Nor to thyself the task shall be
Without reward; for thou shalt learn
The wisdom early to discern
True beauty in utility;
As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door,
And hearing the hammers, as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire,
And formed the seven-corded lyre.
Enough! I will not play the Seer;
I will not longer strive to ope
The mystic volume, where appear
The herald Hope, forerunning Fear,
And fear, the pursuivant of Hope.
Thy destiny remains untold;
For, like Acestes' shaft of old,
The swift thought kindles as it flies,
And burns to ashes in the skies.
THE OCCULTATION OF ORION.
I SAW, as in a dream sublime,
The balance in the hand of Time.
O'er East and West its beam impended;
And day, with all its hours of light,
Was slowly sinking out of sight,
While, opposite, the scale of night
Silently with the stars ascended.
Like the astrologers of eld,
In that bright vision I beheld
Greater and deeper mysteries.
I saw, with its celestial keys,
Its chords of air, its frets of fire,
The Samian's great Eolian lyre,
Rising through all its sevenfold bars,
From earth unto the fixed stars.
And through the dewy atmosphere,
Not only could I see, but hear,
Its wondrous and harmonious strings,
In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere,
From Dian's circle light and near,
Onward to vaster and wider rings,
Where, chaunting through his beard of snows,
Majestic, mournful, Saturn goes,
And down the sunless realms of space
Reverberates the thunder of his bass.
Beneath the sky's triumphal arch
The music sounded like a march,
And with its chorus seemed to be
Preluding some great tragedy.
Sirius was rising in the east ;
And, slow ascending one by one,
The kindling constellations shone.
Begirt with many a blazing star,
Stood the great giant Algebar,
Orion, hunter of the beast!
His sword hung gleaming by his side,
And, on his arm, the lion's hide
Scattered across the midnight air
The golden radiance of its hair.
The moon was pallid, but not faint;
And beautiful as some fair saint,
Serenely moving on her way
In hours of trial and dismay.
As if she heard the voice of God
Unharmed with naked feet she trod
Upon the hot and burning stars,
As on the glowing coals and bars
That were to prove her strength, and try
Her holiness and her purity.
Thus moving on, with silent pace,
And triumph in her sweet pale face,
She reached the station of Orion.
Aghast he stood in strange aların!
And suddenly from his ontstretched arm
Down fell the red skin of the lion
Into the river at his feet.
His mighty club no longer beat
The forehead of the bull; but he
Reeled as of yore beside the sea,
When, blinded by Enopion,
He sought the blacksmith at his forge,
And, climbing up the mountain gorge,
Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun.
Then through the silence overhead,
An angel with a trumpet said,
"Forevermore, forevermore,
The reign of violence is o'er!"
And, like an instrument that flings
Its music on another's strings,
The trumpet of the angel case
Upon the heavenly lyre its blast,
And on sphere to sphere the words
Reëchoed down the burning chords,-
"Forevermore, forevermore,
The reign of violence is o'er!"
I STOOD On the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o'er the city,
Behind the dark-church tower.
I saw her bright reflexion
In the waters under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.
And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the flaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.
Among the long, black rafters
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
That filled my eyes with tears.
How often, oh, how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on the bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!
How often, oh, how often
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O'er the ocean wild and wide!
For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.
But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea!
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.
Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odour of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.
I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro,
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!
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
WHEN descends on the Atlantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,
Laden with seaweed from the rocks;
From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,
In some far-off, bright Azore:
From Bahama, and the dashing
Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;
From the tumbling surf, that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting,
Spars uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas;-
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves and reaches
Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.
So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean
Of the poet's soul, ere long
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song;
From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian
In the tropic clime of Youth;
From the strong Will, and the Endeavour
Wrestles with the tides of Fate:
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, Tempest-shattered,
Floating waste and desolate ;
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting,
On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.
THE DAY IS DONE.
THE day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
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,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mights thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavour;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start.
Who, through long days of labour,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like benediction
That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY.
THE day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.
Through clouds like ashes,
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.
The snow recommences;
The buried fences
Mark no longer
The road o'er the plain;
While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes
A funeral train.
The bell is pealing
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;
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,
While the sullen gales of autumn
Shake the windows
The ungrateful world
Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,
Since, beneath the skies of Denmark,
First I met 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,
As the russet, rain-molested
Leaves of autumn.
