Chapter I: Wonder (2)

All literature is for the mind. But since there are three departments of the mind, and since literature is produced by and for the mind, there must naturally be three divisions of literature that each mental power may receive sustenance. That is, there should be that literature for the intellect in which knowledge predominates. For the sensibilities, there should be that literature in which feeling, emotion, is the primary and essential element. For the will, there should be that literature that has for its chief end the rousing of resolution.

On examination of the literary products of the world, we find that this philosophy is sustained. For the intellect, we have treatises (as on the sciences, mathematics, etc.), histories, biographies, novels, romances, essays, etc., etc. The primary object of these is to furnish knowledge; to satisfy the intellect. They are in the highest sense didactic, although, of course, just as the literature for each faculty does, they incidentally furnish some food for the other powers.

This intellective literature is the kind that is most largely cultivated at the present. In fact, it is cultivated almost to the exclusion of the other two.

For the will, we have sermons, lectures, orations, speeches, addresses, harangues, etc.; a class of literature that is small when compared with the preceding. These two departments of the mind monopolize the whole domain of prose.

That other department of literature, in which feeling is the dominating and pervading principle, must, by its very nature, act upon that same power of the mind that produced it; namely, the sensibilities.

Poetry is the literature of feeling, and consequently finds its province here. It is the mission of poetry, therefore, as suggested by the latter part of the definition, to minister to the feelings, to interpret the Divine in the human heart. It is this that all writers on the subject and that all poets mean when they say it is the mission of poetry to give pleasure.

But what shall be the limit of that word “pleasure”? Herein lies the chief cause of great differences of opinion, especially with those who hold that there is such a thing as didactic poetry. Or rather, what is the true meaning of “pleasure” as thus used? The very essence of pleasure, as opposed to pain, is that it gratify some emotion and set it at perfect rest.

What emotions when gratified are at perfect rest? The answer at once forces itself upon us, only the better emotions. That poetry does minister to and satisfy the higher and nobler feelings, and that what does not do this is not poetry, even the meanest heart that it touches fully knows.

The attempted gratification of hate, or of any desire whatsoever to give pain to any one, as illustrated in Pope’s _Dunciad_, Dryden’s _Absalom and Achitophel_, Butler’s _Hudibras_, Byron’s _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, and all such, never sets the mind of the writer at rest, nor gives enjoyment to the reader. Indeed, who now ever reads these, the world’s greatest illustrations of witty bitterness and venom, couched in verse and unjustifiably designated as poetry?

These are accounted “great works.” But who, let me ask, ever reads any of these “great works,” or ever heard of them, except in some text on Literature? Or, having read them, who loves them, or their authors for having written them? None. No, not one.

On the other hand, who has not read some of the noblest works of Shakespeare, Burns, Milton, Tennyson, Longfellow, Bryant, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes? And who does not feel nobler for having read, and who does not hold these authors shrined in his heart of hearts for having written? Is not this proof enough that it is the mission of poetry to minister only to the higher emotions?

After all, hate is merely the negative of love; simply the absence of the better emotion, a void, an ache, a pain. All attempts to gratify it only make it stronger--or rather drive the better emotion farther away--as illustrated by the cases of Pope, Dryden, Byron, and their fellows in revenge and bitterness wherever we find them. No one ever felt better or nobler or happier for gratifying a hate, for doing a bad deed, or for giving pain to a fellow-mortal’s feelings. The ever-accusing conscience, if he but listen, will never permit him to say in his heart that such gratification has given him pleasure.

If, then, it is the mission of poetry to give pleasure, no matter whether its interpretation of the Divine in the human heart be by tears or by laughter, its ministration necessarily must be to the immortal part of man.

In the light of all this, therefore, without further argument, it is clear and conclusive that all verse that is sarcastic, satiric, etc., such as that of Swift, Butler, Pope, Gay, Prior, and their hosts, is not poetry.

But what of the didactic? Whatever has the primary object of teaching delivers its treasures to the keeping of the intellect. If, therefore, verse aims primarily to teach, but ministers to the sensibilities only incidentally, it is not true poetry. Poetry does not teach nor preach nor argue nor discuss. Those are the provinces of prose. Poems and roses must not teach; they must bloom. Their breath delights us, their suggestions, their reflections of a Divinity that is above them, lifts us--God knows why! The cry of pain, the romping laugh of children at play, the pathos of death, the touch of the hand or the lips of the one we love needs no argument to fill the heart with uncontrollable emotion. These are the sweetest of the poet’s themes, and he has but to reveal them without argument as they are experienced in the heart. Argument kills them. Just in proportion to the didactic character of verse the path of poetry is departed from, and the realm of prose invaded. You cannot find a solitary purely didactic piece of verse the meaning of which could not be better expressed in prose. Not so with true poetry. That cannot be expressed in any other way.

