Chapter XI

And he himself—did he know it all?
Had he look’d, in his youth,
Past the shadows of form to the substance of truth?
Had he learn’d that all life turns to seasons, and shifts
From winter and spring into summer and fall?
Or divined that eternity, balancing gifts,
Grants honor like heaven, a state after strife,
And a glorified name to a sacrificed life?
Did he know that sighs, when yearning for love,
Best open the soul to breathe in from above
The air immortal, and make it worth while
That art should chisel in marble clear
The lines divine that temper a smile
Beyond the sway of a mortal’s cheer?—
Did he know it or not, perchance for his good
His work was lonely and misunderstood.
Perchance it was well, the best for the soul,
Its nature, its nurture, that aught to control
The aims inspiring his life or its plan
Had gain’d but little from earth or man.

UNDER THE NEW MOON.

The hills rang back our parting jest;
The dear, dear day was over;
The sun had sunk below the west;
We walk’d home through the clover.
Our words were gay, but thought astray
Our parting kept regretting,—
“The old old way!” would seem to say;
“The suns are ever setting.”
Then, gazing back with longing soon,
At once my step grew bolder;
For, bright and new, I spied the moon
Just over my right shoulder.

I turn’d about and bade her look;
We were not superstitious;
We jok’d about that shining hook,
Bright bait, and skies auspicious.
We joked, but, oh, I thought with woe,
“This bright bait lures me only,—
Like more before it, comes to go,
And leave life dark and lonely.
Past yon horizon, things are strewn
With broken moons,” I told her:
“Each bore a bright hope, too, each moon,
When over my right shoulder.

“Alas to trust in each new light,
A man were moonstruck, surely,—
A lunatic!”—We laugh’d outright,
And then look’d back demurely.
Lo, dimly shown, the moon’s old zone
Made full hope’s crescent new one.
I thought, “Would my old love, made known,
Prove hope of love a true one?—
What would she say?”—I ask’d her soon,
And took her hand to hold her.
“Ah, love,” she sigh’d, “to-night the moon
Is over my right shoulder.”

ALL IN ALL.

Be calm, O Wind, and gently blow,
Nor rouse the waves’ commotion.
Ye Clouds, veil not the bay so low:
My love sails o’er the ocean.

Out, boatman, out! The wind will rise;
The yawl will find it stormy.
Ay, thrice thy fee.—Her signal flies.—
My love is waiting for me.

Blow on, ye Winds, your prey is flown,
Who cares for wave or weather?
My love, my own! no more alone,
We walk the shore together.

NOTHING AT ALL.

So many eyes that dim tears fill,
That a glance of love could clear;
So many ears, all sad and still,
That a sigh of love could cheer;

So many hearts that are beating to greet
Love that will heed no sign;
So many lips that are parting to meet
Love that is air, like mine;—

Dykes that fashion has bank’d so fast,
Burst from our souls apart!
Burst! and let the truth flow past,
Filling each unfill’d heart.

THE IDEALIST.

I Hear fair Fancy call’d a guide
Who smiles when one is youthful,
But oft in sudden shades will hide,
And prove at times untruthful.
“When through the skies,”
They say, “she flies
And leaves behind each earthly care;
When round about her in the air
No danger seems attending
The light we find her wending,
Beware! amid the brightest air
The storm may burst, the lightning tear,
Beware and fear!
With earth so near
None can be free from care.”

I hear fair Fancy call’d a guide
Of rarest grace and beauty;
But prone to lead the soul aside
From irksome paths of duty.
“Man is but man:
He cannot scan
Too high delights, and highly rate
The lowly joys of earth’s estate.
A soul to fancy turning,”
They say, “is fill’d with yearning;
And lives in dreams and idle schemes,
That with their lure of rival gleams
Make dim the light
About the sight
The working soul esteems.”

I hear fair Fancy call’d a guide
Oft rendering life distressful,
With views that loom too high, too wide,
To make a man successful.
They say, “We err
Who soar with her.
Earth only shoos or shoots a bird;
To draw its wealth, it yokes the herd.—
But few are those not tiring
Of natures too aspiring.
The common leaders of the day
Amid the common people stay,
Who but confide
In those that guide
Along the common way.”

And yet my dear and dangerous guide,
I prize thy peerless beauty.
I chose thee long ago my bride
For love and not for booty.
How much is wrought
By risking naught?
When I behold a path of bliss,
Tho’ bordering on the worst abyss,
My fears of falling under
Will not restrain my wonder.
And, from what thou hast found for me,
Full many a truth my soul can see
That earth must know
Ere it forego
Its need of knowing thee.

A PHASE OF THE ANGELIC.

I wonder not that artists’ hands,
Inspired by themes of joy
To picture forms of angel-bands,
Paint, first of all, the boy.

I know if I were set the task
To lure a man’s desire
By traits the heavenliest one could ask,
When most our souls aspire,

I would not take a blushing bride,
For she may wed for pelf;
Nor him who stands the bride beside,
He may but love himself;

Nor matron, with her thoughts confined
To maxims meant for youth;
Nor man mature: too oft his mind
Will close to others’ truth.

