The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 16

I know not when this hope enthralled me first, But from my boyhood up I loved to hear The tall pine-forests of the Apennine Murmur their h.o.a.ry legends of the sea, Which hearing, I in vision clear beheld The sudden dark of tropic night shut down 170 O'er the huge whisper of great watery wastes, The while a pair of herons trailingly Flapped inland, where some league-wide river hurled The yellow spoil of unconjectured realms Far through a gulf's green silence, never scarred, By any but the Northwind's hurrying keels.

And not the pines alone; all sights and sounds To my world-seeking heart paid fealty, And catered for it as the Cretan bees Brought honey to the baby Jupiter, Who in his soft hand crushed a violet, 181 G.o.dlike foremusing the rough thunder's gripe; Then did I entertain the poet's song, My great Idea's guest, and, pa.s.sing o'er That iron bridge the Tuscan built to h.e.l.l, I heard Ulysses tell of mountain-chains Whose adamantine links, his manacles, The western main shook growling, and still gnawed.

I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale.

Of happy Atlantis, and heard Bjorne's keel 190 Crunch the gray pebbles of the Vinland sh.o.r.e: I listened, musing, to the prophecy Of Nero's tutor-victim; lo, the birds Sing darkling, conscious of the climbing dawn.

And I believed the poets; it is they Who utter wisdom from the central deep, And, listening to the inner flow of things, Speak to the age out of eternity.

Ah me! old hermits sought for solitude In caves and desert places of the earth, 200 Where their own heart-beat was the only stir Of living thing that comforted the year; But the bald pillar-top of Simeon, In midnight's blankest waste, were populous, Matched with the isolation drear and deep Of him who pines among the swarm of men, At once a new thought's king and prisoner, Feeling the truer life within his life, The fountain of his spirit's prophecy, Sinking away and wasting, drop by drop, 210 In the ungrateful sands of sceptic ears.

He in the palace-aisles of untrod woods Doth walk a king; for him the pent-up cell Widens beyond the circles of the stars, And all the sceptred spirits of the past Come thronging in to greet him as their peer; But in the market-place's glare and throng He sits apart, an exile, and his brow Aches with the mocking memory of its crown.

Yet to the spirit select there is no choice; 220 He cannot say, This will I do, or that, For the cheap means putting Heaven's ends in p.a.w.n, And bartering his bleak rocks, the freehold stern Of destiny's first-born, for smoother fields That yield no crop of self-denying will; A hand is stretched to him from out the dark, Which grasping without question, he is led Where there is work that he must do for G.o.d.

The trial still is the strength's complement, And the uncertain, dizzy path that scales 230 The sheer heights of supremest purposes Is steeper to the angel than the child.

Chances have laws as fixed as planets have, And disappointment's dry and bitter root, Envy's harsh berries, and the choking pool Of the world's scorn, are the right mother-milk To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind, And break a pathway to those unknown realms That in the earth's broad shadow lie enthralled; 239 Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the pa.s.sion of great hearts; These are their stay, and when the leaden world Sets its hard face against their fateful thought, And brute strength, like the Gaulish conqueror, Clangs his huge glaive down in the other scale, The inspired soul but flings his patience in, And slowly that outweighs the ponderous globe,-- One faith against a whole earth's unbelief, One soul against the flesh of all mankind.

Thus ever seems it when my soul can hear 250 The voice that errs not; then my triumph gleams, O'er the blank ocean beckoning, and all night My heart flies on before me as I sail; Far on I see my lifelong enterprise.

That rose like Ganges mid the freezing snows Of a world's solitude, sweep broadening down, And, gathering to itself a thousand streams, Grow sacred ere it mingle with the sea; I see the ungated wall of chaos old, With blocks Cyclopean hewn of solid night, 260 Fade like a wreath of unreturning mist Before the irreversible feet of light;-- And lo, with what clear omen in the east On day's gray threshold stands the eager dawn, Like young Leander rosy from the sea Glowing at Hero's lattice!

One day more These muttering shoalbrains leave the helm to me: G.o.d, let me not in their dull ooze be stranded: Let not this one frail bark, to hollow which I have dug out the pith and sinewy heart 270 Of my aspiring life's fair trunk, be so Cast up to warp and blacken in the sun, Just as the opposing wind 'gins whistle off His cheek-swollen pack, and from the leaning mast Fortune's full sail strains forward!

One poor day!-- Remember whose and not how short it is!

It is G.o.d's day, it is Columbus's.

A lavish day! One day, with life and heart, Is more than time enough to find a world.

AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT HAMBURG

The tower of old Saint Nicholas soared upward to the skies, Like some huge piece of Nature's make, the growth of centuries; You could not deem its crowding spires a work of human art, They seemed to struggle lightward from a st.u.r.dy living heart.

Not Nature's self more freely speaks in crystal or in oak, Than, through the pious builder's hand, in that gray pile she spoke; And as from acorn springs the oak, so, freely and alone, Sprang from his heart this hymn to G.o.d, sung in obedient stone.

It seemed a wondrous freak of chance, so perfect, yet so rough, A whim of Nature crystallized slowly in granite tough; The thick spires yearned towards the sky in quaint harmonious lines, And in broad sunlight basked and slept, like a grove of blasted pines.

