s: To entertain that New thou tell'st, thou art, --


s: 'Tis here, 'tis here thou canst unhand thy heart


s: And breathe it free, and breathe it free,


s: The tide's at full:  the marsh with flooded streams


s: Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies


s: The marsh brags ten:  looped on his breast they lie.


s: To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence a-spring, --


s: Will break as a bubble o'er-blown in a dream, --


s: Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of night,


s: Over-weighted with stars, over-freighted with light,


s: Over-sated with beauty and silence, will seem


s: If a bound of degree to this grace be laid,


s: But no:  it is made:  list! somewhere, -- mystery, where?


s: 'Tis a motion of dawn, like a flicker of shade on shade.


s: In the leaves 'tis palpable:  low multitudinous stirring


s: Upwinds through the woods; the little ones, softly conferring,


s: Have settled my lord's to be looked for; so; they are still;


s: But the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill, --


s: Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and shades, --


s: And invisible wings, fast fleeting, fast fleeting,


s: The dark overhead as my heart beats, -- and steady and free


s: Is the ebb-tide flowing from marsh to sea --


s: With your lapfulls of stars and dreams), --


s: For list, down the inshore curve of the creek


s: And lo, in the East!  Will the East unveil?


s: The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed


s: A flush:  'tis dead; 'tis alive:  'tis dead, ere the West


s: Was aware of it:  nay, 'tis abiding, 'tis unwithdrawn:


s: Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a flush is uprolled:


s: Is builded, in shape as a bee-hive, from out of the sea:


s: The hive is of gold undazzling, but oh, the Bee,


s: That shall flash from the hive-hole over the sea.


s: Yet now the dew-drop, now the morning gray,


s: Ere with the sun their souls exhale away.


s: Now in each pettiest personal sphere of dew


s: The summ'd morn shines complete as in the blue


s: Big dew-drop of all heaven:  with these lit shrines


s: O'er-silvered to the farthest sea-confines,


s: Of worship lies.  Peace to the ante-reign


s: Minded of nought but peace, and of a child.


s: Not slower than Majesty moves, for a mean and a measure


s: Of motion, -- not faster than dateless Olympian leisure


s: Forever revealing, revealing, revealing,


s: Edgewise, bladewise, halfwise, wholewise, -- 'tis done!


s: With several voice, with ascription one,


s: The woods and the marsh and the sea and my soul


s: Unto thee, whence the glittering stream of all morrows doth roll,


s: O Artisan born in the purple, -- Workman Heat, --


s: Parter of passionate atoms that travail to meet


s: And be mixed in the death-cold oneness, -- innermost Guest


s: At the marriage of elements, -- fellow of publicans, -- blest


s: King in the blouse of flame, that loiterest o'er


s: The idle skies yet laborest fast evermore, --


s: Thou, in the fine forge-thunder, thou, in the beat


s: Of the heart of a man, thou Motive, -- Laborer Heat:


s: Yea, Artist, thou, of whose art yon sea's all news,


s: With his inshore greens and manifold mid-sea blues,


s: Pearl-glint, shell-tint, ancientest perfectest hues


s: Ever shaming the maidens, -- lily and rose


s: Confess thee, and each mild flame that glows


s: In the clarified virginal bosoms of stones that shine,


s: Thou chemist of storms, whether driving the winds a-swirl


s: Or a-flicker the subtiler essences polar that whirl


s: In the magnet earth, -- yea, thou with a storm for a heart,


s: Rent with debate, many-spotted with question, part


s: From part oft sundered, yet ever a globed light,


s: Yet ever the artist, ever more large and bright


s: Than the eye of a man may avail of: --  manifold One,


s: I must pass from thy face, I must pass from the face of the Sun:


s: Old Want is awake and agog, every wrinkle a-frown;


s: The worker must pass to his work in the terrible town:


s: But I fear not, nay, and I fear not the thing to be done;


s: I am strong with the strength of my lord the Sun:


s: How dark, how dark soever the race that must needs be run,


s: Never the hell-colored smoke of the factories


s: Never the reek of the time's fen-politics


s: Labor, at leisure, in art, -- till yonder beside thee


s: And come and brood upon the marsh with me.


s: The whole deep with drown'd commerce choke,


s: In issue bind such sovereign hopes and fears.


s: -- Lo, Cloud, thy downward countenance stares


s: Blank on the blank-faced marsh, and thou


s: Like late wounds run the wrinkles on thy brow.


s: Well may'st thou pause, and gloom, and stare,


s: Of murders, arsons, thefts, -- of nameless stain.


s: And then a priest with prayers upon his lips


s: To let a beggar in, -- strange spite, --


s: Where twelve months' store of victual lay,


s: Which done, thy floods with winds returned, --


s: Breeder of Pain and Doubt, infernal Power?


s: But God:'  it is not true, it is not true.


s: I made to Him with love's unforced design!


s: To strike down Good and fight for Ill, --


s: In the wind and sound the wind's command:


s: Each artist -- gift of terror! -- owns his will.


s: For thee, Cloud, -- if thou spend thine all


s: Till every convert clod shall give to thee


s: Snow, hail, rain, wind, grass, rose, light, shade;


s: What matters it to thee?  There is no thee.


s: Discharge the will that's not thine own.


s: Sure of the Father, Self, and Love, alone.


s: Oh wait, oh wait, in the warm red West, --


s: O cloud in the West, like a thought in the heart


s: Bring hither my brother Antonio, -- Man, --


s: Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven


s: With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven


s: Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs, --


s: Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,


s: When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades


s: Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,


s: That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within


s: Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire, --


s: Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire,


s: Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves, --


s: Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good; --


s: O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine,


s: While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long did shine


s: Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine;


s: But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest,


s: And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West,


s: And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem


s: Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, --


s: Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak,


s: And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know,


s: And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within,


s: Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain, --


s: To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn,


s: Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn,


s: Thus -- with your favor -- soft, with a reverent hand,


s: (Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!)


s: Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand


s: By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea.


s: Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering band


s: Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight,


s: Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light.


s: Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea?


s: From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin,


s: Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won


s: God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain


s: And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.


s: As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,


s: Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God:


s: I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies


s: I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God:


s: Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within


s: The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.


s: About and about through the intricate channels that flow


s: That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow


s: The creeks overflow:  a thousand rivulets run


s: 'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh-grass stir;


s: Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr;


s: Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run;


s: And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep


s: The forms that swim and the shapes that creep


s: Dear uplands, Chester's favorable fields,


s: My large unjealous Loves, many yet one --


s: A grave good-morrow to your Graces, all,


s: The midmorn empties you of men, save me;


s: Speak to your lover, meadows!  None can hear.


s: Holding the hills and heavens in my heart


s: From founts of dawn the fluent autumn day


s: Half-way to noon; but now with widening turn


s: Makes pause, in lucent meditation locked,


s: Bottom'd with clover-fields.  My heart just hears


s: Eight lingering strokes of some far village-bell,


s: That speak the hour so inward-voiced, meseems


s: Time's conscience has but whispered him eight hints


s: Of revolution.  Reigns that mild surcease


s: That stills the middle of each rural morn --


s: When nimble noises that with sunrise ran


s: About the farms have sunk again to rest;


s: When Tom no more across the horse-lot calls


s: The sway-back'd roan for stamping on his foot


s: With sulphurous oath and kick in flank, what time


s: The cart-chain clinks across the slanting shaft,


s: And, kitchenward, the rattling bucket plumps


s: Souse down the well, where quivering ducks quack loud,


s: Faint as a new-washed soul but lately up


s: Most ravishingly run, so smooth of curve


s: Rise toward a rain of clover-blooms, as lakes


s: Pout gentle mounds of plashment up to meet


s: Big shower-drops.  Now the little winds, as bees,


s: Bowing the blooms come wandering where I lie


s: Mixt soul and body with the clover-tufts,


s: Light on my spirit, give from wing and thigh


s: Of inmost Nature's secret autumn-thought


s: That owns each cognizance of the outlying five,


s: And sees, hears, tastes, smells, touches, all in one.


s: Tell me, dear Clover (since my soul is thine,


s: To make thy ways my ways, thy service mine,


s: And die from out myself to live in thee) --


s: Now, Cousin Clover, tell me in mine ear:


s: Go'st thou to market with thy pink and green?


s: Of what avail, this color and this grace?


s: Wert thou but squat of stem and brindle-brown,


s: Still careless herds would feed.  A poet, thou:


s: What worth, what worth, the whole of all thine art?


s: Three-Leaves, instruct me!  I am sick of price.


s: Framed in the arching of two clover-stems


s: Where-through I gaze from off my hill, afar,


s: The spacious fields from me to Heaven take on


s: Begins to hint a parable's sense beneath.


s: The prospect widens, cuts all bounds of blue


s: Where horizontal limits bend, and spreads


s: Into a curious-hill'd and curious-valley'd Vast,


s: Endless before, behind, around; which seems


s: Made plain before mine eyes.  The clover-stems


s: Still cover all the space; but now they bear,


s: For clover-blooms, fair, stately heads of men


s: With poets' faces heartsome, dear and pale --


s: Whose loving service to the world has been


s: In the artist's way expressed and bodied.  Oh,


s: In arms' reach, here be Dante, Keats, Chopin,


s: And Buddha (sweetest masters!  Let me lay


s: These arms this once, this humble once, about


s: Your reverend necks -- the most containing clasp,


s: For all in all, this world e'er saw!) and there,


s: Yet further on, bright throngs unnamable


s: In the Court of Gentle Service, silent men,


s: Dwellers in woods, brooders on helpful art,


s: And all the press of them, the fair, the large,


s: Now comes the Course-of-things, shaped like an Ox,


s: Slow browsing, o'er my hillside, ponderously --


s: The huge-brawned, tame, and workful Course-of-things,


s: That hath his grass, if earth be round or flat,


s: And hath his grass, if empires plunge in pain


s: Or faiths flash out.  This cool, unasking Ox


s: Comes browsing o'er my hills and vales of Time,


s: And thrusts me out his tongue, and curls it, sharp,


s: And twists them in, all -- Dante, Keats, Chopin,


s: And Buddha, in one sheaf -- and champs and chews,


s: With slantly-churning jaws, and swallows down;


s: Then slowly plants a mighty forefoot out,


s: And makes advance to futureward, one inch.


s: This, God?  This, troublous-breeding Earth?  This, Sun


s: Of hot, quick pains?  To this no-end that ends,


s: These Masters wrought, and wept, and sweated blood,


s: And burned, and loved, and ached with public shame,


s: And found no friends to breathe their loves to, save


s: Woods and wet pillows?  This was all?  This Ox?


s: "Nay," quoth a sum of voices in mine ear,


s: "God's clover, we, and feed His Course-of-things;


s: The pasture is God's pasture; systems strange


s: The general brawn is built for plans of His


s: To quality precise.  Kinsman, learn this:


s: The artist's market is the heart of man;


s: The artist's price, some little good of man.


s: Tease not thy vision with vain search for ends.


s: The End of Means is art that works by love.


s: The End of Ends . . . in God's Beginning's lost."


