The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 88

1874

Curtis, whose Wit, with Fancy arm in arm, Masks half its muscle in its skill to charm, And who so gently can the Wrong expose As sometimes to make converts, never foes, Or only such as good men must expect, Knaves sore with conscience of their own defect, I come with mild remonstrance. Ere I start, A kindlier errand interrupts my heart, And I must utter, though it vex your ears, The love, the honor, felt so many years. 10 Curtis, skilled equally with voice and pen To stir the hearts or mould the minds of men,-- That voice whose music, for I've heard you sing Sweet as Casella, can with pa.s.sion ring, That pen whose rapid ease ne'er trips with haste, Nor sc.r.a.pes nor sputters, pointed with good taste, First Steele's, then Goldsmith's, next it came to you, Whom Thackeray rated best of all our crew,-- Had letters kept you, every wreath were yours; Had the World tempted, all its chariest doors 20 Had swung on flattered hinges to admit Such high-bred manners, such good-natured wit; At courts, in senates, who so fit to serve?

And both invited, but you would not swerve, All meaner prizes waiving that you might In civic duty spend your heat and light, Unpaid, untrammelled, with a sweet disdain Refusing posts men grovel to attain.

Good Man all own you; what is left me, then, To heighten praise with but Good Citizen? 30

But why this praise to make you blush and stare, And give a backache to your Easy-Chair?

Old Crestien rightly says no language can Express the worth of a true Gentleman, And I agree; but other thoughts deride My first intent, and lure my pen aside.

Thinking of you, I see my firelight glow On other faces, loved from long ago, Dear to us both, and all these loves combine With this I send and crowd in every line; 40 Fortune with me was in such generous mood That all my friends were yours, and all were good; Three generations come when one I call, And the fair grandame, youngest of them all, In her own Florida who found and sips The fount that fled from Ponce's longing lips.

How bright they rise and wreathe my hearthstone round, Divine my thoughts, reply without a sound, And with them many a shape that memory sees, As dear as they, but crowned with aureoles these! 50 What wonder if, with protest in my thought, Arrived, I find 'twas only love I brought?

I came with protest; Memory barred the road Till I repaid you half the debt I owed.

No, 'twas not to bring laurels that I came, Nor would you wish it, daily seeing fame, (Or our cheap subst.i.tute, unknown of yore,) Dumped like a load of coal at every door, Mime and hetaera getting equal weight With him whose toils heroic saved the State. 60 But praise can harm not who so calmly met Slander's worst word, nor treasured up the debt, Knowing, what all experience serves to show, No mud can soil us but the mud we throw.

You have heard harsher voices and more loud, As all must, not sworn liegemen of the crowd, And far aloof your silent mind could keep As when, in heavens with winter-midnight deep, The perfect moon hangs thoughtful, nor can know What hounds her lucent calm drives mad below. 70 But to my business, while you rub your eyes And wonder how you ever thought me wise.

Dear friend and old, they say you shake your head And wish some bitter words of mine unsaid: I wish they might be,--there we are agreed; I hate to speak, still more what makes the need; But I must utter what the voice within Dictates, for acquiescence dumb were sin; I blurt ungrateful truths, if so they be, That none may need to say them after me. 80 'Twere my felicity could I attain The temperate zeal that balances your brain; But nature still o'erleaps reflection's plan, And one must do his service as he can.

Think you it were not pleasanter to speak Smooth words that leave unflushed the brow and cheek?

To sit, well-dined, with cynic smile, unseen In private box, spectator of the scene Where men the comedy of life rehea.r.s.e, Idly to judge which better and which worse 90 Each hireling actor spoiled his worthless part?

Were it not sweeter with a careless heart, In happy commune with the untainted brooks, To dream all day, or, walled with silent books, To hear nor heed the World's unmeaning noise, Safe in my fortress stored with lifelong joys?

I love too well the pleasures of retreat Safe from the crowd and cloistered from the street; The fire that whispers its domestic joy, Flickering on walls that knew me still a boy, 100 And knew my saintly father; the full days, Not careworn from the world's soul-squandering ways, Calm days that loiter with snow-silent tread, Nor break my commune with the undying dead; Truants of Time, to-morrow like to-day, That come unhid, and claimless glide away By shelves that sun them in the indulgent Past, Where Spanish castles, even, were built to last, Where saint and sage their silent vigil keep, And wrong hath ceased or sung itself to sleep. 110 Dear were my walks, too, gathering fragrant store Of Mother Nature's simple-minded lore: I learned all weather-signs of day or night; No bird but I could name him by his flight, No distant tree but by his shape was known, Or, near at hand, by leaf or bark alone.

This learning won by loving looks I hived As sweeter lore than all from books derived.

I know the charm of hillside, field, and wood, Of lake and stream, and the sky's downy brood, 120 Of roads sequestered rimmed with sallow sod, But friends with hardhack, aster, goldenrod, Or succory keeping summer long its trust Of heaven-blue fleckless from the eddying dust: These were my earliest friends, and latest too, Still unestranged, whatever fate may do.

