The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 63

Then deep in the greenwood rode he, And asked of every tree, 'Oh, if you have ever a Singing Leaf, I pray you give it me!'

But the trees all kept their counsel, And never a word said they, Only there sighed from the pine-tops A music of seas far away. 40

Only the pattering aspen Made a sound of growing rain, That fell ever faster and faster, Then faltered to silence again.

'Oh, where shall I find a little foot-page That would win both hose and shoon, And will bring to me the Singing Leaves If they grow under the moon?'

Then lightly turned him Walter the page, By the stirrup as he ran: 50 'Now pledge you me the truesome word Of a king and gentleman,

'That you will give me the first, first thing You meet at your castle-gate, And the Princess shall get the Singing Leaves, Or mine be a traitor's fate.'

The King's head dropt upon his breast A moment, as it might be; 'Twill be my dog, he thought, and said, 'My faith I plight to thee.' 60

Then Walter took from next his heart A packet small and thin, 'Now give you this to the Princess Anne, The Singing Leaves are therein.'

III

As the King rode in at his castle-gate, A maiden to meet him ran, And 'Welcome, father!' she laughed and cried Together, the Princess Anne.

'Lo, here the Singing Leaves,' quoth he, 'And woe, but they cost me dear!' 70 She took the packet, and the smile Deepened down beneath the tear.

It deepened down till it reached her heart, And then gushed up again, And lighted her tears as the sudden sun Transfigures the summer rain.

And the first Leaf, when it was opened, Sang: 'I am Walter the page, And the songs I sing 'neath thy window Are my only heritage.' 80

And the second Leaf sang: 'But in the land That is neither on earth nor sea, My lute and I are lords of more Than thrice this kingdom's fee.'

And the third Leaf sang, 'Be mine! Be mine!'

And ever it sang, 'Be mine!'

Then sweeter it sang and ever sweeter, And said, 'I am thine, thine, thine!'

At the first Leaf she grew pale enough, At the second she turned aside, 90 At the third, 'twas as if a lily flushed With a rose's red heart's tide.

'Good counsel gave the bird,' said she, 'I have my hope thrice o'er, For they sing to my very heart,' she said, 'And it sings to them evermore.'

She brought to him her beauty and truth, But and broad earldoms three, And he made her queen of the broader lands He held of his lute in fee. 100

SEAWEED

Not always unimpeded can I pray, Nor, pitying saint, thine intercession claim; Too closely clings the burden of the day, And all the mint and anise that I pay But swells my debt and deepens my self-blame.

Shall I less patience have than Thou, who know That Thou revisit'st all who wait for thee, Nor only fill'st the unsounded deeps below, But dost refresh with punctual overflow The rifts where unregarded mosses be?

The drooping seaweed hears, in night abyssed, Far and more far the wave's receding shocks, Nor doubts, for all the darkness and the mist, That the pale shepherdess will keep her tryst, And sh.o.r.eward lead again her foam-fleeced flocks.

For the same wave that rims the Carib sh.o.r.e With momentary brede of pearl and gold, Goes hurrying thence to gladden with its roar Lorn weeds bound fast on rocks of Labrador, By love divine on one sweet errand rolled.

And, though Thy healing waters far withdraw, I, too, can wait and feed on hope of Thee And of the dear recurrence of Thy law, Sure that the parting grace my morning saw Abides its time to come in search of me.

THE FINDING OF THE LYRE

There lay upon the ocean's sh.o.r.e What once a tortoise served to cover; A year and more, with rush and roar, The surf had rolled it over, Had played with it, and flung it by, As wind and weather might decide it, Then tossed it high where sand-drifts dry Cheap burial might provide it.

It rested there to bleach or tan, The rains had soaked, the suns had burned it; With many a ban the fisherman Had stumbled o'er and spurned it; And there the fisher-girl would stay, Conjecturing with her brother How in their play the poor estray Might serve some use or other.

So there it lay, through wet and dry As empty as the last new sonnet, Till by and by came Mercury, And, having mused upon it, 'Why, here,' cried he, 'the thing of things In shape, material, and dimension!

Give it but strings, and, lo, it sings, A wonderful invention!'

So said, so done; the chords he strained, And, as his fingers o'er them hovered, The sh.e.l.l disdained a soul had gained, The lyre had been discovered.

O empty world that round us lies, Dead sh.e.l.l, of soul and thought forsaken, Brought we but eyes like Mercury's, In thee what songs should waken!

NEW-YEAR'S EVE, 1850

This is the midnight of the century,--hark!

Through aisle and arch of G.o.dminster have gone Twelve throbs that tolled the zenith of the dark, And mornward now the starry hands move on; 'Mornward!' the angelic watchers say, 'Pa.s.sed is the sorest trial; No plot of man can stay The hand upon the dial; Night is the dark stem of the lily Day.'

If we, who watched in valleys here below, Toward streaks, misdeemed of morn, our faces turned When volcan glares set all the east aglow, We are not poorer that we wept and yearned; Though earth swing wide from G.o.d's intent, And though no man nor nation Will move with full consent In heavenly gravitation, Yet by one Sun is every orbit bent.

FOR AN AUTOGRAPH

Though old the thought and oft exprest, 'Tis his at last who says it best,-- I'll try my fortune with the rest.

Life is a leaf of paper white Whereon each one of us may write His word or two, and then comes night.

'Lo, time and s.p.a.ce enough,' we cry, 'To write an epic!' so we try Our nibs upon the edge, and die.

Muse not which way the pen to hold, Luck hates the slow and loves the bold, Soon come the darkness and the cold.

Greatly begin! though thou have time But for a line, be that sublime,-- Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

Ah, with what lofty hope we came!

But we forget it, dream of fame, And scrawl, as I do here, a name.

AL FRESCO

The dandelions and b.u.t.tercups Gild all the lawn; the drowsy bee Stumbles among the clover-tops, And summer sweetens all but me: Away, unfruitful lore of books, For whose vain idiom we reject The soul's more native dialect, Aliens among the birds and brooks, Dull to interpret or conceive What gospels lost the woods retrieve! 10 Away, ye critics, city-bred, Who springes set of thus and so, And in the first man's footsteps tread, Like those who toil through drifted snow!

Away, my poets, whose sweet spell Can make a garden of a cell!

I need ye not, for I to-day Will make one long sweet verse of play.