s: Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled


s: With clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field,


s: In cool green radius twice my length may be --


s: Scanting the corn thy furrows else might yield,


s: To pleasure August, bees, fair thoughts, and me,


s: Stretched prone in summer's mortal ecstasy,


s: Do stir with thanks to thee, as stirs this morn


s: Unseen, the farmer's boy from round the hill


s: Whistles a snatch that seeks his soul unsought,


s: And fills some time with tune, howbeit shrill;


s: The cricket tells straight on his simple thought --


s: Nay, 'tis the cricket's way of being still;


s: The peddler bee drones in, and gossips naught;


s: Times me the beating of the heart of love:


s: And these be all the sounds that mix, each morn,


s: From here to where the louder passions dwell,


s: Trade ends where yon far clover ridges swell.


s: Ye terrible Towns, ne'er claim the trembling soul


s: That, craftless all to buy or hoard or sell,


s: From out your deadly complex quarrel stole


s: And take Time's strokes as softly as this morn


s: The ferns and the fondling grass said `Stay,'


s: And the little reeds sighed `Abide, abide,


s: The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,


s: Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,


s: Said, `Pass not, so cold, these manifold


s: The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone


s: Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,


s: Made lures with the lights of streaming stone


s: In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,


s: Avail:  I am fain for to water the plain.


s: Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,


s: The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,


s: And the lordly main from beyond the plain


s: The drear sand-levels drain my spirit low.


s: With one poor word they tell me all they know;


s: Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain,


s: They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name:


s: No ambuscade of beauty 'gainst mine eyes


s: From brake or lurking dell or deep defile;


s: No humors, frolic forms -- this mile, that mile;


s: Beyond the bend of roads, the distant slopes.


s: Her fancy fails, her wild is all run tame:


s: But glimpse some hill my Georgia high uprears,


s: Where white the quartz and pink the pebble shine,


s: The hickory heavenward strives, the muscadine


s: Swings o'er the slope, the oak's far-falling shade


s: Darkens the dogwood in the bottom glade,


s: He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew


s: The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay


s: Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,


s: And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew


s: Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.


s: The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song


s: Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again.


s: Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain:


s: How may the death of that dull insect be


s: The life of yon trim Shakespeare on the tree?


s: While breasts are red and wings are bold


s: Time's scythe shall reap but bliss for me


s: I'll sing from the top of the orange-tree


s: I'll south with the sun, and keep my clime;


s: My breast to the sun his torch shall hold;


s: And I'll call down through the green and gold


s: `Time, take thy scythe, reap bliss for me,


s: At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,


s: When far within the spirit's hearing rolls


s: The great soft rumble of the course of things --


s: A bulk of silence in a mask of sound, --


s: When darkness clears our vision that by day


s: Is sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owl


s: For truth and flitteth here and there about


s: Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken tree


s: And muse in that gaunt place, -- 'twas then my heart,


s: "Ye companies of governor-spirits grave,


s: Bards, and old bringers-down of flaming news


s: From steep-wall'd heavens, holy malcontents,


s: Sweet seers, and stellar visionaries, all


s: Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars;


s: But hath some heinous freckle of the flesh


s: Upon his shining cheek, not one but winks


s: Of defect; yea, you masters all must ask


s: Some sweet forgiveness, which we leap to give,


s: Your largesse so with love, and interplight


s: Thus unto thee, O sweetest Shakespeare sole,


s: ('Tis little, but, enchantment! 'tis for thee):


s: Small curious quibble; Juliet's prurient pun


s: In the poor, pale face of Romeo's fancied death;


s: Cold rant of Richard; Henry's fustian roar


s: Which frights away that sleep he invocates;


s: Wronged Valentine's unnatural haste to yield;


s: Too-silly shifts of maids that mask as men


s: In faint disguises that could ne'er disguise --


s: Fatigues most drear, and needless overtax


s: Of speech obscure that had as lief be plain;


s: Last I forgive (with more delight, because


s: 'Tis more to do) the labored-lewd discourse


s: That e'en thy young invention's youngest heir


s: Of prose and catalogue, thy drear harangues


s: That tease the patience of the centuries,


s: Thy sleazy scrap of story, -- but a rogue's


s: Rape of a light-o'-love, -- too soiled a patch


s: Thou dear and very strong one, I forgive


s: Thy year-worn cloak, thine iron stringencies


s: That were but dandy upside-down, thy words


s: Of truth that, mildlier spoke, had mainlier wrought.


s: That all the All thou hadst for needy man


s: The implacable hates that in thy horrid hells


s: Or burn or freeze thy fellows, never loosed


s: Thee, Milton, those thy comic-dreadful wars


s: Where, armed with gross and inconclusive steel,


s: Brave Aeschylus, thee I forgive, for that


s: Thine eye, by bare bright justice basilisked,


s: Turned not, nor ever learned to look where Love


s: (For oh, what heart hath loved thee like to this


s: That's now complaining?), freely I forgive


s: Thy logic poor, thine error rich, thine earth


s: Of beauty, and sweet righteous lovers large:


s: Aurelius fine, oft superfine; mild Saint


s: Whiles low in thought, still with old slavery tinct;


s: Rapt Behmen, rapt too far; high Swedenborg,


s: O'ertoppling; Langley, that with but a touch


s: Of art hadst sung Piers Plowman to the top


s: Of English songs, whereof 'tis dearest, now,


s: A-calling angels with the cow-herd's call


s: That late brought up the cattle; Emerson,


s: Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost


s: Thy Self, sometimes; tense Keats, with angels' nerves


s: Where men's were better; Tennyson, largest voice


s: Wanting; -- all, all, I pardon, ere 'tis asked,


s: Your more or less, your little mole that marks


s: You brother and your kinship seals to man.


s: But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time,


s: But Thee, O poets' Poet, Wisdom's Tongue,


s: But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,


s: O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest, --


s: What `if' or `yet', what mole, what flaw, what lapse,


s: Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's, --


s: Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?"


s: It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay;


s: And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,


s: Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe;


s: In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern


s: She reared, and rounded her ears in turn.


s: For their day-dream slowlier came to a close,


s: The hounds swept after with never a sound,


s: But Alan loud winded his horn in sign that the quarry was nigh.


s: For to drive him the deer to the lower glen-grounds:


s: Cried Maclean -- "if the deer seek to cross to the burn,


s: Was white in the face when the ten-tined buck and the does


s: Still Hamish hung heavy with fear for to go


s: "Now, now, grim henchman, what is't with thee?"


s: "Ten blows, for ten tine, on his back let fall,


s: If a slimmer-paunched henchman will hurry with me,


s: And that place of the lashing full quiet became;


s: But look! red Hamish has risen; quick about and about turns he.


s: And the lady cries:  "Clansmen, run for a fee! --


s: Crying:  "Hamish! O Hamish! but please, but please


s: Ten blows on Maclean's bare back shall fall,


s: Let me hurl off the damnable hound in the sea!"


s: Say yea! --  Let them lash ME, Hamish?" --  "Nay!" --  "Husband,


s: But, oh, who will heal me the bonny sweet bairn in his grave?


s: Could ye cure me my heart with the death of a knave?


s: Till her finger nigh felt of the bairnie's face --


s: And gazed hungrily o'er, and the blood from his back drip-dripped


s: And a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he flew,


s: And the mother stared white on the waste of blue,


s: To range, deep-wrapt, along a heavenly height,


s: And hear the beating of the hearts of trees,


s: And think the thoughts that lilies speak in white


s: By greenwood pools and pleasant passages;


s: With healthy dreams a-dream in flesh and soul,


s: Where much thyme is, whence blissful leagues of lawn


s: Betwixt the fringing woods to southward roll


s: Ablaze with fires that flame in silver dew


s: When each small globe doth glass the morning-star,


s: Long ere the sun, sweet-smitten through and through


s: Where thou art gone; to strive, but not to moil


s: In nothings that do mar the artist's hand,


s: Not drudge unriched, as grain rots back to soil, --


s: No profit out of death, -- going, yet still at stand, --


s: For that that's in to-morrow's bush, perchance, --


s: Of this year's harvest none in the barn to lay,


s: All sowed for next year's crop, -- a dull advance


s: Back to the start, -- a thriftless thrift of ants


s: Whose winter wastes their summer; O my Friend,


s: Freely to range, to muse, to toil, is thine:


s: Thine, now, to watch with Homer sails that bend


s: Unstained by Helen's beauty o'er the brine


s: Tow'rds some clean Troy no Hector need defend


s: Nor flame devour; or, in some mild moon's shine,


s: And mark Prometheus, from his fetters freed,


s: While bursts the flame from out his eager reed


s: Wild-stretching towards the West of destiny;


s: Or, prone with Plato, Shakespeare and a throng


s: Of bards beneath some plane-tree's cool eclipse


s: To gaze on glowing meads where, lingering long,


s: Psyche's large Butterfly her honey sips;


s: Or, mingling free in choirs of German song,


s: To learn of Goethe's life from Goethe's lips;


s: These, these are thine, and we, who still are dead,


s: Do yearn -- nay, not to kill thee back again


s: Not to the dark of sense, the blinking brain,


s: The hugged delusion drear, the hunger fed


s: On husks of guess, the monarchy of pain,


s: The cross of love, the wrench of faith, the shame


s: Of science that cannot prove proof is, the twist


s: Of blame for praise and bitter praise for blame,


s: The silly stake and tether round the wrist


s: By fashion fixed, the virtue that doth claim


s: The gains of vice, the lofty mark that's missed


s: By all the mortal space 'twixt heaven and hell,


s: The soul's sad growth o'er stationary friends


s: Who hear us from our height not well, not well,


s: Of purpose tempered strong, the gambler's spell,


s: The son's disgrace, the plan that e'er depends


s: On others' plots, the tricks that passion plays


s: (I loving you, you him, he none at all),


s: The artist's pain -- to walk his blood-stained ways,


s: A special soul, yet judged as general --


s: The endless grief of art, the sneer that slays,


s: The war, the wound, the groan, the funeral pall --


s: Not into these, bright spirit, do we yearn


s: To bring thee back, but oh, to be, to be


s: Unbound of all these gyves, to stretch, to spurn


s: The dark from off our dolorous lids, to see


s: Our spark, Conjecture, blaze and sunwise burn,


s: Ah, not for us, not yet, by thee to stand:


s: For us, the fret, the dark, the thorn, the chill;


s: "Friend, get thee to the minstrels' holy hill,


s: And kiss those brethren for us, mouth and hand,


s: As Love will carve dear names upon a tree,


s: So thought I thine with loving text to set


s: In the growth and substance of my canzonet;


s: But, writing it, my tears begin to fall --


s: This wild-rose stem for thy large name's too small!


s: Nay, still my trembling hands are fain, are fain


s: Cut the good letters though they lap again;


s: Perchance such folk as mark the blur and stain


s: Will say, `It was the beating of the rain;'


s: Or, haply these o'er-woundings of the stem


s: May loose some little balm, to plead for them.


s: Look where a three-point star shall weave his beam


s: Into the slumb'rous tissue of some stream,


s: Till his bright self o'er his bright copy seem


s: Fulfillment dropping on a come-true dream;


s: So in this night of art thy soul doth show


s: Her excellent double in the steadfast flow


s: Of wishing love that through men's hearts doth go:


s: At once thou shin'st above and shin'st below.


s: E'en when thou strivest there within Art's sky


s: (Each star must o'er a strenuous orbit fly),


s: Full calm thine image in our love doth lie,


s: So triple-rayed, thou mov'st, yet stay'st, serene --


s: Art's artist, Love's dear woman, Fame's good queen!


s: And stole our starlight that for us was shining.


s: Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming.


s: Some one hath wept 'twixt hope and fear,


s: Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming."


