shade and sheen.

         Hark! and you may not hear
     A sound less soothing than the rustle cool
       Of swaying leaves, the steady wiry drone
     Of unseen crickets, sudden chirpings clear
       Of happy birds, the tinkle of the pool,
         Chafed by a single stone.

         What vague, delicious dreams,
     Born of this golden hour of afternoon,
       And air balm-freighted, fill the soul with bliss,
     Transpierced like yonder clouds with lustrous gleams,
       Fantastic, brief as they, and, like them, spun
         Of gilded nothingness!

         All things are well with her.
     'T is good to be alive, to see the light
       That plays upon the grass, to feel (and sigh
     With perfect pleasure) the mild breezes stir
       Among the garden roses, red and white,
         With whiffs of fragrancy.

         There is no troublous thought,
     No painful memory, no grave regret,
       To mar the sweet suggestions of the hour:
     The soul, at peace, reflects the peace without,
       Forgetting grief as sunset skies forget
         The morning's transient shower.

               (After Robert Schumann).

                     I. Evening.

     Rest, beauty, stillness: not a waif of a cloud
     From gray-blue east sheer to the yellow west—
     No film of mist the utmost slopes to shroud.

     The earth lies grace, by quiet airs caressed,
     And shepherdeth her shadows, but each stream,
     Free to the sky, is by that glow possessed,
     And traileth with the splendors of a dream
     Athwart the dusky land.  Uplift thine eyes!
     Unbroken by a vapor or a gleam,

     The vast clear reach of mild, wan twilight skies.
     But look again, and lo, the evening star!
     Against the pale tints black the slim elms rise,

     The earth exhales sweet odors nigh and far,
     And from the heavens fine influences fall.
     Familiar things stand not for what they are:

     What they suggest, foreshadow, or recall
     The spirit is alert to apprehend,
     Imparting somewhat of herself to all.

     Labor and thought and care are at an end:
     The soul is filled with gracious reveries,
     And with her mood soft sounds and colors blend;

     For simplest sounds ring forth like melodies
     In this weird-lighted air—the monotone
     Of some far bell, the distant farmyard cries,

     A barking dog, the thin, persistent drone
     Of crickets, and the lessening call of birds.
     The apparition of yon star alone

     Breaks on the sense like music.  Beyond word
     The peace that floods the soul, for night is here,
     And Beauty still is guide and harbinger.

                     II. Aspiration.

     Dark lies the earth, and bright with worlds the sky:
     That soft, large, lustrous star, that first outshone,
     Still holds us spelled with potent sorcery.

     Dilating, shrinking, lightening, it hath won
     Our spirit with its strange strong influence,
     And sways it as the tides beneath the moon.

     What impulse this, o'ermastering heart and sense?
     Exalted, thrilled, the freed soul fain would soar
     Unto that point of shining prominence,

     Craving new fields and some unheard-of shore,
     Yea, all the heavens, for her activity,
     To mount with daring flight, to hover o'er

     Low hills of earth, flat meadows, level sea,
     And earthly joy and trouble.  In this hour
     Of waning light and sound, of mystery,

     Of shadowed love and beauty-veiled power,
     She feels her wings: she yearns to grasp her own,
     Knowing the utmost good to be her dower.

     A dream! a dream! for at a touch 't is gone.
     O mocking spirit! thy mere fools are we,
     Unto the depths from heights celestial thrown.

     From these blind gropings toward reality,
     This thirst for truth, this most pathetic need
     Of something to uplift, to justify,

     To help and comfort while we faint and bleed,
     May we not draw, wrung from the last despair,
     Some argument of hope, some blessed creed,

     That we can trust the faith which whispers prayer,
     The vanishings, the ecstasy, the gleam,
     The nameless aspiration, and the dream?

                    III. Wherefore?

     Deep languor overcometh mind and frame:
     A listless, drowsy, utter weariness,
     A trance wherein no thought finds speech or name,

     The overstrained spirit doth possess.
     She sinks with drooping wing—poor unfledged bird,
     That fain had flown!—in fluttering breathlessness.

     To what end those high hopes that wildly stirred
     The beating heart with aspirations vain?
     Why proffer prayers unanswered and unheard

     To blank, deaf heavens that will not heed her pain?
     Where lead these lofty, soaring tendencies,
     That leap and fly and poise, to fall again,

     Yet seem to link her with the utmost skies?
     What mean these clinging loves that bind to earth,
     And claim her with beseeching, wistful eyes?

     This little resting-place 'twixt death and birth,
     Why is it fretted with the ceaseless flow
     Of flood and ebb, with overgrowth and dearth,

     And vext with dreams, and clouded with strange woe?
     Ah! she is tired of thought, she yearns for peace,
     Seeing all things one equal end must know.

     Wherefore this tangle of perplexities,
     The trouble or the joy? the weary maze
     Of narrow fears and hopes that may not cease?

     A chill falls on her from the skyey ways,
     Black with the night-tide, where is none to hear
     The ancient cry, the Wherefore of our days.

