Chapter VI: Part II (4)

Thus peering round with random glance,
I saw, or thought I saw, by chance,
Three seeming deities advance,
My soul alarming,
But soon they caused my feelings dance
With speeches charming.

L.

The first began: “My name is Hope;
To give thy fancy brighter scope
I come,—no longer sit and mope
With love concealed:
If thou thy bosom fully ope
The Nymph will yield.”

LI.

Then Cupid, neither blind nor lame,
With full-packed quiver smiling came;
I feared the Paphian archer’s game,
For well I knew
That all his darts were tipt with flame,
And torture too.

LII.

“Ha! Ha!” quoth he, “my foolish boy,
If you with Hymen mean to toy,
I’ll help him to some new employ.”—
From ’neath his wing
He drew his bow with look of joy,
And twanged the string.

LIII.

Next Courage spoke: “Lo! youthful guest,
I’ve come to fire thy timid breast;
What Hope and Love have just addressed
Must not prove vain;
This night thy soul must be confessed
To lovely Jane.

LIV.

That maid for whom thou’st banged the head
Of Sleep so oft upon thy bed,
Until he groaning from thee fled,
Is here alone:
Then ask her boldly will she wed
And be thine own.”

LV.

Pardon this wild Homeric flight,
And I will stoop from airy height;
’Tis truth I came to tell to-night,
And therefore ought
To paint my picture not too bright,
As I’ve been taught.

LVI.

Those shades divine had passed from view
When, with no less celestial hue,
My earthly goddess, warm and true
Returned, and then
I looked into her eyes of blue
Again—again.

LVII.

“It is,” said she, “a lovely night,
And though my folk are not in sight,
They soon will be, if all is right,
For ’tis the hour.”
Now was the time for Love to light
On Fortune’s flower.

LVIII.

Her fragrant breath my passion fanned,
I burned to kiss—or press her hand,
But feared to try—you understand,—
Lest I should rue it,
Till Love upon a sudden planned
How I might do it.

LIX.

I told her I had learned an art
Consoling to a maiden’s heart:
“You’ve got,” said I, “a little chart
Which I can read,
And from its dainty lines impart
What you should heed.

LX.

Can tell how soon you’ll be a bride,
How many beaux you have denied,
How many heirs you’ll raise to pride
Their native land:
All this, and more I can decide
Within your hand.”

LXI.

“Palmology your art they style,”
Replied the girl with sceptic smile,
“I know you think but to beguile
My simple pate;
But there’s my homely hand awhile,
Now read my fate.”

LXII.

I sprang enraptured from my seat
To grasp the prize, and play the cheat,
I seized it—Oh! the electric heat
That shook me now!
I heard our hearts like drumsticks beat
Strange row-da-dow.

LXIII.

I lost my gay design of flattery,
My ravished eyes grew somewhat watery,
Her face was Love’s galvanic battery,
Her arms the poles,
So Peter’s heart was blown to tatters, ye
Pitying souls!

LXIV.

Close by the nymph I trembling stood,
And all her heaven of beauty viewed;
My lips to hers I rashly glued—
But on the spot,
In this voluptuous attitude
Poor Pete is caught!

LXV.

Back flies the door, the family all
Rush with a noise into the hall,
Led by a figure grim and tall,
With whip in hand:
“You daring rogue,” I heard him bawl,
“What’s this I find?”

LXVI.

As drops the fox the fluttering hen,
When dogs and boys and armed men
At once attack him in the pen,
With furious din,
So I now dropped the blushing Jane,
And hung my chin.

LXVII.

But, oh! the man who bore the whip
Began to stamp, and swear, and rip,
And laid the lash upon my hip
So cutting sore,
I gave a three-yard Yankee skip,
And gained the door.

LXVIII.

Outside I got, but close behind
My foe pursued with speed of wind,
His sounding thong with crimson lined
My smarting back,
And peeled from off my shanks the rind
At every crack.

LXIX.

I roared, and yelled, and danced a-head,
Invoking powers of sacred dread,
Till by superior speed I fled
His lash unkind:
But Oh! my hat—must it be said?—
Was left behind!

LXX.

Homeward I drove, bare-headed, lame,
Smarting with love, and stripes, and shame—
Oh! such a medley-mongrel-flame
As this, ye fair!
Made Peter curse your sacred name,
And bang the air.

LXXI.

I thought of drowning, poison, shooting.
My hopes, like routed ranks retreating,
Left me the crust of sorrow eating,
Till dawn of day,
When sons of Mars their drums were beating
Not far away.

LXXII.

I heard the clash of bayonets ring—
I ran—I flew on glory’s wing
To serve my country, not my king,
Nor served in vain;
Our deeds the future bards will sing
In epic strain.

LXXIII.

To Jane Levay I bade adieu,
And ere to manhood’s years I grew
The tidings o’er the country flew
That Jane was married;
So overboard my hopes I threw,
And single tarried.

LXXIV.