s: Frowning, the owl in the oak complained him


s: Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him


s: "From the north, from the east, from the south and the west,


s: Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover,


s: Five o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve, or seven,


s: Nothing but robin-songs heard under heaven:


s: `Peep!' you whistle, and `cheep! cheep! cheep!'


s: Oh, peep, if you will, and buy, if 'tis cheap,


s: Are ye singing for fame, and who shall be first?


s: Each day's the same, yet the last is worst,


s: And the summer is cursed with the silly outburst


s: By day, when all honest birds ought to be sleeping.


s: Lord, what a din!  And so out of all reason.


s: Have ye not heard that each thing hath its season?


s: Night is to work in, night is for play-time;


s: That leaves not a stain nor a secret untold, --


s: Day the reporter, -- the gossip of old, --


s: Deformity's tease, -- man's common scold --


s: Poh!  Shut the eyes, let the sense go numb


s: 'Tis clear as the moon (by the argument drawn


s: From Design) that the world should retire at dawn.


s: Day kills.  The leaf and the laborer breathe


s: The mortal black marshes bubble with heat


s: And puff up pestilence; nothing is sweet


s: Has to do with the sun:  even virtue will taint


s: (Philosophers say) and manhood grow faint


s: In the lands where the villainous sun has sway


s: Through the livelong drag of the dreadful day.


s: What Eden but noon-light stares it tame,


s: For the sun tells lies on the landscape, -- now


s: Reports me the `what', unrelieved with the `how', --


s: As messengers lie, with the facts alone,


s: Delivering the word and withholding the tone.


s: But oh, the sweetness, and oh, the light


s: The cultured, the careful, the Chesterfield stars,


s: That wink at the work-a-day fact of crime


s: And shine so rich through the ruins of time


s: To wheel from the wood to the window where


s: And perch on the sill and straightly stare


s: Aslant with the hill and a-curve with the vale, --


s: To flit down the shadow-shot-with-gleam,


s: Betwixt hanging leaves and starlit stream,


s: (`Aimless?  Field-mice?'  True, they're slain,


s: In the water beneath the bough, nor moans


s: At the death life feeds on).  Robin, pray


s: To the cultus of night.  Abandon the day.


s: Have more to think and have less to say.


s: And CANNOT you walk now?  Bah! don't hop!


s: Look at the owl, scarce seen, scarce heard,


s: Fly glittering through the sun's strange beams;


s: Breaths of new buds from off some drying lea


s: With news about the Future scent the sea:


s: My brain is beating like the heart of Haste:


s: I'll loose me a bird upon this Present waste;


s: But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love.


s: With dreams, and with the heavenly Muse.


s: All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest?


s: That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly,


s: There breathe the meditations of thine art


s: Pure-born from these most rich and yet most white


s: That virginal-prayerful art shall be thy breath,


s: To-day the woods are trembling through and through


s: With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,


s: Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.


s: The leaves that wave against my cheek caress


s: Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express


s: The copse-depths into little noises start,


s: That sound anon like beatings of a heart,


s: Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.


s: The beech dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song;


s: Through that vague wafture, expirations strong


s: Throb from young hickories breathing deep and long


s: With stress and urgence bold of prisoned spring


s: Now, since the dew-plashed road of morn is dry,


s: And heavenlier giving.  Like Jove's locks awry,


s: Rich-wreathe the spacious foreheads of great pines,


s: And breathe ambrosial passion from their vines.


s: I pray with mosses, ferns and flowers shy


s: That hide like gentle nuns from human eye


s: I hear faint bridal-sighs of brown and green


s: As far lights fringe into a pleasant sheen.


s: Vague purports sweet, of inarticulate tone.


s: Dreaming of gods, men, nuns and brides, between


s: To join their radiant amplitudes of green


s: I slowly move, with ranging looks that pass


s: Where sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense,


s: The march of culture, setting limb and thorn


s: There, while I pause, my fieldward-faring eyes


s: Take harvests, where the stately corn-ranks rise,


s: And large benignities and insights wise,


s: Thus, without theft, I reap another's field;


s: Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield,


s: And heap my heart with quintuple crops concealed.


s: Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands


s: Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands,


s: And hottest thicket of the battling hedge.


s: Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk,


s: Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublime


s: That leads the vanward of his timid time


s: And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme --


s: Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow


s: Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee,


s: That moves in gentle curves of courtesy;


s: Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense,


s: Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal man's,


s: Yea, standest smiling in thy future grave,


s: Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent,


s: From antique ashes, whose departed flame


s: Into thy vigorous substance thou hast wrought


s: Whate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought;


s: So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold,


s: Thou took'st from all that thou mightst give to all.


s: O steadfast dweller on the selfsame spot


s: Where thou wast born, that still repinest not --


s: Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot! --


s: Deeply thy mild content rebukes the land


s: Whose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sand


s: By swift engulfments of incalculable tides


s: Look, thou substantial spirit of content!


s: By restless-hearted children left to lie


s: Untended there beneath the heedless sky,


s: As barbarous folk expose their old to die.


s: Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil,


s: And gave to coquette Cotton soul and soil.


s: Scorning the slow reward of patient grain,


s: He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain,


s: Then sat him down and waited for the rain.


s: Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle trance


s: He lay, content that unthrift Circumstance


s: Should plough for him the stony field of Chance.


s: Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell,


s: He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell,


s: And turned each field into a gambler's hell.


s: Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace;


s: Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass;


s: Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass;


s: With many an `oh' and `if' and `but alas'


s: Parried or swallowed searching questions rude,


s: And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood.


s: At last, small loans by pledges great renewed,


s: And buys with lavish hand his yearly store


s: Till his small borrowings will yield no more.


s: With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind


s: Fretted for news that made him fret again,


s: Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale,


s: And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail --


s: And thus from year to year, through hope and fear,


s: With many a curse and many a secret tear,


s: Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear,


s: He woke to find his foolish dreaming past,


s: Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way


s: From rascal statesman down to petty knave;


s: Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave,


s: A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave.


s: Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest,


s: Old hill! old hill! thou gashed and hairy Lear


s: E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer --


s: King, that no subject man nor beast may own,


s: And bring thee back into thy monarch state


s: Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn,


s: Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn


s: Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart


s: "O Trade! O Trade! would thou wert dead!


s: The Time needs heart -- 'tis tired of head:


s: Grant thee, O Trade! thine uttermost hope:


s: Then, with a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling,


s: The poor, the poor, the poor, they stand


s: Where Art, sweet lark, translates the sky


s: `Each day, all day' (these poor folks say),


s: `In the same old year-long, drear-long way,


s: We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns,


s: And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills,


s: To relieve, O God, what manner of ills? --


s: The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die;


s: Hush, fellow-swine:  why nuzzle and cry?


s: And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say "Go!


s: There's plenty that can, if you can't:  we know.


s: Move out, if you think you're underpaid.


s: The poor are prolific; we're not afraid;


s: Does business mean, `Die, you -- live, I?'


s: Plainly the heart of a child could solve it."


s: And then, as when from words that seem but rude


s: Back in our heart's great dark and solitude,


s: Of long chords change-marked with sobbing --


s: Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heard


s: Than half wing-openings of the sleeping bird,


s: Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred.


s: Then stirring and demurring ceased, and lo!


s: Every least ripple of the strings' song-flow


s: And made a great chord tranquil-surfaced so,


s: As a brook beneath his curving bank doth go


s: Where many boughs the still pool overlean


s: And many leaves make shadow with their sheen.


s: A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly


s: Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone


s: The solemn spaces where the shadows bide.


s: From the warm concave of that fluted note


s: Somewhat, half song, half odor, forth did float,


s: Breathes through life's strident polyphone


s: Than man's mere thought e'er comprehends


s: I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves,


s: Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves;


s: Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes,


s: And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains,


s: That fly from tree-trunks and bark-rings;


s: All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones,


s: Vale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps; --


s: Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights,


s: I heard, when `"All for love"' the violins cried:


s: So, Nature calls through all her system wide,


s: `Give me thy love, O man, so long denied.'


s: Much time is run, and man hath changed his ways,


s: Since Nature, in the antique fable-days,


s: Was hid from man's true love by proxy fays,


s: False fauns and rascal gods that stole her praise.


s: The nymphs, cold creatures of man's colder brain,


s: Chilled Nature's streams till man's warm heart was fain


s: Later, a sweet Voice `Love thy neighbor' said;


s: Then first the bounds of neighborhood outspread


s: Beyond all confines of old ethnic dread.


s: `"All men are neighbors,"' so the sweet Voice said.


s: So, when man's arms had circled all man's race,


s: Stretched bigger yet in the dark bounds of space;


s: With hands a-grope he felt smooth Nature's grace,


s: Drew her to breast and kissed her sweetheart face:


s: Yea man found neighbors in great hills and trees


s: And streams and clouds and suns and birds and bees,


s: And throbbed with neighbor-loves in loving these.


s: Thou Trade! thou king of the modern days!


s: I'm all for heart," the flute-voice said,


s: O cheeks coin-spotted with smirch and stain!


s: O trafficked hearts that break in twain!


s: -- And yet what wonder at my sisters' crime?


s: So hath Trade withered up Love's sinewy prime,


s: Deem men their life an opal gray, where plays


s: The one red Sweet of gracious ladies'-praise.


s: Now, comes a suitor with sharp prying eye --


s: Says, `Here, you Lady, if you'll sell, I'll buy:


s: Come, heart for heart -- a trade?  What! weeping? why?'


s: In humble manliness should cry, `O sweet!


s: I know not if thy heart my heart will greet:


s: Whate'er thy worshipful soft tongue shall say,


s: I'll kiss thine answer, be it yea or nay:


s: Woe him that cunning trades in hearts contrives!


s: Base love good women to base loving drives.


s: If men loved larger, larger were our lives;


s: And wooed they nobler, won they nobler wives."


s: There thrust the bold straightforward horn


s: And man shall sing thee a true-love song,


s: Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again?


s: And place be hugged for the sake of gold,


s: Where much for little, and all for part,


s: Shall Trade aye salve his conscience-aches


s: With jibes at Chivalry's old mistakes --


s: Now by each knight that e'er hath prayed


s: To fight like a man and love like a maid,


s: Since Pembroke's life, as Pembroke's blade,


s: Nor time hath changed His hair to white,


s: I doubt no doubts:  I strive, and shrive my clay,


s: And fight my fight in the patient modern way


s: For true love and for thee -- ah me! and pray


s: Made end that knightly horn, and spurred away


s: Then o'er sea-lashings of commingling tunes


s: Old harpers sitting on the high sea-dunes,


s: Life! Life! thou sea-fugue, writ from east to west,


s: To follow Time's dying melodies through,


s: And ever Love hears the poor-folks' crying,


s: And ever Love hears the women's sighing,


s: And ever sweet knighthood's death-defying,


s: And ever wise childhood's deep implying,


s: Though long deferred, though long deferred:


s: O'er the modern waste a dove hath whirred:


s: In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know


s: Shot through with lights of stars and dawns,


s: -- My springs from out whose shining gray


s: That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams.


s: Thronged, like two dove-cotes of gray doves,


s: With wife's and mother's and poor-folk's loves,


s: Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete --


s: The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain


s: Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.


s: O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main


s: To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart.


s: I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place,


s: My soul could straightway tremble face to face


s: With thee, with thee, across the stellar ring --


s: Yea, where thine absence I could ne'er bewail


s: Longer than lasts that little blank of bliss


s: When lips draw back, with recent pressure pale,


s: Would not my lonesome heart still sigh for thee


s: What time the drear kiss-intervals must be?