For years I had these treasures, knew their worth, Estate most real man can have on earth.

I sank too deep in this soft-stuffed repose That hears but rumors of earth's wrongs and woes; 130 Too well these Capuas could my muscles waste, Not void of toils, but toils of choice and taste; These still had kept me could I but have quelled The Puritan drop that in my veins rebelled.

But there were times when silent were my books As jailers are, and gave me sullen looks, When verses palled, and even the woodland path, By innocent contrast, fed my heart with wrath, And I must twist my little gift of words Into a scourge of rough and knotted cords 140 Unmusical, that whistle as they swing To leave on shameless backs their purple sting.

How slow Time comes! Gone who so swift as he?

Add but a year, 'tis half a century Since the slave's stifled moaning broke my sleep, Heard 'gainst my will in that seclusion deep, Haply heard louder for the silence there, And so my fancied safeguard made my snare.

After that moan had sharpened to a cry, And a cloud, hand-broad then, heaped all our sky 150 With its stored vengeance, and such thunders stirred As heaven's and earth's remotest chambers heard, I looked to see an ampler atmosphere By that electric pa.s.sion-gust blown clear.

I looked for this; consider what I see-- But I forbear, 'twould please nor you nor me To check the items in the bitter list Of all I counted on and all I mist.

Only three instances I choose from all, And each enough to stir a pigeon's gall: 160 Office a fund for ballot-brokers made To pay the drudges of their gainful trade; Our cities taught what conquered cities feel By aediles chosen that they might safely steal; And gold, however got, a t.i.tle fair To such respect as only gold can bear.

I seem to see this; how shall I gainsay What all our journals tell me every day?

Poured our young martyrs their high-hearted blood That we might trample to congenial mud 170 The soil with such a legacy sublimed?

Methinks an angry scorn is here well-timed: Where find retreat? How keep reproach at bay?

Where'er I turn some scandal fouls the way.

Dear friend, if any man I wished to please, 'Twere surely you whose humor's honied ease Flows flecked with gold of thought, whose generous mind Sees Paradise regained by all mankind, Whose brave example still to vanward s.h.i.+nes, Cheeks the retreat, and spurs our lagging lines. 180 Was I too bitter? Who his phrase can choose That sees the life-blood of his dearest ooze?

I loved my Country so as only they Who love a mother fit to die for may; I loved her old renown, her stainless fame,-- What better proof than that I loathed her shame?

That many blamed me could not irk me long, But, if you doubted, must I not be wrong?

'Tis not for me to answer; this I know.

That man or race so prosperously low 190 Sunk in success that wrath they cannot feel, Shall taste the spurn of parting Fortune's heel; For never land long lease of empire won Whose sons sate silent when base deeds were done.

POSTSCRIPT, 1887

Curtis, so wrote I thirteen years ago, Tost it unfinished by, and left it so; Found lately, I have pieced it out, or tried, Since time for callid juncture was denied.

Some of the verses pleased me, it is true, And still were pertinent,--those honoring you. 200 These now I offer: take them, if you will, Like the old hand-grasp, when at Shady Hill We met, or Staten Island, in the days When life was its own spur, nor needed praise.

If once you thought me rash, no longer fear; Past my next milestone waits my seventieth year.

I mount no longer when the trumpets call; My battle-harness idles on the wall, The spider's castle, camping-ground of dust, Not without dints, and all in front, I trust. 210 s.h.i.+vering sometimes it calls me as it hears Afar the charge's tramp and clash of spears; But 'tis such murmur only as might be The sea-sh.e.l.l's lost tradition of the sea, That makes me muse and wonder Where? and When?

While from my cliff I watch the waves of men That climb to break midway their seeming gain, And think it triumph if they shake their chain.

Little I ask of Fate; will she refuse Some days of reconcilement with the Muse? 220 I take my reed again and blow it free Of dusty silence, murmuring, 'Sing to me!'

And, as its stops my curious touch retries, The stir of earlier instincts I surprise,-- Instincts, if less imperious, yet more strong, And happy in the toil that ends with song.

Home am I come: not, as I hoped might be, To the old haunts, too full of ghosts for me, But to the olden dreams that time endears, And the loved books that younger grow with years; 230 To country rambles, timing with my tread Some happier verse that carols in my head, Yet all with sense of something vainly mist, Of something lost, but when I never wist.

How empty seems to me the populous street, One figure gone I daily loved to meet,-- The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below!

And, ah, what absence feel I at my side, Like Dante when he missed his laurelled guide, 240 What sense of diminution in the air Once so inspiring, Emerson not there!

