UC-NRLF B 3 315 D3b I l)e CamfiriDge attrition of tfte EDITED BY HORACE E. SCUDDER LOWELL BY THE EDITOR THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES RUSSELL -LOWELL Camtiritige CEDitton BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY C&e fttoerfioe $regg, CambriDgc COPYRIGHT 1848, I8 57 , 1866, Z868, 1869, 1876, 1885, 1888, 1890, BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL COPYRIGHT 1894, 1896, 1897, BY MABEL LOWELL BURNETT COPYRIGHT 1895 BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON COPYRIGHT 1897 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GIF1 953n PUBLISHERS NOTE THE present Cambridge Edition of Mr. Lowell s poems contains, substantially in the order established by the author, the poems included by him not long before his death in the definitive Riverside Edition of his writings, and in addition the small group contained in the Last Poems, collected by his literary executor, Mr. Charles Eliot Norton. In the brief Prefatory Note to the four volumes of his Poems in the Riverside Edition, Mr. Lowell said : " There are a great many pieces in these volumes, especially in the first of them, which I would gladly suppress or put into the Coventry of smaller print in an appendix. But ilka mon maun dree his weird, and the avenging litera scripta manet is that of the over-hasty author. Owing to the unjust distinction made by the law between literary and other property, most of what I published prematurely has lost the protection of copyright, and is reprinted by others against my will. I cannot shake off the burthen of my early indiscretions if I would. The best way, perhaps, is to accept with silent contrition the consequences of one s own mistakes, and I have, after much hesitation, consented to the reprinting of the old editions without excision. " I must confess, however, that I have attained this pitch of self-sacrifice only by compulsion, and should have greatly preferred to increase the value of this collec tion by lessening its bulk. The judicious reader will, I fear, distinguish only too easily what I should wish, in parliamentary phrase, * to be taken as read. As we grow older, we grow the more willing to say, as Petrarca in Landor s Pentameron says to Boccaccio, We neither of us are such poets as we thought ourselves when we were younger. * The Editor of this volume has not felt at liberty either to add poems left by the author in the deepening obscurity of old magazines, or to follow the probable judg ment of Mr. Lowell in reducing any of his collected verse to the lower terms of an appendix. The method followed in the other volumes of the Cambridge series has been observed in this. The head-notes are occupied mainly with the history of the several poems ; criticism has been given only when the author himself was the critic. The Publishers and Editor desire to make acknowledgment to Mr. Norton, the editor, and Messrs. Harper & Brothers, the publishers, for their courtesy in allowing a liberal use to be made of Letters of James Russell Lowell, and special thanks are due Mr. Norton for the valuable aid which he has given the editor in the preparation of the volume. BOSTON, 4 PARK STREET, October 7, 1896. TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH PAGE ix EARLIER POEMS. THRENODIA 1 THE SIRENS 2 IREN 4 SERENADE 5 WITH A PRESSED FLOWER . . 5 THE BEGGAR 5 MY LOVE 6 SUMMER STORM .... 7 LOVE 8 To PERDITA, SINGING ... 8 THE MOON 9 REMEMBERED Music ... 10 SONG. To M. L 10 ALLEGRA 10 THE FOUNTAIN 11 ODE 11 THE FATHERLAND . . . .14 THE FORLORN 14 MIDNIGHT 15 A PRAYER 15 THE HERITAGE 15 THE ROSE : A BALLAD ... 16 SONG, "VIOLET! SWEET VIOLET!" . 17 ROSALINE 17 A REQUIEM 18 A PARABLE 19 SONG, " O MOONLIGHT DEEP AND TEN DER " 19 SONNETS I. To A. C. L. . . . 19 II. " WHAT WERE I, LOVE, IF I WERE STRIPPED OF THEE ? " 20 III. " I WOULD NOT HAVE THIS PERFECT LOVE OF OURS " 20 IV. " FOR THIS TRUE NOBLE NESS I SEEK IN VAIN" . 20 V. To THE SPIRIT OF KEATS 20 VI. " GREAT TRUTHS ARE POR TIONS OF THE SOUL OF MAN " 20 VII. " I ASK NOT FOR THOSE THOUGHTS, THAT SUDDEN LEAP "... .21 PAGE VIII. To M. W., ON HER BIRTH DAY 21 IX. "MY LOVE, I HAVE NO FEAR THAT THOU SHOULDST DIE" 21 X. "I CANNOT THINK THAT THOU SHOULDST PASS AWAY " 21 XI. "THERE NEVER YET WAS FLOWER FAIR IN VAIN " . 21 XII. SUB PONDERE CRESCIT . 22 XIII. " BELOVED, IN THE NOISY CITY HERE " . . . 22 XIV. ON READING WORDS WORTH S SONNETS IN DE FENCE OF CAPITAL PUNISH MENT 22 XV. THE SAME CONTINUED . 22 XVI. THE SAME CONTINUED . 23 XVII. THE SAME CONTINUED . 23 XVIII. THE SAME CONTINUED . 23 XIX. THE SAME CONCLUDED . 23 XX. To M. O. S. . . . 23 XXI. C OUR LOVE IS NOT A FAD ING, EARTHLY FLOWER " . 24 XXII. IN ABSENCE ... 24 XXIII. WENDELL PHILLIPS . 24 XXIV. THE STREET ... 24 XXV. " I GRIEVE NOT THAT RIPE KNOWLEDGE TAKES AWAY" .... 25 XXVI. To J. R. GIDDINGS . . 25 XXVII. " I THOUGHT OUR LOVE AT FULL, BUT I DID ERR " 25 L ENVOi 25 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. A LEGEND OF BRITTANY . . 28 PROMETHEUS 38 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS 44 THE TOKEN 44 AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR 45 RHCECUS 46 THE FALCON 48 TRIAL 48 A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN . 49 A CHIPPEWA LEGEND . 53 VI CONTENTS STANZAS ON FREEDOM ... 55 COLUMBUS 55 AN INCIDENT OF THE Fins AT HAMBURG 59 THE SOWER 60 HUNGER AND COLD .... 61 THE LANDLORD 61 To A PINE-TREE .... 62 Si DESCENDERO IN INFERNUM, ADES . 63 To THE PAST 63 To THE FUTURE 64 HEBE 65 THE SEARCH 66 THE PRESENT CRISIS ... 67 AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE . . 68 THE GROWTH OF THE LEGEND . 74 A CONTRAST 75 EXTREME UNCTION .... 75 THE OAK 76 AMBROSE 77 ABOVE AND BELOW . . . .78 THE CAPTIVE 78 THE BIRCH-TREE . . . .79 AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH 80 ON THE CAPTURE OF FUGITIVE SLAVES NEAR WASHINGTON . . 82 To THE DANDELION .... 83 THE GHOST-SEER 83 STUDIES FOR Two HEADS . . 85 ON A PORTRAIT OF DANTE BY GIOTTO 87 ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND S CHILD 87 EURYDICE 88 SHE CAME AND WENT ... 89 THE CHANGELING . . . .89 THE PIONEER 90 LONGING 91 ODE TO FRANCE. February, 1848 . 91 ANTI-APIS 94 A PARABLE 95 ODE WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRA TION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COCHITUATE WATER INTO THE CITY OF BOSTON . ... 96 LlNES SUGGESTED BY THE GRAVES OF Two ENGLISH SOLDIERS ON CONCORD BATTLE-GROUND . . 96 To 97 FREEDOM 97 BlBLIOLATRES 99 BEAVER BROOK .... 99 MEMORIAL VERSES. KOS8UTH To LAMARTINE. 1848 100 101 To JOHN GORHAM PALFREY . . 101 To W. L. GARRISON . . .102 ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES TURNER TORREY 104 ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. CHANNING 104 To THE MEMORY OF HOOD . . 105 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL . 106 LETTER FROM BOSTON. December, 1846 Ill A FABLE FOR CRITICS . - .113 THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT 149 FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM 158 AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE . . .161 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. FIRST SERIES. NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS 167 NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE . . . .172 INTRODUCTION 174 No. I. A LETTER FROM MR. EZEKIEL BIGLOW OF JAALAM TO THE HON. JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM 181 No. II. A LETTER FROM MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE HON. J. T. BUCKINGHAM . . . .183 No. III. WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS 187 No. IV. REMARKS OF INCREASE D. O PHACE, ESQ 191 No. V. THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT 197 No. VI. THE Pious EDITOR S CREED 200 No. VII. A LETTER FROM A CAN DIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW . 203 No. VIII. A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ 206 No. IX. A THIRD LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ 212 SECOND SERIES. THE COURTIN 219 NO. I. BlRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW . . .220 No. II. MASON AND SUDELL: A YANKEE IDYLL .... 228 JONATHAN TO JOHN . . .238 NO. III. BlRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO MB. HOSEA BIGLOW 239 CONTENTS vii No. IV. A MESSAGE OF JEFF DAVIS IN SECRET SESSION 248 No. V. SPEECH OF HONOURABLE PRESERVED DOE IN SECRET CAUCUS 253 No. VI. SUNTHIN IN THE PASTORAL LINE 260 No. VH. LATEST VIEWS OF MR. BIGLOW 265 No. VIII. KETTELOPOTOMACHIA . 269 No. IX. SOME MEMORIALS OF THE LATE REVEREND H. WILBUR . . 272 No. X. MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY 275 No. XI. MR. HOSEA BIGLOW s SPEECH IN MARCH MEETING 277 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS. To CHARLES ELIOT NORTON . . 285 UNDER THE WILLOWS . . . .286 DARA 291 THE FIRST SNOW-FALL . . .292 THE SINGING LEAVES 293 SEAWEED 294 THE FINDING OF THE LYRE . . 294 NEW YEAR S EVE, 1850 . . .295 FOR AN AUTOGRAPH . . . 295 AL FRESCO 295 MASACCIO 296 WITHOUT AND WITHIN . . .297 GODMINSTER CHIMES ... 297 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS . . 298 ALADDIN 300 AN INVITATION. To J. F. H. . .300 THE NOMADES 301 SELF-STUDY 302 PICTURES FROM APPLEDORE . . 302 THE WIND-HARP 307 AUF WlEDERSEHEN .... 308 PALINODE 308 AFTER THE BURIAL .... 308 THE DEAD HOUSE . . . .309 A MOOD 310 THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND . . 311 MAHMOOD THE IMAGE-BREAKER . 315 INVITA MINERVA 315 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH . . 316 YUSSOUF 318 THE DARKENED MIND . . .319 WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID . . 319 ALL-SAINTS 319 A WINTER-EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE 320 FANCY S CASUISTRY .... 322 To MR. JOHN BARTLETT . . .322 ODE TO HAPPINESS .... 323 VILLA FRANCA. 1859 . . . .324 THE MINER 325 GOLD EGG : A DREAM-FANTASY . . 326 A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND 327 AN EMBER PICTURE .... 329 To H. W. L 330 THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY . 331 IN THE TWILIGHT .... 332 THE FOOT-PATH 333 POEMS OF THE WAR. THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD . 334 Two SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF BLONDEL 336 MEMORLE POSITUM .... 337 ON BOARD THE 76 . . . .339 ODE RECITED AT " THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION .... 340 L ENVOI: To THE MUSE . . . .347 THE CATHEDRAL .... 349 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. ODE READ AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIGHT AT CONCORD BRIDGE .... 361 UNDER THE OLD ELM . . . 364 AN ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876 370 HEARTSEASE AND RUE. I. FRIENDSHIP. AGASSIZ 374 To HOLMES, ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY 381 IN A COPY OF OMAR KHAYYAM . 382 ON RECEIVING A COPY OF MR. AUSTIN DOBSON S " OLD WORLD IDYLLS" 382 To C. F. BRADFORD ... 383 BANKSIDE 383 JOSEPH WINLOCK .... 384 SONNET, To FANNY ALEXANDER . 385 JEFFRIES WYMAN . . . .385 To A FRIEND 385 WITH AN ARMCHAIR ... 385 E. G. DE R 386 BON VOYAGE 386 To WHITTIER, ON HIS SEVENTY- FIFTH BIRTHDAY .... 386 ON AN AUTUMN SKETCH OF H. G. WILD 387 To Miss D. T 387 WITH A COPY OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE 387 Vlll CONTENTS ON PLANTING A TREE AT INVERA- KAY 387 AN EPISTLE TO GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 388 II. SENTIMENT. ENDYMION 392 THE BLACK PREACHER . .395 ARCADIA REDIVIVA .... 396 THE NEST 397 A YOUTHFUL EXPERIMENT IN ENG LISH HEXAMETERS .... 398 BIRTHDAY VERSES .... 398 ESTRANGEMENT 398 PH<EBE 399 DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE . . . .399 THE RECALL ... . . .400 ABSENCE 400 MONNA LISA 400 THE OPTIMIST 400 ON BURNING SOME OLD LETTERS . 401 THE PROTEST . . . . . 401 THE PETITION 402 FACT OR FANCY ? 402 AGRO-DOLCE 402 THE BROKEN TRYST . . . .402 CASA SIN ALMA 403 A CHRISTMAS CAROL . . . .403 MY PORTRAIT GALLERY ... 403 PAOLO TO FRANCESCA . . . .403 SONNET, SCOTTISH BORDER . . 404 SONNET, ON BEING ASKED FOR AN AUTOGRAPH IN VENICE . . .404 THE DANCING BEAR ... 404 THE MAPLE 405 NlGHTWATCHES 405 DEATH OF QUEEN MERCEDES . . 405 PRISON OF CERVANTES . . . 405 To A LADY PLAYING ON THE CITH ERN 406 THE EYE S TREASURY ... 406 PESSIMOPTIMISM 406 THE BRAKES 406 A FOREBODING 407 IH. FANCY. UNDER THE OCTOBER MAPLES 407 LOVE S CLOCK .... 407 ELEANOR MAKES MACAROONS . 408 TELEPATHY 408 SCHERZO 408 " FRANCISCUS COGITAVIT" AUSPEX .... THE PREGNANT COMMENT . THE LESSON DE VERULAMIO sic 409 409 . 409 . 410 SCIENCE AND POETRY . A NEW YEAR S GREETING THE DISCOVERY . WITH A SEASHELL . THE SECRET . 410 410 410 411 411 IV. HUMOR AND SATIRE. FITZ ADAM S STORY .... 411 THE ORIGIN OF DIDACTIC POETRY . 421 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN . . . 422 CREDIDIMUS JOVEM REGNARE . . 423 TEMPORA MUTANTUR ... 425 IN THE HALF-WAY HOUSE . . 426 AT THE BURNS CENTENNIAL . . 427 IN AN ALBUM 430 AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER, 1866 . . ... . . .430 A PARABLE 432 V. EPIGRAMS. SAYINGS INSCRIPTIONS . A MISCONCEPTION THE Boss SUN-WORSHIP . CHANGED PERSPECTIVE 432 . 432 432 . 433 433 . 433 WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES LOST IN A WAGER 433 SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY . . .433 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT . . 433 LAST POEMS. HOW I CONSULTED THE ORACLE OF THE GOLDFISHES .... 433 TURNER S OLD TEMERAERE . . 436 ST. MICHAEL THE WEIGHER . . 436 A VALENTINE 437 AN APRIL BIRTHDAY AT SEA . 437 LOVE AND THOUGHT ... 438 THE NOBLER LOVER .... 438 ON HEARING A SONATA OF BEETHO- VEN S PLAYED IN THE NEXT ROOM . 438 VERSES, INTENDED TO GO WITH A POSSET DISH 438 ON A BUST OF GENERAL GRANT . 439 APPENDIX. I. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND SE RIES OF BIGLOW PAPERS . . 441 II. GLOSSARY TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 458 III. INDEX TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS . 460 IV. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS . . 471 V. A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MR. LOWELL S POEMS . . .481 INDEX OF FIRST LINES INDEX OF TITLES . 485 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ABOUT half a mile from the Craigie House in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the road leading to the old town of Watertown, is Elmwood, a spacious square house set amongst lilac and syringa bushes, and overtopped by elms. Pleasant fields are on either side, and from the windows one may look out on the Charles River winding its way among the marshes. The house itself is one of a group which before the war for independence be longed to Boston merchants and officers of the crown, most of whom refused to take the side of the revolutionary party. Tory Row was the name given to the broad winding road on which the houses stood. Large farms and gardens were attached to them, and some sign of their roomy ease still remains. The estates fell into the hands of various persons after the war, and in process of time Longfellow came to occupy and later to own Craigie House. Elmwood at that time was the property of the Reverend Charles Lowell, minister of the West Church in Boston ; and when Longfellow thus became his neighbor, James Russell Lowell was a junior in Harvard College. He was born at Elmwood February 22, 1819 ; he died at the same place August 12, 1891. He was named for his father s maternal grandfather, and was the youngest of a family of five, two daughters and three sons. His father at the time of Lowell s birth was thirty-seven years old and lived till 1861. His son has drawn his portrait in a letter to C. F. Briggs, written in 1844 : " He is Dr. Primrose in a comparative degree, the very simplest and charmingest of sexagenarians, and not without a great deal of the truest magnanimity." It was characteristic of Lowell thus to find a prototype of his father in literature. The Lowells traced their descent from Percival Lowell, a name which survives in the family, of Bristol, England, who settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1639. The great-grandfather of James Russell Lowell was a minister in Newburyport, one of those, as Dr. Hale says, " who preached sermons when young men went out to fight the French, and preached sermons again in memory of their death, when they had been slain in battle." The grandfather was John Lowell, a member of the Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts in 1780. It was he who introduced into the Bill of Rights a phrase from the Bill of Rights of Virginia, " All men are created free and equal," with the purpose which it effected of setting free every man then held as a slave in Massachusetts. A son of John Lowell and half-brother of the Rev. Charles Lowell was Francis Cabot Lowell, who gave a great impetus to New England manufactures, and from whom the city of Lowell took its name. Another son, and thus also an uncle of the poet, was John Lowell, Jr., whose wise and far-sighted provision gave his native city that important centre of intellectual influence, the Lowell Institute. The mother of the poet, Mrs. Harriet Spence Lowell, a native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was of Scotch origin. She is described as having " a great memory, an ex traordinary aptitude for language, and a passionate fondness for ancient songs and bal lads." It pleased her to fancy herself descended from the hero of one of the most famous ballads, Sir Patrick Spens. In a letter to his mother, written in 1837, Lowell says : " I am engaged in several poetical effusions, one of which I have dedicated to you, who have always been the patron and encourager of my youthful muse." The Russell in his name seems to intimate a strain of Jewish ancestry ; at any rate Lowell took pride in JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL the name on this account, for he was not slow to recognize the intellectual power of the Hebrew race. An, older brother of the poet who outlived him a short time, was the Rev. Robert Traill Spence Lowell, who wrote some poems, a story of school-boy life, and a novel, The New Priest in Conception Bay, which contains a delightful study of a Yankee and striking sketches of life in Newfoundland, where its author was for a while a mis sionary. A sister, Mrs. Anna Lowell Putnam, will be remembered among older lovers of literature for a group of singularly fine and thoughtful studies under the title Records of an Obscure Life. Not long before his death, Lowell wrote to an English friend a description of Elm- wood ; and as he was very fond of the house in which he lived and died, it is agreeable to read words which strove to set it before the eyes of one who had never seen it. " T is a pleasant old house, just about twice as old as I am, four miles from Boston, in what was once the country and is now a populous suburb. But it still has some ten acres of open about it, and some fine old trees. When the worst comes to the worst (if I live so long) I shall still have four and a half acres left with the house, the rest belonging to my brothers and sisters or their heirs. It is a square house, with four rooms on a floor, like some houses of the Georgian era I have seen in English provincial towns, only they are of brick, and this is of wood. But it is solid with its heavy oaken beams, the spaces between which in the four outer walls are filled in with brick, though you must n t fancy a brick-and-timber house, for outwardly it is sheathed with wood. Inside there is much wainscot (of deal), painted white in the fashion of the time when it was built. It is very sunny, the sun rising so as to shine (at an acute angle to be sure) through the northern windows, and going round the other three sides in the course of the day. There is a pretty staircase with the quaint old twisted banisters, which they call balusters now ; but mine are banisters. My library occupies two rooms opening into each other by arches at the sides of the ample chimneys. The trees I look out on are the earliest things I remember. There you have me in my new-old quarters. But you must not fancy a large Chouse rooms sixteen feet square, and on the ground floor, nine high. It was large, as things went here, when it was built, and has a certain air of amplitude about it as from some inward sense of dignity." In an earlier letter he wrote : " Here I am in my garret. I slept here when I was a little curly-headed boy, and used to see visions between me and the ceiling, and dream the so often recurring dream of having the earth put into my hand like an orange. In it I used to be shut up without a lamp, my mother saying that none of her children should be afraid of the dark, to hide my head under the pillow, and then not be able to shut out the shapeless monsters that thronged around me, minted in my brain. ... In winter my view is a wide one, taking in a part of Boston. I can see one long curve of the Charles and the wide fields between me and Cambridge, and the flat marshes beyond the river, smooth and silent with glit tering snow. As the spring advances and one after another of our trees puts forth, the landscape is cut off from me piece by piece, till, by the end of May, I am closeted in a cool and rustling privacy of leaves." Elmwood in the days of Lowell s boyhood was in a more distinctly rural neighborhood than now, and until lately had the charm of seclusion. In his papers " My Garden Acquaintance " and " A Good Word for Winter," in many of his poems, such as " An Indian-Summer Reverie," "To the Dandelion," "Under the Willows, " Al Fresco," and in many passages in his letters, he bears witness to the intimacy which he enjoyed with that phase of nature which we may call homely and friendly. He once expressed to me his delight in Poussin s landscapes, not because of their homeliness, for they have BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xi nothing of this quality, but because of their stately, classical scenery, and the beauty of their composition ; but in his descriptive poetry it is noticeable that the large, solemn, or expansive scenes of nature make no such appeal to his interest as those nearer vistas which come close to human life and connect themselves with the familiar experience of home-keeping wits. His lively paper " Cambridge Thirty Years Ago " contains many reminiscences of his early life and associations. Lowell s school days were spent in his own neighborhood. Mr. William Wells, an Englishman and at one time a publisher, opened a classical school in one of the spacious Tory Row houses near Elmwood, and, bringing with him English public school thorough ness and severity, gave the boy a drilling in Latin which his quick appropriation of strong influences turned into a familiar possession, to judge by the ease with which he handled it afterward in mock heroics. Possibly the heavy hand of the schoolmaster, by its repres sion, gave greater buoyancy to the spirit of the student when the comparative freedom of college followed. Lowell was in his sixteenth year when he entered Harvard College with the class which graduated in 1838. He lived at his father s house, more than a mile away from the college yard ; but this could have been no great privation to him, for he had the freedom of his friends rooms, and he loved the open air. The Rev. Edward Everett Hale has given a sketch of their common life in college. " He was a little older than I," he says, " and was one class in advance of me. My older brother, with whom I lived in college, and he were most intimate friends. He had no room within the college walls [he had for a time a room close by on Church Street], and was a great deal with us. The fashion of Cambridge was then literary. Now the fashion of Cambridge runs to social problems, but then we were interested in literature. We read Byron and Shelley and Keats, and we began to read Tennyson and Browning. I first heard of Tennyson from Lowell, who had borrowed from Mr. Emerson the little first volume of Tennyson. We actually passed about Tennyson s poems in manuscript. Carlyle s essays were being printed at the time, and his French Revolution. In such a community not two hundred and fifty students all told literary effort was, as I say, the fashion, and literary men, among whom Lowell was recognized from the very first, were special favorites. In deed, there was that in him which made him a favorite everywhere." Lowell was a reader, as so many of his fellows were, and the letters which he wrote shortly after leaving college show how intent he had been on making acquaintance with the best things in literature. He began also to scribble verse, and he wrote both poems and essays for college magazines, and literary societies. His class chose him their poet for Class Day, and he wrote his poem ; but he was careless about conforming to college regulations respecting attendance at morning prayers ; and for this was suspended from college the last term of his last year, and not allowed to come back to deliver his poem. He was sent to Concord for his rustication, and so passed a few weeks of his youth among scenes dear to every lover of American history and letters. In " An Indian-Summer Reverie " Lowell says : " Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments three, Yet collegisse juvat, I am glad That here what colleging was mine I had, It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee ! " Whether or no there had been a reaction from the discipline of school days, it is certain that the independence which characterized Lowell throughout his life found expression in his college days, not in insubordination, but in a frank pursuit of those courses of study xii JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL and lines of reading to which he was led by his own likings and which the tolerable equipment of the college and home library put it in his power to follow. " Never," says Lowell in his essay, "A Great Public Character," when speaking of college life, " Never were we ourselves so capable of the various great things we have never done ; " and however much he may have been generalizing for college youth, he recalled well his own spiritual experience ; with an impulse which outwardly was wayward, he obeyed that law of his being which his growing consciousness of intellectual power disclosed to him. In his penetrating discrimination between talent and genius, he says profoundly : " The man of talents possesses them like so many tools, does his job with them, and there an end ; but the man of genius is possessed by it, and it makes him into a book or a life according to its whim. Talent takes the existing moulds and makes its castings, better or worse, of richer or baser metal, according to knack and opportunity ; but genius is always shaping new ones and runs the man in them, so that there is always that human feel in the results which give us a kindred thrill. What it will make, we can only con jecture, contented always with knowing the infinite balance of possibility against which it can draw at pleasure." His was a singularly self-centred nature, and he was always true to those large ideals which he drew from history and literature ; but so various were his intellectual interests and so abundant his capacities, that the precise direction was un certain in which his genius would at any time take him. It is interesting to observe this self-centred nature in its early struggle after equipoise. After his graduation he set about the study of law, and for a short time even was a clerk in a counting-room ; but his bent was strongly toward literature. His vacillation of mind regarding his vocation, his apparent fickleness of purpose, the conflict going on be tween his nature craving expression and the world with its imperious demands, the stir ring within him of large designs, and the happy contentment in the pleasures of the day, all seek outlet in his natural yet uneasy letters. He was finding himself in these early days, as many another young man, and there are glimpses all through Lowell s letters of this restlessness, this subtle sense of one s self which in weaker natures hardens into a mordant self-consciousness. Now and then he turns upon himself in a sort of mingled pride and shame, as if at once aware of his power and angry that he has it not wholly at his beck. But for the most part one is aware of a nature singularly at one with life, and finding its greatest satisfaction in getting at the world through the reflection of the world in literature. No one would deny that Lowell was eminently a man of books, but it would be a wholly inadequate phrase which described him as a bookish man. That he was at home in a library his early letters show ; but they show also how even then he read through his books into life, and interpreted history and literature by means of an innate spiritual faculty which was independent of intellectual authority. It is this criticism at first hand, this swift, direct penetration of the reality, which mark emphatically what I have characterized as Lowell s self-centred nature. He has told us that his brain re quired a long brooding time ere it could hatch anything. He was speaking of the matter of expression; but the phrase is a fit one for his habitual temper. The superficial charge of indolence could apply only to his apparent disregard of bustling activity. His nature was of the sort that knows the power of stillness, and though he upbraids himself in his letters for his unproductiveness at times, he had plainly the instinct which waits on op portunity. His faculty of observation was very strong, but it was no stronger than his power of assimilation ; and thus it was that when opportunity came he had not hur riedly to adjust himself to the situation. It was while he was engaged with his books and his friends, professing law but prac- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xiii tising literature in the way of poetical and prose contributions to the magazines, that he was roused out of his dreams by the prick of necessity in the sudden loss by his father of much of his property, and by the impulse given to his own moral force by the coming into his life of Maria White. He became engaged to this lady in the fall of 1840, and the next twelve years of his life were profoundly affected by her influence. Herself a poet of delicate power, she brought an intelligent sympathy with his work ; it was, how ever, her strong moral enthusiasm, her lofty conception of purity and justice, which kindled his spirit and gave force and direction to a character which was ready to respond and yet might otherwise have delayed active expression. They were not married until 1844, but they were not far apart in their homes, and during these years Lowell was making those early ventures in literature, and first raids upon political and moral evil, which foretold the direction of his later work, and gave some hint of its abundance. In 1841 he collected the poems which he had written and sometimes contributed to periodicals into a volume entitled A Year s Life, and inscribed in a veiled dedication to his future wife. In hopes of bettering his fortune, and in obedience to the instinct which most young men of letters have, he undertook with Robert Carter the publication of a literary journal, The Pioneer, which died under their inexperienced hands with the third number, but in those had printed contributions by Lowell, Hawthorne, Whittier, Story, Poe, and Dr. Parsons, a group which it would be hard to match in any of the little magazines that hop across the world s path to-day. He began also to turn his studies in dramatic and early poetic literature to account, and, after printing a portion of them in Nathan Hale s Miscellany, published, in 1844, Conversations on some of the Old Poets. He did not keep this book alive ; but it is interesting as marking the enthusiasm of a young scholar treading a way then almost wholly neglected in America, and indicating a line of thought and study in which he afterwards made most noteworthy venture. In the same year he again collected his poetic work into a volume of Poems. The difference be tween the two volumes of poems, though separated by three years only, is marked. Few of the verses from A Year s Life are included in the poet s final collection of his writ ings, few are omitted from Poems. One poem in the earlier volume, Irene, is con spicuous as a poetic portrait of the figure of peace which had come into his somewhat turbulent spiritual life ; but the volume as a whole is characterized by vague sentimen- talism and restless beating of half-grown wings. Three years later, some of this same immaturity is discoverable, but along with the poems which wander in somewhat unmeaning ways are those spirited adventures like " Rhoecus," " The Shepherd of King Admetus," and " Prometheus," which denote the growing consciousness of positive poetic power, and also those stirring Sonnets to Wendell Phillips and J. R. Giddings, and the lines entitled " A Glance behind the Curtain," which disclose a new passion leaping up as the champion of truth and righteousness. It is noticeable, too, that in the first volume there is no trace of humor and scarcely any singular felicity of phrase ; in the second, wit and humor begin to play a little on the surface. In Conversations, where the familiar form gives freer scope, there is a gayety of speech which intimates the spontaneity of the man and anticipates the rich fruitage of later years. In all these books, however, there is good evidence of the rapid growth which was taking place in Lowell s intellectual and moral life, a coming to his own which it would take only some strong occasion to make sure. This occasion was the Mexican War, with the greater contest which flamed up with it over the encroachments of slavery. Lowell and his wife, who brought a fervid anti- slavery temper as part of her marriage portion, were both contributors to the Liberty Bell t xiv JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL and Lowell was a frequent contributor to the Antislavery Standard, and was indeed for a while a corresponding editor ; but in June, 1846, there appeared one day in the Boston Courier a letter purporting to be from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow of Jalaam to the Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham, editor of the Boston Courier, enclosing a poem of his son, Mr. Hosea Big- low. It was no new thing to seek to arrest the public attention with the vernacular applied to public affairs. Major Jack Downing and Sam Slick had been notable exam ples, and they had many imitators ; but the reader who laughed over the racy narrative of the unlettered Ezekiel, and then took up Hosea s poem and caught the gust of Yankee wrath and humor blown fresh in his face, knew that he was in with the appearance of something new in American literature. A score of years afterward, when introducing the Second Series of The Biglow Papers, Lowell confessed that when he wrote this letter and poem he had no definite plan, and no intention of ever writing another. It was struck out from him by the revolt of his nature at the iniquity of slavery and the war into which slavery was dragging the nation. But he adds, "The success of my experiment soon began not only to astonish me, but to make me feel the responsibility of knowing that I held in my hand a weapon, instead of the mere fencing stick I had sup posed. ... If I put on the cap and bells, and made myself one of the court fools of King Demos, it was less to make his Majesty laugh than to win a passage to his royal ears for certain serious things which I had deeply at heart." The Biglow Papers not only gave Lowell to himself and opened the flood gates of his patriotism and his noble indignation ; they gave him a public, and thus furnished the complement which every author demands. " Very far," he says, in the same Introduc tion, " from being a popular author under my own name, so far, indeed, as to be almost unread, I found the verses of my pseudonym copied everywhere ; I saw them pinned up in workshops ; I heard them quoted and their authorship debated." The force which he displayed in these satires made his book at once a powerful ally of a sentiment which heretofore had been ridiculed ; it turned the tables and put Antislavery, which had been fighting sturdily on foot with pikes, into the saddle, and gave it a flashing sabre. For Lowell himself it won an accolade from King Demos. He rose up a knight, and thence forth possessed a freedom which was a freedom of nature, not a simple badge of service in a single cause. His patriotism and moral fervor found other vents in later life, and he never laid down the sword which he then took up, but it is significant of the stability of his genius that he was not misled by the sudden distinction which came to him into a limitation of his powers. It was shortly after this that he wrote, in one of those poetic absences from his every-day life, which were to overtake him more than once afterward, his Vision of Sir Launfal ; and the exuberance of his nature, together with his keen power of criticism, found expression about the same time in his witty Fable for Critics, in which he hit off, with a rough and ready wit, the characteristics of the writers of the day, not forgetting himself in these lines : There is Lowell, who s striving Parnassus to climb With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme ; He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, But he can t with that bundle he has on his shoulders ; The top of the hill he will ne er come nigh reaching Till he learns the distinction twixt singing and preaching ; His lyre has some chords that would ring pretty well, But he d rather by half make a drum of the shell, And rattle away till he s old as Methusalem, At the head of a march to the last new Jerusalem. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xv This, of course, is but a half serious portrait of himself, and it touches but a single feature. A third volume of Poems appeared in the same year, 1848, as the last named. A year in Europe, 1851-52, with his wife, whose health was then precarious, stimulated his scholarly interests, and gave substance to his study of Dante and Italian literature. In October, 1853, his wife died; she had borne him four children : the first-born, Blanche, died in infancy, as did the second, Rose ; the third, Walter, also died young; the fourth, a daughter, Mrs. Burnett, survived her parents. In 1855 he was chosen successor to Mr. Longfellow as Smith Professor of the French and Spanish Languages and Litera tures, and Professor of Belles Lettres in Harvard College. He spent two years in Europe in further preparation for the duties of his office, and in 1857 was again established in Cambridge and installed in his academic chair. He married also at this time his second wife, Miss Frances Dunlap, of Portland, Maine. Lowell was now in his thirty-ninth year. As a scholar, in his professional work, he had acquired a knowledge of the Romance languages and was an adept in Old French and Provencal poetry ; he had given a course of twelve lectures on English Poetry before the Lowell Institute in Boston which had made a strong impression on the com munity ; and his work on the series of British Poets in connection with Professor Child, especially his biographical sketch of Keats, had been recognized as of a high order. In poetry he had published the volumes already mentioned. In general literature he had printed in magazines the papers which he afterward collected into his volume Fire side Travels. Not long after he entered on his college duties The Atlantic Monthly was started, and the editorship given to him. For the details of the office he had little aptitude, although he looked keenly after nice points of literary finish in the proof-read ing ; he was relieved of much of the detail by his active assistant, Mr. F. H. Underwood, to whom the inception of the magazine was largely due. But the Atlantic afforded a good outlet for his literary production, and though he held the editorship but a little more than two years he stamped the magazine with the impress of his high ideals in lit erature and criticism ; his selection of articles was judicious, his own contributions and criticism were full of life, and he was most generous in his critical aid to contributors. In 1862 he was associated with Mr. Charles Eliot Norton in the conduct of The North American Review, and continued in this charge for ten years. Much of his prose was contributed to this periodical. These twenty years, from 1857 to 1877, were the most productive period of Lowell s literary activity. He was in the maturity of his mental power, he held a convenient position in University life, his home relations were congenial and stimulating, and his collegiate work, as well as his editorial charge successively of the Atlantic and North American, gave him a needed impulse to literary effort. During this period appeared the most of that body of literary history and criticism which marks him as the most distin guished of American critics. Any one reading the titles of the papers which comprise the volumes of his prose writings will readily see how much literature, and especially poetic literature, occupied his attention. Shakespeare, Dryden, Lessing, Rousseau, Dante, Spenser, Wordsworth, Milton, Keats, Carlyle, Percival, Thoreau, Swinburne, Chaucer, Emerson, Pope, Gray, these are the principal subjects of his prose, and the range of topics indicates the catholicity of his taste. These papers are the rich deposit of a mind at once sympathetic and discriminating, capable of enjoying to the full the varied manifestations of life in literature, and combining judicial fairness with keen critical insight. While this broad stream of literary criticism was flowing, there was another expression xvi JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL of Lowell s nature, never divorced from this love of letters, a criticism of life, espe cially as it took form in contemporaneous American history. The period which I have named covered the preparation for the war for the Union, that war itself, and the recon struction era afterward, and the expression of Lowell s nature in its attitude toward the whole period was manifold. The volume of Political Essays contains the incisive papers which stung the irresolute and time-serving, and inspirited the ardent lovers of truth and liberty. It is impossible to read these papers now without admiration for the political sagacity of the writer, a sagacity before the event, not after. Every page bears witness to the sanity with which he regarded contemporaneous affairs, when mad ness seemed the most natural temper in the world, and his insight of human nature was that of a poet who did not regard his power of vision as excluding the necessity of paying taxes. History has been supplying foot-notes to these pages, with the result, not of cor recting the text, but of confirming it. In this same period also he wrote and published the Second Series of The Biglow Papers, and used his satire and his moral indignation with a depth of feeling which sur passed that shown in the first series, a little to the detriment thereby, it may be, of the gaiety of the humor. In truth, strong as was Lowell s power of invective, his passion of patriotism found this vent too narrow ; there was a large, constructive imagination at work on the great theme of national life, which found fuller expression in the Odes which the Centennial and Commemorative occasions called out. Lowell seized these occasions with a spirit which scarcely needed them, and merely employed them as fit opportunities for casting in large moulds the great thoughts and feelings which rose out of the life of a man conscious of his inheritance in a noble patrimony. It was at the close of this period, in which he had done incalculable service to the Republic, that Lowell was called on to represent the country, first at Madrid, where he was sent by President Hayes in 1877, and afterwards at London, to which he was trans ferred in 1880. He had a good knowledge of Spanish language and literature when he went to Spain, but he at once took pains to make his knowledge fuller and his accent more perfect, so that he could have intimate relations with the best Spanish men of the time. In England he was at once a most welcome guest, and a most effective public speaker. Eight years were thus spent by him in the foreign service of the coun try. His sole participation in practical politics, as the term is, up to this time had been to attend a national convention once as delegate, and to have his name used as Presiden tial Elector. To the minds of many of his countrymen he seemed doubtless a dilettante in politics. Special preparation in diplomacy he had not, but he had what was more fundamental, a large nature enriched by a familiar intercourse with great minds, and so sane, so sound in its judgment, that whether he was engaged in determining a reading in an Elizabethan dramatist or in deciding to which country an Irish colossus belonged, he was bringing his whole nature to the bench. No one can read Lowell s despatches from Madrid and London without being struck by his sagacity, his readiness in emergencies, his interest in and quick perception of the political situation in the country where he was resident, and his unerring knowledge as a man of the world. Nor could Lowell lay aside in his official communications the art and the wit which were native to him. " I asked Lord Lyons," he writes in one letter, " whether he did not think suzerainty might be de fined as leaving to a man the privilege of carrying the saddle and bridle after you have stolen his horse. He assented." But though Lowell s studies and experience had given him a preparation for dealing with diplomatic questions, the firmness with which he held his political faith afforded as BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xvii sure a preparation for that more significant embassy which he bore from the American people to the English. Not long after his return he published a little volume containing the more important speeches which he had made while in England. Most of them had to do with literature, but the title-address in the volume, Democracy, was an epigram matic confession of political faith as hopeful as it was wise and keen. A few years later he gave another address to his own countrymen on " The Place of the Independent in Politics." It was a noble apologia, not without a trace of discouragement at the appar ently sluggish movement of the recent years, but with that faith in the substance of his countrymen which gave him the right to use words of honest scorn and warning. What impresses one especially in reading this address, remembering the thoughtless gibes which had been flung at this patriot, is the perfect self-respect with which he defines his position, the entire absence of petty retaliation upon his aspersers, the kindliness of na ture, the charity, in a word, which is the finest outcome of a strong political faith. It must have been galling to Lowell to find himself taunted with being un-American. He could afford to meet such a charge with silence, but he answered it with something better than silence when he reprinted in a volume his scattered political essays. The public life of Mr. Lowell made him more of a figure before the world. He re ceived honors from societies and universities ; he was decorated by the highest honors which Harvard could pay officially, and Oxford and Cambridge, St. Andrews and Edin burgh, and Bologna, gave gowns. He established warm personal relations with English men, and after his release from public office he made several visits to England. There, too, was buried his wife, who died in 1885. The closing years of his life in his own country, though touched with domestic loneliness and diminished by growing physical infirmities that predicted his death, were rich also with the continued expression of his large personality. He delivered the public address in commemoration of the 250th anni versary of the founding of Harvard University, he gave a course of lectures on the Old English Dramatists before the Lowell Institute, he collected a volume of his poems, he spoke and wrote on public affairs, and the year before his death revised, rearranged, and carefully edited a definitive series of his writings in ten volumes. Since his death three small volumes have been added to his collected writings, and Mr. Norton has published Letters of James Russell Lowell in two volumes. For anything like an adequate apprehension of Lowell s rich nature, the reader unac quainted with him during his lifetime, needs to read these Letters and the whole body of his prose and poetry; a nature at once so spontaneous and so lavish of its best gifts is not to be bounded by the arbitrary limits of a biography, brief or extended. Yet the poems alone as contained in this volume do much to reveal to the attentive reader the personality of their author. He was the most companionable of men, and shared his large gifts with chance acquaintance so freely that one sometimes wondered what he saved for more intimate friends ; and yet his fine reserve was apparent even to those who knew him best. The humor which underlies so much even of his stately verse was a constant quantity in his temperament, closely allied with shrewd sagacity; the senti ment and fancy which find expression sometimes in an entire poem, more often in phrase and line, played about his conversation in familiar intercourse; but as his verse when read in its fulness is charged with noble passion and with an imagination in which human experience and personal emotion are fused in a high ideal, so no one could long be with the poet without recognizing that he was in the presence of a character which combined the unflinching earnestness of the Puritan with the mellowness of a man of the great world. H. E. S. EARLIER POEMS THE first book of poetry issued by Lowell, if we except the pamphlet containing his Class Poem, was A Year s Life, published in 1841 by C. C. Little and J. Brown, Boston. It con tained thirty-two poems and songs and thirty- five sonnets, besides a Venvoi headed " Goe, Lit tle Booke," and a dedication addressed, though not formally, to Miss Maria White, to whom he had become engaged in the fall of 1840. The gentle Una I have loved, The snowy maiden, pure and mild, Since ever by her side I roved Through ventures strange, a wondering child, In fantasy a Red Cross Knight Burning for her dear sake to fight. If there be one who can, like her, Make sunshine in life s shady places, One in whose holy bosom stir Aa many gentle household graces, And such I think there needs must be, Will she accept this book from me ? The poems which filled the volume had appeared in The Knickerbocker, The Southern Literary Messenger, and some of the Boston newspapers. How little value the author set upon the contents of this first volume is evident when one discovers that on making his first general collection of poems in 1849, he retained but seven of those printed in A Year s Life. He continued to contribute to the magazines of his time, especially to The Democratic Re view, Graham s Magazine, The Boston Miscel lany, and The Pioneer, the last named being a very short-lived magazine which he conducted in company with Mr. Robert Carter, and in 1843 he issued a second volume of Poems, in which he gathered the product of the inter vening time, whether printed or in manuscript. The division Earlier Poems, first used in the collection dated 1877, contains but seven of the poems, two of them being sonnets included in A Yearns Life. Of the thirty-five poems and thirty-seven sonnets printed in the 1843 volume of Poems, seven poems and thirteen sonnets were silently dropped from later collections, and the poems included in the two volumes were distributed mainly between the two di visions Earlier Poems and Miscellaneous Poems. THRENODIA As first printed in The Knickerbocker maga zine for May, 1839, this poem bore the title Threnodia on an Infant, and was signed H. P., the initials for Hugh Perceval, a pseudonym which Lowell used occasionally at the outset of his career. In a letter to G. B. Loring, upon the appearance of the poem, Lowell says that his brother Robert animadverted on the irreg ular metre of the Threnodia ; " but as I think," he adds, " very unphilosophically and without much perception of the true rules of poetry. In my opinion no verse ought to be longer than the writer can sensibly make it. It lias been this senseless stretching of verses to make them octo- or deka-syllabic or what not, that has brought such an abundance of useless epi thets on the shoulders of poor English verse." GONE, gone from us ! and shall we see Those sibyl-leaves of destiny, Those calm eyes, nevermore ? Those deep, dark eyes so warm and bright, Wherein the fortunes of the man Lay slumbering in prophetic light, In characters a child might scan ? So bright, and gone forth utterly ! Oh stern word Nevermore ! The stars of those two gentle eyes Will shine no more on earth; Quenched are the hopes that had their birth, As we watched them slowly rise, Stars of a mother s fate; And she would read them o er and o er, Pondering, as she sate, Over their dear astrology, Which she had conned and conned before, Deeming she needs must read aright What was writ so passing bright. And yet, alas ! she knew not why, Her voice would falter in its song, EARLIER POEMS And tears would slide from out her eye, Silent, as they were doing wrong. Oh stern word Nevermore ! The tongue that scarce had learned to claim An entrance to a mother s heart By that dear talisman, a mother s name, Sleeps all forgetful of its art ! I loved to see the infant soul (How mighty in the weakness Of its untutored meekness !) Peep timidly from out its nest, His lips, the while, Fluttering with half-fledged words, Or hushing to a smile That more than words expressed, When his glad mother on him stole And snatched him to her breast ! Oh, thoughts were brooding in those eyes, That would have soared like strong-winged birds Far, far into the skies, Gladding the earth with song, And gushing harmonies, Had he but tarried with us long 1 Oh stern word Nevermore ! How peacefully they rest, Crossfolded there Upon his little breast, Those small, white hands that ne er were still before, But ever sported with his mother s hair, Or the plain cross that on her breast she wore ! Her heart no more will beat To feel the touch of that soft palm, That ever seemed a new surprise Sending glad thoughts up to her eyes To bless him with their holy calm, Sweet thoughts ! they made her eyes as sweet. How quiet are the hands That wove those pleasant bands ! But that they do not rise and sink With his calm breathing, I should think That he were dropped asleep. Alas ! too deep, too deep Is this his slumber ! Time scarce can number The years ere he shall wake again. Oh, may we see his eyelids open then ! Oh stern word Nevermore ! As the airy gossamere, Floating in the sunlight clear, Where er it toucheth clingeth tightly, Round glossy leaf or stump unsightly, So from his spirit wandered out Tendrils spreading all about, Knitting all things to its thrall With a perfect love of all: Oh stern word Nevermore ! He did but float a little way Adown the stream of time, With dreamy eyes watching the ripples play, Or hearkening their fairy chime; His slender sail Ne er felt the gale; He did but float a little way, And, putting to the shore While yet t was early day, Went calmly on his way, To dwell with us no more ! No jarring did he feel, No grating on his shallop s keel; A strip of silver sand Mingled the waters with the land Where he was seen no more: Oh stern word Nevermore ! Full short his journey was; no dust Of earth unto his sandals clave; The weary weight that old men must, He bore not to the grave. He seemed a cherub who had lost his way And wandered hither, so his stay With us was short, and t was most meet That he should be no delver in earth s clod, Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet To stand before his God: Oh blest word Evermore ! THE SIRENS This poem in A Year s Life is dated Nan- tasket, July, 1840. THE sea is lonely, the sea is dreary, The sea is restless and uneasy; Thou seekest quiet, thou art weary, Wandering thou knowest not whither; Our little isle is green and breezy, Come and rest thee ! Oh come hither, Come to this peaceful home of ours, Where evermore THE SIRENS The low west-wind creeps panting up the shore To be at rest among the flowers; Full of rest, the green moss lifts, As the dark waves of the sea Draw in and out of rocky rifts, Calling solemnly to thee With voices deep and hollow, " To the shore Follow ! Oh, follow ! To be at rest forevermore ! Forevermore ! " Look how the gray old Ocean From the depth of his heart rejoices, Heaving with a gentle motion, When he hears our restful voices; List how he sings in an undertone, Chiming with our melody; And all sweet sounds of earth and air Melt into one low voice alone, That murmurs over the weary sea, And seems to sing from everywhere, " Here mayst thou harbor peacefully, Here mayst thou rest from the aching oar; Turn thy curved prow ashore, And in our green isle rest forevermore ! Forevermore ! " And Echo half wakes in the wooded hill, And, to her heart so calm and deep, Murmurs over in her sleep, Doubtfully pausing and murmuring still, " Evermore ! " Thus, on Life s weary sea, Heareth the marinere Voices sweet, from far and near, Ever singing low and clear, Ever singing longingly. Is it not better here to be, Than to be toiling late and soon ? In the dreary night to see Nothing but the blood-red moon Go up and down into the sea; Or, in the loneliness of day, To see the still seals only Solemnly lift their faces gray, Making it yet more lonely ? Is it not better than to hear Only the sliding of the wave Beneath the plank, and feel so near A cold and lonely grave, A restless grave, where thou shalt lie Even in death unquietly ? Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark, Lean over the side and see The leaden eye of the sidelong shark Upturned patiently, Ever waiting there for thee: Look down and see those shapeless forms, Which ever keep their dreamless sleep Far down within the gloomy deep, And only stir themselves in storms, Rising like islands from beneath, And snorting through the angry spray, As the frail vessel perisheth In the whirls of their unwieldy play; Look down ! Look down ! Upon the seaweed, slimy and dark, That waves its arms so lank and brown, Beckoning for thee ! Look down beneath thy wave- worn bark Into the cold depth of the sea ! Look down ! Look down ! Thus, on Life s lonely sea, Heareth the marinere Voices sad, from far and near, Ever singing full of fear, Ever singing dreadfully. Here all is pleasant as a dream; The wind scarce shaketh down the dew, The green grass floweth like a stream Into the ocean s blue ; Listen ! Oh, listen ! Here is a gush of many streams, A song of many birds, And every wish and longing seems Lulled to a numbered flow of words, Listen ! Oh, listen ! Here ever hum the golden bees Underneath full-blossomed trees, At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned; So smooth the sand, the yellow sand, That thy keel will not grate as it touches the land; All around with a slumberous sound, The singing waves slide up the strand, And there, where the smooth, wet pebbles be, The waters gurgle longingly, As if they fain would seek the shore, To be at rest from the ceaseless roar, To be at rest forevermore, Forevermore. Thus, on Life s gloomy sea, Heareth the marinere Voices sweet, from far and near, Ever singing in his ear, " Here is rest and peace for thee ! " EARLIER POEMS IREN The indirect as well as direct references to Maria White are frequent in these early poems. Lowell, in a letter to G. B. Loring shortly after this poem appeared, wrote : " Maria fills my ideal and I satisfy hers, and I mean to live as one beloved by such a woman should live. She is every way noble. People have called Irene a beautiful piece of poetry. And so it is. It owes all its beauty to her." HERS is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear; Calmly beneath her earnest face it lies, Free without boldness, meek without a fear, Quicker to look than speak its sympathies; Far down into her large and patient eyes I gaze, deep-drinking of the infinite, As, in the mid-watch of a clear, still night, I look into the fathomless blue skies. So circled lives she with Love s holy light, That from the shade of self she walketh free; The garden of her soul still keepeth she An Eden where the snake did never enter; She hath a natural, wise sincerity, A simple truthfulness, and these have lent her A dignity as moveless as the centre ; So that no influence of our earth can stir Her steadfast courage, nor can take away The holy peacefulness, which night and day, Unto her queenly soul doth minister. Most gentle is she; her large charity (An all unwitting, childlike gift in her) Not freer is to give than meek to bear; And, though herself not unacquaint with care, Hath in her heart wide room for all that be, Her heart that hath no secrets of its own, But open is as eglantine full blown. Cloudless forever is her brow serene, Speaking calm hope and trust within her, whence Welleth a noiseless spring of patience, That keepeth all her life so fresh, so green And full of holiness, that every look, The greatness of her woman s soul reveal ing, Unto me bringeth blessing, and a feeling As when I read in God s own holy book. A graciousness in giving that doth make The small st gift greatest, and a sense most meek Of worthiness, that doth not fear to take From others, but which always fears to speak Its thanks in utterance, for the giver s sake ; The deep religion of a thankful heart, Which rests instinctively in Heaven s clear law With a full peace, that never can depart From its own steadfastness ; a holy awe For holy things, not those which men call holy, But such as are revealed to the eyes Of a true woman s soul bent down and lowly Before the face of daily mysteries; A love that blossoms soon, but ripens slowly To the full goldenness of fruitful prime, Enduring with a firmness that defies All shallow tricks of circumstance and time, By a sure insight knowing where to cling, And where it clingeth never withering; These are Irene"s dowry, which no fate Can shake from their serene, deep-builded state. In-seeing sympathy is hers, which clias- teneth No less than loveth, scorning to be bound With fear of blame, and yet which ever hasteneth To pour the balm of kind looks on the wound, If they be wounds which such sweet teach ing makes, Giving itself a pang for others sakes; No want of faith, that chills with sidelong eye, Hath she ; no jealousy, no Levite pride That passeth by upon the other side; For in her soul there never dwelt a lie. Right from the hand of God her spirit came Unstained, and she hath ne er forgotten whence It came, nor wandered far from thence, But laboreth to keep her still the same, WITH A PRESSED FLOWER Near to her place of birth, that she may not Soil her white raiment with an earthly spot. Yet sets she not her soul so steadily Above, that she forgets her ties to earth, But her whole thought would almost seem to be How to make glad one lowly human hearth ; For with a gentle courage she doth strive In thought and word and feeling so to live As to make earth next heaven; and her heart Herein doth show its most exceeding worth, That, bearing in our frailty her just part, She hath not shrunk from evils of this life, But hath gone calmly forth into the strife, And all its sins and sorrows hath withstood With lofty strength of patient womanhood: For this I love her great soul more than all, That, being bound, like us, with earthly thrall, She walks so bright and heaven-like there in, Too wise, too meek, too womanly, to sin. Like a lone star through riven storm- clouds seen By sailors, tempest-tost upon the sea, Telling of rest and peaceful heavens nigh, Unto my soul her star-like soul hath been, Her sight as full of hope and calm to me; For she unto herself hath builded high A home serene, wherein to lay her head, Earth s noblest thing, a Woman perfected. SERENADE FROM the close-shut windows gleams no spark, The night is chilly, the night is dark, The poplars shiver, the pine-trees moan, My hair by the autumn breeze is blown, Under thy window I sing alone, Alone, alone, ah woe ! alone ! The darkness is pressing coldly around, The windows shake with a lonely sound, The stars are hid and the night is drear, The heart of silence throbs in thine ear, In thy chamber thou sittest alone, Alone, alone, ah woe ! alone ! The world is happy, the world is wide, Kind hearts are beating on every side; Ah, why should we lie so coldly curled Alone in the shell of this great world ? Why should we any more be alone ? Alone, alone, ah woe ! alone ! Oh, t is a bitter and dreary word, The saddest by man s ear ever heard ! We each are young, we each have a heart,, Why stand we ever coldly apart ? Must we forever, then, be alone ? Alone, alone, ah woe ! alone ! WITH A PRESSED FLOWER THIS little blossom from afar Hath come from other lands to thine; For, once, its white and drooping star Could see its shadow in the Rhine. Perchance some fair-haired German maid Hath plucked one from the selfsame stalk. And numbered over, half afraid, Its petals in her evening walk. "He loves me, loves me not," she cries; " He loves me more than earth or heaven ! " And then glad tears have filled her eyes To find the number was uneven. And thou must count its petals well, Because it is a gift from me; And the last one of all shall tell Something I ve often told to thee. But here at home, where we were born, Thou wilt find blossoms just as true, Down-bending every summer morn, With freshness of New England dew. For Nature, ever kind to love, Hath granted them the same sweet tongue, Whether with German skies above, Or here our granite rocks among. THE BEGGAR A BEGGAR through the world am I, From place to place I wander by. EARLIER POEMS Fill up my pilgrim s scrip for me, For Christ s sweet sake and charity ! A little of thy steadfastness, Rounded with leafy gracefulness, Old oak, give me, That the world s blasts may round me blow, And I yield gently to and fro, While my stout-hearted trunk below And firm-set roots unshaken be. Some of thy stern, unyielding might, Enduring still through day and night Rude tempest-shock and withering blight, That I may keep at bay The changeful April sky of chance And the strong tide of circumstance, Give me, old granite gray. Some of thy pensiveness serene, Some of thy never-dying green, Put in this scrip of mine, That griefs may fall like snow-flakes light, And deck me in a robe of white, Ready to be an angel bright, sweetly mournful pine. A little of thy merriment, Of thy sparkling, light content, Give me, my cheerful brook, That I may still be full of glee And gladsomeness, where er I be, Though fickle fate hath prisoned me In some neglected nook. Ye have been very kind and good To me, since I Ve been in the wood ; Ye have gone nigh to fill my heart; But good-by, kind friends, every one, 1 ve far to go ere set of sun ; Of all good things I would have part, The day was high ere I could start, And so my journey s scarce begun. Heaven help me ! how could I forget To beg of thee, dear violet ! Some of thy modesty, That blossoms here as well, unseen, As if before the world thou dst been, Oh, give, to strengthen me. MY LOVE NOT as all other women are Is she that to my soul is dear; Her glorious fancies come from far, Beneath the silver evening-star, And yet her heart is ever near. Great feelings hath she of her own, Which lesser souls may never know; God giveth them to her alone, And sweet they are as any tone Wherewith the wind may choose to blow. Yet in herself she dwelleth not, Although no home were half so fair; No simplest duty is forgot, Life hath no dim and lowly spot That doth not in her sunshine share. She doeth little kindnesses, Which most leave undone, or despise: For naught that sets one heart at ease, And giveth happiness or peace, Is low-esteemed in her eyes. She hath no scorn of common things, And, though she seem of other birth, Round us her heart intwines and clings, And patiently she folds her wings To tread the humble paths of earth. Blessing she is : God made her so, And deeds of week-day holiness Fall from her noiseless as the snow, Nor hath she ever chanced to know That aught were easier than to bless. She is most fair, and thereunto Her life doth rightly harmonize; Feeling or thought that was not true Ne er made less beautiful the blue Unclouded heaven of her eyes. She is a woman: one in whom The spring-time of her childish years Hath never lost its fresh perfume, Though knowing well that life hath room For many blights and many tears. I love her with a love as still As a broad river s peaceful might, Which, by high tower and lowly mill, Seems following its own wayward will, And yet doth ever flow aright. And, on its full, deep breast serene, Like quiet isles my duties lie; It flows around them and between, SUMMER STORM And makes them fresh and fair and green, Sweet homes wherein to live and die. SUMMER STORM UNTREMULOUS in the river clear, Toward the sky s image, hangs the imaged bridge; So still the air that I can hear The slender clarion of the unseen midge; Out of the stillness, with a gathering creep, Like rising wind in leaves, which now de creases, Now lulls, now swells, and all the while increases, The huddling trample of a drove of sheep Tilts the loose planks, and then as gradu ally ceases In dust on the other side ; life s emblem deep, A confused noise between two silences, Finding at last in dust precarious peace. On the wide marsh the purple-blossomed grasses Soak up the sunshine; sleeps the brim ming tide, Save when the wedge-shaped wake in si lence passes Of some slow water-rat, whose sinuous glide Wavers the sedge s emerald shade from side to side; But up the west, like a rock-shivered surge, Climbs a great cloud edged with sun- whitened spray; Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o er its verge, And falling still it seems, and yet it climbs alway. Suddenly all the sky is hid As with the shutting of a lid, One by one great drops are falling Doubtful and slow, Down the pane they are crookedly crawl ing, And the wind breathes low; Slowly the circles widen on the river, Widen and mingle, one and all; Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver, Struck by an icy rain-drop s fall. Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter, The wind is gathering in the west; The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter, Then droop to a fitful rest; Up from the stream with sluggish flap Struggles the gull and floats away; Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap, We shall not see the sun go down to-day: Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh, And tramples the grass with terrified feet, The startled river turns leaden and harsh, You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat. Look ! look ! that livid flash ! And instantly follows the rattling thunder, As if some cloud-crag, split asunder, Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash, On the Earth, which crouches in silence under; And now a solid gray wall of rain Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile; For a breath s space I see the blue wood again, And ere the next heart-beat, the wind- hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof, Bursts crackling o er the sun-parched roof; Against the windows the storm comes dash ing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes, The white waves are tumbling, And, in one baffled roar, Like the toothless sea mumbling A rock-bristled shore, The thunder is rumbling And crashing and crumbling, Will silence return nevermore ? Hush ! Still as death, The tempest holds his breath As from a sudden will; The rain stops short, but from the eaves You see it drop, and hear it from the All is so bodingly still; Again, now, now, again Plashes the rain in heavy goutSj The crinkled lightning Seems ever brightening, And loud and long 3 EARLIER POEMS Again the thunder shouts His battle-song, One quivering flash, One wildering crash, Followed by silence dead and dull, As if the cloud, let go, Leapt bodily below To whelm the earth in one mad over throw, And then a total lull. Gone, gone, so soon ! No more my half-dazed fancy there, Can shape a giant in the air, No more I see his streaming hair, The writhing portent of his form; The pale and quiet moon Makes her calm forehead bare, And the last fragments of the storm, Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, Silent and few, are drifting over me. LOVE TRUE Love is but a humble, low-born thing, And hath its food served up in earthen ware; It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, Through the everydayness of this work day world, Baring its tender feet to every flint, Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray From Beauty s law of plainness and con tent; A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile Can warm earth s poorest hovel to a home ; Which, when our autumn cometh, as it must, And life in the chill wind shivers bare and leafless, Shall still be blest with Indian-summer youth In bleak November, and, with thankful heart, Smile on its ample stores of garnered fruit, As full of sunshine to our aged eyes As when it nursed the blossoms of our spring. Such is true Love, which steals into the heart With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark. And hath its will through blissful gentle ness, Not like a rocket, which, with passionate glare, Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes; A love that gives and takes, that seeth faults, Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle points, But loving-kindly ever looks them down With the o ercomiug faith that still for gives; A love that shall be new and fresh each hour, As is the sunset s golden mystery, Or the sweet coming of the evening-star, Alike, and yet most unlike, every day, And seeming ever best and fairest now; A love that doth not kneel for what it seeks, But faces Truth and Beauty as their peer, Showing its worthiness of noble thoughts By a clear sense of inward nobleness; A love that in its object findeth not All grace and beauty, and enough to sate Its thirst of blessing, but, in all of good Found there, sees but the Heaven-implanted types Of good and beauty in the soul of man, And traces, in the simplest heart that beats, A family-likeness to its chosen one, That claims of it the rights of brotherhood. For love is blind but with the fleshly eye, That so its inner sight may be more clear; And outward shows of beauty only so Are needful at the first, as is a hand To guide and to uphold an infant s steps: Fine natures need them not: their earnest look Pierces the body s mask of thin disguise, And beauty ever is to them revealed, Behind the unshapeliest, meanest lump of clay, With arms outstretched and eager face ablaze, Yearning to be but understood and loved. TO PERDITA, SINGING THY voice is like a fountain, Leaping up in clear moonshine; Silver, silver, ever mounting, THE MOON Ever sinking, Without thinking, To that brimful heart of thine. Every sad and happy feeling, Thou hast had in bygone years, Through thy lips comes stealing, stealing, Clear and low; All thy smiles and all thy tears In thy voice awaken, And sweetness, wove of joy and woe, From their teaching it hath taken: Feeling and music move together, Like a swan and shadow ever Floating on a sky-blue river In a day of cloudless weather. It hath caught a touch of sadness, Yet it is not sad; It hath tones of clearest gladness, Yet it is not glad; A dim, sweet twilight voice it is Where to-day s accustomed blue Is over-grayed with memories, With starry feelings quivered through. Thy voice is like a fountain Leaping up in sunshine bright, And I never weary counting Its clear droppings, lone and single, Or when in one full gush they mingle, Shooting in melodious light. Thine is music such as yields Feelings of old brooks and fields, And, around this pent-up room, Sheds a woodland, free perfume; Oh, thus forever sing to me ! Oh, thus forever ! The green, bright grass of childhood bring to me, Flowing like an emerald river, And the bright blue skies above ! Oh, sing them back, as fresh as ever, Into the bosom of my love, The sunshine and the merriment, The unsought, evergreen content, Of that never cold time, The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went Through and through the old time ! Peace sits within thine eyes, With white hands crossed in joyful rest, While, through thy lips and face, arise The melodies from out thy breast; She sits and sings, With folded wings And white arms crost, " Weep not for bygone things, They are not lost: The beauty which the summer time O er thine opening spirit shed, The forest oracles sublime That filled thy soul with joyous dread, The scent of every smallest flower That made thy heart sweet for an hour, Yea, every holy influence, Flowing to thee, thou knewest not whence, In thine eyes to-day is seen, Fresh as it hath ever been; Promptings of Nature, beckonings sweet, Whatever led thy childish feet, Still will linger unawares The guiders of thy silver hairs; Every look and every word Which thou givest forth to-day, Tell of the singing of the bird Whose music stilled thy boyish play." Thy voice is like a fountain, Twinkling up in sharp starlight, When the moon behind the mountain Dims the low East with faintest white, Ever darkling, Ever sparkling, We know not if t is dark or bright; But, when the great moon hath rolled round, And, sudden-slow, its solemn power Grows from behind its black, clear-edged bound, No spot of dark the fountain keepeth, But, swift as opening eyelids, leapeth Into a waving silver flower. THE MOON MY soul was like the sea, Before the moon was made, Moaning in vague immensity, Of its own strength afraid, Unrestful and unstaid. Through every rift it foamed in vain, About its earthly prison, Seeking some unknown thing in pain, And sinking restless back again, For yet no moon had risen: Its only voice a vast dumb moan, Of utterless anguish speaking, It lay unhopefully alone, And lived but in an aimless seeking. TO EARLIER POEMS So was my soul; but when t was full Of unrest to o erloading, A voice of something beautiful Whispered a dim foreboding, And yet so soft, so sweet, so low, It had not more of joy than woe; And, as the sea doth oft lie still, Making its waters meet, As if by an unconscious will, For the moon s silver feet, So lay my soul within mine eyes When thou, its guardian moon, didst rise. And now, howe er its waves above May toss and seem uneaseful, One strong, eternal law of Love, With guidance sure and peaceful, As calm and natural as breath, Moves its great deeps through life and death. REMEMBERED MUSIC A FRAGMENT THICK-RUSHING, like an ocean vast Of bisons the far prairie shaking, The notes crowd heavily and fast As surfs, one plunging while the last Draws seaward from its foamy breaking. Or in low murmurs they began, Rising and rising momently, As o er a harp .ZEolian A fitful breeze, until they ran Up to a sudden ecstasy. And then, like minute-drops of rain Ringing in water silverly, They lingering dropped and dropped again, Till it was almost like a pain To listen when the next would be. SONG TO M. L. A LILY thou wast when I saw thee first, A lily-bud not opened quite, That hourly grew more pure and white, By morning, and noontide, and evening nursed : In all of nature thou hadst thy share; Thou wast waited on By the wind and sun; The rain and the dew for thee took care; It seemed thou never couldst be more fair. A lily thou wast when I saw thee first, A lily-bud; but oh, how strange, How full of wonder was the change, When, ripe with all sweetness, thy full bloom burst ! How did the tears to my glad eyes start, When the woman-flower Reached its blossoming hour, And I saw the warm deeps of thy golden heart! Glad death may pluck thee, but never before The gold dust of thy bloom divine Hath dropped from thy heart into mine, To quicken its faint germs of heavenly lore ; For no breeze comes nigh thee but carries away Some impulses bright Of fragrance and light, Which fall upon souls that are lone and astray, To plant fruitful hopes of the flower of day. ALLEGRA I WOULD more natures were like thine, That never casts a glance before, Thou Hebe, who thy heart s bright wine So lavishly to all dost pour, That we who drink forget to pine, And can but dream of bliss in store. Thou canst not see a shade in life ; With sunward instinct thou dost rise, And, leaving clouds below at strife, Gazest undazzled at the skies, With all their blazing splendors rife, A songful lark with eagle s eyes. Thou wast some foundling whom the Hours Nursed, laughing, with the milk of Mirth; Some influence more gay than ours Hath ruled thy nature from its birth, As if thy natal stars were flowers That shook their seeds round thee on earth. ODE ii And thou, to lull thine infant rest, Wast cradled like an Indian child; All pleasant winds from south and west With lullabies thine ears beguiled, Rocking thee in thine oriole s nest, Till Nature looked at thee and smiled. Thine every fancy seems to borrow A sunlight from thy childish years, Making a golden cloud of sorrow, A hope-lit rainbow out of tears, Thy heart is certain of to-morrow, Though yond to-day it never peers. I would more natures were like thine, So innocently wild and free, Whose sad thoughts, even, leap and shine, Like sunny wavelets in the sea, Making us mindless of the brine, In gazing on the brilliancy. THE FOUNTAIN INTO the sunshine, Full of the light, Leaping and flashing From morn till night; Into the moonlight, Whiter than snow, Waving so flower-like When the winds blow; Into the starlight Rushing in spray, >py at midnight, [appy by day; Ever in motion, Blithesome and cheery, Still climbing heavenward. Never aweary; Glad of all weathers, Still seeming best, Upward or downward, Motion thy rest-, Full of a nature Nothing can tame, Changed every moment, Ever the same ; Ceaseless aspiring, Ceaseless content, Darkness or sunshine Thy element; Glorious fountain, Let my heart be Fresh, changeful, constant, Upward, like thee ! ODE IN the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder, The Poet s song with blood-warm truth was rife; He saw the mysteries which circle under The outward shell and skin of daily life. Nothing to him were fleeting time and fashion, His soul was led by the eternal law; There was in him no hope of fame, no pas sion, But with calm, godlike eyes he only saw. He did not sigh o er heroes dead and buried, Chief - mourner at the Golden Age s hearse, Nor deem that souls whom Charon grim had ferried Alone were fitting themes of epic verse: He could believe the promise of to-morrow, And feel the wondrous meaning of to day; He had a deeper faith in holy sorrow Than the world s seeming loss could take away. To know the heart of all things was his duty, All things did sing to him to make him wise, And, with a sorrowful and conquering beauty, The soul of all looked grandly from his eyes. He gazed on all within him and without him, He watched the flowing of Time s steady tide, And shapes of glory floated all about him And whispered to him, and he prophe sied. Than all men he more fearless was and freer, 12 EARLIER POEMS And all his brethren cried with one ac cord, " Behold the holy man ! Behold the Seer ! Him who hath spoken with the unseen Lord ! " He to his heart with large embrace had taken The universal sorrow of mankind, And, from that root, a shelter never shaken, The tree of wisdom grew with sturdy rind. He could interpret well the wondrous voices Which to the calm and silent spirit come ; He knew that the One Soul no more rejoices In the star s anthem than the insect s hum. He in his heart was ever meek and humble, And yet with kingly pomp his numbers ran, As he foresaw how all things false should crumble Before the free, uplifted soul of man: And, when he was made full to overflowing With all the loveliness of heaven and earth, Out rushed his song, like molten iron glow ing* To show God sitting by the humblest hearth. With calmest courage he was ever ready To teach that action was the truth of thought, And, with strong arm and purpose firm and steady, An anchor for the drifting world he wrought. So did he make the meanest man partaker Of all his brother-gods unto him gave; All souls did reverence him and name him Maker, And when he died heaped temples on his grave. And still his deathless words of light are swimming Serene throughout the great deep infinite Of human soul, unwaning and undimming, To cheer and guide the mariner at night. But now the Poet is an empty rhymer Who lies with idle elbow on the grass, And fits his singing, like a cunning timer, To all men s prides and fancies as they Not his the song, which, in its metre holy, Chimes with the music of the eternal stars, Humbling the tyrant, lifting up the lowly, And sending sun through the soul s prison- bars. Maker no more, oh no ! unmaker rather, For he unmakes who doth not all put forth The power given freely by our loving Father To show the body s dross, the spirit s worth. Awake ! great spirit of the ages olden ! Shiver the mists that hide thy starry lyre, And let man s soul be yet again beholden To thee for wings to soar to her desire. Oh, prophesy no more to-morrow s splendor, Be no more shamefaced to speak out for Truth, Lay on her altar all the gushings tender, The hope, the fire, the loving faith of youth ! Oh, prophesy no more the Maker s coming, Say not his onward footsteps thou canst hear In the dim void, like to the awful humming Of the great wings of some new-lighted sphere ! Oh, prophesy no more, but be the Poet ! This longing was but granted unto thee That, when all beauty thou couldst feel and know it, That beauty in its highest thou shouldst be. O thou who meanest tost with sealike long ings, Who dimly hearest voices call on thee, Whose soul is overfilled with mighty throng- ings Of love, and fear, and glorious agony, Thou of the toil-strung hands and iron sinews And soul by Mother Earth with freedom fed, In whom the hero-spirit yet continues, The old free nature is not chained or dead, Arouse ! let thy soul break in music-thun der, Let loose the ocean that is in thee pent, Pour forth thy hope, thy fear, thy love, thy wonder, And tell the age what all its signs have meant. Where er thy wildered- crowd of brethren jostles, ODE Where er there lingers but a shadow of wrong, There still is need of martyrs and apos tles, There still are texts for never-dying song: From age to age man s still aspiring spirit Finds wider scope and sees with clearer eyes, And thou in larger measure dost inherit What made thy great forerunners free and wise. Sit thou enthroned where the Poet s moun tain Above the thunder lifts its silent peak, And roll thy songs down like a gathering fountain, They all may drink and find the rest they seek. Sing ! there shall silence grow in earth and heaven, A silence of deep awe and wondering; For, listening gladly, bend the angels, even, To hear a mortal like an angel sing. in Among the toil-worn poor my soul is seek ing For who shall bring the Maker s name to light, To be the voice of that almighty speaking Which every age demands to do it right. Proprieties our silken bards environ; He who would be the tongue of this wide land Must string his harp with chords of sturdy iron And strike it with a toil-imbrowned hand ; One who hath dwelt with Nature well at tended, Who hath learnt wisdom from her mystic books, Whose soul with all her countless lives hath blended, So that all beauty awes us in his looks; Who not with body s waste his soul hath pampered, Who as the clear northwestern wind is free, Who walks with Form s observances un hampered, And follows the One Will obediently; Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy sum mit, Control a lovely prospect every way; Who doth not sound God s sea with earthly plummet, And find a bottom still of worthless clay ; Who heeds not how the lower gusts are working, Knowing that one sure wind blows on above, And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurking, One God-built shrine of reverence and love; Who sees all stars that wheel their shining marches Around the centre fixed of Destiny, Where the encircling soul serene o erarches The moving globe of being like a sky; Who feels that God and Heaven s great deeps are nearer Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh, Who doth not hold his soul s own freedom dearer Than that of all his brethren, low or high; Who to the Right can feel himself the truer For being gently patient with the wrong, Who sees a brother in the evil-doer, And finds in Love the heart s-blood of his song; This, this is he for whom the world is wait ing To sing the beatings of its mighty heart, Too long hath it been patient with the grat ing Of scrannel-pipes, and heard it misnamed Art. To him the smiling soul of man shall listen, Laying awhile its crown of thorns aside, And once again in every eye shall glisten The glory of a nature satisfied. His verse shall have a great commanding motion, Heaving and swelling with a melody Learnt of the sky, the river, and the ocean, And all the pure, majestic things that be. Awake, then, thou ! we pine for thy great presence To make us feel the soul once more sub lime, We are of far too infinite an essence To rest contented with the lies of Time. Speak out ! and lo ! a hush of deepest won der Shall sink o er all this many-voiced scene, As when a sudden burst of rattling thunder Shatters the blueness of a sky serene. EARLIER POEMS THE FATHERLAND WHERE is the true man s fatherland ? Is it where he by chance is born ? Doth not the yearning spirit scorn In such scant borders to be spanned ? Oh yes ! his fatherland must be As the blue heaven wide and free ! Is it alone where freedom is, Where God is God and man is man ? Doth he not claim a broader span For the soul s love of home than this ? Oh yes ! his fatherland must be As the blue heaven wide and free ! Where er a human heart doth wear Joy s myrtle-wreath or sorrow s gyves, Where er a human spirit strives After a life more true and fair, There is the true man s birthplace grand, His is a world- wide fatherland ! Where er a single slave doth pine, Where er one man may help another, Thank God for such a birthright, bro ther, That spot of earth is thine and mine ! There is the true man s birthplace grand, His is a world-wide fatherland ! THE FORLORN THE night is dark, the stinging sleet, Swept by the bitter gusts of air, Drives whistling down the lonely street, And glazes on the pavement bare. The street-lamps flare and strug Through the gray sleet-clouc le dim ; as they Or, governed by a boisterous whim, Drop down and rustle on the glass. One poor, heart-broken, outcast girl Faces the east-wind s searching flaws, And, as about her heart they whirl, Her tattered cloak more tightly draws. The flat brick walls look cold and bleak, Her bare feet to the sidewalk freeze; Yet dares she not a shelter seek, Though faint with hunger and disease. The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare, And, piercing through her garments thin, Beats on her shrunken breast, and there Makes colder the cold heart within. She lingers where a ruddy glow Streams outward through an open shut ter, Adding more bitterness to woe, More loneliness to desertion utter. One half the cold she had not felt Until she saw this gush of light Spread warmly forth, and seem to melt Its slow way through the deadening night. She hears a woman s voice within, Singing sweet words her childhood knew, And years of misery and sin Furl off, and leave her heaven blue. Her freezing heart, like one who sinks Outwearied in the drifting snow, Drowses to deadly sleep and thinks No longer of its hopeless woe: Old fields, and clear blue summer days, Old meadows, green with grass, and trees That shimmer through the trembling haze And whiten in the western breeze, Old faces, all the friendly past Rises within her heart again, And sunshine from her childhood cast Makes summer of the icy rain. Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow, From man s humanity apart, She hears old footsteps wandering slow Through the lone chambers of the heart Outside the porch before the door, Her cheek upon the cold, hard stone, She lies, no longer foul and poor, No longer dreary and alone. Next morning something heavily Against the opening door did weigh, And there, from sin and sorrow free, A woman on the threshold lay. A smile upon the wan lips told That she had found a calm release, And that, from out the want and cold, The song had borne her soul in peace. THE HERITAGE For, whom the heart of man shuts out, Sometimes the heart of God takes in, And fences them all round about With silence mid the world s loud din; And one of his great charities Is Music, and it doth not scorn To close the lids upon the eyes Of the polluted and forlorn; Far was she from her childhood s home, Farther in guilt had wandered thence, Yet thither it had bid her come To die in maiden innocence. MIDNIGHT THE moon shines white and silent On the mist, which, like a tide Of some enchanted ocean, O er the wide marsh doth glide, Spreading its ghost-like billows Silently far and wide. A vague and starry magic Makes all things mysteries, And lures the earth s dumb spirit Up to the longing skies; I seem to hear dim whispers, And tremulous replies. The fireflies o er the meadow In pulses come and go; The elm-trees heavy shadow Weighs on the grass below; And faintly from the distance The dreaming cock doth crow. All things look strange and mystic, The very bushes swell And take wild shapes and motions, As if beneath a spell; They seem not the same lilacs From childhood known so welL The snow of deepest silence O er everything doth fall, So beautiful and quiet, And yet so like a pall; As if all life were ended, And rest were come to all. O wild and wondrous midnight, There is a might in thee To make the charmed body Almost like spirit be, And give it some faint glimpses Of immortality ! A PRAYER GOD ! do not let my loved one die, But rather wait until the time That I am grown in purity Enough to enter thy pure clime, Then take me, I will gladly go, So that my love remain below ! Oh, let her stay ! She is by birth What I through death must learn to be; We need her more on our poor earth Than thou canst need in heaven with thee : She hath her wings already, I Must burst this earth-shell ere 1 fly. Then, God, take me ! We shall be near, More near than ever, each to each: Her angel ears will find more clear My heavenly than my earthly speech; And still, as I draw nigh to thee, Her soul and mine shall closer be. THE HERITAGE THE rich man s son inherits lands, And piles of brick and stone, and gold, And he inherits soft white hands, And tender flesh that fears the cold, Nor dares to wear a garment old; A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. The rich man s son inherits cares; The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn; A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. The rich man s son inherits wants, His stomach craves for dainty fare; With sated heart, he hears the pants Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare. And wearies in his easy-chair; A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee, i6 EARLIER POEMS What doth the poor man s son inherit ? Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, A hardy frame, a hardier spirit; King of two hands, he does his part In every useful toil and art; A heritage, it seems to me, A king might wish to hold in fee. What doth the poor man s son inherit ? Wishes o erjoyed with humble things, A rank adjudged by toil-won merit, Content that from employment springs, A heart that in his labor sings; A heritage, it seems to me, A king might wish to hold in fee. What doth the poor man s son inherit ? A patience learned of being poor, Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it, A fellow-feeling that is sure To make the outcast bless his door; A heritage, it seems to me, A king might wish to hold in fee. O rich man s son ! there is a toil That with all others level stands; Large charity doth never soil, But only whiten, soft white hands; This is the best crop from thy lands, A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being rich to hold in fee. O poor man s son ! scorn not thy state; There is worse weariness than thine, In merely being rich and great; Toil only gives the soul to shine, And makes rest fragrant and benign; A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being poor to hold in fee. Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, Are equal in the earth at last; Both, children of the same dear God, Prove title to your heirship vast By record of a well-filled past; A heritage, it seems to me, Well worth a life to hold in fee. THE ROSE: A BALLAD IN his tower sat the poet Gazing on the roaring sea, " Take this rose," he sighed, " and throw it Where there s none that loveth me. On the rock the billow bursteth And sinks back into the seas, But in vain my spirit thirsteth So to burst and be at ease. Take, O sea ! the tender blossom That hath lain against my breast; On thy black and angry bosom It will find a surer rest. Life is vain, and love is hollow, Ugly death stands there behind, Hate and scorn and hunger follow Him that toileth for his kind." Forth into the night he hurled it, And with bitter smile did mark How the surly tempest whirled it Swift into the hungry dark. Foam and spray drive back to leeward, And the gale, with dreary moan, Drifts the helpless blossom seaward, Through the breakers all alone. II Stands a maiden, on the morrow, Musing by the wave-beat strand, Half in hope and half in sorrow, Tracing words upon the sand: " Shall I ever then behold him Who hath been my life so long, Ever to this sick heart fold him, Be the spirit of his song ? Touch not, sea, the blessed letters I have traced upon thy shore, Spare his name whose spirit fetters Mine with love f orevermore ! " Swells the tide and overflows it, But, with omen pure and meet, Brings a little rose, and throws it Humbly at the maiden s feet. Full of bliss she takes the token, And, upon her snowy breast, Soothes the ruffled petals broken With the ocean s fierce unrest. " Love is thine, O heart ! and surely Peace shall also be thine own, For the heart that trusteth purely Never long can pine alone." in In his tower sits the poet, Blisses new and strange to him Fill his heart and overflow it With a wonder sweet and dim. ROSALINE 17 Up the beach the ocean slideth With a whisper of delight, And the moon in silence glideth Through the peaceful blue of night. Rippling o er the poet s shoulder Flows a maiden s golden hair, Maiden lips, with love grown bolder, Kiss his moon-lit forehead bare. " Life is joy, and love is power. Death all fetters doth unbind, Strength and wisdom only flower When we toil for all our kind. Hope is truth, the future giveth More than present takes away, And the soul forever liveth Nearer God from day to day." Not a word the maiden uttered, Fullest hearts are slow to speak, But a withered rose-leaf fluttered Down upon the poet s cheek. SONG VIOLET ! sweet violet ! Thine eyes are full of tears; Are they wet Even yet With the thought of other years ? Or with gladness are they full, For the night so beautiful, And longing for those far-off spheres ? Loved one of my youth thou wast, Of my merry youth, And I see, Tearfully, All the fair and sunny past, All its openness and truth, Ever fresh and green in thee As the moss is in the sea. Thy little heart, that hath with love Grown colored like the sky above, On which thou lookest ever, Can it know All the woe Of hope for what returneth never, All the sorrow and the longing To these hearts of ours belonging ? Out on it ! no foolish pining For the sky Dims thine eye, Or for the stars so calmly shining; Like thee let this soul of mine Take hue from that wherefor I long, Self-stayed and high, serene and strong, Not satisfied with hoping but divine^ Violet ! dear violet ! Thy blue eyes are only wet With joy and love of Him who sent thee, And for the fulfilling sense Of that glad obedience Which made thee all that Nature meant thee! ROSALINE THOU look dst on me all yesternight, Thine eyes were blue, thy hair was bright As when we murmured our troth-plight Beneath the thick stars, Rosaline ! Thy hair was braided on thy head, As on the day we two were wed, Mine eyes scarce knew if thou wert dead, But my shrunk heart knew, Rosaline ! The death-watch ticked behind the wall, The blackness rustled like a pall, The moaning wind did rise and fall Among the bleak pines, Rosaline ! My heart beat thickly in mine ears: The lids may shut out fleshly fears, But still the spirit sees and hears, Its eyes are lidless, Rosaline ! A wildness rushing suddenly, A knowing some ill shape is nigh, A wish for death, a fear to die, Is not this vengeance, Rosaline ? A loneliness that is not lone, A love quite withered up and gone, A strong soul ousted from its throne, What wouldst thou further, Rosaline ? T is drear such moonless nights as these. Strange sounds are out upon the breeze, And the leaves shiver in the trees, And then thou comest, Rosaline ! I seem to hear the mourners go, With long black garments trailing slow, And plumes anodding to and fro, As once I heard them, Rosaline ! Thy shroud is all of snowy white, And, in the middle of the night, Thou standest moveless and upright, Gazing upon me, Rosaline ! i8 EARLIER POEMS There is no sorrow in thine eyes, But evermore that nieek surprise, God ! thy gentle spirit tries To deem me guiltless, Rosaline ! Above thy grave the robin sings, And swarms of bright and happy things Flit all about with sunlit wings, But I am cheerless, Rosaline ! The violets in the hillock toss, The gravestone is o ergrowii with moss; For nature feels not any loss, But I am cheerless, Rosaline ! 1 did not know when thou wast dead; A blackbird whistling overhead Thrilled through my brain; I would have fled, But dared not leave thee, Rosaline ! The sun rolled down, and very soon, Like a great fire, the awful moon Rose, stained with blood, and then a swoon Crept chilly o er me, Rosaline ! The stars came out; and, one by one, Each angel from his silver throne Looked down and saw what I had done : I dared not hide me, Rosaline ! I crouched; I feared thy corpse would cry Against me to God s silent sky, I thought I saw the blue lips try To utter something, Rosaline ! I waited with a maddened grin To hear that voice all icy thin Slide forth and tell my deadly sin To hell and heaven, Rosaline ! But no voice came, and then it seemed, That, if the very corpse had screamed, The sound like sunshine glad had streamed Through that dark stillness, Rosaline ! And then, amid the silent night, I screamed with horrible delight, And in my brain an awful light Did seem to crackle, Rosaline ! It is my curse ! sweet memories fall From me like snow, and only all Of that one night, like cold worms, crawl My doomed heart over, Rosaline ! Why wilt thou haunt me with thine eyes, Wherein such blessed memories, Such pitying forgiveness lies, Than hate more bitter, Rosaline ! Woe s me ! I know that love so high As thine, true soul, could never die, And with mean clay in churchyard lie, Would it might be so, Rosaline ! A REQUIEM AY, pale and silent maiden, Cold as thou liest there, Thine was the sunniest nature That ever drew the air; The wildest and most wayward, And yet so gently kind, Thou seemedst but to body A breath of summer wind. Into the eternal shadow That girds our life around, Into the infinite silence Wherewith Death s shore is bound, Thou hast gone forth, beloved ! And I were mean to weep, That thou hast left Life s shallows, And dost possess the Deep. Thou liest low and silent, Thy heart is cold and still, Thine eyes are shut forever, And Death hath had his will; He loved and would have taken, I loved and would have kept, We strove, and he was stronger, And I have never wept. Let him possess thy body, Thy soul is still with me, More sunny and more gladsome Than it was wont to be: Thy body was a fetter That bound me to the flesh, Thank God that it is broken, And now I live afresh ! Now I can see thee clearly; The dusky cloud of clay, That hid thy starry spirit, Is rent and blown away: To earth I give thy body, Thy spirit to the sky, I saw its bright wings growing, And knew that thou must fly. Now I can love thee truly, For nothing comes between SONNETS The senses and the spirit, The seen and the unseen; Lifts the eternal shadow, The silence bursts apart, And the soul s boundless future Is present in my heart. A PARABLE WORN and footsore was the Prophet, When he gained the holy hill; " God has left the earth," he murmured, " Here his presence lingers still. " God of all the olden prophets, Wilt thou speak with men no more ? Have I not as truly served thee As thy chosen ones of yore ? " Hear me, guider of my fathers, Lo ! a humble heart is mine ; By thy mercy I beseech thee Grant thy servant but a sign ! " Bowing then his head, he listened For an answer to his prayer; No loud burst of thunder followed, Not a murmur stirred the air: But the tuft of moss before him Opened while he waited yet, And, from out the rock s hard bosom, Sprang a tender violet. "God ! I thank thee," said the Prophet; " Hard of heart and blind was I, Looking to the holy mountain For the gift of prophecy. " Still thou speakest with thy children Freely as in eld sublime ; Humbleness, and love, and patience, Still give empire over time. " Had I trusted in my nature, And had faith in lowly things, Thou thyself wouldst then have sought me, And set free my spirit s wings. " But I looked for signs and wonders, That o er men should give me sway; Thirsting to be more than mortal, I was even less than clay. Ere I entered on my journey, As I girt my loins to start, Ran to me my little daughter, The beloved of my heart; In her hand she held a flower, Like to this as like may be, Which, beside my very threshold, She had plucked and brought to me." SONG O MOONLIGHT deep and tender, A year and more agone, Your mist of golden splendor Round my betrothal shone ! O elm-leaves dark and dewy, The very same ye seem, The low wind trembles through ye, Ye murmur in my dream ! O river, dim with distance, Flow thus forever by, A part of my existence Within your heart doth lie ! O stars, ye saw our meeting, Two beings and one soul, Two hearts so madly beating To mingle and be whole ! O happy night, deliver Her kisses back to me, Or keep them all, and give her A blissful dream of me ! SONNETS TO A. C. L. A. C. L. was Mrs. Anna Cabot Lowell (Mrs. Charles Lowell), the wife of the eldest brother of the poet, and mother of those gallant bro thers, Charles and James, who fell in the war for the union, and to whom Lowell refers in the tenth of the second series of BiglowPapers. THROUGH suffering and sorrow thou hast To show us what a woman true may be: They have not taken sympathy from thee, Nor made thee any other than thou wast, 20 EARLIER POEMS Save as some tree, which, in a sudden blast, Sheddeth those blossoms, that are weakly grown, Upon the air, but keepeth every one Whose strength gives warrant of good fruit at last: So thou hast shed some blooms of gayety, But never one of steadfast cheerfulness; Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity Robbed thee of any faith in happiness, But rather cleared thine inner eyes to see How many simple ways there are to bless. II WHAT were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee, If thine eyes shut me out whereby I live, Thou, who unto my calmer soul dost give Knowledge, and Truth, and holy Mystery, Wherein Truth mainly lies for those who see Beyond the earthly and the fugitive,, Who in the grandeur of the soul believe, And only in the Infinite are free ? Without thee I were naked, bleak, and bare As yon dead cedar on the sea-cliff s brow; And Nature s teachings, which come to me now, Common and beautiful as light and air, Would be as fruitless as a stream which still Slips through the wheel of some old ruined mill. ill I WOULD not have this perfect love of ours Grow from a single root, a single stem, Bearing no goodly fruit, but only flowers That idly hide life s iron diadem: It should grow alway like that Eastern tree Whose limbs take root and spread forth constantly; That love for one, from which there doth not spring Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing. Not in another world, as poets prate, Dwell we apart above the tide of things, High floating o er earth s clouds on faery wings ; But our pure love doth ever elevate Into a holy bond of brotherhood All earthly things, making them pure and good. IV " FOR this true nobleness I seek in vain, In woman and in man I find it not; I almost weary of my earthly lot, My life-springs are dried up with burning pain." Thou find st it not? I pray thee look again, Look inward through the depths of thine own soul. How is it with thee ? Art thou sound and whole ? Doth narrow search show thee no earthly stain? BE NOBLE ! and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own; Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes, Then will pure light around thy path be shed, And thou wilt nevermore be sad and lone. TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS GREAT soul, thou sittest with me in my room, Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes, On whose full orbs, with kindly lustre, lies The twilight warmth of ruddy ember- gloom: Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sud den bloom Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries, Wrestling with the young poet s agonies, Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain doom: Yes ! the few words which, like great thunder-drops, Thy large heart down to earth shook doubt fully, Thrilled by the inward lightning of its might, Serene and pure, like gushing joy of light, Shall track the eternal chords of Destiny, After the moon-led pulse of ocean stops. VI GREAT Truths are portions of the soul of man; Great souls are portions of Eternity; Each drop of blood that e er through true heart ran With lofty message, ran for thee and me; SONNETS 21 For God s law, since the starry song began, Hath been, and still forevermore must be, That every deed which shall outlast Time s span Must spur the soul to be erect and free; Slave is no word of deathless lineage sprung; Too many noble souls have thought and died, Too many mighty poets lived and sung, And our good Saxon, from lips purified With martyr-fire, throughout the world hath rung Too long to have God s holy cause denied. VII I ASK not for those thoughts, that sudden leap From being s sea, like the isle-seeming Kraken, With whose great rise the ocean all is shaken And a heart-tremble quivers through the deep; Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep, Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise, Which, by the toil of gathering energies, Their upward way into clear sunshine keep, Until, by Heaven s sweetest influences, Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green Into a pleasant island in the seas, Where, mid tall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen, And wearied men shall sit at sunset s hour, Hearing the leaves and loving God s dear power. VIII TO M. W., ON HER BIRTHDAY MAIDEN, when such a soul as thine is born, The morning - stars their ancient music make, And, joyful, once again their song awake, Long silent now with melancholy scorn; And thou, not mindless of so blest a morn, By no least deed its harmony shalt break, But shalt to that high chime thy footsteps take, Through life s most darksome passes un- f orlorn ; Therefore from thy pure faith thou shalt not fall, Therefore shalt thou be ever fair and free, And in thine every motion musical As summer air, majestic as the sea, A mystery to those who creep and crawl Through Time, and part it from Eternity. IX MY Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die; Albeit I ask no fairer life than this, Whose numbering-clock is still thy gentle kiss, While Time and Peace with hands en- locked fly; Yet care I not where in Eternity We live and love, well knowing that there is No backward step for those who feel the bliss Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings high: Love hath so purified my being s core, Meseems I scarcely should be startled, even, To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before ; Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was given, Which each calm day doth strengthen more and more, That they who love are but one step from Heaven. x I CANNOT think that thou shouldst pass away, Whose life to mine is an eternal law, A piece of nature that can have no flaw, A new and certain sunrise every day; But, if thou art to be another ray About the Sun of Life, and art to live Free from what part of thee was fugitive, The debt of Love I will more fully pay, Not downcast with the thought of thee so high, But rather raised to be a nobler man, And more divine in my humanity, As knowing that the waiting eyes which scan My life are lighted by a purer being, And ask high, calm-browed deeds, with it agreeing. XI THERE never yet was flower fair in vain, Let classic poets rhyme it as they will ; The seasons toil that it may blow again, 22 EARLIER POEMS And summer s heart doth feel its every ill; Nor is a true soul ever born for naught; Wherever any such hath lived and died, There hath been something for true free dom wrought, Some bulwark levelled on the evil side: Toil on, then, Greatness ! thou art in the right, However narrow souls may call thee wrong; Be as thou wouldst be in thine own clear sight, And so thou shalt be in the world s erelong; For worldlings cannot, struggle as they may, From man s great soul one great thought hide away. XII SUB PONDERE CRESCIT THE hope of Truth grows stronger, day by day; I hear the soul of Man around me waking, Like a great sea, its frozen fetters break ing, And flinging up to heaven its sunlit spray, Tossing huge continents in scornful play, And crushing them, with din of grinding thunder, That makes old emptinesses stare in won- der; The memory of a glory passed away Lingers in every heart, as, in the shell, Resounds the bygone freedom of the sea, And every hour new signs of promise tell, That the great soul shall once again be free, For high, and yet more high, the murmurs swell Of inward strife for truth and liberty. XIII BELOVED, in the noisy city here, The thought of thee can make all turmoil cease; Around my spirit, folds thy spirit clear Its still, soft arms, and" circles it with peace ; There is no room for any doubt or fear In souls so overfilled with love s increase, There is no memory of the bygone year But growth in heart s and spirit s perfect ease: How hath our love, half nebulous at first, Rounded itself into a full-orbed sun ! How have our lives and wills (as haply erst They were, ere this forgett ulness begun) Through all their earthly distances out burst, And melted, like two rays of light in one ! XIV ON READING WORDSWORTH S SONNETS IN DEFENCE OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT These sonnets, XIV-XIX, when printed in The Democratic Review for May, 1842, bore merely the title Sonnets. As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth, With the majestic beating of his heart, The mighty tides, whereof its rightful part Each sea-wide bay and little weed receiv- eth, So, through his soul who earnestly believeth, Life from the universal Heart doth flow, W T hereby some conquest of the eternal Woe, By instinct of God s nature, he achieveth: A fuller pulse of this all-powerful beauty Into the poet s gulf-like heart doth tide, And he more keenly feels the glorious duty Of serving Truth, despised and crucified, Happy, unknowing sect or creed, to rest, And feel God flow forever through his breast. XV THE SAME CONTINUED ONCE hardly in a cycle blossometh A flower-like soul ripe with the seeds of song, A spirit foreordained to cope with wrong, Whose divine thoughts are natural as breath, Who the old Darkness thickly scattereth With starry words, that shoot prevailing light Into the deeps, and wither, with the blight Of serene Truth, the coward heart of Death: Woe, if such spirit thwart its errand high, And mock with lies the longing soul of man ! Yet one age longer must true Culture lie, Soothing her bitter fetters as she can, Until new messages of love outstart At the next beating of the infinite Heart. SONNETS XVI THE SAME CONTINUED THE love of all things springs from love of one; Wider the soul s horizon hourly grows, And over it with fuller glory flows The sky-like spirit of God; a hope begun In doubt and darkness neath a fairer sun Cometh to fruitage, if it be of Truth; And to the law of meekness, faith, and ruth, By inward sympathy, shall all be won : This tliou shouldst know, who, from the painted feature Of shifting Fashion, couldst thy brethren turn Unto the love of ever-youthful Nature, And of a beauty fadeless and eterne; And always t is the saddest sight to see An old man faithless in Humanity. XVII THE SAME CONTINUED A POET cannot strive for despotism; His harp falls shattered ; for it still must be The instinct of great spirits to be free, And the sworn foes of cunning barbarism: He who has deepest searched the wide abysm Of that life-giving Soul which men call fate, Knows that to put more faith in lies and hate Than truth and love is the true atheism: Upward the soul forever turns her eyes: The next hour always shames the hour be fore; One beauty, at its highest, prophesies That by whose side it shall seem mean and poor; No Godlike thing knows aught of less and less, But widens to the boundless Perfectness. XVIII THE SAME CONTINUED THEREFORE think not the Past is wise alone, For Yesterday knows nothing of the Best, And thou shalt love it only as the nest Whence glory-winged things to Heaven have flown: To the great Soul only are all things known; Present and future are to her as past, While she in glorious madness doth fore cast That perfect bud, which seems a flower full-blown To each new Prophet, and yet always opes Fuller and fuller with each day and hour, Heartening the soul with oclor of fresh hopes, And longings high, and gushings of wide power, Yet never is or shall be fully blown Save in the forethought of the Eternal One. XIX THE SAME CONCLUDED FAR yond this narrow parapet of Time, With eyes uplift, the poet s soul should look Into the Endless Promise, nor should brook One prying doubt to shake his faith sub lime; To him the earth is ever in her prime And dewiness of morning; he can see Good lying hid, from all eternity, Within the teeming womb of sin and crime ; His soul should not be cramped by any bar, His nobleness should be so Godlike high, That his least deed is perfect as a star, His common look majestic as the sky, And all o erflooded with a light from far, Undimmed by clouds of weak mortality. XX TO M. o. s. Mary Orne Story, sister to William Wetmore Story, afterward married to George Ticknor Curtis. MARY, since first I knew thee, to this hour, My love hath deepened, with my wiser sense Of what in Woman is to reverence; Thy clear heart, fresh as e er was forest- flower, Still opens more to me its beauteous dower; But let praise hush, Love asks no evidence To prove itself well-placed; we know not whence EARLIER POEMS It gleans the straws that thatch its humble bower: We can but say we found it in the heart, Spring of all sweetest thoughts, arch foe of blame, Sower of flowers iu the dusty mart, Pure vestal of the poet s holy flame, This is enough, and we have done our part If we but keep it spotless as it came. XXI OUR love is not a fading, earthly flower: Its winged seed dropped down from Para dise, And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower, Doth momently to fresher beauty rise: To us the leafless autumn is not bare, Nor winter s rattling boughs lack lusty green. Our summer hearts make summer s ful ness, where No leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen : For nature s life in love s deep life doth lie, Love, whose forge tfulness is beauty s death, Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I Into the infinite freedom openeth, And makes the body s dark and narrow grate The wide-flung leaves of Heaven s own palace-gate. XXII IN ABSENCE THESE rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear, Did I not know that, in the early spring, When wild March winds upon their er rands sing, Thou wouldst return, bursting on this still air, Like those same winds, when, startled from their lair, They hunt up violets, and free swift brooks From icy cares, even as thy clear looks Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break all care: When drops with welcome rain the April day, My flowers shall find their April in thine eyes, Save there the rain in dreamy clouds doth stay, As loath to fall out of those happy skies; Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to May, That comes with steady sun when April dies. XXIII WENDELL PHILLIPS HE stood upon the world s broad thresh old; wide The din of battle and of slaughter rose; He saw God stand upon the weaker side, That sank in seeming loss before its foes: Many there were who made great haste and sold Unto the cunning enemy their swords, He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold, And, underneath their soft and flowery words, Heard the cold serpent hiss ; therefore he went And humbly joined him to the weaker part, Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content So he could be the nearer to God s heart, And feel its solemn pulses sending blood Through all the widespread veins of end less good. XXIV THE STREET THEY pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds, Dim ghosts of men, that hover to and fro, Hugging their bodies round them like thin shrouds Wherein their souls were buried long ago: They trampled on their youth, and faith, and love, They cast their hope of human-kind away, With Heaven s clear messages they madly strove, And conquered, and their spirits turned to clay: Lo! how they wander round the world, their grave, Whose ever-gaping maw by such is fed, Gibbering at living men, and idly rave, " We only truly live, but ye are dead." Alas ! poor fools, the anointed eye may trace A dead soul s epitaph in every face ! L ENVOI 2 5 XXV I GRIEVE not that ripe Knowledge takes away The charm that Nature to my childhood wore, For, with that insight, cometh, day by day, A greater bliss than wonder was before; The real doth not clip the poet s wings, To win the secret of a weed s plain heart Reveals some clue to spiritual things, And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art: Flowers are not flowers unto the poet s eyes, Their beauty thrills him by an inward sense ; He knows that outward seemings are but lies, Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, whence The soul that looks within for truth may guess The presence of some wondrous heavenli- ness. XXVI TO J. R. GIDDINGS GIDDINGS, far rougher names than thine have grown Smoother than honey on the lips of men; And thou shalt aye be honorably known, As one who bravely used his tongue and pen, As best befits a freeman, even for those To whom our Law s unblushing front de nies A right to plead against the lifelong woes Which are the Negro s glimpse of Free dom s skies: Fear nothing, and hope all things, as the Right Alone may do securely; every hour The thrones of Ignorance and ancient Night Lose somewhat of their long -usurped power, And Freedom s lightest word can make them shiver With a base dread that clings to them for ever. XXVII I THOUGHT our love at full, but I did err; Joy s wreath drooped o er mine eyes; I could not see That sorrow in our happy world must be Love s deepest spokesman and interpreter: But, as a mother feels her child first stir Under her heart, so felt I instantly Deep in my soul another bond to thee Thrill with that life we saw depart from her; O mother of our angel child ! twice dear ! Death knits as well as parts, and still, I wis, Her tender radiance shall infold us here, Even as the light, borne up by inward bliss, Threads the void glooms of space without a fear, To print on farthest stars her pitying kiss. L ENVOI WHETHER my heart hath wiser grown or not, In these three years, since I to thee in scribed, Mine own betrothed, the firstlings of my muse, Poor windfalls of unripe experience, Young buds plucked hastily by childish hands Not patient to await more full-blown flow ers, At least it hath seen more of life and men, And pondered more, and grown a shade more sad; Yet with no loss of hope or settled trust In the benignness of that Providence Which shapes from out our elements awry The grace and order that we wonder at, The mystic harmony of right and wrong, Both working out His wisdom and our good: A trust, Beloved, chiefly learned of thee, Who hast that gift of patient tenderness, The instinctive wisdom of a woman s heart. They tell us that our land was made for song, With its huge rivers and sky-piercing peaks, Its sealike lakes and mighty cataracts, Its forests vast and hoar, and prairies wide, And mounds that tell of wondrous tribes extinct. But Poesy springs not from rocks and woods; Her womb and cradle are the human heart, EARLIER POEMS And she can find a nobler theme for song In the most loathsome man that blasts the sight Than in the broad expanse of sea and shore Between the frozen deserts of the poles. All nations have their message from on high, Each the messiah of some central thought, For the fulfilment and delight of Man: One has to teach that labor is divine; Another Freedom; and another Mind; And all, that God is open-eyed and just, The happy centre and calm heart of all. Are, then, our woods, our mountains, and our streams, Needful to teach our poets how to sing ? O maiden rare, far other thoughts were ours, When we have sat by ocean s foaming marge, And watched the waves leap roaring on the rocks, Than young Leander and his Hero had, Gazing from Sestos to the other shore. The moon looks down and ocean worships her, Stars rise and set, and seasons come and go Even as they did in Homer s elder time, But we behold them not with Grecian eyes: Then they were types of beauty and of strength, But now of freedom, unconfined and pure, Subject alone to Order s higher law. What cares the Russian serf or Southern slave Though we should speak as man spake never yet Of gleaming Hudson s broad magnificence, Or green Niagara s never-ending roar ? Our country hath a gospel of her own To preach and practise before all the world, The freedom and divinity of man, The glorious claims of human brother hood, Which to pay nobly, as a freeman should, Gains the sole wealth that will not fly away, And the soul s fealty to none but God. These are realities, which make the shows Of outward Nature, be they ne er so grand. Seem small, and worthless, and contempti- ble. These are the mountain-summits for our bards, Which stretch far upward into heaven it self, And give such widespread and exulting view Of hope, and faith, and onward destiny, That shrunk Parnassus to a molehill dwindles. Our new Atlantis, like a morning-star, Silvers the mirk face of slow - vieldinof Night, The herald of a fuller truth than yet Hath gleamed upon the upraised face of Man Since the earth glittered in her stainless prime, Of a more glorious sunrise than of old Drew wondrous melodies from Menmon huge, Yea, draws them still, though now he sit waist-deep In the ingulfing flood of whirling sand, And look across the wastes of endless gray, Sole wreck, where once his hundred-gated Thebes Pained with her mighty hum the calm, blue heaven: Shall the dull stone pay grateful orisons, And we till noonday bar the splendor out, Lest it reproach and chide our sluggard hearts, Warm-nestled in the down of Prejudice, And be content, though clad with angel- wings, Close-clipped, to hop about from perch to perch, In paltry cages of dead men s dead thoughts ? Oh, rather, like the skylark, soar and sing, And let our gushing songs befit the dawn And sunrise, and the yet unshaken dew Brimming- the chalice of each full-blown hope, Whose blithe front turns to greet the growing day ! Never had poets such high call before, Never can poets hope for higher one, And, if they be but faithful to their trust, Earth will remember them with love and joy, And oh, far better, God will not forget. For be who settles Freedom s principles Writes the death-warrant of all tyranny; Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart, And his mere word makes despots tremble L ENVOI 27 Than ever Brutus with his dagger could. Wait for no hints from waterfalls or woods, Nor dream that tales of red men, brute and fierce, Repay the finding of this Western World, Or needed half the globe to give them birth: Spirit supreme of Freedom ! not for this Did great Columbus tame his eagle soul To jostle with the daws that perch in courts; Not for this, friendless, on an unknown sea, Coping with mad waves and more mutin ous spirits, Battled he with the dreadful ache at heart Which tempts, with devilish subtleties of doubt, The hermit of that loneliest solitude, The silent desert of a great New Thought; Though loud Niagara were to-day struck dumb, Yet would this cataract of boiling life Rush plunging on and on to endless deeps, And utter thunder till the world shall cease, A thunder worthy of the poet s song, And which alone can fill it with true life. The high evangel to our country granted Could make apostles, yea, with tongues of fire, Of hearts half-darkened back again to clay ! T is the soul only that is national, And he who pays true loyalty to that Alone can claim the wreath of patriotism. Beloved ! if I wander far and oft From that which I believe, and feel, and know, Thou wilt forgive, not with a sorrowing heart, But with a strengthened hope of better things ; Knowing that I, though often blind and false To those I love, and oh, more false than all Unto myself, have been most true to thee, And that whoso in one thing hath been true Can be as true in all. Therefore thy hope May yet not prove unfruitful, and thy love Meet, day by day, with less unworthy thanks, Whether, as now, we journey hand in hand, Or, parted in the body, yet are one In spirit and the love of holy things. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS WHEN Lowell published his second volume, Poems, in 1843, he opened it with A Legend of Brittany, and dedicated it in the following let ter to the painter, William Page : MY DEAR FRIEND, The love between us, which can now look back upon happy years of still enlarging con fidence, and forward, with a sure trust in its own prophecy of yet deeper and tenderer sym- patlms, as long as life shall remain to us, stands in no need, I am well aware, of so poor a voucher as an Epistle Dedicatory. True, it is one of Love s chiefest charms, that it must still take special pains to be superfluous in seeking out ways to declare itself, but for these it demands no publicity, and wishes no acknowledgment. But the admiration which one soul feels for another loses half its worth, if it let slip any opportunity of making itself heard and felt by that strange Abbot of Un reason which we call the World. For the humblest man s true admiration is no uncer tain oracle of the verdict of Posterity, the unerring tribunal where Genius is at last al lowed the right of trial by its peers, and to which none but sincere and real Greatness can appeal with an unwavering heart. There the false witnesses of to-day will be unable to ap pear, being fled to some hospitable Texas in the realms of Limbo, beyond the sphere of its jurisdiction and the summons of its apparitors. I have never seen the works of the Great Masters of your Art, but I have studied their lives, and sure I am that no nobler, gentler, or purer spirit than yours was ever anointed by the Eternal Beauty to bear that part of her divine message which it belongs to the Great Painter to reveal. The sympathy of sister pursuits, of an agreeing artistic faith, and, yet more, of a common hope for the final destiny of man, has not been wanting to us, and now you will forgive the pride I feel in having this advantage over you, namely, of telling that ad miration in public which I have never stinted to utter in private. You will believe, that, as 28 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS your winning that fadeless laurel, which you deserve, and which will one day surely be yours, can never heighten my judgment of you, so nothing that is not in your own control will ever lower it, and that I shall think as simply of you when the World s opinion has overtaken my own, as now. As the swiftly diverging channels of Life bear wider and wider apart from us the friends who hoisted sail with us as fellow -mariners, when we cast off for the voyage, and as some, A LEGEND OF BRITTANY Lowell was in high spirits when he was at work on A Legend oj Brittany. "I am now at work," he writes to G. B. Loring, under date of June 15, 1843, " on a still longer poem [than Prometheus] in the ottava rima, to be the first in my forthcoming volume. I feel more and more assured every day that I shall yet do something that will keep my name (and per haps my body) alive. My wings were never so light and strong as now." A Legend of Brittany and most of the other poems in the volume which it opened belong in the category referred to by him in his Prefa tory Note, of pieces which he * would gladly suppress or put into the Coventry of smaller r nt in an appendix." Their value is chiefly the record they contain of his poetic devel opment and his temperament. PART FIRST FAIR as a summer dream was Margaret, Such dream as in a poet s soul might start, Musing of old loves while the moon doth set: Her hair was not more sunny than her heart, Though like a natural golden coronet It circled her dear head with careless art, Mocking the sunshine, that would fain have lent To its frank grace a richer ornament. His loved one s eyes could poet ever speak, So kind, so dewy, and so deep were hers, But, while he strives, the choicest phrase, too weak, Their glad reflection in his spirit blurs; even, who are yet side by side with us, no longer send back to us an answering cheer, we are drawn the more closely to those that re main, and I would fain hope that this joining of our names will always be one of our not least happy memories. And so, with all best wishes, I remain always your friend, J. R. LOWELL. CAMBRIDGE, December 15, 1843. As one may see a dream dissolve and break Out of his grasp when he to tell it stirs, Like that sad. Dryad doomed no more to bless The mortal who revealed her loveliness. Ill She dwelt forever in a region bright, Peopled with living fancies of her own, Where naught could come but visions of delight, Far, far aloof from earth s eternal moan : A summer cloud thrilled through with rosy light, Floating beneath the blue sky all alone, Her spirit wandered by itself, and won A golden edge from some unsetting sun. IV The heart grows richer that its lot is poor, God blesses want with larger sympa thies, Love enters gladliest at the humble door, And makes the cot a palace with his eyes; So Margaret s heart a softer beauty wore, And grew in gentleness and patience wise, For she was but a simple herdsman s child, A lily chance-sown in the rugged wild. There was no beauty of the wood or field But she its fragrant bosom-secret knew, Nor any but to her would freely yield Some grace that in her soul took root and grew: Nature to her shone as but now revealed, All rosy-fresh with innocent morning dew, And looked into her heart with dim, sweet eyes That left it full of sylvan memories. A LEGEND OF BRITTANY 29 VI Oh, what a face was hers to brighten light, And give back sunshine with an added glow, To wile each moment with a fresh delight, And part of memory s best contentment grow ! Oh, how her voice, as with an inmate s right, Into the strangest heart would welcome go, And make it sweet, and ready to become Of white and gracious thoughts the chosen home ! VII None looked upon her but he straightway thought Of all the greenest depths of country cheer, And into each one s heart was freshly brought What was to him the sweetest time of year, So was her every look and motion fraught With out-of-door delights and forest lere; Not the first violet on a woodland lea Seemed a more visible gift of Spring than she. VIII Is love learned only out of poets books ? Is there not somewhat in the dropping flood, And in the nunneries of silent nooks, And in the murmured longing of the wood, That could make Margaret dream of love lorn looks, And stir a thrilling mystery in her blood More trembly secret than Aurora s tear Shed in the bosom of an eglatere ? IX Full many a sweet forewarning hath the mind, Full many a whispering of vague desire, Ere comes the nature destined to unbind Its virgin zone, and all its deeps in spire, Low stirrings in the leaves, before the wind Wake all the green strings of the forest lyre, Faint heatings in the calyx, ere the rose Its warm voluptuous breast doth all un close. x Long in its dim recesses pines the spirit, Wildered and dark, despairingly alone; Though many a shape of beauty wander near it, And many a wild and half-remembered tone Tremble from the divine abyss to cheer it, Yet still it knows that there is only one Before whom it can kneel and tribute bring, At once a happy vassal and a king. XI To feel a want, yet scarce know what it is, To seek one nature that is always new, Whose glance is warmer than another s kiss, Whom we can bare our inmost beauty to, Nor feel deserted afterwards, for this But with our destined co-mate we can do,- Such longing instinct fills the mighty scope Of the young soul with one mysterious hope. XII So Margaret s heart grew brimming with the lore Of love s enticing secrets; and although She had found none to cast it down before, Yet oft to Fancy s chapel she would go To pay her vows and count the rosary o er Of her love s promised graces: haply so Miranda s hope had pictured Ferdinand Long ere the gaunt wave tossed him on the strand. XIII A new-made star that swims the lonely gloom, Un wedded yet and longing for the sun, Whose beams, the bride-gifts of the lavish groom, Blithely to crown the virgin planet run, Her being was, watching to see the bloom Of love s fresh sunrise roofing one by one Its clouds with gold, a triumph-arch to be For him who came to hold her heart in fee. 3 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS XIV Not far from Margaret s cottage dwelt a knight Of the proud Templars, a sworn celibate, Whose heart in secret fed upon the light And dew of her ripe beauty, through the grate Of his close vow catching what gleams he might Of the free heaven, and cursing all too late The cruel faith whose black walls hemmed him in And turned life s crowning bliss to deadly XV For he had met her in the wood by chance, And, having drunk her beauty s wilder- ing spell, His heart shook like the pennon of a lance That quivers in a breeze s sudden swell, And thenceforth, in a close- infolded trance, From mistily golden deep to deep he fell ; Till earth did waver and fade far away Beneath the hope in whose warm arms he lay. XVI A dark, proud man he was, whose half- blown youth Had shed its blossoms even in opening, Leaving a few that with more winning ruth Trembling around grave manhood s stem might cling, More sad than cheery, making, in good sooth, Like the fringed gentian, a late autumn spring: A twilight nature, braided light and gloom, A youth half-smiling by an open tomb. XVII Fair as an angel, who yet inly wore A wrinkled heart foreboding: his near fall; Who saw him alway wished to know him more, As if he were some fate s defiant thrall And nursed a dreaded secret at his core; Little he loved, but power the most of all, And that he seemed to scorn, as one who knew By what foul paths men choose to crawl thereto. XVIII He had been noble, but some great deceit Had turned his better instinct to a vice: He strove to think the world was all a cheat, That power and fame were cheap at any price, That the sure way of being shortly great Was even to play life s game with loaded dice, Since he had tried the honest play and found That vice and virtue differed but in sound. XIX Yet Margaret s sight redeemed him for a space From his own thraldom; man could never be A hypocrite when first such maiden grace Smiled in upon his heart; the agony Of wearing all day long a lying face Fell lightly from him, and, a moment free, Erect with wakened faith his spirit stood And scorned the weakness of his demon- mood. XX Like a sweet wind-harp to him was her thought, Which would not let the common air come near, Till from its dim enchantment it had caught A musical tenderness that brimmed his ear With sweetness more ethereal than aught Save silver-dropping snatches that whil- ere Rained down from some sad angel s faith ful harp To cool her fallen lover s anguish sharp. XXI Deep in the forest was a little dell High overarched with the leafy sweep Of a broad oak, through whose gnarled roots there fell A slender rill that sung itself to sleep, Where its continuous toil had scooped a well To please the fairy folk ; breathlessly deep The stillness was, save when the dreaming brook From its small urn a drizzly murmur shook. A LEGEND OF BRITTANY XXII The wooded hills sloped upward all around With gradual rise, and made an even rim, So that it seemed a mighty casque un bound From some huge Titan s brow to lighten him, Ages <igo, and left upon the ground, Where the slow soil had mossed it to the brim, Till after countless centuries it grew Into this dell, the haunt of noontide dew. XXIII Dim vistas, sprinkled o er with sun-flecked green, Wound through the thickset trunks on every side, And, toward the west, in fancy might be seen A Gothic window in its blazing pride, When the low sun, two arching elms be tween, Lit up the leaves beyond, which, autumn- dyed With lavish hues, would into splendor start, Shaming the labored panes of richest art. XXIV Here, leaning once against the old oak s trunk, Mordred, for such was the young Tem plar s name, Saw Margaret come; unseen, the falcon shrunk From the meek dove; sharp thrills of tingling flame Made him forget that he was vowed a monk, And all the outworks of his pride o er- came : Flooded he seemed with bright delicious pain, As if a star had burst within his brain. XXV Such power hath beauty and frank inno cence : A flower bloomed forth, that sunshine glad to bless, Even from his love s long leafless stem; the sense Of exile from Hope s happy realm grew less, And thoughts of childish peace, he knew not whence, Thronged round his heart with many an old caress, Melting the frost there into pearly dew That mirrored back his nature s morning- blue. XXVI She turned and saw him, but she felt nc dread, Her purity, like adamantine mail, Did so encircle her; and yet her head She drooped, and made her golden hair her veil, Through which a glow of rosiest lustre spread, Then faded, and anon she stood all pale, As snow o er which a blush of northern-light Suddenly reddens, and as soon grows white. XXVII She thought of Tristrem and of Lancilot, Of all her dreams, and of kind fairies might, And how that dell was deemed a haunted spot, Until there grew a rnist before her sight, And where the present was she half forgot, Borne backward through the realms of old delight, Then, starting up awake, she would have gone, Yet almost wished it might not be alone. XXVIII How they went home together through the wood, And how all life seemed focussed into one Thought-dazzling spot that set ablaze the blood, What need to tell ? Fit language there is none For the heart s deepest things. Who ever wooed As in his boyish hope he would have done ? For, when the soul is fullest, the hushed tongue Voicelessly trembles like a lute unstrung. XXIX But all things carry the heart s messages And know it not, nor doth the heart well know. 3 2 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS But Nature hath her will; even as the bees, Blithe go-betweens, fly singing to and fro With the fruit-quickening pollen; hard if these Found not some all unthought-of way to show Their secret each to each; and so they did, And one heart s flower-dust into the other slid. XXX Young hearts are free; the selfish world it is That turns them