s: Glide snakewise through our dreams of Aftertime;


s: So errors breed in reeds and grasses dense


s: That bank our singing rivulets of rhyme.


s: By Sense rule Space and Time; but in God's Land


s: Their intervals are not, save such as lie


s: Betwixt successive tones in concords bland


s: Whose loving distance makes the harmony.


s: Ah, there shall never come 'twixt me and thee


s: Gross dissonances of the mile, the year;


s: Our souls shall mingle, yet be featured clear,


s: And absence, wrought to intervals divine,


s: Shall part, yet link, thy nature's tone and mine.


s: Look down the shining peaks of all my days


s: Base-hidden in the valleys of deep night,


s: So shalt thou see the heights and depths of praise


s: My love would render unto love's delight;


s: For I would make each day an Alp sublime


s: Of passionate snow, white-hot yet icy-clear,


s: -- One crystal of the true-loves of all time


s: Spiring the world's prismatic atmosphere;


s: And I would make each night an awful vale


s: With every star in heaven trembling pale


s: O'er sweet profounds where only Love can see.


s: Oh, runs not thus the lesson thou hast taught? --


s: When life's all love, 'tis life:  aught else, 'tis naught.


s: Lays worship that to Heaven alone belongs;


s: Yea, swings the incense that for God is meet


s: In flippant censers of light lover's songs.'


s: Who says it, knows not God, nor love, nor thee;


s: For love is large as is yon heavenly dome:


s: In love's great blue, each passion is full free


s: To fly his favorite flight and build his home.


s: Did e'er a lark with skyward-pointing beak


s: Wife-love flies level, his dear mate to seek:


s: God-love darts straight into the skies above.


s: Crossing, the windage of each other's wings


s: But speeds them both upon their journeyings.


s: O Age that half believ'st thou half believ'st,


s: Half doubt'st the substance of thine own half doubt,


s: And, half perceiving that thou half perceiv'st,


s: Stand'st at thy temple door, heart in, head out!


s: Lo! while thy heart's within, helping the choir,


s: Without, thine eyes range up and down the time,


s: Blinking at o'er-bright science, smit with desire


s: To see and not to see.  Hence, crime on crime.


s: Yea, if the Christ (called thine) now paced yon street,


s: Thy halfness hot with His rebuke would swell;


s: Legions of scribes would rise and run and beat


s: His fair intolerable Wholeness twice to hell.


s: `Nay' (so, dear Heart, thou whisperest in my soul),


s: `'Tis a half time, yet Time will make it whole.'


s: Where thought is lord o'er Time's complete estate,


s: Like as a dove from out the gray sedge flies


s: To tree-tops green where cooes his heavenly mate.


s: From these clear coverts high and cool I see


s: And none is sole or whole, yet all are fit.


s: 'Twixt weightier clauses of large-worded years,


s: My calmer soul scorns not the mark:  I know


s: This crooked point Time's complex sentence clears.


s: Yet more I learn while, Friend! I sit by thee:


s: While Sin creeps grinning through His house of Time,


s: Stabbing His saintliest children in their sleep,


s: And staining holy walls with clots of crime? --


s: Or, How may He whose wish but names a fact


s: Would richly glut each void where man hath lacked


s: Of grace or bread? -- or, How may Power deny


s: Wholeness to th' almost-folk that hurt our hope --


s: These heart-break Hamlets who so barely fail


s: In life or art that but a hair's more scope


s: Had set them fair on heights they ne'er may scale? --


s: Somehow by thee, dear Love, I win content:


s: Thy Perfect stops th' Imperfect's argument.


s: By the more height of thy sweet stature grown,


s: Twice-eyed with thy gray vision set in mine,


s: I ken far lands to wifeless men unknown,


s: I compass stars for one-sexed eyes too fine.


s: No maxim vaguely starred in fields or skies,


s: Oh, thou'rt the Height of heights, the Eye of eyes.


s: Not hardest Fortune's most unbounded stress


s: Can blind my soul nor hurl it from on high,


s: Howe'er thou turn'st, wrong Earth! still Love's in sight:


s: For we are taller than the breadth of night.


s: Across the brook of Time man leaping goes


s: On stepping-stones of epochs, that uprise


s: Fixed, memorable, midst broad shallow flows


s: Of neutrals, kill-times, sleeps, indifferencies.


s: So twixt each morn and night rise salient heaps:


s: Some cross with but a zigzag, jaded pace


s: From meal to meal:  some with convulsive leaps


s: Shake the green tussocks of malign disgrace:


s: O'er vantages of wealth, place, learning, tact.


s: But thou within thyself, dear manifold heart,


s: Dost bind all epochs in one dainty Fact.


s: I leapt the breadth of Time in loving thee!


s: 'Twixt Now and Then.  Why, killing haste


s: Were best, dear Time, for thee, for thee!


s: He called thee `Sometime'.  Change it, friend:


s: And calls, `When wilt thou come, O Love?'


s: -- O life's top bud, mixt rose and star,


s: I care not, I care not:  have thine own way,


s: Mine ear, though fain, had pain to follow:


s: `Tara!' it twanged, `tara-tara!' it blew,


s: Most ficklewise about, or here, or there,


s: A music now from earth and now from air.


s: With dainty inward storm; and there within


s: Where looping low with languid arms the Vine


s: Her kneeling Live-Oak, thousand-fold to plight


s: Herself unto her own true stalwart knight.


s: The long-desiring sense, and slowly clears


s: Interpretation throve:  the bee's fanfare,


s: Through sequent films of discourse vague as air,


s: Passed to plain words, while, fanning faint perfume,


s: The bee o'erhung a rich, unrifled bloom:


s: "O Earth, fair lordly Blossom, soft a-shine


s: From out another worldflower lately flown.


s: Wilt ask, `What profit e'er a poet brings?'


s: To pollen thee and sting thee fertile:  nay,


s: If still thou narrow thy contracted way,


s: Nathless I'll drive me to thy deepest sweet,


s: Yea, richlier shall that pain the pollen beat


s: From me to thee, for oft these pollens be


s: Fine dust from wars that poets wage for thee.


s: Yield, yield the heartsome honey love to me


s: The pleading bee's song-burthen sole did seem:


s: Swift, through some trap mine eyes have never found,


s: Dim-panelled in the painted scene of Sleep,


s: Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost leap


s: Upon my spirit's stage.  Then Sight and Sound,


s: Then Space and Time, then Language, Mete and Bound,


s: Man's reason in the road, change faces, peep


s: Betwixt the legs and mock the daily round.


s: Yet thou canst more than mock:  sometimes my tears


s: At midnight break through bounden lids -- a sign


s: Thou hast a heart:  and oft thy little leaven


s: Of dream-taught wisdom works me bettered years.


s: In one night witch, saint, trickster, fool divine,


s: I think thou'rt Jester at the Court of Heaven!


s: Their needs, as wares; one THUS, one SO:


s: -- But still come rain, and sun, and snow,


s: "Opinion, let me alone:  I am not thine.


s: Prim Creed, with categoric point, forbear


s: Thou canst not measure Mistress Nature's hair,


s: Not one sweet inch:  nay, if thy sight is sharp,


s: Would'st count the strings upon an angel's harp?


s: "Oh let me love my Lord more fathom deep


s: Than there is line to sound with:  let me love


s: My fellow not as men that mandates keep:


s: That let me love by heart, by heart, because


s: (Free from the penal pressure of the laws)


s: "The tears I weep by day and bitter night,


s: Opinion! for thy sole salt vintage fall.


s: -- As morn by morn I rise with fresh delight,


s: Time through my casement cheerily doth call


s: `Nature is new, 'tis birthday every day,


s: Come feast with me, let no man say me nay,


s: "So fare I forth to feast:  I sit beside


s: Some brother bright:  but, ere good-morrow's passed,


s: `Thou shalt not sit by us, to break thy fast,


s: Save to our Rubric thou subscribe and swear --


s: `Religion hath blue eyes and yellow hair:'


s: "Then, hard a-hungered for my brother's grace


s: Till well-nigh fain to swear his folly's true,


s: To him that sits on the left:  `Brother, -- with you?'


s: -- `Nay, not with me, save thou subscribe and swear


s: `Religion hath black eyes and raven hair:'


s: "Debarred of banquets that my heart could make


s: I homeward turn, my fires of pain to slake


s: In deep endearments of a worshipped wife.


s: `I love thee well, dear Love,' quoth she, `and yet


s: Would that thy creed with mine completely met,


s: "Assassin! Thief! Opinion, 'tis thy work.


s: By Church, by throne, by hearth, by every good


s: That's in the Town of Time, I see thee lurk,


s: And e'er some shadow stays where thou hast stood.


s: Thou hand'st sweet Socrates his hemlock sour;


s: Thou sav'st Barabbas in that hideous hour,


s: "Deliverer Christ; thou rack'st the souls of men;


s: Thou tossest girls to lions and boys to flames;


s: Thou buildest closets full of secret shames;


s: Indifferent cruel, thou dost blow the blaze


s: "-- Thou base-born Accident of time and place --


s: Bigot Pretender unto Judgment's throne --


s: Those rights the true, true Son of Man doth own


s: At head of civil wars and quarrels old --


s: "I would thou left'st me free, to live with love,


s: And faith, that through the love of love doth find


s: My Lord's dear presence in the stars above,


s: The clods below, the flesh without, the mind


s: Opinion, damned Intriguer, gray with guile,


s: I fear thee, O! I fear thee, for I hear the tongue and sword


s: At battle on the deck, and the wild mutineers are bold!


s: "The dewdrop morn may fall from off the petal of the sky,


s: But all the deck is wet with blood and stains the crystal red.


s: A pilot, GOD, a pilot! for the helm is left awry,


s: And the best sailors in the ship lie there among the dead!"


s: One day Prince Love for to travel was fain


s: Quoth Mind and Sense.  `All things above,


s: `'Tis here, 'tis here,' and spurreth in fear


s: To the top of the hill that hangeth above


s: And plucketh the Prince:  `Come, come, 'tis here --'


s: "`Not far, not far,' said shivering Sense


s: This road doth dip from the height above?


s: "`As I rode down, and the River was black,


s: `Their eyes upturned and begged and burned


s: Beat back the hands that upward yearned --'


s: "`Yea, yea, sweet Prince; thyself shalt see,


s: -- At the foot of the hill a living rill


s: Shone, and the lilies shone white above;


s: `But now 'twas black, 'twas a river, this rill,'


s: -- Where the rabble of souls,' cried Sense,


s: Thrust back in the brimstone from above --


s: `But saw'st thou here, with thine own eye,


s: Then Love rode round and searched the ground,


s: `But I cannot find where thou hast found


s: "There, while they stood in a green wood


s: `Hell's in the murderer's breast:  remorse!'


s: "`Fixed:  follow me, would'st thou but see:


s: Full soon they passed, for they rode fast,


s: "There when they came Mind suffered shame:


s: With tears that none but dreamers weep;'


s: That clung with pain and stung with power,


s: `'Twas the nettle of sin, 'twas medicine;


s: "`Now strange,' quoth Sense, and `Strange,' quoth Mind,


s: -- But we saw it,' quoth Sense and Mind.


s: Stretched on the ground, beautiful-crowned


s: Of the piteous willow that wreathed above,


s: I charge you by your life, go back to death.