                    IV. Fancies.

     The ceaseless whirr of crickets fills the ear
     From underneath each hedge and bush and tree,
     Deep in the dew-drenched grasses everywhere.

     The simple sound dispels the fantasy
     Of gloom and terror gathering round the mind.
     It seems a pleasant thing to breathe, to be,

     To hear the many-voiced, soft summer wind
     Lisp through the dark thick leafage overhead—
     To see the rosy half-moon soar behind

     The black slim-branching elms.  Sad thoughts have fled,
     Trouble and doubt, and now strange reveries
     And odd caprices fill us in their stead.

     From yonder broken disk the redness dies,
     Like gold fruit through the leaves the half-sphere gleams,
     Then over the hoar tree-tops climbs the skies,

     Blanched ever more and more, until it beams
     Whiter than crystal.  Like a scroll unfurled,
     And shadowy as a landscape seen in dreams,

     Reveals itself the sleeping, quiet world,
     Painted in tender grays and whites subdued—
     The speckled stream with flakes of light impearled,

     The wide, soft meadow and the massive wood.
     Naught is too wild for our credulity
     In this weird hour: our finest dreams hold good.

     Quaint elves and frolic flower-sprites we see,
     And fairies weaving rings of gossamer,
     And angels floating through the filmy air.

                    V. In the Night.

     Let us go in: the air is dank and chill
     With dewy midnight, and the moon rides high
     O'er ghostly fields, pale stream, and spectral hill.

     This hour the dawn seems farthest from the sky
     So weary long the space that lies between
     That sacred joy and this dark mystery

     Of earth and heaven: no glimmering is seen,
     In the star-sprinkled east, of coming day,
     Nor, westward, of the splendor that hath been.

     Strange fears beset us, nameless terrors sway
     The brooding soul, that hungers for her rest,
     Out worn with changing moods, vain hopes' delay,

     With conscious thought o'erburdened and oppressed.
     The mystery and the shadow wax too deep;
     She longs to merge both sense and thought in sleep.

                    VI. Faerie.

     From the oped lattice glance once more abroad
     While the ethereal moontide bathes with light
     Hill, stream, and garden, and white-winding road.

     All gracious myths born of the shadowy night
     Recur, and hover in fantastic guise,
     Airy and vague, before the drowsy sight.

     On yonder soft gray hill Endymion lies
     In rosy slumber, and the moonlit air
     Breathes kisses on his cheeks and lips and eyes.

     'Twixt bush and bush gleam flower-white limbs, left bare,
     Of huntress-nymphs, and flying raiment thin,
     Vanishing faces, and bright floating hair.

     The quaint midsummer fairies and their kin,
     Gnomes, elves, and trolls, on blossom, branch, and grass
     Gambol and dance, and winding out and in

     Leave circles of spun dew where'er they pass.
     Through the blue ether the freed Ariel flies;
     Enchantment holds the air; a swarming mass

     Of myriad dusky, gold-winged dreams arise,
     Throng toward the gates of sense, and so possess
     The soul, and lull it to forgetfulness.

                 VII. Confused Dreams.

     O strange, dim other-world revealed to us,
     Beginning there where ends reality,
     Lying 'twixt life and death, and populous

     With souls from either sphere! now enter we
     Thy twisted paths.  Barred is the silver gate,
     But the wild-carven doors of ivory

     Spring noiselessly apart: between them straight
     Flies forth a cloud of nameless shadowy things,
     With harpies, imps, and monsters, small and great,

     Blurring the thick air with darkening wings.
     All humors of the blood and brain take shape,
     And fright us with our own imaginings.

     A trouble weighs upon us: no escape
     From this unnatural region can there be.
     Fixed eyes stare on us, wide mouths grin and gape,

     Familiar faces out of reach we see.
     Fain would we scream, to shatter with a cry
     The tangled woof of hideous fantasy,

     When, lo! the air grows clear, a soft fair sky
     Shines over head: sharp pain dissolves in peace;
     Beneath the silver archway quietly

     We float away: all troublous visions cease.
     By a strange sense of joy we are possessed,
     Body and spirit soothed in perfect rest.

                 VIII. The End of the Song.

     What dainty note of long-drawn melody
     Athwart our dreamless sleep rings sweet and clear,
     Till all the fumes of slumber are brushed by,

     And with awakened consciousness we hear
     The pipe of birds?  Look forth!  The sane, white day
     Blesses the hilltops, and the sun is near.

     All misty phantoms slowly roll away
     With the night's vapors toward the western sky.
     The Real enchants us, the fresh breath of hay

     Blows toward us; soft the meadow-grasses lie,
     Bearded with dew; the air is a caress;
     The sudden sun o'ertops the boundary

     Of eastern hills, the morning joyousness
     Thrills tingling through the frame; life's pulse beats strong;
     Night's fancies melt like dew.  So ends the song!

