Poems of James Russell Lowell Part 41

O thou, whose days are yet all spring, Faith, blighted once, is past retrieving; Experience is a dumb, dead thing; The victory's in believing.

FREEDOM.

Are we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest Their spirit to our plains, and thou, blue sea, Who on our rocks thy wreaths of freedom flingest, As on an altar,--can it be that ye Have wasted inspiration on dead ears, Dulled with the too familiar clank of chains?

The people's heart is like a harp for years Hung where some petrifying torrent rains Its slow-incrusting spray: the stiffened chords Faint and more faint make answer to the tears That drip upon them: idle are all words; Only a silver plectrum wakes the tone Deep buried 'neath that ever-thickening stone.

We are not free: Freedom doth not consist In musing with our faces toward the Past, While petty cares, and crawling interests, twist Their spider-threads about us, which at last Grow strong as iron chains, to cramp and bind In formal narrowness heart, soul, and mind.

Freedom is recreated year by year, In hearts wide open on the G.o.dward side, In souls calm-cadenced as the whirling sphere, In minds that sway the future like a tide.

No broadest creeds can hold her, and no codes; She chooses men for her august abodes, Building them fair and fronting to the dawn; Yet, when we seek her, we but find a few Light footprints, leading morn-ward through the dew; Before the day had risen, she was gone.

And we must follow: swiftly runs she on, And, if our steps should slacken in despair, Half turns her face, half smiles through golden hair, Forever yielding, never wholly won: That is not love which pauses in the race Two close-linked names on fleeting sand to trace; Freedom gained yesterday is no more ours; Men gather but dry seeds of last year's flowers: Still there's a charm ungranted, still a grace, Still rosy Hope, the free, the unattained, Makes us Possession's languid hand let fall; 'Tis but a fragment of ourselves is gained,-- The Future brings us more, but never all.

And, as the finder of some unknown realm, Mounting a summit whence he thinks to see On either side of him the imprisoning sea, Beholds, above the clouds that overwhelm The valley-land, peak after snowy peak Stretch out of sight, each like a silver helm Beneath its plume of smoke, sublime and bleak, And what he thought an island finds to be A continent to him first oped,--so we Can from our height of Freedom look along A boundless future, ours if we be strong; Or if we shrink, better remount our s.h.i.+ps And, fleeing G.o.d's express design, trace back The hero-freighted Mayflower's prophet-track To Europe, entering her blood-red eclipse.

BIBLIOLATRES.

Bowing thyself in dust before a Book, And thinking the great G.o.d is thine alone, O rash iconoclast, thou wilt not brook What G.o.ds the heathen carves in wood and stone, As if the Shepherd who from outer cold Leads all his s.h.i.+vering lambs to one sure fold Were careful for the fas.h.i.+on of his crook.

There is no broken reed so poor and base, No rush, the bending tilt of swamp-fly blue, But he therewith the ravening wolf can chase, And guide his flock to springs and pastures new; Through ways unlooked for, and through many lands, Far from the rich folds built with human hands, The gracious footprints of his love I trace.

And what art thou, own brother of the clod, That from his hand the crook wouldst s.n.a.t.c.h away And shake instead thy dry and sapless rod, To scare the sheep out of the wholesome day?

Yea, what art thou, blind, unconverted Jew, That with thy idol-volume's covers two Wouldst make a jail to coop the living G.o.d?

Thou hear'st not well the mountain organ-tones By prophet ears from Hor and Sinai caught, Thinking the cisterns of those Hebrew brains Drew dry the springs of the All-knower's thought, Nor shall thy lips be touched with living fire, Who blow'st old altar-coals with sole desire To weld anew the spirit's broken chains.

G.o.d is not dumb, that he should speak no more; If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor; There towers the mountain of the Voice no less, Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends, Intent on manna still and mortal ends, Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore.

Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, And not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone; Each age, each kindred adds a verse to it, Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan.

While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud, While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of cloud, Still at the prophets' feet the nations sit.

BEAVER BROOK.

Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill, And, minuting the long day's loss, The cedar's shadow, slow and still, Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss.

Warm noon brims full the valley's cup, The aspen's leaves are scarce astir, Only the little mill sends up Its busy, never-ceasing burr.

Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems The road along the mill-pond's brink, From 'neath the arching barberry-stems, My footstep scares the shy chewink.

Beneath a bony b.u.t.tonwood The mill's red door lets forth the din; The whitened miller, dust-imbued, Flits past the square of dark within.

No mountain torrent's strength is here; Sweet Beaver, child of forest still, Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, And gently waits the miller's will.

