The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (part 5 of 7)
'Deem me not faithless, if all day Among my dusty books I linger, No pipe, like thee, for June to play With fancy-led, half-conscious finger.
'A bird is singing in my brain And bubbling o'er with mingled fancies, Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain Fed with the sap of old romances.
'I ask no ampler skies than those His magic music rears above me, No falser friends, no truer foes,-- And does not Doña Clara love me?
'Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars, A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing, Then silence deep with breathless stars, And overhead a white hand flashing.
'O music of all moods and climes, Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly, Where still, between the Christian chimes, The Moorish cymbal tinkles faintly!
'O life borne lightly in the hand, For friend or foe with grace Castilian! O valley safe in Fancy's land, Not tramped to mud yet by the million!
'Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale To his, my singer of all weathers, My Calderon, my nightingale, My Arab soul in Spanish feathers.
'Ah, friend, these singers dead so long, And still, God knows, in purgatory, Give its best sweetness to all song, To Nature's self her better glory.'
IN THE TWILIGHT
Men say the sullen instrument, That, from the Master's bow, With pangs of joy or woe, Feels music's soul through every fibre sent, Whispers the ravished strings More than he knew or meant; Old summers in its memory glow; The secrets of the wind it sings; It hears the April-loosened springs; And mixes with its mood All it dreamed when it stood In the murmurous pine-wood Long ago!
The magical moonlight then Steeped every bough and cone; The roar of the brook in the glen Came dim from the distance blown; The wind through its glooms sang low, And it swayed to and fro With delight as it stood, In the wonderful wood, Long ago!
O my life, have we not had seasons That only said, Live and rejoice? That asked not for causes and reasons, But made us all feeling and voice? When we went with the winds in their blowing, When Nature and we were peers, And we seemed to share in the flowing Of the inexhaustible years? Have we not from the earth drawn juices Too fine for earth's sordid uses? Have I heard, have I seen All I feel, all I know? Doth my heart overween? Or could it have been Long ago?
Sometimes a breath floats by me, An odor from Dreamland sent. That makes the ghost seem nigh me Of a splendor that came and went, Of a life lived somewhere, I know not In what diviner sphere, Of memories that stay not and go not, Like music heard once by an ear That cannot forget or reclaim it, A something so shy, it would shame it To make it a show, A something too vague, could I name it, For others to know, As if I had lived it or dreamed it, As if I had acted or schemed it, Long ago!
And yet, could I live it over, This life that stirs in my brain, Could I be both maiden and lover. Moon and tide, bee and clover, As I seem to have been, once again, Could I but speak it and show it, This pleasure more sharp than pain, That baffles and lures me so, The world should once more have a poet, Such as it had In the ages glad, Long ago!
THE FOOT-PATH
It mounts athwart the windy hill Through sallow slopes of upland bare, And Fancy climbs with foot-fall still Its narrowing curves that end in air.
By day, a warmer-hearted blue Stoops softly to that topmost swell; Its thread-like windings seem a clue To gracious climes where all is well.
By night, far yonder, I surmise An ampler world than clips my ken, Where the great stars of happier skies Commingle nobler fates of men.
I look and long, then haste me home, Still master of my secret rare; Once tried, the path would end in Rome, But now it leads me everywhere.
Forever to the new it guides, From former good, old overmuch; What Nature for her poets hides, 'Tis wiser to divine than clutch.
The bird I list hath never come Within the scope of mortal ear; My prying step would make him dumb, And the fair tree, his shelter, sear.
Behind the hill, behind the sky, Behind my inmost thought, he sings; No feet avail; to hear it nigh, The song itself must lend the wings.
Sing on, sweet bird close hid, and raise Those angel stairways in my brain, That climb from these low-vaulted days To spacious sunshines far from pain.
Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet, I leave thy covert haunt untrod, And envy Science not her feat To make a twice-told tale of God.
They said the fairies tript no more, And long ago that Pan was dead; 'Twas but that fools preferred to bore Earth's rind inch-deep for truth instead.
Pan leaps and pipes all summer long, The fairies dance each full-mooned night, Would we but doff our lenses strong, And trust our wiser eyes' delight.
City of Elf-land, just without Our seeing, marvel ever new, Glimpsed in fair weather, a sweet doubt Sketched-in, mirage-like, on the blue,
I build thee in yon sunset cloud, Whose edge allures to climb the height; I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loud, From still pools dusk with dreams of night.
Thy gates are shut to hardiest will, Thy countersign of long-lost speech,-- Those fountained courts, those chambers still, Fronting Time's far East, who shall reach?
I know not, and will never pry, But trust our human heart for all; Wonders that from the seeker fly Into an open sense may fall.
Hide in thine own soul, and surprise The password of the unwary elves; Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies; Unsought, they whisper it themselves.
POEMS OF THE WAR
THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD
OCTOBER, 1861
Along a river-side, I know not where, I walked one night in mystery of dream; A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my hair, To think what chanced me by the pallid gleam Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air.
Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow-mist Their hales, wavering thistledowns of light; The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst, Laughed; and the echoes, huddling in affright, Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down the night. 10
Then all was silent, till there smote my ear A movement in the stream that checked my breath: Was it the slow plash of a wading deer? But something said, 'This water is of Death! The Sisters wash a shroud,--ill thing to hear!'
