Golden Numbers Part 5

JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.

_Dirge for the Year_

"Orphan Hours, the Year is dead!

Come and sigh, come and weep!"

"Merry Hours, smile instead, For the Year is but asleep; See, it smiles as it is sleeping, Mocking your untimely weeping."

PERCY BYSSHE Sh.e.l.lEY.

INTERLEAVES

_The World Beautiful_

"Study Nature, not books," said that inspired teacher, Louis Aga.s.siz.

The poets do not bring you the fruit of conscious study, perhaps, for they do not a.n.a.lyze or dissect Dame Nature's methods; with them genius begets a higher instinct, and it is by a sort of divination that they interpret for us the power and grandeur, romance and witchery, beauty and mystery of "G.o.d's great out-of-doors." The born poet, like the born naturalist, seems to have additional senses. Emerson says of his friend Th.o.r.eau that he saw as with microscope and heard as with ear-trumpet, while his memory was a photographic register of all he saw and heard; and Th.o.r.eau the naturalist might have said the same of Emerson the poet.

Glance at the succession of beautiful images in Sh.e.l.ley's "Cloud" or Aldrich's "Before the Rain", lend your ear to the tinkle of Tennyson's "Brook." Contrast them with the bracing lines of the "Northeast Wind,"

the rough metre of "Highland Cattle," the chill calm of "Snow Bound,"

the grand style of Milton's "Morning," the n.o.ble simplicity of Addison's "Hymn," and note how the great poet bends his language to the mood of Nature, grim or sunny, stormy or kind, strong or tender. There is a stanza in Pope's "Essay on Criticism" which conveys the idea perfectly:

"_Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding sh.o.r.e, The hoa.r.s.e, rough verse should like the torrent roar.

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labors, and the words move slow: Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main._"

II

THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL

_The World Beautiful_

Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the Sun When first on this delightful land he spreads His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glistening with dew; fragrant the fertile Earth After soft showers; and sweet the coming on Of grateful Evening mild; then silent Night With this her solemn bird, and this fair Moon, And these the gems of Heaven, her starry train.

JOHN MILTON.

_From "Paradise Lost."_

_The Harvest Moon_

It is the harvest moon! On gilded vanes And roofs of villages, on woodland crests And their aerial neighborhoods of nests Deserted, oh the curtained window-panes Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!

Gone are the birds that were our summer guests; With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

_The Cloud_

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the las.h.i.+ng hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pa.s.s in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast.

Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers, Lightning my pilot sits; In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The Spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack When the morning-star s.h.i.+nes dead, As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings.

And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath Its ardors of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, By the midnight breezes strewn; And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, The stars peep behind her and peer; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, And the moon's with a girdle of pearl; The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.

From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-colored bow; The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky: I pa.s.s through the pores of the ocean and sh.o.r.es; I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.

PERCY BYSSHE Sh.e.l.lEY.

_Before the Rain_

We knew it would rain, for all the morn, A spirit on slender ropes of mist Was lowering its golden buckets down Into the vapory amethyst

Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens-- Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers, Dipping the jewels out of the sea, To sprinkle them over the land in showers.

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed The white of their leaves, the amber grain Shrunk in the wind--and the lightning now Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain!

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

_Rain in Summer_

How beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and heat, In the broad and fiery street, In the narrow lane, How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs Like the tramp of hoofs!

How it gushes and struggles out From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane It pours and pours; And swift and wide, With a muddy tide, Like a river down the gutter roars The rain, the welcome rain!

The sick man from his chamber looks At the twisted brooks; He can feel the cool Breath of each little pool; His fevered brain Grows calm again, And he breathes a blessing on the rain.