The most illustrious types of the didactic are to be found in the “Artificial School,” at the head of which stands Pope. When we cut out the satiric and the sarcastic and all ill-feeling verse, as we see we must, and then the didactic, as we are forced by reason and logic to do, how much real poetry do we have left in this “School” so well named “Artificial”? How much is there left that makes the heart feel larger, nobler, better, and gives it new fountains of life? Only a rare gem now and then in the form of a single felicitous line or happily wedded couplet. Then, when we cut this same kind of verse out of the whole literature of the world, and also that other kind, already spoken of at length, in which there is merely spiritless poetic form as its chief element, how much real poetry and how many real poets does the world possess? Comparatively, only a few poets, the world’s great, and a few of their works--those that have already stood the test of time and that still stand the only true test of good literature, that it inspires the heart with noble feelings and lofty purposes--can be placed in the list.

But enough on the kinds of verse.

Another question concerning pleasure arising from poetry presents itself. “Violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die.” The poetic, by its very nature, is violent. Consequently, the mind cannot long imbibe its intoxicating draughts. A little at a time is exhilarating and invigorating; but an over-dose deadens the sensibilities, and often creates a serious dislike for the poetic and a consequent unconscious restlessness of longing for the satisfaction of the higher emotions that prose can never furnish.

The mind cannot long endure extreme exertion, just as the body cannot. Poetry requires extreme exertion of the sensibilities, consequently its duration should be short that its full delight and pleasure may be enjoyed. Since this is so, every poem, by the very nature of the mind, must be brief. Who would live in a conservatory of roses where their sweet scent, most delightful at first breath, soon becomes sickening? Or who would hold even one of those odorous blooms to the nose for long? Who, on the other hand, does not delight in an occasional sip of the scent of a bursting rose-bud? And who does not find new delight at each successive draught, and regret that the petals that breathe this odor for us, alas! must fade and fall?

I believe most profoundly with Poe that, from the standpoint of the mind that produces and the mind that perceives and enjoys it, there is no such thing as a long poem. I shall go farther, and say, not only that a poem must be short, but that it must be lyrical. This gets us back to nature. Historically the first literature of every nation is poetry, and that poetry is invariably lyrical; indeed, even inevitably so. In every nation, we find it is many centuries before these lyrics of the nation are gathered up and finally strung on the thread of narrative, thus making the Epic. From the lyric, all imaginable forms have been brought forth by ingenious poets of later day. The bard of simple days lived, not close to nature’s intellect, but close to nature’s heart. Burns was the best poet of modern days, because he did the same; consequently, he is always lyrical when he is natural.

Shall we then say that the Æneid, the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Canterbury Tales, the Faery Queen, or Paradise Lost is each one poem? Viewed as I have just remarked, and that (in its relation to the mind) is the only true way to view a poem, none of these is a single poem. Each is made up of a number of poems--gems strung on the thread of a common subject;--roses in a common conservatory.

Indeed, the whole of Homer is simply a collection of a great number of short poems--lyrics, indeed, they were--sung by many authors for centuries, and finally gathered up and pieced together to form books and volumes. Each one of the Canterbury Tales contains many poems, strung together to form one necklace of jewels.

I ask any one to sit down and read any of these great and wonderful works continuously one day, as he might prose, and comprehend what he is reading. Not even one book of Paradise Lost can be _read_ (in the true sense of that word) at a single sitting. There are too many poems in it, and the consequent demands upon the mind are too great for that. Possibly this very fact had somewhat to do with calling forth the unjust remark from Waller concerning that great epic, “If its length be not considered as a merit it hath no other.”

Since a poem must be brief, naturally, and for the same cause, it should be read judiciously and at intervals, if it is to be appreciated and enjoyed, just as the rose must be smelled only occasionally. We cannot read poetry as we can prose; it won’t let us. By their very natures they demand a different manner of reading. One can read prose continuously, hour after hour, without seriously wearying the mind, for the simple reason that, in prose, thought is not condensed, but is spread through a long series of sentences. Moreover, the thought is not, as a rule, simply suggested, but is fully expressed, leaving the mind in a comparative state of passive receptivity, with but little active labor to perform in order to comprehend the meaning. On the other hand, poetry always expresses thought in condensed form and suggests many fold more than it expresses. Consequently, a single stanza or even a single line may sometimes require as much attention for the full comprehension of its meaning and suggestion, as a whole page of ordinary prose.

