The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 80

The born disciple of an elder time, (To me sufficient, friendlier than the new,) Who in my blood feel motions of the Past, I thank benignant nature most for this,-- 570 A force of sympathy, or call it lack Of character firm-planted, loosing me From the pent chamber of habitual self To dwell enlarged in alien modes of thought, Haply distasteful, wholesomer for that, And through imagination to possess, As they were mine, the lives of other men.

This growth original of virgin soil, By fascination felt in opposites, Pleases and shocks, entices and perturbs. 580 In this brown-fisted rough, this s.h.i.+rt-sleeved Cid, This backwoods Charlemagne of empires new, Whose blundering heel instinctively finds out The goutier foot of speechless dignities, Who, meeting Caesar's self, would slap his back, Call him 'Old Horse,' and challenge to a drink, My lungs draw braver air, my breast dilates With ampler manhood, and I front both worlds, Of sense and spirit, as my natural fiefs, To shape and then reshape them as I will. 590 It was the first man's charter; why not mine?

How forfeit? when, deposed in other hands?

Thou shudder'st, Ovid? Dost in him forebode A new avatar of the large-limbed Goth, To break, or seem to break, tradition's clue.

And chase to dreamland back thy G.o.ds dethroned?

I think man's soul dwells nearer to the east, Nearer to morning's fountains than the sun; Herself the source whence all tradition sprang, Herself at once both labyrinth and clue, 600 The miracle fades out of history, But faith and wonder and the primal earth Are born into the world with every child.

Shall this self-maker with the prying eyes, This creature disenchanted of respect By the New World's new fiend, Publicity, Whose testing thumb leaves everywhere its s.m.u.tch, Not one day feel within himself the need Of loyalty to better than himself, That shall enn.o.ble him with the upward look? 610 Shall he not catch the Voice that wanders earth, With spiritual summons, dreamed or heard, As sometimes, just ere sleep seals up the sense, We hear our mother call from deeps of Time, And, waking, find it vision,--none the less The benediction bides, old skies return, And that unreal thing, preeminent, Makes air and dream of all we see and feel?

Shall he divine no strength unmade of votes, Inward, impregnable, found soon as sought, 620 Not cognizable of sense, o'er sense supreme?

Else were he desolate as none before.

His holy places may not be of stone, Nor made with hands, yet fairer far than aught By artist feigned or pious ardor reared, Fit altars for who guards inviolate G.o.d's chosen seat, the sacred form of man.

Doubtless his church will be no hospital For superannuate forms and mumping shams, No parlor where men issue policies 630 Of life-a.s.surance on the Eternal Mind, Nor his religion but an ambulance To fetch life's wounded and malingerers in, Scorned by the strong; yet he, unconscious heir To the Influence sweet of Athens and of Rome, And old Judaea's gift of secret fire, Spite of himself shall surely learn to know And wors.h.i.+p some ideal of himself, Some divine thing, large-hearted, brotherly, Not nice in trifles, a soft creditor, 640 Pleased with his world, and hating only cant.

And, if his Church be doubtful, it is sure That, in a world, made for whatever else, Not made for mere enjoyment, in a world Of toil but half-requited, or, at best, Paid in some futile currency of breath, A world of incompleteness, sorrow swift And consolation laggard, whatsoe'er The form of building or the creed professed, The Cross, bold type of shame to homage turned, 650 Of an unfinished life that sways the world, Shall tower as sovereign emblem over all.

The kobold Thought moves with us when we s.h.i.+ft Our dwelling to escape him; perched aloft On the first load of household-stuff he went: For, where the mind goes, goes old furniture.

I, who to Chartres came to feed my eye And give to Fancy one clear holiday, Scarce saw the minster for the thoughts it stirred Buzzing o'er past and future with vain quest. 660 Here once there stood a homely wooden church, Which slow devotion n.o.bly changed for this That echoes vaguely to my modern steps.

By suffrage universal it was built, As practised then, for all the country came From far as Rouen, to give votes for G.o.d, Each vote a block of stone securely laid Obedient to the master's deep-mused plan.

Will what our ballots rear, responsible To no grave forethought, stand so long as this? 670 Delight like this the eye of after days Brightening with pride that here, at least, were men Who meant and did the n.o.blest thing they knew?

Can our religion cope with deeds like this?

We, too, build Gothic contract-shams, because Our deacons have discovered that it pays, And pews sell better under vaulted roofs Of plaster painted like an Indian squaw.