Swift slips Undine along the race Unheard, and then, with flas.h.i.+ng bound, Floods the dull wheel with light and grace, And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round.

The miller dreams not at what cost The quivering mill-stones hum and whirl, Nor how for every turn, are tost Armfuls of diamond and of pearl.

But Summer cleared my happier eyes With drops of some celestial juice, To see how Beauty underlies For evermore each form of Use.

And more: methought I saw that flood, Which now so dull and darkling steals, Thick, here and there, with human blood, To turn the world's laborious wheels.

No more than doth the miller there, Shut in our several cells, do we Know with what waste of beauty rare Moves every day's machinery.

Surely the wiser time shall come When this fine overplus of might, No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, Shall leap to music and to light.

In that new childhood of the Earth Life of itself shall dance and play; Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth, And labor meet delight half-way.

APPLEDORE.

How looks Appledore in a storm?

I have seen it when its crags seemed frantic, b.u.t.ting against the maddened Atlantic, When surge after surge would heap enorme, Cliffs of Emerald topped with snow, That lifted and lifted and then let go A great white avalanche of thunder, A grinding, blinding, deafening ire Monadnock might have trembled under; And the island, whose rock-roots pierce below To where they are warmed with the central fire, You could feel its granite fibres racked, As it seemed to plunge with a shudder and thrill Right at the breast of the swooping hill, And to rise again, snorting a cataract Of rage-froth from every cranny and ledge, While the sea drew its breath in hoa.r.s.e and deep, And the next vast breaker curled its edge, Gathering itself for a mighty leap.

North, east, and south there are reefs and breakers, You would never dream of in smooth weather, That toss and gore the sea for acres, Bellowing and gnas.h.i.+ng and snarling together; Look northward, where Duck Island lies, And over its crown you will see arise, Against a background of slaty skies, A row of pillars still and white That glimmer and then are out of sight, As if the moon should suddenly kiss, While you crossed the gusty desert by night, The long colonnades of Persepolis, And then as sudden a darkness should follow To gulp the whole scene at single swallow, The city's ghost, the drear, brown waste, And the string of camels, clumsy-paced:-- Look southward for White Island light, The lantern stands ninety feet o'er the tide; There is first a half-mile of tumult and fight, Of dash and roar and tumble and fright, And surging bewilderment wild and wide, Where the breakers struggle left and right, Then a mile or more of rus.h.i.+ng sea, And then the light-house slim and lone; And whenever the whole weight of ocean is thrown Full and fair on White Island head, A great mist-jotun you will see Lifting himself up silently High and huge o'er the light-house top, With hands of wavering spray outspread, Groping after the little tower, That seems to shrink, and shorten and cower, Till the monster's arms of a sudden drop, And silently and fruitlessly He sinks again into the sea.

You, meanwhile, where drenched you stand, Awaken once more to the rush and roar And on the rock-point tighten your hand, As you turn and see a valley deep, That was not there a moment before, Suck rattling down between you and a heap Of toppling billow, whose instant fall Must sink the whole island once for all-- Or watch the silenter, stealthier seas Feeling their way to you more and more; If they once should clutch you high as the knees They would whirl you down like a sprig of kelp, Beyond all reach of hope or help;-- And such in a storm is Appledore.

DARA.

When Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand Wilted by harem-heats, and all the land Was hovered over by those vulture ills That snuff decaying empire from afar, Then, with a nature balanced as a star, Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills.

He, who had governed fleecy subjects well, Made his own village, by the self-same spell, Secure and peaceful as a guarded fold, Till, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees, Under his sway, to neighbor villages Order returned, and faith and justice old.

Now, when it fortuned that a king more wise Endued the realm with brain and hands and eyes, He sought on every side men brave and just, And having heard the mountain-shepherd's praise, How he rendered the mould of elder days, To Dara gave a satrapy in trust.

So Dara shepherded a province wide, Nor in his viceroy's sceptre took more pride Than in his crook before; but Envy finds More soil in cities than on mountains bare, And the frank sun of spirits clear and rare Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish minds.

Soon it was whispered at the royal ear That, though wise Dara's province, year by year, Like a great sponge, drew wealth and plenty up, Yet, when he squeezed it at the king's behest, Some golden drops, more rich than all the rest, Went to the filling of his private cup.

For proof, they said that whereso'er he went A chest, beneath whose weight the camel bent, Went guarded, and no other eye had seen What was therein, save only Dara's own, Yet, when 'twas opened, all his tent was known To glow and lighten with heapt jewels' sheen.