Chapter XIX: Part III: Poems

FREEDOM AND TRUTH.

TO A FRIEND.

The shrine is vowed to freedom, but, my friend,
Freedom is but a means to gain an end.
Freedom should build the temple, but the shrine
Be consecrate to thought still more divine.
The human bliss which angel hopes foresaw
Is liberty to comprehend the law.
Give, then, thy book a larger scope and frame,
Comprising means and end in Truth's great name.

DESCRIPTION OF A PORTION OF THE JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS.

The long-anticipated morning dawns,
Clear, hopeful, joyous-eyed, and pure of breath.
The dogstar is exhausted of its rage,
And copious showers have cooled the feverish air,
The mighty engine pants--away, away!

And, see! they come! a motley, smiling group--
The stately matron with her tempered grace,
Her earnest eye, and kind though meaning smile,
Her words of wisdom and her words of mirth.
Her counsel firm and generous sympathy;
The happy pair whose hearts so full, yet ever
Dilating to the scene, refuse that bliss
Which excludes the whole or blunts the sense of beauty.

Next two fair maidens in gradation meet,
The one of gentle mien and soft dove-eyes;
Like water she, that yielding and combining,
Yet most pure element in the social cup:
The other with bright glance and damask cheek,
You need not deem concealment there was preying
To mar the healthful promise of the spring.

Another dame was there, of graver look,
And heart of slower beat; yet in its depths
Not irresponsive to the soul of things,
Nor cold when charmed by those who knew its pass-word.

These ladies had a knight from foreign clime,
Who from the banks of the dark-rolling Danube,
Or somewhere thereabouts, had come, a pilgrim,
To worship at the shrine of Liberty,
And after, made his home in her loved realm,
Content to call it fatherland where'er
The streams bear freemen and the skies smile on them;
A courteous knight he was, of merry mood,
Expert to wing the lagging hour with jest,
Or tale of strange romance or comic song.

And there was one I must not call a page,
Although too young yet to have won his spurs;
Yet there was promise in his laughing eye,
That in due time he'd prove no carpet knight;
Now, bright companion on a summer sea,
With winged words of gay or tasteful thought,
He was fit clasp to this our social chain.

And now, the swift car loosened on its way,
O'er hill and dale we fly with rapid lightness,
While each tongue celebrates the power of steam;
O, how delightful 'tis to go so fast!
No time to muse, no chance to gaze on nature!
'Tis bliss indeed if "to think be to groan!"

The genius of the time soon shifts the scene:
No longer whirled over our kindred clods,
We, with as strong an impulse, cleave the waters.
Now doth our chain a while untwine its links,
And some rebound from a three hours' communion
To mingle with less favored fellow-men;
One careless turns the leaves of some new volume;
The leaves of Nature's book are too gigantic,
Too vast the characters for patient study,
Till sunset lures us with majestic power
To cast one look of love on that bright eye,
Which, for so many hours, has beamed on us.
The silver lamp is lit in the blue dome,
Nature begins her hymn of evening breezes,
And myriad sparks, thronging to kiss the wave,
Touch even the steamboat's clumsy hulk with beauty.
Then, once more drawn together, cheerful talk
Casts to the hours a store of gentle gifts,
Which memory receives from these bright minds
And careful garners them for duller days.

The morning greets us not with her late smile;
Now chilling damp falls heavy on our hopes,
And leaden hues tarnish each sighed-for scene.
Yet not on coloring, majestic Hudson,
Depends the genius of thy stream, whose wand
Has piled thy banks on high, and given them forms
Which have for taste an impulse yet unknown.
Though Beauty dwells here, she reigns not a queen,
An humble handmaid now to the Sublime.
The mind dilates to receive the idea of strength,
And tasks its elements for congenial forms
To create anew within those mighty piles,
Those "bulwarks of the world," which, time-defying
And thunder-mocking, lift their lofty brows.

Now at the river's bend we pause a while,
And sun and cloud combine their wealth to greet us.
Oft shall the fair scenes of West Point return
Upon the mind, in its still picture-hours,
Its cloud-capped mountains with their varying hues,
The soft seclusion of its wooded paths,
And the alluring hopefulness of view
Along the river from its crisis-point.
Unlike the currents of our human lives
When they approach their long-sought ocean-mother,--
This stream is noblest onward to its close,
More tame and grave when near its inland founts.
Now onward, onward, till the whole be known;
The heart, though swollen with these new sensations,
With no less vital throb beats on for more,
And rather we'd shake hands with disappointment
Than wait and lean on sober expectation.

The Highlands now are passed, and Hyde Park flies,--
Catskill salutes us--a far fairy-land.
O mountains, how do ye delude our hearts!
Let but the eye look down upon a valley,
We feel our limitations, and are calm;
But place blue mountains in the distant view,
And the soul labors with the Titan hope
To ascend the shrouded tops, and scale the heavens.

O, pause not in the murky, old Dutch city,
But, hasting onward with a renewed steam power,
Bestow your hours upon the beauteous Mohawk;
And here we grieve to lose our courteous knight,
Just at the opening of so rich a page.

How shall I praise thee, Mohawk? How portray
The love, the joyousness, felt in thy presence?
When each new step along the silvery tide
Added new gems of beauty to our thought,
And lapped the soul in an Elysium
Of verdure and of grace, fed by thy sweetness.
O, how gay Fancy smiled, and deemed it home!
This is, thought she, the river of my garden;
These are the graceful trees that form its bowers,
And these the meads where I have sighed to roam.
I now may fold my wearied wings in peace.

JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS.

I.

TO MY FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS.