We must plant the poem in the heart and give it time to grow, as we plant the flower-seeds in the soil. Finally, as the growing flower bursts into bloom, so must the poem blossom from the heart into its full perfection and beauty.

Fully to appreciate that flower’s beauty, it must not be dissected and analyzed by glass and scalpel. Did Burns go botanizing the daisy? Need we then go botanizing these flowers and blossoms of the soul of man? He who does it tries to force the intellect to do what the emotive nature, the beauty-loving part of man, alone can do. There is an intellectual delight in botanizing and in picking to pieces and analyzing the gathered specimens, but it is not that sweet, soul-inspiring pleasure born of the love of the beautiful that the heart alone can feel. He who botanizes the beautiful can never know in his head the supreme pleasure that he who loves the simple daisy too well to turn it under the sod feels in his heart.

Poetry is indeed immortal and divine. It is the breath of heaven in the nostrils of man, the divinity of the human soul, the heart in full flower and bloom. To an honest, earnest, sincere soul, it is the wonder of the age, as it has ever been the wonder of all ages, that “men endowed with highest gifts, the vision and the faculty divine,” being divinely appointed as poet-priest of the Almighty, should pander to the prurient taste of a so-called practical public;--that they should sell the divinity within them for a strip of royal purple; for a salve to an itching palm;--that they should barter immortality for a glitter-jingle.

But how shall this consummate artist not fall into the corruptions that beset him and his art divine? Here are the driveling jinglers, verse-makers, poetasters all about him, with their rattling, rollicking, banging tin-panery, loudly applauded by a rough-and-ready guffawing public; a “practical” public that loudly clamors for _sense_, _fact_,--and then drops another penny into the chapeaux of these venders of cheap jewelry for more of their applauded cheap sentiment and glittering platitudes, and jingling chains and necklaces, and rings, and things, whose brightness wears off in their mental pockets before the wife or sweetheart is gladdened by a glimpse of its “practical” glitter!

The great, true poet, he who alone is interpreter of the immortal in the mortal, the invisible in the visible by means of words, never asks how to avoid these corruptions. He does it. He despises, hates, abhors them. He does it, too, by obeying that Divinity within him. Obedient to that call, he walks majestically through this motley crowd;--aye, through this sometimes maudlin, jeering crowd that throw stones at him and mentally would crucify him!--and sets some stream of Beauty and Glory flowing through the hearts of men, forever to wash away these corruptions and stagnations of the human soul. Aye, truly! he asks not how, but teaches us how. Was it not so with those old Divine Writers, our highest type of poets, whose inspirations make the one Immortal Book? So shall it ever be. ’Tis the Divine Law.

Such a poet, interpreting nature and mirroring Divinity, and thus idealizing life that the seeing, aspiring soul may attain nearer its illimitable possibilities, we call an original poet, a genius. He is never a “popular” poet, as that term is used, but he is quite generally unpopular. Popular in the sense of time-enduring he is by that same Divine Law that brings him into existence. His soul will inevitably have some greatness in common with other great souls. These will rescue him and commend him to an increasing posterity; and so on and on, touching more and more souls, and thus seeming to grow ever better and better, though in reality he remains ever unchanged, while the souls he touches are the ones that ever strive to his greater height, and draw up numbers with them.

Thus does he whom an unappreciating, small-souled mob would have crucified, become immortal through the reciprocal divinity that is in himself and in the heart of humanity. Thus does, thus must, this poet-genius create--call into activity--the taste that must make him time-enduring. This is the penalty of genius and greatness--to suffer, and then triumphantly to endure forever in the hearts of men. Who would he were not a genius? Who would he were? In proof of all this, witness Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, not to speak of all the greatest Great.

I love that unswerving poetic genius who, in the face of taunts and revilings and sneers, still is obedient to that sublime divinity within him; who, conscious of his own soul’s illimitable vastness, must inevitably write for that soul’s satisfaction, and thus write, not for the present generation, but for posterity; and who, when he “wraps the drapery of his couch about him,” having obeyed the divine voice within him even to his latest breath, finally triumphs over all sneers and taunts and jeers, triumphs even over death, and, though dead, triumphantly lives in immortal words that still speak to us more and more divinely through the trumpet-soul of the more and more divine ages.