s: This glebe is sick, this wind is foul of breath.


s: Is faint, and falters from the war of growth


s: To hide with flowers the curse upon the hills,


s: And bake the bloody mould to shards and sand


s: Burn up, O Roses! with your dainty flame.


s: And swart Work sullen sits in the hillside fern


s: And folds his arms that find no bread to earn,


s: Albeit the towns have left you place to play,


s: I charge you, sport not.  Winter owns to-day,


s: And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed,


s: Should thrill its joy and trill its fret,


s: "Or clearly sung his true, true thought,


s: "I saw a sky of stars that rolled in grime.


s: All glory twinkled through some sweat of fight,


s: From each tall chimney of the roaring time


s: That shot his fire far up the sooty night


s: Mixt fuels -- Labor's Right and Labor's Crime --


s: Sent upward throb on throb of scarlet light


s: Till huge hot blushes in the heavens blent


s: With golden hues of Trade's high firmament.


s: "Fierce burned the furnaces; yet all seemed well,


s: Hope dreamed rich music in the rattling mills.


s: `Ye foundries, ye shall cast my church a bell,'


s: Loud cried the Future from the farthest hills:


s: `Ye groaning forces, crack me every shell


s: Of customs, old constraints, and narrow ills;


s: Thou, lithe Invention, wake and pry and guess,


s: Till thy deft mind invents me Happiness.'


s: "And I beheld high scaffoldings of creeds


s: Crumbling from round Religion's perfect Fane:


s: And a vast noise of rights, wrongs, powers, needs,


s: -- Cries of new Faiths that called `This Way is plain,'


s: -- Grindings of upper against lower greeds --


s: -- Fond sighs for old things, shouts for new, -- did reign


s: Below that stream of golden fire that broke,


s: Mottled with red, above the seas of smoke.


s: "Hark!  Gay fanfares from halls of old Romance


s: Strike through the clouds of clamor:  who be these


s: That, paired in rich processional, advance


s: From darkness o'er the murk mad factories


s: Into yon flaming road, and sink, strange Ministrants!


s: Sheer down to earth, with many minstrelsies


s: And motions fine, and mix about the scene


s: And fill the Time with forms of ancient mien?


s: "Bright ladies and brave knights of Fatherland;


s: A swan soft floating tow'rds a magic strand;


s: Dim ghosts, of earth, air, water, fire, steel, gold,


s: Wind, grief, and love; a lewd and lurking band


s: Of Powers -- dark Conspiracy, Cunning cold,


s: Gray Sorcery; magic cloaks and rings and rods;


s: Valkyries, heroes, Rhinemaids, giants, gods!


s: "O Wagner, westward bring thy heavenly art,


s: No trifler thou:  Siegfried and Wotan be


s: Names for big ballads of the modern heart.


s: Thine ears hear deeper than thine eyes can see.


s: Voice of the monstrous mill, the shouting mart,


s: Not less of airy cloud and wave and tree,


s: Hast power to say the Time in terms of tone."


s: Yet would, Oh would I could love again."


s: Till thou, Beethoven, breathed the spring:


s: 'Gainst thoughts that fray the restless soul:


s: While truths but give their Christ a cross;


s: Th' indifferent smile that nature's grace


s: When luminous lightnings strangely strike


s: No storm cry out `Take shelter, friend;'


s: Why snakes that crawl the earth should ply


s: That have not eyes to bear its strength,


s: Though teased by small mixt social claims,


s: And midst of clear-seen crimes and shames


s: Als du im Saal mit deiner himmlischen Kunst


s: Beethoven zeigst, und seinem Willen nach


s: Mit den zehn Fingern fuehrst der Leute Gunst,


s: Zehn Zungen sagen was der Meister sprach.


s: Schauend dich an, ich seh', dass nicht allein


s: Du sitzest:  jetzt herab die Toene ziehn


s: Beethovens Geist:  er steht bei dir, ganz rein:


s: Fuer dich mit Vaters Stolz sein' Augen gluehn:


s: Er sagt, "Ich hoerte dich aus Himmelsluft,


s: Die kommt ja naeher, wo ein Kuenstler spielt:


s: Mein Kind (ich sagte) mich zur Erde ruft:


s: Ja, weil mein Arm kein Kind im Leben hielt,


s: Gott hat mir dich nach meinem Tod gegeben,


s: Nannette, Tochter! dich, mein zweites Leben!"


s: Oft as I hear thee, wrapt in heavenly art,


s: With thy ten fingers to the people's heart


s: As if ten tongues told news of heaven and hell, --


s: Ah, not alone, thou sittest:  there, by thee,


s: Beethoven's self, dear living lord of tone,


s: Full fain and fatherly his great eyes glow:


s: He says, "From Heaven, my child, I heard thee call


s: (For, where an artist plays, the sky is low):


s: Yea, since my lonesome life did lack love's all,


s: In death, God gives me thee:  thus, quit of pain,


s: Daughter, Nannette! in thee I live again."


s: Trillets of humor, -- shrewdest whistle-wit, --


s: Such as from off the passionate Indian pyre


s: Drift down through sandal-odored flames that split


s: And sing above, -- midnights of tone entire, --


s: Tissues of moonlight shot with songs of fire; --


s: Bright drops of tune, from oceans infinite


s: Of melody, sipped off the thin-edged wave


s: And trickling down the beak, -- discourses brave


s: Of serious matter that no man may guess, --


s: Good-fellow greetings, cries of light distress --


s: All these but now within the house we heard:


s: O Death, wast thou too deaf to hear the bird?


s: Ah me, though never an ear for song, thou hast


s: A tireless tooth for songsters:  thus of late


s: Thou camest, Death, thou Cat! and leap'st my gate,


s: And, long ere Love could follow, thou hadst passed


s: Within and snatched away, how fast, how fast,


s: My bird -- wit, songs, and all -- thy richest freight


s: Since that fell time when in some wink of fate


s: Thy yellow claws unsheathed and stretched, and cast


s: Sharp hold on Keats, and dragged him slow away,


s: And harried him with hope and horrid play --


s: Ay, him, the world's best wood-bird, wise with song --


s: Till thou hadst wrought thine own last mortal wrong.


s: 'Twas wrong! 'twas wrong! I care not, WRONG's the word --


s: To munch our Keats and crunch our mocking-bird.


s: Nay, Bird; my grief gainsays the Lord's best right.


s: The Lord was fain, at some late festal time,


s: That Keats should set all Heaven's woods in rhyme,


s: And thou in bird-notes.  Lo, this tearful night,


s: Methinks I see thee, fresh from death's despite,


s: Perched in a palm-grove, wild with pantomime,


s: O'er blissful companies couched in shady thyme,


s: -- Methinks I hear thy silver whistlings bright


s: Mix with the mighty discourse of the wise,


s: Till broad Beethoven, deaf no more, and Keats,


s: 'Midst of much talk, uplift their smiling eyes,


s: And mark the music of thy wood-conceits,


s: And halfway pause on some large, courteous word,


s: And call thee "Brother", O thou heavenly Bird!


s: Shouldst call along the curving sphere, "Remain,


s: Dear Night, sweet Moor; nay, leave me not in scorn!"


s: With soft halloos of heavenly love and pain; --


s: Shouldst thou, O Spring! a-cower in coverts dark,


s: 'Gainst proud supplanting Summer sing thy plea,


s: And move the mighty woods through mailed bark


s: Till mortal heart-break throbbed in every tree; --


s: Or (grievous `if' that may be `yea' o'er-soon!),


s: If thou, my Heart, long holden from thy Sweet,


s: Shouldst knock Death's door with mellow shocks of tune,


s: Sad inquiry to make -- `When may we meet?'


s: Nay, if ye three, O Morn! O Spring! O Heart!


s: Should chant grave unisons of grief and love;


s: Ye could not mourn with more melodious art


s: Than daily doth yon dim sequestered dove.


s: Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay


s: `Learn from the rhyme that now shall come to thee


s: For, as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes,


s: The storm hath blown thee a lover, sweet,


s: To kiss and to sing through and to flare


s: Like torch-flames in the passionate air,


s: Chaste-thrilling eyes, fast-filling eyes


s: With daintiest tears of love's surprise,


s: How tall among her sisters, and how fair, --


s: How grave beyond her youth, yet debonair


s: As dawn, 'mid wrinkled Matres of old lands


s: In four brief cycles round the punctual sun


s: Has she, old Learning's latest daughter, won


s: This grace, this stature, and this fruitful fame.


s: From far the sages saw, from far they came


s: That, earlier, loosed the knot great Newton tied,


s: And flung the door of Fame's locked temple wide.


s: As favorable fairies thronged of old and blessed


s: The cradled princess with their several best,


s: These liberal masters largely brought --


s: Dear diamonds of their long-compressed thought,


s: Rich stones from out the labyrinthine cave


s: Of research, pearls from Time's profoundest wave


s: Their fragrant tissues and their heavenly hues


s: The student snow-drop, that doth hang and pore


s: And underneath the clod doth grope and grope, --


s: That watches heaven with a constant eye, --


s: (When Nature calls) the February snows, --


s: Thus sped with helps of love and toil and thought,


s: Thus forwarded of faith, with hope thus fraught,


s: In four brief cycles round the stringent sun


s: This youngest sister hath her stature won.


s: The passing of the years?  Nor made, nor marr'd,


s: By help or hindrance of slow Time was she:


s: O'er this fair growth Time had no mastery:


s: So quick she bloomed, she seemed to bloom at birth,


s: Superb o'er slow increase of day on day,


s: Yet not from Jove's unwrinkled forehead sprung,


s: But long-time dreamed, and out of trouble wrung,


s: Fore-seen, wise-plann'd, pure child of thought and pain,


s: And here, O finer Pallas, long remain, --


s: Sit on these Maryland hills, and fix thy reign,


s: That each may make the other's lack complete, --


s: Where Florida's soft Favonian airs beguile


s: The nipping North, -- where nature's powers smile, --


s: Where Chesapeake holds frankly forth her hands


s: Spread wide with invitation to all lands, --


s: Where now the eager people yearn to find


s: Through nobler cycles round a richer sun


s: Call here thy congress of the great, the wise,


s: Enrich us out of every farthest clime, --


s: Bring Shakespeare back, a man and not a name, --


s: In audience see old godlike Aeschylus, --


s: Of old romance, -- bring Milton, no more blind, --


s: Bring large Lucretius, with unmaniac mind, --


s: Bring all gold hearts and high resolved wills


s: To be with us about these happy hills, --


s: To walk familiar citizen of the town, --


s: Bring Tolerance, that can kiss and disagree, --


s: Bring Faith that sees with undissembling eyes, --


s: Bring all large Loves and heavenly Charities, --


s: And many peoples call from shore to shore,


s: `The world has bloomed again, at Baltimore!'


s: Presenting a portrait-bust of the author.


s: Since you, rare friend! have tied my living tongue


s: With thanks more large than man e'er said or sung,


s: Down cold snow-stretches of our bitter time,


s: When windy shams and the rain-mocking sleet


s: That hearts are scarcely hot enough to beat,


s: Of Spring, in whose most generous boundaries


s: To-day I saw the pale much-burdened form


s: And straighten from the bending of the storm


s: And flush with stirrings of new strength divine,


s: Such influence and sweet gracious impulse came


s: Out of the beams of thine immortal name!