miserly and cold as stone, And makes them clutch their fingers on the bliss Which but in giving truly is their own ; She had no dreams of barter, asked not his, But gave hers freely as she would have thrown A rose to him, or as that rose gives forth Its generous fragrance, thoughtless of its worth. XXXI Her summer nature felt a need to bless, And a like longing to be blest again; So, from her sky-like spirit, gentleness Dropt ever like a sunlit fall of rain, And his beneath drank in the bright caress As thirstily as would a parched plain, That long hath watched the showers of sloping gray For ever, ever, falling far away. XXXII How should she dream of ill ? the heart filled quite With sunshine, like the shepherd s-clock at noon, Closes its leaves around its warm delight; Whate er in life is harsh or out of tune Is all shut out, no boding shade of blight Can pierce the opiate ether of its swoon: Love is but blind as thoughtful justice is, But naught can be so wanton-blind as bliss. XXXIII All beauty and all life he was to her; She questioned not his love, she only knew That she loved him, and not a pulse could stir In her whole frame but quivered through and through With this glad thought, and was a minister To do him fealty and service true, Like golden ripples hasting to the land To wreck their freight of sunshine on the strand. XXXIV O dewy dawn of love ! O hopes that are Hung high, like the cliff-swallow s peril ous nest, Most like to fall when fullest, and that jar With every heavier billow ! O unrest Than balmiest deeps of quiet sweeter far I How did ye triumph now in Margaret s breast, Making it readier to shrink and start Than quivering gold of the pond -lily s heart ! xxxv Here let us pause: oh, would the soul might ever Achieve its immortality in youth, When nothing yet hath damped its high endeavor After the starry energy of truth ! Here let us pause, and for a moment sever This gleam of sunshine from the sad unruth That sometime comes to all, for it is good To lengthen to the last a sunny mood. PART SECOND As one who, from the sunshine and the green, Enters the solid darkness of a cave, Nor knows what precipice or pit unseen May yawn before him with its sudden grave, And, with hushed breath, doth often for ward lean, Dreaming he hears the plashing of a wave Dimly below, or feels a damper air From out some dreary chasm, he knows not where; A LEGEND OF BRITTANY 33 So, from the sunshine and the green of love, We enter on our story s darker part; And, though the horror of it well may move An impulse of repugnance in the heart, Yet let us think, that, as there s naught above The all-embracing atmosphere of Art, So also there is naught that falls below Her generous reach, though grimed with guilt and woe. Hi Her fittest triumph is to show that good Lurks in the heart of evil evermore, That love, though scorned, and outcast, and withstood, Can without end forgive, and yet have store; God s love and man s are of the selfsame blood, And He can see that always at the door Of foulest hearts the angel-nature yet Knocks to return and cancel all its debt. IV It ever is weak falsehood s destiny That her thick mask turns crystal to let through The unsuspicious eyes of honesty; But Margaret s heart was too sincere and true Aught but plain truth and faithfulness to see, And Mordred s for a time a little grew To be like hers, won by the mild reproof Of those kind eyes that kept all doubt aloof. Full oft they met, as dawn and twilight meet In northern climes; she full of growing day As he of darkness, which before her feet Shrank gradual, and faded quite away, Soon to return; for power had made love sweet To him, and, when his will had gained full sway, The taste began to pall; for never power Can sate the hungry soul beyond an hour. VI He fell as doth the tempter ever fall, Even in the gaining of his loathsome end; God doth not work as man works, but makes all The crooked paths of ill to goodness tend; Let him judge Margaret! If to be the thrall Of love, and faith too generous to defend Its very life from him she loved, be sin, What hope of grace may the seducer win ? VII Grim-hearted world, that look st with Le- vite eyes On those poor fallen by too much faith in man, She that upon thy freezing threshold lies, Starved to more sinning by thy savage ban, Seeking that refuge because foulest vice More godlike than thy virtue is, whose span Shuts out the wretched only, is more free To enter heaven than thou shalt ever be ! VIII Thou wilt not let her wash thy dainty feet With such salt things as tears, or with rude hair Dry them, soft Pharisee, that sit st at meat With him who made her such, and speak st him fair, Leaving God s wandering lamb the while to bleat Unheeded, shivering in the pitiless air: Thou hast made prisoned virtue show more wan And haggard than a vice to look upon. IX Now many months flew by, and weary grew To Margaret the sight of happy things ; Blight fell on all her flowers, instead of dew; Shut round her heart were now the joy ous wings Wherewith it wont to soar; yet not un true, Though tempted much, her woman s nature clings 34 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS To its first pure belief, and with sad eyes Looks backward o er the gate of Paradise. And so, though altered Mordred came less oft, And winter frowned where spring had laughed before In his strange eyes, yet half her sadness dotfed, And in her silent patience loved him more : Sorrow had made her soft heart yet more soft, And a new life within her own she bore Which made her tenderer, as she felt it move Beneath her breast, a refuge for her love. XI This babe, she thought, would surely bring him back, And be a bond forever them between; Before its eyes the sullen tempest-rack Would fade, and leave the face of heaven serene ; And love s return doth more than fill the lack, Which in his absence withered the heart s green: And yet a dim foreboding still would flit Between her and her hope to darken it. XII She could not figure forth a happy fate, Even for this life from heaven so newly come; The earth must needs be doubly desolate To him scarce parted from a fairer home: Such boding heavier on her bosom sate One night, as, standing in the twilight gloam, She strained her eyes beyond that dizzy verge At whose foot faintly breaks the future s surge. XIII Poor little spirit ! naught but shame and woe Nurse the sick heart whose lifeblood nurses thine: Yet not those only ; love hath triumphed so, As for thy sake makes sorrow more divine: And yet, though thou be pure, the world is foe To purity, if born in such a shrine; And, having trampled it for struggling thence, Smiles to itself, and calls it Providence. XIV As thus she mused, a shadow seemed to rise From out her thought, and turn to dreari ness All blissful hopes and sunny memories, And the quick blood would curdle up and press About her heart, which seemed to shut its eyes And hush itself, as who with shuddering guess Harks through the gloom and dreads e en now to feel Through his hot breast the icy slide of steel. XV But, at that heart-beat, while in dread she was, In the low wind the honeysuckles gleam, A dewy thrill flits through the heavy grass, And, looking forth, she saw, as in a dream, Within the wood the moonlight s shadowy mass: Night s starry heart yearning to hers doth seem, And the deep sky, full-hearted with the moon, Folds round her all the happiness of June. XVI What fear could face a heaven and earth like this ? What silveriest cloud could hang neath such a sky ? A tide of wondrous and unwonted bliss Rolls back through all her pulses sud denly, As if some seraph, who had learned to kiss From the fair daughters of the world gone by, Had wedded so his fallen light with hers, Such sweet, strange joy through soul and body stirs. A LEGEND OF BRITTANY 35 XVII Now seek we Mordred : he who did not fear The crime, yet fears the latent conse quence: If it should reach a brother Templar s ear, It haply might be made a good pretence To cheat him of the hope he held most dear; For he had spared no thought s or deed s expense, That by and by might help his wish to clip Its darling bride, the high grandmaster- ship. XVIII The apathy, ere a crime resolved is done, Is scarce less dreadful than remorse for crime; By no allurement can the soul be won From brooding o er the weary creep of time: Morclred stole forth into the happy sun, Striving to hum a scrap of Breton rhyme, But the sky struck him speechless, and he tried In vain to summon up his callous pride. XIX In the courtyard a fountain leaped alway, A Triton blowing jewels through his shell Into the sunshine; Mordred turned away, Weary because the stone face did not tell Of weariness, nor could he bear to-day, Heartsick, to hear the patient sink and swell Of winds among the leaves, or golden bees Drowsily humming in the orange-trees. XX All happy sights and sounds now came to him Like a reproach: he wandered far and wide, Following the lead of his unquiet whim, But still there went a something at his side That made the cool breeze hot, the sun shine dim; It would not flee, it could not be defied, He could not see it, but he felt it there, By the rlflmp chill that crept among his hair. XXI Day wore at last; the evening-star arose, And throbbing in the sky grew red and set; Then with a guilty, wavering step he goes To the hid nook where they so oft had met In happier season, for his heart well knows That he is sure to find poor Margaret Watching and waiting th^re with love-lorn breast Around her young dream s rudely scattered nest. XXII Why follow here that grim old chronicle Which counts the dagger-strokes and drops of blood ? Enough that Margaret by his mad steel fell, Unmoved by murder from her trusting mood, Smiling on him as Heaven smiles on Hell, With a sad love, remembering when he stood Not fallen yet, the unsealer of her heart, Of all her holy dreams the holiest part. xxni His crime complete, scarce knowing what he did, (So goes the tale,) beneath the altar there In the high church the stiffening corpse he hid, And then, to scape that suffocating air, Like a scared ghoul out of the porch he slid; But his strained eyes saw blood-spots everywhere, And ghastly faces thrust themselves be tween His soul and hopes of peace with blasting mien. XXIV His heart went out within him like a spark Dropt in the sea; wherever he made bold To turn his eyes, he saw, all stiff and stark, Pale Margaret lying dead; the lavish gold Of her loose hair seemed in the cloudy dark To spread a glory, and a thousand-fold MISCELLANEOUS POEMS More strangely pale and beautiful she grew: Her silence stabbed his conscience through and through. xxv Or visions of past days, a mother s eyes That smiled down on the fair boy at her knee, Whose happy upturned face to hers re plies, He saw sometimes : or Margaret mourn fully Gazed on him full of doubt, as one who tries To crush belief that does love injury; Then she would wring her hands, but soon again Love s patience glimmered out through cloudy pain. XXVI Meanwhile he dared not go and steal away The silent, dead-cold witness of his sin; He had not feared the life, but that dull clay, Those open eyes that showed the death within, Would surely stare him mad; yet all the day A dreadful impulse, whence his will could win No refuge, made him linger in the aisle, Freezing with his wan look each greeting smile. XXVII Now, on the second day there was to be A fsstival in church: from far and near Came flocking in the sunburnt peasantry, And knights and dames with stately an tique cheer, Blazing with pomp, as if all faerie Had emptied her quaint halls, or, as it were, The illuminated marge of some old book, While we were gazing, life and motion took. XXVIII When all were entered, and the roving eyes Of all were stayed, some upon faces bright, Some on the priests, some on the traceries That decked the slumber of a marble knight, And all the rustlings over that arise From recognizing tokens of delight, When friendly glances meet, then silent ease Spread o er the multitude by slow degrees. XXIX Then swelled the organ: up through choir and nave The music trembled with an inward thrill Of bliss at its own grandeur: wave on wave Its flood of mellow thunder rose, until The hushed air shivered with the throb it gave, Then, poising for a moment, it stood still, And sank and rose again, to burst in spray That wandered into silence far away. xxx Like to a mighty heart the music seemed, That yearns with melodies it cannot speak, Until, in grand despair of what it dreamed, In the agony of effort it doth break, Yet triumphs breaking; on it rushed and streamed And wantoned in its might, as when a lake, Long pent among the mountains, bursts its walls And in one crowding gush leaps forth and falls. XXXI Deeper and deeper shudders shook the air, As the huge bass kept gathering heavily, Like thunder when it rouses in its lair, And with its hoarse growl shakes the low- hung sky, It grew up like a darkness everywhere, Filling the vast cathedral ; suddenly, From the dense mass a boy s clear treble broke Like lightning, and the full-toned choir awoke. XXXII Through gorgeous windows shone the sun aslant, Brimming the church with gold and pur ple mist, Meet atmosphere to bosom that rich chant, Where fifty voices in one strand did twist Their varicolored tones, and left no want To the delighted soul, which sank abyssed A LEGEND OF BRITTANY 37 In the warm music cloud, while, far be low, The organ heaved its surges to and fro. XXXIII As if a lark should suddenly drop dead While the blue air yet trembled with its song, So snapped at once that music s golden thread, Struck by a nameless fear that leapt along From heart to heart, and like a shadow spread With instantaneous shiver through the throng, So that some glanced behind, as half aware A hideous shape of dread were standing there. XXXIV As when a crowd of pale men gather round, Watching an eddy in the leaden deep, From which they deem the body of one drowned Will be cast forth, from face to face doth creep An eager dread that holds all tongues fast bound Until the horror, with a ghastly leap, Starts up, its dead blue arms stretched aim lessly, Heaved with the swinging of the careless sea, xxxv So in the faces of all these there grew, As by one impulse, a dark, freezing awe, Which with a fearful fascination drew All eyes toward the altar; damp and raw The air grew suddenly, and no man knew Whether perchance his silent neighbor saw The dreadful thing which all were sure would rise To scare the strained lids wider from their eyes. xxxvi The incense trembled as it upward sent Its slow, uncertain thread of wandering blue, As t were the only living element In all the church, so deep the stillness grew; It seemed one might have heard it, as it went, Give out an audible rustle, curling through The midnight silence of that awestruck air, More hushed than death, though so much life was there. XXXVII Nothing they saw, but a low voice was heard Threading the ominous silence of that fear, Gentle and terrorless as if a bird, Wakened by some volcano s glare, should cheer The murk air with his song; yet every word In the cathedral s farthest arch seemed near, As if it spoke to every one apart, Like the clear voice of conscience in each heart. XXXVIII " O Rest, to weary hearts thou art most dear ! O Silence, after life s bewildering din, Thou art most welcome, whether in the sear Days of our age thou comest, or we win Thy poppy-wreath in youth ! then where fore here Linger I yet, once free to enter in At that wished gate which gentle Death doth ope, Into the boundless realm of strength and hope ? XXXIX "Think not in death my love could ever cease ; If thou wast false, more need there is for me Still to be true; that slumber were not peace, If t were unvisited with dreams of thee : And thou hadst never heard such words as these, Save that in heaven I must forever be Most comfortless and wretched, seeing this Our unbaptized babe shut out from bliss. XL " This little spirit with imploring eyes Wanders alone the dreary wild of space; MISCELLANEOUS POEMS The shadow of his pain forever lies Upon my soul in this new dwelling- place; His loneliness makes me in Paradise More lonely, and, unless I see his face, Even here for grief could I lie down and die, Save for my curse of immortality. XLI "World after world he sees around him swim Crowded with happy souls, that take no heed Of the sad eyes that from the night s faint rim Gaze sick with longing on them as they speed With golden gates, that only shut on him ; And shapes sometimes from hell s abysses freed Flap darkly by him, with enormous sweep Of wings that roughen wide the pitchy deep. XLII " I am a mother, spirits do not shake This much of earth from them, and I must pine Till I can feel his little hands, and take His weary head upon this heart of mine; And, might it be, full gladly for his sake Would I this solitude of bliss resign And be shut out of heaven to dwell with him Forever in that silence drear and dim. XLIII " I strove to hush my soul, and would not At first, for thy dear sake ; a woman s love Is mighty, but a mother s heart is weak, And by its weakness overcomes; I strove To smother bitter thoughts with patience meek, But still in the abyss my soul would rove, Seeking my child, and drove me here to claim The rite that gives him peace in Christ s dear name. XLIV " I sit and weep while blessed spirits sing; I can but long and pine the while they praise, And, leaning o er the wall of heaven, I fling My voice to where I deem my infant strays, Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to bring Her nestlings back beneath her wings embrace ; But still he answers not, and I but know That heaven and earth are both alike in woe." XLV Then the pale priests, with ceremony due, Baptized the child within its dreadful tomb Beneath that mother s heart, whose instinct true Star-like had battled down the triple gloom Of sorrow, love, and death: young maidens, too, Strewed the pale corpse with many a milkwhite bloom, And parted the bright hair, and on the breast Crossed the unconscious hands in sign of rest. XLVI Some said, that, when the priest had sprinkled o er The consecrated drops, they seemed to hear A sigh, as of some heart from travail sore Released, and then two voices singing clear, Misereatur Deus, more and more Fading far upward, and their ghastly fear Fell from them with that sound, as bodies fall From souls upspringing to celestial hall. PROMETHEUS In a letter to G. B. Loring-, dated June 15, 1843, Lowell writes : " I have been very happy for the last day or two in writing a long poem in blank verse on Prometheus, the Greek arche type of St. Simeon Stylites, the first reformer and locof oco of the Greek Mythology. It will be quite worth your while to read it when it is printed. I hope to see it in the July number of the Democratic Review, but fear it was too PROMETHEUS 39 late, having only been sent on this morning. It is the longest and best poem 1 have ever written, and overrunning with true radicalism and antislavery. I think that it will open the eyes of some folk and make them think that I am a poet, whatever they may say." After the appearance of the poem, he regrets the absence of any public notice, and acknow ledges thus an appreciative letter from his friend Charles F. Briggs : " Although such great names as Goethe, Byron, and Shelley have all handled the subject in modern times, you will find that I have looked at it from a somewhat new point of view. I have made it radical, and I believe that no poet in this age can write much that is good unless he give himself up to this tendency. For radicalism has now for the first time taken a distinctive and acknowledged shape of its own. So much of its spirit as poets in former ages have attained (and from their purer organization they could not fail of some) was by instinct rather than by reason. It has never till now been seen to be one of the two great wings that upbear the universe." ONE after one the stars have risen and set, Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on my chain: The Bear, that prowled all night about the fold Of the North-star, hath shrunk into his den, Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the Dawn, Whose blushing smile floods all the Orient; And now bright Lucifer grows less and less, Into the heaven s blue quiet deep -with drawn. Sunless and starless all, the desert sky Arches above me, empty as this heart For ages hath been empty of all joy, Except to brood upon its silent hope, As o er its hope of day the sky doth now. All night have I heard voices: deeper yet The deep low breathing of the silence grew, While all about, muffled in awe, there stood Shadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart, But, when I turned to front them, far along Only a shudder through the midnight ran, And the dense stillness walled me closer round. But still I heard them wander up and down That solitude, and flappings of dusk wings Did mingle with them, whether of those hags Let slip upon me once from Hades deep, Or of yet direr torments, if such be, I could but guess; and then toward me came A shape as of a woman: very pale It was, and calm; its cold eyes did not move, And mine moved not, but only stared on them. Their fixed awe went through my brain like ice; A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my heart, And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fog Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt: And then, methought, I heard a freezing sigh, A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lips Stiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thought Some doom was close upon me, and I looked And saw the red moon through the heavy mist, Just setting, and it seemed as it were fall ing* Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead And palsy-struck it looked. Then all sounds merged Into the rising surges of the pines, Which, leagues below me, clothing the gaunt loins Of ancient Caucasus with hairy strength, Sent up a murmur in the morning wind, Sad as the wail that from the populous earth All day and night to high Olympus soars, Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove! Thy hated name is tossed once more in scorn From off my lips, for I will tell thy doom. And are these tears? Nay, do not triumph, Jove ! They are wrung from me but by the ago nies Of prophecy, like those sparse drops which fall From clouds in travail of the lightning, when The great wave of the storm high-curled and black Rolls steadily onward to its thunderous break. Why art thou made a god of, thou poor type MISCELLANEOUS POEMS anger, and revenge, and cunning force ? True Power was never born of brutish Strength, NOT sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy dugs Of that old she-wolf. Are thy thunder bolts, That quell the darkness for a space, so strong As the prevailing patience of meek Light, Who, with the invincible tenderness peace, Wins it to be a portion of herself ? Why art thou made a god of, thou, who hast The never-sleeping terror at thy heart, That birthright of all tyrants, worse to bear / Than this thy ravening bird on which I JL smile ? I \Thou swear st to free me, if I will unfold J What kind of doom it is whose omen flits ! Across thy heart, as o er a troop of doves (^ The fearful shadow of the kite. What need To know that truth whose knowledge can not save ? Evil its errand hath, as well as Good; When thine is finished, thou art known no more: There is a higher purity than thou, And higher purity is greater strength; Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy heart Trembles behind the thick wall of thy might. Let man but hope, and thou art straight way chilled With thought of that drear silence and deep night Which, like a dream, shall swallow thee and thine: Let man but will, and thou art god no more, More capable of ruin than the gold And ivory that image thee on earth. He who hurled down the monstrous Titan- brood M Blinded with lightnings, with rough thun-A ders stunned, Is weaker than a simple human thought. My slender voice can shake thee, as t breeze, That seems but apt to stir a maiden s hair, Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole; For I am still Prometheus, and foreknow In my wise heart the end arid doom of all. Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grown By years of solitude, that holds apart The past and future, giving the soul room To search into itself, and long commune With this eternal silence ; more a god, In my long-suffering and strength to meet With equal front the direst shafts of fate, Than thou in thy faint-hearted despotism, Girt with thy baby-toys of force and wrath. Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought down The light to man, which thou, in selfish \_x fear, Hadst to thyself usurped, his by sole right, For Man hath right to all save Tyranny, And which shall free him yet from thy frail throne. Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, Begotten by the slaves they trample on, Who, could they win a glimmer of the light, And see that Tyranny is always weakness, Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease, Would laugh away in scorn the sand-wove chain Which their own blindness feigned for ada mant. Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the Right To the firm centre lays its moveless base. The tyrant trembles, if the air but stir The innocent ringlets of a child s free hair, And crouches, when the thought of some great spirit, With world-wide murmur, like a rising gale, Over men s hearts, as over standing corn, Rushes, and bends them to its own strong will. So shall some thought of mine yet circle earth, And puff away thy crumbling altars, Jove ! And, wouldst thou know of my supreme revenge, Poor tyrant, even now dethroned in heart, Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are, Listen ! and tell me if this bitter peak, This never-glutted vulture, and these chains Shrink not before it; for it shall befit A sorrow-taught, unconquered Titan-heart. Men, when their death is on them, seem to stand PROMETHEUS On a precipitous crag that overhangs The abyss of doom, and in that depth to see, As in a glass, the features dim and vast Of things to come, the shadows, as it seems, Of what have been. Death ever fronts the wise; Not fearfully, but with clear promises Of larger life, on whose broad vans up borne, Their outlook widens, and they see beyond The horizon of the Present and the Past, (Even to the very source and end of things. ^Such am I now: immortal woe hath made My heart a seer; and my soul a judge Between the substance and the shadow of Truth. The sure supremeness of the Beautiful, By all the martyrdoms made doubly sure Of such as I am, this is my revenge, Which of my wrongs builds a triumphal arch, Through which I see a sceptre and a throne. The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills, Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee; The songs of maidens pressing with white feet The vintage on thine altars poured no more; The murmurous bliss of lovers underneath Dim grapevine bowers whose rosy bunches press Not half so closely their warm cheeks, un- paled By thoughts of thy brute lust; the hive- like hum Of peaceful commonwealths, where sun burnt Toil Reaps for itself the rich earth made its own By its own labor, lightened with glad hymns To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts Would cope with as a spark with the vast sea, Even the spirit of free love and peace, Duty s sure recompense through life and death, These are such harvests as all master spirits Reap, haply not on earth, but reap no less Because the sheaves are bound by hands x not theirs; These are the bloodless daggers where withal They stab fallen tyrants, this their high re venge : For their best part of life on earth is when, Long after death, prisoned and pent no more, Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, have become Part of the necessary air men breathe: When, like the inoon, herself behind a cloud, They shed down light before us on life s sea, That cheers us to steer onward still in hope. Earth with her twining memories ivies o er Their holy sepulchres; the chainless sea, In tempest or wide calm, repeats their thoughts; The lightning and the thunder, all free things, Have legends of them for the ears of men. All other glories are as falling stars, But universal Nature watches theirs: Such strength is won by love of human kind. Not that I feel that hunger after fame, Which souls of a half-greatness are beset with ; But that the memory of noble deeds Cries shame upon the idle and the vile, And keeps the heart of Man forever up To the heroic level of old time. To be forgot at first is little pain To a heart conscious of such high intent As must be deathless on the lips of men; ( But, having been a name, to sink and be A something which the world can do with out, Which, having been or not, would never change The lightest pulse of fate, this is indeed A cup of bitterness the worst to taste, And this thy heart shall empty to the dregs. Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus, And memory thy vulture; thou wilt find Oblivion far lonelier than this peak. Behold thy destiny ! Thou think st it much That I should brave thee, miserable god ! But I have braved a mightier than thou, Even the sharp tempting of this soaring heart, Which might have made me, scarcely less than thou, MISCELLANEOUS POEMS A god among my brethren weak and blind, Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thing To be down-trodden into darkness soon. But now I am above thee, for thou art The bungling workmanship of fear, the block That awes the swart Barbarian; but I Am what myself have made, a nature wise With finding in itself the types of all, With watching from the dim verge of the time What things to be are visible in the gleams Thrown forward on them from the lumi nous past, Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and with sorrow, and love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man. Thou and all strength shall crumble, ex cept Love, By whom, and for whose glory, ye shall cease : And, when thou rt but a weary moaning heard From out the pitiless gloom of Chaos, I Shall be a power and a memory, A name to fright all tyrants with, a light Unsetting as the pole-star, a great voice Heard in the breathless pauses of the fight By truth and freedom ever waged wit] wrong, Clear as a silver trumpet, to awake Far echoes that from age to age live on In kindred spirits, giving them a sense Of boundless power from boundless suffer ing wrung: And many a glazing eye shall smile to see The memory of my triumph (for to meet Wrong with endurance, and to overcome The present with a heart that looks beyond, Are triumph), like a prophet eagle, perch Upon the sacred banner of the Right. Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, Leaving it richer for the growth of truth; But Good, once put in action or in thought, Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed down The ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak god, Shalt fade and be forgotten ! but this soul, Fresh-living still in the serene abyss, In every heaving shall partake, that grows From heart to heart among the sons of men, As the ominous hum before the earthquake runs Far through the JEgean from roused isle to isle, Foreboding wreck to palaces and shrines, nd mighty rents in many a cavernous f/ error That darkens the free light to man : This heart, Unscarred by thy grim vulture, as the truth Grows but more lovely neath the beaks and claws Of Harpies blind that fain would soil it, shall In all the throbbing exultations share That wait on freedom s triumphs, and ir all The glorious agonies of martyr-spirits, Sharp lightning-throes to split the jagged clouds That veil the future, showing them the end, Pain s thorny crown for constancy and truth, Girding the temples like a wreath of stars. This is a thought, that, like the fabled laurel, Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy dread bolts Fall on me like the silent flakes of snow n the hoar brows of aged Caucasus: But, oh, thought far more blissful, they can rend This cloud of flesh, and make my soul a star ! Unleash thy crouching thunders now, O Jove ! Free this high heart, which, a poor captive long, Doth knock to be let forth, this heart which still, In its invincible manhood, overtops Thy puny godship, as this mountain doth The pines that moss its roots. Oh, even now, While from my peak of suffering I look down, PROMETHEUS 43 Beholding with a far-spread gush of hope The sunrise of that Beauty, in whose face, Shone all around with love, no man shall look But straightway like a god he be uplift Unto the throne long empty for his sake, And clearly oft foreshadowed in brave dreams By his free inward nature, which nor thou, Nor any anarch after thee, can bind From, working its great doom, now, now set free This essence, not to die, but to become Part of that awful Presence which doth haunt The palaces of tyrants, to scare off, With its grim eyes and fearful whisperings And hideous sense of utter loneliness, All hope of safety, all desire of peace, All but the loathed forefeeling of blank death, Part of that spirit which doth ever brood In patient calm on the unpilfered nest Of man s deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledged To sail with darkening shadow o er the world, Filling with dread such souls as dare not trust In the unfailing energy of Good, Until they swoop, and their pale quarry make Of some o erbloated wrong, that spirit which Scatters great hopes in the seed-field of man, Like acorns among grain, to grow and be A roof for freedom in all coming time ! But no, this cannot be; for ages yet, In solitude unbroken, shall I hear The angry Caspian to the Euxine shout, And Euxine answer with a muffled roar, On either side storming the giant walls Of Caucasus with leagues of climbing foam (Less, from my height, than flakes of downy snow), That draw back baffled but to hurl again, Snatched up in wrath and horrible turmoil, Mountain on mountain, as the Titans erst, My brethren, scaling the high seat of Jove, Heaved Pelion upon Ossa s shoulders broad In vain emprise. The moon will come and g With her monotonous vicissitude; Once beautiful, when I was free to walk Among my fellows, and to interchange The influence benign of loving eyes, But now by aged use grown wearisome; False thought ! most false ! for how could I endure These crawling centuries of lonely woe Unshamed by weak complaining, but for thee, Loneliest, save me, of all created things, Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter, With thy pale smile of sad benignity ? Year after year will pass away and seem To me, in mine eternal agony, But as the shadows of dumb summer clouds, Which I have watched so often darkening o er The vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide at first, But, with still swiftness, lessening on and on Till cloud and shadow meet and mingle where The gray horizon fades into the sky, Far, far to northward. Yes, for ages yet Must I lie here upon my altar huge, A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be, As it hath been, his portion; endless doom, While the immortal with the mortal linked Dreams of its wings and pines for what it dreams, With upward yearn unceasing. Better so: For wisdom is stern sorrow s patient child, And empire over self, and all the deep Strong charities that make men seem like gods; And love, that makes them be gods, from her breasts Sucks in the milk that makes mankind one blood. Good never comes unmixed, or so it seems, Having two faces, as some images Are carved, of foolish gods ; one face is ill; But one heart lies beneath, and that is good, As are all hearts, when we explore their depths. Therefore, great heart, bear up ! thou art but type Of what all lofty spirits endure, that fain 44 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS r ould win men back to strength and peace through love: Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heart Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelong With vulture beak; yet the high soul is left; And faith, which is but hope grown wise, and love And patience which at last shall overcome. THE SHEPHERD OF KING AD- METUS THERE came a youth upon the earth, Some thousand years ago, Whose slender hands were nothing worth, Whether to plough, or reap, or sow. Upon an empty tortoise-shell He stretched some chords, and drew Music that made men s bosoms swell Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew. Then King Admetus, one who had Pure taste by right divine, Decreed his singing not too bad To hear between the cups of wine: And so, well pleased with being soothed Into a sweet half-sleep, Three times his kingly beard he smoothed, And made him viceroy o er his sheep. His words were simple words enough, And yet he used them so, That what in other mouths was rough In his seemed musical and low. Men called him but a shiftless youth, In whom no good they saw; And yet, unwittingly, in truth, They made his careless words their law. They knew not how he learned at all, For idly, hour by hour, He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, Or mused upon a common flower. It seemed the loveliness of things Did teach him all their use, For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, He found a healing power profuse. Men granted that his speech was wise, But, when a glance they caught Of his slim grace and woman s eyes, They laughed, and called him good-for- naught. Yet after he was dead and gone, And e en his memory dim, Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, More full of love, because of him. And day by day more holy grew Each spot where he had trod, Till after-poets only knew Their first-born brother as a god. THE TOKEN IT is a mere wild rosebud, Quite sallow now, and dry, Yet there s something wondrous in it, Some gleams of days gone by, Dear sights and sounds that are to me The very moons of memory, And stir my heart s blood far below Its short-lived waves of joy and woe. Lips must fade and roses wither, All sweet times be o er; They only smile, and, murmuring "Thither!" Stay with us no more: And yet ofttimes a look or smile, Forgotten in a kiss s while, Years after from the dark will start, And flash across the trembling heart. Thou hast given me many roses, But never one, like this, O erfloods both sense and spirit With such a deep, wild bliss; We must have instincts that glean up Sparse drops of this life in the cup, Whose taste shall give us all that we Can prove of immortality. Earth s stablest things are shadows, And, in the life to come, Haply some chance-saved trifle May tell of this old home: As now sometimes we seem to find, In a dark crevice of the mind, Some relic, which, long pondered o er, Hints faintly at a life before. AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR 45 AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR HE spoke of Burns: men rude and rough Pressed round to hear the praise of one Whose heart was made of manly, simple stuff, As homespun as their own. And, when he read, they forward leaned, Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears, His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned From humble smiles and tears. Slowly there grew a tender awe, Sun-like, o er faces brown and hard, As if in him who read they felt and saw Some presence of the bard. It was a sight for sin and wrong And slavish tyranny to see, A sight to make our faith more pure and strong In high humanity. I thought, these men will carry hence Promptings their former life above, And something of a finer reverence For beauty, truth, and love. God scatters love on every side Freely among his children all, And always hearts are lying open wide, Wherein some grains may fall. There is no wind but soweth seeds Of a more true and open life, Which burst, unlocked for, into high-souled deeds, With wayside beauty rife. We find within these souls of ours Some wild germs of a higher birth, Which in the poet s tropic heart bear flowers Whose fragrance fills the earth. Within the hearts of all men lie These promises <.f wider bliss, Which blossom into hopes that cannot die, In sunny hours like this. All that hath been majestical In life or death, since time began, Is native in the simple heart of all, The angel heart of man. And thus, among the untaught poor, Great deeds and feelings find a home, That cast in shadow all the golden lore Of classic Greece and Home. O mighty brother-soul of man, Where er thou art, in low or high, Thy skyey arches with exulting span O er-roof infinity ! All thoughts that mould the age begin Deep down within the primitive soul, And from the many slowly upward win To one who grasps the whole: In his wide brain the feeling deep That struggled on the mauy s tongue Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leap O er the weak thrones of wrong. All thought begins in feeling, wide In the great mass its base is hid, And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified, A moveless pyramid. Nor is he far astray, who deems That every hope, which rises and grows broad In the world s heart, by ordered impulse streams From the great heart of God. God wills, man hopes: in common souls Hope is but vague and undefined, Till from the poet s tongue the message rolls A blessing to his kind. Never did Poesy appear So full of heaven to me, as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men. It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century; MISCELLANEOUS POEMS But better far it is to speak One simple word, which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men; To write some earnest verse or line, Which, seeking not the praise of art, Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine In the untutored heart. He who doth this, in verse or prose, May be forgotten in his day, But surely shall be crowned at last with those Who live and speak for aye. RHCECUS GOD sends his teachers unto every age, To every clime, and every race of men, With revelations fitted to their growth And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth Into the selfish rule of one sole race : Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed The life of man, and given it to grasp The master-key of knowledge, reverence, Infolds some germs of goodness and of right; Else never had the eager soul, which loathes The slothful down of pampered ignorance, Found in it even a moment s fitful rest. There is an instinct in the human heart Which makes that all the fables it hath coined, To justify the reign of its belief And strengthen it by beauty s right divine, Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift. Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful hands, Points surely to the hidden springs of truth. For, as in nature naught is made in vain, But all things have within their hull of use A wisdom and a meaning which may speak Of spiritual secrets to the ear Of spirit ; so, in whatso er the heart Hath fashioned for a solace to itself, To make its inspirations suit its creed, And from the niggard hands of falsehood wring Its needful food of truth, there ever is A sympathy with Nature, which reveals, Not less than her own works, pure gleams of light And earnest parables of inward lore. Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece, As full of gracious youth, and beauty still As the immortal freshness of that grace Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze. A youth named Rhcecus, wandering in the wood, Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall, And, feeling pity of so fair a tree, He propped its gray trunk with admiring care, And with a thoughtless footstep loitered on. But, as he turned, he heard a voice behind That murmured " Rhrecus ! " T was as if the leaves, Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it, And, while he paused bewildered, yet again It murmured "Rho3cus!" softer than a breeze. He started and beheld with dizzy eyes What seemed the substance of a happy dream Stand there before him, spreading a warm glow Within the green glooms of the shadowy oak. It seemed a woman s shape, yet far too fair To be a woman, and with eyes too meek For any that were wont to mate with gods. All naked like a goddess stood she there, And like a goddess all too beautiful To feel the guilt-born earthliness of shame. " Rho3cus, I am the Dryad of this tree," Thus she began, dropping her low-toned words Serene, and full, and clear, as drops of dew, " And with it I am doomed to live and die; The rain and sunshine are my caterers, Nor have I other bliss than simple life; Now ask me what thou wilt, that I can give, And with a thankful joy it shall be thine." Then Rho3cus, with a flutter at the heart, Yet by the prompting of such beauty bold, Answered: "What is there that can satisfy RHCECUS 47 The endless craving of the soul but love ? Give me thy love, or but the hope of that Which must be evermore my nature s After a little pause she said again, But with a glimpse of sadness in her tone, I give it, Rhcecus, though a perilous gift; An hour before the sunset meet me here." And straightway there was nothing he could see But the green glooms beneath the shadowy oak, And not a sound came to his straining ears But the low trickling rustle of the leaves, And far away upon an emerald slope The falter of an idle shepherd s pipe. Now, in those days of simpleness and faith, Men did not think that happy things were dreams Because they overstepped the narrow bourn Of likelihood, but reverently deemed Nothing too wondrous or too beautiful To be the guerdon of a daring heart. So Rhcecus made no doubt that he was blest, And all along unto the city s gate Earth seemed to spring beneath him as he walked, The clear, broad sky looked bluer than its wont, And he could scarce believe he had not wings, Such sunshine seemed to glitter through his veins Instead of blood, so light he felt and strange. Young Rhcecus had a faithful heart enough, But one that in the present dwelt too much, And, taking with blithe welcome whatso e er Chance gave of joy, was wholly bound in that, Like the contented peasant of a vale, Deemed it the world, and never looked beyond. So, haply meeting in the afternoon Some comrades who were playing at the dice, He joined them, and forgot all else be side. The dice were rattling at the merriest, And Rhcecus, who had met but sorry luck, Just laughed in triumph at a happy throw, When through the room there hummed a yellow bee That buzzed about his ear with down- dropped legs As if to light. And Rhcacus laughed and said, Feeling how red and flushed he was with loss, " By Venus ! does he take me for a rose ? " And brushed him off with rough, impa tient hand. But still the bee came back, and thrice again Rhcecus did beat him off with growing wrath. Then through the window flew the wounded bee, And Rhcecus, tracking him with angry eyes, Saw a sharp mountain-peak of Thessaly Against the red disk of the setting sun, And instantly the blood sank from his heart, As if its very walls had caved away. Without a word he turned, and, rushing forth, Ran madly through the city and the gate, And o er the plain, which now the wood s long shade, By the low sun thrown forward broad and dim, Darkened wellnigh unto the city s wall. Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree, And, listening fearfully, he heard once more The low voice murmur " Rhoacus ! " close at hand: Whereat he looked around him, but could see Naught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak. Then sighed the voice, " O Rhcecus ! never more Shalt thou behold me or by day or night, Me, who would fain have blessed thee with a love More ripe and bounteous than ever yet Filled up with nectar any mortal heart: But thou didst scorn my humble messen ger, 48 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS And sent st him back to me with bruised wings. We spirits only show to gentle eyes, We ever ask an undivided love, And he who scorns the least of Nature s works Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from all. Farewell ! for thou canst never see me more." Then Rhoscus beat his breast, and groaned aloud, And cried, " Be pitiful ! forgive me yet This once, and I shall never need it more ! " "Alas!" the voice returned, " t is thou art blind, Not I unmerciful; I can forgive, But have no skill to heal thy spirit s eyes; Only the soul hath power o er itself." With that again there murmured "Never more ! " And Rhcecus after heard no other sound, Except the rattling of the oak s crisp leaves, Like the long surf upon a distant shore, Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and down. The night had gathered round him: o er the plain The city sparkled with its thousand lights, And sounds of revel fell upon his ear Harshly and like a curse; above, the sky, With all its bright sublimity of stars, Deepened, and on his forehead smote the breeze: Beauty was all around him and delight, But from that eve he was alone on earth. THE FALCON I KNOW a falcon swift and peerless As e er was cradled in the pine; No bird had ever eye so fearless, Or wing so strong as this of mine. The winds not better love to pilot A cloud with molten gold o errun, Than him, a little burning islet, A star above the coming sun. For with a lark s heart he doth tower, By a glorious upward instinct drawn; No bee nestles deeper in the flower Thau he in the bursting rose of dawn. No harmless dove, no bird that siugeth. Shudders to see him overhead; The rush of his fierce swooping bringeth To innocent hearts no thrill of dread. Let fraud and wrong and baseness shiver, For still between them and the sky The falcon Truth hangs poised forever And marks them with his vengeful eye. TRIAL WHETHER the idle prisoner through his grate Watches the waving of the grass-tuft small, Which, having colonized its rift i th wall, Accepts God s dole of good or evil fate, And from the sky s just helmet draws its lot Daily of shower or sunshine, cold or hot; Whether the closer captive of a creed, Cooped up from birth to grind out endless chaff, Sees through his treadmill-bars the noonday laugh, And feels in vain his crumpled pinions breed ; Whether the Georgian slave look up and mark, With bellying sails puffed full, the tall cloud-bark Sink northward slowly, thou alone seem st good, Fair only thou, O Freedom, whose desire Can light in muddiest souls quick seeds of fire, And strain life s chords to the old heroic mood. Yet are there other gifts more fair than thine, Nor can I count him happiest who has never Been forced with his own hand his chains to sever, And for himself find out the way divine; He never knew the aspirer s glorious pains, He never earned the struggle s priceless gains. Oh, block by block, with sore and sharp endeavor, Lifelong we build these human natures up Into a temple fit for Freedom s shrine, A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN 49 And Trial ever consecrates the cup Wherefrom we pour her sacrificial wine. A GLANCE BEHIND THE CUR TAIN This poem, printed in The Democratic He- view for September, 1843, is most probably the one to which Lowell refers in a letter to C. F. Briggs, already quoted in the head-note to Prometheus : " I have sent another poem to O Sullivan, still more radical than Prometheus, and in some respects better, though, from its subject, incapable of so high a strain as that." Elsewhere in this letter he appears to give it the title Cromwell. It is interesting to turn back five years to the summer of Lowell s graduation and listen to what he says to G. B. Loring : " A plan has been running in my head for some time, of writ ing a sort of dramatic poem on the subject of Cromwell. Those old Koundheads have never had justice done them. They have only been held up as canting, psalm-singing, hypocritical rascals ; as a sort of foil for the open-hearted Cavalier. But it were a strange thing, indeed, if there were not somewhat in such men as Mil ton, Sidney, Hampden, Selden, and Pym. It always struck me that there was more true po etry in those old fiery-eyed, buif -belted warriors, with their deep, holy enthusiasm for liberty and democracy, political and religious ; with their glorious trust in the arm of the Lord in battle than in the dashing, ranting Cavaliers, who wished to restore their king that they might give vent to their passions, and go to sleep again in the laps of their mistresses, deaf to the cries of the poor and the oppressed." WE see but half the causes of our deeds, Seeking them wholly in the outer life, And heedless of the encircling spirit-world, Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us All germs of pure and world-wide purposes. From one stage of our being to the next We pass unconscious o er a slender bridge, The momentary work of unseen hands, Which crumbles down behind us; looking back, We see the other shore, the gulf between, And, marvelling how we won to where we stand, Content ourselves to call the builder Chance. We trace the wisdom to the apple s fall, Not to the birth-throes of a mighty Truth Which, for long ages in blank Chaos dumb, Yet yearned to be incarnate, and had found At last a spirit meet to be the womb From which it might be born to bless man kind, Not to the soul of Newton, ripe with all The hoarded thoughtfuluess of earnest years, And waiting but one ray of sunlight more To blossom fully. But whence came that ray ? We call our sorrows Destiny, but ought Rather to name our high successes so. Only the instincts of great souls are Fate, And have predestined sway: all other things, Except by leave of us, could never be. For Destiny is but the breath of God Still moving in us, the last fragment left Of our unfallen nature, waking oft Within our thought, to beckon us beyond The narrow circle of the seen and known, And always tending to a noble end, As all things must that overrule the soul, And for a space unseat the helmsman, Will. The fate of England and of freedom once Seemed wavering in the heart of one plain man: One step of his, and the great dial-hand, That marks the destined progress of the world In the eternal round from wisdom on To higher wisdom, had been made to pause A hundred years. That step he did not take, He knew not why, nor we, but only God, And lived to make his simple oaken chair More terrible and soberly august, More full of majesty than any throne, Before or after, of a British king. Upon the pier stood two stern-visaged men, Looking to where a little craft lay moored, Swayed by the lazy current of the Thames, Which weltered by in muddy listlessness. Grave men they were, and battlings of fierce thought Had trampled out all softness from their brows, And ploughed rough furrows there before their time, For other crop than such as homebred Peace Sows broadcast in the willing soil of Youth. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Care, not of self, but for the common-weal, Had robbed their eyes of youth, and left instead A look of patient power and iron will, And something fiercer, too, that gave broad hint Of the plain weapons girded at their sides. The younger had an aspect of command, Not such as trickles down, a slender stream, In the shrunk channel of a great descent, But such as lies entowered in heart and head, And an arm prompt to do the bests of both. His was a brow where gold were out of place, And yet it seemed right worthy of a crown (Though he despised such), were it only made Of iron, or some serviceable stuff That would have matched his brownly rugged face. The elder, although such he hardly seemed (Care makes so little of some five short years), Had a clear, honest face, whose rough- hewn strength Was mildeued by the scholar s wiser heart To sober courage, such as best befits The unsullied temper of a well - taught mind, Yet so remained that one could plainly guess The hushed volcano smouldering under neath. He spoke: the other, hearing, kept his gaze Still fixed, as on some problem in the sky. "O CROMWELL, we are fallen on evil times ! There was a day when England had wide room For honest men as well as foolish kings: But now the uneasy stomach of the time Turns squeamish at them both. Therefore let us Seek out that savage clime, where men as yet Are free: there sleeps the vessel on the tide, Her languid canvas drooping for the wind; Give us but that, and what need we to fear This Order of the Council? The free waves Will not say No to please a wayward king, Nor will the winds turn traitors at his beck: All things are fitly cared for, and the Lord Will watch as kindly o er the exodus Of us his servants now, as in old time. We have no cloud or fire, and haply we May not pass dry-shod through the ocean- stream ; But, saved or lost, all things are in His hand." So spake he, and meantime the other stood With wide gray eyes still reading the blank air, As if upon the sky s blue wall he saw Some mystic sentence, written by a hand, Such as of old made pale the Assyrian king. Girt with his satraps in the blazing feast. " HAMPDEN ! a moment since, my pur pose was To fly with thee, for I will call it flight, Nor flatter it with any smoother name, But something in me bids me not to go; And I am one, thou knowest, who, un moved By what the weak deem omens, yet give heed And reverence due to whatsoe er my soul Whispers of warning to the inner ear. Moreover, as I know that God brings round His purposes in ways undreamed by us, And makes the wicked but his instruments To hasten their own swift and sudden fall, I see the beauty of his providence In the King s order: blind, he will not let His doom part from him, but must bid it stay As t were a cricket, whose enlivening chirp He loved to hear beneath his very hearth. Why should we fly ? Nay, why not rather stay And rear again our Zion s crumbled walls, Not, as of old the walls of Thebes were built, By minstrel twanging, but, if need should be, With the more potent music of our swords ? Think st thou that score of men beyond the sea Claim more God s care than all of England here? A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN No: when He moves His arm, it is to aid Whole peoples, heedless if a few be crushed, As some are ever, when the destiny Of man takes one stride onward nearer home. Believe me, t is the mass of men He loves; And, where there is most sorrow and most want, Where the high heart of man is trodden down The most, t is not because He hides His face From them in wrath, as purblind teachers prate : Not so: there most is He, for there is He Most needed. Men who seek for Fate abroad Are not so near His heart as they who dare Frankly to face her where she faces them, On their own threshold, where their souls are strong To grapple with and throw her; as I once, Being yet a boy, did cast this puny king, Who now has grown so dotard as to deem That he can wrestle with an angry realm, And throw the brawned Antaeus of men s rights. No, Hampden ! they have half-way con quered Fate Who go half-way to meet her, as will I. Freedom hath yet a work for me to do; So speaks that inward voice which never yet Spake falsely, when it urged the spirit on To noble emprise for country and mankind. And, for success, I ask no more than this, To bear unflinching witness to the truth. All true whole men succeed; for what is worth Success s name, unless it be the thought, The inward surety, to have carried out A noble purpose to a noble end, Although it be the gallows or the block ? T is only Falsehood that doth ever need These outward shows of gain to bolster her. Be it we prove the weaker with our swords; Truth only needs to be for once spoke out, And there s such music in her, such strange rhythm, As makes men s memories her joyous slaves, And clings around the soul, as the sky clings Round the mute earth, forever beautiful, And, if o erclouded, only to burst forth More all-embracingly divine and clear: Get but the truth once uttered, and t is like A star new-born, that drops into its place, And which, once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake. " What should we do in that small colony Of pinched fanatics, who would rather choose Freedom to clip an inch more from their hair, Than the great chance of setting England free? Not there, amid the stormy wilderness, Should we learn wisdom; or if learned, what room To put it into act, else worse than naught ? We learn our souls more, tossing for an hour Upon this huge and ever-vexed sea Of human thought, where kingdoms go to wreck Like fragile bubbles yonder in the stream, Than in a cycle of New England sloth, Broke only by a petty Indian war, Or quarrel for a letter more or less In some hard word, which, spelt in either way, Not their most learned clerks can under stand. New times demand new measures and new men; The world advances, and in time outgrows The laws that in our fathers day were best; And, doubtless, after us, some purer scheme Will be shaped out by wiser men than we, Made wiser by the steady growth of truth. We cannot hale Utopia on by force; But better, almost, be at work in sin, Than in a brute inaction browse and sleep. No man is born into the world whose work Is not born with him; there is always work, And tools to work withal, for those who will; And blessed are the horny hands of toil ! The busy world shoves angrily aside The man who stands with arms akimbo set, Until occasion tells him what to do; 5 2 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS And he who waits to have his task marked out Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds: Reason and Government, like two broad seas, Yearn for each other with outstretched arms Across this narrow isthmus of the throne, And roll their white surf higher every day. One age moves onward, and the next builds up Cities and gorgeous palaces, where stood The rude log-huts of those who tamed the wild, Bearing from out the forests they had felled The goodly framework of a fairer state; The builder s trowel and the settler s axe Are seldom wielded hy the selfsame hand; Ours is the harder task, yet not the less Shall we receive the blessing for our toil From the choice spirits of the aftertime. My soul is not a palace of the past, Where outworn creeds, like Rome s gray senate, quake, Hearing afar the Vandal s trumpet hoarse, That shakes old systems with a thunder-fit. The time is ripe, and rotten -ripe, for change ; Then let it come: I have no dread of what Is called for by the instinct of mankind; Nor think I that God s world will fall apart Because we tear a parchment more or less. Truth is eternal, but her effluence, With endless change, is fitted to the hour; Her mirror is turned forward to reflect The promise of the future, not the past. He who would win the name of truly great Must understand his own age and the next, And make the present ready to fulfil Its prophecy, and with the future merge Gently and peacefully, as wave with wave. The future works out great men s pur poses; The present is enough for common souls, Who, never looking forward, are indeed Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age Are petrified forever: better those Who lead the blind old giant by the hand From out the pathless desert where he gropes, And set him onward in his darksome way. I do not fear to follow out the truth, Albeit along the precipice s edge. Let us speak plain: there is more force in names Than most men dream of; and a lie may keep Its throne a whole age longer, if it skulk Behind the shield of some fair-seeming name. Let us call tyrants tyrants, and maintain That only freedom comes by grace of God, And all that comes not by His grace must fall; For men in earnest have no time to waste In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth. " I will have one more grapple with the man Charles Stuart: whom the boy o ercame, The man stands not in awe of. I, per chance, Am one raised up by the Almighty arm To witness some great truth to all the world. Souls destined to o erleap the vulgar lot, And mould the world unto the scheme of God, Have a fore-consciousness of their high doom, As men are known to shiver at the heart When the cold shadow of some coming ill Creeps slowly o er their spirits unawares. Hath Good less power of prophecy than 111? How else could men whom God hath called to sway Earth s rudder, and to steer the bark of Truth, Beating against the tempest tow rd her port, Bear all the mean and buzzing grievances, The petty martyrdoms, wherewith Sin strives To weary out the tethered hope of Faith ? The sneers, the unrecognizing look of friends, Who worship the dead corpse of old king Custom, Where it doth lie in state within the Church, Striving to cover up the mighty ocean With a man s palm, and making even the truth Lie for them, holding up the glass reversed, To make the hope of man seem farther off ? A CHIPPEWA LEGEND 53 My God ! when I read o er the bitter lives Of men whose eager hearts were quite too great To beat beneath the cramped mode of the day, And see them mocked at by the world they love, Haggling with prejudice for pennyworths Of that reform which their hard toil will make The common birthright of the age to come, When I see this, spite of my faith in God, I marvel how their hearts bear up so long; ^Nor could they but for this same prophecy, This inward feeling of the glorious end. "Deem me not fond; but in my warmer youth, Ere my heart s bloom was soiled and brushed away, I had great dreams of mighty things to come; Of conquest, whether by the sword or pen I knew not; but some conquest I would have, Or else swift death: now wiser grown in years, I find youth s dreams are but the flutterings Of those strong wings whereon the soul shall soar In after time to win a starry throne; And so I cherish them, for they were lots, Which I, a boy, cast in the helm of Fate. iNow will I draw them, since a man s right hand, A right hand guided by an earnest soul, With a true instinct, takes the golden prize From out a thousand blanks. What men call luck Is the prerogative of valiant souls, The fealty life pays its rightful kings. The helm is shaking now, and I will stay To pluck rny lot forth; it were sin to flee! " So they two turned together; one to die, Fighting for freedom on the bloody field; The other, far more happy, to become A name earth wears forever next her heart ; One of the few that have a right to rank With the true Makers: for his spirit wrought Order from Chaos; proved that right di vine Dwelt only in the excellence of truth; And far within old Darkness hostile lines Advanced and pitched the shining tents of Light. Nor shall the grateful Muse forget to tell, That not the least among his many claims To deathless honor he was MILTON S friend, A man not second among those who lived To show us that the poet s lyre demands An arm of tougher sinew than the sword. A CHIPPEWA LEGEND a\yfiva fjifv JJLOI Kal \eyeiv fffrlv roSe, &\yos 5e ffiyav. .ESCHYLUS, Prom. Vinct. 