Such a poet, I say, must create the taste that will make him time-enduring. In other words, this true poet, this genius (else he were no genius at all), must see some relation of soul to soul not ordinarily seen, and never at all seen in exactly the same way, and so express that relation in words that humanity can but recognize it from the very fact of its commonness, its universality. Such a poet never follows public opinion, in the narrow sense of the opinion of a transitory present; but through great trials and suffering and much enduring generally, he leads it, or creates it rather, and develops it into that broader, truer public opinion,--humanity’s opinion; the only opinion, I should say, that is equal to that of a great soul.

The great never follow, but ever lead. They never pander to a perverted public taste, but follow their own convictions; and thus following the guiding power within them, they lead others in the same path. Thus drawn onwards and upwards by that link which binds man unto God, and thus leading humanity aright, they instinctively obey the teachings of Him, the Master, who “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister”; for they follow in His footsteps by upward leading and by thus greatly and divinely serving mankind.

In a general way, I may say of poets that there are two classes:--the introspective, or those whose souls, ever standing in the presence of the Divinity within them, hear the calls of other souls and the mighty voice of God; and hearing, obey;--the extrospective, or those whose souls, not less divine, but less conscious, perhaps, of that Divinity, unconsciously perceive the manifold relations in external nature, and through the universal spirit of nature none the less distinctly hear that same Almighty Voice. We shall hardly find a poet in whom one of these characteristics exists to the exclusion of the other; but we shall find that in many cases one characteristic or the other is dominant. For example, Browning is one of our best representatives of the introspective, and Wordsworth of the extrospective; while Shakespeare is the highest type of the perfect union of the two. Both classes obey the same voice, and though ministering through different sources, have the same mission to perform, the uplifting and purifying of the human soul.

Indeed, whatever does not have this mission is not true poetry. It is often said that that literature is best which has stood the test of time. Not so, if by that is meant simply that the literature shall have lived long; for both good and bad live. The true test is that it betters man’s estate, and ennobles his heart. If a poem inspires the heart with nobler feelings and greater love, then it is a good poem. This is the crucial, the only true test.

There is no act of the human mind that is not controlled by the feelings. When this is comprehended and when, at the same time, it is perceived to what an extent poetry ministers to the feelings, the utility of poetry will be better appreciated. Poetry thus ministering to the controlling forces of life, is a guide and corrective of life; a guide in that it is “a representation of life” (as Alfred Austin has it), the experiences of the hearts of men; a corrective in that it is “a criticism of life” (as Matthew Arnold says), an idealization that, by uplifting, corrects the heart that else would droop. Austin thinks his idea opposes Arnold’s. It does not. Each simply looks at one side; each takes a different angle. Both are correct so far as they go. For poetry is the heart’s history. It is also the ever present attempt, in the light of that guiding lamp, to the making of a better history.

This, indeed, makes it philosophy. For what else does philosophy do? The poet is ever a philosopher. Is not poetry philosophy teaching by experience? It does not teach by precept, it is not didactic; that is the province of prose; but it mirrors the human heart and reveals its experiences. Nine hundred ninety-nine people shape their lives by experience where one shapes his by rule and thumb. One rose of experience with its warning thorns has more of humanity and guidance in it than all the tangle-woods of teaching. The hand must follow the heart. If the heart be right the hand can never go wrong.

He who would be an immortal poet must have a great and sympathizing heart; a heart that laughs and weeps, and most of all, a heart that loves. Were I asked the one essential of the poet, that essential which includes all minor requisites, I should answer, Love. “A Poet without Love,” says Carlyle, “were a physical and a metaphysical impossibility.” It is the dominating element of all great poets. What poet is greater, or what one has loved more deeply than Burns?

Love often reveals itself in sorrow and in humor. Though the poet need not be a humorist, must not be at all times, as the term is used, it is nevertheless essential that he have a lively appreciation of the ludicrous, lest he fall into grave errors of thought and expression. But the humor must not be the all-pervading element of his poetry; it should be simply a check, a guide, or sometimes a spur. A keen sense of humor should be to him the lash that whips thought out of its self-constituted morbid glooms, in which it appears ridiculous, into a lively harmony with things as they really are to the hearts of men. It were, indeed, a nice question to determine how far the grave or the humorous should enter poetic composition to the exclusion of the other. Certainly the most felicitous poetry is not all rain nor all shine, but the iris of Ulloa struck out of the depths of tears by the happy, hopeful shine of laughter.