s: Land of the willful gospel, thou worst and thou best;


s: Tall Adam of lands, new-made of the dust of the West;


s: Thou wroughtest alone in the Garden of God, unblest


s: He fashioned an intimate Sweet one and brought thee a Bride.


s: Cry hail! nor bewail that the wound of her coming was wide.


s: Lo, Freedom reached forth where the world as an apple hung red;


s: `Let us taste the whole radiant round of it,' gayly she said:


s: `If we die, at the worst we shall lie as the first of the dead.'


s: Knowledge of Good and of Ill, O Land! she hath given thee;


s: Perilous godhoods of choosing have rent thee and riven thee;


s: Will's high adoring to Ill's low exploring hath driven thee --


s: Freedom, thy Wife, hath uplifted thy life and clean shriven thee!


s: Her shalt thou kiss for a calm to thy wars of unrest,


s: Her shalt extol in the psalm of the soul of the West.


s: Till freely repenting he whiten his spirit again;


s: And Friendship, in freedom, will blot out the bounding of race;


s: And Desire flame white on the sense as a fire on a height,


s: And Sex flame white in the soul as a star in the night,


s: And Marriage plight sense unto soul as the two-colored light


s: Of the fire and the star shines one with a duplicate might;


s: And Science be known as the sense making love to the All,


s: And Art be known as the soul making love to the All,


s: And Love be known as the marriage of man with the All --


s: Till Science to knowing the Highest shall lovingly turn,


s: Till Art to loving the Highest shall consciously burn,


s: Till Science to Art as a man to a woman shall yearn,


s: In a querulous dream went crying from pole to pole --


s: For ever a sorrowful song of living and dying,


s: How `life was the dropping and death the drying


s: Of a Tear that fell in a day when God was sighing.'


s: And ever Time tossed him bitterly to and fro


s: As a shuttle inlaying a perilous warp of woe


s: In the woof of things from terminal snow to snow,


s: And he sank on the grass of the earth as a lark on its nest,


s: And he lay in the midst of the way from the east to the west.


s: Then the East came out from the east and the West from the west,


s: And, behold! in the gravid deeps of the lower dark,


s: While, above, the wind was fanning the dawn as a spark,


s: The East and the West took form as the wings of a lark.


s: One wing was feathered with facts of the uttermost Past,


s: And one with the dreams of a prophet; and both sailed fast


s: And met where the sorrowful Soul on the earth was cast.


s: Then a Voice said:  `Thine, if thou lovest enough to use;'


s: But another:  `To fly and to sing is pain:  refuse!'


s: Then the Soul said:  `Come, O my wings!  I cannot but choose.'


s: And the Soul was a-tremble like as a new-born thing,


s: Then that artist began in a lark's low circling to pass;


s: And first he sang at the height of the top of the grass


s: A song of the herds that are born and die in the mass.


s: And next he sang a celestial-passionate round


s: At the height of the lips of a woman above the ground,


s: How `Love was a fair true Lady, and Death a wild hound,


s: And the sun stretched beams to the worlds as the shining strings


s: Of the large hid harp that sounds when an all-lover sings;


s: And the sky's blue traction prevailed o'er the earth's in might,


s: And the passion of flight grew mad with the glory of height


s: And the uttering of song was like to the giving of light;


s: And he learned that hearing and seeing wrought nothing alone,


s: And that music on earth much light upon Heaven had thrown,


s: And he melted-in silvery sunshine with silvery tone;


s: And the spirals of music e'er higher and higher he wound


s: Till the luminous cinctures of melody up from the ground


s: Arose as the shaft of a tapering tower of sound --


s: Arose for an unstricken full-finished Babel of sound.


s: But God was not angry, nor ever confused his tongue,


s: For not out of selfish nor impudent travail was wrung


s: The song of all men and all things that the all-lover sung.


s: Then he paused at the top of his tower of song on high,


s: And the voice of the God of the artist from far in the sky


s: Said, `Son, look down:  I will cause that a Time gone by


s: Shall pass, and reveal his heart to thy loving eye.'


s: The sea that fast hath locked in his loose flow


s: Lay bound about with night on every hand,


s: Save down the eastern brink a shining band


s: Then from that shore the wind upbore a cry:


s: `Thou Sea, thou Sea of Darkness! why, oh why


s: Dost waste thy West in unthrift mystery?'


s: And never a wave doth good for man or ill,


s: And Blank is king, and Nothing hath his will;


s: And like as grim-beaked pelicans level file


s: Across the sunset toward their nightly isle


s: On solemn wings that wave but seldomwhile,


s: To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray,


s: And down its mortal fissures sinks away.


s: The sail goeth limp:  hey, flap and strain!


s: Let us see the ghost' -- his household fly


s: Where Georgia's oaks with moss-beards curled


s: Green rests for Trade's blood-shotten eyes,


s: For Heat fair-tempered winds and showers,


s: "O Darkness, tawny Twin whose Twin hath ceased,


s: Thou Odor from the day-flower's crushing born,


s: Thou visible Sigh out of the mournful East,


s: That cannot see her lord again till morn:


s: O Leaves, with hollow palms uplifted high


s: To catch the stars' most sacred rain of light:


s: Soul-stung by subtle passion of the night:


s: O short-breath'd Winds beneath the gracious moon


s: Or carrying sighs from the red lips of June


s: What wavering way the odor-current sets:


s: O Stars wreathed vinewise round yon heavenly dells,


s: Or thrust from out the sky in curving sprays,


s: Or whorled, or looped with pendent flower-bells,


s: Or drifting white from where in heaven shake


s: Star-portraitures of apple trees in June,


s: Or lapp'd as leaves of a great rose of stars,


s: Or trampled pale in the red path of Mars,


s: Or trim-set quaint in gardeners'-fantasies:


s: O long June Night-sounds crooned among the leaves;


s: O whispered confidence of Dark and Green;


s: New England, thee! whose ne'er-spent wine


s: That men but smile where mountains frown


s: Now long the Sea of Darkness glimmers low


s: With sails from Northland flickering to and fro --


s: Thorwald, Karlsefne, and those twin heirs of woe,


s: Slain by the ill-born child of Eric Red,


s: Freydisa false.  Till, as much time is fled,


s: Once more the vacant airs with darkness fill,


s: Once more the wave doth never good nor ill,


s: And Blank is king, and Nothing works his will;


s: To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray,


s: And down its mortal fissures sinks away,


s: As when the grim-beaked pelicans level file


s: On solemn wings that wave but seldomwhile.


s: `Santa Maria', well thou tremblest down the wave,


s: Thy `Pinta' far abow, thy `Nina' nigh astern:


s: Columbus stands in the night alone, and, passing grave,


s: Yearns o'er the sea as tones o'er under-silence yearn.


s: Heartens his heart as friend befriends his friend less brave,


s: "'Twixt this and dawn, three hours my soul will smite


s: With dull-blade minutes flatwise slapping me.


s: Wait, Heart! Time moves. --  Thou lithe young Western Night,


s: Just-crowned king, slow riding to thy right,


s: Calm as thou sitt'st yon never-managed sea,


s: Balk'st with his balking, fliest with his flight,


s: Giv'st supple to his rearings and his falls,


s: Nor dropp'st one coronal star about thy brow


s: Whilst ever dayward thou art steadfast drawn!


s: Yea, would I rode these mad contentious brawls


s: Nor no result save galloping to my Dawn!


s: "My Dawn? my Dawn?  How if it never break?


s: How if this West by other Wests is pieced,


s: And these by vacant Wests on Wests increased --


s: One Pain of Space, with hollow ache on ache


s: Throbbing and ceasing not for Christ's own sake? --


s: Big perilous theorem, hard for king and priest:


s: `Pursue the West but long enough, 'tis East!'


s: Oh, if this watery world no turning take!


s: Provings of that which is by that which seems,


s: Fears, hopes, chills, heats, hastes, patiences, droughts, tears,


s: Wife-grievings, slights on love, embezzled years,


s: Hates, treaties, scorns, upliftings, loss and gain, --


s: This earth, no sphere, be all one sickening plane!


s: "Or, haply, how if this contrarious West,


s: That me by turns hath starved, by turns hath fed,


s: Embraced, disgraced, beat back, solicited,


s: Have no fixed heart of Law within his breast,


s: Or with some different rhythm doth e'er contest


s: Nature in the East?  Why, 'tis but three weeks fled


s: And flout the Pole that, east, he Lord confessed!


s: God! if this West should own some other Pole,


s: And with his tangled ways perplex my soul


s: Where distraught Nature clean hath gone astray,


s: On earth some other wit than Time's at play,


s: "Now speaks mine other heart with cheerier seeming:


s: `Ho, Admiral! o'er-defalking to thy crew


s: To front yon multitudes of rebel scheming?'


s: Come, ye wild twenty years of heavenly dreaming!


s: Come, ye wild weeks since first this canvas drew


s: Out of vexed Palos ere the dawn was blue,


s: O'er milky waves about the bows full-creaming!


s: Come set me round with many faithful spears


s: Of confident remembrance -- how I crushed


s: Cat-lived rebellions, pitfalled treasons, hushed


s: Scared husbands' heart-break cries on distant wives,


s: Made cowards blush at whining for their lives,


s: Watered my parching souls, and dried their tears.


s: `Turn, turn:  here be three caravels ahead,


s: From Portugal, to take us:  we are dead!'


s: `Hold Westward, pilot,' calmly I replied.


s: So when the last land down the horizon died,


s: `Go back, go back!' they prayed:  `our hearts are lead.' --


s: `Friends, we are bound into the West,' I said.


s: Then passed the wreck of a mast upon our side.


s: `See' (so they wept) `God's Warning!  Admiral, turn!' --


s: `Steersman,' I said, `hold straight into the West.'


s: Then down the night we saw the meteor burn.


s: `So do the very heavens in fire protest:


s: Good Admiral, put about!  O Spain, dear Spain!' --


s: `Hold straight into the West,' I said again.


s: "Next drive we o'er the slimy-weeded sea.


s: `Lo! herebeneath' (another coward cries)


s: This slime will suck us down -- turn while thou'rt free!' --


s: `But no!' I said, `Freedom bears West for me!'


s: Yet when the long-time stagnant winds arise,


s: And day by day the keel to westward flies,


s: My Good my people's Ill doth come to be:


s: Never a ship, once turned, might homeward go;


s: Meanwhile we speed into the lonesome main.


s: For Christ's sake, parley, Admiral!  Turn, before


s: We sail outside all bounds of help from pain!' --


s: `Our help is in the West,' I said once more.


s: "So when there came a mighty cry of `Land!'


s: And we clomb up and saw, and shouted strong


s: But knew at morn how that a counterfeit band


s: Of level clouds had aped a silver strand;


s: So when we heard the orchard-bird's small song,


s: And all the people cried, `A hellish throng


s: To tempt us onward by the Devil planned,


s: Yea, all from hell -- keen heron, fresh green weeds,


s: Pelican, tunny-fish, fair tapering reeds,


s: Lie-telling lands that ever shine and die


s: In clouds of nothing round the empty sky.


s: Tired Admiral, get thee from this hell, and rest!' --


s: `Steersman,' I said, `hold straight into the West.'


s: "I marvel how mine eye, ranging the Night,


s: Returns, thou large low Star, to fix on thee.


s: `Maria!'  Star?  No star:  a Light, a Light!


s: Wouldst leap ashore, Heart?  Yonder burns -- a Light.