Never did rock or stream or tree lay claim with better right To all the adorning sympathies of shadow and of light; And, in that forest petrified, as forester there dwells Stout Herman, the old sacristan, sole lord of all its bells.

Surge leaping after surge, the fire roared onward red as blood, Till half of Hamburg lay engulfed beneath the eddying flood; For miles away the fiery spray poured down its deadly rain, And back and forth the billows sucked, and paused, and burst again.

From square to square with tiger leaps panted the l.u.s.tful fire, The air to leeward shuddered with the gasps of its desire; And church and palace, which even now stood whelmed but to the knee.

Lift their black roofs like breakers lone amid the whirling sea.

Up in his tower old Herman sat and watched with quiet look; His soul had trusted G.o.d too long to be at last forsook; He could not fear, for surely G.o.d a pathway would unfold Through this red sea for faithful hearts, as once He did of old.

But scarcely can he cross himself, or on his good saint call, Before the sacrilegious flood o'erleaped the churchyard wall; And, ere a _pater_ half was said, mid smoke and crackling glare, His island tower scarce juts its head above the wide despair.

Upon the peril's desperate peak his heart stood up sublime; His first thought was for G.o.d above, his next was for his chime; 'Sing now and make your voices heard in hymns of praise,' cried he, 'As did the Israelites of old, safe walking through the sea!

'Through this red sea our G.o.d hath made the pathway safe to sh.o.r.e; Our promised land stands full in sight; shout now as ne'er before!

And as the tower came cras.h.i.+ng down, the bells, in clear accord, Pealed forth the grand old German hymn,--'All good souls, praise the Lord!'

THE SOWER

I saw a Sower walking slow Across the earth, from east to west; His hair was white as mountain snow, His head drooped forward on his breast.

With shrivelled hands he flung his seed, Nor ever turned to look behind; Of sight or sound he took no heed; It seemed, he was both deaf and blind.

His dim face showed no soul beneath, Yet in my heart I felt a stir, As if I looked upon the sheath, That once had held Excalibur.

I heard, as still the seed he cast, How, crooning to himself, he sung.

'I sow again the holy Past, The happy days when I was young.

'Then all was wheat without a tare, Then all was righteous, fair, and true; And I am he whose thoughtful care Shall plant the Old World in the New.

'The fruitful germs I scatter free, With busy hand, while all men sleep; In Europe now, from sea to sea, The nations bless me as they reap.'

Then I looked back along his path.

And heard the clash of steel on steel, Where man faced man, in deadly wrath, While clanged the tocsin's hurrying peal.

The sky with burning towns flared red, Nearer the noise of fighting rolled.

And brothers' blood, by brothers shed, Crept curdling over pavements cold.

Then marked I how each germ of truth Which through the dotard's fingers ran Was mated with a dragon's tooth Whence there sprang up an armed man.

I shouted, but he could not hear; Made signs, but these he could not see; And still, without a doubt or fear, Broadcast he scattered anarchy.

Long to my straining ears the blast Brought faintly back the words he sung: 'I sow again the holy Past, The happy days when I was young.'

HUNGER AND COLD

Sisters two, all praise to you, With your faces pinched and blue; To the poor man you've been true From of old: You can speak the keenest word, You are sure of being heard, From the point you're never stirred, Hunger and Cold!

Let sleek statesmen temporize; Palsied are their s.h.i.+fts and lies When they meet your bloodshot eyes, Grim and bold; Policy you set at naught, In their traps you'll not be caught, You're too honest to be bought, Hunger and Cold!

Bolt and bar the palace door; While the ma.s.s of men are poor, Naked truth grows more and more Uncontrolled; You had never yet, I guess, Any praise for bashfulness, You can visit sans court-dress, Hunger and Cold!

While the music fell and rose, And the dance reeled to its close, Where her round of costly woes Fas.h.i.+on strolled, I beheld with shuddering fear Wolves' eyes through the windows peer; Little dream they you are near, Hunger and Cold!

When the toiler's heart you clutch, Conscience is not valued much, He recks not a b.l.o.o.d.y s.m.u.tch On his gold: Everything to you defers, You are potent reasoners, At your whisper Treason stirs, Hunger and Cold!

Rude comparisons you draw, Words refuse to sate your maw, Your gaunt limbs the cobweb law Cannot hold: You're not clogged with foolish pride, But can seize a right denied: Somehow G.o.d is on your side, Hunger and Cold!

You respect no h.o.a.ry wrong More for having triumphed long; Its past victims, haggard throng, From the mould You unbury: swords and spears Weaker are than poor men's tears, Weaker than your silent years, Hunger and Cold!

Let them guard both hall and bower; Through the window you will glower, Patient till your reckoning hour Shall be tolled; Cheeks are pale, but hands are red, Guiltless blood may chance be shed, But ye must and will be fed, Hunger and Cold!

G.o.d has plans man must not spoil, Some were made to starve and toil, Some to share the wine and oil, We are told: Devil's theories are these, Stifling hope and love and peace, Framed your hideous l.u.s.ts to please, Hunger and Cold!