If this faint reflex from those days so bright
May aught of sympathy among you gain,
I shall not think these verses penned in vain;
Though they tell nothing of the fancies light,
The kindly deeds, rich thoughts, and various grace
With which you knew to make the hours so fair,
That neither grief nor sickness could efface
From memory's tablet what you printed there.
Could I have breathed your spirit through these lines,
They might have charms to win a critic's smile,
Or the cold worldling of a sigh beguile.
I could but from my being bring one tone;
May it arouse the sweetness of your own.

II.

THE HIGHLANDS.

I saw ye first, arrayed in mist and cloud;
No cheerful lights softened your aspect bold;
A sullen gray, or green, more grave and cold,
The varied beauties of the scene enshroud.
Yet not the less, O Hudson! calm and proud,
Did I receive the impress of that hour
Which showed thee to me, emblem of that power
Of high resolve, to which even rocks have bowed;
Thou wouldst not deign thy course to turn aside,
And seek some smiling valley's welcome warm,
But through the mountain's very heart, thy pride
Has been, thy channel and thy banks to form.
Not even the "bulwarks of the world" could bar
The inland fount from joining ocean's war!

III.

CATSKILL.

How fair at distance shone yon silvery blue,
O stately mountain-tops, charming the mind
To dream of pleasures which she there may find,
Where from the eagle's height she earth can view!
Nor are those disappointments which ensue;
For though, while eyeing what beneath us lay,
Almost we shunned to think of yesterday,
As wonderingly our looks its course pursue.
Dwarfed to a point the joys of many hours,
The river on whose bosom we were borne
Seems but a thread, of pride and beauty shorn;
Its banks, its shadowy groves, like beds of flowers,
Wave their diminished heads;--yet would we sigh,
Since all this loss shows us more near the sky?

IV.

VALLEY OF THE MOHAWK.

Could I my words with gentlest grace imbue,
Which the flute's breath, or harp's clear tones, can bless,
I then might hope the feelings to express,
And with new life the happy day endue,
Thou gav'st, O vale, than Tempe's self more fair!
With thy romantic stream and emerald isles,
Touched by an April mood of tears and smiles
Which stole on matron August unaware;
The meads with all the spring's first freshness green,
The trees with summer's thickest garlands crowned,
And each so elegant, that fairy queen
All day might wander ere she chose her round;
No blemish on the sense of beauty broke,
But the whole scene one ecstasy awoke.

V.

TRENTON FALLS, EARLY IN THE MORNING.

The sun, impatient, o'er the lofty trees
Struggles to illume as fair a sight as lies
Beneath the light of his joy-loving eyes,
Which all the forms of energy must please;
A solemn shadow falls in pillared form,
Made by yon ledge, which noontide scarcely shows,
Upon the amber radiance, soft and warm,
Where through the cleft the eager torrent flows.
Would you the genius of the place enjoy,
In all the charms contrast and color give?
Your eye and taste you now may best employ,
For this the hour when minor beauties live;
Scan ye the details as the sun rides high,
For with the morn these sparkling glories fly.

VI.

TRENTON FALLS, (AFTERNOON.)

A calmer grace o'er these still hours presides;
Now is the time to see the might of form;
The heavy masses of the buttressed sides,
The stately steps o'er which the waters storm;
Where, 'neath the mill, the stream so gently glides,
You feel the deep seclusion of the scene,
And now begin to comprehend what mean
The beauty and the power this chasm hides.
From the green forest's depths the portent springs,
But from those quiet shades bounding away,
Lays bare its being to the light of day,
Though on the rock's cold breast its love it flings.
Yet can all sympathy such courage miss?
Answer, ye trees! who bend the waves to kiss.

VII.

TRENTON FALLS BY MOONLIGHT.

I deemed the inmost sense my soul had blessed
Which in the poem of thy being dwells,
And gives such store for thought's most sacred cells;
And yet a higher joy was now confessed.
With what a holiness did night invest
The eager impulse of impetuous life,
And hymn-like meanings clothed the waters' strife!
With what a solemn peace the moon did rest
Upon the white crest of the waterfall;
The haughty guardian banks, by the deep shade,
In almost double height are now displayed.
Depth, height, speak things which awe, but not appall.
From elemental powers this voice has come,
And God's love answers from the azure dome.

SUB ROSA, CRUX.

In times of old, as we are told,
When men more child-like at the feet
Of Jesus sat, than now,
A chivalry was known more bold
Than ours, and yet of stricter vow,
Of worship more complete.

Knights of the Rosy Cross, they bore
Its weight within the heart, but wore
Without, devotion's sign in glistening ruby bright;
The gall and vinegar they drank alone,
But to the world at large would only own
The wine of faith, sparkling with rosy light.

They knew the secret of the sacred oil
Which, poured upon the prophet's head,
Could keep him wise and pure for aye.
Apart from all that might distract or soil,
With this their lamps they fed.
Which burn in their sepulchral shrines unfading night and day.

The pass-word now is lost,
To that initiation full and free;
Daily we pay the cost
Of our slow schooling for divine degree.
We know no means to feed an undying lamp;
Our lights go out in every wind or damp.

We wear the cross of ebony and gold,
Upon a dark background a form of light,
A heavenly hope upon a bosom cold,
A starry promise in a frequent night;
The dying lamp must often trim again,
For we are conscious, thoughtful, striving men.

Yet be we faithful to this present trust,
Clasp to a heart resigned the fatal must;
Though deepest dark our efforts should enfold,
Unwearied mine to find the vein of gold;
Forget not oft to lift the hope on high;
The rosy dawn again shall fill the sky.

And by that lovely light, all truth-revealed,
The cherished forms which sad distrust concealed,
Transfigured, yet the same, will round us stand,
The kindred angels of a faithful band;
Ruby and ebon cross both cast aside,
No lamp is needed, for the night has died.

