May-Day Part 2

The sallow knows the basket-maker's thumb; The oar, the guide's. Dare you accept the tasks He shall impose, to find a spring, trap foxes, Tell the sun's time, determine the true north, Or stumbling on through vast self-similar woods To thread by night the nearest way to camp?

Ask you, how went the hours?

All day we swept the lake, searched every cove, North from Camp Maple, south to Osprey Bay, Watching when the loud dogs should drive in deer, Or whipping its rough surface for a trout; Or bathers, diving from the rock at noon; Challenging Echo by our guns and cries; Or listening to the laughter of the loon; Or, in the evening twilight's latest red, Beholding the procession of the pines; Or, later yet, beneath a lighted jack, In the boat's bows, a silent night-hunter Stealing with paddle to the feeding-grounds Of the red deer, to aim at a square mist.

Hark to that m.u.f.fled roar! a tree in the woods Is fallen: but hus.h.!.+ it has not scared the buck Who stands astonished at the meteor light, Then turns to bound away,--is it too late?

Sometimes we tried our rifles at a mark, Six rods, sixteen, twenty, or forty-five; Sometimes our wits at sally and retort, With laughter sudden as the crack of rifle; Or parties scaled the near acclivities Competing seekers of a rumoured lake, Whose unauthenticated waves we named Lake Probability,--our carbuncle, Long sought, not found.

Two Doctors in the camp Dissected the slain deer, weighed the trout's brain, Captured the lizard, salamander, shrew, Crab, mice, snail, dragon-fly, minnow, and moth; Insatiate skill in water or in air Waved the scoop-net, and nothing came amiss; The while, one leaden pot of alcohol Gave an impartial tomb to all the kinds.

Not less the ambitious botanist sought plants, Orchis and gentian, fern, and long whip-scirpus, Rosy polygonum, lake-margin's pride, Hypnum and hydnum, mushroom, sponge, and moss, Or harebell nodding in the gorge of falls.

Above, the eagle flew, the osprey screamed, The raven croaked, owls hooted, the woodp.e.c.k.e.r Loud hammered, and the heron rose in the swamp.

As water poured through the hollows of the hills To feed this wealth of lakes and rivulets, So Nature shed all beauty lavishly From her redundant horn.

Lords of this realm, Bounded by dawn and sunset, and the day Rounded by hours where each outdid the last In miracles of pomp, we must be proud, As if a.s.sociates of the sylvan G.o.ds.

We seemed the dwellers of the zodiac, So pure the Alpine element we breathed, So light, so lofty pictures came and went.

We trode on air, contemned the distant town, Its timorous ways, big trifles, and we planned That we should build, hard-by, a s.p.a.cious lodge, And how we should come hither with our sons, Hereafter,--willing they, and more adroit.

Hard fare, hard bed, and comic misery,-- The midge, the blue-fly, and the mosquito Painted our necks, hands, ankles, with red bands: But, on the second day, we heed them not, Nay, we saluted them Auxiliaries, Whom earlier we had chid with spiteful names.

For who defends our leafy tabernacle From bold intrusion of the travelling crowd,-- Who but the midge, mosquito, and the fly, Which past endurance sting the tender cit, But which we learn to scatter with a smudge, Or baffle by a veil, or slight by scorn?

Our foaming ale we drunk from hunters' pans, Ale, and a sup of wine. Our steward gave Venison and trout, potatoes, beans, wheat-bread; All ate like abbots, and, if any missed Their wonted convenance, cheerly hid the loss With hunters' appet.i.te and peals of mirth.

And Stillman, our guides' guide, and Commodore, Crusoe, Crusader, Pius AEneas, said aloud, "Chronic dyspepsia never came from eating Food indigestible":--then murmured some, Others applauded him who spoke the truth.

Nor doubt but visitings of graver thought Checked in these souls the turbulent heyday 'Mid all the hints and glories of the home.

For who can tell what sudden privacies Were sought and found, amid the hue and cry Of scholars furloughed from their tasks, and let Into this Oreads' fended Paradise, As chapels in the city's thoroughfares, Whither gaunt Labour slips to wipe his brow, And meditate a moment on Heaven's rest.

Judge with what sweet surprises Nature spoke To each apart, lifting her lovely shows To spiritual lessons pointed home.

And as through dreams in watches of the night, So through all creatures in their form and ways Some mystic hint accosts the vigilant, Not clearly voiced, but waking a new sense Inviting to new knowledge, one with old.

Hark to that petulant chirp! what ails the warbler?

Mark his capricious ways to draw the eye.

Now soar again. What wilt thou, restless bird, Seeking in that chaste blue a bluer light, Thirsting in that pure for a purer sky?

And presently the sky is changed; O world!

What pictures and what harmonies are thine!

The clouds are rich and dark, the air serene, So like the soul of me, what if't were me?

A melancholy better than all mirth.

Comes the sweet sadness at the retrospect, Or at the foresight of obscurer years?

Like yon slow-sailing cloudy promontory, Whereon the purple iris dwells in beauty Superior to all its gaudy skirts.

And, that no day of life may lack romance, The spiritual stars rise nightly, shedding down A private beam into each several heart.

Daily the bending skies solicit man, The seasons chariot him from this exile, The rainbow hours bedeck his glowing chair, The storm-winds urge the heavy weeks along, Suns haste to set, that so remoter lights Beckon the wanderer to his vaster home.