197, 198. For the leading- incidents in this tale I am indebted to the very valuable Algic Researches of Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq. J. R. L. THE old Chief, feeling now weltnigh his end, Called his two eldest children to his side, And gave them, in few words, his parting charge! " My son and daughter, me ye see no more; The happy hunting - grounds await me, green With change of spring and summer through the year: But, for remembrance, after I am gone, Be kind to little Sheemah for my sake: Weakling he is and young, and knows not yet To set the trap, or draw the seasoned bow; Therefore of both your loves he hath more need, And he, who needeth love, to love hath right; It is not like our furs and stores of corn, Whereto we claim sole title by our toil, But the Great Spirit plants it in our hearts, And waters it, and gives it sun, to be The common stock and heritage of all: Therefore be kind to Sheemah, that your selves May not be left deserted in your need." Alone, beside a lake, their wigwam stood, Far from the other dwellings of their tribe; And, after many moons, the loneliness Wearied the elder brother, and he said, 54 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS " Why should I dwell here far from men, shut out From the free, natural joys that fit my age ? Lo, I am tall and strong, well skilled to hunt, Patient of toil and hunger, and not yet Have seen the danger which I dared not look Full in the face; what hinders me to be A mighty Brave and Chief among my kin ? " So, taking up his arrows and his bow, As if to hunt, he journeyed swiftly on, Until he gained the wigwams of his tribe, Where, choosing out a bride, he soon for got, In all the fret and bustle of new life, The little Sheemah and his father s charge. Now when the sister found her brother gone, And that, for many days, he came not back, She wept for Sheemah more than for her self; For Love bides longest in a woman s heart, And flutters many times before he flies, And then doth perch so nearly, that a word May lure him back to his accustomed nest; And Duty lingers even when Love is gone, Oft looking out in hope of his return ; And, after Duty hath been driven forth, Then Selfishness creeps in the last of all, Warming her lean hands at the lonely hearth, And crouching o er the embers, to shut out Whatever paltry warmth and light are left, With avaricious greed, from all beside. So, for long months, the sister hunted wide, And cared for little Sheemah tenderly; But, daily more and more, the loneliness Grew wearisome, and to herself she sighed, 4< Am I not fair ? at least the glassy pool, That hath no cause to flatter, tells me so; But, oh, how flat and meaningless the tale, Unless it tremble on a lover s tongue ! Beauty hath no true glass, except it be In the sweet privacy of loving eyes." Thus deemed she idly, and forgot the lore Which she had learned of nature and the woods, That beauty s chief reward is to itself, And that Love s mirror holds no image long Save of the inward fairness, blurred and lost Unless kept clear and white by Duty s care. So she went forth and sought the haunts of men, And, being wedded, in her household cares, Soon, like the elder brother, quite forgot The little Sheemah and her father s charge. But Sheemah, left alone within the lodge, Waited and waited, with a shrinking heart, Thinking each rustle was his sister s step, Till hope grew less and less, and then went out, And every sound was changed from hope to fear. Few sounds there were: the dropping of a nut, The squirrel s chirrup, and the jay s harsh scream, Autumn s sad remnants of blithe Summer s cheer, Heard at long intervals, seemed but to make The dreadful void of silence silenter. Soon what small store his sister left was gone, And, through the Autumn, he made shift to live On roots and berries, gathered in much fear Of wolves, whose ghastly howl he heard ofttimes, Hollow and hungry, at the dead of night. But Winter came at last, and, when the snow, Thick-heaped for gleaming leagues o er hill and plain, Spread its unbroken silence over all, Made bold by hunger, he was fain to glean (More sick at heart than Ruth, and all alone) After the harvest of the merciless wolf, Grim Boaz, who, sharp-ribbed and gaunt, yet feared A thing in ore wild and starving than him self; Till, by degrees, the wolf and he grew friends, And shared together all the winter through. Late in the Spring, when all the ice was gone, The elder brother, fishing in the lake, Upon whose edge his father s wigwam stood, COLUMBUS 55 Heard a low moaning noise upon the shore : Half like a child it seemed, half like a wolf, And straightway there was something in his heart That said, "It is thy brother Sheemah s voice." So, paddling swiftly to the bank, he saw, Within a little thicket close at hand, A child that seemed fast changing to a wolf, From the neck downward, gray with shaggy hair, That still crept on and upward as he looked. The face was turned away, but well he knew That it was Sheemah s, even his brother s face. Then with his trembling hands he hid his eyes, And bowed his head, so that he might not see The first look of his brother s eyes, and cried, " O Sheemah ! O my brother, speak to me ! Dost thou not know me, that I am thy brother ? Come to me, little Sheemah, thou shalt dwell With me henceforth, and know no care or want ! " Sheemah was silent for a space, as if T were hard to summon up a human voice, And, when he spake, the voice was as a wolf s: " I know thee not, nor art thou what thou say st; I have none other brethren than the wolves, And, till thy heart be changed from what it is, Thou art not worthy to be called their kin." Then groaned the other, with a choking tongue, " Alas ! my heart is changed right bitterly ; T is shrunk and parched within me even now ! " And, looking upward fearfully, he saw Only a wolf that shrank away and ran, Ugly and fierce, to hide among the woods. STANZAS ON FREEDOM MEN ! whose boast it is that ye Come of fathers brave and free, If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave ? If ye do not feel the chain, When it works a brother s pain, Are ye not base slaves indeed, Slaves unworthy to be freed ? Women ! who shall one day bear Sons to breathe New England air, If ye hear, without a blush, Deeds to make the roused blood rush Like red lava through your veins, For your sisters now in chains, Answer ! are ye fit to be Mothers of the brave and free ? Is true Freedom but to break Fetters for our own dear sake, And, with leathern hearts, forget That we owe mankind a debt ? No ! true freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free ! They are slaves who fear to speak For the fatten and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three. COLUMBUS I have partly written a poem on Columbus to match with Prometheus and Cromwell. I like it better than either in point of artistic merit. J. R. L. to C. F. Briggs, September 18, 1844. THE cordage creaks and rattles in the wind, With whims of sudden hush; the reeling sea Now thumps like solid rock beneath the stern, Now leaps with clumsy wrath, strikes short, and, falling MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Crumbled to whispery foam, slips rustling down The broad backs of the waves, which jostle and crowd To fling themselves upon that unknown shore, Their used familiar since the dawn of time. Whither this foredoomed life is guided on To sway on triumph s hushed, aspiring poise One glittering moment, then to break ful filled. How lonely is the sea s perpetual swing, The melancholy wash of endless waves, The sigh of some grim monster undescried, Fear-painted on the canvas of the dark, Shifting on his uneasy pillow of brine ! Yet night brings more companions than the day To this drear waste; new constellations burn, And fairer stars, with whose calm height my soul Finds nearer sympathy than with my herd Of earthen souls, whose vision s scanty ring Makes me its prisoner to beat my wings Against the cold bars of their unbelief, Knowing in vain my own free heaven be yond. O God ! this world, so crammed with eager life, That comes and goes and wanders back to silence Like the idle wind, which yet man s shap ing mind Can make his drudge to swell the longing sails Of highest endeavor, this mad, unthrif t world, Which, every hour, throws life enough away To make her deserts kind and hospitable, Lets her great destinies be waved aside By smooth, lip-reverent, formal infidels, Who weigh the God they not believe with gold, And find no spot in Judas, save that he, Driving a duller bargain than he ought, Saddled his guild with too cheap precedent. O Faith ! if thou art strong, thine opposite Is mighty also, and the dull fool s sneer Hath ofttimes shot chill palsy through the arm Just lifted to achieve its crowning deed, And made the firm-based heart, that would have quailed The rack or fagot, shudder like a leaf Wrinkled with frost, and loose upon its stem. The wicked and the weak, by some dark law, Have a strange power to shut and rivet down Their own horizon round us, to unwing Our heaven-aspiring visions, and to blur With surly clouds the Future s gleaming peaks, Far seen across the brine of thankless years. If the chosen soul could never be alone In deep mid-silence, open-doored to God, No greatness ever had been dreamed or done; Among dull hearts a prophet never grew; The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude. The old world is effete; there man with man Jostles, and, in the brawl for means to live, Life is trod underfoot, Life, the one block Of marble that s vouchsafed wherefrom to carve Our great thoughts, white and godlike, to shine down The future, Life, the irredeemable block, Which one o er-hasty chisel-dint oft mars, Scanting our room to cut the features out Of our full hope, so forcing us to crown With a mean head the perfect limbs, or leave The god s face glowing o er a satyr s trunk, Failure s brief epitaph. Yes, Europe s world Reels on to judgment; there the common need, Losing God s sacred use, to be a bond Twixt Me and Thee, sets each one scowl- in gly O er his own selfish hoard at bay; no state, Knit strongly with eternal fibres up Of all men s separate and united weals, Self-poised and sole as stars, yet one as light, Holds up a shape of large Humanity To which by natural instinct every man Pays loyalty exulting, by which all COLUMBUS 57 Mould their own lives, and feel their pulses filled With the red, fiery blood of the general life, Making them mighty in peace, as now in war They are, even in the flush of victory, weak, Conquering that manhood which should them subdue. And what gift bring I to this untried world ? Shall the same tragedy be played anew, And the same lurid curtain drop at last On one dread desolation, one fierce crash Of that recoil which on its makers God Lets Ignorance and Sin and Hunger make, Early or late ? Or shall that common wealth Whose potent unity and concentric force Can draw these scattered joints and parts of men Into a whole ideal man once more, Which sucks not from its limbs the life away, But sends it flood-tide and creates itself Over again in every citizen, Be there built up? For me, I have no choice; I might turn back to other destinies, For one sincere key opes all Fortune s doors; But whoso answers not God s earliest call Forfeits or dulls that faculty supreme Of lying open to his genius Which makes the wise heart certain of its ends. Here am I; for what end God knows, not I; Westward still points the inexorable soul: i Here am I, with no friend but the sad sea, The beating heart of this great enterprise, Which, without me, would stiffen in swift death ; This have I mused on, since mine eye could first Among the stars distinguish and with joy Rest on that God-fed Pharos of the north, On some blue promontory of heaven lighted That juts far out into the upper sea; To this one hope my heart hath clung for years, As would a foundling to the talisman Hung round his neck by hands he knew not whose ; A poor, vile thing and dross to all beside, Yet he therein can feel a virtue left By the sad pressure of a mother s hand, And unto him it still is tremulous With palpitating haste and wet with tears, The key to him of hope and humanness, The coarse shell of life s pearl, Expectancy. This hope hath been to me for love and fame, Hath made me wholly lonely on the earth, Building me up as in a thick-ribbed tower, Wherewith enwalled my watching spirit burned, Conquering its little island from the Dark, Sole as a scholar s lamp, and heard men s steps, In the far hurry of the outward world, Pass dimly forth and back, sounds heard in dream. As Ganymede by the eagle was snatched up From the gross sod to be Jove s cup-bearer, So was I lifted by my great design: And who hath trod Olympus, from his eye Fades not that broader outlook of the gods; His life s low valleys overbrow earth s clouds, And that Olympian spectre of the past Looms towering up in sovereign memory, Beckoning his soul from meaner heights of doom. Had but the shadow of the Thunderer s bird, Flashing athwart my spirit, made of me A swift-betraying vision s Ganymede, Yet to have greatly dreamed precludes low ends; Great days have ever such a morning-red, On such a base great futures are built up, And aspiration, though not put in act, Comes back to ask its plighted troth again, Still watches round its grave the unlaid ghost Of a dead virtue, and makes other hopes, Save that implacable one, seem thin and bleak As shadows of bare trees upon the snow, Bound freezing there by the unpitying While other youths perplexed their mando lins, Praying that Thetis would her fingers twine In the loose glories of her lover s hair, And wile another kiss to keep back day, MISCELLANEOUS POEMS I, stretched beneath the many-centuried shade Of some writhed oak, the wood s Laocoon, Did of my hope a dryad mistress make, Whom I would woo to meet me privily, Or underneath the stars, or when the moon Flecked all the forest floor with scattered pearls. days whose memory tames to fawning down The surly fell of Ocean s bristled neck ! 1 know not when this hope enthralled me first, But from my boyhood up I loved to hear The tall pine-forests of the Apennine Murmur their hoary legends of the sea, Which hearing, I in vision clear beheld The sudden dark of tropic night shut down O er the huge whisper of great watery wastes, The while a pair of herons trailingly Flapped inland, where some league-wide river hurled The yellow spoil of unconjectured realms Far through a gulf s green silence, never scarred By any but the North-wind s hurrying keels. And not the pines alone; all sights and sounds To my world-seeking heart paid fealty, And catered for it as the Cretan bees Brought honey to the baby Jupiter, Who in his soft hand crushed a violet, Godlike foremusing the rough thunder s gripe; Then did I entertain the poet s song, My great Idea s guest, and, passing o er That iron bridge the Tuscan built to hell, I heard Ulysses tell of mountain-chains Whose adamantine links, his manacles, The western main shook growling, and still gnawed. I brooded on the wise Athenian s tale Of happy Atlantis, and heard Bjorne s keel Crunch the gray pebbles of the Vinland shore: I listened, musing, to the prophecy Of Nero s tutor-victim; lo, the birds Sing darkling, conscious of the climbing dawn. And I believed the poets; it is they Who utter wisdom from the central deep, And, listening to the inner flow of things, Speak to the age out of eternity. Ah me ! old hermits sought for solitude In caves and desert places of the earth, Where their own heart-beat was the only stir Of living thing that comforted the year; But the bald pillar-top of Simeon, In midnight s blankest waste, were popu lous, Matched with the isolation drear and deep Of him who pines among the swarm of men, At once a new thought s king and pris oner, Feeling the truer life within his life, The fountain of his spirit s prophecy, Sinking away and wasting, drop by drop, In the ungrateful sands of sceptic ears. He in the palace-aisles of untrod woods Doth walk a king; for him the pent-up cell Widens beyond the circles of the stars, And all the sceptred spirits of the past Come thronging in to greet him as their peer; But in the market-place s glare and throng He sits apart, an exile, and his brow Aches with the mocking memory of its crown. Yet to the spirit select there is no choice; He cannot say, This will I do, or that, For the cheap means putting Heaven s ends in pawn, And bartering his bleak rocks, the freehold stern Of destiny s first-born, for smoother fields That yield no crop of self-denying will; A hand is stretched to him from out the dark, Which grasping without question, he is led Where there is work that he must do for God. The trial still is the strength s complement, And the uncertain, dizzy path that scales The sheer heights of supremest purposes Is steeper to the angel than the child. Chances have laws as fixed as planets have, And disappointment s dry and bitter root, Envy s harsh berries, and the choking pool Of the world s scorn, are the right mother- milk AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT HAMBURG 59 To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind, And break a pathway to those unknown realms That in the earth s broad shadow lie en thralled ; Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts ; These are their stay, and when the leaden world Sets its hard face against their fateful thought, And brute strength, like the Gaulish con queror, Clangs his huge glaive down in the other scale, The inspired soul but flings his patience in, And slowly that outweighs the ponderous globe, One faith against a whole earth s unbe lief, One soul against the flesh of all mankind. Thus ever seems it when my soul can hear The voice that errs not; then my triumph gleams, O er the blank ocean beckoning, and all night My heart flies on before me as I sail; Far on I see my lifelong enterprise, That rose like Ganges mid the freezing snows Of a world s solitude, sweep broadening down, And, gathering to itself a thousand streams, Grow sacred ere it mingle with the sea; I see the ungated wall of chaos old, With blocks Cyclopean hewn of solid night, Fade like a wreath of unreturning mist Before the irreversible feet of light; And lo, with what clear omen in the east On day s gray threshold stands the eager dawn, Like young Leander rosy from the sea Glowing at Hero s lattice ! One day more These muttering shoalbrains leave the helm to me: God, let me not in their dull ooze be stranded ; Let not this one frail bark, to hollow which I have dug out the pith and sinewy heart Of my aspiring life s fair trunk, be so Cast up to warp and blacken in the sun, Just as the opposing wind gins whistle off His cheek-swollen pack, and from the lean ing mast Fortune s full sail strains forward ! One poor day ! Remember whose and not how short it is ! It is God s day, it is Columbus s. A lavish day ! One day, with life and heart, Is more than time enough to find a world. AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT HAMBURG THE tower of old Saint Nicholas soared up ward to the skies, Like some huge piece of Nature s make, the growth of centuries; You could not deem its crowding spires a work of human art, They seemed to struggle lightward from a sturdy living heart. Not Nature s self more freely speaks in crystal or in oak, Than, through the pious builder s hand, in that gray pile she spoke; And as from acorn springs the oak, so, freely and alone, Sprang from his heart this hymn to God, sung in obedient stone. It seemed a wondrous freak of chance, so perfect, yet so rough, A whim of Nature crystallized slowly in granite tough; The thick spires yearned towards the sky in quaint harmonious lines, And in broad sunlight basked and slept, like a grove of blasted pines. Never did rock or stream or tree lay claim with better right To all the adorning sympathies of shadow and of light; And, in that forest petrified, as forester there dwells Stout Herman, the old sacristan, sole lord of all its bells. 6o MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Surge leaping after surge, the fire roared onward red as blood, Till half of Hamburg lay engulfed beneath the eddying flood ; For miles away the fiery spray poured down its deadly rain, And back and forth the billows sucked, and paused, and burst again. From square to square with tiger leaps panted the lustful fire, The air to leeward shuddered with the gasps of its desire; And church and palace, which even now stood whelmed but to the knee, Lift their black roofs like breakers lone amid the whirling sea. Up in his tower old Herman sat and watched with quiet look; His soul had trusted God too long to be at last forsook; He could not fear, for surely God a path way would unfold Through this red sea for faithful hearts, as once He did of old. But scarcely can he cross himself, or on his good saint call, Before the sacrilegious flood o erleaped the church-yard wall; And, ere a pater half was said, mid smoke and crackling glare, His island tower scarce juts its head above the wide despair. Upon the peril s desperate peak his heart stood up sublime; His first thought was for God above, his next was for his chime; " Sing now and make your voices heard in hymns of praise," cried he, " As did the Israelites of old, safe walking through the sea ! " Through this red sea our God hath made the pathway safe to shore; Our promised land stands full in sight; shout now as ne er before ! " And as the tower came crashing down, the bells, in clear accord, Pealed forth the grand old German hymn, " All good souls, praise the Lord ! " THE SOWER I SAW a Sower walking slow Across the earth, from east to west; His hair was white as mountain snow, His head drooped forward on his breasfr. With shrivelled hands he flung his seed, Nor ever turned to look behind; Of sight or sound he took no heed; It seemed he was both deaf and blind. His dim face showed no soul beneath, Yet in my heart I felt a stir, As if I looked upon the sheath, That once had held Excalibur. I heard, as still the seed he cast, How, crooning to himself, he sung, " I sow again the holy Past, The happy days when I was young. " Then all was wheat without a tare, Then all was righteous, fair, and true;; And I am he whose thoughtful care Shall plant the Old World in the New. " The fruitful germs I scatter free, With busy hand, while all men sleep; In Europe now, from sea to sea, The nations bless me as they reap." Then I looked back along his path, And heard the clash of steel on steel, Where man faced man, in deadly wrath, While clanged the tocsin s hurrying peaL The sky with burning towns flared red, Nearer the noise of fighting rolled, And brothers blood, by brothers shed, Crept curdling over pavements cold. Then marked I how each germ of truth Which through the dotard s fingers ran Was mated with a dragon s tooth Whence there sprang up an armed man I shouted, but he could not hear; Made signs, but these he could not see; And still, without a doubt or fear, Broadcast he scattered anarchy. Long to my straining ears the blast Brought faintly back the words he sung: THE LANDLORD 61 / " 1 sow again the holy Past, The happy days when I was young." HUNGER AND COLD SISTERS two, all praise to you, With your faces pinched and blue; To the poor man you ve been true From of old: You can speak the keenest word, You are sure of being heard, From the point you re never stirred, Hunger and Cold ! Let sleek statesmen temporize; Palsied are their shifts and lies When they meet your bloodshot eyes, Grim and bold; Policy you set at naught, In their traps you 11 not be caught, You re too honest to be bought, Hunger and Cold ! Bolt and bar the palace door; While the mass of men are poor, Naked truth grows more and more Uncontrolled; You had never yet, I guess, Any praise for bashf ulness, You can visit sans court-dress, Hunger and Cold ! While the music fell and rose, And the dance reeled to its close, Where her round of costly woes Fashion strolled, I beheld with shuddering fear Wolves eyes through the windows peer; Little dream they you are near, Hunger and Cold ! When the toiler s heart you clutch, Conscience is not valued much, He recks not a bloody smutch On his gold: Everything to you defers, You are potent reasoners, At your whisper Treason stirs, Hunger and Cold ! Rude comparisons you draw. Words refuse to sate your maw, Your gaunt limbs the cobweb law Cannot hold: You re not clogged with foolish pride. But can seize a right denied: Somehow God is on your side 5 Hunger and Cold ! You respect no hoary wrong More for having triumphed long; Its past victims, haggard throng From the mould You unbury: swords and spears Weaker are than poor men s tears, Weaker than your silent years, Hunger and Cold ! Let them guard both hall and bower; Through the window you will glower, Patient till your reckoning hour Shall be tolled; Cheeks are pale, but hands are red, Guiltless blood may chance be shed, But ye must and will be fed, Hunger and Cold ! God has plans man must not spoil, Some were made to starve and toil, Some to share the wine and oil, We are told: Devil s theories are these, Stifling hope and love and peace, Framed your hideous lusts to please, Hunger and Cold ! Scatter ashes on thy head, Tears of burning sorrow shed, Earth ! and be by Pity led To Love s fold; Ere they block the very door With lean corpses of fche poor, And will hush for naught but gore, Hunger and Cold ! THE LANDLORD WHAT boot your houses and your lands ? In spite of close-drawn deed and fence. Like water, twixt your cheated hands, They slip into the graveyard s sands, And mock your ownership s pretence. How shall you speak to urge your right, Choked with that soil for which you lust ? The bit of clay, for whose delight You grasp, is mortgaged, too ; Death might Foreclose this very day in dust. 62 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Fence as you please, this plain poor man, Whose only fields are in his wit, Who shapes the world, as best he can, According to God s higher plan, Owns you, and fences as is fit. Though yours the rents, his incomes wax By right of eminent domain; From factory tall to woodman s axe, All things on earth must pay their tax, To feed his hungry heart and brain. He takes you from your easy-chair, And what he plans that you must do; You sleep in down, eat dainty fare, He mounts his crazy garret-stair And starves, the landlord over you. Feeding the clods your idlesse drains, You make more green six feet of soil; His fruitful word, like suns and rains, Partakes the seasons bounteous pains, And toils to lighten human toil. Your lands, with force or cunning got, Shrink to the measure of the grave; But Death himself abridges not The tenures of almighty thought, The titles of the wise and brave. TO A PINE-TREE Lowell s friend 0. F. Briggs called the poet s attention to Coleridge s lines in The Ancient Mariner, " And ice, mast high, came floating by As green as emerald," as perhaps the literary justification of "crags of green ice " in the penultimate stanza of this poem, but maintained nevertheless that the epithet green was not true to nature. In his reply Lowell wrote : " I did not have Cole ridge s lines in my mind when I wrote my verses. Coleridge had a fine, true eye, and I would gladly accept him (if I wanted any aid) in confirmation. I did trust ray own eye. When I was a boy, my favorite sport was sail ing upon Fresh Pond in summer, and in winter helping the hardy reapers to get in their har vest of ice, and never was a field of wheat in July of a more lovely green. You have doubt less seen ice-bugs (as most people entomologi- cally pronounce it), and they may not be green, though I think they are described as of all colors. But my ice was fresh- water ice, and I am right about it." FAB up on K at ah din thou towerest, Purple-blue with the distance and vast; Like a cloud o er the lowlands thou lower- est, That hangs poised on a lull in the blast, To its fall leaning awful. In the storm, like a prophet o ermaddened, Thou singest and tossest thy branches; Thy heart with the terror is gladdened, Thou forebodest the dread avalanches, When whole mountains swoop vale- ward. In the calm thou o erstretchest the valleys With thine arms, as if blessings implor ing. Like an old king led forth from his palace, When his people to battle are pouring From the city beneath him. To the lumberer asleep neath thy gloom ing Thou dost sing of wild billows in motion, Till he longs to be swung mid their boom ing In the tents of the Arabs of ocean, Whose finned isles are their cattle. For the gale snatches thee for his lyre, With mad hand crashing melody frantic, While he pours forth his mighty desire To leap down on the eager Atlantic, Whose arms stretch to his playmate. The wild storm makes his lair in thy branches, Swooping thence on the continent under; Like a lion, crouched close on his haunches, There awaiteth his leap the fierce thun der, Growling low with impatience. Spite of winter, thou keep st thy green glory, Lusty father of Titans past number ! The snow-flakes alone make thee hoary, Nestling close to thy branches in slum ber, And thee mantling with silence. Thou alone know st the splendor of winter, Mid thy snow-silvered, hushed precipices, Hearing crags of green ice groan and splin ter, TO THE PAST And then plunge down the muffled abysses In the quiet of midnight. Thou alone know st the glory of summer, Gazing down on thy broad seas of forest, On thy subjects that send a proud mur mur Up to thee, to their sachem, who tower- est From thy bleak throne to heaven. SI DESCENDERO IN INFERNUM, ADES O WANDERING dim on the extremest edge Of God s bright providence, whose spirits sigh Drearily in you, like the winter sedge That shivers o er the dead pool stiff and dry, A thin, sad voice, when the bold wind roars by From the clear North of Duty, Still by cracked arch and broken shaft I trace That here was once a shrine and holy place Of the supernal Beauty, A child s play-altar reared of stones and moss, With wilted flowers for offering laid across, Mute recognition of the all-ruling Grace. How far are ye from the innocent, from those Whose hearts are as a little lane serene, Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with un- broke snows, Or in the summer blithe with lamb- cropped green, Save the one track, where naught more rude is seen Than the plump wain at even Bringing home four months sunshine bound in sheaves ! How far are ye from those ! yet who be lieves That ye can shut out heaven ? Your souls partake its influence, not in vain Nor all unconscious, as that silent lane Its drift of noiseless apple-blooms receives. Looking within myself, I note how thin A plank of station, chance, or prosperous fate, Doth fence me from the clutching waves of sin; In my own heart I find the worst man s mate, And see not dimly the smooth-hinged gate That opes to those abysses Where ye grope darkly, ye who never knew On your young hearts love s consecrating dew, Or felt a mother s kisses, Or home s restraining tendrils round you curled ; Ah, side by side with heart s-ease in this world The fatal nightshade grows and bitter rue ! One band ye cannot break, the force that clips And grasps your circles to the central light; Yours is the prodigal comet s long ellipse, Self - exiled to the farthest verge of night; Yet strives with you no less that inward might No sin hath e er imbruted; The god in you the creed-dimmed eye eludes; The Law brooks not to have its solitudes By bigot feet polluted; Yet they who watch your God-compelled return May see your happy perihelion burn Where the calm sun his unfledged planets broods. TO THE PAST WONDROUS and awful are thy silent halls, O kingdom of the past ! There lie the bygone ages in their palls, Guarded by shadows vast; There all is hushed and breathless, Save when some image of old error falls Earth worshipped once as deathless. There sits drear Egypt, mid beleaguering sands, Half woman and half beast. 6 4 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS The burnt-out torch within her mouldering hands That once lit all the East; A dotard bleared and hoary, There Asser crouches o er the blackened brands Of Asia s long-quenched glory. Still as a city buried neath the sea Thy courts and temples stand; Idle as forms on wind-waved tapestry Of saints and heroes grand, Thy phantasms grope and shiver, Or watch the loose shores crumbling si lently Into Time s gnawing river. Titanic shapes with faces blank and dun, Of their old godhead lorn, Gaze on the embers of the sunken sun, Which they misdeem for morn; And yet the eternal sorrow In their unmonarched eyes says day is done Without the hope of morrow. O realm of silence and of swart eclipse, The shapes that haunt thy gloom Make signs to us and move their withered lips Across the gulf of doom; Yet all their sound and motion Bring no more freight to us than wraiths of ships On the mirage s ocean. And if sometimes a moaning wandereth From out thy desolate halls, If some grim shadow of thy living death Across our sunshine falls And scares the world to error, The eternal life sends forth melodious breath To chase the misty terror. Thy mighty clamors, wars, and world- noised deeds Are silent now in dust, Gone like a tremble of the huddling reeds Beneath some sudden gust; Thy forms and creeds have vanished, Tossed out to wither like unsightly weeds From the world s garden banished. Whatever of true life there was in thee Leaps in our age s veins; Wield still thy bent and wrinkled em- And shake thine idle chains; To thee thy dross is clinging, For us thy martyrs die, thy prophets see, Thy poets still are singing. Here, mid the bleak waves of our strife and care, Float the green Fortunate Isles Where all thy hero-spirits dwell, and share Our martyrdoms and toils; The present moves attended With all of brave and excellent and fair That made the old time splendid. TO THE FUTURE O LAND of Promise ! from what Pisgah s height Can I behold thy stretch of peaceful bowers, Thy golden harvests flowing out of sight, Thy nestled homes and sun-illumined towers ? Gazing upon the sunset s high-heaped gold, Its crags of opal and of chrysolite, Its deeps on deeps of glory, that un fold Still brightening abysses, And blazing precipices, Whence but a scanty leap it seems to heaven, Sometimes a glimpse is given Of thy more gorgeous realm, thy more un stinted blisses. O Land of Quiet ! to thy shore the surf Of the perturbed Present rolls and sleeps ; Our storms breathe soft as June upon thy turf And lure out blossoms; to thy bosom leaps, As to a mother s, the o erwearied heart, Hearing far off and dim the toiling mart, The hurrying feet, the curses without number, And, circled with the glow Elysian Of thine exulting vision, Out of its very cares wooes charms for peace and slumber. HEBE To thee the earth lifts up her fettered hands And cries for vengeance ; with a pitying smile Thou blessest her, and she forgets her bands, And her old woe- worn face a little while Grows young and noble; unto thee the Oppressor Looks, and is dumb with awe; The eternal law, Which makes the crime its own blindfold redresser, Shadows his heart with perilous foreboding, And he can see the grim-eyed Doom From out the trembling gloom Its silent-footed steeds towards his palace goading. What promises hast thou for Poets eyes, A-weary of the turmoil and the wrong ! To all their hopes what overjoyed replies ! What undreamed ecstasies for blissful song ! Thy happy plains no war-trump s brawling clangor Disturbs, and fools the poor to hate the poor; The humble glares not on the high with anger; Love leaves no grudge at less, no greed for more; In vain strives Self the godlike sense to smother; From the soul s deeps It throbs and leaps; The noble neath foul rags beholds his long- lost brother. To thee the Martyr looketh, and his fires Unlock their fangs and leave his spirit free; To thee the Poet mid his toil aspires, And grief and hunger climb about his knee, Welcome as children; thou upholdest The lone Inventor by his demon haunted ; The Prophet cries to thee when hearts are coldest, And gazing o er the midnight s bleak abyss, Sees the drowsed soul awaken at thv i . J kiss, And stretch its happy arms and leap up disenchanted. Thou bringest vengeance, but so loving- kindly The guilty thinks it pity; taught by thee, Fierce tyrants drop the scourges where with blindly Their own souls they were scarring; con querors see With horror in their hands the accursed spear That tore the meek One s side on Cal vary, And from their trophies shrink with ghastly fear; Thou, too, art the Forgiver, The beauty of man s soul to man reveal ing; The arrows from thy quiver Pierce Error s guilty heart, but only pierce for healing. Oh, whither, whither, glory-winged dreams, From out Life s sweat and turmoil would ye bear me ? Shut, gates of Fancy, on your golden gleams, This agony of hopeless contrast spare me! Fade, cheating glow, and leave me to my night ! He is a coward, who would borrow A charm against the present sorrow From the vague Future s promise of de light: As life s alarums nearer roll, The ancestral buckler calls, Self-clanging from the walls In the high temple of the soul; Where are most sorrows, there the poet s sphere is, To feed the soul with patience, To heal its desolations With words of unshorn truth, with love that never wearies. HEBE I SAW the twinkle of white feet, I saw the flash of robes descending; Before her ran an influence fleet, That bowed my heart like barley bending As, in bare fields, the searching bees Pilot to blooms beyond our finding, It led me on, by sweet degrees Joy s simple honey-cells unbinding. 66 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates; With nearer love the sky leaned o er me; The long-sought Secret s golden gates On musical hinges swung before me. I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp Thrilling with godhood; like a lover I sprang the proffered life to clasp ; The beaker fell; the luck was over. The Earth has drunk the vintage up; What boots it patch the goblet s splin ters ? Can Summer fill the icy cup, Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter s ? O spendthrift haste ! await the Gods; The nectar crowns tlie lips of Patience; Haste scatters on unthankful sods The immortal gift in vain libations. Coy Hebe flies from those that woo, And shuns the hands would seize upon her; Follow thy life, and she will sue To pour for thee the cup of honor. THE SEARCH I WENT to seek for Christ, And Nature seemed so fair That first the woods and fields my youth enticed, And I was sure to find him there: The temple I forsook, And to the solitude Allegiance paid; but winter came and shook The crown and purple from my wood; His snows, like desert sands, with scornful drift, Besieged the columned aisle and palace- gate; My Thebes, cut deep with many a solemn rift, But epitaphed her own sepulchred state: Then I remembered whom I went to seek, And blessed blunt Winter for his counsel bleak. Back to the world I turned, For Christ, I said, is King; So the cramped alley and the hut I spurned, As far beneath his sojourning: Mid power and wealth I sought, But found no trace of him, And all the costly offerings I had brought With sudden rust and mould grew dim: I found his tomb, indeed, where, by their laws, All must on stated days themselves im prison, Mocking with bread $ a dead creed s grin ning jaws, Witless how long the life had thence arisen; Due sacrifice to this they set apart, Prizing it more than Christ s own living heart. So from my feet the dust Of the proud World I shook; Then came dear Love and shared with me his crust, And half my sorrow s burden took. After the World s soft bed, Its rich and dainty fare, Like down seemed Love s coarse pillow to my head, His cheap food seemed as manna rare ; Fresh-trodden prints of bare and bleeding feet, Turned to the heedless city whence I came, Hard by I saw, and springs of worship sweet Gushed from my cleft heart smitten by the same; Love looked me in the face and spake no words, But straight I knew those footprints were the Lord s. I followed where they led, And in a hovel rude, With naught to fence the weather from his head, The King I sought for meekly stood; A naked, hungry child Clung round his gracious knee, And a poor hunted slave looked up and smiled To bless the smile that set him free; New miracles I saw his presence do, No more I knew the hovel bare and poor, The gathered chips into a wood-pile grew The broken morsel swelled to goodly store; THE PRESENT CRISIS 67 I knelt and wept : my Christ no more I seek, His throne is with the outcast and the weak. THE PRESENT CRISIS Dated December, 1844. WHEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth s aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, And the slave, where er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the [ thorny stem of Time. Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe, When the travail of the Ages wrings earth s systems to and fro; At the birth of each new Era, with a recog nizing start, Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart, And glad Truth s yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future s heart. So the Evil s triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill, Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill, And the slave, where er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod, Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delv ing in the nobler clod. / For mankind are one in spirit, and an in stinct bears along, Round the earth s electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity s vast frame Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame; In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, n the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God s new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, arts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever twixt that darkness and that light. last thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, Sre the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land ? though the cause of Evil prosper, yet t is Truth alone is strong, And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng droops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see, ?hat, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion s sea; an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry Of those Crises, God s stern winnowers, from whose feet earth s chaff must fly ; tfever shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by. Careless seems the great Avenger; history s pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness twixt old systems and the Word ; ruth forever on the scaffold, Wrong for ever on the throne, r et that scaffold sways the future, and, be hind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great, Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate, 5ut the soul is still oracular; amid the market s din, jist the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within, They enslave their children s children who make compromise with sin." Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood, 68 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Sous of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earth with blood, Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day, Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey; Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play ? Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and t is prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. Count me o er earth s chosen heroes, they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man s plain truth to manhood and to God s supreme design. By the light of burning heretics Christ s bleeding feet I track, Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back, And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned. For Humanity sweeps onward: where to day the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into His tory s golden urn. T is as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves Of a legendary virtue carved upon our father s graves, Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime; Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time ? Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth Rock sublime ? They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all vir tue was the Past s; But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath in all e us free, Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea. They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires, Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom s new-lit altar-fires; Shall we make .their creed our jailer ? Shall we, in our haste to slay, From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day ? New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future s portal with the Past s blood-rusted key. AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE The reader familiar with Lowell s life "will readily recognize the local references which occur in this poem. To others it may be worth while to point out that the village smithy is the same as that commemorated by Long fellow, that Allston lived in the section of Cambridge known as Cambridgeport, that some of the old willows at the causey s end still stand, and that the group is the one which gave the name to Under the Willows. AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 69 WHAT visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through mo tionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone ! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair ! No more the landscape holds its wealth apart, Making me poorer in my poverty, But mingles with my senses and my heart; My own projected spirit seems to me In her own reverie the world to steep; T is she that waves to sympathetic Moving, as she is moved, each field and hill and tree. How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees, Clasped by the faint horizon s languid arms, Each into each, the hazy distances ! The softened season all the landscape charms ; Those hills, my native village that embay, In waves of dreamier purple roll away, And floating in mirage seem all the glim mering farms. Ear distant sounds the hidden chicka dee Close at my side ; far distant sound the leaves ; The fields seem fields of dream, where Memory Wanders like gleaning Ruth; and as the sheaves Of wheat and barley wavered in the eye Of Boaz as the maiden s glow went by, So tremble and seem remote all things the sense receives. The cock s shrill trump that tells of scattered corn, Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates, Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne, Southward, perhaps to far Magellan s Straits; Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails; Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails, With watchful, measuring eye, and for his quarry waits. The sobered robin, hunger-silent now, Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer; The chipmunk, on the shingly shag- bark s bough, Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear, Then drops his nut, and, cheeping, with a bound Whisks to his winding fastness under ground ; The clouds like swans drift down the streaming atmosphere. O er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar shadows Drowse on the crisp, gray moss; the ploughman s call Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh-furrowed meadows; The single crow a single caw lets fall; And all around me every bush and tree Says Autumn s here, and Winter soon will be, Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all. The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees, Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, And hints at her foregone gentilities With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves ; The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, Glares red as blood across the sinking sun, As one who proudlier to a falling fortune cleaves. He looks a sachem, in red blanket wrapt, Who, mid some council of the sad-garbed whites, 7 o MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Erect and stern, in his own memories lapt, With distant eye broods over other sights, Sees the hushed wood the city s flare replace, The wounded turf heal o er the rail way s trace, And roams the savage Past of his uu- dwiudled rights. The red-oak, softer-grained, yields all for lost, And, with his crumpled foliage stiff and dry, After the first betrayal of the frost, Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky; The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid gold, To the faint Summer, beggared now and old, Pour back the sunshine hoarded neath her favoring eye. The ash her purple drops forgivingly And sadly, breaking not the general hush; The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea, Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush; All round the wood s edge creeps the skirting blaze Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy days, Ere the rain fall, the cautious farmer burns his brush. O er yon low wall, which guards one unkempt zone, Where vines and weeds and scrub-oaks intertwine Safe from the plough, whose rough, discordant stone Is massed to one soft gray by lichens fine, The tangled blackberry, crossed and recrossed, weaves A prickly network of ensanguined leaves; Hard by, with coral beads, the prim black- alders shine. Pillaring with flame this crumbling boundary, ploughboy ho, with each sense shut fast except Whose loose blocks topple iieath the s foot, W the eye, Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot, The woodbine up the elm s straight stem aspires, Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires ; In the ivy s paler blaze the martyr oak stands mute. Below, the Charles, a stripe of nether sky, Now hid by rounded apple-trees between, Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying by, Now flickering golden through a wood land screen, Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond, A silver circle like an inland pond Slips seaward silently through marshes purple and green. Dear marshes ! vain to him the gift of sight Who cannot in their various incomes share, From every season drawn, of shade and light, Who sees in them but levels brown and bare; Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free On them its largess of variety, For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders rare. In Spring they lie one broad expanse of green, O er which the light winds run with glimmering feet: Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen, There, darker growths o er hidden ditches meet; And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd, As if the silent shadow of a cloud Hung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet. All round, upon the river s slippery edge, , AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide, Whispers and leans the breeze-entan gling sedge; Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide, Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the sun, And the stiff banks in eddies melt and run Of dimpling light, and with the current seem to glide. In Summer t is a blithesome sight to see, As, step by step, with measured swing, they pass, The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee, Their sharp scythes panting through the wiry grass; Then, stretched beneath a rick s shade in a ring, Their nooning take, while one begins to sing A stave that droops and dies neath the close sky of brass. Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink, Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops Just ere he sweeps o er rapture s tremulous brink, And twixt the winrows most demurely A decorous bird of business, who pro vides For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, And looks from right to left, a farmer mid his crops. Another change subdues them in the Fall, But saddens not; they still show merrier tints, Though sober russet seems to cover all; When the first sunshine through their dew-drops glints, Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across, Redeems with rarer hues the season s loss, As Dawn s feet there had touched and left their rosy prints. Or come when sunset gives its fresh ened zest, Lean o er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill, While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west, Glow opposite ; the marshes drink their fill And swoon with purple veins, then slowly fade Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade, Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Si- inond s darkening hill. Later, and yet ere Winter wholly shuts, Ere through the first dry snow the run ner grates, And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, Trving each buckle and strap beside the fire, And until bedtime plays with his de sire, Twenty times putting on and off his new- bought skates; Then, every morn, the river s banks shine bright With smooth plate - armor, treacherous and frail, By the frost s clinking hammers forged at night, Gainst which the lances of the sun pre vail, Giving a pretty emblem of the day When guiltier arms in light shall melt away, And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war s cramping mail. And now those waterfalls the ebbing river Twice every day creates on either side Tinkle, as through their fresh- sparred grots they shiver In grass-arched channels to the sun de nied; High flaps in sparkling blue the far- heard crow, The silvered flats gleam frostily below, Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS But crowned in turn by vying seasons three, Their winter halo hath a fuller ring; This glory seems to rest immovably, The others were too fleet and vanish ing; When the hid tide is at its highest flow, O er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything. The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind, As pale as formal candles lit by day; Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind; The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play, Show pearly breakers combing o er their lee, White crests as of some just enchanted sea, Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised midway. But when the eastern blow, with rain aslant, From mid-sea s prairies green and rolling 1 plains Drives in his wallowing herds of bil lows gaunt, And the roused Charles remembers in his veins Old Ocean s blood and snaps his gyves of frost, That tyrannous silence on the shores is tost In dreary wreck, and crumbling desolation reigns. Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like device, With leaden pools between or gullies bare, The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stone- henge of ice; No life, no sound, to break the grim despair, Save sullen plunge, as through the sedges stiff Down crackles riverward some thaw- sapped cliff, Or when the close-wedged fields of ice crunch here and there. But let me turn from fancy-pictured scenes To that whose pastoral calm before me lies: Here nothing harsh or rugged inter venes; The early evening with her misty dyes Smooths off the ravelled edges of the nigh, Relieves the distant with her cooler sky, And tones the landscape down, and soothes the wearied eyes. There gleams my native village, dear to me, Though higher change s waves each day are seen, Whelming fields famed in boyhood s history, Sanding with houses the diminished green; There, in red brick, which softening time defies, Stand square and stiff the Muses factories; How with my life knit up is every well- known scene ! Flow on, dear river ! not alone you flow To outward sight, and through your marshes wind; Fed from the mystic springs of long- ago, Your twin flows silent through my world of mind: Grow dim, dear marshes, in the even ing s gray ! Before my inner sight ye stretch away, And will forever, though these fleshly eyes grow blind. Beyond the hillock s house-bespotted swell, Where Gothic chapels house the horse and chaise, Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell, Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer and praise, Where dust and mud the equal year divide, There gentle Allston lived, and wrought, and died, Transfiguring street and shop with his illumined gaze. AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE 73 Virgilium vidi tantum, I have seen But as a boy, who looks alike on all, That misty hair, that fine Undine-like mien, Tremulous as down to feeling s faintest call; Ah, dear old homestead ! count it to thy fame That thither many times the Painter came; One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree and tall. Swiftly the present fades in memory s glow, Onr only sure possession is the past; The village blacksmith died a month ago, And dim to me the forge s roaring blast; Soon fire -new mediae vals we shall see Oust the black smithy from its chest nut-tree, And that hewn down, perhaps, the beehive green and vast. How many times, prouder than king on throne, Loosed from the village school-dame s A s and B s, Panting have I the creaky bellows blown, And watched the pent volcano s red in crease, Then paused to see the ponderous sledge, brought down By that hard arm voluminous and brown, From the white iron swarm its golden van ishing bees. Dear native town ! whose choking elms each year With eddying dust before their time turn Pining for rain, to me thy dust is dear; It glorifies the eve of summer day, And when the westering sun half sunken burns, The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns, The westward horseman rides through clouds of gold away, So palpable, I ve seen those unshorn few, The six old willows at the causey s end (Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew), Through this dry mist their checkering shadows send, Striped, here and there, with many a long-drawn thread, Where streamed through leafy chinks the trembling red, Past which, in one bright trail, the hang- bird s flashes blend. Yes, dearer far thy dust than all that e er, Beneath the awarded crown of victory, Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer; Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments three, Yet collegisse juvat, I am glad That here what colleging was mine I had, It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee ! Nearer art thou than simply native earth, My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie; A closer claim thy soil may well put forth, Something of kindred more than sympa thy; For in thy bounds I reverently laid away That blinding anguish of forsaken clay, That title I seemed to have in earth and sea and sky, That portion of my life more choice to me (Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole) Than all the imperfect residue can be; The Artist saw his statue of the soul Was perfect; so, with one regretful stroke, The earthen model into fragments broke, And without her the impoverished seasons roll 74 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS THE GROWTH OF THE LEGEND A FRAGMENT A LEGEND that grew in the forest s hush Slowly as tear-drops gather and gush, When a word some poet chanced to say Ages ago, in his careless way, Brings our youth back to us out of its shroud Clearly as under yon thunder-cloud I see that white sea-gull. It grew and grew, From the pine-trees gathering a sombre hue, Till it seems a mere murmur out of the vast Norwegian forests of the past; And it grew itself like a true Northern pine, First a little slender line, Like a mermaid s green eyelash, and then anon A stem that a tower might rest upon, Standing spear-straight in the waist-deep moss, Its bony roots clutching around and across, As if they would tear up earth s heart in their grasp Ere the storm should uproot them or make them unclasp; Its cloudy boughs singing, as suiteth the pine, To snow-bearded sea-kings old songs of the brine, Till they straightened and let their staves fall to the floor, Hearing waves moan again on the perilous shore Of Vinland, perhaps, while their prow groped its way Twixt the frothed gnashing tusks of some ship-crunching bay. So, pine-like, the legend grew, strong- limbed and tall, As the Gypsy child grows that eats crusts in the hall; It sucked the whole strength of the earth and the sky, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, all brought it supply; T was a natural growth, and stood fear lessly there, True part of the landscape as sea, land, and air; For it grew in good times, ere the fashion it was To force these wild births of the woods under glass, And so, if t is told as it should be told, Though t were sung under Venice s moon light of gold, You would hear the old voice of its mother, the pine, Murmur sealike and northern through every line, And the verses should grow, self-sustained and free, Round the vibrating stem of the melody, Like the lithe moonlit limbs of the parent tree. Yes, the pine is the mother of legends; what food For their grim roots is left when the thou- sand-yeared wood, The dim-aisled cathedral, whose tall arches spring Light, sinewy, graceful, firm-set as the wing From Michael s white shoulder, is hewn and defaced By iconoclast axes in desperate waste, And its wrecks seek the ocean it prophesied long, Cassandra-like, crooning its mystical song ? Then the legends go with them, even yet on the sea A wild virtue is left in the touch of the tree, And the sailor s night-watches are thrilled to the core With the lineal offspring of Odin and Thor. Yes, wherever the pine-wood has never let in, Since the day of creation, the light and the din Of manifold life, but has safely conveyed From the midnight primeval its armful of shade, And has kept the weird Past with its child- faith alive Mid the hum and the stir of To-day s busy hive, There the legend takes root in the age- gathered gloom, And its murmurous boughs for their sagas find room. EXTREME UNCTION 75 Where Aroostook, far-heard, seems to sob as he goes Groping down to the sea neath his moun tainous snows; Where the lake s frore Sahara of never- tracked white, When the crack shoots across it, complains to the night With a long, lonely moan, that leagues northward is lost, As the ice shrinks away from the tread of the frost; Where the lumberers sit by the log-fires that throw Their own threatening shadows far round o er the snow, When the wolf howls aloof, and the waver ing glare Flashes out from the blackness the eyes of the bear, When the wood s huge recesses, half- lighted, supply A canvas where Fancy her mad brush may . trv Blotting in giant Horrors that venture not down Through the right-angled streets of the brisk, whitewashed town, But skulk in the depths of the measureless wood Mid the Dark s creeping whispers that curdle the blood, When the eye, glanced in dread o er the shoulder, may dream, Ere it shrinks to the camp-fire s companion ing gleam, That it saw the fierce ghost of the Red Man crouch back To the shroud of the tree-trunk s invincible black; There the old shapes crowd thick round the pine-shadowed camp, Which shun the keen gleam of the scholarly lamp, And the seed of the legend finds true Nor land ground, While the border-tale s told and the can teen flits round. A CONTRAST THY love thou sentest oft to me, And still as oft I thrust it back; Thy messengers I could not see In those who everything did lack, The poor, the outcast and the black. Pride held his hand before mine eyes, The world with flattery stuffed mine ears ; I looked to see a monarch s guise, Nor dreamed thy love would knock for years, Poor, naked, fettered, full of tears. Yet, when I sent my love to thee, Thou with a smile didst take it in, And entertain dst it royally, Though grimed with earth, with hunger thin, And leprous with the taint of sin. Now every day thy love I meet, As o er the earth it wanders wide, With weary step and bleeding feet, Still knocking at the heart of pride And offering grace, though still denied. EXTREME UNCTION Go ! leave me, Priest; my soul would be Alone with the consoler, Death; Far sadder eyes than thine will see This crumbling clay yield up its breath; These shrivelled hands have deeper stains Than holy oil can cleanse away, Hands that have plucked the world s coarse gains As erst they plucked the flowers of May. Call, if thou canst, to these gray eyes Some faith from youth s traditions wrung; This fruitless husk which dust ward dries Hath been a heart once, hath been young; On this bowed head the awful Past Once laid its consecrating hands; The Future in its purpose vast Paused, waiting my supreme commands. But look ! whose shadows block the door ? Who are those two that stand aloof ? See ! on my hands this freshening gore Writes o er again its crimson proof ! My looked-for death-bed guests are met; There my dead Youth doth wring its hands, And there, with eyes that goad me yet, The ghost of my Ideal stands ! 7 6 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS God bends from out the deep and says, " I gave thee the great gift of life ; Wast thou not called in many ways ? Are not my earth and heaven at strife ? I gave thee of my seed to sow, Bringest thou me my hundred-fold ? " Can I look up with face aglow, And answer, " Father, here is gold " ? I have been innocent; God knows When first this wasted life began, Not grape with grape more kindly grows, Than I with every brother-man : Now here I gasp ; what lose my kind, When this fast ebbing breath shall part? What bands of love and service bind This being to a brother heart ? Christ still was wandering o er the earth Without a place to lay his head; He found free welcome at my hearth, He shared my cup and broke my bread: Now, when I hear those steps sublime, That bring the other world to this, My snake-turned nature, sunk in slime, Starts sideway with defiant hiss. Upon the hour when I was born, God said, "Another man shall be," And the great Maker did not scorn Out of himself to fashion me; He sunned me with his ripening looks, And Heaven s rich instincts in me grew, As effortless as woodland nooks Send violets up and paint them blue. Yes, I who now, with angry tears, Am exiled back to brutish clod, Have borne unquenched for fourscore years A spark of the eternal God; And to what end ? How yield I back The trust for such high uses given ? Heaven s light hath but revealed a track Whereby to crawl away from heaven. Men think it is an awful sight To see a soul just set adrift On that drear voyage from whose night The ominous shadows never lift; But t is more awful to behold A helpless infant newly born, Whose little hands unconscious hold The keys of darkness and of morn. Mine held them once ; I flung away Those keys that might have open set The golden sluices of the day, But clutch the keys of darkness yet; I hear the reapers singing go Into God s harvest; I, that might With them have chosen, here below Grope shuddering at the gates of night. O glorious Youth, that once wast mine ! O high Ideal ! all in vain Ye enter at this ruined shrine Whence worship ne er shall rise again;, The bat and owl inhabit here, The snake nests in the altar-stone, The sacred vessels moulder near, The image of the God is gone. THE OAK WHAT gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is his ! There needs no crown to mark the for est s king; How in his leaves outshines full summer s. bliss ! Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their trib ute bring, Which he with such benignant royalty Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent; All nature seems his vassal proud to be, And cunning only for his ornament. How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows, An unquelled exile from the summer s throne, Whose plain, uncinctured front more kingly shows, Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are flown. His boughs make music of the winter air, Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art repair The dints and furrows of time s envious brunt. How doth his patient strength the rude March wind Persuade to seem glad breaths of sum mer breeze, And win the soil that fain would be unkind, AMBROSE 77 To swell his revenues with proud in crease ! He is the gem ; and all the landscape wide (So doth his grandeur isolate the sense) Seems but the setting, worthless all beside, An empty socket, were he fallen thence. So, from oft converse with life s wintry gales, Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots The inspiring earth; how otherwise avails The leaf - creating sap that sunward shoots ? So every year that falls with noiseless flake Should fill old scars up on the storm- ward side, And make hoar age revered for age s sake, Not for traditions of youth s leafy pride. So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate, True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth, So between earth and heaven stand simply great, That these shall seem but their attend ants both; For nature s forces with obedient zeal Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will; As quickly the pretender s cheat they feel, And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still. Lord ! all thy works are lessons; each con tains Some emblem of man s all-containing soul; Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious pains, Delving within thy grace an eyeless mole? Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove, Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, Speak but a word through me, nor let thy love Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing. AMBROSE NEVER, surely, was holier man Than Ambrose, since the world began; With diet spare and raiment thin He shielded himself from the father of sin; With bed of iron and scourgiugs oft, His heart to God s hand as wax made soft. Through earnest prayer and watchings long He sought to know tween right and wrong, Much wrestling with the blessed Word To make it yield the sense of the Lord, That he might build a storm-proof creed To fold the flock in at their need. At last he builded a perfect faith, Fenced round about with The Lord thus saith; To himself he fitted the doorway s size, Meted the light to the need of his eyes, And knew, by a sure and inward sign, That the work of his fingers was divine. Then Ambrose said, " All those shall die The eternal death who believe not as I; " And some were boiled, some burned in fire, Some sawn in twain, that his heart s desire, For the good of men s souls might be satis fied By the drawing of all to the righteous side. One day, as Ambrose was seeking the truth In his lonely walk, he saw a youth Resting himself in the shade of a tree; It had never been granted him to see So shining a face, and the good man thought T were pity he should not believe as he ought. So he set himself by the young man s side, And the state of his soul with questions tried; But the heart of the stranger was hardened indeed, Nor received the stamp of the one true creed; And the spirit of Ambrose waxed sore to find Such features the porch of so narrow a mind. " As each beholds in cloud and fire The shape that answers his own desire, So each," said the youth, "in the Law shall find The figure and fashion of his mind; 7 8 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS And to each in his mercy hath God allowed His several pillar of fire and cloud." The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal And holy wrath for the young man s weal: "Believest thou then, most wretched youth," Cried he, " a dividual essence in Truth ? I fear me thy heart is too cramped with sin To take the Lord in his glory in." Now there bubbled beside them where they stood A fountain of waters sweet and good; The youth to the streamlet s brink drew near Saying, "Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here ! " Six vases of crystal then he took, And set them along the edge of the brook. " As into these vessels the water I pour, There shall one hold less, another more, And the water unchanged, in every case, Shall put on the figure of the vase ; O thou, who wouldst unity make through strife, Canst thou fit this sign to the Water of Life ? " When Ambrose looked up, he stood alone, The youth and the stream and the vases were gone; But he knew, by a sense of humbled grace, He had talked with an angel face to face, And felt his heart change inwardly, As he fell on his knees beneath the tree. ABOVE AND BELOW O DWELLERS in the valley-land, Who in deep twilight grope and cower, Till the slow mountain s dial-hand Shorten to noon s triumphal hour, While ye sit idle, do ye think The Lord s great work sits idle too ? That light dare not o erleap the brink Of morn, because t is dark with you ? Though yet your valleys skulk in night, In God s ripe fields the day is cried, And reapers, with their sickles bright, Troop, singing, down the mountain-side Come up, and feel what health there is In the frank Dawn s delighted eyes, As, bending with a pitying kiss, The night-shed tears of Earth she dries ! The Lord wants reapers: oh, mount up, Before night comes, and says, "Too late ! " Stay not for taking scrip or cup, The Master hungers while ye wait; T is from these heights alone your eyes The advancing spears of day can see, That o er the eastern hill-tops rise, To break your long captivity. Lone watcher on the mountain-height, It is right precious to behold The first long surf of climbing light Flood all the thirsty east with gold; But we, who in the shadow sit, Know also when the day is nigh, Seeing thy shining forehead lit With his inspiring prophecy. Thou hast thine office; we have ours; God lacks not early service here, But what are thine eleventh hours He counts with us for morning cheer; Our day, for Him, is long enough, And when He giveth work to do, The bruised reed is amply tough To pierce the shield of error through. But not the less do thou aspire Light s earlier messages to preach; Keep back no syllable of fire, Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech. Yet God deems not thine aeried sight More worthy than our twilight dim ; For meek Obedience, too, is Light, And following that is finding Him. THE CAPTIVE IT was past the hour of trysting, But she lingered for him still ; Like a child, the eager streamlet Leaped and laughed adown the hill, Happy to be free at twilight From its toiling at the mill. Then the great moon on a sudden Ominous, and red as blood, THE BIRCH-TREE 79 Startling as a new creation, O er the eastern hilltop stood, Casting deep and deeper shadows Through the mystery of the wood. Dread closed vast and vague about her, And her thoughts turned fearfully To her heart, if there some shelter From the silence there might be, Like bare cedars leaning inland From the blighting of the sea. Yet he came not, and the stillness Dampened round her like a tomb; She could feel cold eyes of spirits Looking on her through the gloom, She could hear the groping footsteps Of some blind, gigantic doom. Suddenly the silence wavered Like a light mist in the wind, For a voice broke gently through it, Felt like sunshine by the blind, And the dread, like mist in sunshine, Furled serenely from her mind. u Once my love, my love forever, Flesh or spirit, still the same, If I failed at time of trysting, Deem thou not my faith to blame; I, alas, was made a captive, As from Holy Land I came. u On a green spot in the desert, Gleaming like an emerald star, Where a palm-tree, in lone silence, Yearning for its mate afar, Droops above a silver runnel, Slender as a scimitar, " There thou It find the humble postern To the castle of my foe; If thy love burn clear and faithful, Strike the gateway, green and low, Ask to enter, and the warder Surely will not say thee no." Slept again the aspen silence, But her loneliness was o er; Round her soul a motherly patience Clasped its arms forevermore; From her heart ebbed back the sorrow, Leaving smooth the golden shore. Donned she now the pilgrim scallop, Took the Pilgrim staff in hand; Like a cloud-shade flitting eastward, Wandered she o er sea and laud; And her footsteps in the desert Fell like cool rain 011 the sand. Soon, beneath the palm-tree s shadow, Knelt she at the postern low; And thereat she knocked full gently, Fearing much the warder s no; All her heart stood still and listened, As the door swung backward slow. There she saw no surly warder With an eye like bolt and bar; Through her soul a sense of music Throbbed, and, like a guardian Lar, On the threshold stood an angel, Bright and silent as a star. Fairest seemed he of God s seraphs, And her spirit, lily-wise, Opened when he turned upon her The deep welcome of his eyes, Sending upward to that sunlight All its dew for sacrifice. Then she heard a voice come onward Singing with a rapture new, As Eve heard the songs in Eden, Dropping earthward with the dew; Well she knew the happy singer, Well the happy song she knew. Forward leaped she o er the threshold,, Eager as a glancing surf; Fell from her the spirit s languor, Fell from her the body s scurf; Neath the palm next day some Arabs Found a corpse upon the turf. THE BIRCH-TREE RIPPLING through thy branches goes the sunshine, Among thy leaves that palpitate forever; Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had pris oned, The soul once of some tremulous inland river, Quivering to tell her woe, but, ah ! dumb, dumb forever ! While all the forest, witched with slum berous moonshine. 