But I would blend the purity
Of her whom I adore
With manly power for mastery
And promise yet in store.

So I would take the boy who roams
Toward life, half understood,
From thresholds of those holy homes
That face alone the good;—

A boy who has not reach’d the brink
Where vice will cross his track,
Whose wish that loathes the wish to drink
Still keeps the tempter back;—

A boy who hardly knows of ill,
Or ill can apprehend,
With cheeks that blush, with eyes that fill,
And faith that fears no end.

And oh, I know that those who love
The purest part of joy,
Would choose with me from all above
The heaven that held my boy.

THE BELLE.

A smile—could it be meant for me?—
Yet there she stood before me.
But she had charm’d so many eyes
And I was neither rich nor wise,—
The belle of all the county, she:
I seem’d a child,
She only smiled
Because she knew her mien was mild,
While mine confusion bore me.

And praise—could it be meant for me?—
Ah, how could I suppose it?
The rarest minds I knew about
Had held her gauge of them in doubt.
A prize past all I hoped for, she;
But young was I;
And this was why
She thought my pride to gratify;
Yet I could but disclose it.

A blush—could it be meant for me?—
Yet so she met no other.
A face that all with joy would meet,
Could it have blush’d my own to greet?
A belle whom all had sought for, she;
Yet I could see
Heave but for me
A sigh that strove and would be free.
I spoke to free another.

She answer’d—All was meant for me
Whom rivals off were shoving;
And all my love had burst in flame
To feel her ardor while it came.
“A woman, whosoe’er she be,
Is nothing more,
O loved of yore,
Than just a woman, nothing o’er,
And can but love the loving.”

THE POET’S REASON.

I live to write; and write, good friend.
In part, I know, for you;
Though, while I do so, in the end
Myself it pleases too.

“The world,” you think, “may prize my rhymes.”
Of old, I hoped it would.
But many and many have been the times
I only deem’d them good!

I “love to write”? You near the truth.
I love to talk, as well;
And poems breathe a part, forsooth,
Of what the soul would tell.—

Ay, ay, the soul. For it how meet
That those we love should see—
Not poems—but the poem sweet
That all one’s life would be!

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

My mountains, how I love your forms that stand
So beautiful, so bleak, so grim, so grand.
Your gleaming crags above my boyhood’s play,
Undimm’d as hope, rose o’er each rising day.
When now light hope has yielded place to care,
O’er steadfast work I see you steadfast there.
And when old age at last shall yearn for rest,
By your white peaks will each aspiring glance be blest.

How bright and broad with ever fresh surprise,
The scenes ye brought allured my youthful eyes!
Now, when rude hands those views of old assail,
When growing towns have changed the lower vale,
When other friends are lost or sadly strange,
Ye stand familiar still, ye do not change.
And when all else abides as now no more,
In you I still may see the forms I loved of yore.

Ye mounts deserve long life. Your peaks at dawn
Catch light no sooner from the night withdrawn,
Than those ye rear see truth, when brave men vow
To serve the serf, and bid the despot bow.
In vales below, if tyrants make men mild,
The weak who scale your sides learn winds are wild,
That beasts break loose, and birds awaken’d flee,
As if in deepest sleep they dream’d of being free.

High homes of manhood, human lips can phrase
No tribute fit to echo half your praise.
By Piedmont’s church and Ziska’s rock-wall’d see,
By Swiss and Scot who left their children free,
By our New England, when she named him knave
Who, flank’d by bloodhounds, chased his fleeing slave,
Stand ye like them, whose memories, ever grand,
Tower far above earth’s lords, as ye above its land.

Ay, stand like monuments in lasting stone
To souls as lofty as the world has known.
Ye fitly symbol, when with kindling light
The dawn and sunset gild your summits white,
The glories of their pure, aspiring worth
Who aim’d at stars to feed the hopes of earth;
And fitly point where they, in brighter skies,
View grander scenes than yours where your heights cannot rise.

MARTIN CRAEGIN.

“Martin Cooney,” [I have found, upon making inquiry at Pittston, that the boy’s name was Craegin, not Cooney] “is the name of the boy who, deep down in the horrid depths of the Pittston mine, performed a deed of heroic self-sacrifice which shames into insignificance the actions by which many happier men have climbed to fame and honor. Cooney and a companion stood at the bottom of the shaft as the car was about to ascend for the last time. High above them roaring flame and blinding smoke amid the crash of falling timber were fast closing up the narrow way to light and life; below them in the gloomy pit were a score of men working on, unconscious of their deadly peril. Cooney, with one foot upon the car, thought of his endangered friends. He proposed to his companion that they should return and warn the miners of their threatened fate. His companion refused to go, and then Cooney, without a moment’s hesitation, but with full consciousness that he had chosen almost certain death, leaped from the car and groped his way back through the growing darkness. It was too late: the miners had closed the ventilating door before he reached them; and standing there between the immovable barrier and the shaft, the hot breath of the fiery pit poured in upon him in a pitiless blast, and so he died.”—_Philadelphia Evening Bulletin_, June 5, 1871.

