The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 99

A public meeting, treated at his cost, Resolves him back more virtue than he lost; With character regilt he counts his gains; What's gone was air, the solid good remains; For what is good, except what friend and foe 70 Seem quite unanimous in thinking so, The stocks and bonds which, in our age of loans, Replace the stupid pagan's stocks and stones?

With choker white, wherein no cynic eye Dares see idealized a hempen tie, At parish-meetings he conducts in prayer, And pays for missions to be sent elsewhere; On 'Change respected, to his friends endeared, Add but a Sunday-school cla.s.s, he's revered, And his too early tomb will not be dumb 80 To point a moral for our youth to come.

IN THE HALF-WAY HOUSE

I

At twenty we fancied the blest Middle Ages A spirited cross of romantic and grand, All templars and minstrels and ladies and pages, And love and adventure in Outre-Mer land; But ah, where the youth dreamed of building a minster, The man takes a pew and sits reckoning his pelf, And the Graces wear fronts, the Muse thins to a spinster, When Middle-Age stares from one's gla.s.s at oneself!

II

Do you twit me with days when I had an Ideal, And saw the sear future through spectacles green?

Then find me some charm, while I look round and see all These fat friends of forty, shall keep me nineteen; Should we go on pining for chaplets of laurel Who've paid a perruquier for mending our thatch, Or, our feet swathed in baize, with our Fate pick a quarrel, If, instead of cheap bay-leaves, she sent a dear scratch?

III

We called it our Eden, that small patent-baker, When life was half moons.h.i.+ne and half Mary Jane; But the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker!-- Did Adam have duns and slip down a back-lane?

Nay, after the Fall did the modiste keep coming With the last styles of fig-leaf to Madam Eve's bower?

Did Jubal, or whoever taught the girls thrumming, Make the patriarchs deaf at a dollar the hour?

IV

As I think what I was, I sigh _Desunt nonnulla!_ Years are creditors Sheridan's self could not bilk; But then, as my boy says, 'What right has a fullah To ask for the cream, when himself spilt the milk?'

Perhaps when you're older, my lad, you'll discover The secret with which Auld Lang Syne there is gilt,-- Superst.i.tion of old man, maid, poet, and lover,-- That cream rises thickest on milk that was spilt!

V

We sailed for the moon, but, in sad disillusion, Snug under Point Comfort are glad to make fast, And strive (sans our gla.s.ses) to make a confusion 'Twixt our rind of green cheese and the moon of the past.

Ah, Might-have-been, Could-have-been, Would-have-been! rascals, He's a genius or fool whom ye cheat at two-score, And the man whose boy-promise was likened to Pascal's Is thankful at forty they don't call him bore!

VI

With what fumes of fame was each confident pate full!

How rates of insurance should rise on the Charles!

And which of us now would not feel wisely grateful, If his rhymes sold as fast as the Emblems of Quarles?

E'en if won, what's the good of Life's medals and prizes?

The rapture's in what never was or is gone; That we missed them makes Helens of plain Ann Elizys, For the goose of To-day still is Memory's swan.

VII

And yet who would change the old dream for new treasure?

Make not youth's sourest grapes the best wine of our life?

Need he reckon his date by the Almanac's measure Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife?

Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian, Let me still take Hope's frail I.O.U.'s upon trust, Still talk of a trip to the Islands Macarian, And still climb the dream-tree for--ashes and dust!

AT THE BURNS CENTENNIAL

JANUARY, 1859

I

A hundred years! they're quickly fled, With all their joy and sorrow; Their dead leaves shed upon the dead, Their fresh ones sprung by morrow!

And still the patient seasons bring Their change of sun and shadow; New birds still sing with every spring, New violets spot the meadow.

II

A hundred years! and Nature's powers No greater grown nor lessened! 10 They saw no flowers more sweet than ours, No fairer new moon's crescent.

Would she but treat us poets so, So from our winter free us, And set our slow old sap aflow To sprout in fresh ideas!

III

Alas, think I, what worth or parts Have brought me here competing, To speak what starts in myriad hearts With Burns's memory beating! 20 Himself had loved a theme like this; Must I be its entomber?

No pen save his but's sure to miss Its pathos or its humor.

IV

As I sat musing what to say, And how my verse to number, Some elf in play pa.s.sed by that way, And sank my lids in slumber; And on my sleep a vision stole.

Which I will put in metre, 30 Of Burns's soul at the wicket-hole Where sits the good Saint Peter.

V

The saint, methought, had left his post That day to Holy Willie, Who swore, 'Each ghost that comes shall toast In brunstane, will he, nill he; There's nane need hope with phrases fine Their score to wipe a sin frae; I'll chalk a sign, to save their tryin',-- A hand ([Ill.u.s.tration of a hand]) and "_Vide infra!_"' 40

VI

Alas! no soil's too cold or dry For spiritual small potatoes, Scrimped natures, spry the trade to ply Of _diaboli advocatus_; Who lay bent pins in the penance-stool Where Mercy plumps a cus.h.i.+on, Who've just one rule for knave and fool, It saves so much confusion!

VII

So when Burns knocked, Will knit his brows, His window gap made scanter, 50 And said, 'Go rouse the other house; We lodge no Tam O'Shanter!'

'_We_ lodge!' laughed Burns. 'Now well I see Death cannot kill old nature; No human flea but thinks that he May speak for his Creator!

VIII