Happy be those who seek that distant day,
With feet that from the appointed way
Could never stray;
Yet happy too be those who more and more,
As gleams the beacon of that only shore,
Strive at the laboring oar.

Be to the best thou knowest ever true,
Is all the creed;
Then, be thy talisman of rosy hue,
Or fenced with thorns that wearing thou must bleed,
Or gentle pledge of Love's prophetic view,
The faithful steps it will securely lead.

Happy are all who reach that shore,
And bathe in heavenly day,
Happiest are those who high the banner bore,
To marshal others on the way;
Or waited for them, fainting and way-worn,
By burdens overborne.

THE DAHLIA, THE ROSE, AND THE HELIOTROPE.

In a fair garden of a distant land,
Where autumn skies the softest blue outspread,
A lovely crimson dahlia reared her head,
To drink the lustre of the season's prime;
And drink she did, until her cup o'erflowed
With ruby redder than the sunset cloud.

Near to her root she saw the fairest rose
That ever oped her soul to sun and wind.
And still the more her sweets she did disclose,
The more her queenly heart of sweets did find,
Not only for her worshipper the wind,
But for bee, nightingale, and butterfly,
Who would with ceaseless wing about her ply,
Nor ever cease to seek what found they still would find.

Upon the other side, nearer the ground,
A paler floweret on a slender stem,
That cast so exquisite a fragrance round,
As seemed the minute blossom to contemn,
Seeking an ampler urn to hold its sweetness,
And in a statelier shape to find completeness.

Who could refuse to hear that keenest voice,
Although it did not bid the heart rejoice,
And though the nightingale had just begun
His hymn; the evening breeze begun to woo,
When through the charming of the evening dew,
The floweret did its secret soul disclose?
By that revealing touched, the queenly rose
Forgot them both, a deeper joy to hope
And heed the love-note of the heliotrope.

TO MY FRIENDS.

TRANSLATED FROM SCHILLER.

Beloved friends! Earth hath known brighter days
Than ours; we vainly strive to hide this truth;
Would history be silent in their praise,
The very stones tell of man's glorious youth,
In heavenly forms on which we crowd to gaze;
But that high-favored race hath sunk in night;
The day is ours--the living still have sight.

Friends of my youth! In happier climes than ours,
As some far-wandering countrymen declare,
The air is perfume; at each step spring flowers.
Nature has not been bounteous to our prayer;
But art dwells here, with her creative powers,
Laurel and myrtle shun our winter snows,
But with the cheerful vine we wreathe our brows.

Though of more pomp and wealth the Briton boast,
Who holds four worlds in tribute to his pride,--
Although from farthest India's glowing coast
Come gems of gold to burden Thames' dull tide,
And _bring_ each luxury that Heaven denied,--
Not in the torrent, but the still, calm brook,
Delights Apollo at himself to look.

More nobly lodged than we in northern halls,
At Angelo's gate the Roman beggar dwells;
Girt by the Eternal City's honored walls,
Each column some soul-stiring story tells;
While on the earth a second heaven dwells,
Where Michael's spirit to St. Peter calls;
Yet all this splendor only decks a tomb;
For us fresh flowers from every green hour bloom

And while we live obscure, may others' names
Through Rumor's trump be given to the wind;
New forms of ancient glories, ancient shames,
For nothing new the searching sun can find,
As pass the motley groups of human kind;
All other living things grow old and die--
Fancy alone has immortality.

STANZAS.

WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN.

I.

Come, breath of dawn! and o'er my temples play;
Rouse to the draught of life the wearied sense;
Fly, sleep! with thy sad phantoms, far away;
Let the glad light scare those pale troublous shadows hence!

II.

I rise, and leaning from my casement high,
Feel from the morning twilight a delight;
Once more youth's portion, hope, lights up my eye,
And for a moment I forget the sorrows of the night.

III.

O glorious morn! how great is yet thy power!
Yet how unlike to that which once I knew,
When, plumed with glittering thoughts, my soul would soar,
And pleasures visited my heart like daily dew!

IV.

Gone is life's primal freshness all too soon;
For me the dream is vanished ere my time;
I feel the heat and weariness of noon,
And long in night's cool shadows to recline.

FLAXMAN.

We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone,
Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought,
And in the forms of gods and heroes wrought
Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone--
A higher charm than modern culture won,
With all the wealth of metaphysic lore,
Gifted to analyze, dissect, explore.
A many-colored light flows from our sun;
Art, 'neath its beams, a motley thread has spun;
The prison modifies the perfect day;
But thou hast known such mediums to shun,
And cast once more on life a pure white ray.
Absorbed in the creations of thy mind,
Forgetting daily self, my truest self I find.

THOUGHTS

ON SUNDAY MORNING, WHEN PREVENTED BY A SNOW STORM FROM GOING TO CHURCH.

Hark! the church-going bell! But through the air
The feathery missiles of old Winter hurled,
Offend the brow of mild-approaching Spring;
She shuts her soft blue eyes, and turns away.
Sweet is the time passed in the house of prayer,
When, met with many of this fire-fraught clay,
We, on this day,--the tribe of ills forgot,
Wherewith, ungentle, we afflict each other,--
Assemble in the temple of our God,
And use our breath to worship Him who gave it.
What though no gorgeous relics of old days,
The gifts of humbled kings and suppliant warriors,
Deck the fair shrine, or cluster round the pillars;
No stately windows decked with various hues,
No blazon of dead saints repel the sun;
Though no cloud-courting dome or sculptured frieze
Excite the fancy and allure the taste,
No fragrant censor steep the sense in luxury,
No lofty chant swell on the vanquished soul.