     The grass of fifty Aprils hath waved green
       Above the spent heart, the Olympian head,
     The hands crost idly, the shut eyes unseen,
       Unseeing, the locked lips whose song hath fled;
     Yet mystic-lived, like some rich, tropic flower,
     His fame puts forth fresh blossoms hour by hour;
     Wide spread the laden branches dropping dew
       On the low, laureled brow misunderstood,
       That bent not, neither bowed, until subdued
     By the last foe who crowned while he o'erthrew.

     Fair was the Easter Sabbath morn when first
       Men heard he had not wakened to its light:
     The end had come, and time had done its worst,
       For the black cloud had fallen of endless night.
     Then in the town, as Greek accosted Greek,
     'T was not the wonted festal words to speak,
     "Christ is arisen," but "Our chief is gone,"
       With such wan aspect and grief-smitten head
       As when the awful cry of "Pan is dead!"
     Filled echoing hill and valley with its moan.

     "I am more fit for death than the world deems,"
       So spake he as life's light was growing dim,
     And turned to sleep as unto soothing dreams.
       What terrors could its darkness hold for him,
     Familiar with all anguish, but with fear
     Still unacquainted?  On his martial bier
     They laid a sword, a helmet, and a crown—
       Meed of the warrior, but not these among
       His voiceless lyre, whose silent chords unstrung
     Shall wait—how long?—for touches like his own.

     An alien country mourned him as her son,
       And hailed him hero: his sole, fitting tomb
     Were Theseus' temple or the Parthenon,
       Fondly she deemed.  His brethren bare him home,
     Their exiled glory, past the guarded gate
     Where England's Abbey shelters England's great.
     Afar he rests whose very name hath shed
       New lustre on her with the song he sings.
       So Shakespeare rests who scorned to lie with kings,
     Sleeping at peace midst the unhonored dead.

     And fifty years suffice to overgrow
       With gentle memories the foul weeds of hate
     That shamed his grave.  The world begins to know
       Her loss, and view with other eyes his fate.
     Even as the cunning workman brings to pass
     The sculptor's thought from out the unwieldy mass
     Of shapeless marble, so Time lops away
       The stony crust of falsehood that concealed
       His just proportions, and, at last revealed,
     The statue issues to the light of day,

     Most beautiful, most human.  Let them fling
       The first stone who are tempted even as he,
     And have not swerved.  When did that rare soul sing
       The victim's shame, the tyrant's eulogy,
     The great belittle, or exalt the small,
     Or grudge his gift, his blood, to disenthrall
     The slaves of tyranny or ignorance?
       Stung by fierce tongues himself, whose rightful fame
       Hath he reviled?  Upon what noble name
     Did the winged arrows of the barbed wit glance?

     The years' thick, clinging curtains backward pull,
       And show him as he is, crowned with bright beams,
     "Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful
       As he hath been or might be; Sorrow seems
     Half of his immortality."*  He needs
     No monument whose name and song and deeds
     Are graven in all foreign hearts; but she
       His mother, England, slow and last to wake,
       Needs raise the votive shaft for her fame's sake:
     Hers is the shame if such forgotten be!
       May, 1875.

       *"Cain," Act I. Scene 1.

     On a background of pale gold
     I would trace with quaint design,
         Penciled fine,
     Brilliant-colored, Moorish scenes,
     Mosques and crescents, pages, queens,
         Line on line,
     That the prose-world of to-day
     Might the gorgeous Past's array
         Once behold.

     On the magic painted shield
     Rich Granada's Vega green
         Should be seen;
     Crystal fountains, coolness flinging,
     Hanging gardens' skyward springing
         Emerald sheen;
     Ruddy when the daylight falls,
     Crowned Alhambra's beetling walls
         Stand revealed;

     Balconies that overbrow
     Field and city, vale and stream.
         In a dream
     Lulled the drowsy landscape basks;
         Mark the gleam
     Silvery of each white-swathed peak!
     Mountain-airs caress the cheek,
         Fresh from the snow.

     Here in Lindaraxa's bower
     The immortal roses bloom;
         In the room
     Lion-guarded, marble-paven,
     Still the fountain leaps to heaven.
         But the doom
     Of the banned and stricken race
     Overshadows every place,
         Every hour.

     Where fair Lindaraxa dwelt
     Flits the bat on velvet wings;
         Mute the strings
     Of the broken mandoline;
     The Pavilion of the Queen
         Widely flings
     Vacant windows to the night;
     Moonbeams kiss the floor with light
         Where she knelt.

     Through these halls that people stepped
     Who through darkling centuries
         Held the keys
     Of all wisdom, truth, and art,
     In a Paradise apart,
        Lapped in ease,
     Sagely pondering deathless themes,
     While, befooled with monkish dreams,
         Europe slept.

     Where shall they be found today?
     Yonder hill that frets the sky
         "The last Sigh
     Of the Moor" is named still.
     There the ill-starred Boabdil
         Bade good-by
     To Granada and to Spain,
     Where the Crescent ne'er again
         Holdeth sway.