Now, when I draw my pension fee
I view it with an eye of glee,
And think: “My courtship, ’tis to thee
I owe this guerdon:”
Then if I take a fortnight’s spree,
I beg your pardon.

LXXV.

My tale is told; and if my skill
Has charmed away one earthly ill,
Has made one aged bosom thrill,
Let cynics frown,
The few who know my follies will
Not write them down.

LXXVI.

For you, my boys, with ardent eyes,
Whose nightly dreams and daily sighs
Are urged by beauty’s maddening dyes
And glossy curls,
Till older—mark me!—I advise,
Keep from the girls.

FEAR OF BLINDNESS.

A horror, like the darkness of the tomb,
Came over me when told,
That I might lose the brightness and the bloom,
The blessed green and gold
Of landscapes, and the circuit of the skies.
If doomed such ill to bear,—
If never more, indeed, these clouded eyes
May taste their daily fare
Of books and beauty’s charm, it were unwise
To yield me to despair.

Twin guides, that from the dawn of life till late
Your lamps for me have borne,
If weary of your task you hesitate
To serve me further, worn
And vexed with slavish toil, demanding rest
Myself alone I chide,
And grateful are the heavings of my breast,
For light so long supplied
By two such faithful friends, abused, opprest,
Your rights, poor eyes! denied.

My soul, if fails thy hope, with patient brow
Accept the outer dusk,
And trust the inner light that serves thee now
To pierce the silken husk
Of truths that do impart a quiet joy.
The self-illumined mind
Is not dependent for its best employ
On outward things, defined
To outward sense;—let aught this lamp destroy,
And I were truly blind.

UNKNOWN.

(On receiving the portrait of a young lady personally unknown to the author.)

Image of one whose lips and eyes
Have never moved me with their spell;
Whose greeting smiles, and farewell sighs,
To happier hearts their meaning tell.

The echo of thy life, to me,
Is but as music heard in dreams;
Or like a cloud beyond the sea,
Or foreign flowers by foreign streams.

And yet I know—who may not know?
That these twin windows of the soul
Have had their hours of overflow,
Their share of gladness and of dole.

I know, for ’tis “the common lot,”
That oft within this comely brow
Angelic hope, and loving thought,
Have reared fair castles, crumbled now.

The stars that all alike behold,
The air we breathe, the sun that cheers,
Unite, and evermore enfold,
The generations of the years.

And hence it needs no clasp of hands,
Nor vocal utterance, face to face,
To feel those sympathetic bands
That unify the human race.

FLORAL ENVOY.

To F. B.

I.

This envoy of flowers,
A deputy meet,
Your birthday, my friend,
Is instructed to greet,
And my kindliest wishes
To kindly repeat.—
Interpret aright
In friendship’s white light
What the beautiful flowers
Would say, could they speak.
The sensitive flowers,
All voiceless and weak,—
Their meaning, involved
In their bloom and their breath,
Despairing to utter,
They haste to their death.

II.

The sweet-scented flowers
Must droop and decay,
But not what their delicate
Pantings would say.
The messenger fails,
But the message survives—
An essence, a spirit,
That throbs in the lives
Of atoms too subtile
For kinship with clay.

III.

All kindly emotion,
That passes the portal
Of a heart that is truthful,
Is thenceforth immortal:
In its mute transmigration
From age unto age,
In the love of the maid
In the thought of the sage,
It blossoms afresh,
It persists without end,
Joins lover to lover,
Binds friend unto friend.
Then, seeing that flowers
And words are but weak,
Take care that to-night,
You interpret aright
What the sensitive flowers
Would say could they speak.

ON THE DEATH OF A VETERAN JOURNALIST.

Great faith was his, a broadened light that shed
An unremittant halo on his way,
Out-shining moon, and stars, and solar ray,
By which his steps through stormy years were led;
And while his soul on heavenly manna fed,
The well adjusted balance, work and pray,
He steadfastly observed from day to day,
Assured that faith divorced from work is dead.
For man’s behoof the Christian hero wrought,
Consistent, fearless, aiming for the right,
His silvered locks conspicuous in the fight,
Whose purpose was release of limb and thought
From all enslaving bonds; kind heart and brave!
No rest for him, no rest but in the grave!

HEART-HUNGER.

Dost thou do well, dear idol of my heart!
To thrall me in the meshes of thy charms,
To fill my constant soul with soft alarms,
Then coyly thrust me from thy love apart?
Pluck from my breast, O pluck the mystic dart!
Yield—or I perish—to these folding arms!
Assuage the hunger of this sick desire
That wraps me like an aromatic fire!—
O lull with thy ambrosial breath the swarms
Of wounded thoughts that issue from my brain
And seek thy presence, seek thee day and night,
And on thy brow, and eyes, and lips alight,
Extracting aye a honey that is pain!—
O, save me with thy kisses, love, or kill me quite!

TO A YOUNG AUTHOR ON HIS BIRTHDAY.