Ours is the faith of Reason; to the earth
We leave the senses who interpret her;
The heaven-born only should commune with Heaven,
The immaterial with the infinite.
Calmly we wait in solemn expectation.
He rises in the desk--that earnest man;
No priestly terrors flashing from his eye,
No mitre towers above the throne of thought,
No pomp and circumstance wait on his breath.
He speaks--we hear; and man to man we judge.
Has he the spell to touch the founts of feeling,
To kindle in the mind a pure ambition,
Or soothe the aching heart with heavenly balm,
To guide the timid and refresh the weary,
Appall the wicked and abash the proud?
He is the man of God. Our hearts confess him.
He needs no homage paid in servile forms,
No worldly state, to give him dignity:
To his own heart the blessing will return,
And all his days blossom with love divine.

There is a blessing in the Sabbath woods,
There is a holiness in the blue skies;
The summer-murmurs to those calm blue skies
Preach ceaselessly. The universe is love--
And this disjointed fragment of a world
Must, by its spirit, man, be harmonized,
Tuned to concordance with the spheral strain,
Till thought be like those skies, deeds like those breezes,
As clear, as bright, as pure, as musical,
And all things have one text of truth and beauty.

There is a blessing in a day like this,
When sky and earth are talking busily;
The clouds give back the riches they received,
And for their graceful shapes return they fulness;
While in the inmost shrine, the life of life,
The soul within the soul, the consciousness
Whom I can only _name_, counting her wealth,
Still makes it more, still fills the golden bowl
Which never shall be broken, strengthens still
The silver cord which binds the whole to Heaven.

O that such hours must pass away! yet oft
Such will recur, and memories of this
Come to enhance their sweetness. And again
I say, great is the blessing of that hour
When the soul, turning from without, begins
To register her treasures, the bright thoughts,
The lovely hopes, the ethereal desires,
Which she has garnered in past Sabbath hours.
Within her halls the preacher's voice still sounds,
Though he be dead or distant far. The band
Of friends who with us listened to his word,
With throngs around of linked associations,
Are there; the little stream, long left behind,
Is murmuring still; the woods as musical;
The skies how blue, the whole how eloquent
With "life of life and life's most secret joy"!

TO A GOLDEN HEART WORN ROUND THE NECK.[44]

Remembrancer of joys long passed away,
Relic from which, as yet, I cannot part,
O, hast thou power to lengthen love's short day?
Stronger thy chain than that which bound the heart?

Lili, I fly--yet still thy fetters press me
In distant valley, or far lonely wood;
Still will a struggling sigh of pain confess thee
The mistress of my soul in every mood.

The bird may burst the silken chain which bound him,
Flying to the green home, which fits him best;
But, O, he bears the prisoner's badge around him,
Still by the piece about his neck distressed.
He ne'er can breathe his free, wild notes again;
They're stifled by the pressure of his chain.

LINES

ACCOMPANYING A BOUQUET OF WILD COLUMBINE, WHICH BLOOMED LATE IN THE SEASON.

These pallid blossoms thou wilt not disdain,
The harbingers of thy approach to me,
Which grew and bloomed despite the cold and rain,
To tell of summer and futurity.

It was not given them to tell the soul,
And lure the nightingale by fragrant breath:
These slender stems and roots brook no control,
And in the garden life would find but death.
The rock which is their cradle and their home
Must also be their monument and tomb;
Yet has my floweret's life a charm more rare
Than those admiring crowds esteem so fair,
Self-nurtured, self-sustaining, self-approved:
Not even by the forest trees beloved,
As are her sisters of the Spring, she dies,--
Nor to the guardian stars lifts up her eyes,
But droops her graceful head upon her breast,
Nor asks the wild bird's requiem for her rest,
By her own heart upheld, by her own soul possessed.

Learn of the clematis domestic love,
Religious beauty in the lily see;
Learn from the rose how rapture's pulses move,
Learn from the heliotrope fidelity.
From autumn flowers let hope and faith be known;
Learn from the columbine to live alone,
To deck whatever spot the Fates provide
With graces worthy of the garden's pride,
And to deserve each gift that is denied.

These are the shades of the departed flowers,
My lines faint shadows of some beauteous hours,
Whereto the soul the highest thoughts have spoken,
And brightest hopes from frequent twilight broken.
Preserve them for my sake. In other years,
When life has answered to your hopes or fears,
When the web is well woven, and you try
Your wings, whether as moth or butterfly,
If, as I pray, the fairest lot be thine,
Yet value still the faded columbine.
But look not on her if thy earnest eye,
Be filled by works of art or poesy;
Bring not the hermit where, in long array,
Triumphs of genius gild the purple day;
Let her not hear the lyre's proud voice arise,
To tell, "still lives the song though Regnor dies;"
Let her not hear the lute's soft-rising swell
Declare she never lived who lived so well;
But from the anvil's clang, and joiner's screw,
The busy streets where men dull crafts pursue,
From weary cares and from tumultuous joys,
From aimless bustle and from voiceless noise,
If there thy plans should be, turn here thine eye,--
Open the casket of thy memory;
Give to thy friend the gentlest, holiest sigh.

DISSATISFACTION.

TRANSLATED FROM THEODORE KOeRNER.

"Composed as I stood sentinel on the banks of the Elbe."

Fatherland! Thou call'st the singer
In the blissful glow of day;
He no more can musing linger,
While thou dost mourn a tyrant's sway.
Love and poesy forsaking,
From friendship's magic circle breaking,
The keenest pangs he could endure
Thy peace to insure.