Thou art stained with wine
Scattered from hilarious goblets,
As these leaves with the libations
Of Olympus.
Yet dost thou recall,
Days departed, half-forgotten,
When in dreamy youth I wandered
By the Baltic,-
When I paused to hear
The old ballad of King Christian
Shouted from suburban tavern
In the twilight.
Thou recallest bards,
Who, in solitary chambers,
And with hearts by passion wasted,
Wrote thy pages.
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,
Chanted staves of these old ballads
To the Vikings.
Once in Elsinore,
At the court of old King Hamlet,
Yorick and his boon companions
Sang these dittie
Once Prince Frederick's Guard
Sang them in their smoky barracks;-
Suddenly the English cannon
Joined the chorus!
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
Yet at least by one warm fireside
Art thou welcome.
And, as swallows build
In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,
So thy twittering songs shall nestle
In my bosom,-
Quiet, close, and warm,
Sheltered from all molestation,
And recalling by their voices
Youth and travel.
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.
And he gave the monks his treasures,
Gave them all with this behest:
They should feed the birds at noontide
Daily on his place of rest;
Saying, "From these wandering minstrels
I have learned the art of song;
Let me now repay the lessons
They have taught so well and long.
Thus the bard of love departed;
And, fulfilling his desire.
On his tomb the birds were feasted
By the children of the choir.
Day by day, o'er tower and turret,
In foul weather and in fair,
Day by day, in vaster numbers
Flocked the poets of the air.
On the tree whose heavy branches
Overshadowed all the place,
On the pavement, on the tombstone,
On the poet's sculptured face,
On the cross-bars of each window,
On the lintel of each door,
They renewed the War of Wartburg,
Which the bard had fought before.
There they sang their merry carols,
Sang their lauds on every side;
And the name their voices uttered
Was the name of Vogelweid.
Till at length the portly abbot
Murmured, "Why this waste of food?
Be it changed to loaves henceforward
For our fasting brotherhood."
Then in vain o'er tower and turret,
From the walls and woodland nests,
When the minster bells rang noontide,
Gathered the unwelcome guests,
Then in vain, with cries discordant,
Clamorous round the Gothic spire,
Screamed the feathered Minnesingers
For the children of the choir.
Time has long effaced the inscriptions,
On the cloister's funeral stones,
And tradition only tells us
Where repose the poet's bones.
But around the vast cathedral,
By sweet echoes multiplied,
Still the birds repeat the legend,
And the name of Vogelweid.
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,
Bloodless victories, and the farmer
Bore, as trophies aud oblations,
Vines for banners, ploughs for armour.
Judged by no o'er-zealous rigour,
Much this mystic throng expresses:
Bacchus was the type of vigour,
And Silenus of excesses.
These are ancient ethnic revels,
Of a faith long since forsaken;
Now the Satyrs, changed to devils,
Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken.
Now to rivulets from the mountains
Point the rods of fortune-tellers;
Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,-
Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.
Claudius, though he sang of flagons
And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,
From that fiery blood of dragons
Never would his own replenish.
Even Redi, though he chaunted
Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,
Never drank the wine he vaunted
In his dithyrambic sallies.
Then with water fill the pitcher
Wreathed about with classic fables;
Ne'er Falernian threw a richer
Light upon Lucullus' tables.
Come, old friend, sit down and listen!
As it passes thus between us,
How its wavelets laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus!
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
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall
An ancient timepiece says to all,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
Half way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with its hands
From its case of massive oak,
Like a monk, who under his cloak,
Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!
With sorrowful voice to all who pass,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
By day its voice is low and light;
But in the silent dead of night,
Distinct as a passing footstep's fall
It echoes along the vacant hall,
Along the ceiling, along the floor,
And seems to say, at each chamber-door,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude
Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared;
The stranger feasted at his board;
But, like the skeleton at the feast,
That warning timepiece never ceased,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a miser counts his gold,
Those hours the ancient timepiece told,-
"Forever-never!
From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night;
There, in that silent room below,
The dead lay in his shroud of snow;
And in the hush that followed the prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair,—
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain.
"Ah! when shall they all meet again?"
As in the days long since gone by,
The ancient timepiece makes reply,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall dissappear,-
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,-
"Forever-never!
Never-forever!"
THE ARROW AND THE SONG.
I SHOT an arrow in the air,
It fell to earth I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song!
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
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