Nor to thyself the task shall be True beauty in utility; As great Pythagoras of yore, Standing beside the blacksmith's door, THE OCCULTATION OF ORION. I SAW, as in a dream sublime, O'er East and West its beam impended; Where, chaunting through his beard of snows, Beneath the sky's triumphal arch His sword hung gleaming by his side, That were to prove her strength, and try Thus moving on, with silent pace, Into the river at his feet. He sought the blacksmith at his forge, Then through the silence overhead, THE BRIDGE. I STOOD On the bridge at midnight, I saw her bright reflexion And far in the hazy distance The wavering shadows lay, And the current that came from the ocean, Seemed to lift and bear them away. As, sweeping and eddying through them Rose the belated tide, And, streaming into the moonlight, The seaweed floated wide. And like those waters rushing Among the wooden piers, A flood of thoughts came o'er me In the days that had gone by, I had stood on the bridge at midnight How often, oh, how often I had wished that the ebbing tide Yet whenever I cross the river On its bridge with wooden piers, And I think how many thousands I see the long procession Still passing to and fro, The young heart hot and restless, And forever and forever, As long as the river flows, As long as the heart has passions, As long as life has woes; The moon and its broken reflexion And its shadows shall appear, As the symbol of love in heaven, And its wavering image there. TO THE DRIVING CLOUD. GLOOMY and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omawhaws; Gloomy and dark, as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken! Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers Stalked those birds, unknown, that have left us only their footprints. What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints? How canst thou walk in these streets who hast trod the green turf of the prairies? How canst thou breathe in this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains? Ah! 'tis in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge Looks of dislike in return, and question these walls and these pavements, Claiming the soil for thy hunting-ground, while down-trodden millions Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too, Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division! Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash! There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn the leaves of the maple Pave the floors of thy palace halls with gold, and in summer Pine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches. There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses! There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elk-horn, Or by the roar of the Running-water, or where the Omawhaw Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the Blackfeet! Hark! what mumurs arise from the hearts of those mountainous deserts? Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth, Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder, And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man? Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes, Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of the Behemoth, Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the grey of the daybreak Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse-race; It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches! Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east wind, Drifts evermore to the West the scanty smokes of the wigwams SONG S. SEAWEED. WHEN descends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm-wind of the equinox, Laden with seaweed from the rocks; In some far-off, bright Azore: Surges of San Salvador; From the tumbling surf, that buries Answering the hoarse Hebrides; On the desolate, rainy seas;- Currents of the restless main; All have found repose again. So when storms of wild emotion Of the poet's soul, ere long From each cave and rocky fastness, Floats some fragment of a song; With the golden fruit of Truth; In the tropic clime of Youth; From the strong Will, and the Endeavour That for ever Wrestles with the tides of Fate: From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, Tempest-shattered, Floating waste and desolate ; Ever drifting, drifting, drifting, Currents of the restless heart; THE DAY IS DONE. THE day is done, and the darkness I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist: A feeling of sadness and longing, As the mist resembles the rain. Some simple and heartfelt lay, Read from some humbler poet, Who, through long days of labour, Still heard in his soul the music Such songs have power to quiet And come like benediction That follows after prayer. Then read from the treasured volume And lend to the rhyme of the poet And the night shall be filled with music, AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY. THE day is ending, The night is descending; The river dead. Through clouds like ashes, On village windows The snow recommences; The road o'er the plain; A funeral train. The bell is pealing Shadows are trailing, My heart is bewailing, And toiling within Like a funeral bell. TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK. WELCOME, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside, The ungrateful world Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee, There are marks of age, There are thumb-marks on thy margin, Made by hands that clasped thee rudely At the alehouse. Soiled and dull thou art; Yellow are thy time-worn pages, Thou art stained with wine As these leaves with the libations Yet dost thou recall, Days departed, half-forgotten, When I paused to hear The old ballad of King Christian Thou recallest bards, Who, in solitary chambers, And with hearts by passion wasted, Thou recallest homes Where thy songs of love and friendship Made the gloomy Northern winter Bright as summer. Once some ancient Scald, In his bleak, ancestral Iceland, Once in Elsinore, At the court of old King Hamlet, Once Prince Frederick's Guard Sang them in their smoky barracks;- Peasants in the field, Sailors on the roaring ocean, Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics, All have sung them. Thou hast been their friend; They, alas! have left thee friendless And, as swallows build In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys, Quiet, close, and warm, Sheltered from all molestation, And recalling by their voices WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID VOGELWEID the Minnesinger, When he left this world of ours, Laid his body in the cloister Under Wurtzburg's minster towers. Saying, "From these wandering minstrels They have taught so well and long. On his tomb the birds were feasted Day by day, o'er tower and turret, On the tree whose heavy branches On the pavement, on the tombstone, On the cross-bars of each window, Till at length the portly abbot Then in vain o'er tower and turret, From the walls and woodland nests, Time has long effaced the inscriptions, Where repose the poet's bones. DRINKING SONG. INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER. COME, old friend! sit down and listen! From the pitcher, placed between us, How the waters laugh and glisten In the head of old Silenus! Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, Led by his inebriate Satyrs; On his breast his head is sunken, Vacantly he leers and chatters. Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow; Ivy crown that brow supernal As the forehead of Apollo, And possessing youth eternal. Round about him, fair Bacchantes. Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses, Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante's Vineyards, sing, delirous voices. Thus he won, through all the nations, Vines for banners, ploughs for armour. Of a faith long since forsaken; Never would his own replenish. Wreathed about with classic fables; Come, old friend, sit down and listen! THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS. L'éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tombeaux: "Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!" -JACQUES BRIDAINE. SOMEWHAT back from the village street Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw; An ancient timepiece says to all,- Half way up the stairs it stands, And points and beckons with its hands With sorrowful voice to all who pass,- By day its voice is low and light; And seems to say, at each chamber-door,- Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, It calmly repeats those words of awe,- In that mansion used to be His great fires up the chimney roared; There groups of merry children played, And affluence of love and time! Those hours the ancient timepiece told,- Never-forever!" From that chamber, clothed in white, The dead lay in his shroud of snow; All are scattered now and fled, Never here, forever there, Where all parting, pain, and care, THE ARROW AND THE SONG. I SHOT an arrow in the air, It fell to earth I knew not where; I breathed a song into the air, Long, long afterward, in an oak |