Yet sometimes tears must dim his eyes,
As, on the melodious bridge of song,
The shadows of past joys arise,
And in mild beauty round him throng.
In vain, o'er life, that early beam
Such radiance shed;--the impetuous stream
Of strife has seized him, onward borne,
While left behind his loved ones mourn.

Here in the crowd must he complain,
Nor find a fit employ?
Give him poetic place again,
Or the quick throb of warlike joy.
The wonted inspiration give;
Thus languidly he cannot live;
Love's accents are no longer near;
Let him the trumpet hear.

Where is the cannon's thunder?
The clashing cymbals, where?
While foreign foes our cities plunder,
Can we not hasten there?
I can no longer watch this stream;
_In prose_ I die! O source of flame!
O poesy! for which I glow,--
A nobler death thou shouldst bestow!

MY SEAL-RING.

Mercury has cast aside
The signs of intellectual pride,
Freely offers thee the soul:
Art thou noble to receive?
Canst thou give or take the whole,
Nobly promise, and believe?
Then thou wholly human art,
A spotless, radiant, ruby heart,
And the golden chain of love
Has bound thee to the realm above.
If there be one small, mean doubt,
One serpent thought that fled not out,
Take instead the serpent-rod;
Thou art neither man nor God.
Guard thee from the powers of evil;
Who cannot trust, vows to the devil.
Walk thy slow and spell-bound way;
Keep on thy mask, or shun the day--
Let go my hand upon the way.

THE CONSOLERS.

TRANSLATED FROM GOETHE.

"Why wilt thou not thy griefs forget?
Why must thine eyes with tears be wet?
When all things round thee sweetly smile,
Canst thou not, too, be glad a while?"

"Hither I come to weep alone;
The grief I feel is all mine own;
Dearer than smiles these tears to me;
Smile you--I ask no sympathy!"

"Repel not thus affection's voice!
While thou art sad, can we rejoice?
To friendly hearts impart thy woe;
Perhaps we may some healing know."

"Too gay your hearts to feel like mine,
Or such a sorrow to divine;
Nought have I lost I e'er possessed;
I mourn that I cannot be blessed."

"What idle, morbid feelings these!
Can you not win what prize you please?
Youth, with a genius rich as yours,
All bliss the world can give insures."

"Ah, too high-placed is my desire!
The star to which my hopes aspire
Shines all too far--I sigh in vain,
Yet cannot stoop to earth again."

"Waste not so foolishly thy prime;
If to the stars thou canst not climb,
Their gentle beams thy loving eye
Every clear night will gratify."

"Do I not know it? Even now
I wait the sun's departing glow,
That I may watch them. Meanwhile ye
Enjoy the day--'tis nought to me!"

ABSENCE OF LOVE.

Though many at my feet have bowed,
And asked my love through pain and pleasure,
Fate never yet the youth has showed
Meet to receive so great a treasure.

Although sometimes my heart, deceived,
Would love because it sighed _to feel_,
Yet soon I changed, and sometimes grieved
Because my fancied wound would heal.

MEDITATIONS.

SUNDAY, _May 12, 1833_.

The clouds are marshalling across the sky,
Leaving their deepest tints upon yon range
Of soul-alluring hills. The breeze comes softly,
Laden with tribute that a hundred orchards
Now in their fullest blossom send, in thanks
For this refreshing shower. The birds pour forth
In heightened melody the notes of praise
They had suspended while God's voice was speaking,
And his eye flashing down upon his world.
I sigh, half-charmed, half-pained. My sense is living,
And, taking in this freshened beauty, tells
Its pleasure to the mind. The mind replies,
And strives to wake the heart in turn, repeating
Poetic sentiments from many a record
Which other souls have left, when stirred and satisfied
By scenes as fair, as fragrant. But the heart
Sends back a hollow echo to the call
Of outward things,--and its once bright companion,
Who erst would have been answered by a stream
Of life-fraught treasures, thankful to be summoned,--
Can now rouse nothing better than this echo;
Unmeaning voice, which mocks their softened accents.
Content thee, beautiful world! and hush, still busy mind!
My heart hath sealed its fountains. To the things
Of Time they shall be oped no more. Too long,
Too often were they poured forth: part have sunk
Into the desert; part profaned and swollen
By bitter waters, mixed by those who feigned
They asked them for refreshment, which, turned back,
Have broken and o'erflowed their former urns.

So when ye talk of _pleasure_, lonely world,
And busy mind, ye ne'er again shall move me
To answer ye, though still your calls have power
To jar me through, and cause dull aching _here_.

Not so the voice which hailed me from the depths
Of yon dark-bosomed cloud, now vanishing
Before the sun ye greet. It touched my centre,
The voice of the Eternal, calling me
To feel his other worlds; to feel that if
I could deserve a home, I still might find it
In other spheres,--and bade me not despair,
Though "want of harmony" and "aching void"
Are terms invented by the men of this,
Which I may not forget.

In former times
I loved to see the lightnings flash athwart
The stooping heavens; I loved to hear the thunder
Call to the seas and mountains; for I thought
'Tis thus man's flashing fancy doth enkindle
The firmament of mind; 'tis thus his eloquence
Calls unto the soul's depths and heights; and still
I deified the creature, nor remembered
The Creator in his works.

Ah now how different!
The proud delight of that keen sympathy
Is gone; no longer riding on the wave,
But whelmed beneath it: my own plans and works,
Or, as the Scriptures phrase it, my "_inventions_"
No longer interpose 'twixt me and Heaven.