But if the poet laugh, he must also love; for he laughs because he loves. This is the divine law. The man who hates never laughs; he may mock. Well may we ponder that. Indeed, tears and laughter, sometimes blended, are but forms of love. If laughter is music, certainly love, that divine gift in the human heart, love of the good, the beautiful, and the true, love of home, of country, of mankind, of God, or of a beautiful image of God, the one who is the heart’s ideal, divine immortal love, is perfect harmony. If the poet’s theme is of the good, the beautiful, and the true, so must his love be. If these dwell not in his heart, he shall search the world and the ages through and not find them; and if love dwell not there with them, his themes shall never touch our hearts.

But the poet, to be appreciated, is not the only one that must possess these qualities. It is the beauty and the love in the soul of him who is touched by the statue, the painting, the melody, the poem, that makes it beautiful to him. It is thus that we help the poet make the poem. Love makes poets of us all.

With our hearts thus tuned to the touch of the Maker’s hand, we may often hold sweet communion with our poet-friends whose love still reaches out to us through the mists of ages and beckons us to the Valhalla of the happy. We may stand alone in the stern, inquisitorial presence of self under the eye of Almighty God, and think thoughts our tongues can never tell.

Strolling arm in arm with good Dan Chaucer as

“... fiery Phœbus riseth up so bright
That all the orient laugheth of the light,”

we may meet and join company with immortal Shakespeare, where

“... the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o’er the dew of yond high eastern hill”;

and then with them both we may pass down the slope to the sea-shore where we clasp hands with Laureate Tennyson and, as we listen to the _break, break, break_ upon the sands, say in our hearts with him,

“And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.”

With Milton we may plunge to the lowest depths and rise to the greatest heights, and stand with him at last in a Paradise regained. With Dryden we may shout from the golden-tipped top of the mount of lyric song to the battling brave below,

“If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, oh think it worth enjoying”;

and hear the reverberant echoes along the channeled valleys of the soul of Gray,

“The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”

With Whittier, longing to do and doing the greatest good of which we are capable, we may often question,

“What, my soul, was thy errand here?”

Listening to the Preacher Kingsley, we may learn to

“Do lovely things, not dream them, all day long;
And so, make life and death and that vast forever
One grand, sweet song.”

In our sadder moods we may, with Cowper, look across the dark, Cimmerian tide and recall the face and the kiss and the touch of a mother gone. In our gayer hours, with Burns we may gather sweet field flowers and garland them in love; and, whether in field or shop or kirk, learn somewhat

“To see oursels as others see us.”

With Wordsworth, receiving those faint intimations of immortality from recollections of early childhood, we may realize

“That there has passed away a glory from the earth.”

With Lowell we may feel that

“Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.”

If in the pursuit of life we shall have been drawn onwards by that divine link called conscience; if we shall have heeded the advice to the Divinity within us,

“... To thine own self be true;
And it must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man”;

if within us daily we shall have said with dear old Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes,

“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea”;

if we shall have done all this, I say, and followed God: then, when at last with white-haired Bryant each of us

“lies down to pleasant dreams,”

the Sun shall go down with a golden halo of glory; Beauty, eternal Beauty, wedded to immortal Love, shall reign forever in the heart;

“And the night shall be filled with music;
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.”

USELESS?

Flowers are poetry; poetry, flowers:
Each is a clod of earth in bloom.
Useful? Aye, to the heart!--to illume
The rain-drop drip from the wing of the hours.

Both are the love of the great dear God
Set in the sod of the new child-earth,
Set in the heart at the earth-child’s birth,
Soul of the clay, and bloom of the clod.

Flowers and poetry--blossoms of Love
Sweetest and purest the heart can know,
Breathing their perfumes up from below,
Lifting us back to the God above.

A MORTAL.

Do the goddesses, I wonder,
Ever come to mortal earth,
Ever throw a wild enchantment
Round the heart of mortal birth?

Does the goddess Venus wander
Ever from her realms above,
Liveried in the rarest raiment
Stolen from the courts of Love?

Are _her_ eyes of witching azure,
Curtained o’er with rosy light;
And a golden sunset halo
Round a smiling brow of white?

Oh I wonder if the roses
Ever blush upon _her_ cheeks
When the scented kiss of morning
For the rarest flower seeks.

Ah, ye purest gems of ocean,
Set in ruby rays serene,
Does your light fall down in worship
When those pearl-dight lips are seen?

Aye, I wonder if the heavens
And the flowers of the earth,
As they smile upon each other,
Have the hundredth of her worth?

Do the ripples of the zephyr,
Or the waves to music wed
Have the poetry of motion
That attends her airy tread?

Do the Orphic orbs of æther,
With a lyric hand divine,
Draw the wandering planets round them
As her words this heart of mine?

Surely, surely not a goddess,
’Tis a mortal I have seen;
Never goddess wore such features,
Never goddess such of mien.