8o MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Holds up its leaves in happy, happy still ness, Waiting the dew, with breath and pulse suspended, I hear afar thy whispering, gleamy islands, And track thee wakeful sti] still amid the wide-hung silence. On the brink of some wood-nestled lakelet, Thy foliage, like the tresses of a Dryad, Dripping round thy slim white stem, whose shadow Slopes quivering down the water s dusky quiet, Thou shrink st as on her bath s edge would some startled Naiad. Thou art the go-between of rustic lovers; Thy white bark has their secrets in its keeping; Reuben writes here the happy name of Pa tience, And thy lithe boughs hang murmuring and weeping Above her, as she steals the mystery from thy keeping. Thou art to me like my beloved maiden, So frankly coy, so full of trembly confi dences; Thy shadow scarce seems shade, thy pat tering leaflets Sprinkle their gathered sunshine o er my senses, And Nature gives me all her summer con fidences. Whether my heart with hope or sorrow tremble, Thou sympathizest still ; wild and unquiet, I fling me down; thy ripple, like a river, Flows valleyward, where calmness is, and by it My heart is floated down into the land of quiet. AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH I SAT one evening in my room, In that sweet hour of twilight When blended thoughts, half light, half gloom, Throng through the spirit s skylight; The flames by fits curled round the bars, Or up the chimney crinkled, While embers dropped like falling stars, And in the ashes tinkled. I sat and mused; the fire burned low, And, o er my senses stealing, Crept something of the ruddy glow That bloomed on wall and ceiling; My pictures (they are very few, The heads of ancient wise men) Smoothed down their knotted fronts, and grew As rosy as excisemen. My antique high-backed Spanish chair Felt thrills through wood and leather, That had been strangers since whilere, Mid Andalusian heather, The oak that built its sturdy frame His happy arms stretched over The ox whose fortunate hide became The bottom s polished cover. It came out in that famous bark, That brought our sires intrepid, Capacious as another ark For furniture decrepit; For, as that saved of bird and beast A pair for propagation, So has the seed of these increased And furnished half the nation. Kings sit, they say, in slippery seats; But those slant precipices Of ice the northern voyager meets Less slippery are than this is; To cling therein would pass the wit Of royal man or woman, And whatsoe er can stay in it Is more or less than human. I offer to all bores this perch, Dear well-intentioned people With heads as void as week-day church, Tongues longer than the steeple; To folks with missions, whose gaunt eyes See golden ages rising, Salt of the earth ! in what queer Guys Thou rt fond of crystallizing ! My wonder, then, was not unmixed With merciful suggestion, When, as my roving eyes grew fixed Upon the chair in question, I saw its trembling arms enclose AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH 81 A figure grim and rusty, Whose doublet plain and plainer hose Were something worn and dusty. Now even such men as Nature forms Merely to fill the street with, Once turned to ghosts by hungry worms, Are serious things to meet with; Your penitent spirits are no jokes, And, though I m not averse to A quiet shade, even they are folks One cares not to speak first to. Who knows, thought I, but he has come, . By Charon kindly ferried, To tell me of a mighty sum Behind my wainscot buried ? There is a buccaneerish air About that garb outlandish Just then the ghost drew up his chair And said, " My name is Standish. " I come from Plymouth, deadly bored With toasts, and songs, and speeches, As long and flat as my old sword, As threadbare as my breeches: They understand us Pilgrims ! they, Smooth men with rosy faces, Strength s knots and gnarls all pared away, And varnish in their places ! 4 * We had some toughness in our grain, The eye to rightly see us is Not just the one that lights the brain Of drawing-room Tyrtseuses: They talk about their Pilgrim blood, Their birthright high and holy ! A mountain-stream that ends in mud Methinks is melancholy. " He had stiff knees, the Puritan, That were not good at bending; The homespun dignity of man He thought was worth defending; He did not, with his pinchbeck ore, His country s shame forgotten, Gild Freedom s coffin o er and o er, When all within was rotten. " These loud ancestral boasts of yours, How can they else than vex us ? Where were your dinner orators When slavery grasped at Texas ? Dumb on his knees was every one That now is bold as Caesar; Mere pegs to hang an office on Such stalwart men as these are." " Good sir," I said, " you seem much stirred; The sacred compromises " " Now God confound the dastard word ! My gall thereat arises: Northward it hath this sense alone, That you, your conscience blinding, Shall bow your fool s nose to the stone, When slavery feels like grinding. " T is shame to see such painted sticks In Vane s and Winthrop s places, To see your spirit of Seventy-six Drag humbly in the traces, With slavery s lash upon her back, And herds of office-holders To shout applause, as, with a crack, It peels her patient shoulders. " We forefathers to such a rout ! No, by my faith in God s word ! " Half rose the ghost, and half drew out The ghost of his old broadsword, Then thrust it slowly back again, And said, with reverent gesture, " No, Freedom, no! blood should not stain The hem of thy white vesture. " I feel the soul in me draw near The mount of prophesying; In this bleak wilderness I hear A John the Baptist crying; Far in the east I see upleap The streaks of first forewarning, And they who sowed the light shall reap The golden sheaves of morning. " Child of our travail and our woe, Light in our day of sorrow, Through my rapt spirit I foreknow The glory of thy morrow; I hear great steps, that through the shade Draw nigher still and nigher, And voices call like that which bade The prophet come up higher." I looked, no form mine eyes could find, I heard the red cock crowing, And through my window-chinks the wind A dismal tune was blowing; Thought I, My neighbor Buckingham Hath somewhat in him gritty, 82 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Some Pilgrim-stuff that hates all sham, And he will print my ditty. ON THE CAPTURE OF FUGITIVE SLAVES NEAR WASHINGTON In a letter to Edward M. Davis written from Elm wood July 24, 1845, Lowell says : " I blew another dolorous and jarring blast in the Courier the other day, which you will proba bly see in the Liberator of this week or next. I was impelled to write by the account of the poor fugitives who were taken near Washing ton. I think it has done some good. At any rate, it has set two gentlemen together by the ears about Dissolution, and they are hammer ing away at each other in the Courier." The blast was the following stanzas. LOOK on who will in apathy, and stifle they who can, The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man truly man; Let those whose hearts are dungeoned up with interest or with ease Consent to hear with quiet pulse of loath some deeds like these ! I first drew in New England s air, and from her hardy breast Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk that will not let me rest; And if my words seem treason to the dul lard and the tame, T is but my Bay-State dialect, our fathers spake the same ! Shame on the costly mockery of piling stone on stone To those who won our liberty, the heroes dead and gone, While we look coldly on and see law- shielded ruffians slay The men who fain would win their own, the heroes of to-day ! Are we pledged to craven silence ? Oh, fling it to the wind, The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind, That makes us cringe and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest, While Pity s burning flood of words is red- hot in the breast ! Though we break our fathers promise, we have nobler duties first; The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed ; Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod, Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God ! We owe allegiance to the State ; but deeper, truer, more, To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit s core; Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so, but then Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men. He s true to God who s true to man ; wherever wrong is done, To the humblest and the weakest, neath the all-beholding sun, That wrong is also done to us; and they are slaves most base, Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race. God works for all. Ye cannot hem the hope of being free With parallels of latitude, with mountain- range or sea. Put golden padlocks on Truth s lips, be callous as ye will, From soul to soul, o er all the world, leaps one electric thrill. Chain down your slaves with ignorance, ye cannot keep apart, With all your craft of tyranny, the human heart from heart: When first the Pilgrims landed on the Bay State s iron shore, The word went forth that slavery should one day be no more. Out from the land of bondage t is decreed our slaves shall go, And signs to us are offered, as erst to Pha raoh ; If we are blind, their exodus, like Israel s of yore, Through a Red Sea is doomed to be, whose surges are of gore. THE GHOST-SEER T is ours to save our brethren, with peace and love to win Their darkened hearts from error, ere they harden it to sin; But if before his duty man with listless spirit stands, Erelong the Great Avenger takes the work from out his hands. TO THE DANDELION DEAR common flower, that grow st be side the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold, High-hearted buccaneers, o er joyed that they An Eldorado in the grass have found, Which not the rich earth s ample round May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. Gold such as thine ne er drew the Span ish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age, to rob the lover s heart of ease; T is the Spring s largess, which she scat ters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, Though most hearts never understand To take it at God s value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; The eyes thou givest me Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee Feels a more summer-like warm ravish ment In the white lily s breezy tent, His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, Where, as the breezes pass, The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue That from the distance sparkle through Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. My childhood s earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin s song, Who, from the dark old tree Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, And I, secure in childish piety, Listened as if I heard an angel sing With news from heaven, which he could bring Fresh every day to my untainted ears When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, Did we but pay the love we owe, And with a child s undoubting wisdom look On all these living pages of God s book. THE GHOST-SEER This poem was printed March 8, 1845, in the Broadway Journal, edited by C. F. Briggs. In a letter accompanying 1 the poem Lowell confesses his dissatisfaction with the execution as compared with the conception, and adds : " Written in the metre which I have chosen it is perhaps too long 1 , but the plot would have sufficed for quite a long 1 and elaborate poem, into which a good deal of reflection and ex perience might have been compressed." YE who, passing graves by night, Glance not to the left or right, Lest a spirit should arise, Cold and white, to freeze your eyes, MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Some weak phautorn, which your doubt Shapes upon the dark without From the dark within, a guess At the spirit s deathlessuess, Which ye entertain with fear In you/ self-built dungeon here, Where ye sell your God-given lives Just for gold to buy you gyves, Ye without a shudder meet In the city s noonday street, Spirits sadder and more dread Than from out the clay have fled, Buried, beyond hope of light, In the body s haunted night ! See ye not that woman pale ? There are bloodhounds on her trail ! Bloodhounds two, all gaunt and lean, (For the soul their scent is keen,) Want and Sin, and Sin is last, They have followed far and fast; Want gave tongue, and, at her howl, Sin awakened with a growl. Ah, poor girl ! she had a right To a blessing from the light; Title-deeds to sky and earth God gave to her at her birth; But, before they were enjoyed, Poverty had made them void, And had drunk the sunshine up From all nature s ample cup, Leaving her a first-born s share In the dregs of darkness there. Often, on the sidewalk bleak, Hungry, all alone, and weak, She has seen, in night and storm, Rooms o erflow with firelight warm, Which, outside the window-glass, Doubled all the cold, alas ! Till each ray that on her fell Stabbed her like an icicle, And she almost loved the wail Of the bloodhounds on her trail. Till the floor becomes her bier, She shall feel their pantings near, Close upon her very heels, Spite of all the din of wheels; Shivering on her pallet poor, She shall hear them at the door Whine and scratch to be let in, Sister bloodhounds, Want and Sin ! Hark ! that rustle of a dress, Stiff with lavish costliness ! Here comes one whose cheek would flush But to have her garment brush Gainst the girl whose fingers thin Wove the weary broidery in, Bending backward from her toil, Lest her tears the silk might soil, And, in midnights chill and murk, Stitched her life into the work, Shaping from her bitter thought Heart s-ease and forget-me-not, Satirizing her despair With the emblems woven there. Little doth the wearer heed Of the heart-break in the brede; A hyena by her side Skulks, down-looking, it is Pride. He digs for her in the earth, Where lie all her claims of birth, With his foul paws rooting o er Some long-buried ancestor, Who perhaps a statue won By the ill deeds he had done, By the innocent blood he shed, By the desolation spread Over happy villages, Blotting out the smile of peace. There walks Judas, he who sold Yesterday his Lord for gold, Sold God s presence in his heart For a proud step in the mart; He hath dealt in flesh and blood; At the bank his name is good; At the bank, and only there, T is a marketable ware. In his eyes that stealthy gleam Was not learned of sky or stream, But it has the cold, hard glint Of new dollars from the mint. Open now your spirit s eyes, Look through that poor clay disguise Which has thickened, day by day, Till it keeps all light at bay, And his soul in pitchy gloom Gropes about its narrow tomb, From whose dank and slimy walls Drop by drop the horror falls. Look ! a serpent lank and cold Hugs his spirit fold on fold; From his heart, all day and night, It doth suck God s blessed light. Drink it will, and drink it must, Till the cup holds naught but dust; All day long he hears it hiss, Writhing in its fiendish bliss; All night long he sees its eyes Flicker with foul ecstasies, As the spirit ebbs away STUDIES FOR TWO HEADS Into the absorbing clay. Who is he that skulks, afraid Of the trust he has betrayed, Shuddering if perchance a gleam Of old nobleness should stream Through the pent, unwholesome room, Where his shrunk soul cowers in gloom, Spirit sad beyond the rest By more instinct for the best ? T is a poet who was sent For a bad world s punishment, By compelling it to see Golden glimpses of To Be, By compelling it to hear Songs that prove the angels near; Who was sent to be the tongue Of the weak and spirit-wrung, Whence the fiery-winged Despair In men s shrinking eyes might flare. T is our hope doth fashion us To base use or glorious: He who might have been a lark Of Truth s morning, from the dark Raining down melodious hope Of a freer, broader scope, Aspirations, prophecies, Of the spirit s full sunrise, Chose to be a bird of night, That, with eyes refusing light, Hooted from some hollow tree Of the world s idolatry. T is his punishment to hear Sweep of eager pinions near, And his own vain wings to feel Drooping downward to his heel, All their grace and import lost, Burdening his weary ghost: Ever walking by his side He must see his angel guide, Who at intervals doth turn Looks on him so sadly stern, With such ever-new surprise Of hushed anguish in her eyes, That it seems the light of day From around him shrinks away, Or drops blunted from the wall Built around him by his fall. Then the mountains, whose white peaks Catch the morning s earliest streaks, He must see, where prophets sit, Turning east their faces lit, Whence, with footsteps beautiful, To the earth, yet dim and dull, They the gladsome tidings bring Of the sunlight s hastening: Never can these hills of bliss Be o erclimbed by feet like his ! But enough ! Oh, do not dare From the next the veil to tear, Woven of station, trade, or dress, More obscene than nakedness, Wherewith plausible culture drapes Fallen Nature s myriad shapes ! Let us rather love to mark How the unextinguished spark Still gleams through the thin disguise Of our customs, pomps, and lies, And, not seldom blown to flame, Vindicates its ancient claim. STUDIES FOR TWO HEADS The second of these studies was from A. Bronson Alcott. See Letters II. 349, where Lowell has something to say of the ease with which he wrote at the time of this poem, i. e. before 1850. He was under an engagement at this time to write constantly for the Anti- Slavery Standard, and he threw off many poems as part of the fulfilment of his engage ment. The spur to activity came when his own mind was fertile, and some of his best known and most spontaneous work appeared at this time. SOME sort of heart I know is hers, I chanced to feel her pulse one night; A brain she has that never errs, And yet is never nobly right; It does not leap to great results, But, in some corner out of sight, Suspects a spot of latent blight, And, o er the impatient infinite, She bargains, haggles, and consults. Her eye, it seems a chemic test And drops upon you like an acid; It bites you with unconscious zest, So clear and bright, so coldly placid; It holds you quietly aloof, It holds, and yet it does not win you j It merely puts you to the proof And sorts what qualities are in you; It smiles, but never brings you nearer, It lights, her nature draws not nigh; T is but that yours is growing clearer To her assays; yes, try and try, You 11 get no deeper than her eye. 86 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS There, you are classified: she s gone Far, far away into herself; Each with its Latin label on, Your poor components, one by one, Are laid upon their proper shelf In her compact and ordered mind, And what of you is left behind Is no more to her than the wind; In that clear brain, which, day and night, No movement of the heart e er jostles, Her friends are ranged on left and right, Here, silex, hornblende, sienite; There, animal remains and fossils. And yet, O subtile analyst, That canst each property detect Of mood or grain, that canst untwist Each tangled skein of intellect, And with thy scalpel eyes lay bare Each mental nerve more fine than air, O brain exact, that in thy scales Canst weigh the sun and never err, For once thy patient science fails, One problem still defies thy art; Thou never canst compute for her The distance and diameter Of any simple human heart. Hear him but speak, and you will feel The shadows of the Portico Over your tranquil spirit steal, To modulate all joy and woe To one subdued, subduing glow; Above our squabbling business-hours, Like Phidian Jove s, his beauty lowers, His nature satirizes ours; A form and front of Attic grace, He shames the higgling market-place, And dwarfs our more mechanic powers. What throbbing verse can fitly render That face so pure, so trembling-tender ? Sensation glimmers through its rest, It speaks unmanacled by words, As full of motion as a nest That palpitates with unfledged birds; T is likest to Bethesda s stream, Forewarned through all its thrilling springs, White with the angel s coming gleam, And rippled with his fanning wings. Hear him unfold his plots and plans, And larger destinies seem man s ; You conjure from his glowing face The omen of a fairer race ; With one grand trope he boldly spans The gulf wherein so many fall, Twixt possible and actual; His first swift word, talaria-shod, Exuberant with conscious God, Out of the choir of planets blots The present earth with all its spots. Himself unshaken as the sky, His words, like whirlwinds, spin on high Systems and creeds pellmell together; T is strange as to a deaf man s eye, While trees uprooted splinter by, The dumb turmoil of stormy weather; Less of iconoclast than shaper, His spirit, safe behind the reach Of the tornado of his speech, Burns calmly as a glowworm s taper. So great in speech, but, ah ! in act So overrun with vermin troubles, The coarse, sharp-cornered, ugly fact Of life collapses all his bubbles: Had he but lived in Plato s day, He might, unless my fancy errs, Have shared that golden voice s sway O er barefooted philosophers. Our nipping climate hardly suits The ripening of ideal fruits: His theories vanquish us all summer, But winter makes him dumb and dumber:, To see him mid life s needful things Is something painfully bewildering; He seems an angel with dipt wings Tied to a mortal wife and children, And by a brother seraph taken In the act of eating eggs and bacon. Like a clear fountain, his desire Exults and leaps toward the light, In every drop it says " Aspire ! " Striving for more ideal height; And as the fountain, falling thence, Crawls baffled through the common gut ter, So, from his speech s eminence, He shrinks into the present tense, Unkinged by foolish bread and butter. Yet smile not, worldling, for in deeds Not all of life that s brave and wise is; He strews an ampler future s seeds, T is your fault if no harvest rises; Smooth back the sneer; for is it naught That all he is and has is Beauty s ? ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND S CHILD By soul the soul s gains must be wrought, The Actual claims our coarser thought, The Ideal hath its higher duties. ON A PORTRAIT OF DANTE BY GIOTTO CAN this be thou who, lean and pale, With such immitigable eye Didst look upon those writhing souls in bale, And note each vengeance, and pass by Unmoved, save when thy heart by chance Cast backward one forbidden glance, And saw Francesca, with child s glee, Subdue and mount thy wild-horse knee And with proud hands control its fiery prance ? With half-drooped lids, and smooth, round brow, And eye remote, that inly sees Fair Beatrice s spirit wandering now In some sea-lulled Hesperides, Thou movest through the jarring street, Secluded from the noise of feet By her gift-blossom in thy hand, Thy branch of palm from Holy Land; No trace is here of ruin s fiery sleet. Yet there is something round thy lips That prophesies the coming doom, The soft, gray herald-shadow ere the eclipse Notches the perfect disk with gloom; A something that would banish thee, And thine untamed pursuer be, From men and their unworthy fates, Though Florence had not shut her gates, And Grief had loosed her clutch and let thee free. Ah ! he who follows fearlessly The beckonings of a poet-heart Shall wander, and without the world s de cree, A banished man in field and mart; Harder than Florence walls the bar Which with deaf sternness holds him far From home and friends, till death s re lease, And makes his only prayer for peace, Like thine, scarred veteran of a lifelong war -! ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND S CHILD This poem was printed in the Democratic Review, October, 1844, and the friend was doubtless C. F. Briggs. See the letter of con solation addressed to him in August, Letters I. 78-81. DEATH never came so nigh to me before, Nor showed me his mild face : oft had I mused Of calm and peace and safe forgetfulness, Of folded hands, closed eyes, and heart at rest, And slumber sound beneath a flowery turf, Of faults forgotten, and an inner place Kept sacred for us in the heart of friends ; But these were idle fancies, satisfied With the mere husk of this great mystery, And dwelling in the outward shows of things. Heaven is not mounted to on wings of dreams, Nor doth the unthankful happiness of youth Aim thitherward, but floats from bloom to bloom, With earth s warm patch of sunshine well content: T is sorrow builds the shining ladder up, Whose golden rounds are our calamities, Whereon our firm feet planting, nearer God The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes un sealed. True is it that Death s face seems stern and cold, When he is sent to summon those we love, But all God s angels come to us disguised; Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death, One after other lift their frowning masks, And we behold the seraph s face beneath, All radiant with the glory and the calm Of having looked upon the front of God. With every anguish of our earthly part The spirit s sight grows clearer; this was meant When Jesus touched the blind man s lids with clay. Life is the jailer, Death the angel sent To draw the unwilling bolts and set us free. He flings not ope the ivory gate of Rest, Only the fallen spirit knocks at that, 88 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS But to benigner regions beckons us, To destinies of more rewarded toil. In the hushed chamber, sitting by the dead, It grates on us to hear the flood of life Whirl rustling onward, senseless of our loss. The bee hums on; around the blossomed vine Whirs the light humming-bird; the cricket chirps; The locust s shrill alarum stings the ear; Hard by, the cock shouts lustily; from farm to farm, His cheery brothers, telling of the sun, Answer, till far away the joyauce dies: We never knew before how God had filled The summer air with happy living sounds; All round us seems an overplus of life, And yet the one dear heart lies cold and still. It is most strange, when the great miracle Hath for our sakes been done, when we have had Our inwardest experience of God, When with his presence still the room ex pands, And is awed after him, that naught is changed, That Nature s face looks unacknowledging, And the mad world still dances heedless on After its butterflies, and gives no sign. T is hard at first to see it all aright: In vain Faith blows her trump to summon back Her scattered troop: yet, through the clouded glass Of our own bitter tears, we learn to look Undazzled on the kindness of God s face; Earth is too dark, and Heaven alone shines through. It is no little thing, when a fresh soul And a fresh heart, with their unmeasured scope For good, not gravitating earthward yet, But circling in diviner periods, Are sent into the world, no little thing, When this unbounded possibility Into the outer silence is withdrawn. Ah, in this world, where every guiding thread Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, The visionary hand of Might-have-been Alone can fill Desire s cup to the brim ! How changed, dear friend, are thy part and thy child s ! He bends above thy cradle now, or holds His warning finger out to be thy guide ; Thou art the nursling now; he watches thee Slow learning, one by one, the secret things Which are to him used sights of everyday; He smiles to see thy wondering glances con The grass and pebbles of the spirit-world, To thee miraculous; and he will teach Thy knees their due observances of prayer. Children are God s apostles, day by day Sent forth to preach of love, and hope, and peace ; Nor hath thy babe his mission left undone. To me, at least, his going hence hath given Serener thoughts and nearer to the skies, And opened a new fountain in my heart For thee, my friend, and all: and oh, if Death More near approaches meditates, and clasps Even now some dearer, more reluctant hand, God, strengthen thou my faith, that I may see That t is thine angel, who, with loving haste, Unto the service of the inner shrine, Doth waken thy beloved with a kiss. EURYDICE HEAVEN S cup held down to me I drain, The sunshine mounts and spurs my brain; Bathing in grass, with thirsty eye I suck the last drop of the sky; With each hot sense I draw to the lees The quickening out-door influences, And empty to each radiant comer A supernaculum of summer: Not, Bacchus, all thy grosser juice Could bring enchantment so profuse, Though for its press each grape-bunch had The white feet of an Oread. Through our coarse art gleam, now and then, The features of angelic men: Neath the lewd Satyr s veiling paint Glows forth the Sibyl, Muse, or Saint; The dauber s botch no more obscures The mighty master s portraitures. THE CHANGELING 89 And who can say what luckier beam The hidden glory shall redeem, For what chance clod the soul may wait To stumble on its nobler fate, Or why, to his unwarned abode, Still by surprises comes the God ? Some moment, nailed on sorrow s cross, May mediate a whole youth s loss, Some windfall joy, we know not whence, Kedeem a lifetime s rash expense, And, suddenly wise, the soul may mark, Stripped of their simulated dark, Mountains of gold that pierce the sky, Girdling its valley ed poverty. I feel ye, childhood s hopes, return, With olden heats my pulses burn, Mine be the self-forgetting sweep, The torrent impulse swift and wild, Wherewith Taghkanic s rockborn child Dares gloriously the dangerous leap, And, in his sky-descended mood, Transmutes each drop of sluggish blood, By touch of bravery s simple wand, To amethyst and diamond, Proving himself no bastard slip, But the true granite-cradled one, Nursed with the rock s primeval drip, The cloud-embracing mountain s son ! Prayer breathed in vain ! no wish s sway Rebuilds the vanished yesterday; For plated wares of Sheffield stamp We gave the old Aladdin s lamp; T is we are changed; ah, whither went That undesigned abandonment, That wise, unquestioning content, Which could erect its microcosm Out of a weed s neglected blossom, Could call up Arthur and his peers By a low moss s clump of spears, Or, in its shingle trireme launched, Where Charles in some green inlet branched, Could venture for the golden fleece And dragon-watched Hesperides, Or, from its ripple-shattered fate, Ulysses chances re-create ? When, heralding life s every phase, There glowed a goddess-veiling haze, A plenteous, forewarning grace, Like that more tender dawn that flies Before the full moon s ample rise ? Methinks thy parting glory shines Through yonder grove of singing pines; At that elm-vista s end I trace Dimly thy sad leave-taking face, Eurydice ! Eurydice ! The tremulous leaves repeat to me Eurydice ! Eurydice ! No gloomier Orcus swallows thee Than the unclouded sunset s glow; Thine is at least Elysian woe ; Thou hast Good s natural decay, And fadest like a star away Into an atmosphere whose shine With fuller day o ermasters thine, Entering defeat as t were a shrine; For us, we turn life s diary o er To find but one word, Nevermore. SHE CAME AND WENT As a twig trembles, which a bird Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent, So is my memory thrilled and stirred; I only know she came and went. As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven, The blue dome s measureless content, So my soul held that moment s heaven; I only know she came and went. As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps The orchards full of bloom and scent, So clove her May my wintry sleeps ; I only know she came and went. An angel stood and met my gaze, Through the low doorway of my tent; The tent is struck, the vision stays; I only know she came and went. Oh, when the room grows slowly dim, And life s last oil is nearly spent, One gush of light these eyes will brim, Only to think she came and went. THE CHANGELING I HAD a little daughter, And she was given to me To lead me gently backward To the Heavenly Father s knee, That I, by the force of nature, Might in some dim wise divine The depth of his infinite patience To this wayward soul of mine. 9 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS I know not how others saw her, But to me she was wholly fair, And the light of the heaven she came from Still lingered and gleamed in her hair; For it was as wavy and golden, And as many changes took, As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples On the yellow bed of a brook. To what can I liken her smiling Upon me, her kneeling lover, How it leaped from her lips to her eye lids, And dimpled her wholly over, Till her outstretched hands smiled also, And I almost seemed to see The very heart of her mother Sending sun through her veins to me ! She had been with us scarce a twelve month, And it hardly seemed a day, When a troop of wandering angels Stole my little daughter away; Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari But loosed the hampering strings, And when they had opened her cage-door, My little bird used her wings. But they left in her stead a changeling, A little angel child, That seems like her bud in full blossom, And smiles as she never smiled: When I wake in the morning, I see it Where she always used to lie, And I feel as weak as a violet Alone neath the awful sky. As weak, yet as trustful also; For the whole year long I see All the wonders of faithful Nature Still worked for the love of me; Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, Rain falls, suns rise and set, Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet. This child is not mine as the first was, I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast: Yet it lies in my little one s cradle And sits in my little one s chair, the light of the heaven she s gone to Transfigures its golden hair. THE PIONEER WHAT man would live coffined with brick and stone, Imprisoned from the healing touch of air, And cramped with selfish landmarks everywhere, When all before him stretches, furrowless and lone, The unmapped prairie none can fence or own ? What man would read and read the self same faces, And, like the marbles which the wind mill grinds, Rub smooth forever with the same smooth minds, This year retracing last year s, every year s, dull traces, When there are woods and un-penfolded spaces ? What man o er one old thought would pore and pore, Shut like a book between its covers thin For every fool to leave his dog s-ears in, When solitude is his, and God forevermore, Just for the opening of a paltry door ? What man would watch life s oozy element Creep Letheward forever, when he might Down some great river drift beyond men s sight, To where the undethroned forest s royal tent Broods with its hush o er half a conti nent ? What man with men would push and al tercate, Piecing out crooked means to crooked ends, When he can have the skies and woods for friends, Snatch back the rudder of his undismantled fate, And in himself be ruler, church, and state ? ODE TO FRANCE Cast leaves and feathers rot in last year s nest, The winged brood, flown thence, new dwellings plan; The serf of his own Past is not a man; To change and change is life, to move and never rest; Not what we are, but what we hope, is best. The wild, free woods make no man halt or blind; Cities rob men of eyes and hands and feet, Patching one whole of many incom plete ; The general preys upon the individual mind, And each alone is helpless as the wind. Each man is some man s servant; every soul Is by some other s presence quite dis crowned; Each owes the next through all the imperfect round, Yet not with mutual help; each man is his own goal, And the whole earth must stop to pay him toll. Here, life the undiminished man de mands ; New faculties stretch out to meet new wants ; What Nature asks, that Nature also grants; Here man is lord, not drudge, of eyes and feet and hands, And to his life is knit with hourly bands. Come out, then, from the old thoughts and old ways, Before you harden to a crystal cold Which the new life can shatter, but not mould; Freedom for you still waits, still, looking backward, stays, But widens still the irretrievable space. LONGING OF all the myriad moods of mind That through the soul come thronging, Which one was e er so dear, so kind, So beautiful as Longing ? The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment, Before the Present poor and bare Can make its sneering comment. Still, through our paltry stir and strife, Glows down the wished Ideal, And Longing moulds in clay what Life Carves in the marble Real; To let the new life in, we know, Desire must ope the portal; Perhaps the longing to be so Helps make the soul immortal. Longing is God s fresh heavenward will With our poor earthward striving; We quench it that we may be still Content with merely living; But, would we learn that heart s full scope Which we are hourly wronging, Our lives must climb from hope to hope And realize our longing. Ah ! let us hope that to our praise Good God not only reckons The moments when we tread his ways, But when the spirit beckons, That some slight good is also wrought Beyond self-satisfaction, When we are simply good in thought, Howe er we fail in action. ODE TO FRANCE FEBRUARY, 1848 I As, flake by flake, the beetling avalanches Build up their imminent crags of noise less snow, Till some chance thrill the loosened ruin launches In unwarned havoc on the roofs below, So grew and gathered through the silent years The madness of a People, wrong by wrong. There seemed no strength in the dumb toiler s tears, No strength in suffering; but the Past was strong: The brute despair of trampled centuries MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Leaped up with one hoarse yell and snapped its bands, Groped for its right with horny, callous hands, And stared around for God with bloodshot eyes. What wonder if those palms were all too hard For nice distinctions, if that maenad throng They whose thick atmosphere no bard Had shivered with the lightning of his song, Brutes with the memories and desires of men, Whose chronicles were writ with iron pen, In the crooked shoulder and the fore head low, Set wrong to balance wrong, And physicked woe with woe ? They did as they were taught; not theirs the blame, If men who scattered firebrands reaped the flame: They trampled Peace beneath their sav age feet, And by her golden tresses drew Mercy along the pavement of the street. O Freedom ! Freedom ! is thy morning- dew So gory red ? Alas, thy light had ne er Shone in upon the chaos of their lair ! They reared to thee such symbol as they knew, And worshipped it with flame and blood, A Vengeance, axe in hand, that stood Holding a tyrant s head up by the clotted hair. in What wrongs the Oppressor suffered, these we know; These have found piteous voice in song and prose; But for the Oppressed, their darkness and their woe, Their grinding centuries, what Muse had those ? Though hall and palace had nor eyes nor ears, Hardening a people s heart to senseless stone, Thou knewest them, O Earth, that drank their tears, O Heaven, that heard their inarticulate moan ! They noted down their fetters, link by link; Coarse was the hand that scrawled, and red the ink; Rude was their score, as suits unlettered men, Notched with a headsman s axe upon a block: What marvel if, when came the avenging shock, T was Ate, not Urania, held the pen ? IV With eye averted, and an anguished frown, Loathingly glides the Muse through scenes of strife, Where, like the heart of Vengeance up and down, Throbs in its framework the blood- muffled knife; Slow are the steps of Freedom, but her feet Turn never backward: hers no bloody glare ; Her light is calm, and innocent, and sweet, And where it enters there is no despair : Not first on palace and cathedral spire Quivers and gleams that unconsuming fire ; While these stand black against her morning skies, The peasant sees it leap from peak to peak Along his hills; the craftsman s burning eyes Own with cool tears its influence mother- meek; It lights the poet s heart up like a star; Ah ! while the tyrant deemed it still afar, And twined with golden threads his futile snare, That swift, convicting glow all round him ran; T was close beside him there, Sunrise whose Memnon is the soul of man. Broker-King, is this thy wisdom s fruit ? A dynasty plucked out as t were a weed Grown rankly in a night, that leaves no seed ! ODE TO FRANCE 93 Could eighteen years strike down no deeper root? But now thy vulture eye was turned on Spain; A shout from Paris, and thy crown falls off, Thy race has ceased to reign, And thou become a fugitive and scoff: Slippery the feet that mount by stairs of gold, And weakest of all fences one of steel ; Go and keep school again like him of old, The Syracusan tyrant; thou mayst feel Royal amid a birch-swayed commonweal ! VI Not long can he be ruler who allows His time to run before him; thou wast naught Soon as the strip of gold about thy brows Was no more emblem of the People s thought: Vain were thy bayonets against the foe Thou hadst to cope with; thou didst wage War not with Frenchmen merely; no, Thy strife was with the Spirit of the Age, The invisible Spirit whose first breath di vine Scattered thy frail endeavor, And, like poor last year s leaves, whirled thee and thine Into the Dark forever ! VII Is here no triumph ? Nay, what though The yellow blood of Trade meanwhile should pour Along its arteries a shrunken flow, And the idle canvas droop around the shore ? These do not make a state, Nor keep it great; I think God made The earth for man, not trade; And where each humblest human creature Can stand, no more suspicious or afraid, Erect and kingly in his right of nature, To heaven and earth knit with harmonious ties, Where I behold the exultation Of manhood glowing in those eyes That had been dark for ages, Or only lit with bestial loves and rages, There I behold a Nation: The France which lies Between the Pyrenees and Rhine Is the least part of France; I see her rather in the soul whose shine Burns through the craftsman s grimy countenance, In the new energy divine Of Toil s enfranchised glance. VIII And if it be a dream, If the great Future be the little Past Neath a new mask, which drops and shows at last The same weird, mocking face to balk and blast, Yet, Muse, a gladder measure suits the theme, And the Tyrtsean harp Loves notes more resolute and sharp, Throbbing, as throbs the bosom, hot and fast: Such visions are of morning, Theirs is no vague forewarning, The dreams which nations dream come true, And shape the world anew; If this be a sleep, Make it long, make it deep, Father, who sendest the harvests men reap! While Labor so sleepeth, His sorrow is gone, No longer he weepeth, But smileth and steepeth His thoughts in the dawn; He heareth Hope yonder Rain, lark-like, her fancies, His dreaming hands wander Mid heart s-ease and pansies; " T is a dream ! T is a vision ! " Shrieks Mammon aghast; " The day s broad derision Will chase it at last; Ye are mad, ye have taken A slumbering kraken For firm land of the Past ! " Ah ! if he awaken, God shield us all then, If this dream rudely shaken Shall cheat him again ! IX Since first I heard our North-wind blow, Since first I saw Atlantic throw On our grim rocks his thunderous snow, 94 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS I loved thee, Freedom; as a boy The rattle of thy shield at Marathon Did with a Grecian joy Through all my pulses run; But I have learned to love thee now Without the helm upon thy gleaming brow, A maiden mild and undenled Like her who bore the world s redeeming child; And surely never did thine altars glance With purer fires than now in France; While, in their clear white flashes, Wrong s shadow, backward cast, Waves cowering o er the ashes Of the dead, blaspheming Past, O er the shapes of fallen giants, His own unburied brood, Whose dead hands clench defiance At the overpowering Good: And down the happy future runs a flood Of prophesying light; It shows an Earth no longer stained with blood, Blossom and fruit where now we see the bud Of Brotherhood and Right. ANTI-APIS PRAISEST Law, friend ? We, too, love it much as they that love it best; T is the deep, august foundation, whereon Peace and Justice rest; On the rock primeval, hidden in the Past its bases be, Block by block the endeavoring Ages built it up to what we see. But dig down: the Old unbury; thou shalt find on every stone That each Age hath carved the symbol of what god to them was known, Ugly shapes and brutish sometimes, but the fairest that they knew; If their sight were dim and earthward, yet their hope and aim were true. Surely as the unconscious needle feels the far-off loadstar draw, So strives every gracious nature to at-one itself with law; And the elder Saints and Sages laid their pious framework right By a theocratic instinct covered from the people s sight. As their gods were, so their laws were; Thor the strong could reave and steal, So through many a peaceful inlet tore the Norseman s eager keel; But a new law came when Christ came, and not blameless, as before, Can we, paying him our lip-tithes, give our lives and faiths to Thor. Law is holy: ay, but what law ? Is there / nothing more divine Than the patched-up broils of Congress, venal, full of meat and wine ? Is there, say you, nothing higher ? Naught, God save us ! that transcends Laws of cotton texture, wove by vulgar men for vulgar ends ? Did Jehovah ask their counsel, or submit to them a plan, Ere he filled with loves, hopes, longings, this aspiring heart of man ? For their edict does the soul wait, ere it swing round to the pole Of the true, the free, the God-willed, all that makes it be a soul ? Law is holy; but not your law, ye who keep the tablets whole While ye dash the Law to pieces, shatter it in life and soul; Bearing up the Ark is lightsome, golden Apis hid within, While we Levites share the offerings, richer by the people s sin. Give to Caesar what is Caesar s ? yes, but tell me, if you can, Is this superscription Caesar s here upon our brother man ? Is not here some other s image, dark and sullied though it be, In this fellow-soul that worships, struggles Godward even as we ? It was not to such a future that the May flower s prow was turned, Not to such a faith the martyrs clung, ex ulting as they burned; Not by such laws are men fashioned, ear nest, simple, valiant, great In the household virtues whereon rests the unconquerable state. A PARABLE 95 Ah ! there is a higher gospel, overhead the God-roof springs, And each glad, obedient planet like a golden shuttle sings Through the web which Time is weaving in his never-resting loom, Weaving seasons many - colored, bringing prophecy to doom. Think you Truth a farthing rushlight, to be pinched out when you will With your deft official fingers, and your politicians skill ? Is your God a wooden fetish, to be hidden out of sight That his block eyes may not see you do the thing that is not right ? But the Destinies think not so; to their judgment-chamber lone Comes no noise of popular clamor, there Fame s trumpet is not blown; Your majorities they reck not; that you grant, but then you say That you differ with them somewhat, which is stronger, you or they ? Patient are they as the insects that build islands in the deep; They hurl not the bolted thunder, but their silent way they keep; Where they have been that we know; where empires towered that were not just; Lo ! the skulking wild fox scratches in a little heap of dust. A PARABLE SAID Christ our Lord, " I will go and see How the men, my brethren, believe in me." He passed not again through the gate of birth, But made himself known to the children of earth. Then said the chief priests, and rulers, and kings, "Behold, now, the Giver of all good things; Go to, let us welcome with pomp and state Him who alone is mighty and great." With carpets of gold the ground they spread Wherever the Son of Man should tread, And in palace-chambers lofty and rare They lodged him, and served him with kingly fare. Great organs surged through arches dim Their jubilant floods in praise of him; And in church, and palace, and judgment- hall, He saw his own image high over all. But still, wherever his steps they led, The Lord in sorrow bent down his head, And from under the heavy foundation stones, The son of Mary heard bitter groans. And in church, and palace, and judgment- hall, He marked great fissures that rent the wall, And opened wider and yet more wide As the living foundation heaved and sighed. " Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, On the bodies and souls of living men ? And think ye that building shall endure, Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor ? " With gates of silver and bars of gold Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father s fold; I have heard the dropping of their tears In heaven these eighteen hundred years." " O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, We build but as our fathers built; Behold thine images, how they stand, Sovereign and sole, through all our land. " Our task is hard, with sword and flame To hold thine earth forever the same, And with sharp crooks of steel to keep Still, as thou leftest them, thy sheep." Then Christ sought out an artisan, A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin Pushed from her faintly want and sin. These set he in the midst of them, And as they drew back their garment- hem, For fear of defilement, " Lo, here," said he, " The images ye have made of me ! " 9 6 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS ODE WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COCHITUATE WATER INTO THE CITY OF BOSTON The public system of water works in Boston dates from October 25, 1S48, when with much ceremony the water of Lake Cochituate, for merly called Long 1 Pond, was turned into the I reservoir which then occupied the site of the I present extension of the State House, and a I stream was conducted into the Frog Pond on | Boston Common, where the pressure gave head to a fine jet. Besides the Ode, a selection was sung from the oratorio of Elijah, and addresses were made by the mayor and the chairman of the water commissioners. MY name is Water: I have sped Through strange, dark ways, untried before, By pure desire of friendship led, Cochituate s ambassador; He sends four royal gifts by me: Long life, health, peace, and purity. I m Ceres cup-bearer; I pour, For flowers and fruits and all their kin, Her crystal vintage, from of yore Stored in old Earth s selectest bin, Flora s Falernian ripe, since God The wine-press of the deluge trod. In that far isle whence, iron-willed, The New World s sires their bark un moored, The fairies acorn-cups I filled Upon the toadstool s silver board, And, neath Herne s oak, for Shakespeare s sight, Strewed moss and grass with diamonds bright. No fairies in the Mayflower came, And, lightsome as I sparkle here, For Mother Bay State, busy dame, I ve toiled and drudged this many a year, Throbbed in her engines iron veins, Twirled myriad spindles for her gains. I, too, can weave: the warp I set Through which the sun his shuttle throws, And, bright as Noah saw it, yet For you the arching rainbow glows, A sight in Paradise denied To unfallen Adam and his bride. When Winter held me in his grip, You seized and sent me o er the wave, Ungrateful ! in a prison-ship; But I forgive, not long a slave, For, soon as summer south-winds blew 5 Homeward I fled, disguised as dew. For countless services I m fit, Of use, of pleasure, and of gain, But lightly from all bonds I flit, Nor lose my mirth, nor feel a stain; From mill and wash-tub I escape, And take in heaven my proper shape. So, free myself, to-day, elate I come from far o er hill and mead, And here, Cochituate s envoy, wait To be your blithesome Ganymede, And brim your cups with nectar true That never will make slaves of you. LINES SUGGESTED BY THE GRAVES OF TWO ENGLISH SOLDIERS ON CONCORD BAT TLE-GROUND THE same good blood that now refills The dotard Orient s shrunken veins, The same whose vigor westward thrills, Bursting Nevada s silver chains, Poured here upon the April grass, Freckled with red the herbage new; On reeled the battle s trampling mass, Back to the ash the bluebird flew. Poured here in vain ; that sturdy blood Was meant to make the earth more green, But in a higher, gentler mood Than broke this April noon serene ; Two graves are here : to mark the place f At head and foot, an unhewn stone, O er which the herald lichens trace The blazon of Oblivion. These men were brave enough, and true To the hired soldier s bull-dog creed ; What brought them here they never knew, They fought as suits the English breed: FREEDOM 97 They came three thousand miles, and died, To keep the Past upon its throne; Unheard, beyond the ocean tide, Their English mother made her moan. The turf that covers them no thrill Sends up to fire the heart and brain; No stronger purpose nerves the will, No hope renews its youth again: From farm to farm the Concord glides, And trails my fancy with its flow; O erhead the balanced hen-hawk slides, Twinned in the river s heaven below. But go, whose Bay State bosom stirs, Proud of thy birth and neighbor s right, Where sleep the heroic villagers Borne red and stiff from Concord fight; Thought Reuben, snatching down his gun, Or Seth, as ebbed the life away, What earthquake rifts would shoot and run World-wide from that short April fray ? What then? With heart and hand they wrought, According to their village light; T was for the Future that they fought, Their rustic faith in what was right. Upon earth s tragic stage they burst Unsummoned, in the humble sock; Theirs the fifth act; the curtain first Rose long ago on Charles s block. Their graves have voices; if they threw Dice charged with fates beyond their ken, Yet to their instincts they were true, And had the genius to be men. Fine privilege of Freedom s host, Of humblest soldiers for the Right ! Age after age ye hold your post, Your graves send courage forth, and might. TO WE, too, have autumns, when our leaves Drop loosely through the dampened air, When all our good seems bound in sheaves, And we stand reaped and bare. Our seasons have no fixed returns, Without our will they come and go; At noon our sudden summer burns, Ere sunset all is snow. But each day brings less summer cheer, Crimps more our ineffectual spring, And something earlier every year Our singing birds take wing. As less the olden glow abides, And less the chillier heart aspires, With drift-wood beached in past spring tides We light our sullen fires. By the pinched rushlight s starving beam We cower and strain our wasted sight, To stitch youth s shroud up, seam by seam, In the long arctic night. It was not so we once were young When Spring, to womanly Summer turn ing* Her dew-drops on each grass-blade strung, In the red sunrise burning. We trusted then, aspired, believed That earth could be remade to-morrow; Ah, why be ever undeceived ? Why give up faith for sorrow ? thou, whose days are yet all spring, Faith, blighted one, is past retrieving; Experience is a dumb, dead thing; The victory s in believing. FREEDOM In a letter to Mr. Norton, written June 29, 1859, Mr. Lowell refers to English comments on the Austro-Italian war, then in its early stages, and alludes to a quotation which Mr. Bright had made from his writings. " But," he says, " I fear he thinks me too much of a Quaker. In my Poems there are some verses on Freedom written in 48 or 49. They ended thus as originally written. I left the verses out only becaxise I did not think them good, not because I did not like the sentiment. 1 have strength of mind enough not to change a word though I see how much better I might make it." He then copies the lines which below are separated from the poem by a long dash, and adds : " I think it must have been written in 1848, for I remember that, as I first composed it, it had Fair Italy instead of Humanity. " ARE we, then, wholly fallen ? Can it be That thou, North wind, that from thy mountains bringest 9 8 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Their spirit to our plains, and thou, blue sea, Who on our rocks thy wreaths of freedom flingest, As on an altar, can it be that ye Have wasted inspiration on dead ears, Dulled with the too familiar clank of chains ? The people s heart is like a harp for years Hung where some petrifying torrent rains Its slow - incrusting spray: the stiffened chords Faint and more faint make answer to the tears That drip upon them: idle are all words: Only a golden plectrum wakes the tone Deep buried neath that ever-thickening stone. We are not free: doth Freedom, then, con sist In musing with our faces toward the Past, While petty cares and crawling interests twist Their spider-threads about us, which at last Grow strong as iron chains, to cramp and bind In formal narrowness heart, soul, and mind ? Freedom is recreated year by year, In hearts wide open on the Godward side, In souls calm-cadenced as the whirling sphere, In minds that sway the future like a tide. No broadest creeds can hold her, and no codes; She chooses men for her august abodes, Building them fair and fronting to the dawn; Yet, when we seek her, we but find a few Light footprints, leading morn - ward through the dew: Before the day had risen, she was gone. And we must follow: swiftly runs she on, And, if our steps should slacken in despair, Half turns her face, half smiles through golden hair, Forever yielding, never wholly won: That is not love which pauses in the race Two close-linked names on fleeting sand to trace; Freedom gained yesterday is no more ours ; Men gather but dry seeds of last year s flowers; Still there s a charm ungranted, still a grace, Still rosy Hope, the free, the unattained, Makes us Possession s languid hand let fall; T is but a fragment of ourselves is gained, The Future brings us more, but never all. And, as the finder of some unknown realm, Mounting a summit whence he thinks to see On either side of him the imprisoning sea, Beholds, above the clouds that overwhelm The valley-land, peak after snowy peak Stretch out of sight, each like a silver helm Beneath its plume of smoke, sublime and bleak, And what he thought an island finds to be A continent to him first oped, so we Can from our height of Freedom look along A boundless future, ours if we be strong; Or if we shrink, better remount our ships And, fleeing God s express design, trace back The hero-freighted Mayflower s prophet- track To Europe entering her blood-red eclipse. Therefore of Europe now I will not doubt, For the broad foreheads surely win the day, And brains, not crowns or soul-gelt armies, weigh In Fortune s scales: such dust she brushes out. Most gracious are the conquests of the Word, Gradual and silent as a flower s increase, And the best guide from old to new is Peace Yet, Freedom, thou canst sanctify the sword ! Bravely to do whate er the time demands, Whether with pen or sword, and not to flinch, This is the task that fits heroic hands; So are Truth s boundaries widened inch by inch. I do not love the Peace which tyrants make; The calm she breeds let the sword s light ning break ! BEAVER BROOK 99 It is the tyrants who have beaten out Ploughshares and pruuing-hooks to spears and swords, And shall I pause and moralize and doubt ? Whose veins run water let him mete his words ! Each fetter sundered is the whole world s gain ! And rather than humanity remain A pearl beneath the feet of Austrian swine, Welcome to me whatever breaks a chain. That surely is of God, and all divine ! BIBLIOLATRES BOWING thyself in dust before a Book, And thinking the great God is thine alone, O rash iconoclast, thou wilt not brook What gods the heathen carves in wood and stone, As if the Shepherd who from the outer cold Leads all his shivering lambs to one sure fold Were careful for the fashion of his crook. There is no broken reed so poor and base, No rush, the bending tilt of swamp-fly blue, But He therewith the ravening wolf can chase, And guide his flock to springs and pastures new; Through ways unlocked for, and through many lands, Far from the rich folds built with human hands, The gracious footprints of his love I trace. And what art thou, own brother of the clod, That from his hand the crook wouldst snatch away And shake instead thy dry and sapless rod, To scare the sheep out of the wholesome day? Yea, what art thou, blind, unconverted Jew, That with thy idol-volume s covers two Wouldst make a -jail to coop the living God? Thou hear st not well the mountain organ- tones By prophet ears from Hor and Sinai caught, Thinking the cisterns of those Hebrew brains Drew dry the springs of the All-knower s thought, Nor shall thy lips be touched with living fire, Who blow st old altar-coals with sole desire To weld anew the spirit s broken chains. God is not dumb, that He should speak no more; If thou hast wanderings in the wilder- And find st not Sinai, t is thy soul is poor; There towers the Mountain of the Voice no Which whoso seeks shall find, but he wha bends, Intent on manna still and mortal ends, Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore. Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, And not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone Each age, each kindred, adds a verse to it, Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan. While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud, While thunder s surges burst on cliffs of cloud, Still at the prophets feet the nations sit. BEAVER BROOK ..." Don t you like the poem [Beaver Brook ] I sent you last week ? I was inclined to think pretty well of it, but I have not seen it in print yet. The little mill stands in a val ley between one of the spurs of Wellington Hill and the main summit, just on the edge of Waltham. It is surely one of the loveliest spots in the world. It is one of my lions, and if you will make me a visit this spring I will take you up to hear it roar, and I will show you the oaks the largest, I fancy, left in the country." Letters I. 149. The poem was sent to Mr. Gay for the Standard. These oaks are now known as the Waverley Oaks, and are to be preserved. HUSHED with broad sunlight lies the hill, And, minuting the long day s loss, The cedar s shadow, slow and still, Creeps o er its dial of gray moss. 100 MEMORIAL VERSES Warm noon brims full the valley s cup, The aspen s leaves are scarce astir; Only the little mill sends up Its busy, never-ceasing burr. Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems The road along the mill-pond s brink, From neath the arching barberry-stems, My footstep scares the shy chewiuk. Beneath a bony buttonwood The mill s red door lets forth the din; The whitened miller, dust-imbued, Flits past the square of dark within. No mountain torrent s strength is here; Sweet Beaver, child of forest still, Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, And gently waits the miller s will. Swift slips Undine along the race Unheard, and then, with flashing bound, Floods the dull wheel with light and grace, And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round. The miller dreams not at what cost The quivering millstones hum and whirl, Nor how for every turn are tost Armfuls of diamond and of pearl. But Summer cleared my happier eyes With drops of some celestial juice, To see how Beauty underlies Forevermore each form of use. And more; methought I saw that flood, Which now so dull and darkling steals, Thick, here and there, with human blood, To turn the world s laborious wheels. No more than doth the miller there, Shut in our several cells, do we Know with what waste of beauty rare Moves every day s machinery. Surely the wiser time shall come When this fine overplus of might, No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, Shall leap to music and to light. In that new childhood of the Earth Life of itself shall dance and play, Fresh blood in Time s shrunk veins make mirth, And labor meet delight half-way. MEMORIAL VERSES KOSSUTH A RACE of nobles may die out, A royal line may leave no heir; Wise Nature sets no guards about Her pewter plate and wooden ware. But they fail not, the kinglier breed, Who starry diadems attain; To dungeon, axe, and stake succeed Heirs of the old heroic strain. The zeal of Nature never cools, Nor is she thwarted of her ends; When gapped and dulled her cheaper tools, Then she a saint and prophet spends. Land of the Magyars ! though it be The tyrant may relink his chain, Already thine the victory, As the just Future measures gain. Thou hast succeeded, thou hast won The deathly travail s amplest worth; A nation s duty thou hast done, Giving a hero to our earth. And he, let come what will of woe, Hath saved the land he strove to save; No Cossack hordes, no traitor s blow, Can quench the voice shall haunt his grave. " I Kossuth am: O Future, thou That clear st the just and blott st the vile, O er this small dust in reverence bow, Remembering what I was erewhile. " I was the chosen trump wherethrough Our God sent forth awakening breath; Came chains ? Came death ? The strain He blew Sounds on, outliving chains and death." TO JOHN GORHAM PALFREY 101 TO LAMARTINE 1848 I DID not praise thee when the crowd, Witched with the moment s inspira tion, Vexed thy still ether with hosannas loud, And stamped their dusty adoration; I but looked upward with the rest, And, when they shouted Greatest, whis pered Best. They raised thee not, but rose to thee, Their fickle wreaths about thee fling ing; So on some marble Phcebus the swol n sea Might leave his worthless seaweed clinging, But pious hands, with reverent care, Make the pure limbs once more sublimely bare. Now thou rt thy plain, grand self again, Thou art secure from panegyric, Thou who gav st politics an epic strain, And actedst Freedom s noblest lyric; This side the Blessed Isles, no tree Grows green enough to make a wreath for thee. Nor can blame cling to thee ; the snow From swinish footprints takes no stain- iu g But, leaving the gross soils of earth below, Its spirit mounts, the skies regaining, And unresentful falls again, To beautify the world with dews and rain. The highest duty to mere man vouchsafed Was laid on thee, out of wild chaos, When the roused popular ocean foamed and chafed And vulture War from his Imaus Snuffed blood, to summon homely Peace, And show that only order is release. To carve thy fullest thought, what though Time was not granted ? Aye in his tory, Like that Dawn s face which baffled Angelo Left shapeless, grander for its mystery, Thy great Design shall stand, and day Flood its blind front from Orients far away. Who says thy day is o er ? Control, My heart, that bitter first emotion; While men shall reverence the steadfast soul, The heart in silent self-devotion Breaking, the mild, heroic mien, Thou It need no prop of marble, Lamar- tine. If France reject thee, t is not thine, But her own, exile that she utters; Ideal France, the deathless, the divine, Will be where thy white pennon flut ters, As once the nobler Athens went With Aristides into banishment. No fitting metewand hath To-day For measuring spirits of thy stature; Only the Future can reach up to lay The laurel on that lofty nature, Bard, who with some diviner art Hast touched the bard s true lyre, a nation s heart. Swept by thy hand, the gladdened chords, Crashed now in discords fierce by others, Gave forth one note beyond all skill of words, And chimed together, We are brothers. O poem unsurpassed ! it ran All round the world, unlocking man to man. France is too poor to pay alone The service of that ample spirit; Paltry seem low dictatorship and throne, Weighed with thy self - renouncing merit; They had to thee been rust and loss ; Thy aim was higher, thou hast climbed a Cross ! TO JOHN GORHAM PALFREY Dr. Palfrey, whose name is for students as sociated mainly with his History of New Eng land, was one of the most consistent and firm anti-slavery men of his day. Chosen to Con gress as a Whig- member, he refused to support the Whig* candidate for the Speakersbip of the House, because he was assured that the candi date, Mr. Winthrop, would not use his position to obstruct the extension of the slave power. 102 MEMORIAL VERSES This incident called out the fourth of the first series of Biglow Papers. THERE are who triumph in a losing cause, Who can put on defeat, as t were a wreath Unwithering in the adverse popular breath, Safe from the blasting demagogue s ap plause; T is they who stand for Freedom and God s laws. And so stands Palfrey now, as Marvell stood, Loyal to Truth dethroned, nor could be wooed To trust the playful tiger s velvet paws: And if the second Charles brought in decay Of ancient virtue, if it well might wring Souls that had broadened neath a nobler day, To see a losel, marketable king Fearfully watering with his realm s best blood Cromwell s quenched bolts, that erst had cracked and flamed, Scaring, through all their depths of courtier mud, Europe s crowned bloodsuckers, how more ashamed Ought we to be, who see Corruption s flood Still rise o er last year s mark, to mine away Our brazen idol s feet of treacherous clay ! O utter degradation ! Freedom turned Slavery s vile bawd, to cozen and betray To the old lecher s clutch a maiden prey, If so a loathsome pander s fee be earned ! And we are silent, we who daily tread A soil sublime, at least, with heroes graves ! Beckon no more, shades of the noble dead ! Be dumb, ye heaven-touched lips of winds and waves ! Or hope to rouse some Coptic dullard, hid Ages ago, wrapt stiffly, fold on fold, With cerements close, to wither in the cold, Forever hushed, and sunless pyramid ! Beauty and Truth, and all that these contain, Drop not like ripened fruit about our feet; We climb to them through years of sweat and pain; Without long struggle, none did e er at tain The downward look from Quiet s blissful seat: Though present loss may be the hero s part, Yet none can rob him of the victor heart Whereby the broad-realmed future is sub dued, And Wrong, which now insults from tri umph s car, Sending her vulture hope to raven far, Is made unwilling tributary of Good. O Mother State, how quenched thy Sinai fires ! Is there none left of thy stanch May flower breed ? No spark among the ashes of thy sires, Of Virtue s altar-flame the kindling seed? Are these thy great men, these that cringe and creep, And writhe through slimy ways to place and power ? How long, O Lord, before thy wrath shall reap Our frail-stemmed summer prosperings in their flower ? Oh for one hour of that undaunted stock That went with Vane and Sidney to the block ! Oh for a whiff of Naseby, that would sweep, With its stern Puritan besom, all this chaff From the Lord s threshing-floor ! Yet more than half The victory is attained, when one or two, Through the fool s laughter and the traitor s scorn, Beside thy sepulchre can bide the morn, Crucified Truth, when thou shalt rise anew. TO W. L. GARRISON " Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the city officers that they had ferreted out the paper and its editor; that his office TO W. L. GARRISON 103 was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a few very in significant persons of all colors." Letter of H. G. Otis. This significant sentence printed at its head gave the key-note to the following poem, but it is interesting to read the characterization of Garrison drawn by Mr. Lowell at this same time, in a letter to C. F. Briggs dated March 26, 1848. " I do not agree with the abolitionists in their disunion and non-voting theories. They treat ideas as ignorant persons do cherries. They think them unwholesome unless they are swal lowed, stones and all. Garrison is so used to standing alone that, like Daniel Boone, he moves away as the world creeps up to him, and goes farther into the wilderness. He considers every step a step forward, though it be over the edge of a precipice. But, with all his faults (and they are the faults of his position) he is a great and extraordinary man. His work may be over, but it has been a great work. ... I respect Garrison (respect does not include love). Remember that Garrison was so long in a posi tion where he alone was right and all the world wrong, that such a position has created in him a habit of mind which may remain, though circumstances have wholly changed. Indeed a mind of that cast is essential to a Reformer. Luther was as infallible as any man that ever held St. Peter s keys." Letters I. 125, 126. IN a small chamber, friendless and un seen, Toiled o er his types one poor, unlearned young man; The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean ; Yet there the freedom of a race began. Help came but slowly ; surely no man yet Put lever to the heavy world with less: What need of help ? He knew how types were set, He had a dauntless spirit, and a press. Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, The compact nucleus, round which sys tems grow; Mass after mass becomes inspired there with, And whirls impregnate with the central glow. Truth ! O Freedom ! how are ye still born In the rude stable, in the manger nurst ! What humble hands unbar those gates of morn Through which the splendors of the New Day burst ! What ! shall one monk, scarce known be yond his cell, Front Rome s far-reaching bolts, and scorn her frown ? Brave Luther answered YES; that thun der s swell Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown. Whatever can be known of earth we know, Sneered Europe s wise men, in their snail-shells curled; No ! said one man in Genoa, and that No Out of the darkness summoned this New World. Who is it will not dare himself to trust ? Who is it hath not strength to stand alone ? Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward MUST ? He and his works, like sand, from earth are blown. Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here ! See one straightforward conscience put in pawn To win a world; see the obedient sphere By bravery s simple gravitation drawn ! Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, And by the Present s lips repeated still, In our own single manhood to be bold, Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will? We stride the river daily at its spring, Nor, in our childish thoughtlessness, foresee What myriad vassal streams shall tribute bring, How like an equal it shall greet the sea. O small beginnings, ye are great and strong, Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain ! Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong, Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in IO4 MEMORIAL VERSES ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES TURNER TORREY The Martyr Torrey was the name applied to this clergyman, who gave up his professional life in order to devote himself to the anti- slavery cause in Maryland. He was con demned to long imprisonment for aiding in the escape of slaves, but died in the penitentiary, May, 1846, of disease brought on by ill usage. His body was taken to Boston, and the funeral made a profound impression on the community. WOE worth the hour when it is crime To plead the poor dumb bondman s cause, When all that makes the heart sublime, The glorious throbs that conquer time, Are traitors to our cruel laws ! He strove among God s suffering poor One gleam of brotherhood to send; The dungeon oped its hungry door To give the truth one martyr more, Then shut, and here behold the end ! O Mother State ! when this was done, No pitying throe thy bosom gave; Silent thou saw st the death-shroud spun, And now thou givest to thy son The stranger s charity, a grave. Must it be thus forever ? No ! The hand of God sows not in vain, Long sleeps the darkling seed below, The seasons come, and change, and go, And all the fields are deep with grain. Although our brother lie asleep, Man s heart still struggles, still aspires; His grave shall quiver yet, while deep Through the brave Bay State s pulses leap Her ancient energies and fires. When hours like this the senses gush Have stilled, and left the spirit room, It hears amid the eternal hush The swooping pinions dreadful rush, That bring the vengeance and the doom ; Not man s brute vengeance, such as rends What rivets man to man apart, God doth not so bring round his ends, But waits the ripened time, and sends His mercy to the oppressor s heart. ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. CHANNING I DO not come to weep above thy pall, And mourn the dying - out of noble powers ; The poet s clearer eye should see, in all Earth s seeming woe, seed of immortal flowers. Truth needs no champions: in the infinite deep Of everlasting Soul her strength abides, From Nature s heart her mighty pulses leap, Through Nature s veins her strength, undying, tides. Peace is more strong than war, and gentle ness, Where force were vain, makes conquest o er the wave; And love lives on and hath a power to bless, When they who loved are hidden in the grave. The sculptured marble brags of death- strewn fields, And Glory s epitaph is writ in blood; But Alexander now to Plato yields, Clarkson will stand where Wellington hath stood. I watch the circle of the eternal years, And read forever in the storied page One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong. and tears, One onward step of Truth from age to The poor are crushed; the tyrants link their chain; The poet sings through narrow dun geon-grates ; Man s hope lies quenched; and, lo ! with steadfast gain Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates. Men slay the prophets; fagot, rack, and cross Make up the groaning record of the past; TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD 105 But Evil s triumphs are her endless loss, And sovereign Beauty wins the soul at last. No power can die that ever wrought for Truth; Thereby a law of Nature it became, And lives unwithered in its blithesome youth, When he who called it forth is but a name. Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone ; The better part of thee is with us still; Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown, And only freer wrestles with the 111. Thou livest in the life of all good things; What words thou spak st for Freedom shall not die; Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath wings To soar where hence thy Hope could hardly fly. And often, from that other world, on this Some gleams from great souls gone be fore may shine, To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss, And clothe the Right with lustre more divine. Thou art not idle: in thy higher sphere Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks, And strength to perfect what it dreamed of here Is all the crown and glory that it asks. For sure, in Heaven s wide chambers, there is room For love and pity, and for helpful deeds ; Else were our summons thither but a doom To life more vain than this in clayey weeds. From off the starry mountain-peak of song, Thy spirit shows me, in the coming time, An earth unwithered by the foot of wrong, A race revering its own soul sublime. What wars, what martyrdoms, what crimes, may come, Thou knowest not, nor I; but God will lead The prodigal soul from want and sorrow home, And Eden ope her gates to Adam s seed. Farewell ! good man, good angel now ! this hand Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cun ning too; Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand, Then leap to thread the free, unfathomed blue: When that day comes, oh, may this hand grow cold, Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the Right; Oh, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold To face dark Slavery s encroaching blight ! This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier; Let worthier hands than these thy wreath intwine ; Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear, For us weep rather thou in calm divine ! TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD ANOTHER star neath Time s horizon dropped, To gleam o er unknown lands and seas; Another heart that beat for freedom stopped, What mournful words are these ! O Love Divine, that claspest our tired earth, And lullest it upon thy heart, Thou knowest how much a gentle soul is worth To teach men what thou art ! His was a spirit that to all thy poor Was kind as si umber after pain: Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet s door And call him home again ? Freedom needs all her poets: it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings. io6 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou un kind, O Love Divine, for t is thy will That gracious natures leave their love be hind To work for Mercy still. Let laurelled marbles weigh on other tombs, Let anthems peal for other dead, Rustling the bannered depth of minster- glooms With their exulting spread. His epitaph shall mock the short-lived stone, No lichen shall its lines efface, He needs these few and simple lines alone To mark his resting-place : "Here lies a Poet. Stranger, if to thee His claim to memory be obscure, If thou wouldst learn how truly great was he, Go, ask it of the poor." THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL THIS poem was written apparently early in 1848, for in a letter to Mr. Briggs, dated Feb ruary 1 of that year, Lowell, referring to it, says : " The new poem I spoke of is a sort of a story, and more likely to be popular than what I write generally. Maria thinks very highly of it. I shall probably publish it by itself next summer." The poem was published in the middle of December, 1848, and in an exuberant letter to Mr. Briggs shortly after it appeared, Lowell wrote : " Last night ... I walked to Watertown over the snow with the new moon before me and a sky exactly like that in Page s evening landscape. Orion was rising behind me, and, as 1 stood on the hill just before you enter the village, the stillness of the fields around me was delicious, broken only by the tinkle of a little brook which runs too swiftly for Frost to catch it. My picture of the brook in Sir Launfal was drawn from it." The following note was prefixed to the poem by its author. According to the mythology of the Roman cers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the Last Supper ( with his disciples. It was brought into Eng land by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and deed ; but one of the keepers hav ing broken this condition, the Holy Grail dis appeared. From that time it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur s court to go in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the j subject of one of the most exquisite of his | poems. The plot (if I may give that name to any thing so slight) of the following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the mira culous cup in such a manner as to include, not only other persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the supposed date of King Arthur s reign. PRELUDE TO PART FIRST OVER his keys the musing organist, Beginning doubtfully and far away, First lets his fingers wander as they list, And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay: Then, as the touch of his loved instrument Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent Along the wavering vista of his dream. Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, inais climb and know it not. Over our manhood bend the skies; Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies; With our faint hearts the mountain strives ; Its arms outstretched, the druid wood Waits with its benedicite; THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 107 And to our age s drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea. I Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us; The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, ^^Te bargain for the graves we lie in; At the devil s booth are all things sold, Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul s task- ing: T is heaven alone that is given away, T jfj only God may be had for the ask- o price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer. And what is so rare as a day in June ? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, U .Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, And there s never a leaf nor a blade too mean To be some happy creature s palace; The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o errun With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? Now is the high-tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; Now the heart is so full that a drop over fills it, We are happy now because God wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is grow ing; The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near, That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard .by; And if the breeze kept the good news back, For other couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by you heifer s lowing, And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer, Warmed with the new wine of the year, Tells all in his lusty crowing ! Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; Everything is happy now, Everything is upward striving; T is as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, T is the natural way of living: Who knows whither the clouds have fled ? In the uflscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; The soul partakes the season s youth, And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe Lie deep neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. What wonder if Sir Launfal now Remembered the keeping of his vow ? io8 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL PART FIRST " My golden spurs now bring to me, And bring to me my richest mail, For to-morrow I go over land and sea In search of the Holy Grail; Shall never a bed for me be spread, Nor shall a pillow be under my head, Till I begin my vow to keep; Here on the rushes will I sleep, And perchance there may come a vision true Ere day create the world anew." Slowly Sir Launfal s eyes grew dim, Slumber fell like a cloud on him, And into his soul the vision flew. The crows flapped over by twos and threes, In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, The little birds sang as if it were The one day of summer in all the year, And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees: The castle alone in the landscape lay -> Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray: T was the proudest hall in the North Countree, And never its gates might opened be, /.Saye to lord or lady of high degree; TlSummer besieged it on every side, * But the churlish stone her assaults defied; She could not scale the chilly wall, Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall Stretched left and right, Over the hills and out of sight; Green and broad was every tent, And out of each a murmur went Till the breeze fell off at night. 7" HI The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, And through the dark arch a charger sprang, Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright It seemed the dark castle had gathered all Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall In his siege of three hundred summers long, And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, Had cast them forth: so, young and strong, And lightsome as a locust-leaf, Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden mail, To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. IV It was morning on hill and stream and tree, And morning in the young knight s heart; Only the castle moodily Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, And gloomed by itself apart; The season brimmed all other things up Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant s cup. As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate, He was ware of a leper, crouched by the same, Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate; And a loathing over Sir Launfal came; The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, The flesh neath his armor gan shrink and crawl, And midway its leap his heart stood still Like a frozen waterfall; For this man, so foul and bent of stature, Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. VI The leper raised not the gold from the dust: " Better to me the poor man s crust, Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives only the worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives but a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight, That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through all and doth all unite, The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 109 The heart outstretches its eager palins, For a god goes with it and makes it store To the soul that was starving in darkness before." PRELUDE TO PART SECOND Down swept the chill wind from the moun tain peak, From the snow five thousand summers old; On open wold and hilltop bleak It had gathered all the cold, A.nd whirled it like sleet on the wanderer s cheek; It carried a shiver everywhere From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; The little brook heard it and built a roof Neath which he could house him, winter- proof; All night by the white stars frosty gleams He groined his arches and matched his beams; Slender and clear were his crystal spars As the lashes of light that trim the stars : He sculptured every summer delight In his halls and chambers out of sight; Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that downward grew; Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf ; Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops And hung them thickly with diamond drops, That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, And made a star of every one : No mortal builder s most rare device Could match this Avinter-palace of ice; T was as if every image that mirrored lay In his depths serene through the summer day, Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, Lest the happy model should be lost, Had been mimicked in fairy masonry By the elfin builders of the frost. I Within the hall are song and laughter, 1 The cheeks of Christmas glow red and U. jolly, And sprouting is every corbel and rafter With lightsome green of ivy and holly; Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide Wallows the Yule-log s roaring tide ; The broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; And swift little troops of silent sparks, Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest s tangled darks Like herds of startled deer. But the wind without was eager and sharp, Of Sir LaunfaPs gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings The icy strings, Singing, in dreary monotone, A Christmas carol of its own, Whose burden still, as he might guess, Was "Shelterless, shelterless, shelter less ! " The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, And he sat in the gateway and saw all night The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, Through the window-slits of the castle old, Build out its piers of ruddy light Against the drift of the cold. PART SECOND There was never a leaf on bush or tree, The bare boughs rattled shudderingly; The river was dumb and could not speak, For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun; A single crow 011 the tree-top bleak From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, As if her veins were sapless and old, And she rose up decrepitly For a last dim look at earth and sea. no THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL I Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, For another heir in his earldom sate; An old, bent man, worn out and frail, He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; Little he recked of his earldom s loss, No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, But deep in his soul the sign he wore, The badge of the suffering and the poor. Ill Sir Launfal s raiment thin and spare Was idle mail gainst the barbed air, For it was just at the Christmas time; So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, And sought for a shelter from cold and I snow the light and warmth of long-ago; e sees the snake-like caravan crawl O er the edge of the desert, black and small, Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, He can count the camels in the sun, As over the red-hot sands they pass To where, in its slender necklace of grass, The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, And with its own self like an infant played, And waved^ itsjdgnal of palms. IV Christ s sweet sake, I beg an alms ; " The happy camels may reach the spring, But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, That cowers beside him, a thing as lone And white as the ice -isles of Northern seas In the desolate horror of his disease. And Sir Launfal said, " I behold in thee An image of Him who died on the tree; Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, Thou also hast had the world s buffets and scorns, And to thy life were not denied The wounds in the hands and feet and side: Mild Mary s Son, acknowledge me; Behold, through him, I give to thee ! " VI Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes And looked at Sir Launfal, and straight way he Remembered in what a haughtier guise He had flung an alms to leprosie, When he girt his young life up in gilded mail And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. The heart within him was ashes and dust; He parted in twain his single crust, He broke the ice on the streamlet s brink, And gave the leper to eat and drink, T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, ras water out of a wooden bowl, Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, And t was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. VII As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, A light shone round about the place; The leper no longer crouched at his side, But stood before him glorified, Shining and tall and fair and straight As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, Himself the Gate whereby men can k Enter the temple of God in Man. VIII His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, That mingle their softness and quiet in one With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; And the voice that was softer than silence said, " Lo, it is I, be not afraid ! In many climes, without avail, Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; Behold, it is here, this cup which thou Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; This crust is my body broken for thee, This water his blood that died on the tree; The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatso we share with another s need; Not what we give, but what we share, LETTER FROM BOSTON in For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." IX Sir Launfal awoke as from a s wound: " The Grail in my castle here is found 1 Hang my idle armor up on the wall, Let it be the spider s banquet-hall; He must be fenced with stronger mail Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." x The castle gate stands open now, And the wanderer is welcome to the hall As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; No longer scowl the turrets tall, The Summer s long siege at last is o er; When the first poor outcast went in at the door, She entered with him in disguise, And mastered the fortress by surprise; There is no spot she loves so well on ground, She lingers and smiles there the whole year round; The meanest serf on Sir Launfal s land Has hall and bower at his command; And there s no poor man in the North Countree But is lord of the earldom as much as he. LETTER FROM BOSTON THIS letter was written to Mr. James Miller McKim, who had succeeded Whittier as editor December, 1846. DEAR M By way of saving time, I 11 do this letter up in rhyme, Whose slim stream through four pages flows Ere one is packed with tight-screwed prose, Threading the tube of an epistle, Smooth as a child s breath through a whistle. The great attraction now of all Is the " Bazaar " at Faneuil Hall, Where swarm the anti-slavery folks As thick, dear Miller, as your jokes. There s GARRISON, his features very Benign for an incendiary, Beaming forth sunshine through his glasses On the surrounding lads and lasses, (No bee could blither be, or brisker,) A Pickwick somehow turned John Ziska, His bump of firmness swelling up Like a rye cupcake from its cup. And there, too, was his English tea-set, Which in his ear a kind of flea set His Uncle Samuel for its beauty Demanding sixty dollars duty, ( T was natural Sam should serve his trunk ill, For G., you know, has cut his uncle,) Whereas, had he but once made tea in t, His uncle s ear had had the flea in t, There being not a cent of duty On any pot that ever drew tea. There was MARIA CHAPMAN, too, of The Pennsylvania Freeman, where the verses were first published. With her swift eyes of clear steel-blue, The coiled-up mainspring of the Fair, Originating everywhere The expansive force without a sound That whirls a hundred wheels around, Herself meanwhile as calm and still As the bare crown of Prospect Hill; A noble woman, brave and apt, Cumsean sibyl not more rapt, Who might, with those fair tresses shorn, The Maid of Orleans casque have worn, Herself the Joan of our Ark, For every shaft a shining mark. And there, too, was ELIZA FOLLEN, Who scatters fruit-creating pollen Where er a blossom she can find Hardy enough for Truth s north wind, Each several point of all her face Tremblingly bright with the inward grace, As if all motion gave it light Like phosphorescent seas at night. There jokes our EDMUND, plainly son Of him who bearded Jefferson, A non-resistant by conviction, But with a bump in contradiction, So that whene er it gets a chance His pen delights to play the lance, And you may doubt it, or believe it Full at the head of Joshua Leavitt The very calumet he d launch, And scourge him with the olive branch. A master with the foils of wit, 112 LETTER FROM BOSTON T is natural he should love a hit; A gentleman, withal, and scholar, Only base things excite his choler. And then his satire s keen and thin As the lithe blade of Saladin. Good letters are a gift apart, And his are gems of Flemish art, True offspring of the fireside Muse, Not a rag-gathering of news Like a new hoph eld which is all poles, But of one blood with Horace Walpole s. There, with one hand behind his back, Stands PHILLIPS buttoned in a sack, Our Attic orator, our Chatham ; Old fogies, when he lightens at em, Shrivel like leaves; to him t is granted Always to say the word that s wanted, So that he seems but speaking clearer The tiptop thought of every hearer; Each flash his brooding heart lets fall Fires what s combustible in all, And sends the applauses bursting in Like an exploded magazine. His eloquence no frothy show, The gutter s street-polluted flow, No Mississippi s yellow flood Whose shoalness can t be seen for mud; So simply clear, serenely deep, So silent-strong its graceful sweep, None measures its unrippling force Who has not striven to stem its course; How fare their barques who think to play With smooth Niagara s inane of spray, Let Austin s total shipwreck say. He never spoke a word too much Except of Story, or some such, Whom, though condemned by ethics strict, The heart refuses to convict. Beyond, a crater in each eye, Sways brown, broad - shouldered PILLS- BURY, Who tears up words like trees by the roots, A Theseus in stout cow-hide boots, The wager of eternal war Against that loathsome Minotaur To whom we sacrifice each year The best blood of our Athens here, (Dear M., pray brush up your Lempriere.) A terrible denouncer he, Old Sinai burns unquenchably Upon his lips; he well might be a Hot-blazing soul from fierce Judea, Habakkuk, Ezra, or Hosea. His words are red hot iron searers, And nightmare-like he mounts his hearers, Spurring them like avenging Fate, or As Waterton his alligator. Hard by, as calm as summer even, Smiles the reviled and pelted STEPHEN, The unappeasable Boanerges To all the Churches and the Clergies, The grim savant who, to complete His own peculiar cabinet, Contrived to label mong his kicks One from the followers of Hicks; Who studied mineralogy Not with soft book upon the knee, But learned the properties of stones By contact sharp of flesh and bones, And made the experimentum crucis With his own body s vital juices; A man with caoutchouc endurance, A perfect gem for life insurance, A kind of maddened John the Baptist, To whom the harshest word comes aptest, Who, struck by stone or brick ill-starred, Hurls back an epithet as hard, Which, deadlier than stone or brick, Has a propensity to stick. His oratory is like the scream Of the iron-horse s frenzied steam Which warns the world to leave wide space For the black engine s swerveless race. Ye men with neckcloths white, I warn you Habet a whole haymow in cornu. A Judith, there, turned Quakeress, Sits A BUY in her modest dress, Serving a table quietly, As if that mild and downcast eye Flashed never, with its scorn intense, More than Medea s eloquence. So the same force which shakes its dread Far-blazing blocks o er Etna s head, Along the wires in silence fares And messages of commerce bears. No nobler gift of heart and brain, No life more white from spot or stain, Was e er on Freedom s altar laid Than hers, the simple Quaker maid. These last three (leaving in the lurch Some other themes) assault the Church, Who therefore writes them in her lists As Satan s limbs and atheists; For each sect has one argument A FABLE FOR CRITICS Whereby the rest to hell are sent, Which serve them like the Graise s tooth, Passed round in turn from mouth to mouth; If any ism should arise, Then look on it with constable s eyes, Tie round its neck a heavy athe-, And give it kittens hydropathy. This trick with other (useful very) tricks Is laid to the Babylonian meretrix, But t was in vogue before her day Wherever priesthoods had their way, And Buddha s Popes with this struck dumb The followers of Fi and Fum. Well, if the world, with prudent fear Pay God a seventh of the year, And as a Farmer, who would pack All his religion in one stack, For this world works six days in seven And idles on the seventh for Heaven, Expecting, for his Sunday s sowing, In the next world to go a-mowing The crop of all his meeting-going; If the poor Church, by power enticed, Finds none so infidel as Christ, Quite backward reads his Gospel meek, (As t were in Hebrew writ, not Greek,) Fencing the gallows and the sword With conscripts drafted from his word, And makes one gate of Heaven so wide That the rich orthodox might ride Through on their camels, while the poor Squirm through the scant, unyielding door, Which, of the Gospel s straitest size, Is narrower than bead-needles eyes, What wonder World and Church should call The true faith atheistical? Yet, after all, twixt you and me, Dear Miller, I could never see That Sin s and Error s ugly smirch Stained the walls only of the Church; There are good priests, and men who take Freedom s torn cloak for lucre s sake; I can t believe the Church so strong, As some men do, for Right or Wrong. But, for this subject (long and vext) I must refer you to my next, As also for a list exact Of goods with which the Hall was packed. A FABLE FOR CRITICS IN a Prefatory Note which Mr. Lowell pre fixed to a later issue of this poem, the history of its inception and publication is thus briefly told : " This jeu d esprit was extemporized, I may fairly say, so rapidly was it written, purely for my own amusement and with no thought of publication. I sent daily instal ments of it to a friend in New York, the late Charles F. Briggs. He urged me to let it be printed, and I at last consented to its anony mous publication. The secret was kept till after several persons had laid claim to its authorship." In the Letters it is possible to get a closer view of the author at work. In a letter to Mr. Briggs, written November 13, 1847, he says: "My satire remains just as it was. About six hundred lines I think are written. I left it because I wished to finish it in one mood of mind, and not to get that and my serious poems in the new volume entangled. It is a rambling, disjointed affair, and I may alter the form of it, but if I can get it read, I know it will take. I intend to give it some serial title and continue it at intervals." On the last day of the same year, he writes to his correspondent : " I have been hard at work copying my satire, that I might get it (what was finished of it, at least) to you by New-Year s Day as a present. As it is, I can only send the first part. It was all written with one im pulse and was the work of not a great many hours, but it was written in good spirits (con amore, as Leupp said he used to smoke), and therefore seems to me to have a hearty and easy swing about it that is pleasant. But I was interrupted midway by being obliged to get ready the copy for my volume, and I have never been able to weld my present mood upon the old one without making an ugly swelling at the joint. " I wish you to understand that I make you a New Year s gift, not of the manuscript, but of the thing itself. I wish you to get it printed (if you think the sale will warrant it) for your own benefit. At the same time I am desirous of retaining my copyright, in order that, if cir cumstances render it desirable, I may still pos sess a control over it. Therefore, if you think it would repay publishing ( I have no doubt of it, or I should not offer it to you) I wish you A FABLE FOR CRITICS would enter the copyright in your own name, and then make a transfer to me in considera tion of, etc. " I am making as particular directions as if I were drawing my will, but I have a sort of presentiment (which I never had in regard to anything else) that this little bit of pleasantry will take. Perhaps I have said too much of the Centurion. But it was only the comical ity of his character that attracted me for the man himself personally never entered my head. But the sketch is clever ? " Again under date of March 26, 1848 : " Since I sent you the first half, I have written some thing about Willis and about Longfellow and I am waiting for pleasanter weather in order to finish it. I want to get my windows open and to write in the fresh air. I ought not to have sent you any part of it till I had finished it entirely. I feel a sense of respon sibility which hinders my pen from running along as it ought in such a theme. I wish the last half to be as jolly and unconstrained as the first. If you had not praised what I sent you, I dare say you would have had the whole of it ere this. Praise is the only thing that can make me feel any doubt of myself." Six weeks later he wrote, May 12 : " When I can sit at my open window and my friendly leaves hold their hands before my eyes to prevent their wandering to the landscape, I can sit down and write. I have begun upon the Fable again fairly, and am making some head way. I think with what I sent you (which I believe was about five hundred lines) it will make something over a thousand. I have done, since I sent the first half, Willis, Long fellow, Bryant, Miss Fuller, and Mrs. Child. In Longfellow s case I have attempted no char acterization. The same (in a degree) may be said of S. M. F. With her I have been perfectly food-humored, but I have a fancy that what say will stick uncomfortably. It will make you laugh. So will L. M. C. After S. M. F. I make a short digression on bores in general, which has some drollery. Willis I think good. Bryant is funny, and as fair as I could make it, immitigably just. Indeed I have endeavored to be so in all." The volume was affectionately inscribed to Charles F. Briggs, and furnished with the fol lowing rhymed title page and preliminary note, a second note being prefixed to a second edi tion. Header . walk up at once (it will soon be too late), and buy at a perfectly ruinous rate A FABLE FOR CRITICS: OR, BETTER, (I LIKE, AS A THING THAT THE READER S FIRST FANCY MAT STRIKE, AN OLD-FASHIONED TITLE-PAGE, SUCH AS PRESENTS A TABULAR VIEW OF THE VOLUME S CONTENTS), A GLANCE AT A FEW OF OUR LIT ERARY PROGENIES (MRS. MALAPROFS WORD) FROM THE TUB OF DIOGENES ; A VOCAL AND MUSICAL MEDLEY, THAT IS, A SERIES OF JOKES WHO ACCOMPANIES HIMSELF WITH A RUB-A-DUB-DUB, FULL OF SPIRIT AND GRACE, ON THE TOP OF THE TUB. Set forth in October, the list day, In the year 48, G. P. Putnam, Broadway. IT being the commonest mode of proced ure, I premise a few candid remarks To THE READER : This trifle, begun to please only myself and my own private fancy, was laid on the shelf. But some friends, who had seen it, induced me, by dint of saying they liked it, to put it in print. That is, having come to that very conclusion, I asked their advice when t would make no confusion. For though (in the gentlest of ways) they had hinted it was scarce worth the while, I should doubtless have printed it. I began it, intending a Fable, a frail, slender thing, rhyme-ywinged, with a sting in its tail. But, by acldings and alterings not previously planned, digressions chance- hatched, like birds eggs in the sand, and dawdlings to suit every whimsey s demand (always freeing the bird which I held in my hand, for the two perched, perhaps out of reach, in the tree), it grew by degrees to the size which you see. I was like the old woman that carried the calf, and my neighbors, like hers, no doubt, wonder and laugh; and when, my strained arms with their grown burthen full, I call it my Fable, they call it a bull. A FABLE FOR CRITICS Having scrawled at full gallop (as far as that goes) in a style that is neither good verse nor bad prose, and being a person whom nobody knows, some people will say I am rather more free with my readers than it is becoming to be, that I seem to expect them to wait on my leisure in fol lowing wherever I wander at pleasure, that, in short, I take more than a young author s lawful ease, and laugh in a queer way so like Mephistopheles, that the Pub lic will doubt, as they grope through my rhythm, if in truth I am making fun of them or with them. So the excellent Public is hereby assured that the sale of my book is already secured. For there is not a poet throughout the whole land but will purchase a copy or two out of hand, in the fond expectation of being amused in it, by seeing his betters cut up and abused in it. Now, I find, by a pretty exact calculation, there are some thing like ten thousand bards in the nation, of that special variety whom the Review and Magazine critics call lofty and true, and about thirty thousand (this tribe is increas ing) of the kinds who are termed full of promise and pleasing. The Public will see by a glance at this schedule, that they can not expect me to be over-sedulous about courting them, since it seems I have got enough fuel made sure of for boiling my pot. As for such of our poets as find not their names mentioned once in my pages, with praises or blames, let them SEND IN THEIR CARDS, without further DELAY, to my friend G-. P. PUTNAM, Esquire, in Broadway, where a LIST will be kept with the strictest regard to the day and the hour of receiving the card. Then, taking them up as I chance to have time (that is, if their names can be twisted in rhyme), I will honestly give each his PROPER POSI TION, at the rate of ONE AUTHOR to each NEW EDITION. Thus a PREMIUM is of fered sufficiently HIGH (as the magazines say when they tell their best lie) to induce bards to CLUB their resources and buy the balance of every edition, until they have all of them fairly been run through the mill. One word to such readers (judicious and wise) as read books with something behind the mere eyes, of whom in the country, perhaps, there are two, including myself, gentle reader, and you. All the characters sketched in this slight jeu d 1 esprit, though, it may be, they seem, here and there, rather free, and drawn from a somewhat too cynical standpoint, are meant to be faithful, for that is the grand point, and none but an owl would feel sore at a rub from a jester who tells you, without any subterfuge, that he sits in Diogenes tub. A PRELIMINARY NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION, though it well may be reckoned, of all composition, the species at once most de lightful and healthy, is a thing which an author, unless he be wealthy and willing to pay for that kind of delight, is not, in all instances, called on to write, though there are, it is said, who, their spirits to cheer, slip in a new title-page three times a year, and in this way snuff up an imaginary savor of that sweetest of dishes, the popu lar favor, much as if a starved painter should fall to and treat the Ugolino inside to a picture of meat. You remember (if not, pray turn back ward and look) that, in writing the preface which ushered my book, I treated you, ex cellent Public, not merely with a cool dis regard, but downright cavalierly. Now I would not take back the least thing I then said, though I thereby could butter both sides of my bread, for I never could see that an author owed aught to the people he solaced, diverted, or taught ; and, as for mere fame, I have long ago learned that the persons by whom it is finally earned are those with whom your verdict weighed not a pin, unsustained by the higher court sitting within. But I wander from what I intended to say^ that you have, namely, shown such a liberal way of thinking, and so much aesthetic perception of anonymous worth in the handsome reception you gave to my book, spite of some private piques (having bought the first thousand in barely two weeks), that I think, past a doubt, if you measured the phiz of yours most devotedly, Wonderful Quiz, you would find that its vertical section was shorter, by an inch and two tenths, or twixt that and a quarter. You have watched a child playing in Tl6 A FABLE FOR CRITICS those wondrous years when belief is not bound to the eyes and the ears, and the vision divine is so clear and unmarred, that each baker of pies in the dirt is a bard ? Give a knife and a shingle, he fits out a fleet, and, on that little mud-puddle over the street, his fancy, in purest good faith, will make sail round the globe with a puff of his breath for a gale, will visit, in barely ten minutes, all climes, and do the Columbus-feat hundreds of times. Or, suppose the young poet fresh stored with delights from that Bible of childhood, the Arabian Nights, he will turn to a crony and cry, " Jack, let s play that I am a Genius ! " Jacky straightway makes Aladdin s lamp out of a stone, and, for hours, they enjoy each his own super natural powers. This is all very pretty and pleasant, but then suppose our two urchins have grown into men, and both have turned authors, one says to his brother, " Let s play we re the American somethings or other, say Homer or Sophocles, Goethe or Scott (only let them be big enough, no matter what). Come, you shall be Byron or Pope, which you choose: I 11 be Coleridge, and both shall write mutual reviews." So they both (as mere strangers) before many days send each other a cord of anonymous bays. Each, piling his epithets, smiles in his sleeve to see what his friend can be made to believe; each, reading the other s un biased review, thinks Here s pretty high praise, but no more than my due. Well, we laugh at them both, and yet make no great fuss when the same farce is acted to benefit us. Even I, who, if asked, scarce a month since, what Fudge meant, should have answered, the dear Public s critical judgment, begin to think sharp-witted Horace spoke sooth when he said that the Public sometimes hit the truth. In reading these lines, you perhaps have a vision of a person in pretty good health and condition ; and yet, since I put forth my primary edition, I have been crushed, scorched, withered, used up and put down (by Smith with the cordial assistance of Brown), in all, if you put any faith in my rhymes, to the number of ninety-five several times, and, while I am writing, I tremble to think of it, for I may at this moment be just on the brink of it, Molybdostom, angry at being omitted, has begun a crit ique, am I not to be pitied ? l Now I shall not crush them since, indeed, for that matter, no pressure I know of could render them flatter ; nor wither, nor scorch them, no action of fire could make either them or their articles drier ; nor waste time in putting them down I am thinking not their own self-inflation will keep them from sinking ; for there s this contradiction about the whole bevy, though without the least weight, they are awfully heavy. No, my dear honest bore, surdo fabulam narras, they are no more to me than a rat in the arras. I can walk with the Doctor, get facts from the Don, or draw out the Lambish quintessence of John, and feel nothing more than a half- comic sorrow, to think that they all will be lying to-morrow tossed carelessly up on the waste-paper shelves, and forgotten by all but their half-dozen selves. Once snug in my attic, my fire in a roar, I leave the whole pack of them outside the door. With Hakluyt or Purchas I wander away to the black northern seas or barbaric Ca thay ; get fou with O Shanter, and sober me then with that builder of brick-kilnish dramas, rare Ben ; snuff Herbert, as holy as a flower on a grave ; with Fletcher wax tender, o er Chapman grow brave ; with Marlowe or Kyd take a fine poet-rave ; in Very, most Hebrew of Saxons, find peace ; with Lycidas welter on vext Irish seas ; with Webster grow wild, and climb earth ward again, down by mystical Browne s Jacob s-ladder-like brain, to that spiritual Pepys (Cotton s version) Montaigne ; find a new depth in Wordsworth, undreamed of before, that marvel, a poet divine who can bore. Or, out of my study, the scholar thrown off, Nature holds up her shield gainst the sneer and the scoff ; the land scape, forever consoling and kind, pours her wine and her oil on the smarts of the mind. The waterfall, scattering its vanish ing gems ; the tall grove of hemlocks, with moss on their stems, like plashes of sun light ; the pond in the woods, where no foot but mine and the bittern s intrudes, where pitcher-plants purple and gentians 1 The wise Scandinavians probably called their barda by the queer-looking title of Scald in a delicate way, as it were, just to hint to the world the hot water they always get into. A FABLE FOR CRITICS 7 hard by recall to September the blue of June s sky; these are all my kind neigh bors, and leave me no wish to say aught to you all, my poor critics, but pish ! I ve buried the hatchet : I m twisting an allu- mette out of one of you now, and relight ing my calumet. In your private capaci ties, come when you please, I will give you my hand and a fresh pipe apiece. As I ran through the leaves of my poor little book, to take a fond author s first tremulous look, it was quite an excitement to hunt the errata, sprawled in as birds tracks are in some kinds of strata (only these made things crookeder). Fancy an heir that a father had seen born well- featured and fair, turning suddenly wry- nosed, club-footed, squint-eyed, hair-lipped, wapper-jawed, carrot-haired, from a pride become an aversion, my case was yet worse. A club-foot (by way of a change) in a verse, I might have forgiven, an o s being wry, a limp in an e, or a cock in an i t but to have the sweet babe of my brain served in pi! I am not queasy- stomached, but such a Thyestean banquet as that was quite out of the question. In the edition now issued no pains are neglected, and my verses, as orators say, stand corrected. Yet some blunders re main of the Public s own make, which I wish to correct for my personal sake. For instance, a character drawn in pure fun and condensing the traits of a dozen in one, has been, as I hear, by some persons ap plied to a good friend of mine, whom to stab in the side, as we walked along chat ting and joking together, would not be my way. I can hardly tell whether a question will ever arise in which he and I should by any strange fortune agree, but meanwhile my esteem for him grows as I know him, and, though not the best judge on earth of a poem, he knows what it is he is saying and why, and is honest and fearless, two good points which I have not found so rife I can easily smother my love for them, whether on my side or t other. For my other anonyml, you may be sure that I know what is meant by a caricature, and what by a portrait. There are those who think it is capital fun to be spattering their ink on quiet, unquarrelsome folk, but the minute the game changes sides and the others begin it, they see something savage and horrible in it. As for me I respect neither women nor men for their gender, nor own any sex in a pen. I choose just to hint to some causeless unfriends that, as far as I know, there are always two ends (and one of them heaviest, too) to a staff, and two parties also to every good laugh. A FABLE FOR CRITICS PHCEBUS, sitting one day in a laurel- tree s shade, Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made, For the god being one day too warm in his wooing, She took to the tree to escape his pursuing; Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk, And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk ; And, though t was a step into which he had driven her, He somehow or other had never forgiven her; Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic, Something bitter to chew when he d play the Byronic, And I can t count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her. " My case is like Dido s," he sometimes re marked; " When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked In a laurel, as she thought but (ah, how Fate mocks !) She has found it by this time a very bad box; Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it, You re not always sure of your game when you ve treed it. Just conceive such a change taking place in one s mistress ! What romance would be left ? who can flatter or kiss trees ? And, for mercy s sake, how could one keep up a dialogue With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log, Not to say that the thought would forever intrude n8 A FABLE FOR CRITICS That you ve less chance to win her the more she is wood ? Ah ! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves, To see those loved graces all taking their leaves; Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting but now, As they left me forever, each making its bough ! If her tongue had a tang sometimes more than was right, Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite." Now, Daphne before she was happily treeified Over all other blossoms the lily had deified, And when she expected the god on a visit ( T was before he had made his intentions explicit), Some buds she arranged with a vast deal of care, To look as if artlessly twined in her hair, Where they seemed, as he said, when he paid his addresses, Like the day breaking through the long night of her tresses; So whenever he wished to be quite irresisti ble, Like a man with eight trumps in his hand at a whist-table (I feared me at first that the rhyme was untwistable, Though I might have lugged in an allusion to Cristabel), He would take up a lily, and gloomily look in it, As I shall at the , when they cut up my book in it. Well, here, after all the bad rhyme I Ve been spinning, I ve got back at last to my story s begin ning: Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of his mistress, As dull as a volume of old Chester myster ies, Or as those puzzling specimens which, in old histories, We read of his verses the Oracles, namely, (I wonder the Greeks should have swal lowed them tamely, For one might bet safely whatever he has to risk, They were laid at his door by some ancient Miss Asterisk, And so dull that the men who retailed them out-doors Got the ill name of augurs, because they were bores, ) First, he mused what the animal substance or herb is Would induce a mustache, for you know he s imberbis Then he shuddered to think how his youth ful position Was assailed by the age of his son the physician ; At some poems he glanced, had been sent to him lately, And the metre and sentiment puzzled him greatly; " Mehercle ! I d make such proceeding felonious, Have they all of them slept in the cave of Trophonius ? Look well to your seat, t is like taking an airing On a corduroy road, and that out of repair ing; It leads one, t is true, through the primi tive forest, Grand natural features, but then one has no rest; You just catch a glimpse of some ravish ing distance, When a jolt puts the whole of it out of ex istence, Why not use their ears, if they happen to have any ? " Here the laurel-leaves murmured the name of poor Daphne. " Oh, weep with me, Daphne," he sighed, " for you know it s A terrible thing to be pestered with po ets ! But, alas, she is dumb, and the proverb holds good, She never will cry till she s out of the wood ! What would n t I give if I never had known of her ? T were a kind of relief had I something to groan over: If I had but some letters of hers, now, to toss over, A FABLE FOR CRITICS 119 I might turn for the nonce a Byronic phi losopher, And bewitch all the flats by bemoaning the loss of her. One needs something tangible, though, to begin on, A loom, as it were, for the fancy to spin on; What boots all your grist ? it can never be ground Till a breeze makes the arms of the wind mill go round; (Or, if t is a water-mill, alter the meta phor, And say it won t stir, save the wheel be well wet afore, Or lug in some stuff about water so dreamily, It is not a metaphor, though, t is a sim- ile); A lily, perhaps, would set my mill a-going, For just at this season, I think, they are blowing. Here, somebody, fetch one; not very far hence They re in bloom by the score, t is but climbing a fence; There s a poet hard by, who does nothing but fill his Whole garden, from one end to t other, with lilies; A very good plan, were it not for satiety, One longs for a weed here and there, for variety; Though a weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes." Now there happened to be among Pho3- bus s followers, A gentleman, one of the omnivorous swal- lowers, Who bolt every book that comes out of the press, Without the least question of larger or less, Whose stomachs are strong at the expense of their head, For reading new books is like eating new bread, One can bear it at first, but by gradual steps he Is brought to death s door of a mental dyspepsy. On a previous stage of existence, our Hero Had ridden outside, with the glass below zero; He had been, t is a fact you may safely rely on, Of a very old stock a most eminent scion, A stock all fresh quacks their fierce boluses ply on, Who stretch the new boots Earth s unwill ing to try on, Whom humbugs of all shapes and sorts keep their eye on, Whose hair s in the mortar of every new Zion, Vyho, when whistles are dear, go directly and buy one, Who think slavery a crime that we must not say fie on, Who hunt, if they e er hunt at all, with the lion (Though they hunt lions also, whenever they spy one), Who contrive to make every good fortune a wry one, And at last choose the hard bed of honor to die on, Whose pedigree, traced to earth s earliest years, Is longer than anything else but their ears ; In short, he was sent into life with the wrong key, He unlocked the door, and stept forth a poor donkey. Though kicked and abused by his bipedal betters Yet he filled no mean place in the kingdom of letters; Far happier than many a literary hack, He bore only paper-mill rags on his back (For it makes a vast difference which side the mill One expends on the paper his labor and skill); So, when his soul waited a new transmi gration, And Destiny balanced twixt this and that station, Not having much time to expend upon bothers, Remembering he d had some connection with authors. 120 A FABLE FOR CRITICS And considering his four legs had grown paralytic, She set him on two, and he came forth a critic. Through his babyhood no kind of pleas ure he took In any amusement but tearing a book; For him there was no intermediate stage From babyhood up to straight-laced mid dle age; There were years when he did n t wear coat-tails behind, But a boy he could never be rightly de nned; Like the Irish Good Folk, though in length scarce a span, From the womb he came gravely, a little old man; While other boys trousers demanded the toil Of the motherly fingers on all kinds of soil, Ked, yellow, brown, black, clayey, gravelly, loamy, He sat in the corner and read Viri Romse. He never was known to unbend or to revel once In base, marbles, hockey, or kick up the devil once; He was just one of those who excite the benevolence Of your old prigs who sound the soul s depths with a ledger, And are on the lookout for some young men to " edger- cate," as they call it, who won t be too costly, And who 11 afterward take to the ministry mostly; Who always wear spectacles, always look bilious, Always keep on good terms with each ma ter-familias Throughout the whole parish, and manage to rear Ten boys like themselves, on four hundred a year: Who, fulfilling in turn the same fearful conditions, Either preach through their noses, or go upon missions. In this way our Hero got safely to col lege, Where he bolted alike both his commons and knowledge; A reading-machine, always wound up and going He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing, Appeared in a gown, with black waistcoat of satin, To spout such a Gothic oration in Latin That Tully could never have made out a word in it (Though himself was the model the author preferred in it), And grasping the parchment which gave him in fee All the mystic and-so-forths contained in A. B., He was launched (life is always compared to a sea) With just enough learning, and skill for the using it, To prove he d a brain, by forever confus ing it. So worthy St. Benedict, piously burning With the holiest zeal against secular learn ing? Nesciensque scienter, as writers express it, Indoctusque sapienter a Roma recessit. T would be endless to tell you the things that he knew, Each a separate fact, undeniably true, But with him or each other they d nothing to do; No power of combining, arranging, dis cerning, Digested the masses he learned into learn ing; There was one thing in life he had practical knowledge for (And this, you will think, he need scarce to college for), $d would he do, nor a word would he utter, Till he d weighed its relations to plain bread and butter. When he left Alma Mater, he practised his wits In compiling the journals historical bits, Of shops broken open, men falling in fits, Great fortunes in England bequeathed to poor printers, And cold spells, the coldest for many past winters, A FABLE FOR CRITICS 121 Then, rising by industry, knack, and ad dress, Got notices up for an unbiased press, With a mind so well poised, it seemed equally made for Applause or abuse, just which chanced to be paid for: From this point his progress was rapid and sure, To the post of a regular heavy reviewer. And here I must say he wrote excellent articles On Hebraical points, or the force of Greek particles; They filled up the space nothing else was prepared for, And nobody read that which nobody cared for; If any old book reached a fiftieth edition, He could fill forty pages with safe erudi tion : He could gauge the old books by the old set of rules, And his very old nothings pleased very old fools; But give him a new book, fresh out of the heart, And you put him at sea without compass or chart, His blunders aspired to the rank of an art; For his lore was engraft, something foreign that grew in him, Exhausting the sap of the native and true in him, So that when a man came with a soul that was new in him, Carving new forms of truth out of Nature s old granite, New and old at their birth, like Le Ver- rier s planet, Which, to get a true judgment, themselves must create In the soul of their critic the measure and weight, Being rather themselves a fresh standard of grace, To compute their own judge, and assign him his place, Our reviewer would crawl all about it and round it, And, reporting each circumstance just as he found it, Without the least malice, his record would be Profoundly aesthetic as that of a flea, Which, supping on Wordsworth, should print, for our sakes, Recollections of nights with the Bard of the Lakes, Or, lodged by an Arab guide, ventured to render a Comprehensive account of the ruins at Denderah. As I said, he was never precisely unkind, The defect in his brain was just absence of mind; If he boasted, t was simply that he was self-made, A position which I, for one, never gain said, My respect for my Maker supposing a skill In his works which our Hero would an swer but ill; And I trust that the mould which he used may be cracked, or he, Made bold by success, may enlarge his phylactery, And set up a kind of a man-manufactory, An event which I shudder to think about, seeing That Man is a moral, accountable being. He meant well enough, but was still in the way, As dunces still are, let them be where they may; Indeed, they appear to come into exist ence To impede other folks with their awkward assistance ; If you set up a dunce on the very North pole All alone with himself, I believe, on my soul, He d manage to get betwixt somebody s shins, And pitch him down bodily, all in his sins, To the grave polar bears sitting round on the ice, All shortening their grace, to be in for a slice ; Or, if he found nobody else there to pother, Why, one of his legs would just trip up the other, For there s nothing we read of in torture s inventions, Like a well-meaning dunce, with the best of intentions. 122 A FABLE FOR CRITICS A terrible fellow to meet in society, Not the toast that he buttered was ever so dry at tea; There he d sit at the table and stir in his sugar, Crouching close for a spring, all the while, like a cougar; Be sure of your facts, of your measures and weights, Of your time, he s as fond as an Arab of dates; You 11 be telling, perhaps, in your comical way, Of something you ve seen in the course of the day; And, just as you re tapering out the con clusion, You venture an ill-fated classic allusion, The girls have all got their laughs ready, when, whack ! The cougar comes down on your thunder struck back ! You had left out a comma, your Greek s put in joint, And pointed at cost of your story s whole point. In the course of the evening, you find chance for certain Soft speeches to Anne, in the shade of the curtain: You tell her your heart can be likened to one flower, " And that, O most charming of women, s the sunflower, Which turns " here a clear nasal voice, to your terror, From outside the curtain, says, " That s all an error." As for him, he s no matter, he never grew tender, Sitting after a ball, with his feet on the fender, Shaping somebody s sweet features out of cigar smoke (Though he d willingly grant you that such doings are smoke); All women he damns with mutdbile semper, And if ever he felt something like love s distemper, T was tow rds a young lady who spoke ancient Mexican, And assisted her father in making a lexi con; Though I recollect hearing him get quite ferocious About Mary Clausum, the mistress of Gro- tius, Or something of that sort, but, no more to bore ye With character-painting, I ll turn to my story. Now, Apollo, who finds it convenient sometimes To get his court clear of the makers of rhymes, The genus, I think it is called, irritabile, Every one of whom thinks himself treated most shabbily, And nurses a what is it ? immedicabile, Which keeps him at boiling-point, hot for a quarrel, As bitter as wormwood, and sourer than sorrel, If any poor devil but look at a laurel; Apollo, I say, being sick of their rioting (Though he sometimes acknowledged their verse had a quieting Effect after dinner, and seemed to sug gest a Retreat to the shrine of a tranquil siesta), Kept our Hero at hand, who, by means of a bray, Which he gave to the life, drove the rabble away; And if that wouldn t do, he was sure to succeed, If he took his review out and offered to read; Or, failing in plans of this milder descrip tion, He would ask for their aid to get up a subscription, Considering that authorship was n t a rich craft, To print the " American drama of Witch craft." " Stay, I 11 read you a scene," but he hardly began, Ere Apollo shrieked " Help ! " and the authors all ran: And once, when these purgatives acted with less spirit, And the desperate case asked a remedy desperate, He drew from his pocket a foolscap epistle As calmly as if t were a nine-barrelled pistol, And threatened them all with the judg ment to come, A FABLE FOR CRITICS 123 Of "A wandering Star s first impressions of Rome." " Stop ! stop ! " with their hands o er their ears, screamed the Muses, " He may go off and murder himself, if he chooses, T was a means self-defence only sanctioned his trying, T is mere massacre now that the enemy s flying; If he s forced to t again, and we happen to be there, Give us each a large handkerchief soaked in strong ether. 