s: What seest?  `Admiral, like as land -- a Light!'


s: Well!  Sanchez of Segovia, come and try:


s: What seest?  `Admiral, naught but sea and sky!'


s: Well!  But *I* saw It.  Wait! the Pinta's gun!


s: Why, look, 'tis dawn, the land is clear:  'tis done!


s: Two dawns do break at once from Time's full hand --


s: God's, East -- mine, West:  good friends, behold my Land!"


s: Scraped slowly o'er the Puritans' hopes and fears,


s: Like as great glaciers built of frozen tears,


s: The Voice from far within the secret sky


s: Said, `Blood of Faith ye have?  So; let us try.'


s: The anxious-masted ships that westward fare,


s: Cargo'd with trouble and a-list with care,


s: Their outraged decks hot back to England bear,


s: Then come again with stowage of worse weight,


s: Battle, and tyrannous Tax, and Wrong, and Hate,


s: And all bad items of Death's perilous freight.


s: Haste, Dawes! but haste thou not, O Sun!


s: Quick, rub thine eyes and draw thy hose:


s: `Lay down your arms, damned Rebels!' cry


s: With patriot palm strike brotherhood's stroke


s: Yon voice might sing the Future's Psalm --


s: The Psalm of Love with the brotherly eyes


s: Yon voice that shouts, high-hoarse with ire,


s: `Brother, art hurt?' and `Where hit, John?'


s: And, `Wipe this blood,' and `Men, come on,'


s: `Nay, look!  Stout Harrington not yet dead!'


s: He lies at the step of his own house-door;


s: The wife from the window hath seen, and rushed;


s: He hath reached the step, but the blood hath gushed;


s: He hath crawled to the step of his own house-door,


s: But his head hath dropped:  he will crawl no more.


s: Clasp, Wife, and kiss, and lift the head:


s: At the door of the House wherein ye dwell;


s: And died at the door of your House of Fame.


s: Go by, old Field of Freedom's hopes and fears;


s: Go by, old Field of Brothers' hate and tears:


s: Behold! yon home of Brothers' Love appears


s: On Schuylkill wrought as in old broidery


s: Clasped hands upon a shining baldric lie,


s: New Hampshire, Georgia, and the mighty ten


s: That lie between, have heard the huge-nibbed pen


s: Of Jefferson tell the rights of man to men.


s: They sit in the reverend Hall:  `Shall we declare?'


s: Floats round about the anxious-quivering air


s: 'Twixt narrow Schuylkill and broad Delaware.


s: Already, Land! thou HAST declared:  'tis done.


s: Ran ever clearer speech than that did run


s: Canst legibler write than Concord's large-stroked Act,


s: Or when at Bunker Hill the clubbed guns cracked?


s: Hast ink more true than blood, or pen than fact?


s: Nay, as the poet mad with heavenly fires


s: Flings men his song white-hot, then back retires,


s: Cools heart, broods o'er the song again, inquires,


s: `Why did I this, why that?' and slowly draws


s: From Art's unconscious act Art's conscious laws;


s: So, Freedom, writ, declares her writing's cause.


s: All question vain, all chill foreboding vain.


s: Adams, ablaze with faith, is hot and fain;


s: And he, straight-fibred Soul of mighty grain,


s: Deep-rooted Washington, afire, serene --


s: Tall Bush that burns, yet keeps its substance green --


s: Sends daily word, of import calm yet keen,


s: Warm from the front of battle, till the fire


s: Wraps opposition in and flames yet higher,


s: And Doubt's thin tissues flash where Hope's aspire;


s: And, `Ay, declare,' and ever strenuous `Ay'


s: Falls from the Twelve, and Time and Nature cry


s: And delegate Dead from each past age and race,


s: Viewless to man, in large procession pace


s: Downward athwart each set and steadfast face,


s: Responding `Ay' in many tongues; and lo!


s: Rearward the files of dead, and softly say


s: Their saintly `Ay', and softly pass away


s: Of man's defect, and every wind that blows


s: Keeps back the Spring of Freedom's perfect Rose.


s: Now naked feet with crimson fleck the ways,


s: And Heaven is stained with flags that mutinies raise,


s: And Arnold-spotted move the creeping days.


s: Long do the eyes that look from Heaven see


s: Time smoke, as in the spring the mulberry tree,


s: Till Yorktown's winking vapors slowly fade,


s: And Time's full top casts down a pleasant shade


s: Where Freedom lies unarmed and unafraid.


s: To the Tournament under the ladies' eyes


s: "`Blow, herald, blow!'  There entered Heart,


s: `Blow, herald, blow!'  Brain stood apart,


s: But Brain sat still, with never a sound --


s: Brain's casque was bare as Fact -- not he


s: "`Blow, herald, blow!'  Heart shot a glance


s: But Brain looked straight a-front, his lance


s: "They charged, they struck; both fell, both bled;


s: Black herds, white herds, nights and days.


s: Then called the Artist's God from in the sky:


s: "This Time shall show by dream and mystery


s: The heart of all his matter to thine eye.


s: Son, study stars by looking down in streams,


s: Interpret that which is by that which seems,


s: And tell thy dreams in words which are but dreams."


s: "Live Self! -- thou part, yet none, of Me;


s: God wounds thee, heals thee whole again,


s: Wide-armed, thou dropp'st on knightly knee:


s: Then all the beasts before thee passed --


s: False Art, False Faith, slow skulking last --


s: Thy Lord said, "Name them, tame them, Son;


s: Nor rest, nor rest, till thou hast done."


s: Ah, name thou false, or tame thou wrong,


s: Thy Future's voice sounds wondrous free;


s: And love, thou Self that say'st `I will;'


s: And prove and know Time's worst and best,


s: And wronged by death pays life with wrong


s: And the Morning seems but fatigued Night


s: And the healthy mark 'twixt dark and light


s: And the Hand of the Frost spreads stark and numb


s: And the heart of eve beats lax i' the end


s: Oh vain the complainings, the hot demands,


s: The prayers for a sound, the tears for a sight.


s: Or a dream sets seal with palpable mark.


s: That a kiss or a whisper might fall from her


s: Or some least grace of the body of love,


s: But the olives they were not blind to Him,


s: The little gray leaves were kind to Him:


s: When Death and Shame would woo Him last,


s: From under the trees they drew Him last:


s: From cold Norse caves or buccaneer Southern seas


s: Oft come repenting tempests here to die;


s: Bewailing old-time wrecks and robberies,


s: They shrive to priestly pines with many a sigh,


s: Breathe salutary balms through lank-lock'd hair


s: Of sick men's heads, and soon -- this world outworn --


s: Sink into saintly heavens of stirless air,


s: Clean from confessional.  One died, this morn,


s: And willed the world to wise Queen Tranquil:  she,


s: Sweet sovereign Lady of all souls that bide


s: In contemplation, tames the too bright skies


s: Like that faint agate film, far down descried,


s: Restraining suns in sudden thoughtful eyes


s: Which flashed but now.  Blest distillation rare


s: Of o'er-rank brightness filtered waterwise


s: Through all the earths in heaven -- thou always fair,


s: Still virgin bride of e'er-creating thought --


s: Dream-worker, in whose dream the Future's wrought --


s: Healer of hurts, free balm for bitter wrongs --


s: Most silent mother of all sounding songs --


s: Thou that dissolvest hells to make thy heaven --


s: Thou tempest's heir, that keep'st no tempest leaven --


s: But after winds' and thunders' wide mischance


s: Dost brood, and better thine inheritance --


s: Thou privacy of space, where each grave Star


s: Shines to his fellows o'er the firmament --


s: Oh! as thou liv'st in all this sky and sea


s: So melt my soul in thee, and thine in me,


s: Gray Pelican, poised where yon broad shallows shine,


s: Know'st thou, that finny foison all is mine


s: In the bag below thy beak -- yet thine, not less?


s: For God, of His most gracious friendliness,


s: Hath wrought that every soul, this loving morn,


s: Into all things may be new-corporate born,


s: And each live whole in all:  I sail with thee,


s: Thy Pelican's self is mine; yea, silver Sea,


s: In this large moment all thy fishes, ripples, bights,


s: Pale in-shore greens and distant blue delights,


s: White visionary sails, long reaches fair


s: By moon-horn'd strands that film the far-off air,


s: Bright sparkle-revelations, secret majesties,


s: Shells, wrecks and wealths, are mine; yea, Orange-trees,


s: That lift your small world-systems in the light,


s: Rich sets of round green heavens studded bright


s: With globes of fruit that like still planets shine,


s: Mine is your green-gold universe; yea, mine,


s: White slender Lighthouse fainting to the eye


s: That wait'st on yon keen cape-point wistfully,


s: Like to some maiden spirit pausing pale,


s: Above the serene Gulf to where a bridegroom soul


s: Calls o'er the soft horizon -- mine thy dole


s: Of shut undaring wings and wan desire --


s: Mine, too, thy later hope and heavenly fire


s: Of kindling expectation; yea, all sights,


s: All sounds, that make this morn -- quick flights


s: Of pea-green paroquets 'twixt neighbor trees,


s: Like missives and sweet morning inquiries


s: From green to green, in green -- live oaks' round heads,


s: Busy with jays for thoughts -- grays, whites and reds


s: Of pranked woodpeckers that ne'er gossip out,


s: Robins and mocking-birds that all day long


s: Athwart straight sunshine weave cross-threads of song,


s: Shuttles of music -- clouds of mosses gray


s: That rain me rains of pleasant thoughts alway


s: From a low sky of leaves -- faint yearning psalms


s: Of endless metre breathing through the palms


s: That crowd and lean and gaze from off the shore


s: Palmettos ranked, with childish spear-points set


s: Against no enemy -- rich cones that fret


s: High roofs of temples shafted tall with pines --


s: Green, grateful mangroves where the sand-beach shines --


s: Long lissome coast that in and outward swerves,


s: The grace of God made manifest in curves --


s: All riches, goods and braveries never told


s: Of earth, sun, air and heaven -- now I hold


s: God, whom my roads all reach, howe'er they run,


s: My Father, Friend, Beloved, dear All-One,


s: Thee in my soul, my soul in Thee, I feel,


s: Self of my self.  Lo, through my sense doth steal


s: Clear cognizance of all selves and qualities,


s: Of all strange haps that men miscall of chance,


s: And all the works of tireless circumstance:


s: Each borders each, like mutual sea and shore,


s: Nor aught misfits his neighbor that's before,


s: Nor him that's after -- nay, through this still air,


s: Out of the North come quarrels, and keen blare


s: Of challenge by the hot-breath'd parties blown;


s: Yet break they not this peace with alien tone,


s: Fray not my heart, nor fright me for my land,


s: -- I hear from all-wards, allwise understand,


s: The great bird Purpose bears me twixt her wings,


s: And I am one with all the kinsmen things


s: That e'er my Father fathered.  Oh, to me


s: All questions solve in this tranquillity:


s: E'en this dark matter, once so dim, so drear,


s: Now shines upon my spirit heavenly-clear:


s: -- How `All's in each, yet every one of all


s: Maintains his Self complete and several.'


s: If spicy-fringed pinks that blush and pale


s: With passions of perfume, -- if violets blue


s: That hint of heaven with odor more than hue, --


s: Wherefrom the blood of beauty doth exhale


s: Grave raptures round, -- if leaves of green as new


s: As those fresh chaplets wove in dawn and dew


s: Nor dreamed of Arcite nor of Palamon, --


s: If fruits that riped in some more riotous play


s: Of wind and beam that stirs our temperate sun, --


s: If these the products be of love and pain,


s: On Violet's Wafers, Sent Me When I Was Ill.