Up, thou Warden gray of Honor,
Swing thy temple’s rusted door;
Hither from the mine of Pittston,
Hies, at last, one hero more.

...

While he toil’d amid the miners,
Came a cry that startled him;
“Fire!” he heard, and o’er him quickly,
Saw the smoking shaft grow dim.

“Now for life!” a comrade shouted,
“Mount this car! no more cars go!”
“Nay for life,” replied young Martin,
“Call the men at work below!”

Cried the first: “No time to tarry!
Look!—The flames!—We must not stay!”
“Time for them to close the smoke out!”
Martin cried, and rush’d away.

“Fire! fire! fire!” he shouted shrilly,
Groping down the passage dim.
“Fire!” those heard, and closed the passage,
Closed it on the smoke and him.

“Stop the smoke!” cried men above him.—
Still the ghastly fumes crept on;
Caught the boy, and, crawling round him,
Choked his corpse they clung upon.

“Woe on woe!” cried those above him,
“All will die; the fires descend!”
By the coal-pit, by the coal-boy,
Never light like that was kenn’d.

Whence, O whence that blinding brightness?
What had touch’d the boy afar?—
For the chariot of Elijah
Had he spurn’d his comrade’s car?

“Stop the fire!” cried all the village,—
Ah, but none could now keep down
Martin’s love, there marshal’d heavenward,
Haloed by a martyr’s crown.

Not the flood that men set flowing
Faster than the fire could spread,
Now could quench the flame eternal
Burning in the soul that sped.

Not the cloud of smoke that gather’d,
Not the dark, sad funeral pall,
Now could dim the boy’s devotion,
With its glory gilding all.

...

Up, thou Warden gray of Honor,
Wheels immortal sweep the sky,
Swing thy gates!—another hero
Love incites to do and die.

OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM.

What has a child that a man has not,
When “of such is the kingdom” on high?
At play in the home, at work in the school,
Oh, what does he care for the soul, or its rule,
Or for aught that hints of the sky?
Ay, what does he serve but his own desires,
Impell’d by a fancy that toils or tires?
His moods flow on like currents in brooks,
Or ruffled or smooth, to answer the crooks.
All things that are sweet or fair to see
He buzzes and bustles about like a bee.
He would work his arms at ball and bow,
Though he never had known it would make them grow.—
What virtue is his?—While a man can doubt
The truth within him, nor show it without,
The child holds fast, unfetter’d by lies,
A faith that he never has dared to despise,
Expression that knows no other control
Than that of the Maker who moves the soul,
A beauty of wisdom that works to obey
A holy, because a natural way;
And that may he have that a man may not.

What has a man that a child has not,
When “of such is the kingdom” on high?
Oh, he has been train’d by the world and the school
To curb his character in by rule
Till the rule of his life is a lie.
A man like that would spurn to find
In God’s designs the quest of his mind.
He crams and drams for an appetite
That nothing on earth can sate or excite.
His words are as dry as the words of a book,—
Your sentence is ready, wherever you look.
His views—he never saw any thing strange:
If he did, some fellow might question his range.
And all of profit he tests by pelf,
And all of manhood measures by self,
Forgets that God rules the world he is at,
And stars himself as its autocrat.
Alas for reason with such a judge!
If ever you whisper or smile or budge—
You may study and ponder and prove and pray—
But he has a sneering, cynical way;
And that may he have that a child has not.

What has a man that a child has too,
When “of such is the kingdom” on high?
He knows that life is better’d by rules,
But he knows how split the wise and the fools
When judging of rules they apply.
He feels that life worth living proceeds
From nature that prompts the bent of deeds;
And he lets the reins of his being go,
Whenever the soul moves upward so.
If he look to God through self or His Book,
Or leading the way through a bishop’s crook,
He welcomes whatever has worth in the new,
Though it grew outside of his Timbuctoo.
For modest he is, and loves to find
Earth blest by minds that differ in kind.
In short, to the simple, the frail, and the few
He is fill’d with charity through and through;
And, waiving your reason its right of control,
Trusts God for enough truth left in your soul;
And though he may tell you he doubts your way,
He has much to love in spite of his “nay”;
And that may a man and a child have too.

MY LOVE IS SAD.

My love is “fill’d with gloom,” you say;
Yet think! when I had spied her,
The flowers that made her bower so gay
Had lost their light beside her.
Ah, could my darling see it so,
And gloomy seem? No, no; no, no.

My love is weary, wandering;
Yet I, who sped to find her
With worlds of fancies on the wing,
Saw all fall far behind her.
Ah, could my darling see it so,
And weary seem? No, no; no, no.

My love is lone and weeps, I see;
Yet here I wait to win her,
For what is all the world to me,
My arms are clasping in her.
Ah, could my darling see it so,
And lonely seem? No, no; no, no.

MY DREAM AT CORDOVA.