The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 86

Long may you live such songs to make, And I to listen while you wake, With skill of late disused, each tone Of the _Lesboum, barbiton_, At mastery, through long finger-ache, At length arrived.

II

As I read on, what changes steal O'er me and through, from head to heel?

A rapier thrusts coat-skirt aside, My rough Tweeds bloom to silken pride,-- Who was it laughed? Your hand, d.i.c.k Steele!

Down vistas long of clipt _charmille_ Watteau as Pierrot leads the reel; Tabor and pipe the dancers guide As I read on.

While in and out the verses wheel The wind-caught robes trim feet reveal, Lithe ankles that to music glide, But chastely and by chance descried; Art? Nature? Which do I most feel As I read on?

TO C.F. BRADFORD

ON THE GIFT OF A MEERSCHAUM PIPE

The pipe came safe, and welcome too, As anything must be from you; A meerschaum pure, 'twould float as light As she the girls call Amphitrite.

Mixture divine of foam and clay, From both it stole the best away: Its foam is such as crowns the glow Of beakers brimmed by Veuve Clicquot; Its clay is but congested lymph Jove chose to make some choicer nymph; And here combined,--why, this must be The birth of some enchanted sea, Shaped to immortal form, the type And very Venus of a pipe.

When high I heap it with the weed From Lethe wharf, whose potent seed Nicotia, big from Bacchus, bore And cast upon Virginia's sh.o.r.e, I'll think,--So fill the fairer bowl And wise alembic of thy soul, With herbs far-sought that shall distil, Not fumes to slacken thought and will, But bracing essences that nerve To wait, to dare, to strive, to serve.

When curls the smoke in eddies soft, And hangs a s.h.i.+fting dream aloft, That gives and takes, though chance-designed, The impress of the dreamer's mind, I'll think,--So let the vapors bred By Pa.s.sion, in the heart or head, Pa.s.s off and upward into s.p.a.ce, Waving farewells of tenderest grace, Remembered in some happier time, To blend their beauty with my rhyme.

While slowly o'er its candid bowl The color deepens (as the soul That burns in mortals leaves its trace Of bale or beauty on the face), I'll think,--So let the essence rare Of years consuming make me fair; So, 'gainst the ills of life profuse, Steep me in some narcotic juice; And if my soul must part with all That whiteness which we greenness call, Smooth back, O Fortune, half thy frown, And make me beautifully brown!

Dream-forger, I refill thy cup With reverie's wasteful pittance up, And while the fire burns slow away, Hiding itself in ashes gray, I'll think,--As inward Youth retreats, Compelled to spare his wasting heats, When Life's Ash-Wednesday comes about, And my head's gray with fires burnt out, While stays one spark to light the eye, With the last flash of memory, 'Twill leap to welcome C.F.B., Who sent my favorite pipe to me.

BANKSIDE

(HOME OF EDMUND QUINCY)

DEDHAM, MAY 21, 1877

I

I christened you in happier days, before These gray forebodings on my brow were seen; You are still lovely in your new-leaved green; The br.i.m.m.i.n.g river soothes his gra.s.sy sh.o.r.e; The bridge is there; the rock with lichens h.o.a.r; And the same shadows on the water lean, Outlasting us. How many graves between That day and this! How many shadows more Darken my heart, their substance from these eyes Hidden forever! So our world is made Of life and death commingled; and the sighs Outweigh the smiles, in equal balance laid: What compensation? None, save that the Allwise So schools us to love things that cannot fade.

II

Thank G.o.d, he saw you last in pomp of May, Ere any leaf had felt the year's regret; Your latest image in his memory set Was fair as when your landscape's peaceful sway Charmed dearer eyes with his to make delay On Hope's long prospect,--as if They forget The happy, They, the unspeakable Three, whose debt, Like the hawk's shadow, blots our brightest day: Better it is that ye should look so fair.

Slopes that he loved, and ever-murmuring pines That make a music out of silent air, And bloom-heaped orchard-trees in prosperous lines; In you the heart some sweeter hints divines, And wiser, than in winter's dull despair.

III

Old Friend, farewell! Your kindly door again I enter, but the master's hand in mine No more clasps welcome, and the temperate wine, That cheered our long nights, other lips must stain: All is unchanged, but I expect in vain The face alert, the manners free and fine, The seventy years borne lightly as the pine Wears its first down of snow in green disdain: Much did he, and much well; yet most of all I prized his skill in leisure and the ease Of a life flowing full without a plan; For most are idly busy; him I call Thrice fortunate who knew himself to please, Learned in those arts that make a gentleman.

IV

Nor deem he lived unto himself alone; His was the public spirit of his sire, And in those eyes, soft with domestic fire, A quenchless light of fiercer temper shone What time about, the world our shame was blown On every wind; his soul would not conspire With selfish men to soothe the mob's desire, Veiling with garlands Moloch's b.l.o.o.d.y stone; The high-bred instincts of a better day Ruled in his blood, when to be citizen Rang Roman yet, and a Free People's sway Was not the exchequer of impoverished men, Nor statesmans.h.i.+p with loaded votes to play, Nor public office a tramps' boosing-ken.

JOSEPH WINLOCK

DIED JUNE 11, 1875

Shy soul and stalwart, man of patient will Through years one hair's-breadth on our Dark to gain, Who, from the stars he studied not in vain, Had learned their secret to be strong and still, Careless of fames that earth's tin trumpets fill; Born under Leo, broad of build and brain, While others slept, he watched in that hushed fane Of Science, only witness of his skill: Sudden as falls a shooting-star he fell, But inextinguishable his luminous trace In mind and heart of all that knew him well.

Happy man's doom! To him the Fates were known Of orbs dim hovering on the skirts of s.p.a.ce, Unprescient, through G.o.d's mercy, of his own!

SONNET

TO f.a.n.n.y ALEXANDER

Unconscious as the suns.h.i.+ne, simply sweet And generous as that, thou dost not close Thyself in art, as life were but a rose To rumple bee-like with luxurious feet; Thy higher mind therein finds sure retreat, But not from care of common hopes and woes; Thee the dark chamber, thee the unfriended, knows, Although no babbling crowds thy praise repeat: Consummate artist, who life's landscape bleak Hast brimmed with sun to many a clouded eye, Touched to a brighter hue the beggar's cheek, Hung over orphaned lives a gracious sky, And traced for eyes, that else would vainly seek, Fair pictures of an angel drawing nigh!

JEFFRIES WYMAN

DIED SEPTEMBER 4, 1874

The wisest man could ask no more of Fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, Safe from the Many, honored by the Few; To count as naught in World, or Church, or State, But, inwardly in secret to be great; To feel mysterious Nature ever new; To touch, if not to grasp, her endless clue, And learn by each discovery how to wait.

He widened knowledge and escaped the praise; He wisely taught, because more wise to learn; He toiled for Science, not to draw men's gaze, But for her lore of self-denial stern.

That such a man could spring from our decays Fans the soul's n.o.bler faith until it burn.

TO A FRIEND

WHO GAVE ME A GROUP OF WEEDS AND GRa.s.sES, AFTER A DRAWING OF DuRER

True as the sun's own work, but more refined, It tells of love behind the artist's eye, Of sweet companions.h.i.+ps with earth and sky, And summers stored, the suns.h.i.+ne of the mind.

What peace! Sure, ere you breathe, the fickle wind Will break its truce and bend that gra.s.s-plume high, Scarcely yet quiet from the gilded fly That flits a more luxurious perch to find.

Thanks for a pleasure that can never pall, A serene moment, deftly caught and kept To make immortal summer on my wall.

Had he who drew such gladness ever wept?