The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 71

Fathom deep men bury thee In the furnace dark and still.

There, with dreariest mockery, 39 Making thee eat, against thy will, Blackest Pennsylvanian stone; But thou dost avenge thy doom, For, from out thy catacomb, Day and night thy wrath is blown In a withering simoom, And, adown that cavern drear, Thy black pitfall in the floor, Staggers the l.u.s.ty antique cheer, Despairing, and is seen no more!

IV

Elfish I may rightly name thee; 50 We enslave, but cannot tame thee; With fierce s.n.a.t.c.hes, now and then, Thou pluckest at thy right again, And thy down-trod instincts savage To stealthy insurrection creep While thy wittol masters sleep, And burst in undiscerning ravage: Then how thou shak'st thy bacchant locks!

While brazen pulses, far and near, Throb thick and thicker, wild with fear 60 And dread conjecture, till the drear Disordered clangor every steeple rocks!

V

But when we make a friend of thee, And admit thee to the hall On our nights of festival, Then, Cinderella, who could see In thee the kitchen's stunted thrall?

Once more a Princess lithe and tan, Thou dancest with a whispering tread, While the bright marvel of thy head 70 In crinkling gold floats all abroad, And gloriously dost vindicate The legend of thy lineage great, Earth-exiled daughter of the Pythian G.o.d!

Now in the ample chimney-place, To honor thy acknowledged race, We crown thee high with laurel good, Thy s.h.i.+ning father's sacred wood, Which, guessing thy ancestral right, Sparkles and snaps its dumb delight, 80 And, at thy touch, poor outcast one, Feels through its gladdened fibres go The tingle and thrill and va.s.sal glow Of instincts loyal to the sun.

VI

O thou of home the guardian Lar, And, when our earth hath wandered far, Into the cold, and deep snow covers The walks of our New England lovers, Their sweet secluded evening-star!

'Twas with thy rays the English Muse 90 Ripened her mild domestic hues; 'Twas by thy flicker that she conned The fireside wisdom that enrings With light from heaven familiar things; By thee she found the homely faith In whose mild eyes thy comfort stay'th When Death, extinguis.h.i.+ng his torch, Gropes for the latch-string in the porch; The love that wanders not beyond His earliest nest, but sits and sings 100 While children smooth his patient wings; Therefore with thee I love to read Our brave old poets; at thy touch how stirs Life in the withered words: how swift recede Time's shadows; and how glows again Through its dead ma.s.s the incandescent verse, As when upon the anvils of the brain It glittering lay, cyclopically wrought By the fast-throbbing hammers of the poet's thought!

Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred, 110 The aspirations unattained, The rhythms so rathe and delicate, They bent and strained And broke, beneath the sombre weight Of any airiest mortal word.

VII

What warm protection dost thou bend Round curtained talk of friend with friend, While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, To softest outline rounds the roof, Or the rude North with baffled strain 120 Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane!

Now the kind nymph to Bacchus born By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems Gifted opon her natal morn By him with fire, by her with dreams, Nicotia, dearer to the Muse Than all the grape's bewildering juice, We wors.h.i.+p, unforbid of thee; And, as her incense floats and curls In airy spires and wayward whirls, 130 Or poises on its tremulous stalk A flower of frailest revery, So winds and loiters, idly free, The current of unguided talk, Now laughter-rippled, and now caught In smooth, dark pools of deeper thought.

Meanwhile thou mellowest every word, A sweetly un.o.btrusive third; For thou hast magic beyond wine, To unlock natures each to each; 140 The unspoken thought thou canst divine; Thou fill'st the pauses of the speech With whispers that to dream-land reach And frozen fancy-springs unchain In Arctic outskirts of the brain: Sun of all inmost confidences, To thy rays doth the heart unclose Its formal calyx of pretences, That close against rude day's offences, And open its shy midnight rose! 150

VIII

Thou holdest not the master key With which thy Sire sets free the mystic gates Of Past and Future: not for common fates Do they wide open fling, And, with a far heard ring, Swing back their willing valves melodiously; Only to ceremonial days, And great processions of imperial song That set the world at gaze, Doth such high privilege belong; 160 But thou a postern-door canst ope To humbler chambers of the selfsame palace Where Memory lodges, and her sister Hope, Whose being is but as a crystal chalice Which, with her various mood, the elder fills Of joy or sorrow, So coloring as she wills With hues of yesterday the unconscious morrow.