Shall not that Western Goth, of whom we spoke, So fiercely practical, so keen of eye, 680 Find out, some day, that nothing pays but G.o.d, Served whether on the smoke-shut battle-field, In work obscure done honestly, or vote For truth unpopular, or faith maintained To ruinous convictions, or good deeds Wrought for good's sake, mindless of heaven or h.e.l.l?

Shall he not learn that all prosperity, Whose bases stretch not deeper than the sense, Is but a trick of this world's atmosphere, A desert-born mirage of spire and dome, 690 Or find too late, the Past's long lesson missed, That dust the prophets shake from off their feet Grows heavy to drag down both tower and wall?

I know not; but, sustained by sure belief That man still rises level with the height Of n.o.blest opportunities, or makes Such, if the time supply not, I can wait.

I gaze round on the windows, pride of France, Each the bright gift of some mechanic guild Who loved their city and thought gold well spent 700 To make her beautiful with piety; I pause, transfigured by some stripe of bloom, And my mind throngs with s.h.i.+ning auguries, Circle on circle, bright as seraphim, With golden trumpets, silent, that await The signal to blow news of good to men.

Then the revulsion came that always comes After these dizzy elations of the mind: And with a pa.s.sionate pang of doubt I cried, 'O mountain-born, sweet with snow-filtered air 710 From uncontaminate wells of ether drawn And never-broken secrecies of sky, Freedom, with anguish won, misprized till lost, They keep thee not who from thy sacred eyes Catch the consuming l.u.s.t of sensual good And the brute's license of unfettered will.

Far from the popular shout and venal breath Of Cleon blowing the mob's baser mind To bubbles of wind-piloted conceit, Thou shrinkest, gathering up thy skirts, to hide 720 In fortresses of solitary thought And private virtue strong in self-restraint.

Must we too forfeit thee misunderstood, Content with names, nor inly wise to know That best things perish of their own excess, And quality o'er-driven becomes defect?

Nay, is it thou indeed that we have glimpsed, Or rather such illusion as of old Through Athens glided menadlike and Rome, A shape of vapor, mother of vain dreams 730 And mutinous traditions, specious plea Of the glaived tyrant and long-memoried priest?'

I walked forth saddened; for all thought is sad, And leaves a bitterish savor in the brain, Tonic, it may be, not delectable, And turned, reluctant, for a parting look At those old weather-pitted images Of bygone struggle, now so sternly calm.

About their shoulders sparrows had built nests, And fluttered, chirping, from gray perch to perch, 740 Now on a mitre poising, now a crown, Irreverently happy. While I thought How confident they were, what careless hearts Flew on those lightsome wings and shared the sun, A larger shadow crossed; and looking up, I saw where, nesting in the h.o.a.ry towers, The sparrow-hawk slid forth on noiseless air, With sidelong head that watched the joy below, Grim Norman baron o'er this clan of Kelts.

Enduring Nature, force conservative, 750 Indifferent to our noisy whims! Men prate Of all heads to an equal grade cas.h.i.+ered On level with the dullest, and expect (Sick of no worse distemper than themselves) A wondrous cure-all in equality; They reason that To-morrow must be wise Because To-day was not, nor Yesterday, As if good days were shapen of themselves, Not of the very lifeblood of men's souls; Meanwhile, long-suffering, imperturbable, 760 Thou quietly complet'st thy syllogism, And from the premise sparrow here below Draw'st sure conclusion of the hawk above, Pleased with the soft-billed songster, pleased no less With the fierce beak of natures aquiline.

Thou beautiful Old Time, now hid away In the Past's valley of Avilion, Haply, like Arthur, till thy wound be healed, Then to reclaim the sword and crown again!

Thrice beautiful to us; perchance less fair 770 To who possessed thee, as a mountain seems To dwellers round its bases but a heap Of barren obstacle that lairs the storm And the avalanche's silent bolt holds back Leashed with a hair,--meanwhile some far-off clown, Hereditary delver of the plain, Sees it an unmoved vision of repose, Nest of the morning, and conjectures there The dance of streams to idle shepherds' pipes, And fairer habitations softly hung 780 On breezy slopes, or hid in valleys cool, For happier men. No mortal ever dreams That the scant isthmus he encamps upon Between two oceans, one, the Stormy, pa.s.sed, And one, the Peaceful, yet to venture on, Has been that future whereto prophets yearned For the fulfilment of Earth's cheated hope, Shall be that past which nerveless poets moan As the lost opportunity of song.