She’s the rarest of the fairest,
She’s the light of every eye;
She’s the smile of earth and ocean
And the glory of the sky.

Hers the lid with golden lashes
Raised above the Morning’s eye;
Hers the smile of wave and flower
Caught from out the blushing sky.

Oh her cheeks are rose of sunset,
And her eyes the stars of night;
Opening dawn, her lips half parted,
Laced with gleams of iv’ry light.

Lydian music in her being
An enchanted spirit dwells,
Caught from out the hands of angels,
Hands that swing the hallowed bells.

Love--the purest love of heaven--
Had its birth upon her lips;--
E’en the flowers toss her kisses
From their tiny finger-tips.

Oh the winds enfold the mountains
And the seas draw down the stars;
Still they sigh and murmur ever,
“Never love so pure as hers.”

And the notes forever rising
To the planetary seas
Echo back in spheric music,
“Never mortals loved as these.”

* * * * *

Heart to heart I clasped my Darling,
Drew her down from angel hands,
With my head in God’s own presence,
And my feet upon the sands.--

Drew her to me from the angels,
As the silent summer night
Sweetest scent of all the roses
To its loving bosom might.

Day by day her sister angels
Sing to me her rarest worth;
For she’s drawing me toward heaven
As I drew her down to earth.

TO MORPHEUS.

Like the star
That afar
Throws its silver-wrought beams
As it peacefully dreams
On the cradle-swung crest
Of the billows of blue,
Oh on thy breast
So let me rest,
Oh rest,
Rest,
Till the kiss of the morning dew.

A DREAMY APRIL EVENING IN THE WOODS.

Oh sweet the sounds I hear, the sights I see,--
The vocal air, the blooming clod;
But sweeter far the thoughts that rise in me,
So farther earth, so nearer God.

TO THEE ABOVE.

Up from the gray of earth,
Over the hills of blue,
Out in the purpling west,
I come, my love, to you.

Oh not in the busy marts
Nor yet in the crowded throng;
No, not ’neath the parlor lights
Does my heart forget its song.

But bound by the fetters there,
I cannot choose but stay;
Like a restive steed bound fast,
I fret the hours away.

’Tis only when alone
I find my soul at rest;
’Tis then I rise to thee
Amid the purpling west.

And sitting thus this eve
Atop my house’s tower,
I send my soul in love
To dwell with thee this hour.

Oh ever thus I stand,
A crag ’mid noisy crowds,--
My feet upon the sands,
My head amid the clouds.

My heart to all is cold
Save but to thee, Sweet Heart!
For Death my requiem tolled
When thou and I didst part.

I know nor rest nor peace,
I find nor life nor love
Save but the silent hour
I fly to thee above.

CHORUS.

(By nymphs and naiads, sylphs and dryads.)

Tripping away,
Blithesome and gay,
Light as the ether above,
Breathing our words
Sweet as the birds,
Sing we the power of love.

Love in its power
Bindeth the flower
Unto the common clod,
Lifting the low
Out of its woe
Up to the bosom of God.

Love in its might
Bindeth the light
Unto the shadow of day,
Flushing the clouds
Whitened like shrouds
Red with the last dying ray.

Love in its dream
Bindeth the stream
Unto the channels of earth,
Lifting the trees
Kissed by the breeze
Into a purer birth.

Heart unto heart
Never to part
Joining the gentle and strong,
Love’s dreaming lyre
Lifts ever higher
Finding responsive a song.

Every one,
Happy or lone,
Deep in the hills of the soul
Sometime shall find
Horn that shall wind
Echoes that endless shall roll.

THE LURLEI.

Only a moment! The Lurlei staid
Only a moment with me:
“Only a moment! I’ll sell,” I said,
“Only a moment to thee.”

Bartered I then with the Lurlei gay
Only a moment of time,
Selling the flowers of the valley gray,
Buying the mountain-top’s rime.

Only a moment! The Lurlei smiled;
“Sell me thy birth-right,” she saith.
Oh, and I sold it, innocent child,
Buying the pottage of death!

“’Tis but a moment: thy honor, my dear.”
She layeth her hand on my head.
I cannot choose but heed as I hear;
She giveth me lust in its stead.

“Give me, I pray thee, thy will for a time,
I shall reward thee right well.”
She beckons me whither the cloud-peaks climb,
She hath me under her spell.

“Rosy thy cheek with the bloom of health,
Fair is thy long brown hair;
Here I give premature age for thy wealth,
Here the pure snows thou must wear.”