1 I called this a " Fable for Critics ; " you think it s More like a display of my rhythmical trinkets ; My plot, like an icicle, s slender and slip pery, Every moment more slender, and likely to slip awry, And the reader unwilling in loco desipere Is free to jump over as much of my frip pery As he fancies, and, if he s a provident skipper, he May have like Odysseus control of the gales, And get safe to port, ere his patience quite fails; Moreover, although t is a slender return For your toil and expense, yet my paper will burn, And, if you have manfully struggled thus far with me, You may e en twist me up, and just light your cigar with me: If too angry for that, you can tear me in pieces, And my membra disjecta consign to the breezes, A fate like great Ratzau s, whom one of those bores, Who beflead with bad verses poor Louis Quatorze, Describes (the first verse somehow ends with victoire), As dispersant partout et ses membres et sa gloire; Or, if I were over-desirous of earning A repute among noodles for classical learn ing, I could pick you a score of allusions, i-wis, As new as the jests of Didaskalos tis Better still, I could make out a good solid list From authors recondite who do not exist, But that would be naughty: at least, I could twist Something out of Absyrtus, or turn your inquiries After Milton s prose metaphor, drawn from Osiris; But, as Cicero says he won t say this or that (A fetch, I must say, most transparent and flat), After saying whate er he could possibly think of, I simply will state that I pause on the brink of A mire, ankle-deep, of deliberate confusion, Made up of old jumbles of classic allusion: So, when you were thinking yourselves to be pitied, Just conceive how much harder your teeth you d have gritted, An t were not for the dulness I ve kindly omitted. I d apologize here for my many digres sions, Were it not that I m certain to trip into fresh ones ( T is so hard to escape if you get in their mesh once); Just reflect, if you please, how t is said by Horatius, That Mseonides nods now and then, and, my gracious ! It certainly does look a little bit ominous When he gets under way with ton d apameibomenos. (Here a something occurs which I 11 just clap a rhyme to, And say it myself, ere a Zoilus have time to, Any author a nap like Van Winkle s may take, If he only contrive to keep readers awake, But he 11 very soon find himself laid on the shelf, If they fall a-nodding when he nods him self.) Once for all, to return, and to stay, will I, nilll When Phoebus expressed his desire for a lily, 124 A FABLE FOR CRITICS Our Hero, whose homceopjithic sagacity With an ocean of zeal mixed his drop of capacity, Set off for the garden as fast as the wind (Or, to take a comparison more to my mind, As a sound politician leaves conscience be hind), And leaped the low fence, as a party hack jumps O er his principles, when something else turns up trumps. He was gone a long time, and Apollo, meanwhile, Went over some sonnets of his with a file, For, of all compositions, he thought that the sonnet Best repaid all the toil you expended upon it; It should reach with one impulse the end of its course, And for one final blow collect all of its force ; Not a verse should be salient, but each one should tend With a wave-like up-gathering to break at the end; So, condensing the strength here, there smoothing a wry kink, He was killing the time, when up walked Mr. D ; At a few steps behind him, a small man in glasses Went dodging about, muttering, "Murder ers ! asses ! " From out of his pocket a paper he d take, With a proud look of martyrdom tied to its stake, And, reading a squib at himself, he d say, " Here I see Gainst American letters a bloody conspir acy, They are all by my personal enemies writ ten; I must post an anonymous letter to Britain, And show that this gall is the merest sug gestion Of spite at my zeal on the Copyright ques tion, For on this side the water, t is prudent to pull O er the eyes of the public their national wool, By accusing of slavish respect to John Bull All American authors who have more or less Of that anti-American humbug success, While in private we re always embracing the knees Of some twopenny editor over the seas, And licking his critical shoes, for you know t is The whole aim of our lives to get one Eng lish notice; My American puffs I would willingly burn all (They re all from one source, monthly, weekly, diurnal) To get but a kick from a transmarine jour nal ! " So, culling the gibes of each critical scorner As if they were plums, and himself were Jack Homer, He came cautiously on, peeping round every corner, And into each hole where a weasel might pass in, Expecting the knife of some critic assassin, Who stabs to the heart with a caricature, Not so bad as those daubs of the Sun, to be sure, Yet done with a dagger-o -type, whose vile portraits Disperse all one s good and condense all one s poor traits. Apollo looked up, hearing footsteps ap proaching, And slipped out of sight the new rhymes he was broaching, " Good day, Mr. D , I m happy to meet With a scholar so ripe, and a critic so neat, Who through Grub Street the soul of a gentleman carries ; What news from that suburb of London and Paris Which latterly makes such shrill claims to monopolize The credit of being the New World s me tropolis ? " " Why, nothing of consequence, save this attack On my friend there, behind, by some pitiful hack, Who thinks every national author a poor one v A FABLE FOR CRITICS I2 5 That is n t a copy of something that s for eign, And assaults the American Dick " " Nay, t is clear That your Damon there s fond of a flea in his ear, And, if no one else furnished them gratis, on tick He would buy some himself, just to hear the old click ; Why, I honestly think, if some fool in Japan Should turn up his nose at the Poems on Man, (Which contain many verses as fine, by the bye, As any that lately came under my eye,) Your friend there by some inward instinct would know it, Would get it translated, reprinted, and show it; As a man might take off a high stock to exhibit The autograph round his own neck of the gibbet ; Nor would let it rest so, but fire column after column, Signed Cato, or Brutus, or something as solemn, By way of displaying his critical crosses, And tweaking that poor transatlantic pro boscis, His broadsides resulting (this last there s no doubt of) In successively sinking the craft they re fired out of. Now nobody knows when an author is hit, If he have not a public hysterical fit ; Let him only keep close in his snug garret s dim ether, And nobody d think of his foes or of him either ; If an author have any least fibre of worth in him, Abuse would but tickle the organ of mirth in him ; All the critics on earth cannot crush with their ban One word that s in tune with the nature of man." " Well, perhaps so ; meanwhile I have brought you a book, Into which if you 11 just have the goodness to look, You may feel so delighted (when once you are through it) As to deem it not unworth your while to re view it, And I think I can promise your thoughts, if you do, A place in the next Democratic Review." " The most thankless of gods you must surely have thought me, For this is the forty-fourth copy you ve brought me ; I have given them away, or at least I have tried, But I ve forty-two left, standing all side by side (The man who accepted that one copy died), From one end of a shelf to the other they reach, With the author s respects neatly written in each. The publisher, sure, will proclaim a Te Deum, When he hears of that order the British Museum Has sent for one set of what books were first printed In America, little or big, for t is hinted That this is the first truly tangible hope he Has ever had raised for the sale of a copy. I ve thought very often t would be a good thing In all public collections of books, if a wing Were set off by itself, like the seas from the dry lands, Marked Literature suited to desolate islands, And filled with such books as could never be read Save by readers of proofs, forced to do it for bread, Such books as one s wrecked on in small country taverns, Such as hermits might mortify over in caverns, Such as Satan, if printing had then been invented, As the climax of woe, would to Job have presented, Such as Crusoe might dip in, although there are few so Outrageously cornered by fate as poor Cru soe ; And since the philanthropists just now are banging 126 A FABLE FOR CRITICS And gibbeting all who re in favor of hang ing (Though Cheever has proved that the Bible and Altar Were let down from Heaven at the end of a halter, And that vital religion would dull and grow callous, Unrefreshed, now and then, with a sniff of the gallows), And folks are beginning to think it looks odd, To choke a poor scamp for the glory of God; And that He who esteems the Virginia reel A bait to draw saints from their spiritual weal, And regards the quadrille as a far greater knavery Than crushing his African children with slavery, Since all who take part in a waltz or cotil lon Are mounted for hell on the Devil s own pillion, Who, as every true orthodox Christian well knows, Approaches the heart through the door of the toes, That He, I was saying, whose judgments are stored For such as take steps in despite of his word, Should look with delight on the agonized prancing Of a wretch who has not the least ground for his dancing, While the State, standing by, sings a verse from the Psalter About offering to God on his favorite hal ter, And, when the legs droop from their twitch ing divergence, Sells the clothes to a Jew, and the corpse to the surgeons ; Now, instead of all this, I think I can di rect you all To a criminal code both humane and effect ual; I propose to shut up every doer of wrong With these desperate books, for such term, short or long, As, by statute in such cases made and pro vided, Shall be by your wise legislators decided: Thus: Let murderers be shut, to grow wiser and cooler, At hard labor for life on the works of Miss ; Petty thieves, kept from flagranter crimes by their fears, Shall peruse Yankee Doodle a blank term of years, That American Punch, like the English, no doubt, Just the sugar and lemons and spirit left out. " But stay, here comes Tityrus Griswold, and leads on The flocks whom he first plucks alive, and then feeds on, A loud-cackling swarm, in whose feathers warm drest, He goes for as perfect a swan as the rest. " There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one, Are like gold nails in temples to hang tro phies on. Whose prose is grand verse, while his verse, the Lord knows, Is some of it pr No, t is not even prose; I m speaking of metres; some poems have welled From those rare depths of soul that have ne er been excelled; They re not epics, but that does n t matter a pin, In creating, the only hard thing s to begin; A grass-blade s no easier to make than an oak; If you ve once found the way, you ve achieved the grand stroke; In the worst of his poems are mines of rich matter, But thrown in a heap with a crash and a clatter; Now it is not one thing nor another alone Makes a poem, but rather the general tone, The something pervading, uniting the whole, The before unconceived, unconceivable soul, So that just in removing this trifle or that, you Take away, as it were, a chief limb of the statue; A FABLE FOR CRITICS 127 Roots, wood, bark, and leaves singly per fect may be, But, clapt hodge-podge together, they don t make a tree. " But, to come back to Emerson (whom, by the way, I believe we left waiting), his is, we may say, A Greek head on right Yankee shoulders, whose range Has Olympus for one pole, for t other the Exchange ; He seems, to my thinking (although I m afraid The comparison must, long ere this, have been made), A Plotinus-Montaigne, where the Egyp tian s gold mist And the Gascon s shrewd wit cheek-by-jowl coexist; All admire, and yet scarcely six converts he s got To I don t (nor they either) exactly know what; For though he builds glorious temples, t is odd He leaves never a doorway to get in a god. T is refreshing to old-fashioned people like me To meet such a primitive Pagan as he, In whose mind all creation is duly re spected As parts of himself just a little pro jected; And who s willing to worship the stars and the sun, A convert to nothing but Emerson. So perfect a balance there is in his head, That he talks of things sometimes as if they were dead; Life, nature, love, God, and affairs of that sort, He looks at as merely ideas; in short, As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet, Of such vast extent that our earth s a mere dab in it; Composed just as he is inclined to conjec ture her, Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine parts pure lecturer; You are filled with delight at his clear demonstration, Each figure, word, gesture, just fits the occasion, With the quiet precision of science he 11 sort em, But you can t help suspecting the whole a post mortem. "There are persons, mole-blind to the soul s make and style, Who insist on a likeness twixt him and Carlyle; To compare him with Plato would be vastly fairer, Carlyle s the more burly, but E. is the rarer; He sees fewer objects, but clearlier, true- lier, If C. s as original, E. s more peculiar; That he s more of a man you might say of the one, Of the other he s more of an Emerson; C. s the Titan, as shaggy of mind as of limb, E. the clear-eyed Olympian, rapid and slim; The one s two thirds Norseman, the other half Greek, Where the one s most abounding, the other s to seek; C. s generals require to be seen in the mass, E. s specialties gain if enlarged by the glass; C. gives nature and God his own fits of the blues, And rims common-sense things with mysti cal hues, E. sits in a mystery calm and intense, And looks coolly around him with sharp common-sense ; C. shows you how every-day matters unite With the dim transdiurnal recesses of night, While E., in a plain, preternatural way, Makes mysteries matters of mere every day; C. draws all his characters quite a la Fu- seli, Not sketching their bundles of muscles and thews illy, He paints with a brush so untamed and pro fuse, They seem nothing but bundles of muscles and thews ; E. is rather like Flaxman, lines strait and severe, 128 A FABLE FOR CRITICS And a colorless outline, but full, round, and clear ; To the men he thinks worthy he frankly accords The design of a white marble statue in words. C. labors to get at the centre, and then Take a reckoning from there of his actions and men ; E. calmly assumes the said centre as grant- And, given himself, has whatever is wanted. " He has imitators in scores, who omit No part of the man but his wisdom and wit, Who go carefully o er the sky-blue of his brain, And when he has skimmed it once, skim it again ; If at all they resemble him, you may be sure it is Because their shoals mirror his mists and obscurities, As a mud-puddle seems deep as heaven for a minute, While a cloud that floats o er is reflected within it. ^lt^^ " There comes : , for instance ; to see him s rare sport, Tread in Emerson s tracks with legs pain fully short ; How he jumps, how he strains, and gets red in the face, To keep step with the mystagogue s natural pace ! He follows as close as a stick to a rocket, His fingers exploring the prophet s each pocket. Fie, for shame, brother bard ; with good fruit of your own, Can t you let Neighbor Emerson s orchards alone ? Besides, t is no use, you 11 not find e en a if 1 A/wW core has picked up all the windfalls before. They might strip every tree, and E. never would catch em, His Hesperides have no rude dragon to watch em ; When they send him a dishful, and ask him to try em, He never suspects how the sly rogues came by em ; He wonders why t is there are none such his trees on, And thinks em the best he has tasted this season. " Yonder, calm as a cloud, Alcott stalks in a dream, And fancies himself in thy groves, Aca deme, With the Parthenon nigh, and the olive-trees o er him, And never a fact to perplex him or bore him, With a snug room at Plato s when night comes, to walk to, And people from morning till midnight to talk to, And from midnight till morning, nor snore in their listening ; So he muses, his face with the joy of it glis tening, For his highest conceit of a happiest state is Where they d live upon acorns, and hear him talk gratis; And indeed, I believe, no man ever talked better, Each sentence hangs perfectly poised to a letter ; He seems piling words, but there s royal dust hid In the heart of each sky-piercing pyramid While he talks he is great, but goes out like a taper, If you shut him up closely with pen, ink, and paper; Yet his fingers itch for em from morning till night, And he thinks he does wrong if he don t always write; In this, as in all things, a lamb among men, He goes to sure death when he goes to his pen. " Close behind him is Brownson, his mouth very full With attempting to gulp a Gregorian bull ; Who contrives, spite of that, to pour out as he goes A stream of transparent and forcible prose ; He shifts quite about, then proceeds to ex pound That t is merely the earth, not himself, that turns round, And wishes it clearly impressed on your mind A FABLE FOR CRITICS 129 That the weathercock rules and not follows the wind ; Proving first, then as deftly confuting each side, With no doctrine pleased that s not some where denied, He lays the denier away on the shelf, And then down beside him lies gravely himself. He s the Salt River boatman, who always stands willing To convey friend or foe without charging a shilling, And so fond of the trip that, when leisure s to spare, He 11 row himself up, if he can t get a fare. The worst of it is, that his logic s so strong, That of two sides he commonly chooses the wrong ; If there is only one, why, he 11 split it in two, And first pummel this half, then that, black and blue. That white s white needs no proof, but it takes a deep fellow To prove it jet-black, and that jet-black is yellow. He offers the true faith to drink in a sieve, When it reaches your lips there s naught left to believe But a few silly- (syllo-, I mean,) -gisms that squat em Like tadpoles, o erjoyed with the mud at the bottom. " There is Willis, all natty and jaunty and g av > Who says his best things in so foppish a way, With conceits and pet phrases so thickly o erlaying em, That one hardly knows whether to thank him for saying em ; Over-ornament ruins both poem and prose, Just conceive of a Muse with a ring in her nose ! His prose had a natural grace of its own, And enough of it, too, if he d let it alone ; But he twitches and jerks so, one fairly gets tired, And is forced to forgive where one might have admired; Yet whenever it slips away free and un laced, It runs like a stream with a musical waste, And gurgles along with the liquidest sweep; T is not deep as a river, but who d have it deep? In a country where scarcely a village is found That has not its author sublime and pro found, For some one to be slightly shallow s a duty, And Willis s shallowness makes half his beauty. His prose winds along with a blithe, gur gling error, And reflects all of Heaven it can see in its mirror: T is a narrowish strip, but it is not an arti fice; T is the true out-of-doors with its genuine hearty phiz; It is Nature herself, and there s something in that, Since most brains reflect but the crown of a hat. Few volumes I know to read under a tree, More truly delightful than his A 1 Abri, With the shadows of leaves flowing over your book, Like ripple-shades netting the bed of a brook; With June coming softly your shoulder to look over, Breezes waiting to turn every leaf of your book over, And Nature to criticise still as you read, The pae that bears that is a rare one in ge deed. " He s so innate a cockney, that had he been born Where plain bare-skin s the only full-dress that is worn, He d have given his own such an air that you d say T had been made by a tailor to lounge in Broadway. His nature s a glass of champagne with the foam on t, As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beau mont; So his best things are done in the flush of the moment; If he wait, all is spoiled ; he may stir it and shake it, But, the fixed air once gone, he can never re-make it. 130 A FABLE FOR CRITICS He might be a marvel of easy delightf ulness, If he would not sometimes leave the r out of sprightf ulness ; And he ought to let Scripture alone t is self-slaughter, For nobody likes inspiration-and-water. He d have been just the fellow to sup at the Mermaid, Cracking jokes at rare Ben, with an eye to the barmaid, His wit running up as Canary ran down, The topmost bright bubble on the wave of The Town. " Here comes Parker, the Orson of par sons, a man Whom the Church undertook to put under her ban (The Church of Socinus, I mean), his opinions Being So- (ultra) -cinian, they shocked the Socinians ; They believed faith, I m puzzled I think I may call Their belief a believing in nothing at all, Or something of that sort ; I know they all went For a general union of total dissent: He went a step farther; without cough or hem, He frankly avowed he believed not in them; And, before he could be jumbled up or pre vented, From their orthodox kind of dissent he dissented. There was heresy here, you perceive, for the right Of privately judging means simply that light Has been granted to me, for deciding on you; And in happier times, before Atheism grew, The deed contained clauses for cooking you too: Now at Xerxes and Knut we all laugh, yet our foot With the same wave is wet that mocked Xerxes and Knut, And we all entertain a secure private notion, That our Thus far ! will have a great weight with the ocean. T was so with our liberal Christians: they bore With sincerest conviction their chairs to the shore; They brandished their worn theological birches, Bade natural progress keep out of the Churches, And expected the lines they had drawn to prevail With the fast -rising tide to keep out of their pale; They had formerly dammed the Pontifical See, And the same thing, they thought, would do nicely for P. ; But he turned up his nose at their mum ming and shamming, And cared (shall I say ?) not a d for their damming; So they first read him out of their church, and next minute Turned round and declared he had never been in it. But the ban was too small or the man was too big, For he recks not their bells, books, and candles a fig (He scarce looks like a man who would stay treated shabbily, Sophroniscus son s head o er the features of Rabelais) ; He bangs and bethwacks them, their backs he salutes With the whole tree of knowledge torn up by the roots; His sermons with satire are plenteously verjuiced, And he talks in one breath of Confutzee, Cass, Zerduscht, Jack Robinson, Peter the Hermit, Strap, Dathan, Cush, Pitt (not the bottomless, that he a no faith in), Pan, Pillicock, Shakespeare, Paul, Toots, Monsieur Tonson, Aldebaran, Alcander, Ben Khorat, Ben Jouson, Thoth, Richter, Joe Smith, Father Paul, Judah Monis, Musseus, Muretus, hem, p Scorpionis, Maccabee, Maccaboy, Mac Mac ah ! Machiavelli, Condorcet, Count d Orsay, Conder, Say, Ganganelli, Orion, O Connell, the Chevalier D O, (See the Memoirs of Sully,) rb irav, the great toe Of the statue of Jupiter, now made to pass A FABLE FOR CRITICS For that of Jew Peter by good Romish brass, (You may add for yourselves, for I find it a bore, All the names you have ever, or not, heard before, And when you ve done that why, invent a few more). His hearers can t tell you on Sunday be forehand, If in that day s discourse they 11 be Bibled or Koraned, For he s seized the idea (by his martyr dom fired) That all men (not orthodox) may be in spired ; Yet though wisdom profane with his creed he may weave in, He makes it quite clear what he does n t believe in, While some, who decry him, think all Kingdom Come Is a sort of a, kind of a, species of Hum, Of which, as it were, so to speak, not a crumb Would be left, if we did n t keep carefully mum, And, to make a clean breast, that t is per fectly plain That all kinds of wisdom are somewhat profane ; Now P. s creed than this may be lighter or darker, But in one thing, t is clear, he has faith, namely Parker; And this is what makes him the crowd- drawing preacher, There s a background of god to each hard working feature, Every word that he speaks has been fierily furnaced In the blast of a life that has struggled in earnest: There he stands, looking more like a ploughman than priest, If not dreadfully awkward, not graceful at least, His gestures all downright and same, if you will, As of brown-fisted Hobnail in hoeing: a drill; But his periods fall on you, stroke after stroke, Like the blows of a lumberer felling an oak, You forget the man wholly, you re thank ful to meet With a preacher who smacks of the field and the street, And to hear, you re not over-particular whence, Almost Taylor s profusion, quite Latimer s sense. " There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, and as dignified, As a smooth, silent iceberg, that never is ignified, Save when by reflection t is kindled o nights With a semblance of flame by the chill Northern Lights. He may rank (Griswold says so) first bard of your nation (There s no doubt that he stands in su preme iceolation), Your topmost Parnassus he may set his heel on, But no warm applauses come, peal follow ing peal on, He s too smooth and too polished to hang any zeal on: Unqualified merits, 1 11 grant, if you choose, he has em, But he lacks the one merit of kindling enthusiasm; If he stir you at all, it is just, on my soul, Like being stirred up with the very North Pole. " He is very nice reading in summer, but inter Nos, we don t want extra freezing in win ter; Take him up in the depth of July, my ad vice is, When you feel an Egyptian devotion to ices. But, deduct all you can, there s enough that s right good in him, He has a true soul for field, river, and wood in him; And his heart, in the midst of brick walls, or where er it is, Glows, softens, and thrills with the tender- est charities To you mortals that delve in this trade- ridden planet ? No, to old Berkshire s hills, with their limestone and granite. I 3 2 A FABLE FOR CRITICS If you re one who in loco (addfoco here) You will get of his outermost heart (as I guess) a piece; But you d get deeper down if you came as a precipice, And would break the last seal of its in- wardest fountain, If you only could palm yourself off for a mountain. Mr. Quivis, or somebody quite as discern ing. Some scholar who s hourly expecting his learning, Calls B. the American Wordsworth; but Wordsworth May be rated at more than your whole tuneful herd s worth. No, don t be absurd, he s an excellent Bryant; But, my friends, you 11 endanger the life of your client, By attempting to stretch him up into a giant: If you choose to compare him, I think there are two per- -sons fit for a parallel Thomson and Cowper; 1 I don t mean exactly, there s something of each, There s T. s love of nature, C. s penchant to preach; Just mix up their minds so that C. s spice of craziness Shall balance and neutralize T. s turn for laziness, And it gives you a brain cool, quite fric- tionless, quiet, Whose internal police nips the buds of all riot, A brain like a permanent strait- jacket put on The heart that strives vainly to burst off a button, A brain which, without being slow or me chanic, Does more than a larger less drilled, more volcanic; He s a Cowper condensed, with no crazi ness bitten, And the advantage that Wordsworth be fore him had written. 1 To demonstrate quickly and easily how per- -versely absurd t is to sound this name Cowper, As people in general call him named super, I remark that he rhymes it himself with horse-trooper. " But, my dear little bardliugs, don t prick up your ears Nor suppose I would rank you and Bryant as peers; If I call him an iceberg, I don t mean to say There is nothing in that which is grand in its way; He is almost the one of your poets that knows How much grace, strength, and dignity lie in Repose; If he sometimes fall short, he is too wise to mar His thought s modest fulness by going too far; T would be well if your authors should all make a trial Of what virtue there is in severe self- denial, And measure their writings by Hesiod s staff, Which teaches that all has less value than half. " There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart Strains the strait - breasted drab of the Quaker apart, And reveals the live Man, still supreme and erect, Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect; There was ne er a man born who had more of the swing Of the true lyric bard and all that kind of thing; And his failures arise (though he seem not to know it) From the very same cause that has made him a poet, A fervor of mind which knows no separa tion Twixt simple excitement and pure inspira tion, As my Pythoness erst sometimes erred from not knowing If t were I or mere wind through her tri pod was blowing; Let his mind once get head in its favorite direction And the torrent of verse bursts the dams of reflection, While, borne with the rush of the metre along, A FABLE FOR CRITICS The poet may chance to go right or go wrong, Content with the whirl and delirium of song; Then his grammar s not always correct, nor his rhymes, And he s prone to repeat his own lyrics sometimes, Not his best, though, for those are struck off at white-heats When the heart in his breast like a trip hammer beats, And can ne er be repeated again any more Than they could have been carefully plot ted before: Like old what s-his-name there at the bat tle of Hastings (Who, however, gave more than mere rhythmical bastings), Our Quaker leads off metaphorical fights For reform and whatever they call human rights, Both singing and striking in front of the war, And hitting his foes with the mallet of Thor; Anne haec, one exclaims, on beholding his knocks, Vestisfl d tui, O leather-clad Fox? Can that be thy son, in the battle s mid din, Preaching brotherly love and then driving it in To the brain of the tough old Goliath of sin, With the smoothest of pebbles from Cas- taly s spring Impressed on his hard moral sense with a sling ? "All honor and praise to the right- hearted bard Who was true to The Voice when such service was hard, Who himself was so free he dared sing for the slave When to look but a protest in silence was brave; All honor and praise to the women and men Who spoke out for the dumb and the down-trodden then ! It needs not to name them, already for each I see History preparing the statue and niche; They were harsh, but shall you be so shocked at hard words Who have beaten your pruning-hooks up into swords, Whose rewards and hurrahs men are surer to gain By the reaping of men and of women than grain ? Why should you stand aghast at their fierce wordy war, if You scalp one another for Bank or for Tariff ? Your calling them cut-throats and knaves all day long Does n t prove that the use of hard lan guage is wrong; While the World s heart beats quicker to think of such men As signed Tyranny s doom with a bloody steel-pen, While on Fourth-of -Julys beardless orators fright one With hints at Harmodius and Aristogeiton, You need not look shy at your sisters and brothers Who stab with sharp words for the free dom of others ; No, a wreath, twine a wreath for the loyal and true Who, for sake of the many, dared stand with the few, Not of blood-spattered laurel for enemies braved, But of broad, peaceful oak-leaves for citi zens saved ! " Here comes Dana, abstractedly loiter ing along, Involved in a paulo-post-future of song, Who 11 be going to write what 11 never be written Till the Muse, ere he think of it, gives him the mitten, Who is so well aware of how things should be done, That his own works displease him before they re begun, Who so well all that makes up good poetry knows, That the best of his poems is written in prose ; All saddled and bridled stood Pegasus wait ing, He was booted and spurred, but he loitered debating ; 134 A FABLE FOR CRITICS In a very grave question his soul was im mersed, Which foot in the stirrup he ought to put first; And, while this point and that he judicially dwelt on, He, somehow or other, had written Paul Felton, Whose beauties or faults, whichsoever you see there, You ll allow only genius could hit upon either. That he once was the Idle Man none will deplore, But I fear he will never be anything more ; The ocean of song heaves and glitters before him, The depth and the vastness and longing sweep o er him, He knows every breaker and shoal on the chart, He has the Coast Pilot and so on by heart, Yet he spends his whole life, like the man in the fable, In learning to swim on his library- table. " There swaggers John Neal, who has wasted in Maine The sinews and cords of his pugilist brain, Who might have been poet, but that, in its stead, he Preferred to believe that he was so already ; Too hasty to wait till Art s ripe fruit should drop, He must pelt down an unripe and colicky crop; Who took to the law, and had this sterling plea for it, It required him to quarrel, and paid him a fee for it; A man who s made less than he might have, because He always has thought himself more than he was, Who, with very good natural gifts as a bard, Broke the strings of his lyre out by strik ing too hard, And cracked half the notes of a truly fine voice, Because song drew less instant attention than noise. Ah, men do not know how much strength is in poise, That he goes the farthest who goes far enough, And that all beyond that is just bother and stuff. No vain man matures, he makes too much new wood; His blooms are too thick for the fruit to be good; T is the modest man ripens, t is he that achieves, Just what s needed of sunshine and shade he receives; Grapes, to mellow, require the cool dark of their leaves; Neal wants balance; he throws his mind always too far, Whisking out flocks of comets, but never a star; He has so much muscle, and loves so to show it, That he strips himself naked to prove he s a poet, And, to show he could leap Art s wide ditch, if he tried, Jumps clean o er it, and into the hedge t other side. He has strength, but there s nothing about him in keeping; One gets surelier onward by walking than leaping; He has used his own sinews himself to dis tress, And had done vastly more had he done vastly less; In letters, too soon is as bad as too late ; Could he only have waited he might have been great; But he plumped into Helicon up to the waist, And muddied the stream ere he took his first taste. "There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare That you hardly at first see the strength that is there ; A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet, So earnest, so graceful, so lithe and so fleet, Is worth a descent from Olympus to meet; T is as if a rough oak that for ages had stood, With his gnarled bony branches like ribs of the wood, Should bloom, after cycles of struggle and scathe, With a single anemone trembly and rathe; A FABLE FOR CRITICS His strength is so tender, his wildness so meek, That a suitable parallel sets one to seek, He s a John Bunyan Fouque , a Puritan Tieck; When Nature was shaping him, clay was not granted For making so full-sized a man as she wanted, So, to fill out her model, a little she spared From some finer-grained stuff for a woman prepared, And she could not have hit a more excellent plan For making him fully and perfectly man. The success of her scheme gave her so much delight, That she tried it again, shortly after, in D wight; Only, while she was kneading and shaping the clay, She sang to her work in her sweet childish way, And found, when she M put the last touch to his soul, That the music had somehow got mixed with the whole. "Here s Cooper, who s written six vol umes to show He s as good as a lord : well, let s grant that he s so ; If a person prefer that description of praise, Why, a coronet s certainly cheaper than bays; But he need take no pains to convince us he s not (As his enemies say) the American Scott. Choose any twelve men, and let C. read aloud That one of his novels of which he s most proud, And I d lay any bet that, without ever quitting Their box, they d be all, to a man, for ac quitting. He has drawn you one character, though, that is new, One wildflower he s plucked that is wet with the dew Of this fresh Western world, and, the thing not to mince, He has done naught but copy it ill ever since; His Indians, with proper respect be it said, Are just Natty Bumppo, daubed over with red, And his very Long Toms are the same useful Nat, Rigged up in duck pants and a sou wester hat (Though once in a Coffin, a good chance was found To have slipped the old fellow away under ground). All his other men-figures are clothes upon sticks, The derniere chemise of a man in a fix (As a captain besieged, when his garrison s small, Sets up caps upon poles to be seen o er the wall) ; And the women he draws from one model don t vary, All sappy as maples and flat as a prairie. When a character s wanted, he goes to the task As a cooper would do in composing a cask; He picks out the staves, of their qualities heedful, Just hoops them together as tight as is needful, And, if the best fortune should crown the attempt, he Has made at the most something wooden and empty. "Don t suppose I would underrate Cooper s abilities; If I thought you d do that, I should feel very ill at ease; The men who have given to one character life And objective existence are not very rife; You may number them all, both prose- writers and singers, Without" overrunning the bounds of your fingers, And Natty won t go to oblivion quicker Than Adams the parson or Primrose the vicar. " There is one thing in Cooper I like, too, and that is That on manners he lectures his country men gratis; Not precisely so either, because, for a rarity, He is paid for his tickets in unpopularity. Now he may overcharge his American pic tures, 136 A FABLE FOR CRITICS But you 11 grant there s a good deal of truth in his strictures; And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the freedom to think, And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t other half for the freedom to Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store, Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower. " There are truths you Americans need to be told, And it never 11 refute them to swagger and scold; John Bull, looking o er the Atlantic, in choler At your aptness for trade, says you worship the dollar; But to scorn such eye-dollar-try s what very few do, And John goes to that church as often as you do. No matter what John says, don t try to outcrow him, T is enough to go quietly on and outgrow him; Like most fathers, Bull hates to see Num ber One Displacing himself in the mind of his son, And detests the same faults in himself he d neglected When he sees them again in his child s glass reflected; To love one another you re too like by half; If he is a bull, you re a pretty stout calf, And tear your own pasture for naught but to show What a nice pair of horns you re begin ning to grow. " There are one or two things I should just like to hint, For you don t often get the truth told you in print; The most of you (this is what strikes all beholders) Have a mental and physical stoop in the shoulders; Though you ought to be free as the winds and the waves, You ve the gait and the manners of run away slaves; Though you brag of your New World, you don t half believe in it; And as much of the Old as is possible weave in it; Your goddess of freedom, a tight, buxom girl, With lips like a cherry and teeth like a pearl, With eyes bold as Here s, and hair floating free, And full of the sun as the spray of the sea, Who can sing at a husking or romp at a shearing, Who can trip through the forests alone without fearing, Who can drive home the cows with a song through the grass, Keeps glancing aside into Europe s cracked Hides her red hands in gloves, pinches up her lithe waist, And makes herself wretched with transma rine taste; She loses her fresh country charm when she takes Any mirror except her own rivers and lakes. "You steal Englishmen s books and think Englishmen s thought, With their salt on her tail your wild eagle is caught; Your literature suits its each whisper and motion To what will be thought of it over the ocean ; The cast clothes of Europe your statesman ship tries And mumbles again the old blarneys and lies; Forget Europe wholly, your veins throb with blood, To which the dull current in hers is but mud: Let her sneer, let her say your experiment fails, In her voice there s a tremble e en now while she rails, And your shore will soon be in the nature of things Covered thick with gilt drift-wood of cast away kings, Where alone, as it were in a Longfellow s Waif, A FABLE FOR CRITICS J 37 Her fugitive pieces will find themselves safe. O my friends, thank your god, if you have one, that he Twixt the Old World and you set the gulf of a sea; Be strong-backed, brown-handed, upright as your pines, By the scale of a hemisphere shape your designs, Be true to yourselves and this new nine teenth age, As a statue by Powers, or a picture by Plough, sail, forge, build, carve, paint, make all over new, To your own New- World instincts contrive to be true, Keep your ears open wide to the Future s first call, Be whatever you will, but yourselves first of all, Stand fronting the dawn on Toil s heaven- scaling peaks, And become my new race of more practi cal Greeks. Hem ! your likeness at present, I shudder to tell o t, Is that you have your slaves, and the Greek had his helot." Here a gentleman present, who had in his attic More pepper than brains, shrieked, "The man s a fanatic, I m a capital tailor with warm tar and feathers, And will make him a suit that 11 serve in all weathers; But we 11 argue the point first, I m willing to reason t, Palaver before condemnation s but decent; So, through my humble person, Humanity begs Of the friends of true freedom a loan of bad eggs." But Apollo let one such a look of his show forth As when ffrc VVKTI eWefo, and so forth, And the gentleman somehow slunk out of the way, But, as he was going, gained courage to say, " At slavery in the abstract my whole soul rebels, I am as strongly opposed to t as any one else." " Ay, no doubt, but whenever I ve hap pened to meet With a wrong or a crime, it is always con crete," Answered Phcebus severely; then turning to us, " The mistake of such fellows as just made the fuss Is only in taking a great busy nation For a part of their pitiful cotton-planta tion. But there comes Miranda, Zeus ! where shall I flee to ? She has such a penchant for bothering me too ! She always keeps asking if I don t observe a Particular likeness twixt her and Minerva ; She tells me my efforts in verse are quite clever; She s been travelling now, and will be worse than ever; One would think, though, a sharp-sighted noter she d be Of all that s worth mentioning over the sea, For a woman must surely see well, if she try, The whole of whose being s a capital I: She will take an old notion, and make it her own, By saying it o er in her Sibylline tone, Or persuade you t is something tremen dously deep, By repeating it so as to put you to sleep; And she well may defy any mortal to see through it, When once she has mixed up her infinite me through it. There is one thing she owns in her own single right, It is native and genuine namely, her spite; Though, when acting as censor, she pri vately blows A censer of vanity neath her own nose." Here Miranda came up, and said, " bus ! you know That the Infinite Soul has its infinite woe, As I ought to know, having lived cheek by jowl, Since the day I was born, with the Infinite Soul; A FABLE FOR CRITICS I myself introduced, I myself, I alone, To my Land s better life authors solely my own, Who the sad heart of earth on their shoul ders have taken, Whose works sound a depth by Life s quiet unshaken, Such as Shakespeare, for instance, the Bible, and Bacon, Not to mention my own works; Time s nadir is fleet, And, as for myself, I m quite out of con ceit" " Quite out of conceit ! I m enchanted to hear it," Cried Apollo aside. " WTio d have thought she was near it ? To be sure, one is apt to exhaust those commodities One uses too fast, yet in this case as odd it is As if Neptune should say to his turbots and whitings, I m as much out of salt as Miranda s own writings (Which, as she in her own happy manner has said, Sound a depth, for t is one of the functions of lead). She often has asked me if I could not find A place somewhere near me that suited her mind ; I know but a single one vacant, which she, With her rare talent that way, would fit to aT. And it would not imply any pause or cessa tion In the work she esteems her peculiar voca tion, She may enter on duty to-day, if she chooses, And remain Tiring-woman for life to the Muses." Miranda meanwhile has succeeded in driving Up into a corner, in spite of their striving, A small flock of terrified victims, and there, With an I-turn-the-crank-of-the-Universe air And a tone which, at least to my fancy, ap pears Not so much to be entering as boxing your ears, Is unfolding a tale (of herself, I surmise, For t is dotted as thick as a peacock s with I s). Apropos of Miranda, I 11 rest on my oars And drift through a trifling digression on bores, For, though not wearing ear-rings in more majorum, Our ears are kept bored just as if we still wore em. There was one feudal custom worth keep ing, at least, Roasted bores made a part of each well- ordered feast, And of all quiet pleasures the very ne plus Was in hunting wild bores as the tame ones hunt us. Archseologians, I know, who have personal fears Of this wise application of hounds and of spears, Have tried to make out, with a zeal more than wonted, T was a kind of wild swine that our ances tors hunted; But I ll never believe that the age which has strewn Europe o er with cathedrals, and otherwise shown That it knew what was what, could by chance not have known (Spending, too, its chief time with its buff on, no doubt) Which beast t would improve the world most to thin out. I divide bores myself, in the manner of rifles, Into two great divisions, regardless of tri fles; There s your smooth-bore and screw-bore, who do not much vary In the weight of cold lead they respectively carry. The smooth-bore is one in whose essence the mind Not a corner nor cranny to cling by can find; You feel as in nightmares sometimes, when you slip Down a steep slated roof, where there s nothing to grip; You slide and you slide, the blank horror increases, You had rather by far be at once smashed to pieces; A FABLE FOR CRITICS You fancy a whirlpool below white and frothing, And finally drop off and light upon no thing. The screw-bore has twists in him, faint predilections For going just wrong in the tritest direc tions; When he s wrong he is flat, when he s right he can t show it, He 11 tell you what Snooks said about the new poet, 1 Or how Fogrum was outraged by Tenny son s Princess; He has spent all his spare time and intel lect since his Birth in perusing, on each art and science, Just the books in which no one puts any reliance, And though nemo, we re told, horis omnibus The rule will not fit him, however you shape it, For he has a perennial foison of sappiness; He has just enough force to spoil half your day s happiness, And to make him a sort of mosquito to be with, But just not enough to dispute or agree with. These sketches I made (not to be too explicit) From two honest fellows who made me a visit, And broke, like the tale of the Bear and the Fiddle, My reflections on Halleck short off by the middle ; I sha n t now go into the subject more deeply, For I notice that some of my readers look sleep ly; I will barely remark that, mongst civilized nations, There s none that displays more exemplary patience Under all sorts of boring, at all sorts of hours, From all sorts of desperate persons, than ours. Not to speak of our papers, our State legis latures, 1 (If you call Snooks an owl, he will show by his looks That he s morally certain you re jealous of Snooks.) And other such trials for sensitive na tures, Just look for a moment at Congress, ap palled, My fancy shrinks back from the phantom it called; Why, there s scarcely a member unworthy to frown Neath what Fourier nicknames the Boreal crown; Only think what that infinite bore-pow r could do If applied with a utilitarian view; Suppose, for example, we shipped it with care To Sahara s great desert and let it bore there; If they held one short session and did no thing else, They d fill the whole waste with Artesian wells. But t is time now with pen phonographic to follow Through some more of his sketches our laughing Apollo: " There comes Harry Franco, and, as he draws near, You find that s a smile which you took for a sneer; One half of him contradicts t other; his wont Is to say very sharp things and do very blunt; His manner s as hard as his feelings are tender, And a sortie he 11 make when he means to surrender; He s in joke half the time when he seems to be sternest, When he seems to be joking, be sure he s in earnest; He has common sense in a way that s un common, Hates humbug and cant, loves his friends like a woman, Builds his dislikes of cards and his friend ships of oak, Loves a prejudice better than aught but a joke, Is half upright Quaker, half downright Gome-outer, Loves Freedom too well to go stark mad about her, Quite artless himself, is a lover of Art, 140 A FABLE FOR CRITICS Shuts you out of his secrets and into his heart, And though not a poet, yet all must ad mire In his letters of Pinto his skill on the liar. " There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three fifths of him genius and two fifths sheer fudge, Who talks like a book of iambs and penta meters, In a way to make people of common sense damn metres, Who has written some things quite the best of their kind, But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind, Who But hey-day! What s this? Messieurs Mathews and Poe, You must n t fling mud-balls at Longfellow so, Does it make a man worse that his charac ter s such As to make his friends love him (as you think) too much? Why, there is not a bard at this moment alive More willing than he that his fellows should thrive; While you are abusing him thus, even now He would help either one of you out of a slough; You may say that he s smooth and all that till you re hoarse, But remember that elegance also is force ; After polishing granite as much as you will, The heart keeps its tough old persistency still; Deduct all you can, that still keeps you at bay; Why, he 11 live till men weary of Collins and Gray. I m not over-fond of Greek metres in Eng lish, To me rhyme s a gain, so it be not too jin- glish, And your modern hexameter verses are no more Like Greek ones than sleek Mr. Pope is like Homer; As the roar of the sea to the coo of a pigeon is, So, compared to your moderns, sounds old Melesigenes; I may be too partial, the reason, perhaps, o t is That I ve heard the old blind man recite his own rhapsodies, And my ear with that music impregnate may be, Like the poor exiled shell with the soul of the sea, Or as one can t bear Strauss when his na ture is cloven To its deeps within deeps by the stroke of Beethoven; But, set that aside, and t is truth that I Had Theocritus written in English, not Greek, I believe that his exquisite sense would scarce change a line In that rare, tender, virgin-like pastoral Evangeline. That s not ancient nor modern, its place is apart Where time has no sway, in the realm of pure Art, T is a shrine of retreat from Earth s hubbub and strife As quiet and chaste as the author s own life. "There comes Philothea, her face all aglow, She has just been dividing some poor crea ture s woe, And can t tell which pleases her most, to relieve His want, or his story to hear and believe ; No doubt against many deep griefs she prevails, For her ear is the refuge of destitute tales; She knows well that silence is sorrow s best food, And that talking draws off from the heart its black blood, So she 11 listen with patience and let you unfold Your bundle of rags as t were pure cloth of gold, Which, indeed, it all turns to as soon as she J s touched it, And (to borrow a phrase from the nursery) mucked it; She has such a musical taste, she will go Any distance to hear one who draws a long bow; She will swallow a wonder by mere might and main, A FABLE FOR CRITICS 141 And thinks it Geometry s fault if she s fain To consider things flat, inasmuch as they re plain; Facts with her are accomplished, as French men would say They will prove all she wishes them to either way, And, as fact lies on this side or that, we must try, If we re seeking the truth, to find where it don t lie; I was telling her once of a marvellous aloe That for thousands of years had looked spindling and sallow, And, though nursed by the fruitfullest powers of mud, Had never vouchsafed e en so much as a bud, Till its owner remarked (as a sailor, you know, Often will in a calm) that it never would blow, For he wished to exhibit the plant, and de signed That its blowing should help him in raising the wind; At last it was told him that if he should water Its roots with the blood of his unmarried daughter (Who was born, as her mother, a Calvinist, said, With William Law s serious caul on her head), It would blow as the obstinate breeze did when by a Like decree of her father died Iphigenia; At first he declared he himself would be blowed Ere his conscience with such a foul crime he would load, But the thought, coming oft, grew less dark than before, And he mused, as each creditor knocked at his door, If this were but done they would dun me no more; I told Philothea his struggles and doubts, And how he considered the ins and the outs Of the visions he had, and the dreadful dyspepsy, How he went to the seer that lives at Po - keepsie, How the seer advised him to sleep on it first, And to read his big volume in case of the worst, And further advised he should pay him five dollars For writing $um, tyum, on his wristbands and collars; Three years and ten days these dark words he had studied When the daughter was missed, and the aloe had budded; I told how he watched it grow large and more large, And wondered how much for the show he should charge, She had listened with utter indifference to this, till I told how it bloomed, and, discharging its pistil With an aim the Eumenides dictated, shot The botanical filicide dead on the spot; It had blown, but he reaped not his horrible gains, For it blew with such force as to blow out his brains, And the crime was blown also, because on the wad, Which was paper, was writ Visitation of God, As well as a thrilling account of the deed Which the coroner kindly allowed me to read. " Well, my friend took this story up just, to be sure, As one might a poor foundling that s laid at one s door; She combed it and washed it and clothed it and fed it, And as if t were her own child most ten derly bred it, Laid the scene (of the legend, I mean) far away a- -mong the green vales underneath Hima laya, And by artist-like touches, laid on here and there, Made the whole thing so touching, I frankly declare I have read it all thrice, and, perhaps I am weak, But I found every time there were tears on my cheek. " The pole, science tells us, the magnet controls, 142 A FABLE FOR CRITICS But she is a magnet to emigrant Poles, And folks with a mission that nobody knows Throng thickly about her as bees round a rose; She can fill up the carets in such, make their scope Converge to some focus of rational hope, And, with sympathies fresh as the morn ing, their gall Can transmute into honey, but this is not all; Not only for those she has solace, oh say, Vice s desperate nursling adrift in Broad way, Who clingest, with all that is left of thee human, To the last slender spar from the wreck of the woman, Hast thou not found one shore where those tired drooping feet Could reach firm mother-earth, one full heart on whose beat The soothed head in silence reposing could hear The chimes of far childhood throb back on the ear ? Ah, there s many a beam from the foun tain of day That, to reach us unclouded, must pass, on its way, Through the soul of a woman, and hers is wide ope To the influence of Heaven as the blue eyes of Hope; Yes, a great heart is hers, one that dares to go in To the prison, the slave-hut, the alleys of sin, And to bring into each, or to find there, some line Of the never completely out-trampled di vine; If her heart at high floods swamps her brain now and then, T is but richer for that when the tide ebbs agen, As, after old Nile has subsided, his plain Overflows with a second broad deluge of grain; What a wealth would it bring to the nar row and sour Could they be as a Child but for one little hour ! " What ! Irving ? thrice welcome, warm heart and fine brain, You bring back the happiest spirit from Spain, And the gravest sweet humor, that ever were there Since Cervantes met death in his gentle despair; Nay, don t be embarrassed, nor look so be seeching, I sha n t run directly against my own preaching, And, having just laughed at their Raphaels and Dantes, Go to setting you up beside matchless Cer vantes ; But allow me to speak what I honestly feel, To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele, Throw in all of Addison, minus the chill, With the whole of that partnership s stock and good-will, Mix well, and while stirring, hum o er, as a spell, The fine old English Gentleman, simmer it well, Sweeten just to your own private liking, then strain, That only the finest and clearest remain, Let it stand out of doors till a soul it re ceives From the warm lazy sun loitering down through green leaves, And you 11 find a choice nature, not wholly deserving A name either English or Yankee, just Irving. "There goes, but stet nominis umbra. his name You 11 be glad enough, some day or other, to claim, And will all crowd about him and swear that you knew him If some English critic should chance to re~ view him. The old porcos ante ne projiciatis MARGARITAS, for him you have verified gratis; What matters his name ? Why, it may be Sylvester, Judd, Junior, or Junius, Ulysses, or Nestor, For aught / know or care; t is enough that I look A FABLE FOR CRITICS On the author of Margaret/ the first Yankee book With the soul of Down East in t, and things farther East, As far as the threshold of morning, at least, Where awaits the fair dawn of the simple and true, Of the day that conies slowly to make all things new. *T has a smack of pine woods, of bare field and bleak hill, Such as only the breed of the Mayflower could till; The Puritan s shown in it, tough to the core, Such as prayed, smiting Agag on red Mar- ston Moor: With an unwilling humor, half choked by the drouth In brown hollows about the inhospitable mouth; With a soul full of poetry, though it has qualms About finding a happiness out of the Psalms; Full of tenderness, too, though it shrinks in the dark, Hamadryad-like, under the coarse, shaggy bark; That sees visions, knows wrestlings of God with the Will, And has its own Sinais and thunderingfs still." Here, "Forgive me, Apollo," I cried, " while I pour My heart out to my birthplace: O loved more and more Dear Baystate, from whose rocky bosom thy sons Should suck milk, strong- will-giving, brave, such as runs In the veins of old Greylock who is it that dares Call thee pedler, a soul wrapped in bank books and shares ? It is false ! She s a Poet ! I see, as I write, Along the far railroad the steam-snake glide white, The cataract-throb of her mill-hearts I hear, The swift strokes of trip-hammers weary my ear, Sledges ring upon anvils, through logs the saw screams, Blocks swing to their place, beetles drive home the beams : It is songs such as these that she croons to the din Of her fast-flying shuttles, year out and year in, While from earth s farthest corner there comes not a breeze But wafts her the buzz of her gold-glean ing bees: What though those horn hands have as yet found small time For painting and sculpture and music and rhyme ? These will come in due order; the need that pressed sorest Was to vanquish the seasons, the ocean, the forest, To bridle and harness the rivers, the steam, Making those whirl her mill-wheels, this tug in her team, To vassalize old tyrant Winter, and make Him delve surlily for her on river and lake; When this New World was parted, she strove not to shirk Her lot in the heirdom, the tough, silent Work, The hero-share ever from Herakles down To Odin, the Earth s iron sceptre and crown : Yes, thou dear, noble Mother ! if ever men s praise Could be claimed for creating heroical lays, Thou hast won it; if ever the laurel divine Crowned the Maker and Builder, that glory is thine ! Thy songs are right epic, they tell how this rude Rock-rib of our earth here was tamed and subdued; Thou hast written them plain on the face of the planet In brave, deathless letters of iron and granite ; Thou hast printed them deep for all time ; they are set From the same runic type-fount and al phabet With thy stout Berkshire hills and the arms of thy Bay, They are staves from the burly old May flower lay. 144 A FABLE FOR CRITICS If the drones of the Old World, in queru lous ease, Ask thy Art and thy Letters, point proudly to these, Or, if they deny these are Letters and Art, Toil on with the same old invincible heart; Thou art rearing the pedestal broad-based and grand Whereon the fair shapes of the Artist shall stand, And creating, through labors undaunted and long, The theme for all Sculpture and Painting and Song ! " But my good mother Baystate wants no praise of mine, She learned from her mother a precept di vine About something that butters no parsnips, her forte In another direction lies, work is her sport (Though she 11 curtsey and set her cap straight, that she will, If you talk about Plymouth and red Bunker s hill). Dear, notable goodwife ! by this time of night, Her hearth is swept neatly, her fire burn ing bright, And she sits in a chair (of home plan and make) rocking, Musing much, all the while, as she darns on a stocking, Whether turkeys will come pretty high next Thanksgiving, Whether flour 11 be so dear, for, as sure as she s living, She will use rye-and-injun then, whether the pig By this time ain t got pretty tolerable big, And whether to sell it outright will be best, Or to smoke hams and shoulders and salt down the rest, At this minute, she d swop all my verses, ah, cruel ! For the last patent stove that is saving of fuel; So I 11 just let Apollo go on, for his phiz Shows I ve kept him awaiting too long as it is." " If our friend, there, who seems a re porter, is done With his burst of emotion, why, / will go on," Said Apollo; some smiled, and, indeed, I must own There was something sarcastic, perhaps, in his tone ; "There s Holmes, who is matchless among you for wit; A Leyden-jar always full-charged, from which flit The electrical tingles of hit after hit; In long poems t is painful sometimes, and invites A thought of the way the new Telegraph writes, Which pricks down its little sharp sentences spitefully As if you got more than you d title to rightfully, And you find yourself hoping its wild father Lightning Would flame in for a second and give you a fright ning. He has perfect sway of what I call a sham metre, But many admire it, the English pentame ter, And Campbell, I think, wrote most com monly worse, With less nerve, swing, and fire in the same kind -of verse, Nor e er achieved aught in t so worthy of praise As the tribute of Holmes to the grand Marseillaise. You went crazy last year over Bulwer s New Timon ; Why, if B-, to the day of his dying, should rhyme on, Heaping verses on verses and tomes upon tomes, He could ne er reach the best point and vigor of Holmes. His are just the fine hands, too, to weave you a lyric Full of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced with satiric In a measure so kindly, you doubt if the toes That are trodden upon are your own or your foes . " There is Lowell, who s striving Par nassus to climb A FABLE FOR CRITICS 45 With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme, He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, But he can t with that bundle he has on his shoulders, The top of the hill he will ne er come nigh reaching Till he learns the distinction twixt singing and preaching; His lyre has some chords that would ring pretty well, But he d rather by half make a drum of the shell, And rattle away till he s old as Methusalem, At the head of a march to the last new Jerusalem. " There goes Halleck, whose Fanny s a pseudo Don Juan, With the wickedness out that gave salt to the true one, He s a wit, though, I hear, of the very first order, And once made a pun on the words soft Recorder; More than this, he s a very great poet, I m told, And has had his works published in crimson and gold, With something they call Illustrations, to wit, Like those with which Chapman obscured Holy Writ, 1 Which are said to illustrate, because, as I view it, Like lucus a non, they precisely don t do it ; Let a man who can write what himself understands Keep clear, if he can, of designing men s hands, Who bury the sense, if there s any worth having, And then very honestly call it engraving. But, to quit badinage, which there is n t much wit in, Halleck s better, I doubt not, than all he has written; In his verse a clear glimpse you will fre quently find, If not of a great, of a fortunate mind, Which contrives to be true to its natural loves 1 (Cuts rightly called wooden, as all must admit.) In a world of back-offices, ledgers, and stoves. When his heart breaks away from the brokers and banks, And kneels in his own private shrine to give thanks, There s a genial manliness in him that earns Our sincerest respect (read, for instance, his Burns ), And we can t but regret (seek excuse where we may) That so much of a man has been peddled away. "But what s that? a mass-meeting? No, there come in lots The American Bulwers, Disraelis, and Scotts, And in short the American everything elses, Each charging the others with envies and jealousies; By the way, t is a fact that displays what profusions Of all kinds of greatness bless free institu tions, That while the Old World has produced barely eight Of such poets as all men agree to call great, And of other great characters hardly a score (One might safely say less than that rather than more), With you every year a whole crop is be gotten, They re as much of a staple as corn is, or cotton; Why, there s scarcely a huddle of log-huts and shanties That has not brought forth its own Miltons and Dantes; I myself know ten Byrons, one Coleridge, three Shelley s, Two Raphaels, six Titians (I think), one Apelles, Leonardos and Rubenses plenty as lichens, One (but that one is plenty) American Dickens, A whole flock of Lambs, any number of Tennysons, In short, if a man has the luck to have any sons, He may feel pretty certain that one out of twain Will be some very great person over again. 146 A FABLE FOR CRITICS There is one inconvenience in all this, which lies In the fact that by contrast we estimate size, 1 And, where there are none except Titans, great stature Is only the normal proceeding of nature. What puff the strained sails of your praise will you furl at, if The calmest degree that you know is super lative ? At Rome, all whom Charon took into his wherry must, As a matter of course, be well issimust and errimust, A Greek, too, could feel, while in that fa mous boat he tost, That his friends would take care he was KTTost and twroTost, And formerly we, as through graveyards we past, Thought the world went from bad to worst fearfully fast; Let us glance for a moment, t is well worth the pains, And note what an average graveyard con tains ; There lie levellers levelled, duns done up themselves, There are booksellers finally laid on their shelves, Horizontally there lie upright politicians, Dose-a-dose with their patients sleep fault less physicians, There are slave-drivers quietly whipped under ground, There bookbinders, done up in boards, are fast bound, There card-players wait till the last trump be played, There all the choice spirits get finally laid, There the babe that s unborn is supplied with a berth, There men without legs get their six feet of earth, There lawyers repose, each wrapped up in his case, There seekers of office are sure of a place, There defendant and plaintiff get equally cast, There shoemakers quietly stick to the last, 1 That is in most cases we do, but not all, Past a doubt, there are men who are innately small, Such as Blank, who, without being minished a tittle, Might stand for a type of the Absolute Little. There brokers at length become silent as stocks, There stage-drivers sleep without quitting their box, And so forth and so forth and so forth and so on, With this kind of stuff one might endlessly go on; To come to the point, I may safely assert you Will find in each yard every cardinal vir tue; 1 Each has six truest patriots: four discov erers of ether, Who never had thought on t nor mentioned it either; Ten poets, the greatest who ever wrote rhyme : Two hundred and forty first men of their time: One person whose portrait just gave the least hint Its original had a most horrible squint: One critic, most (what do they call it?) re flective, Who never had used the phrase ob- or sub jective : Forty fathers of Freedom, of whom twenty bred Their sons for the rice-swamps, at so much a head, And their daughters for faugh ! thirty mothers of Gracchi: Non-resistants who gave many a spiritual blackeye : Eight true friends of their kind, one of whom was a jailer: Four captains almost as astounding as Taylor: Two dozen of Italy s exiles who shoot us his Kaisership daily, stern pen-and-ink Bru- tuses, Who, in Yankee back-parlors, with cruci fied smile, 2 Mount serenely their country s funereal pile: Ninety-nine Irish heroes, ferocious rebel- lers Gainst the Saxon in cis-marine garrets and cellars, Who shake their dread fists o er the sea and all that, 1 (And at this just conclusion will surely arrive, That the goodness of earth is more dead than alive.) * Not forgetting their tea and their toast, though, the while. A FABLE FOR CRITICS 147 As long as a copper drops into the hat: Nine hundred Teutonic republicans stark From Vaterland s battle just won in the Park, Who the happy profession of martyrdom take Whenever it gives them a chance at a steak: Sixty-two second Washingtons : two or three Jacksons : And so many everythings-else that it racks one s Poor memory too much to continue the list, Especially now they no longer exist; I would merely observe that you ve taken to giving The puffs that belong to the dead to the living, And that somehow your trump-of-contem- porary-doom s tones Is tuned after old dedications and tomb stones." Here the critic came in and a thistle pre sented l From a frown to a smile the god s features relented, As he stared at his envoy, who, swelling with pride, To the god s asking look, nothing daunted, replied, " You re surprised, I suppose, I was absent so long, But your godship respecting the lilies was wrong; I hunted the garden from one end to t other, And got no reward but vexation and bother, Till, tossed out with weeds in a corner to wither, This one lily I found and made haste to bring hither." " Did he think I had given him a book to review ? I ought to have known what the fellow would do," Muttered Phoebus aside, " for a thistle will pass Beyond doubt for the queen of all flowers with an ass; 1 Turn back now to page goodness only knows what, And take a fresh hold on the thread of my plot. He has chosen in just the same way as he d choose His specimens out of the books he reviews; And now, as this offers an excellent text, I 11 give em some brief hints on criticism next." So, musing a moment, he turned to the crowd, And, clearing his voice, spoke as follows aloud: " My friends, in the happier days of the muse, We were luckily free from such things as reviews; Then naught came between with its fog to make clearer The heart of the poet to that of his hearer; Then the poet brought heaven to the peo ple, and they Felt that they, too, were poets in hearing his lay; Then the poet was prophet, the past in his soul Procreated the future, both parts of one whole; Then for him there was nothing too great or too small, For one natural deity sanctified all; Then the bard owned no clipper and meter of moods Save the spirit of silence that hovers and broods O er the seas and the mountains, the rivers and woods; He asked not earth s verdict, forgetting the clods, His soul soared and sang to an audience of gods; T was for them that he measured the thought and the line, And shaped for their vision the perfect design, With as glorious a foresight, a balance as true, As swung out the worlds in the infinite blue ; Then a glory and greatness invested man s heart, The universal, which now stands estranged and apart, In the free individual moulded, was Art; Then the forms of the Artist seemed thrilled with desire For something as yet unattained, fuller, higher, A FABLE FOR CRITICS As once with her lips, lifted hands, and eyes listening, And her whole upward soul in her counte nance glistening, Eurydice stood like a beacon unfi red, Which, once touched with flame, will leap heav nward inspired And waited with answering kindle to mark The first gleam of Orpheus that pained the red Dark. Then painting, song, sculpture did more than relieve The need that men feel to create and be lieve, And as, in all beauty, who listens with love Hears these words oft repeated c beyond and above, So these seemed to be but the visible sign Of the grasp of the soul after things more divine; They were ladders the Artist erected to climb O er the narrow horizon of space and of time, And we see there the footsteps by which men had gained To the one rapturous glimpse of the never- attained, As shepherds could erst sometimes trace in the sod The last spurning print of a sky-cleaving god. " But now, on the poet s dis-privacied moods With do this and do that the pert critic intrudes ; While he thinks he s been barely fulfilling his duty To interpret twixt men and their own sense of beauty, And has striven, while others sought honor or pelf, To make his kind happy as he was him self, He finds he s been guilty of horrid offences In all kinds of moods, numbers, genders, and tenses; He s been ob and sw&jective, what Kettle calls Pot, Precisely, at all events, what he ought not, You have done this, says one judge; done that, says another; You should have done this, grumbles one ; that, says t other; Never mind what he touches, one shrieks out Taboo! And while he is wondering what he shall do, Since each suggests opposite topics for song, They all shout together you re right ! and you re wrong! " Nature fits all her children with some thing to do, He who would write and can t write can surely review, Can set up a small booth as critic and sell us his Petty conceit and his pettier jealousies; Thus a lawyer s apprentice, just out of his teens, Will do for the Jeffrey of six magazines; Having read Johnson s lives of the poets half through, There s nothing on earth he s not compe tent to; He reviews with as much nonchalance as he whistles, He goes through a book and just picks out the thistles; It matters not whether he blame or com mend, If he s bad as a foe, he s far worse as a friend : Let an author but write what s above his poor scope, He goes to work gravely and twists up a rope, And, inviting the world to see punishment done, Hangs himself up to bleach in the wind and the sun; T is delightful to see, when a man comes along Who has anything in him peculiar and strong, Every cockboat that swims clear its fierce (pop) gundeck at him, And make as he passes its ludicrous Peck at him " Here Miranda came up and began, " As to that " Apollo at once seized his gloves, cane, and hat, And, seeing the place getting rapidly cleared, I too snatched my notes and forthwith disappeared. THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT 149 THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT PART I SHOWING HOW HE BUILT HIS HOUSE AND HIS WIFE MOVED INTO IT MY worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott, From business snug withdrawn, Was much contented with a lot That would contain a Tudor cot Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot, And twelve feet more of lawn. He had laid business on the shelf To give his taste expansion, And, since no man, retired with pelf, The building mania can shun, Knott, being middle-aged himself, Resolved to build (unhappy elf!) A mediaeval mansion. He called an architect in counsel; " I want," said he, "a you know what, (You are a builder, I am Knott,) A thing complete from chimney-pot Down to the very grounsel; Here s a hal f-acre of good land ; Just have it nicely mapped and planned And make your workmen drive on; Meadow there is, and upland too, And I should like a water-view, D you think you could contrive one ? (Perhaps the pump and trough would do, If painted a judicious blue ?) The woodland I ve attended to;" [He meant three pines stuck up askew, Two dead ones and a live one.] " A pocket-full of rocks t would take To build a house of freestone, But then it is not hard to make What nowadays is the stone; The cunning painter in a trice Your house s outside petrifies, And people think it very gneiss Without inquiring deeper; My money never shall be thrown Away on such a deal of stone, When stone of deal is cheaper." And so the greenest of antiques Was reared for Knott to dwell in: The architect worked hard for weeks In venting all his private peaks Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks Had satisfied Fluellen; Whatever anybody had Out of the common, good or bad, Knott had it all worked well in; A donjon-keep, where clothes might dry, A porter s lodge that was a sty, A campanile slim and high, Too small to hang a bell in; All up and down and here and there, With Lord-knows- whats of round and square Stuck on at random everywhere, It was a house to make one stare, All corners and all gables; Like dogs let loose upon a bear, Ten emulous styles staboyed with care, The whole among them seemed to tear, And all the oddities to spare Were set upon the stables. Knott was delighted with a pile Approved by fashion s leaders: (Only he made the builder smile, By asking every little while, Why that was called the Twodoor style, Which certainly had three doors ?) Yet better for this luckless man If he had put a downright ban Upon the thing in limine; For, though to quit affairs his plan, Ere many days, poor Knott began Perforce accepting draughts, that ran All ways except np chimney; The house, though painted stone to mock, With nice white lines round every block, Some trepidation stood in, When tempests (with petrific shock, So to speak,) made it really rock, Though not a whit less wooden; And painted stone, howe er well done, Will not take in the prodigal sun Whose beams are never quite at one With our terrestrial lumber; So the wood shrank around the knots, THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT And gaped in disconcerting spots, And there were lots of dots and rots And crannies without number, Wherethrough, as you may well presume, The wind, like water through a flume, Came rushing in ecstatic, Leaving, in all three floors, no room That was not a rheumatic; And, what with points and squares and rounds Grown shaky on their poises, The house at nights was full of pounds, Thumps, bumps, creaks, scratchings, raps till "Zounds!" Cried Knott, " this goes beyond all bounds; I do not deal in tongues and sounds, Nor have I let my house and grounds To a family of Noyeses! " But, though Knott s house was full of airs, He had but one, a daughter; And, as he owned much stocks and shares, Many who wished to render theirs Such vain, unsatisfying cares, And needed wives to sew their tears, In matrimony sought her; They vowed her gold they wanted not, Their faith would never falter, They longed to tie this single Knott In the Hymeneal halter; So daily at the door they rang, Cards for the belle delivering, Or in the choir at her they sang, Achieving such a rapturous twang As set her nerves ashivering. Now Knott had quite made up his mind That Colonel Jones should have her; No beauty he, but oft we find Sweet kernels neath a roughish rind, So hoped his Jenny d be resigned And make no more palaver ; Glanced at the fact that love was blind, That girls were ratherish inclined To pet their little crosses, Then nosologically defined The rate at which the system pined In those unfortunates who dined Upon that metaphoric kind Of dish their own proboscis. But she, with many tears and moans, Besought him not to mock her, Said t was too much for flesh