But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet Lessen like sound of friends' departing feet, And Death is beautiful as feet of friend Coming with welcome at our journey's end; For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied, A nature sloping to the southern side; I thank her for it, though when clouds arise Such natures double-darken gloomy skies. 250 I muse upon the margin of the sea, Our common pathway to the new To Be, Watching the sails, that lessen more and more, Of good and beautiful embarked before; With bits of wreck I patch the boat shall bear Me to that unexhausted Otherwhere, Whose friendly-peopled sh.o.r.e I sometimes see, By soft mirage uplifted, beckon me, Nor sadly hear, as lower sinks the sun, My moorings to the past snap one by one. 260

II. SENTIMENT

ENDYMION

A MYSTICAL COMMENT ON t.i.tIAN'S 'SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE'

I

My day began not till the twilight fell, And, lo, in ether from heaven's sweetest well, The New Moon swam divinely isolate In maiden silence, she that makes my fate Haply not knowing it, or only so As I the secrets of my sheep may know; Nor ask I more, entirely blest if she, In letting me adore, enn.o.ble me To height of what the G.o.ds meant making man, As only she and her best beauty can. 10 Mine be the love that in itself can find Seed of white thoughts, the lilies of the mind, Seed of that glad surrender of the will That finds in service self's true purpose still: Love that in outward fairness sees the tent Pitched for an inmate far more excellent; Love with a light irradiate to the core, Lit at her lamp, but fed from inborn store; Love thrice-requited with the single joy Of an immaculate vision naught could cloy, 20 Dearer because, so high beyond my scope, My life grew rich with her, unbribed by hope Of other guerdon save to think she knew One grateful votary paid her all her due; Happy if she, high-radiant there, resigned To his sure trust her image in his mind.

O fairer even than Peace is when she comes Hus.h.i.+ng War's tumult, and retreating drums Fade to a murmur like the sough of bees Hidden among the noon-stilled linden-trees, 30 Bringer of quiet, thou that canst allay The dust and din and travail of the day, Strewer of Silence, Giver of the dew That doth our pastures and our souls renew, Still dwell remote, still on thy sh.o.r.eless sea Float unattained in silent empery, Still light my thoughts, nor listen to a prayer Would make thee less imperishably fair!

II

Can, then, my twofold nature find content In vain conceits of airy blandishment? 40 Ask I no more? Since yesterday I task My storm-strewn thoughts to tell me what I ask: Faint premenitions of mutation strange Steal o'er my perfect orb, and, with the change, Myself am changed; the shadow of my earth Darkens the disk of that celestial worth Which only yesterday could still suffice Upwards to waft my thoughts in sacrifice; My heightened fancy with its touches warm Moulds to a woman's that ideal form; 50 Nor yet a woman's wholly, but divine With awe her purer essence bred in mine.

Was it long brooding on their own surmise, Which, of the eyes engendered, fools the eyes, Or have I seen through that translucent air A Presence shaped in its seclusions bare, My G.o.ddess looking on me from above As look our russet maidens when they love, But high-uplifted, o'er our human heat And pa.s.sion-paths too rough for her pearl feet? 60

Slowly the Shape took outline as I gazed At her full-orbed or crescent, till, bedazed With wonder-working light that subtly wrought My brain to its own substance, steeping thought In trances such as poppies give, I saw Things shut from vision by sight's sober law, Amorphous, changeful, but defined at last Into the peerless Shape mine eyes hold fast.

This, too, at first I wors.h.i.+pt: soon, like wine, Her eyes, in mine poured, frenzy-philtred mine; 70 Pa.s.sion put Wors.h.i.+p's priestly raiment on And to the woman knelt, the G.o.ddess gone.

Was I, then, more than mortal made? or she Less than divine that she might mate with me?

If mortal merely, could my nature cope With such o'ermastery of maddening hope?

If G.o.ddess, could she feel the blissful woe That women in their self-surrender know?

III

Long she abode aloof there in her heaven, Far as the grape-bunch of the Pleiad seven 80 Beyond my madness' utmost leap; but here Mine eyes have feigned of late her rapture near, Moulded of mind-mist that broad day dispels, Here in these shadowy woods and brook-lulled dells.

Have no heaven-habitants e'er felt a void In hearts sublimed with ichor unalloyed?

E'er longed to mingle with a mortal fate Intense with pathos of its briefer date?

Could she partake, and live, our human stains?

Even with the thought there tingles through my veins 90 Sense of unwarned renewal; I, the dead, Receive and house again the ardor fled, As once Alcestis; to the ruddy brim Feel masculine virtue flooding every limb, And life, like Spring returning, brings the key That sets my senses from their winter free, Dancing like naked fauns too glad for shame.

Her pa.s.sion, purified to palest flame, Can it thus kindle? Is her purpose this?

I will not argue, lest I lose a bliss 100 That makes me dream t.i.thonus' fortune mine, (Or what of it was palpably divine Ere came the fruitlessly immortal gift;) I cannot curb my hope's imperious drift That wings with fire my dull mortality; Though fancy-forged, 'tis all I feel or see.

IV