“Firm is thy tread with the boldness of youth.”
She holdeth my will at command;
She bendeth my form in age without ruth,
Placeth a staff in my hand.

“Farewell, for thy moment has lengthened to years;
I kiss thee a withering curse:
Thou hast bought with thy soul-wealth a valley of tears,
Tears of eternal remorse.”

“Give me, I pray thee, my Lurlei lone,
Something to quiet my soul.”
Conscience doth slide from my heart like a stone,
Clouds of remorse from me roll.

“Purity hath not a place in the heart
Reft of all conscience,” Lurlei:
Legions of Pleasures around me upstart,
Licentiousness pointing the way.

“Prayer from the wicked availeth not, friend:”
She placeth a curse in mine eye;
“Heaven nor Hell is thy destine or end:”
She speareth my soul with the lie.

“The sun shineth not; the moon and stars grope:”
Night, sable-robed, _doth_ upstart;
“Love ruleth not, nor Pity, nor Hope:”
Hissing-tongued Hate gnaws my heart.

Only a moment I bartered with her,
Only a moment of time,
Selling the good, the true, and the pure,
Buying the glitter of crime!

I sold her my soul for a moment of pleasure,
That moment _has_ lengthened to years:
I sold her my soul for bliss without measure,
I bought all Eternity’s tears!

_L’Envoy._

The Lurlei sits on the mountain’s top,
Combing her golden hair;
Her voice is sirenic, and all must stop
Who pass down the river there.

TOUGH MUTTON, PERHAPS.

We are having atrocious _tough wether_,
(To hear the _sheep-tenders_ tell it)
But they are responsible for it
If that is the way they spell it.

TO MISS ----.

Upon that radiant brow of thine
May love and truth forever shine,
Like stars that light the welkin dome
And tint the billowy ocean’s foam.

Upon life’s desert, wild and broad,
Oh may’st thou walk that peaceful road
Which leads us on to heaven above
Where all is joy and peace and love.

Around thy soul so pure and white
May Heaven shed celestial light,
Life’s ocean wild to guide thee o’er,
And waft thee to its golden shore.

[Written in youth one July in a hay-field, on a piece of paper
that had contained my dinner, with an axle-grease box for my
table, while lazily reclining under the wagon in the shade of
the willows.]

SHUT YOUR EYES AND GO TO SLEEP.

A KYRIELLE.

Dear, your heart is tired to-night,
And the waning watches creep;
All too soon the morn will come,--
Shut your eyes and go to sleep.

While the stars in heaven dream
And the angels vigils keep,
Lay your head upon my arm,
Shut your eyes and go to sleep.

Yes, I know that fevered care
Trembles on your troubled lip;
Dreams of love will heal the heart,--
Shut your eyes and go to sleep.

Let your heart forget to pain,
And your eyes forget to weep;
Dream of home, and hope, and love,
Shut your eyes and go to sleep.

Heavy drags the wounded hour
Over Sorrow’s restless deep,
Heaving up the tide of tears,--
Shut your eyes and go to sleep.

Oh the heaving, stifling sigh
Through the night its pain will keep
For the pillow waking prest,--
Shut your eyes and go to sleep.

With a touch like woman’s own,
Touch of Love’s own finger-tip,
I will smooth your throbbing brow,--
Shut your eyes and go to sleep.

Gently I will soothe your heart
And still your restless pulse’s leap;
Lay your head upon my arm,
Shut your eyes and go to sleep.

BROWNING.

(BY W. A. BACK, FARMER.)

Browning may be a right smart of a poet,
Some thinks him so;
But if he is he’s not anxious to show it,
’R else _I_ don’t _know_.

Give me a singer of songs ’at sings ’em
With lots of soul;
Whose tweedle-um-twangles whenever he twings ’em
Jist fill you full.

I caint endoor of a poet ’at dribbles
His honey in straw,
An’ hate none the less the blame ijit that scribbles
In styles all raw.

Make your own poem an’ label it “Browning”:
The sum an’ gross;
Tho’ nothin’s in his weedy rankness,--Stop frownin’!
Take ’nother dose!

My advice, you say?--Let Browning go pipin’
In an ivy leaf;
Don’t hold his sack like a fool a-snipin’,
This life’s too brief.

MADRIGAL.