To-day, for the first time, I felt the Deity,
And uttered prayer on hearing thunder. This
Must be thy will,--for finer, higher spirits
Have gone through this same process,--yet I think
There was religion in that strong delight,
Those sounds, those thoughts of power imparted. True,
I did not say, "He is the Lord thy God,"
But I had feeling of his essence. But
"'Twas pride by which the angels fell." So be it!
But O, might I but see a little onward!
Father, I cannot be a spirit of power;
May I be active as a spirit of love,
Since thou hast ta'en me from that path which Nature
Seemed to appoint, O, deign to ope another,
Where I may walk with thought and hope assured;
"Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!"
Had I but faith like that which fired Novalis,
I too could bear that the heart "fall in ashes,"
While the freed spirit rises from beneath them,
With heavenward-look, and Phoenix-plumes upsoaring!

RICHTER.

Poet of Nature, gentlest of the wise,
Most airy of the fanciful, most keen
Of satirists, thy thoughts, like butterflies,
Still near the sweetest scented flowers have been:
With Titian's colors, thou canst sunset paint;
With Raphael's dignity, celestial love;
With Hogarth's pencil, each deceit and feint
Of meanness and hypocrisy reprove;
Canst to Devotion's highest flight sublime
Exalt the mind; by tenderest pathos' art
Dissolve in purifying tears the heart,
Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime;
The fond illusions of the youth and maid,
At which so many world-formed sages sneer,
When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed,
Our natural religion must appear.
All things in thee tend to one polar star;
Magnetic all thy influences are;
A labyrinth; a flowery wilderness.
Some in thy "slip-boxes" and honeymoons
Complain of--want of order, I confess,
But not of system in its highest sense.
Who asks a guiding clew through this wide mind,
In love of nature such will surely find,
In tropic climes, live like the tropic bird,
Whene'er a spice-fraught grove may tempt thy stray;
Nor be by cares of colder climes disturbed:
No frost the summer's bloom shall drive away;
Nature's wide temple and the azure dome
Have plan enough for the free spirit's home.

THE THANKFUL AND THE THANKLESS.

With equal sweetness the commissioned hours
Shed light and dew upon both weeds and flowers.
The weeds unthankful raise their vile heads high,
Flaunting back insult to the gracious sky;
While the dear flowers, with fond humility,
Uplift the eyelids of a starry eye
In speechless homage, and, from grateful hearts,
Perfume that homage all around imparts.

PROPHECY AND FULFILMENT.

When leaves were falling thickly in the pale November day,
A bird dropped here this feather upon her pensive way.
Another bird has found it in the snow-chilled April day;
It brings to him the music of all her summer's lay.
Thus sweet birds, though unmated, do never sing in vain;
The lonely notes they utter to free them from their pain,
Caught up by the echoes, ring through the blue dome,
And by good spirits guided pierce to some gentle home.

The pencil moved prophetic: together now men read
In the fair book of nature, and find the hope they need.
The wreath woven by the river is by the seaside worn,
And one of fate's best arrows to its due mark is borne.

VERSES

GIVEN TO W. C. WITH A BLANK BOOK, MARCH, 1844.

Thy other book to fill, more than eight years
Have paid chance tribute of their smiles and tears;
Many bright strokes portray the varied scene--
Wild sports, sweet ties the days of toil between;
And those related both in mind and blood,
The wise, the true, the lovely, and the good,
Have left their impress here; nor such alone,
But those chance toys that lively feelings own
Weave their gay flourishes 'mid lines sincere,
As 'mid the shadowy thickets bound the deer
Accept a volume where the coming time
Will join, I hope, much reason with the rhyme,
And that the stair his steady feet ascend
May prove a Jacob's ladder to my friend,
Peopled with angel-shapes of promise bright,
And ending only in the realms of light.

May purity be stamped upon his brow,
Yet leave the manly footsteps free as now;
May generous love glow in his inmost heart,
Truth to its utterance lend the only art;
While more a man, may he be more the child;
More thoughtful be, but the more sweet and mild;
May growing wisdom, mixed with sprightly cheer,
Bless his own breast and those which hold him dear;
Each act be worthy of his worthiest aim,
And love of goodness keep him free from blame,
Without a need straight rules for life to frame.

Good Spirit, teach him what he ought to be,
Best to fulfil his proper destiny,
To serve himself, his fellow-men, and thee.
These pages then will show how Nature wild
Accepts her Master, cherishes her child;
And many flowers, ere eight years more are done,
Shall bless and blossom in the western sun.

EAGLES AND DOVES.

GOETHE.

A new-fledged eaglet spread his wings
To seek for prey;
Then flew the huntsman's dart and cut
The right wing's sinewy strength away.
Headlong he falls into a myrtle grove;
There three days long devoured his grief,
And writhed in pain
Three long, long nights, three days as weary.
At length he feels
The all-healing power
Of Nature's balsam.
Forth from the shady bush he creeps,
And tries his wing; but, ah!
The power to soar is gone!
He scarce can lift himself
Along the ground
In search of food to keep mere life awake;
Then rests, deep mourning,
On a low rock by the brook;
He looks up to the oak tree's top,
Far up to heaven,
And a tear glistens in his haughty eye.

Just then come by a pair of fondling doves,
Playfully rustling through the grove.
Cooing and toying, they go tripping
Over golden sand and brook;
And, turning here and there,
Their rose-tinged eyes descry
The inly-mourning bird.
The dove, with friendly curiosity,
Flutters to the next bush, and looks
With tender sweetness on the wounded king.
"Ah, why so sad?" he cooes;
"Be of good cheer, my friend!
Hast thou not all the means of tranquil bliss
Around thee here?
Canst thou not meet with swelling breast
The last rays of the setting sun
On the brook's mossy brink?
Canst wander 'mid the dewy flowers,
And, from the superfluous wealth
Of the wood-bushes, pluck at will
Wholesome and delicate food,
And at the silvery fountain quench thy thirst?
O friend! the spirit of content
Gives all that we can know of bliss;
And this sweet spirit of content
Finds every where its food."
"O, wise one!" said the eagle, deeper still
Into himself retiring;
"O wisdom, thou speakest as a dove!"