O Power, more near my life than life itself 790 (Or what seems life to us in sense immured), Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth, Share in the tree-top's joyance, and conceive Of suns.h.i.+ne and wide air and winged things By sympathy of nature, so do I Have evidence of Thee so far above, Yet in and of me! Rather Thou the root Invisibly sustaining, hid in light, Not darkness, or in darkness made by us.

If sometimes I must hear good men debate 800 Of other witness of Thyself than Thou, As if there needed any help of ours To nurse Thy flickering life, that else must cease, Blown out, as 'twere a candle, by men's breath, My soul shall not be taken in their snare, To change her inward surety for their doubt m.u.f.fled from sight in formal robes of proof: While she can only feel herself through Thee, I fear not Thy withdrawal; more I fear, Seeing, to know Thee not, hoodwinked with dreams 810 Of signs and wonders, while, unnoticed, Thou, Walking Thy garden still, commun'st with men, Missed in the commonplace of miracle.

THREE MEMORIAL POEMS

'Coscienza fusca O della propria o dell' altrui vergogna Pur sentira la tua parola brusca.'

If I let fall a word of bitter mirth When public shames more shameful pardon won, Some have misjudged me, and my service done, If small, yet faithful, deemed of little worth: Through veins that drew their life from Western earth Two hundred years and more my blood hath run In no polluted course from sire to son; And thus was I predestined ere my birth To love the soil wherewith my fibres own Instinctive sympathies; yet love it so As honor would, nor lightly to dethrone Judgment, the stamp of manhood, nor forego The son's right to a mother dearer grown With growing knowledge and more chaste than snow.

To

E.L. G.o.dKIN,

IN CORDIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS EMINENT SERVICE IN HEIGHTENING AND PURIFYING THE TONE OF OUR POLITICAL THOUGHT,

These Three Poems

ARE DEDICATED.

*** Readers, it is hoped, will remember that, by his Ode at the Harvard Commemoration, the author had precluded himself from many of the natural outlets of thought and feeling common to such occasions as are celebrated in these poems.

ODE

READ AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIGHT AT CONCORD BRIDGE

19TH APRIL, 1875

I

Who cometh over the hills, Her garments with morning sweet, The dance of a thousand rills Making music before her feet?

Her presence freshens the air; Suns.h.i.+ne steals light from her face; The leaden footstep of Care Leaps to the tune of her pace, Fairness of all that is fair, Grace at the heart of all grace, 10 Sweetener of hut and of hall, Bringer of life out of naught, Freedom, oh, fairest of all The daughters of Time and Thought!

II

She cometh, cometh to-day: Hark! hear ye not her tread, Sending a thrill through your clay, Under the sod there, ye dead, Her nurslings and champions?

Do ye not hear, as she comes, 20 The bay of the deep-mouthed guns, The gathering rote of the drums?

The belts that called ye to prayer, How wildly they clamor on her, Crying, 'She cometh! prepare Her to praise and her to honor, That a hundred years ago Scattered here in blood and tears Potent seeds wherefrom should grow Gladness for a hundred years!' 30

III

Tell me, young men, have ye seen Creature of diviner mien For true hearts to long and cry for, Manly hearts to live and die for?

What hath she that others want?

Brows that all endearments haunt, Eyes that make it sweet to dare, Smiles that cheer untimely death, Looks that fortify despair, Tones more brave than trumpet's breath; 40 Tell me, maidens, have ye known Household charm more sweetly rare, Grace of woman ampler blown, Modesty more debonair, Younger heart with wit full grown?

Oh for an hour of my prime, The pulse of my hotter years, That I might praise her in rhyme Would tingle your eyelids to tears, Our sweetness, our strength, and our star, 50 Our hope, our joy, and our trust, Who lifted us out of the dust, And made us whatever we are!

IV

Whiter than moons.h.i.+ne upon snow Her raiment is, but round the hem Crimson stained; and, as to and fro Her sandals flash, we see on them, And on her instep veined with blue, Flecks of crimson, on those fair feet, High-arched, Diana-like, and fleet, 60 Fit for no grosser stain than dew: Oh, call them rather chrisms than stains, Sacred and from heroic veins!

For, in the glory-guarded pa.s.s, Her haughty and far-s.h.i.+ning head She bowed to shrive Leonidas With his imperishable dead; Her, too, Morgarten saw, Where the Swiss lion fleshed his icy paw; She followed Cromwell's quenchless star 70 Where the grim Puritan tread Shook Marston, Naseby, and Dunbar: Yea, on her feet are dearer dyes Yet fresh, nor looked on with untearful eyes.