Friend of my later years, whose thoughts are set
To noble ends, despising the pursuit
Of vices which the instinct of the brute,
Incorporate in man, contends for yet;—
Who out of boyhood’s slavery and fret
Could issue like a sword-blade from its sheath,
Resolved by high endeavor to bequeath
Some good that future times may not forget,—
Press on, thy better fortune leads the way,
And thine is still the sesame of youth,
To which the door of many a hidden truth
Shall open,—so I dare to prophesy,—
And ancient Error, stubborn and uncouth,
Shall own thy strength and rue thy natal day.

TO G. I. AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON.

The leaf you plucked from Shakespeare’s garden plot,
And sent me, my most estimable friend,
The voyage of the salt sea injured not.
Green as it grew upon its native spot,
It nestled ’mid the kindly words you penned.
The poet’s genius, free from flaw or blot,
In which Melpomene found naught to mend,
My fancy with this leaflet loves to blend;
But, though with care I guard it all my days,
In fret of time ’twill fade and fall away,
Like hope, once fresh, will crumble to decay.
Not so our Dramatist’s perennial bays;
Not so the bloom and sunshine of his Plays,
Rejoicing in their immortality.

MERCY.[11]

Ye silent statesmen, fully armed with power
To save or slaughter, spare the captive’s life!
The wild fanatic of a hapless strife,
Still fresh in manhood’s summer-scented flower;
Whose sense of wrong, discretion did devour,
And, breaking from his children and his wife,
Feared not the hazard of the fatal hour,
The ineffectual struggle, ever rife
With death and dungeons when rebellion fails.
O, let humanity for mercy plead!
Risk not the victor’s vengeance on the scales
Of Justice, lest our grieved November gales
Waft on to future years the ruthless deed,
And keen remorse to cooler thoughts succeed.

[11] Written in reference to the impending execution of Louis Riel, when it was hoped by many that his life would be spared.

LOVE AND DEATH.

[Arranged from fragments of MS. found in the portmanteau of a young traveller who died suddenly at a wayside inn in Idaho, in the year 1850.]

When toward me bends the shade of death,
And friends deplore my waning breath,
Let woman, flushed with vernal charms,
Support me in her tender arms,
And kindly let her bosom swell
For one who loved her sex too well.

And when the solemn change has come,
Should sorrow hold my angel dumb,
And dim her eyes with humid veil,
And fix them on my features pale,
My spirit, raised on wing to go,
Will hover o’er her breast of snow,
And on her saddened lips impress
The seal of love’s farewell caress,
Then, if a tear-drop chance to roll
Adown her cheek, my flying soul
Will snatch the gem,—for earth too bright,—
And bear it to the realms of light;
Nor there the sparkling pledge resign,
But hoard it as a thing divine,
And smile to see its feeble ray
Blend with thy beams, Eternity!

And now, dear woman, gently press
Those lids that claim thy tenderness,
And hide those faded orbs of blue
That oft in rapture rolled on you,
And through the silent hours of night
Cradled your image in their light.
Now let thy loving fingers close
Those lips above their ivory rows,
And think, while you the task fulfil,
How oft thine own have made them thrill,
How oft, with youthful passion warm,
Their kisses told my heart’s alarm,
Enough; retire, forever blest;
Let meaner hands perform the rest.

Next, let nor clown nor knave presume
To bear my relics to the tomb;
Let bards and sages, men of mind,
Convey it thence with bosoms kind,
And think, along the solemn way,
“We bear a brother’s weight to-day.”
Let no grim priest of narrow view
My spirit’s mystic flight pursue,
And o’er my corse his terrors sound
To awe his trembling dupes around,
And stupidly profane the end
Of slandered Truth’s devoted friend.

Now place me in my rayless bed,
And carve these lines above my head:

“This simple mound conceals from sight,
A brother of poetic light.
His heart was Love’s volcanic throne,
Love, the sole king he e’er would own.
All men, of every hue of skin,
He reckoned as his nearest kin;
He looked where’er oppression trod,
And felt the inward flash of God,
And prayed with an immortal hope
For Freedom’s universal scope.
Titles and power by outrage won,
And handed down from sire to son,
He ever held in utter scorn,
And honoured most the lowly born.
His follies, oh! the vast amount—
Forgive them ere you stop to count,
And let oblivion’s velvet pall,
In charity conceal them all.

“Inquirest thou the poet’s creed?
’Twas brief, but served his utmost need:
Truth is divine, wherever found,
On Christian or on pagan ground;
Engraven on the hearts of men
Are God’s commandments, more than ten;
The universe his laws proclaim,
To learn them be my constant aim;
Goodness and mercy, holy these
In Jesus or in Socrates;
The glory of an earthly span
Is service to our fellow man.
’Twas thus with chastened heart he thought,
Nor cared what theologians taught;
And if he erred to an excess
In not believing more, or less,
Ye who accuse, depart in fear,
And spare his bones your censure here.
If your own merits far excel
The poet’s troubled life, ’tis well.
If in a truer light you live,
Go! learn to pity and forgive.”

THE END.