TO A FRIEND, WITH HEARTSEASE.

Content in purple lustre clad,
Kingly serene, and golden glad;
No demi hues of sad contrition,
No pallors of enforced submission;
Give me such content as this,
And keep a while the rosy bliss.

ASPIRATION.

LINES WRITTEN IN THE JOURNAL OF HER BROTHER R. F. F.

Foreseen, forespoken not foredone,--
Ere the race be well begun,
The prescient soul is at the goal,
One little moment binds the whole;
Happy they themselves who call
To risk much, and to conquer all;
Happy are they who many losses,
Sore defeat or frequent crosses,
Though these may the heart dismay,
Cannot the sure faith betray;
Who in beauty bless the Giver;
Seek ocean on the loveliest river;
Or on desert island tossed,
Seeing Heaven, think nought lost.
May thy genius bring to thee
Of this life experience free,
And the earth vine's mysterious cup,
Sweet and bitter yield thee up.
But should the now sparkling bowl
Chance to slip from thy control,
And much of the enchanted wine
Be spilt in sand, as 'twas with mine,
Let blessings lost being consecration,
Change the pledge to a libation.
For the Power to whom we bow
Has given his pledge, that, if not now,
They of pure and steadfast mind,
By faith exalted, truth refined,
Shall hear all music, loud and clear,
Whose first notes they ventured here.
Then fear not thou to wind the horn
Though elf and gnome thy courage scorn;
Ask for the castle's king and queen,
Though rabble rout may come between,
Beat thee, senseless, to the ground,
In the dark beset thee round;
Persist to ask, and they will come.
Seek not for rest a humbler home,
And thou wilt see what few have seen,
The palace home of king and queen.

THE ONE IN ALL.

There are who separate the eternal light
In forms of man and woman, day and night;
They cannot bear that God be essence quite.

Existence is as deep a verity:
Without the dual, where is unity?
And the "I am" cannot forbear to be;

But from its primal nature forced to frame
Mysteries, destinies of various name,
Is forced to give what it has taught to claim.

Thus love must answer to its own unrest;
The bad commands us to expect the best,
And hope of its own prospects is the test.

And dost thou seek to find the one in two?
Only upon the old can build the new;
The symbol which you seek is found in you.

The heart and mind, the wisdom and the will,
The man and woman, must be severed still,
And Christ must reconcile the good and ill.

There are to whom each symbol is a mask;
The life of love is a mysterious task;
They want no answer, for they would not ask.

A single thought transfuses every form;
The sunny day is changed into the storm,
For light is dark, hard soft, and cold is warm.

One presence fills and floods the whole serene;
Nothing can be, nothing has ever been,
Except the one truth that creates the scene.

Does the heart beat,--that is a seeming only;
You cannot be alone, though you are lonely;
The All is neutralized in the One only.

You ask _a_ faith,--they are content with faith;
You ask to have,--but they reply, "IT hath."
There is no end, and there need be no path.

The day wears heavily,--why, then, ignore it;
Peace is the soul's desire,--such thoughts restore it;
The truth thou art,--it needs not to implore it.

_The Presence_ all thy fancies supersedes,
All that is done which thou wouldst seek in deeds,
_The_ wealth obliterates all seeming needs.

Both these are true, and if they are at strife,
The mystery bears the one name of _Life_,
That, slowly spelled, will yet compose the strife.

The men of old say, "Live twelve thousand years,
And see the end of all that here appears,
And Moxen[45] shall absorb thy smiles and tears."

These later men say, "Live this little day.
Believe that human nature is the way,
And know both Son and Father while you pray;

And one in two, in three, and none alone,
Letting you know even as you are known,
Shall make the you and me eternal parts of one."

To me, our destinies seem flower and fruit
Born of an ever-generating root;
The other statement I cannot dispute.

But say that Love and Life eternal seem,
And if eternal ties be but a dream,
What is the meaning of that self-same _seem_?

Your nature craves Eternity for Truth;
Eternity of Love is prayer of youth;
How, without love, would have gone forth your truth?

I do not think we are deceived to grow,
But that the crudest fancy, slightest show,
Covers some separate truth that we may know.

In the one Truth, each separate fact is true;
Eternally in one I many view,
And destinies through destiny pursue.

This is _my_ tendency; but can I say
That this my thought leads the true, only way?
I only know it constant leads, and I obey.

I only know one prayer--"Give me the truth,
Give me that colored whiteness, ancient youth,
Complex and simple, seen in joy and ruth.

Let me not by vain wishes bar my claim,
Nor soothe my hunger by an empty name,
Nor crucify the Son of man by hasty blame.

But in the earth and fire, water and air,
Live earnestly by turns without despair,
Nor seek a home till home be every where!"

A GREETING.

Thoughts which come at a call
Are no better than if they came not at all;
Neither flower nor fruit,
Yielding no root
For plant, shrub, or tree.
Thus I have not for thee
One good word to say,
To-day,
Except that I prize thy gentle heart,
Free from ambition, falsehood, or art,
And thy good mind,
Daily refined,
By pure desire
To fan the heaven-seeking fire:
May it rise higher and higher;
Till in thee
Gentleness finds its dignity,
Life flowing tranquil, pure and free,
A mild, unbroken harmony.

LINES TO EDITH, ON HER BIRTHDAY.