I, looking then, beheld the ancient Three Known to the Greek's and to the Northman's creed, That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree, Still crooning, as they weave their endless brede, One song: 'Time was, Time is, and Time shall be.' 20
No wrinkled crones were they, as I had deemed, But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-morrow To mourner, lover, poet, ever seemed; Something too high for joy, too deep for sorrow, Thrilled in their tones, and from their faces gleamed.
'Still men and nations reap as they have strawn,' So sang they, working at their task the while; 'The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere dawn: For Austria? Italy? the Sea-Queen's isle? O'er what quenched grandeur must our shroud be drawn? 30
'Or is it for a younger, fairer corse, That gathered States like children round his knees, That tamed the wave to be his posting-horse, Feller of forests, linker of the seas, Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son of Thor's?
'What make we, murmur'st thou? and what are we? When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud, The time-old web of the implacable Three: Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud? Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it,--why not he?' 40
'Is there no hope?' I moaned, 'so strong, so fair! Our Fowler whose proud bird would brook erewhile No rival's swoop in all our western air! Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file For him, life's morn yet golden in his hair?
'Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying dames! I see, half seeing. Tell me, ye who scanned The stars, Earth's elders, still must noblest aims Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sands? Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of names?' 50
'When grass-blades stiffen with red battle-dew, Ye deem we choose the victor and the slain: Say, choose we them that shall be leal and true To the heart's longing, the high faith of brain? Yet there the victory lies, if ye but knew.
'Three roots bear up Dominion: Knowledge, Will,-- These twain are strong, but stronger yet the third,-- Obedience,--'tis the great tap-root that still, Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred, Though Heaven-loosed tempests spend their utmost skill. 60
'Is the doom sealed for Hesper? 'Tis not we Denounce it, but the Law before all time: The brave makes danger opportunity; The waverer, paltering with the chance sublime, Dwarfs it to peril: which shall Hesper be?
'Hath he let vultures climb his eagle's seat To make Jove's bolts purveyors of their maw? Hath he the Many's plaudits found more sweet Than Wisdom? held Opinion's wind for Law? Then let him hearken for the doomster's feet! 70
'Rough are the steps, slow-hewn in flintiest rock, States climb to power by; slippery those with gold Down which they stumble to eternal mock: No chafferer's hand shall long the sceptre hold, Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell the block.
'We sing old Sagas, songs of weal and woe, Mystic because too cheaply understood; Dark sayings are not ours; men hear and know, See Evil weak, see strength alone in Good, Yet hope to stem God's fire with walls of tow. 80
'Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is, That offers choice of glory or of gloom; The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his. But hasten, Sisters! for even now the tomb Grates its slow hinge and calls from the abyss.'
'But not for him,' I cried, 'not yet for him, Whose large horizon, westering, star by star Wins from the void to where on Ocean's rim The sunset shuts the world with golden bar, Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow dim! 90
'His shall be larger manhood, saved for those That walk unblenching through the trial-fires; Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes, And he no base-born son of craven sires, Whose eye need blench confronted with his foes.
'Tears may be ours, but proud, for those who win Death's royal purple in the foe-man's lines; Peace, too, brings tears; and mid the battle-din, The wiser ear some text of God divines, For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin. 100
'God, give us peace! not such as lulls to sleep, But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit! And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep, Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit, And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap!'
So cried I with clenched hands and passionate pain, Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side; Again the loon laughed mocking, and again The echoes bayed far down the night and died, While waking I recalled my wandering brain. 110
TWO SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF BLONDEL
AUTUMN, 1863
I. Near a castle in Germany.
'Twere no hard task, perchance, to win The popular laurel for my song; 'Twere only to comply with sin, And own the crown, though snatched by wrong: Rather Truth's chaplet let me wear, Though sharp as death its thorns may sting: Loyal to Loyalty, I bear No badge but of my rightful king.
Patient by town and tower I wait, Or o'er the blustering moorland go; 10 I buy no praise at cheaper rate, Or what faint hearts may fancy so; For me, no joy in lady's bower, Or hall, or tourney, will I sing, Till the slow stars wheel round the hour That crowns my hero and my king.
While all the land runs red with strife, And wealth is won by pedler-crimes, Let who will find content in life And tinkle in unmanly rhymes; 20 I wait and seek; through dark and light, Safe in my heart my hope I bring, Till I once more my faith may plight To him my whole soul owns her king.
When power is filched by drone and dolt, And, with canght breath and flashing eye, Her knuckles whitening round the bolt, Vengeance leans eager from the sky, While this and that the people guess, And to the skirts of praters cling, 30 Who court the crowd they should compress, I turn in scorn to seek my king.
Shut in what tower of darkling chance Or dungeon of a narrow doom, Dream'st thou of battle-axe and lance That for the Cross make crashing room? Come! with hushed breath the battle waits In the wild van thy mace's swing; While doubters parley with their fates, Make thou thine own and ours, my king! 40
O strong to keep upright the old, And wise to buttress with the new, Prudent, as only are the bold, Clear-eyed, as only are the true, To foes benign, to friendship stern, Intent to imp Law's broken wing, Who would not die, if death might earn The right to kiss thy hand, my king?