Darling, here within this lyric,
Free from other mortal sight,
Free from aught but dearest day-dreams,
Hidden in the song I write,
Sits a happy, happy lover
In a heaven of the bliss
Born, in Love’s deep-breathing silence,
Of the rapturous sweet kiss.
Silently he clasps his radiant
Blooming bride with loving arms,
Hears the sweet, bell-like alarums
(Rung by Cupid and the angels)
Of sweet Passion’s inward storms
As her arms, so soft, climb upwards
And entwine themselves enwrapt,
Round about his neck in rarest
Angel-love e’er being kept.
--Darling, if you know the dear girl
That I think thus ever on,
I can hope you’ll find this poem
Ever shrines you as my own.

WORDS AND THOUGHTS.

Words are vases
Shaped to thought
Culled in places
Blossom-fraught;

Thoughts are laces
Finely wrought
From the graces
Bloom has caught:--

In sherds
Our words
We break as we do vases;
In shreds
The threads
Of thought we tear as laces.

REX FUGIT.

“_Rex fugit_,--The king flees.”--Thus read
A dignified, tall Latin student.
“Try ‘has,’” the usually prudent
Professor said.

He rose with confidence and ease;
But the whole class roared with laughter
When he read a moment after,
“_The king has fleas_.”

THE SICKLE OF FLOWERS.

The last sad rites of death performed,
The sickle lies upon the grave;
The sickle made of blooming flowers
That the ruthless reaper clave.

Withered lie the flowers gathered,
Rusts the sickle on the ground;
Dead the blossoms now decaying,--
And the form within the mound!

Oh the flowers of the sickle
And the blooms upon its blade
Are decaying daily, daily--
Sweetest flowers soonest fade!

Oh the sickle is death’s emblem
And the flowers on it, rust!--
Emblem of the end of mortals,
Earth to earth, and dust to dust!

[Scribbled in about five minutes on the back of an old
envelope while sitting by a new-made grave on which was a
sickle of flowers.]

THIS TOUCH OF AN ANGEL’S HAND.

Happiness is the realization of longings,--
Of hope and fond desire,--
That enter the heart like angel-throngings
Bearing celestial fire.

Like the peace that follows a benediction
Is the painless rest it gives,
Lething forever the heart’s affliction
In the endless joy it leaves.

’Tis the acme of life and the end of living,
This touch of an angel’s hand,
And it falls on the heart like the holy shriving
Of the Priest of the Better Land.

LIFE’S PHILOSOPHY.

AN ALLEGORY.

How builds this budding flower, my child?
“It lies all wrapped in icy snows
Until the Suns of Spring have smiled
And kissed it, blushing, to a rose.”

* * * * *

How doth the tree, fair youth, the tree?
“Year by year it adds a round
And reaches up by slow degree,
Keeping firm foot on the ground.”

The vine, sweet maid, how doth the vine?
“By the tree’s support it lifts its head
And round the tree its arms doth twine;
Thus the two in love are wed.”

The two, aged sire and dame, how they?
“The tree protects the tender vine,
The vine in turn binds firm the tree:
The two are one in shade and shine.”

* * * * *

What of the plant, O man, the plant?
“Adream in life’s fair sleep it lies
Until the Autumn Suns aslant
Shoot gleaming thwart the glowing skies!”

JUST AS USUAL.

The sun rose bright at morn,
The sun sank sad at night;
The moon’s faint golden horn
Waxed fair with mellow light.

All night around the fold
The polar bears kept prowl;
Their shining eyes gleamed cold
And danced to the wind’s mad howl.

Clear blew the shepherd’s horn,
Fair flushed the eastern main;
The bears slunk back: ’twas morn,
The sun arose again!

Sweet Love rose bright at Morn,
Sad Love went down at Night;
Fair Hope’s faint golden horn
Waxed sweet with mellow light.

All night around my mind
My jealous fears kept prowl;
Cold blew the willing wind
That chilled my very soul.

Clear wound Dan Cupid’s horn,
As sweet as rapture’s pain;
My fears slunk back: ’twas morn,
And Love arose again!

A DEPLORATION.

We do often think ourselves not worth.--_Anonymous._

Cold is the night, and my heart is cold,
Bleak as yon peak of the rockies old;
Chill like the hill
At the mountain’s foot,
Still as the rill
That lies frozen and mute.

White is the mountain-top, gleaming with snow,
Cov’ring the rocks and the mould below:
So seems the snow
That my heart doth enfold,
Tho’ down below
Lie the rocks and the mould.

Deep in the hill neath the binding cold
Never yet found may be veins of gold.
And of the sand
And the quartz in my heart
Hand has not panned,
Maybe gold is a part.

Oh ’neath the crystal and ice-bound stream
Drifts every gleam of a gold-digger’s dream;
So neath the floe
Of my heart’s frozen stream
Slowly I know
Drifts the gold of love’s dream.