With a vermilion pencil mark the day When of our little fleet three cruising skiffs Entering Big Tupper, bound for the foaming Falls Of loud Bog River, suddenly confront Two of our mates returning with swift oars.

One held a printed journal waving high Caught from a late-arriving traveller, Big with great news, and shouted the report For which the world had waited, now firm fact, Of the wire-cable laid beneath the sea, And landed on our coast, and pulsating With ductile fire. Loud, exulting cries From boat to boat, and to the echoes round, Greet the glad miracle. Thought's new-found path Shall supplement henceforth all trodden ways, Match G.o.d's equator with a zone of art, And lift man's public action to a height Worthy the enormous clouds of witnesses, When linked hemispheres attest his deed.

We have few moments in the longest life Of such delight and wonder as there grew,-- Nor yet unsuited to that solitude: A burst of joy, as if we told the fact To ears intelligent; as if gray rock And cedar grove and cliff and lake should know This feat of wit, this triumph of mankind; As if we men were talking in a vein Of sympathy so large, that ours was theirs, And a prime end of the most subtle element Were fairly reached at last. Wake, echoing caves!

Bend nearer, faint day-moon! Yon thundertops, Let them hear well! 't is theirs as much as ours.

A spasm throbbing through the pedestals Of Alp and Andes, isle and continent, Urging astonished Chaos with a thrill To be a brain, or serve the brain of man.

The lightning has run masterless too long; He must to school, and learn his verb and noun, And teach his nimbleness to earn his wage, Spelling with guided tongue man's messages Shot through the weltering pit of the salt sea.

And yet I marked, even in the manly joy Of our great-hearted Doctor in his boat, (Perchance I erred,) a shade of discontent; Or was it for mankind a generous shame, As of a luck not quite legitimate, Since fortune s.n.a.t.c.hed from wit the lion's part?

Was it a college pique of town and gown, As one within whose memory it burned That not academicians, but some lout, Found ten years since the Californian gold?

And now, again, a hungry company Of traders, led by corporate sons of trade, Perversely borrowing from the shop the tools Of science, not from the philosophers, Had won the brightest laurel of all time.

'Twas always thus, and will be; hand and head Are ever rivals: but, though this be swift, The other slow,--this the Prometheus, And that the Jove,--yet, howsoever hid, It was from Jove the other stole his fire, And, without Jove, the good had never been.

It is not Iroquois or cannibals, But ever the free race with front sublime, And these instructed by their wisest too, Who do the feat, and lift humanity.

Let not him mourn who best ent.i.tled was, Nay, mourn not one: let him exult, Yea, plant the tree that bears best apples, plant, And water it with wine, nor watch askance Whether thy sons or strangers eat the fruit: Enough that mankind eat, and are refreshed.

We flee away from cities, but we bring The best of cities with us, these learned cla.s.sifiers, Men knowing what they seek, armed eyes of experts.

We praise the guide, we praise the forest life; But will we sacrifice our dear-bought lore Of books and arts and trained experiment, Or count the Sioux a match for Aga.s.siz?

O no, not we! Witness the shout that shook Wild Tupper Lake; witness the mute all-hail The joyful traveller gives, when on the verge Of craggy Indian wilderness he hears From a log-cabin stream Beethoven's notes On the piano, played with master's hand.

'Well done!' he cries; 'the bear is kept at bay, The lynx, the rattlesnake, the flood, the fire; All the fierce enemies, ague, hunger, cold, This thin spruce roof, this clayed log-wall, This wild plantation will suffice to chase.

Now speed the gay celerities of art, What in the desert was impossible Within four walls is possible again,-- Culture and libraries, mysteries of skill, Traditioned fame of masters, eager strife Of keen competing youths, joined or alone To outdo each other, and extort applause.

Mind wakes a new-born giant from her sleep.

Twirl the old wheels? Time takes fresh start again On for a thousand years of genius more.'

The holidays were fruitful, but must end; One August evening had a cooler breath; Into each mind intruding duties crept; Under the cinders burned the fires of home; Nay, letters found us in our paradise; So in the gladness of the new event We struck our camp, and left the happy hills.

The fortunate star that rose on us sank not; The prodigal suns.h.i.+ne rested on the land, The rivers gambolled onward to the sea, And Nature, the inscrutable and mute, Permitted on her infinite repose Almost a smile to steal to cheer her sons, As if one riddle of the Sphinx were guessed.

OCCASIONAL AND MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

BRAHMA.

If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know well the subtle ways I keep, and pa.s.s, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanquished G.o.ds to me appear; And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong G.o.ds pine for my abode, And pine in vain the sacred Seven; But thou, meek lover of the good!

Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

NEMESIS.

Already blushes in thy cheek The bosom-thought which thou must speak; The bird, how far it haply roam By cloud or isle, is flying home; The maiden fears, and fearing runs Into the charmed snare she shuns; And every man, in love or pride, Of his fate is never wide.

Will a woman's fan the ocean smooth?

Or prayers the stony Parcae sooth, Or coax the thunder from its mark?

Or tapers light the chaos dark?

In spite of Virtue and the Muse, Nemesis will have her dues, And all our struggles and our toils Tighter wind the giant coils.

FATE.