For every long-armed woman vine
That round a piteous tree doth twine;
For passionate odours, and divine
Pistils, and petals crystalline;
All purities of shady springs,
All shyness of film-winged things
That fly from tree-trunks and bark-rings;
All modesties of mountain-fawns
That leap to covert from wild lawns,
And tremble if the day but dawns;
All sparklings of small beady eyes
Of birds, and sidelong glances wise
Wherewith the jay hints tragedies;
All piquances of prickly burs,
And smoothnesses of downs and furs,
Of eiders and of minevers;
All limpid honeys that do lie,
At stamen-bases, nor deny
The humming-bird's fine roguery,
Bee-thighs, nor any butterfly;
All gracious curves of slender wings,
Bark-motlings, fibre-spiralings,
Fern-wavings, and leaf-flickerings;
Each dial-marked leaf and flower-bell
Wherewith in every lonesome dell
Time to himself his hours doth tell;
All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones,
Wind-sighings, dove's melodious moans,
And night's unearthly under-tones;
All placid lakes and waveless deeps,
All cool reposing mountain-steeps,
Vale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps ;-
Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights,
And warmths, and mysteries, and mights,
Of Nature's utmost depths and heights,
-These doth my timid tongue present,
Their mouthpiece and leal instrument
And servant, all love-eloquent.
AT midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,
When far within the spirit's hearing rolls
The great soft rumble of the course of things-
A bulk of silence in a mask of sound,-
When darkness clears our vision that by day
Is sun-blind, and the soul's a raving owl
For truth and flitteth here and there about
Low-lying woody tracks of time and oft
Is minded for to sit upon a bough,
Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken tree
And muse in that gaunt place,-'twas then my heart,
Deep in the meditative dark, cried out:
"Ye companies of governor-spirits grave,
Bards, and old bringers-down of flaming news
From steep-wall'd heavens, holy malcontents,
Sweet seers, and stellar visionaries, all
That brood about the skies of poesy,
Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars;
Yet, if a man look hard upon you, none
With total lustre blazeth, no, not one
But hath some heinous freckle of the flesh
Upon his shining cheek, not one but winks.
His ray, opaqued with intermittent mist
Of defect; yea, you masters all must ask
Some sweet forgiveness, which we leap to give,
We lovers of you, heavenly glad to meet
Your largesse so with love, and interplight
Your geniuses with our mortalities.
Thus unto thee, O sweetest Shakespeare sole
A hundred hurts a day I do forgive
('Tis little, but, enchantment! 'tis for thee):
Small curious quibble; Juliet's prurient pun
In the poor, pale face of Romeo's fancied death;
Cold rant of Richard; Henry's fustian roar
Which frights away that sleep he invocates;
Wronged Valentine's unnatural haste to yield;
Too-silly shifts of maids that mask as men
In faint disguises that could ne'er disguise-
Viola, Julia, Portia, Rosalind;
Fatigues most drear, and needless overtax
Of speech obscure that had as leif be plain;
Last I forgive (with more delight, because
'Tis more to do) a laboured-lewd discourse
That e'en thy young invention's youngest heir
Besmirched the world with.
Father Homer, thee,
Thee also I forgive thy sandy wastes
Of prose and catalogue, thy drear harangues
That tease the patience of the centuries,
Thy sleazy scrap of story,-but a rogue's
Rape of a light-o'-love, too solid a patch
To border with the gods.
Thee, Socrates,
Thou dear and very strong one, I forgive
Thy year-worn cloak, thine iron stringencies
That were but dandy upside-down, thy words
Of truth that, mildier spoke, had manlier wrought.
So, Buddha, beautiful! I pardon thee
That all the All thou hadst for needy man
Was nothing, and thy Best of being was
But not to be.
Worn Dante, I forgive
The implacable hates that in thy horrid hells
Or burn or freeze thy fellows, never loosed
By death, nor time, nor love.
Thee, Milton, those thy comic-dreadful wars Where, armed with gross and inconclusive steel, Immortals smite immortals mortalwise
And fill all heaven with folly.
Brave Eschylus, thee I forgive, for that
Thine eye, by bare, bright justice basilisked,
Turned not, nor ever learned to look where Love stands
So, unto thee, Lucretius mine
(For oh, what heart hath loved thee like to this
That's now complaining ?), freely I forgive
Thy logic poor, thine error rich, thine earth
Whose graves eat souls and all.
Yea, all your hearts
Of beauty, and sweet righteous lovers large:
Aurelius fine, oft superfine; mild saint
A Kempis, overmild; Epictetus,
Whiles low in thought, still with old slavery tinct
Rapt Behmen, rapt too far; high Swedenborg,
O'ertoppling; Langley, that with but a touch
Of art hadst sung Piers Plowman to the top
Of English songs, whereof 'tis dearest, now,
And most adorable; Cædmon, in the morn
A-calling angels with the cow-herd's call
That late brought up the cattle; Emerson,
Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost
Thy Self, sometimes; tense Keats, with angels' nerves
Where men's were better; Tennyson, largest voice
Since Milton, yet some register of wit
Wanting;-all, all, I pardon, ere 'tis asked,
Your more or less, your little mole that marks
Your brother and your kinship seals to man.
But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time,
But Thee, O poet's Poet, Wisdom's Tongue,
But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,
O perfect life in perfect labour writ,
O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,
What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse,
What least defect or shadow of defect,
What rumour, tattled by an enemy,
Of inference loose, what lack of grace
Even in torture's grasp, of sleep's, or death's,-
Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,
Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?"
[Born in Newbury, New York, 27th October 1842.
Author of Love among the Gamins (New York, 1877), and Mask and Domino (Philadelphia, 1888). The poems quoted are from this latter volume, and are given with the kind permission of the publishers.
"Tis a toilsome path to climb,
But all climbing is sublime
(If you think so). One flight more,
Yonder is the studio door.
Artist's eyries should be high,
Don't you think so?
Up above the small affairs
Of our lower life of cares;
Up, far up, in regions where
Stars and comets float in air;
In an atmosphere that brings
Glimpses of unusual things
Into those who dare to soar
To the shifting changeful shore
Of strange fancies, fair and far.
Tired, Elsie? Here we are.
|