If the same star our fates together bind,
Why are we thus divided, mind from mind?
If the same law one grief to both impart,
How couldst thou grieve a trusting mother's heart?

Our aspiration seeks a common aim;
Why were we tempered of such differing frame?
But 'tis too late to turn this wrong to right;
Too cold, too damp, too deep, has fallen the night.

And yet, the angel of my life replies,
Upon that night a morning star shall rise,
Fairer than that which ruled thy temporal birth,
Undimmed by vapors of the dreamy earth.

It says, that, where a heart thy claim denies,
Genius shall read its secret ere it flies;
The earthly form may vanish from thy side,
Pure love will make thee still the spirit's bride.

And thou, ungentle, yet much loving child,
Whose heart still shows the "untamed haggard wild,"
A heart which justly makes the highest claim,
Too easily is checked by transient blame.

Ere such an orb can ascertain its sphere,
The ordeal must be various and severe;
My prayer attend thee, though the feet may fly;
I hear thy music in the silent sky.

LINES

WRITTEN IN HER BROTHER R. F. F.'S JOURNAL.

"Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that
man is peace."--_Psalms_ xxxvii. 37.

The man of heart and words sincere,
Who truth and justice follows still,
Pursues his way with conscience clear,
Unharmed by earthly care and ill.
His promises he never breaks,
But sacredly to each adheres;
Honor's straight path he ne'er forsakes,
Though danger in the way appears.
He never boasts, will ne'er deceive,
For vanity nor yet for gain;
All that he says you may believe;
For worlds he would not conscience stain.
If he desires what others do,
And they deserve it more than he,
He gives to them what is their due,
Happy in his humility.
Not to his friends alone he's kind,
But his foes too with candor sees;
Not to their good intentions blind,
Though hopeless their dislike t' appease.
His eyes are clear, his hands are pure,
To God it is his constant prayer
That, be he rich or be he poor,
He never may wrong actions dare.
If rich, he to the suffering gives
All he can spare, and thinks it just,
That, since he by God's bounty lives,
He should as steward hold his trust.
If poor, he envies not; he knows
How covetousness corrupts the heart,
Whatever a just God bestows
Receiving as his proper part.
O Father, such a man I'd be;
Like him would act, like him would pray:
Lead me in truth and purity
To win thy peace and see thy day.

ON A PICTURE REPRESENTING THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS.

BY RAPHAEL.

Virgin Mother, Mary mild!
It was thine to see the child,
Gift of the Messiah dove,
Pure blossom of ideal love,
Break, upon the "guilty cross,"
The seeming promise of his life;
Of faith, of hope, of love, a loss,
Deepened all thy, bosom's strife,
Brow down-bent, and heart-strings torn,
Fainting, by frail arms upborne.

All those startled figures show,
That they did not apprehend
The thought of Him who there lies low,
On whom those sorrowing eyes they bend.
They do not feel this holiest hour;
Their hearts soar not to read the power,
Which this deepest of distress
Alone could give to save and bless.

Soul of that fair, now ruined form,
Thou who hadst force to bide the storm,
Must again descend to tell
Of thy life the hidden spell;
Though their hearts within them burned,
The flame rose not till he returned.

Just so all our dead ones lie;
Just so call our thoughts on high;
Thus we linger on the earth,
And dully miss death's heavenly birth.

THE CAPTURED WILD HORSE.[46]

On the boundless plain careering,
By an unseen compass steering,
Wildly flying, reappearing,--
With untamed fire their broad eyes glowing,
In every step a grand pride showing,
Of no servile moment knowing,--

Happy as the trees and flowers,
In their instinct cradled hours,
Happier in fuller powers,--

See the wild herd nobly ranging,
Nature varying, not changing,
Lawful in their lawless ranging.

But hark! what boding crouches near?
On the horizon now appear
Centaur-forms of force and fear.

On their enslaved brethren borne,
With bit and whip of tyrant scorn,
To make new captives, as forlorn.

Wildly snort the astonished throng,
Stamp, and wheel, and fly along,
Those centaur-powers they know are strong.

But the lasso, skilful cast,
Holds one only captive fast,
Youngest, weakest--left the last.

How thou trembledst then, Konick!
Thy full breath came short and thick,
Thy heart to bursting beat so quick;

Thy strange brethren peering round,
By those tyrants held and bound,
Tyrants fell,--whom falls confound!

With rage and pity fill thy heart;
Death shall be thy chosen part,
Ere such slavery tame thy heart.

But strange, unexpected joy!
They seem to mean thee no annoy--
Gallop off both man and boy.

Let the wild horse freely go!
Almost he shames it should be so;
So lightly prized himself to know.

All deception 'tis, O steed!
Ne'er again upon the mead
Shalt thou a free wild horse feed.

The mark of man doth blot thy side,
The fear of man doth dull thy pride,
Thy master soon shall on thee ride.

Thy brethren of the free plain,
Joyful speeding back again,
With proud career and flowing mane,

Find thee branded, left alone,
And their hearts are turned to stone--
They keep thee in their midst alone.

Cruel the intervening years,
Seeming freedom stained by fears,
Till the captor reappears;

Finds thee with thy broken pride.
Amid thy peers still left aside,
Unbeloved and unallied;
Finds thee ready for thy fate;
For joy and hope 'tis all too late--
Thou'rt wedded to thy sad estate.

* * * * *

Wouldst have the princely spirit bowed?
Whisper only, speak not loud,
Mark and leave him in the crowd.

Thou need'st not spies nor jailers have;
The free will serve thee like the slave,
Coward shrinking from the brave.

And thy cohorts, when they come
To take the weary captive home,
Need only beat the retreating drum.