The Poems of Sidney Lanier Part 31

Our Hills.

Dear Mother-Earth Of t.i.tan birth, Yon hills are your large b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and often I Have climbed to their top-nipples, fain and dry To drink my mother's-milk so near the sky.

O ye hill-stains, Red, for all rains!

The blood that made you has all bled for us, The hearts that paid you are all dead for us, The trees that shade you groan with lead, for us!

And O, hill-sides, Like giants' brides Ye sleep in ravine-rumpled draperies, And weep your springs in tearful memories Of days that stained your robes with stains like these!

Sleep on, ye hills!

Weep on, ye rills!

The stainers have decreed the stains shall stay.

They chain the hands might wash the stains away.

They wait with cold hearts till we "rue the day".

O Mother-Earth Of t.i.tan birth, Thy mother's-milk is curdled with aloe.

-- Like hills, Men, lift calm heads through any woe, And weep, but bow not an inch, for any foe!

Thou Sorrow-height We climb by night, Thou hast no h.e.l.l-deep chasm save Disgrace.

To stoop, will fling us down its fouled s.p.a.ce: Stand proud! The Dawn will meet us, face to face, For down steep hills the Dawn loves best to race!

Laughter in the Senate.

In the South lies a lonesome, hungry Land; He huddles his rags with a cripple's hand; He mutters, p.r.o.ne on the barren sand, What time his heart is breaking.

He lifts his bare head from the ground; He listens through the gloom around: The winds have brought him a strange sound Of distant merrymaking.

Comes now the Peace so long delayed?

Is it the cheerful voice of Aid?

Begins the time his heart has prayed, When men may reap and sow?

Ah, G.o.d! Back to the cold earth's breast!

The sages chuckle o'er their jest; Must they, to give a people rest, Their dainty wit forego?

The tyrants sit in a stately hall; They jibe at a wretched people's fall; The tyrants forget how fresh is the pall Over their dead and ours.

Look how the senators ape the clown, And don the motley and hide the gown, But yonder a fast-rising frown On the people's forehead lowers.

____ 1868.

Baby Charley.

He's fast asleep. See how, O Wife, Night's finger on the lip of life Bids whist the tongue, so prattle-rife, Of busy Baby Charley.

One arm stretched backward round his head, Five little toes from out the bed Just showing, like five rosebuds red, -- So slumbers Baby Charley.

Heaven-lights, I know, are beaming through Those lucent eyelids, veined with blue, That shut away from mortal view Large eyes of Baby Charley.

O sweet Sleep-Angel, throned now On the round glory of his brow, Wave thy wing and waft my vow Breathed over Baby Charley.

I vow that my heart, when death is nigh, Shall never s.h.i.+ver with a sigh For act of hand or tongue or eye That wronged my Baby Charley!

____ Macon, Georgia, December, 1869.

A Sea-Sh.o.r.e Grave. To M. J. L.

By Sidney and Clifford Lanier.

O wish that's vainer than the plash Of these wave-whimsies on the sh.o.r.e: "Give us a pearl to fill the gash -- G.o.d, let our dead friend live once more!"

O wish that's stronger than the stroke Of yelling wave and snapping levin; "G.o.d, lift us o'er the Last Day's smoke, All white, to Thee and her in Heaven!"

O wish that's swifter than the race Of wave and wind in sea and sky; Let's take the grave-cloth from her face And fall in the grave, and kiss, and die!

Look! High above a glittering calm Of sea and sky and kingly sun, She s.h.i.+nes and smiles, and waves a palm -- And now we wish -- Thy will be done!

____ Montgomery, Alabama, 1866.

Souls and Rain-Drops.

Light rain-drops fall and wrinkle the sea, Then vanish, and die utterly.

One would not know that rain-drops fell If the round sea-wrinkles did not tell.

So souls come down and wrinkle life And vanish in the flesh-sea strife.

One might not know that souls had place Were't not for the wrinkles in life's face.