IX

Thou sinkest, and my fancy sinks with thee: For thee I took the idle sh.e.l.l, 170 And struck the unused chords again, But they are gone who listened well; Some are in heaven, and all are far from me: Even as I sing, it turns to pain, And with vain tears my eyelids throb and swell: Enough; I come not of the race That hawk their sorrows in the market-place.

Earth stops the ears I best had loved to please; Then break, ye untuned chords, or rust in peace!

As if a white-haired actor should come back 180 Some midnight to the theatre void and black, And there rehea.r.s.e his youth's great part Mid thin applauses of the ghosts.

So seems it now: ye crowd upon my heart, And I bow down in silence, shadowy hosts!

FANCY'S CASUISTRY

How struggles with the tempest's swells That warning of tumultuous bells!

The fire is loose! and frantic knells Throb fast and faster, As tower to tower confusedly tells News of disaster.

But on my far-off solitude No harsh alarums can intrude; The terror comes to me subdued And charmed by distance, To deepen the habitual mood Of my existence.

Are those, I muse, the Easter chimes?

And listen, weaving careless rhymes While the loud city's griefs and crimes Pay gentle allegiance To the fine quiet that sublimes These dreamy regions.

And when the storm o'erwhelms the sh.o.r.e, I watch entranced as, o'er and o'er, The light revolves amid the roar So still and saintly, Now large and near, now more and more Withdrawing faintly.

This, too, despairing sailors see Flash out the breakers 'neath their lee In sudden snow, then lingeringly Wane tow'rd eclipse, While through the dark the shuddering sea Gropes for the s.h.i.+ps.

And is it right, this mood of mind That thus, in revery enshrined, Can in the world mere topics find For musing stricture, Seeing the life of humankind Only as picture?

The events in line of battle go; In vain for me their trumpets blow As unto him that lieth low In death's dark arches, And through the sod hears throbbing slow The m.u.f.fled marches.

O Duty, am I dead to thee In this my cloistered ecstasy, In this lone shallop on the sea That drifts tow'rd Silence?

And are those visioned sh.o.r.es I see But sirens' islands?

My Dante frowns with lip-locked mien, As who would say, ''Tis those, I ween, Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes lean That win the laurel;'

But where _is_ Truth? What does it mean, The world-old quarrel?

Such questionings are idle air: Leave what to do and what to spare To the inspiring moment's care, Nor ask for payment Of fame or gold, but just to wear Unspotted raiment.

TO MR. JOHN BARTLETT

WHO HAD SENT ME A SEVEN-POUND TROUT

Fit for an Abbot of Theleme, For the whole Cardinals' College, or The Pope himself to see in dream Before his lenten vision gleam.

He lies there, the sogdologer!

His precious flanks with stars besprent, Worthy to swim in Castaly!

The friend by whom such gifts are sent, For him shall b.u.mpers full be spent, His health! be Luck his fast ally!

I see him trace the wayward brook Amid the forest mysteries, Where at their shades shy aspens look.

Or where, with many a gurgling crook, It croons its woodland histories.

I see leaf-shade and sun-fleck lend Their tremulous, sweet vicissitude To smooth, dark pool, to crinkling bend,-- (Oh, stew him, Ann, as 'twere your friend, With amorous solicitude!)

I see him step with caution due, Soft as if shod with moccasins, Grave as in church, for who plies you, Sweet craft, is safe as in a pew From all our common stock o' sins.

The unerring fly I see him cast, That as a rose-leaf falls as soft, A flas.h.!.+ a whirl! he has him fast!

We tyros, how that struggle last Confuses and appalls us oft.

Unfluttered he: calm as the sky Looks on our tragi-comedies, This way and that he lets him fly, A sunbeam-shuttle, then to die Lands him, with cool _aplomb_, at ease.

The friend who gave our board such gust, Life's care may he o'erstep it half, And, when Death hooks him, as he must, He'll do it handsomely, I trust, And John H---- write his epitaph!

Oh, born beneath the Fishes' sign, Of constellations happiest, May he somewhere with Walton dine, May Horace send him Ma.s.sic wine, And Burns Scotch drink, the nappiest!