s: Fine-tissued as her finger-tips, and white


s: As all her thoughts; in shape like shields of prize,


s: As if before young Violet's dreaming eyes


s: Still blazed the two great Theban bucklers bright


s: That swayed the random of that furious fight


s: That, not with sting, but pith, do oft invite


s: More trial of the tongue; simple, like her,


s: Well fitting lowlihood, yet fine as well,


s: -- The queen's no finer; rich (though gossamer)


s: In help to him they came to, which may tell


s: How rich that him SHE'LL come to; thus men see,


s: Like Violet's self e'en Violet's wafers be.


s: Written for the Art Autograph during the Irish Famine, 1880.


s: Trim set in ancient sward, his manful bole


s: Upbore his frontage largely toward the sky.


s: We could not dream but that he had a soul:


s: What virtue breathed from out his bravery!


s: We gazed o'erhead:  far down our deepening eyes


s: Rained glamours from his green midsummer mass.


s: Suffused his mighty shadow on the grass.


s: A Presence large, a grave and steadfast Form


s: Amid the leaves' light play and fantasy,


s: A calmness conquered out of many a storm,


s: Then, while his monarch fingers downward held


s: The rugged burrs wherewith his state was rife,


s: Seemed uttering quickly parables of life:


s: `How Life in truth was sharply set with ills;


s: A kernel cased in quarrels; yea, a sphere


s: Of stings, and hedge-hog-round of mortal quills:


s: How most men itched to eat too soon i' the year,


s: `And took but wounds and worries for their pains,


s: Whereas the wise withheld their patient hands,


s: Nor plucked green pleasures till the sun and rains


s: And seasonable ripenings burst all bands


s: `And opened wide the liberal burrs of life.'


s: There, O my Friend, beneath the chestnut bough,


s: Gazing on thee immerged in modern strife,


s: I framed a prayer of fervency -- that thou,


s: In soul and stature larger than thy kind,


s: Still more to this strong Form might'st liken thee,


s: The tranquil lordship of thy chestnut tree.


s: Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands,


s: And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea,


s: How long they kiss in sight of all the lands.


s: Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun,


s: And Cleopatra night drinks all.  'Tis done,


s: Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart;


s: Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands.


s: | "A Sunrise Song" leads a group of seven short poems           |


s: Young palmer sun, that to these shining sands


s: Pourest thy pilgrim's tale, discoursing still


s: With news of Sepulchre and Dolorous Hill,


s: Canst thou be he that, yester-sunset warm,


s: Purple with Paynim rage and wrack desire,


s: Dashed ravening out of a dusty lair of Storm,


s: Harried the west, and set the world on fire?


s: Hast thou perchance repented, Saracen Sun?


s: Wilt warm the world with peace and dove-desire?


s: Or wilt thou, ere this very day be done,


s: Blaze Saladin still, with unforgiving fire?


s: Through all that year-scarred agony of height,


s: Unblest of bough or bloom, to where expands


s: To termless hymns of love and old despite,


s: Yon tall palmetto in the twilight stands,


s: That glimmer marginal to the monstrous night.


s: Comes him a Southwind from the scented vine,


s: It breathes of Beatrice through all his blades,


s: North, East or West, Guelph-wind or Ghibelline,


s: 'Tis shredded into music down the shades;


s: All sea-breaths, land-breaths, systol, diastol,


s: Sway, minstrels of that grief-melodious Soul.


s: Dies in a desperate stress beneath the wave,


s: Then glitters out again and sweeps the sea:


s: Each second I'm new-born from some new grave.


s: And make thee harrow all my spirit's glebe.


s: Of old the blind bard Herve sang so sweet


s: The fair-faced stars seem wrinkled, old,


s: Grave walls are thick, I cannot see thee,


s: O drear, drear death, to live without thee,


s: Which soul were shy, which shyness might


s: Through heaven and earth -- 'twere thou, O light!


s: That thou might'st press the strings and I might draw the bow


s: Strange that the termagant winds should scold


s: The heaven that Christian dogs desire --


s: Stretched o'er the rug, serene and grave,


s: While thus our rippling discourse rolled


s: He stood by the bars, and his flock bade leap


s: "And first there leapt, like bird on wing,


s: Each heartsome hoof-stroke wrought increase


s: "In flower, in fruit, in field, in bird,


s: Till the great globe, rich fleck'd and pied,


s: Like some large peach half pinkly furred,


s: "And hung in the heavenly orchard, bright,


s: Rheum'd, wind-gall'd, rag-fleec'd, burr'd and thorn'd.


s: Kites, marbles, soldiers, towers infirm,


s: Thus, roused -- those horns! -- to sacred rage,


s: Scarce had my Harry ceased, when "Look!"


s: With painful scrambling scratched and raw,


s: "Yes, yes, old friends, you well may stare:


s: "But now, with shrinkage, loss and care,


s: "We've had such hard, hard times this year


s: "'Twas thus:  a smooth-tongued railroad man


s: Let's build a Grand Trunk Railway through


s: Each package down:  just think, the force


s: "`You'll save, the time!  -- Besides, we'll make


s: Compete for freights -- and then we'll take


s: We'll bring 'em cheap by steam, and fast:


s: "`We'll make with heaven a contract fair


s: And carry the dead folks' souls up there,


s: "The plan seemed fair:  I gave him cash,


s: My wife e'er cried, `'Tis rash, 'tis rash:'


s: How could I know the stock-thief's ways?


s: "But soon I learned full well, poor fool!


s: "With never an inch of track -- 'tis true!


s: The debts were large . . . the oft-told tale.


s: "`This year should leave your poor old bed,


s: "`Since you've been out, the news arrives


s: Ah, Claus, those premiums!  Now, our lives


s: You'd go, in spite of all that's passed,


s: These eyes, that night, ne'er slept a wink.


s: When Christmas morns their eyes unclose,


s: They spun, sewed, cut, -- till by and by


s: "Now, hoist me up:  there, gently:  quick!


s: Dear boys, DON'T look for much this year:


s: Twixt billowy pines -- a surf asleep on land --


s: Past far-off palms that filmed to nought,


s: That laced the land like fragile patterns wrought


s: All smile and song, with sheen and ripple coy,


s: In that large lustre all our haste surceased,


s: And ship and shore set breast to breast.


s: Under a palm wherethrough a planet burned


s: But soon from sleep's dear death (it seemed)


s: Down silver distances that faintly gleamed


s: `A wraith' (I thought) `that walks the shore


s: Full heavy hung the draggled gown he wore;


s: But briskly said:  "Good-evenin'; what's the news?


s: Big surf!  Gulf breeze!  Jest death upon a cough!


s: COM-plete! then went to bed and slept as sound


s: Cum up from some'eres -- some bad place!


s: An' blowed an' tore an' reared an' pitched an' all,


s: For, 'twixt the sea that riz and rain that fell,


s: Long look, and -- well, sir, sure's I'm ME --


s: That boat laid right whar that hotel had stood,


s: "No:  I'll not keep you:  good-bye, friend.


s: Your brain might git see-sawin', end for end,


s: How one same wind could blow my ship to shore


s: quite outgrown the cotton overnight, and was likely to choke it,


s: in defiance of his lazy freedmen's hoes and ploughs,


s: not infrequently constructs from his daily surroundings.


s: In addition to these exegetical commentaries, the Northern reader


s: Solo. --    Sin's rooster's crowed, Ole Mahster's riz,


s: Chorus. --      Dey's mightily in de grass, grass,


s: De Meth'dis team's done hitched; O fool,


s: Whoop, look, jes' look at de Baptis' row,


s: De jay-bird squeal to de mockin'-bird:  "Stop!


s: Better sing one song for de Baptis' crop,


s: And de ole crow croak:  "Don' work, no, no;"


s: An' I spec' you mighty glad, you debblish crow,


s: Lord, thunder us up to de plowin'-match,


s: Yea, Lord, hab mussy on de Baptis' patch,


s: And I come to a place on the side o' the pike


s: Whar a peert little winter branch jest had throw'd


s: A man squattin' down, like a big bull-toad,


s: On the ground, a-figgerin' thar in the sand


s: With his finger, and motionin' with his hand,


s: To hisself, like a lamb:  "Hauh? nine from eight


s: But Ellick he sat with his head bent down,


s: And his forrud was creased with a turrible frown,


s: Fur he kep' on figgerin' away in the sand


s: My crap-leen calls for nine hundred and more.


s: My counts o' sales is eight hundred and four,


s: Thar's eight, ought, four, jest like on a slate:


s: Here's nine and two oughts --  Hauh? nine from eight


s: But I thought I could fool the crap-leen nice,


s: And I hauled my cotton to Jammel and Cones.


s: But shuh! 'fore I even had settled my price


s: To the 'mount of sum nine hundred dollars or more,


s: And sold me out clean for eight hundred and four,


s: And thar it is down all squar and straight,


s: But I can't make it gee, fur nine from eight


s: Then he riz and walked to his little bull-cart,


s: And made like he neither had seen nor heerd


s: Nor knowed that I knowed of his raskilly part,


s: And he tried to look as if HE wa'nt feared,


s: And gathered his lines like he never keered,


s: And he driv down the road 'bout a quarter or so,


s: And then looked around, and I hollered "Hello,


s: But you'll always find that nine from eight


s: "Thar's more in the Man than thar is in the Land".


s: I knowed a man, which he lived in Jones,


s: Which Jones is a county of red hills and stones,


s: And he lived pretty much by gittin' of loans,


s: And his mules was nuthin' but skin and bones,


s: And his hogs was flat as his corn-bread pones,


s: And he had 'bout a thousand acres o' land.


s: This man -- which his name it was also Jones --


s: He swore that he'd leave them old red hills and stones,


s: Fur he couldn't make nuthin' but yallerish cotton,


s: And little o' THAT, and his fences was rotten,


s: And what little corn he had, HIT was boughten


s: And the longer he swore the madder he got,


s: And he riz and he walked to the stable lot,


s: And he hollered to Tom to come thar and hitch


s: Fur to emigrate somewhar whar land was rich,


s: And to quit raisin' cock-burrs, thistles and sich,


s: And a wastin' ther time on the cussed land.


s: So him and Tom they hitched up the mules,


s: Pertestin' that folks was mighty big fools


s: That 'ud stay in Georgy ther lifetime out,


s: Jest scratchin' a livin' when all of 'em mought


s: Git places in Texas whar cotton would sprout


s: By the time you could plant it in the land.


s: And he driv by a house whar a man named Brown


s: Was a livin', not fur from the edge o' town,


s: And he bantered Brown fur to buy his place,


s: They closed at a dollar and fifty cents,


s: And Jones he bought him a waggin and tents,


s: And loaded his corn, and his wimmin, and truck,


s: But Brown moved out on the old Jones' farm,


s: And he rolled up his breeches and bared his arm,


s: And he picked all the rocks from off'n the groun',


s: And he rooted it up and he plowed it down,


s: Then he sowed his corn and his wheat in the land.


s: (Which he'd got so fat that he wouldn't weigh),


s: When one o' the children jumped on his knee


s: And says, "Yan's Jones, which you bought his land."


s: And thar was Jones, standin' out at the fence,


s: And he hadn't no waggin, nor mules, nor tents,