and bones To marry mortgages and loans, That fathers hearts were stocks and stones, And that she d go, when Mrs. Jones, To Davy Jones s locker; Then gave her head a little toss That said as plain as ever was, If men are always at a loss Mere womankind to bridle To try the thing on woman cross Were fifty times as idle; For she a strict resolve had made And registered in private, That either she would die a maid, Or else be Mrs. Doctor Slade, If woman could contrive it; And, though the wedding-day was set, Jenny was more so, rather, Declaring, in a pretty pet, That, howsoe er they spread their net, She would out-Jennyral them yet, The colonel and her father. Just at this time the Public s eyes Were keenly on the watch, a stir Beginning slowly to arise About those questions and replies, Those raps that unwrapped mysteries So rapidly at Rochester, And Knott, already nervous grown By lying much awake alone, And listening, sometimes to a moan, And sometimes to a clatter, Whene er the wind at night would rouse The gingerbread-work on his house, Or when some hasty-tempered mouse, Behind the plastering, made a towse About a family matter, Began to wonder if his wife, A paralytic half her life, Which made it more surprising, Might not to rule him from her urn, Have taken a peripatetic turn For want of exorcising. This thought, once nestled in his head. Erelong contagious grew, and spread Infecting all his mind with dread, Until at last he lay in bed And heard his wife, with well-known tread, Entering the kitchen through the shed, (Or was t his fancy, mocking ?) Opening the pantry, cutting bread, And then (she d been some ten years dead) Closets and drawers unlocking; THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT Or, in his room (his breath grew thick) He heard the long-familiar click Of slender needles flying quick, As if she knit a stocking; For whom ? he prayed that years might flit With pains rheumatic shooting, Before those ghostly things she knit Upon his unfleshed sole might fit, He did not fancy it a bit, To stand upon that footing; At other times, his frightened hairs Above the bedclothes trusting, He heard her, full of household cares, (No dream entrapped in supper s snares, The foal of horrible nightmares, But broad awake, as he declares,) Go bustling up and down the stairs, Or setting back last evening s chairs, Or with the poker thrusting The raked-up sea-coal s hardened crust And what ! impossible ! it must ! He knew she had returned to dust, And yet could scarce his senses trust, Hearing her as she poked and fussed About the parlor, dusting ! Night after night he strove to sleep And take his ease in spite of it; But still his flesh would chill and creep, And, though two night-lamps he might keep, He could not so make light of it. At last, quite desperate, he goes And tells his neighbors all his woes, Which did but their amount enhance; They made such mockery of his fears That soon his days were of all jeers, His nights of the rueful countenance; "I thought most folks," one neighbor said, " Gave up the ghost when they were dead ? " Another gravely shook his head, Adding, " From all we hear, it s Quite plain poor Knott is going mad For how can he at once be sad And think he s full of spirits ? " A third declared he knew a knife Would cut this Knott much quicker, " The surest way to end all strife, And lay the spirit of a wife, Is just to take and lick her ! " A temperance man caught up the word, " Ah yes," he groaned, " I ve always heard Our poor friend somewhat slanted Tow rd taking liquor overmuch; I fear these spirits may be Dutch, (A sort of gins, or something such,) With which his house is haunted; I see the thing as clear as light, If Knott would give up getting tight, Naught farther would be wanted: " So all his neighbors stood aloof And, that the spirits neath his roof Were not entirely up to proof, Unanimously granted. Knott knew that cocks and sprites were foes, And so bought up, Heaven only knows How many, for he wanted crows To give ghosts caws, as I suppose, To think that day was breaking; Moreover what he called his park, He turned into a kind of ark For dogs, because a little bark Is a good tonic in the dark, If one is given to waking; But things went on from bad to worse, His curs were nothing but a curse, And, what was still more shocking, Foul ghosts of living fowl made scoff And would not think of going off In spite of all his cocking. Shanghais, Bucks-counties, Dominiques, Malays (that did n t lay for weeks,) Polanders, Bantams, Dorkings, (Waiving the cost, no trifling ill, Since each brought in his little bill,) By day or night were never still, But every thought of rest would kill With cacklings and with quorkings; Henry the Eighth of wives got free By a way he had of axing; But poor Knott s Tudor henery Was not so fortunate, and he Still found his trouble waxing; As for the dogs, the rows they made, And how they howled, snarled, barked and bayed, Beyond all human knowledge is; All night, as wide awake as gnats, The terriers rumpused after rats, Or, just for practice, taught their brats To worry cast-off shoes and hats, The bull-dogs settled private spats, All chased imaginary cats, Or raved behind the fence s slats THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT At real ones, or, from their mats, With friends, miles off, held pleasant chats, Or, like some folks in white cravats, Contemptuous of sharps and flats, Sat up and sang dogsologies. Meanwhile the cats set up a squall, And, safe upon the garden-wall, All night kept cat-a- walling, As if the feline race were all, In one wild cataleptic sprawl, Into love s tortures falling. PART II SHOWING WHAT IS MEANT BY A FLOW OF SPIRITS At first the ghosts were somewhat shy, Coming when none but Knott was nigh, And people said t was all their eye, (Or rather his) a flam, the sly Digestion s machination: Some recommended a wet sheet, Some a nice broth of pounded peat, Some a cold flat-iron to the feet, Some a decoction of lamb s-bleat, Some a southwesterly grain of wheat; Meat was by some pronounced unmeet, Others thought fish most indiscreet, And that t was worse than all to eat Of vegetables, sour or sweet, (Except, perhaps, the skin of beet,) In such a concatenation: One quack his button gently plucks And murmurs, " Biliary ducks ! " Says Knott, " I never ate one ; " But all, though brimming full of wrath, Homceo, Allo, Hydropath, Concurred in this that t other s path To death s door was the straight one. Still, spite of medical advice, The ghosts came thicker, and a spice Of mischief grew apparent; Nor did they only come at night, But seemed to fancy broad daylight, Till Knott, in horror and affright, His unoffending hair rent; Whene er with handkerchief on lap, He made his elbow-chair a trap, To catch an after-dinner nap, The spirits, always on the tap, Would make a sudden rap, rap, rap, The half-spun cord of sleep to snap, (And what is life without its nap But threadbareness and mere mishap ?) As t were with a percussion cap The trouble s climax capping; It seemed a party dried and grim Of mummies had come to visit him, Each getting off from every limb Its multitudinous wrapping; Scratchings sometimes the walls ran round, The merest penny-weights of sound; Sometimes t was only by the pound They carried on their dealing, A thumping neath the parlor floor, Thump-bump-thump-bumping o er and o er, As if the vegetables in store (Quiet and orderly before) Were all together peeling; You would have thought the thing was done By the spirit of some son of a gun, And that a forty-two-pounder, Or that the ghost which made such sounds Could be none other than John Pounds, Of Ragged Schools the founder. Through three gradations of affright, The awful noises reached their height ; At first they knocked nocturnally, Then, for some reason, changing quite, (As mourners, after six months flight, Turn suddenly from dark to light,) Began to knock diurnally, And last, combining all their stocks, (Scotland was ne er so full of Knox,) Into one Chaos (father of Nox,) Node pluit they showered knocks, And knocked, knocked, knocked, eter nally; Ever upon the go, like buoys, (Wooden sea-urchins,) all Knott s joys, They turned to troubles and a noise That preyed on him internally. Soon they grew wider in their scope; Whenever Knott a door would ope, It would ope not, or else elope And fly back (curbless as a trope Once started down a stanza s slope By a bard that gave it too much rope ) Like a clap of thunder slamming; And, when kind Jenny brought his hat, (She always, when he walked, did that,) Just as upon his head it sat, Submitting to his settling pat, Some unseen hand would jam it flat, Or give it such a furious bat THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT 53 That eyes and nose went cramming Up out of sight, and consequently, As when in life it paddled free, His beaver caused much damning; If these things seem o erstrained to be, Read the account of Doctor Dee, T is in our college library; Read Wesley s circumstantial plea, And Mrs. Crowe, more like a bee, Sucking the nightshade s honeyed fee, And Stilling s Pneumatology; Consult Scot, Glanvil, grave Wie- rus, and both Mathers; further see, Webster, Casaubon, James First s trea tise, a right royal Q. E. D. Writ with the moon in perigee, Bodin de la Demonomanie (Accent that last line gingerly) All full of learning as the sea Of fishes, and all disagree, Save in Sathanas apage ! Or, what will surely put a flea In unbelieving ears with glee, Out of a paper (sent to me By some friend who forgot to P... A... Y... I use cryptography Lest I his vengeful pen should dree HisP...O...S...T...A...G...E...) Things to the same effect I cut, About the tantrums of a ghost, Not more than three weeks since, at most, Near Stratford, in Connecticut. Knott s Upas daily spread its roots, Sent up on all sides livelier shoots, And bore more pestilential fruits; The ghosts behaved like downright brutes, They snipped holes in his Sunday suits, Practised all night on octave flutes, Put peas (not peace) into his boots, Whereof grew corns in season, They scotched his sheets, and, what was worse, Stuck his silk nightcap full of burrs, Till he, in language plain and terse, (But much unlike a Bible verse,) Swore he should lose his reason. The tables took to spinning, too, Perpetual yarns, and arm-chairs grew To prophets and apostles; One footstool vowed that only he Of law and gospel held the key, That teachers of whate er degree To whom opinion bows the knee Were n t fit to teach Truth s a 6 c, And were (the whole lot) to a T Mere fogies all and fossils; A teapoy, late the property Of Kuox s Aunt Keziah, (Whom Jenny most irreverently Had nicknamed her aunt-tipathy) With tips emphatic claimed to be The prophet Jeremiah ; The tins upon the kitchen-wall, Turned tintiunabulators all, And things that used to come at call For simple household services Began to hop and whirl and prance, Fit to put out of countenance The Commis and Grisettes of France Or Turkey s dancing Dervises. Of course such doings, far and wide, With rumors filled the country-side, And (as it is our nation s pride To think a Truth not verified Till with majorities allied) Parties sprung up, affirmed, denied, And candidates with questions plied, Who, like the circus-riders, tried At once both hobbies to bestride, And each with his opponent vied In being inexplicit. Earnest inquirers multiplied; Folks, whose tenth cousins lately died, Wrote letters long, and Knott replied; All who could either walk or ride Gathered to wonder or deride, And paid the house a visit; Horses were to his pine-trees tied, Mourners in every corner sighed, Widows brought children there that cried, Swarms of lean Seekers, eager-eyed, (People Knott never could abide,) Into each hole and cranny pried With strings of questions cut and dried From the Devout Inquirer s Guide, For the wise spirits to decide As, for example, is it True that the damned are fried or boiled ? Was the Earth s axis greased or oiled ? Who cleaned the moon when it was soiled ? How baldness might be cured or foiled ? How heal diseased potatoes ? Did spirits have the sense of smell ? Where would departed spinsters dwell ? If the late Zenas Smith were well ? If Earth were solid or a shell ? THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT Were spirits fond of Doctor Fell ? Did the bull toll Cock-Robin s knell ? What remedy would bugs expel ? If Paine s invention were a sell ? Did spirits by Webster s system spell ? Was it a sin to be a belle ? Did dancing sentence folks to hell ? If so, then where most torture felt ? On little toes or great toes ? If life s true seat were in the brain ? Did Ensign mean to marry Jane ? By whom, in fact, was Morgan slain? Could matter ever suffer pain ? What would take out a cherry-stain ? Who picked the pocket of Seth Crane, Of Waldo precinct, State of Maine ? Was Sir John Franklin sought in vain ? Did primitive Christians ever train ? What was the family-name of Cain ? Them spoons, were they by Betty ta en ? Would earth-worm poultice cure a sprain ? Was Socrates so dreadful plain ? What teamster guided Charles s wain ? Was Uncle Ethan mad or sane, And could his will in force remain ? If not, what counsel to retain ? Did Le Sage steal Gil Bias from Spain ? Was Junius writ by Thomas Paine ? Were ducks discomforted by rain ? How did Britannia rule the main ? Was Jonas coming back again ? Was vital truth upon the wane ? Did ghosts, to scare folks, drag a chain ? Who was our Huldah s chosen swain ? Did none have teeth pulled without payin , Ere ether was invented ? Whether mankind would not agree, If the universe were tuned in C ? What was it ailed Lucindy s knee ? Whether folks eat folks in Feejee ? Whether his name would end with T ? If Saturn s rings were two or three, And what bump in Phrenology They truly represented ? These problems dark, wherein they groped, Wherewith man s reason vainly coped, Now that the spirit-world was oped, In all humility they hoped Would be resolved instanter; Each of the miscellaneous rout Brought his, or her, own little doubt, And wished to pump the spirits out, Through his or her own private spout, Into his or her decanter. PART III WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT THE MOST ARDENT SPIRITS ARE MORE ORNA MENTAL THAN USEFUL Many a speculating wight Came by express-trains, day and night, To see if Kuott would " sell his right," Meaning to make the ghosts a sight What they call a " meenaygerie ; " One threatened, if he would not " trade," His run of custom to invade, (He could not these sharp folks persuade That he was not, in some way, paid,) And stamp him as a plagiary, By coming down, at one fell swoop, With THE ORIGINAL KNOCKING TROUPE, Come recently from Hades, Who (for a quarter-dollar heard) Would ne er rap out a hasty word Whence any blame might be incurred From the most fastidious ladies; The late lamented Jesse Soule, To stir the ghosts up with a pole And be director of the whole, Who was engaged the rather For the rare merits he d combine, Having been in the spirit line, Which trade he only did resign, With general applause, to shine, Awful in mail of cotton fine, As ghost of Hamlet s father ! Another a fair plan reveals Never yet hit on, which, he feels, To Knott s religious sense appeals " We 11 have your house set up on wheels, A speculation pious; For music, we can shortly find A barrel-organ that will grind Psalm-tunes an instrument designed For the New England tour refined From secular drosses, and inclined To an unworldly turn, (combined With no sectarian bias;) Then, travelling by stages slow, Under the style of Knott & Co., I would accompany the show As moral lecturer, the foe Of Rationalism; while you could throw The rappings in, and make them go Strict Puritan principles, you know, (How do you make em ? with your toe ?) THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT And the receipts which thence might flow, We could divide between us; Still more attractions to combine, Beside these services of mine, I will throw in a very fine {It would do nicely for a sign) Original Titian s Venus." Another offered handsome fees If Knott would get Demosthenes (Nay, his mere knuckles, for more ease) To rap a few short sentences; Or if, for want of proper keys, His Greek might make confusion, Then just to get a rap from Burke, To recommend a little work On Public Elocution. Meanwhile, the spirits made replies To all the reverent whats and ivhys, Resolving doubts of every size, And giving seekers grave and wise, Who came to know their destinies, A rap-turous reception; When unbelievers void of grace Came to investigate the place, (Creatures of Sadducistic race, With grovelling intellects and base,) They could not find the slightest trace To indicate deception; Indeed, it is declared by some That spirits (of this sort) are glum, Almost, or wholly, deaf and dumb, And (out of self-respect) quite mum To skeptic natures cold and numb, Who of this kind of Kingdom Come Have not a just conception: True, there were people who demurred That, though the raps no doubt were heard Both under them and o er them, Yet, somehow, when a search they made, They found Miss Jenny sore afraid, Or Jenny s lover, Doctor Slade, Equally awestruck and dismayed, Or Deborah, the chambermaid, Whose terrors not to be gainsaid In laughs hysteric were displayed, Was always there before them; This had its due effect with some Who straight departed, muttering, Hum! Transparent hoax! and Gammon! But these were few: believing souls, Came, day by day, in larger shoals, As the ancients to the windy holes Neath Delphi s tripod brought their doles, Or to the shrine of Ammon. The spirits seemed exceeding tame, Call whom you fancied, and he came; The shades august of eldest fame You summoned with an awful ease; As grosser spirits gurgled out From chair and table with a spout, In Auerbach s cellar once, to flout The senses of the rabble rout, Where er the gimlet twirled about Of cunning Mephistopheles, So did these spirits seem in store, Behind the wainscot or the door, Ready to thrill the being s core Of every enterprising bore With their astounding glamour; Whatever ghost one wished to hear, By strange coincidence, was near To make the past or future clear (Sometimes in shocking grammar) By raps and taps, now there, now here It seemed as if the spirit queer Of some departed auctioneer Were doomed to practise by the year With the spirit of his hammer: Whate er you asked was answered, yet One could not very deeply get Into the obliging spirits debt, Because they used the alphabet In all communications, And new revealings (though sublime) Rapped out, one letter at a time, With boggles, hesitations, Stoppings, beginnings o er again, And getting matters into train, Could hardly overload the brain With too excessive rations, Since just to ask if two and two Really make four ? or, How d" ye do f And get the fit replies thereto In the tramundane rat-tat-too, Might ask a whole day s patience. T was strange ( mongst other things) to find In what odd sets the ghosts combined, Happy forthwith to thump any Piece of intelligence inspired, The truth whereof had been inquired By some one of the company; For instance, Fielding, Mirabeau, Orator Henley, Cicero, Paley, John Ziska, Marivaux, Melancthon, Robertson, Junot, Scaliger, Chesterfield, Rousseau, Hakluyt, Boccaccio, South, De Foe, 156 THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT Diaz, Josephus, Richard Roe, Odin, Armiiiius, Charles le gros, Tiresias, the late James Crow, Casabiauca, Grose, Prideaux, Old Grimes, Young Norval, Swift, Brissot, Maimonides, the Chevalier D O, Socrates, Fe uelon, Job, Stow, The inventor of Elixir pro, Euripides, Spinoza, Poe, Confucius, Hiram Smith, and Fo, Came (as it seemed, somewhat de trap) With a disembodied Esquimaux, To say that it was so and so, With Franklin s expedition; One testified to ice and snow, One that the mercury was low, One that his progress was quite slow, One that he much desired to go, One that the cook had frozen his toe, (Dissented from by Dandolo, Wordsworth, Cynaegirus, Boileau, La Hontan, and Sir Thomas Roe,) One saw twelve white bears in a row, One saw eleven and a crow, With other things we could not know (Of great statistic value, though,) By our mere mortal vision. Sometimes the spirits made mistakes, And seemed to play at ducks and drakes With bold inquiry s heaviest stakes In science or in mystery; They knew so little (and that wrong) Yet rapped it out so bold and strong, One would have said the unnumbered throng Had been Professors of History; What made it odder was, that those Who, you would naturally suppose, Could solve a question, if they chose, As easily as count their toes, Were just the ones that blundered; One day, Ulysses happening down, A reader of Sir Thomas Browne And who (with him) had wondered What song it was the Sirens sang, Asked the shrewd Ithacan bang! bang ! With this response the chamber rang, " I guess it was Old Hundred." And Franklin, being asked to name The reason why the lightning came, Replied, " Because it thundered." On one sole point the ghosts agreed, One fearful point, than which, indeed, Nothing could seem absurder; Poor Colonel Jones they all abused And finally downright accused The poor old man of murder; T was thus; by dreadful raps was shown Some spirit s longing to make known A bloody fact, which he alone Was privy to, (such ghosts more prone In Earth s affairs to meddle are;) Who are you f with awe-stricken looks, All ask: his airy knuckles he crooks, And raps, " I was Eliab Snooks, That used to be a pedler; Some on ye still are on my books ! " Whereat, to inconspicuous nooks; (More fearing this than common spooks,) Shrank each indebted meddler; Further the vengeful ghost declared That while his earthly life was spared, About the country he had fared, A duly licensed follower Of that much - wandering trade that wins Slow profit from the sale of tins And various kinds of hollow- ware; That Colonel Jones enticed him in, Pretending that he wanted tin, There slew him with a rolliug-pin, Hid him in a potato-bin, And (the same night) him ferried Across Great Pond to t other shore, And there, on land of Widow Moore, Just where you turn to Larkin s store, Under a rock him buried ; Some friends (who happened to be by) He called upon to testify That what he said was not a lie, And that he did not stir this Foul matter, out of any spite But from a simple love of right; Which statements the Nine Worthies, Rabbi Akiba, Charlemagne, Seth, Colley Gibber, General Wayne, Cambyses, Tasso, Tubal-Cain, The owner of a castle in Spain, Jehanghire, and the Widow of Nain, (The friends aforesaid,) made more plain And by loud raps attested; To the same purport testified Plato, John Wilkes, and Colonel Pride Who knew said Snooks before he died. Had in his wares invested, Thought him entitled to belief And freely could concur, in brief, In everything the rest did. THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT T 57 Eiiab this occasion seized, (Distinctly here the spirit sneezed,) To say that he should ne er be eased Till Jenny married whom she pleased, Free from all checks and urgm s, (This spirit dropt his final g s) And that, unless Knott quickly sees This done, the spirits to appease, They would come back his life to tease, As thick as mites in ancient cheese, And let his house on an endless lease To the ghosts (terrific rappers these And veritable Eumenides) Of the Eleven Thousand Virgins ! Knott was perplexed and shook his head, He did not wish his child to wed With a suspected murderer, (For, true or false, the rumor spread,) But as for this roiled life he led, " It would not answer," so he said, " To have it go no f urderer." At last, scarce knowing what it meant, Reluctantly he gave consent That Jenny, since t was evident That she would follow her own bent, Should make her own election; For that appeared the only way These frightful noises to allay Which had already turned him gray And plunged him in dejection. Accordingly, this artless maid Her father s ordinance obeyed, And, all in whitest crape arrayed, (Miss Pnlsifer the dresses made And wishes here the fact displayed That she still carries on the trade, The third door south from Bagg s Arcade,) A very faint " I do " essayed And gave her hand to Hiram Slade, From which time forth, the ghosts were laid, And ne er gave trouble after; But the Selectmen, be it known, Dug underneath the aforesaid stone, Where the poor pedler s corpse was thrown, And found thereunder a jaw-bone, Though, when the crowner sat thereon, He nothing hatched, except alone Successive broods of laughter; It was a frail and dingy thing, In which a grinder or two did cling, In color like molasses, Which surgeons, called from far and wide, Upon the horror to decide, Having put on their glasses, Reported thus: " To judge by looks, These bones, by some queer hooks or crooks, May have belonged to Mr. Snooks, But, as men deepest-read in books Are perfectly aware, bones, If buried fifty years or so, Lose their identity and grow From human bones to bare bones." Still, if to Jaalam you go down, You 11 find two parties in the town, One headed by Benaiah Brown, And one by Perez Tinkham; The first believe the ghosts all through And vow that they shall never rue The happy chance by which they knew That people in Jupiter are blue, And very fond of Irish stew, Two curious facts which Prince Lee Boo Rapped clearly to a chosen few Whereas the others think em A trick got up by Doctor Slade With Deborah the chambermaid And that sly cretur Jinny. That all the revelations wise, At which the Brownites made big eyes, Might have been given by Jared Keyes, A natural fool and ninny, And, last week, did n t Eliab Snooks Come back with never better looks, As sharp as new-bought mackerel hooks, And bright as a new pin, eh? Good Parson Wilbur, too, avers (Though to be mixed in parish stirs Is worse than handling chestnut-burrs) That no case to his mind occurs Where spirits ever did converse, Save in a kind of guttural Erse, (So say the best authorities;) And that a charge by raps conveyed Should be most scrupulously weighed And searched into, before it is Made public, since it may give pain That cannot soon be cured again, And one word may infix a stain Which ten cannot gloss over, Though speaking for his private part, He is rejoiced with all his heart Miss Knott missed not her lover. 5* FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM IN the note introducing- Fitz Adam s Story, infra p. 411, will be found a brief account of the unfinished poem of which this is a fragment. I AM a man of forty, sirs, a native of East Haddam, And have some reason to surmise that I descend from Adam ; But what s my pedigree to you ? That I will soon unravel; I ve sucked my Haddam-Eden dry, there fore desire to travel, And, as a natural consequence, presume I need n t say, I wish to write some letters home and have those letters p [I spare the word suggestive of those grim Next Morns that mount Clump, Clump, the stairways of the brain with " Sir, my small account," And, after every good we gain Love, Fame, Wealth, Wisdom still, As punctual as a cuckoo clock, hold up their little bill, The garcons in our Cafe* of Life, by dream ing us forgot Sitting, like Homer s heroes, full and mus ing God knows what, Till they say, bowing, S U vous plait, voila, Messieurs, la note!~\ I would not hint at this so soon, but in our callous day, The tollman Debt, who drops his bar across the world s highway, Great Caesar in mid-march would stop, if Csesar could not pay; Pilgriming s dearer than it was : men cannot travel now Scot-free from Dan to Beersheba upon a simple vow; Nay, as long back as Bess s time, when Walsingham went over Ambassador to Cousin France, at Canter bury and Dover He was so fleeced by innkeepers that, ere he quitted land, He wrote to the Prime Minister to take the knaves in hand. If I with staff and scallop-shell should try my way to win, Would Bonifaces quarrel as to who should take me in ? Or would my pilgrim s progress end where Bunyan started his on, And my grand tour be round and round the backyard of a prison ? I give you here a saying deep and therefore, haply true; T is out of Merlin s prophecies, but quite as good as new: $l)e question boaty for men anb meateS longe botyageS l)t beginne 2t>e8 in a nott^ell, rather Saije tye8 in a ca8e of tinne. But, though men may not travel now, as in the Middle Ages, With self-sustaining retinues of little gilt- edged pages, Yet one may manage pleasantly, where er he likes to roam, By sending his small pages (at so much per small page) home; And if a staff and scallop-shell won t serve so well as then, Our outlay is about as small just paper, ink, and pen. Be thankful ! Humbugs never die, more than the wandering Jew; Bankrupt, they publish their own deaths, slink for a while from view, Then take an alias, change the sign, and the old trade renew; Indeed, t is wondrous how each Age, though laughing at the Past, Insists on having its tight shoe made on the same old last; How it is sure its system would break up at once without The bunion which it will believe hereditary gout; How it takes all its swans for geese, nay, stranger yet and sadder, Sees in its treadmill s fruitless jog a heaven ward Jacob s-ladder, Shouts, Lo, the Shining Heights are reached ! One moment more aspire I Trots into cramps its poor, dear legs, gets never an inch the higher, And like the others, ends with pipe and mug beside the fire. FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM There, tween each doze, it whiffs and sips and watches with a sneer The green recruits that trudge and sweat where it had swinked whilere, And sighs to think this soon spent zeal should be in simple truth The only interval between old Fogyhood and Youth: Well," thus it muses, " well, what odds ? T is not for us to warn; T will be the same when we are dead, and was ere we were born; Without the Treadmill, too, how grind our store of winter s corn ? Had we no stock, nor twelve per cent, re ceived from Treadmill shares, We might . . . but these poor devils at last will get our easy-chairs. High aims and hopes have great rewards, they, too, serene and snug, Shall one day have their soothing pipe and their enlivening mug; From Adam, empty-handed Youth hath always heard the hum Of Good Times Coming, and will hear un til the last day come; Young ears hear forward, old ones back, and, while the earth rolls on, Full-handed Eld shall hear recede the steps of Good Times Gone; Ah what a cackle we set up whene er an egg was laid ! Cack-cack-cack-cackle ! rang around, the scratch for worms was stayed, Cut-cut-ca-dah-cut ! from this egg the com ing cock shall stalk ! The great New Era dawns, the age of Deeds and not of Talk ! And every stupid hen of us hugged close his egg of chalk, Thought, sure, I feel life stir within, each day with greater strength, When lo, the chick ! from former chicks he differed not a jot, But grew and crew and scratched and went, like those before, to pot ! " So muse the dim Emeriti, and, mournful though it be, I must confess a kindred thought hath sometimes come to me, Who, though but just of forty turned, have heard the rumorous fame Of nine and ninety Coming Men, all coming till they came. Pure Mephistopheles all this ? the vulgar nature jeers ? Good friend, while I was writing it, my eyes were dim with tears; Thrice happy he who cannot see, or who his eyes can shut, Life s deepest sorrow is contained in that small word there But ! We re pretty nearly crazy here with change and go ahead, With flinging our caught bird away for two i th bush instead, With butting gainst the wall which we declare shall be a portal, And questioning Deeps that never yet have oped their lips to mortal; We re growing pale and hollow-eyed, and out of all condition, With mediums and prophetic chairs, and crickets with a mission, (The most astounding oracles since Ba laam s donkey spoke, T would seem our furniture was all of Dodonean oak.) Make but the public laugh, be sure t will take you to be somebody; T will wrench its button from your clutch, my densely earnest glum body; T is good, this noble earnestness, good in its place, but why Make great Achilles shield the pan to bake a penny pie ? Why, when we have a kitchen-range, insist that we shall stop, And bore clear down to central fires to broil our daily chop ? Excalibur and Durandart are swords of price, but then Why draw them sternly when you wish to trim your nails or pen ? Small gulf between the ape and man; you bridge it with your staff; But it will be impassable until the ape can laugh; No, no, be common now and then, be sen sible, be funny, And, as Siberians bait their traps for bears with pots of honey, From which ere they 11 withdraw their snouts, they ll suffer many a club- lick, So bait your moral figure-of -fours to catch the Orson public- i6o FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM Look how the dead leaves melt their way down through deep-drifted snow ; They take the sun- warmth down with them pearls could not conquer so ; There is a moral here, you see; if you would preach, you must Steep all your truths iu sunshine would you have them pierce the crust; Brave Jeremiah, you are grand and ter rible, a sign And wonder, but were never quite a popu lar divine ; Fancy the figure you would cut among the nuts and wine ! I, on occasion, too, could preach, but hold it wiser far To give the public sermons it will take with its cigar, And morals fugitive, and vague as are these smoke-wreaths light In which ... I trace ... a ... let me see bless me ! t is out of sight. There are some goodish things at sea; for instance, one can feel A grandeur in the silent man forever at the wheel, That bit of two-legged intellect, that par ticle of drill, Who the huge floundering hulk inspires with reason, brain, and will, And makes the ship, though skies are black and headwinds whistle loud, Obey her conscience there which feels the loadstar through the cloud; And when by lusty western gales the full- sailed barque is hurled, Towards the great moon which, setting on the silent underworld, Rounds luridly up to look on ours, and shoots a broadening line, Of palpitant light from crest to crest across the ridgy brine, Then from the bows look back and feel a thrill that never stales, In that full-bosomed, swan-white pomp of onward-yearning sails; Ah, when dear cousin Bull laments that you can t make a poem, Take him aboard a clipper - ship, young Jonathan, arid show him A work of art that in its grace and grandeur may compare With any thing that any race has fashioned any where; T is not a statue, grumbles John; nay. if you come to that, We think of Hyde Park Corner, and con cede you beat us flat With your equestrian statue to a Nose and a Cocked hat; But t is not a cathedral; well, e en that we will allow, Both statues and cathedrals are anachro nistic now; Your minsters, coz, the monuments of men who conquered you, You d sell a bargain, if we d take the deans and chapters too; No; mortal men build nowadays, as always heretofore, Good temples to the gods which they in very truth adore ; The shepherds of this Broker Age, with all their willing flocks, Although they bow to stones no more, do bend the knee to stocks, And churches can t be beautiful though crowded, floor and gallery, If people worship preacher, and if preacher worship salary; T is well to look things in the face, the god o the modern universe, Hermes, cares naught for halls of art and libraries of puny verse, If they don t sell, he notes them thus upon his ledger say, per Contra to a loss of so much stone, best Russia duck and paper; And, after all, about this Art men talk a deal of fudge, Each nation has its path marked out, from which it must not budge; The Romans had as little art as Noah in his ark, Yet somehow on this globe contrived to make an epic mark ; Religion, painting, sculpture, song for these they ran up jolly ticks With Greece and Egypt, but they were great artists in their politics, And if we make no minsters, John, nor epics, yet the Fates Are not entirely deaf to men who can build ships and states; The arts are never pioneers, but men have strength and health Who, called on suddenly, can improvise a commonwealth, AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE 161 Nay, can more easily go ou and frame them by the dozen, Than you can make a dinner-speech, dear sympathizing cousin: And, though our restless Jonathan have not your graver bent, sure he Does represent this hand-to-mouth, pert, rapid, nineteenth century; This is the Age of Scramble; men move faster than they did When they pried up the imperial Past s deep-dusted coffin-lid, Searching for scrolls of precedent; the wire- leashed lightning now Replaces Delphos men don t leave the steamer for the scow; What public, were they new to-day, would ever stop to read The Iliad, the Shanameh, or the Nibelun- genlied ? Their public s gone, the artist Greek, the lettered Shah, the hairy Graf Folio and plesiosaur sleep well; we weary o er a paragraph; The mind moves planet-like no more, it fizzes, cracks, and bustles; From end to end with journals dry the land o ershadowed rustles, As with dead leaves a winter-beech, and, with their breath-roused jars Amused, we care not if they hide the eternal skies and stars; Down to the general level of the Board of Brokers sinking, The Age takes in the newspapers, or, to say sooth unshrinking, The newspapers take in the Age, and stocks do all the thinking. AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE SOMEWHERE in India, upon a time, (Read it not Injah, or you spoil the verse,) There dwelt two saints whose privilege sublime It was to sit and watch the world grow worse, Their only care (in that delicious clime) At proper intervals to pray and curse; Pracrit the dialect each prudent brother Used for himself, Damnonian for the other. One half the time of each was spent in praying For blessings on his own unworthy head, The other half in fearfully portraying Where certain folks would go when they were dead; This system of exchanges there s no saying To what more solid barter t would have led, But that a river, vext with boils and swellings At rainy times, kept peace between their dwellings. So they two played at wordy battledore And kept a curse forever in the air, Flying this way or that from shore to shore; Nor other labor did this holy pair, Clothed and supported from the lavish store Which crowds lanigerous brought with daily care; They toiled not, neither did they spin; their bias Was tow rd the harder task of being pious. Each from his hut rushed six score times a day, Like a great canon of the Church full- rammed With cartridge theologic, (so to say,) Touched himself off, and then, recoiling, slammed His hovel s door behind him in a way That to his foe said plainly, you II be damned ; And so like Potts and Wainwright, shrill and strong The two D D d each other all day long. One was a dancing Dervise, a Moham medan, The other was a Hindoo, a gymnosophist; One kept his whatd yecallit and his Ram adan, 162 AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE Laughing to scorn the sacred rites and laws of his Transfluvial rival, who, in turn, called Ahmed an Old top, and, as a clincher, shook across a fist With nails six inches long, yet lifted not His eyes from off his navel s mystic knot. "Who whirls not round six thousand times an hour Will go," screamed Ahmed, " to the evil place; May he eat dirt, and may the dog and Giaour Defile the graves of him and all his race; Allah loves faithful souls and gives them power To spin till they are purple in the face; Some folks get you know what, but he that pure is Earns Paradise and ninety thousand hou- ries." " Upon the silver mountain, South by East, Sits Brahma fed upon the sacred bean; He loves those men whose nails are still increased, Who all their lives keep ugly, foul, and lean; Tis of his grace that not a bird or beast Adorned with claws like mine was ever seen; The suns and stars are Brahma s thoughts divine, Even as these trees I seem to see are " Thou seem st to see, indeed ! " roared Ahmed back; "Were I but once across this plaguy stream, With a stout sapling in my hand, one whack On those lank ribs would rid thee of that dream ! Thy Brahma-blasphemy is ipecac To my soul s stomach; couldst thou grasp the scheme Of true redemption, thou wouldst know that Deity Whirls by a kind of blessed spontaneity. "And this it is which keeps our earth here going With all the stars." Oh, vile ! but there s a place Prepared for such; to think of Brahma throwing Worlds like a juggler s balls up into Space ! Why, not so much as a smooth lotos blowing Is e er allowed that silence to efface Which broods round Brahma, and our earth, t is known, Rests on a tortoise, moveless as this stone." So they kept up their banning amrebsean, When suddenly came floating down the stream A youth whose face like an incarnate pasan Glowed, t was so full of grandeur and of gleam; " If there be gods, then, doubtless, this must be one," Thought both at once, and then began to scream, " Surely, whate er immortals know, thou knowest, Decide between us twain before thou goest!" The youth was drifting in a slim canoe Most like a huge white water-lily s petal, But neither of our theologians knew Whereof t was made ; whether of heav enly metal Seldseen, or of a vast pearl split in two And hollowed, was a point they could not settle; T was good debate-seed, though, and bore large fruit In after years of many a tart dispute. There were no wings upon the stranger s shoulders, And yet he seemed so capable of rising That, had he soared like thistledown, beholders Had thought the circumstance noways sur prising; Enough that he remained, and, when the scolders Hailed him as umpire in their vocal prize- ring, AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE 163 The painter of his boat he lightly threw Around a lotos-stem, and brought her to. The strange youth had a look as if he might Have trod far planets where the atmosphere (Of nobler temper) steeps the face with light, Just as our skins are tanned and freckled here; His air was that of a cosmopolite In the wide universe from sphere to sphere ; Perhaps he was (his face had such grave beauty) An officer of Saturn s guards off duty. Both saints began to unfold their tales at once, Both wished their tales, like simial ones, prehensile, That they might seize his ear; fool ! knave ! and dunce ! Flew zigzag back and forth, like strokes of pencil In a child s fingers; voluble as duns, They jabbered like the stones on that immense hill In the Arabian Nights; until the stranger Began to think his ear-drums in some danger. In general those who nothing have to say Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it; They turn and vary it in every way, Hashing it, stewing it, mincing it, ragouting it; Sometimes they keep it purposely at bay, Then let it slip to be again pursuing it; They drone it, groan it, whisper it and shout it, Refute it, flout it, swear to t, prove it, doubt it. Our saints had practised for some thirty years; Their talk, beginning with a single stem, Spread like a banyan, sending down live piers, Colonies of digression, and, in them, Germs of yet new dispersion; once by the ears, They could convey damnation in a hem, And blow the pinch of premise-priming off Long syllogistic batteries, with a cough. Each had a theory that the human ear A providential tunnel was, which led To a huge vacuum (and surely here They showed some knowledge of the gen eral head,) For cant to be decanted through, a mere Auricular canal or mill-race fed All day and night, in sunshine and in shower, From their vast heads of milk-and-water- power. The present being a peculiar case, Each with unwonted zeal the other scouted, Put his spurred hobby through its every pace, Pished, pshawed, poohed, horribled, bahed, jeered, sneered, flouted, Sniffed, nonsensed, infideled, fudged, with his face Looked scorn too nicely shaded to be shouted, And, with each inch of person and of vesture, Contrived to hint some most disdainful gesture. At length, when their breath s end was come about, And both could now and then just gasp " impostor ! " Holding their heads thrust menacingly out, As staggering cocks keep up their fighting posture, The stranger smiled and said, " Beyond a doubt T is fortunate, my friends, that you have lost your United parts of speech, or it had been Impossible for me to get between. " Produce ! says Nature, what have you produced ? A new strait- waistcoat for the human mind ; Are you not limbed, nerved, jointed, arteried, juiced, As other men ? yet, faithless to your kind, Rather like noxious insects you are used To puncture life s fair fruit, beneath the rind Laying your creed-eggs, whence in time there spring Consumers new to eat and buzz and sting. 164 AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE " Work! you have no conception how t will sweeten Your views of Life and Nature, God and Man; Had you been forced to earn what you have eaten, Your heaven had shown a less dyspeptic plan; At present your whole function is to eat ten And talk ten times as rapidly as you can; Were your shape true to cosmogonic laws, You would be nothing but a pair of jaws. " Of all the useless beings in creation The earth could spare most easily you bakers Of little clay gods, formed in shape and fashion Precisely in the image of their makers ; Why, it would almost move a saint to passion, To see these blind and deaf, the hourly breakers Of God s own image in their brother men, Set themselves up to tell the how, where, when, "Of God s existence; one s digestion s worse So makes a god of vengeance and of blood ; Another, but no matter, they reverse Creation s plan, out of their own vile mud Pat up a god, and burn, drown, hang, or curse Whoever worships not; each keeps his stud Of texts which wait with saddle on and bridle To hunt down atheists to their ugly idol. " This, I perceive, has been your occupa tion; You should have been more usefully em ployed ; All men are bound to earn their daily ration, Where States make not that primal contract void By cramps and limits; simple devastation Is the worm s task, and what he has de stroyed His monument; creating is man s work And that, too, something more than mist and murk." So having said, the youth was seen no more, And straightway our sage Brahmin, the philosopher, Cried, " That was aimed at thee, thou endless bore, Idle and useless as the growth of moss over A rotting tree-trunk! " "I would square that score Full soon," replied the Dervise, " could I cross over And catch thee by the beard. Thy nails I d trim And make thee work, as was advised by him." " Work ? Am I not at work from morn till night Sounding the deeps of oracles umbilical Which for man s guidance never come to light, With all their various aptitudes, until I call?" " And I, do I not twirl from left to right For conscience sake ? Is that no work ? Thou silly gull, He had thee in his eye ; t was Gabriel Sent to reward my faith, I know him well." T was Vishnu, thou vile whirligig! " and so The good old quarrel was begun anew; One would have sworn the sky was black as sloe, Had but the other dared to call it blue; Nor were the followers who fed them slow To treat each other with their curses, too, Each hating t other (moves it tears or laughter ?) Because he thought him sure of hell here after. At last some genius built a bridge of boats Over the stream, and Ahmed s zealots filed Across, upon a mission to (cut throats And) spread religion pure and undented; They sowed the propagandist s wildest oats, Cutting off all, down to the smallest child, And came back, giving thanks for such fat mercies, To find their harvest gone past prayers or curses. THE BIGLOW PAPERS 65 All gone except their saint s religious hops, Which he kept up with more than common flourish; But these, however satisfying crops For the inner man, were not enough to nourish The body politic, which quickly drops Reserve in such sad junctures, and turns currish; So Ahmed soon got cursed for all the famine Where er the popular voice could edge a damn in. At first he pledged a miracle quite boldly, And, for a day or two, they growled and waited ; But, finding that this kind of manna coldly Sat on their stomachs, they erelong berated The saint for still persisting in that old lie, Till soon the whole machine of saintship grated, Ran slow, creaked, stopped, and, wishing him in Tophet, They gathered strength enough to stone the prophet. Some stronger ones contrived (by eating leather, Their weaker friends, and one thing or another) The winter months of scarcity to weather ; Among these was the late saint s younger brother, Who, in the spring, collecting them to gether, Persuaded them that Ahmed s holy pother Had wrought in their behalf, and that the place Of Saint should be continued to his race. Accordingly, t was settled on the spot That Allah favored that peculiar breed; Beside, as all were satisfied, t would not Be quite respectable to have the need Of public spiritual food forgot; And so the tribe, with proper forms, de creed That he, and, failing him, his next of kin, Forever for the people s good should spin. THE BIGLOW PAPERS FIRST SERIES IN a letter, June 16, 1846, to Mr. Sydney Howard Gay, then editor of the Anti-Slavery Standard, Lowell wrote : " I mean to send all the poems I write (on whatever subject) first to the Standard, except such arrows as I may deem it better to shoot from the ambushment of the Courier, because the old enemy offers me a fairer mark from that quarter. . . . You will find a squib of mine in this week s Courier. I wish it to continue anonymous, for I wish slavery to think it has as many enemies as pos sible. If I may judge from the number of persons who have asked me if I wrote it, I nave struck the old hulk of the Public between wind and water." This was the first of the Biglow Papers. The scheme of anonymity was preserved tlirough the first series, and as Lowell wrote forty years later to Thomas Hughes (Letters, II. 334) : " I had great fun out of it. I have often wished that I could have had a literary nom de guerre, and kept my to myself. I should n t have cared a doit own doit what happened to him." But as appears from the letter given above, the satire was readily fa thered on Lowell, and many of the subsequent papers were published in the Standard. " As for Hosea," he wrote to his friend Mr. Charles F. Briggs, November 13, 1847, "I am sorry that I began by making him such a detestable speller. There is no fun in bad spelling of itself, but only where the misspelling suggests something else which is droll per se. You see I am getting him out of it gradually. I mean to altogether. Parson Wilbur is about to pro pose a subscription for fitting him for college, and bas already commenced his education. Perhaps you like the last best, because it is more personal and has therefore more direct ness of purpose. But I confess I think that Birdofredom s attempt to explain the Anglo- Saxon theory is the best thing yet, except Parson Wilbur s letter in the Courier of last Saturday." The series ran at intervals for about eighteen months, when the papers were i66 THE BIGLOW PAPERS collected into a volume. Lowell s letters, writ ten when he was busy over the equipment of the book, show him in high spirits over his jeu d? esprit. " I am going," he writes to Mr. Briggs, " to indulge aU my fun in a volume of H. Biglow s verses which I am preparing, and which I shall edit under the character of the Rev. Mr. Wilbur. I hope you saw Mr. B. s last production, which I consider his best hitherto. I am going to include in the volume an essay of the reverend gentleman on the Yankee dialect, and on dialects in general, and on everything else, and also an attempt at a complete natural history of the Humbug which I think I shall write in Latin. The book will purport to be published at Jaalam (Mr. B. s native place), and will be printed on brownish paper, with those little head and tail pieces which used to adorn our earlier publica tions such as hives, scrolls, urns, and the like." This was written on the last day of the year 1847, but it was not until September of the next year that the actual volume got un der way ; for meanwhile Lowell s original de sign had been modified, and he turned the fun he had been devising for the volume of mock poetry into the collection of his Biglow Papers. The essay on the Yankee dialect by Mr. Wilbur was included, but it was not till the second series was published, nearly twenty years later, that there appeared the scholarly introduction, not now as a piece of affected pedantry, but as the serious and delightful study of the author delivered in his own voice. At the beginning of September, 1848, Lowell wrote to Mr. Gay : "I am as busy as I can be with Mr. Biglow s poems, of which I have got between twenty and thirty pages already printed. It is the hardest book to print that ever I had anything to do with, and what with corrections and Mr. Wilbur s annotations, keeps me more employed than I care to be." Later in the same month he wrote to the same correspondent that he was " wearied out with Mr. Biglow and his tiresome (though wholly respectable) friend Mr. Wilbur." His notes continue to show the pressure under which he worked until the book was published, the middle of November. The first edition (1500) was gone in a week, and the book and its au thor became famous. A little more than ten years afterward an English edition was to appear, and Thomas Hughes, who had it in charge, wrote to Lowell asking for a new preface. The answer, a por tion of which is here given, is interesting as showing how the book appeared as a whole to its author when he was in the midst of his Uni versity service and had made a name for him self as scholar and critic as well as poet. CAMBRIDGE, MASS., Sept. 13, 1859. MY DEAR SIB : I have put off from time to time writing to you, because I hardly knew what to write. To say simply that I liked your writings would have been pleasant enough (though that would have given me no claim upon you that was not shared by all the world), but I find it particularly hard to write any thing about a book of my own. It has been a particular satisfaction to me to hear, now and then, some friendly voice from the old mother- island say " Well done " of the Biglow Papers ; for, to say the truth, I like them myself, and when I was reading them over for a new edi tion, a year or two ago, could not help laugh ing. But then as I laughed I found myself asking, "Are these yours? How did you make them?" Friendly people say to me sometimes, "Write us more Biglow Papers" and I have even been simple enough to try, only to find that I could not. This has helped to persuade me that the book was a genuine growth, and not a manufacture, and that, there fore, I had an honest right to be pleased with out blushing if people liked it. But then, this very fact makes it rather hard to write an in troduction to it. All I can say is that the book was thar ; how it came is more than I can tell. I cannot, like the great Goethe, deliberately imagine what would have been a proper Ent- stehungsweise for my book, and then assume it as a fact. And as for an historical preface, I find that quite as hard after now twelve years of more cloistered interests and studies that have alienated me very much from contempo rary politics. I only know that I believed our war with Mexico (though we had as just ground for it as a strong nation ever has against a weak one) to be essentially a war of false pre tences, and that it would result in widening the boundaries and so prolonging the life of slavery. Believing that it is the manifest des tiny of the English race to occupy this whole continent, and to display there that practical understanding in matters of government and colonization which no other race has given such proof of possessing since the Eomans, I hated to see a noble hope evaporated into a lying phrase to sweeten the foul breath of dema gogues. Leaving the sin of it to God, I be lieved, and still believe, that slavery is the Achilles-heel of our polity ; that it is a tempo rary and false supremacy of the white races, sure to destroy that supremacy at last, because an enslaved people always prove themselves of more enduring fibre than their enslavers, as not suffering from the social vices sure to be engendered by oppression in the governing class. Against these and many other things I thought all honest men should protest. I was born and bred in the country, and the dialect THE BIGLOW PAPERS 167 was homely to me. I tried my first Biglow paper in a newspaper, and found that it had a great run. So I wrote the others from time to time during the year which followed, always very rapidly, and sometimes (as with " What Mr. Robinson thinks " ) at one sitting. When I came to collect them and publish them in a volume, I conceived my parson-editor, with his pedantry and verbosity, his amiable vanity and superiority to the verses he was editing, as a fitting artistic background and foil. It gave me the chance, too, of glan cing obliquely at many things which were be yond the horizon of my other characters. I was told afterwards that my Parson Wilbur was only Jedediah Cleishbotham over again, and I dare say it may be so ; but I drew him from the life as well as I could, and for the authentic reasons I have mentioned. I confess that I am proud of the recognition the book has received in England, because it seems to prove that, despite its intense provincialism, there is a general truth to human nature in it which justifies its having been written. But life is too short to write about one s self in, and you see that I cannot make a suit able preface. I would rather have something of this kind : " It could not but be gratifying to the writer of the Biglow Papers that Mr. Trubner should deem it worth his while to publish an edition of them in England. It gives him a particular pleasure that the au thor of Tom Brown s School Days should have consented to see the work through the press, for the remarkable favor with which that work was received on both sides of the At lantic proved that all speakers of the English tongue, however differing in other respects, agree wholly in their admiration for sound ness of head and heart and manliness of char acter." Now do not think this is " Buncombe." The first series as here given retains the elaborate apparatus attached to the poem, in the order given in the book when first pub lished by George Nichols, Cambridge. NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS [I HAVE observed, reader (bene- or male volent, as it may happen), that it is customary to append to the second editions of books, and to the second works of authors, short sentences commendatory of the first, under the title of Notices of the Press. These, I have been given to understand, are procurable at certain estab lished rates, payment being made either in money or advertising patronage by the pub lisher, or by an adequate outlay of servility on the part of the author. Considering these things with myself, and also that such notices are neither intended, nor generally believed, to convey any real opinions, being a purely cere monial accompaniment of literature, and re sembling certificates to the virtues of various morbiferal panaceas, I conceived that it would be not only more economical to prepare a sufficient number of such myself, but also more immediately subservient to the end in view to prefix them to this our primary edition rather than to await the contingency of a second, when they would seem to be of small utility. To delay attaching the bobs until the second attempt at flying the kite would indi cate but a slender experience in that useful art. Neither has it escaped my notice, nor failed to afford me matter of reflection, that, when a circus or a caravan is about to visit Jaalam, the initial step is to send forward large and highly ornamented bills of per formance, to be hung in the bar-room and the post-office. These having been sufficiently gazed at, and beginning to lose their attrac tiveness except for the flies, and, truly, the boys also (in whom I find it impossible to re press, even during school-hours, certain oral and telegraphic communications concerning the expected show), upon some fine morning the band enters in a gayly painted wagon, or triumphal chariot, and with noisy advertise ment, by means of brass, wood, and sheepskin, makes the circuit of our startled village streets. Then, as the exciting sounds draw nearer and nearer, do I desiderate those eyes of Aristarchus, " whose looks were as a breech ing to a boy." Then do I perceive, with vain regret of wasted opportunities, the advantage of a pancratic or pantechnic education, since he is most reverenced by my little subjects who can throw the cleanest summerset or walk most securely upon the revolving cask. The story of the Pied Piper becomes for the first time credible to me (albeit confirmed by the Hameliners dating their legal instruments from the period of his exit), as I behold how those strains, without pretence of magical potency, bewitch the pupillary legs, nor leave to the pedagogic an entire self-control. For these reasons, lest my kingly prerogative should suffer diminution, I prorogue my restless com mons, whom I follow into the street, chiefly lest some mischief may chance befall them. After the manner of such a band, I send for ward the following notices of domestic manu facture, to make brazen proclamation, not un conscious of the advantage which will accrue, i68 THE BIGLOW PAPERS if our little craft, cymbula sutilis, shall seem to leave port with a clipping breeze, and to carry, in nautical phrase, a bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have chosen, as being more equitable, to prepare some also sufficiently objurgatory, that readers of every taste may find a dish to their palate. I have modelled them upon actually existing specimens, pre served in my own cabinet of natural curiosities. One, in particular, I had copied with tolerable exactness from a notice of one of my own dis courses, which, from its superior tone and ap pearance of vast experience, I concluded to have been written by a man at least three hundred years of age, though I recollected no existing instance of such antediluvian long evity. Nevertheless, I afterwards discovered the author to be a young gentleman preparing for the ministry under the direction of one of my brethren in a neighboring town, and whom I had once instinctively corrected in a Latin quantity. But this I have been forced to omit, from its too great length. H. W. ] From the Universal Littery Universe. Full of passages which rivet the attention of the reader. . . . Under a rustic garb, senti ments are conveyed which should be committed to the memory and engraven on the heart of every moral and social being. . . . We consider this a unique performance. . . . We hope to see it soon introduced into our common schools. . . . Mr. Wilbur has performed his duties as editor with excellent taste and judgment. . . . This is a vein which we hope to see successfully prosecuted. . . . We hail the appearance of this work as a long stride toward the formation of a purely aboriginal, indigenous, native, and American literature. We rejoice to meet with an author national enough to break away from the slavish deference, too common among 1 us, to English grammar and orthography. . . . Where all is so good, we are at a loss how to make extracts. . . . On the whole, we may call it a volume which no library, pretending to en tire completeness, should fail to place upon its shelves. From the Higginbottomopolis Snapping-turtle. A collection of the merest balderdash and doggerel that it, was ever our bad fortune to lay eyes on. The author is a vulgar buffoon, and the editor a talkative, tedious old fool. We use strong language, but should any of our readers peruse the book, (from which calamity Heaven preserve them !) they will find reasons for it thick as the leaves of Vallumbrozer, or, to use a still more expressive comparison, as the combined heads of author and editor. The work is wretchedly gt>t up. . . . We should like to know how much firitish gold was pocketed by this libeller of our country and her purest patriots. From the Oldfogrummlle Mentor. We have not had time to do more than glance through this handsomely printed volume, but the name of its respectable editor, the Rev. Mr. Wilbur, of Jaalam, will afford a sufficient guaranty for the worth of its contents. . . . The paper is white, the type clear, and the vol ume of a convenient and attractive size. . . . In reading this elegantly executed work, it has seemed to us that a passage or two might have been retrenched with advantage, and that the general style of diction was susceptible of a higher polish. . . . On the whole, we may safely leave the ungrateful task of criticism to the reader. We will barely suggest, that in volumes intended, as this is, for the illustration of a provincial dialect and turns of expression, a dash of humor or satire might be thrown in with advantage. . . . The work is admirably got up. . . . This work will form an appropri ate ornament to the centre-table. It is beauti fully printed, on paper of an excellent quality. From the Dekay Bulwark. We should be wanting in our duty as the conductor of that tremendous engine, a public press, as an American, and as a man, did we allow such an opportunity as is presented to us by "The Biglow Papers" to pass by without entering our earnest protest against such at tempts (now, alas ! too common) at demoraliz ing the public sentiment. Under a wretched mask of stupid drollery, slavery, war, the social glass, and, in short, all the valuable and time- honored institutions justly dear to our common humanity and especially to republicans, are made the butt of coarse and senseless ribaldry by this low-minded scribbler. It is time that the respectable and religious portion of our community should be aroused to the alarming inroads of foreign Jacobinism, sansculottism, and infidelity. It is a fearful proof of the wide-spread nature of this contagion, that these secret stabs at religion and virtue are given from under the cloak (credite, posterity of a clergyman. It is a mournful spectacle indeed to the patriot and Christian to see liberality and new ideas (falsely so called, they are as old as Eden) invading the sacred precincts of the pulpit. ... On the whole, we consider this volume as one of the first shocking results which we predicted would spring out of the late French " Revolution" (!). From the Bungtown Copper and Comprehensive Tocsin (a tryweakly family journal) . Altogether an admirable work. . . . Full of hu mor, boisterous, but delicate, of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a pathos cool as morning dew, of satire ponderous as the mace of Richard, yet keen as the scymitar of Saladin. . . . A work full of "mountain-mirth," mischievous as Puck, and lightsome as Ariel. . . . We know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive concinnity of the THE BIGLOW PAPERS 169 author, or his playful fancy, weird imagination, and compass of style, at once both objective and subjective. . . . We might indulge in some crit icisms, but, were the author other than he is, he would be a different being. As it is, he has a wonderful pose, which flits from flower to flower, and bears the reader irresistibly along on its eagle pinions (like Ganymede) to the " highest heaven of invention." . . . We love a book so purely objective. . . . Many of his pic tures of natural scenery have an extraordinary subjective clearness and fidelity. ... In fine, we consider this as one of the most extraordinary volumes of this or any age. We know of no English author who could have written it. It is a work to which the proud genius of our country, standing with one foot on the Aroos- took and the other on the Rio Grande, and holding up the star-spangled banner amid the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds, may point with bewildering scorn of the punier efforts of enslaved Europe. . . . We hope soon to encounter our author among those higher walks of literature in which he is evidently ca pable of achieving enduring fame. Already we should be inclined to assign him a high position in the bright galaxy of our American bards. From the Saltriver Pilot and Flag of Freedom. A volume in bad grammar and worse taste. . . . While the pieces here collected were con fined to their appropriate sphere in the corners of obscure newspapers, we considered them wholly beneath contempt, but, as the author has chosen to come forward in this public man ner, he must expect the lash he so richly merits. . . . Contemptible slanders. . . . Vilest Billings gate. . . . Has raked all the gutters of our language. . . . The most pure, upright, and consistent politicians not safe from his malignant venom. . . . General Gushing comes in for a share of his vile calumnies. . . . The Reverend Homer Wilbur is a disgrace to his cloth. . . . From the World-Harmonic-^iEolian-Attachment. Speech is silver : silence is golden. No utter ance more Orphic than this. While, therefore, as highest author, we reverence him whose works continue heroically unwritten, we have also our hopeful word for those who with pen (from wing of goose loud-cackling, or seraph God-commissioned) record the thing that is re vealed. . . . Under mask of quaintest irony, we detect here the deep, storm-tost (nigh ship- wracked) soul, thunder-scarred, semi-articulate, but ever climbing hopefully toward thepeacef ul summits of an Infinite Sorrow. . . . 1 es, tlioti poor, forlorn Hosea, with Hebrew fire-flaming soul in thee, for thee also this life of ours has not been without its aspects of heavenliest pity and laughingest mirth. Conceivable enough ! Through coarse Thersites-cloak, we have reve lation of the heart, wild-glowing, world-clasping, that is in him. Bravely he grapples with the life-problem as it presents itself to him, un combed, shaggy, careless of the * 4 nicer proprie ties," inexpert of "elegant diction," yet with voice audible enough to whoso hath ears, up there on the gravelly side-hills, or down on the splashy, indiarubber-hke salt-marshes of native Jaalam. To this soul also the Necessity of Creat ing somewhat has unveiled its awful front. If not (Edipuses and Electras and Alcestises, then in God s name Birdofredum Sawins ! These also shall get born into the world, and filch (if so need) a Zingali subsistence therein, these lank, omnivorous Yankees of his. He shall paint the Seen, since the Unseen will not sit to him . Yet in him also are Nibelungen-lays, and Iliads, and Ulysses-wanderings, and Divine Comedies, if only once he could come at them ! Therein lies much, nay all ; for what truly is this which we name A //, but that which we do not possess ? . . . Glimpses also are given us of an old father Eze- kiel, not without paternal pride, as is the wont of such. A brown, parchment-hided old man of the geoponic or bucolic species, gray-eyed, we fancy, queued perhaps, with much weather- cunning and plentiful September-gale memories, bidding fair in good time to become the Oldest Inhabitant. After such hasty apparition, he vanishes and is seen no more. ... Of "Rev. Homer Wilbur, A. M., Pastor of the First Church in Jaalam," we have small care to speak here. Spare touch in him of his Melesi- genes namesake, save, haply, the blindness I A tolerably caliginose, nephelegeretous elderly gentleman, with infinite faculty of sermonizing, muscularized by long practice and excellent di gestive apparatus, and, for the rest, well-mean ing enough, and with small private illumina tions (somewhat tallowy, it is to be feared) of his own. To him, there, " Pastor of the First Church in Jaalam," our Hosea presents himself as a quite inexplicable Sphinx-riddle. A rich poverty of Latin and Greek, so far is clear enough, even to eyes peering myopic through horn-lensed editorial spectacles, but naught farther? O purblind, well-meaning, altogether fuscous Melesigenea- Wilbur, there are things in him incommunicable by stroke of birch I Did it ever enter that old bewildered head of thine that there was the Possibility of the Infinite in him ? To thee, quite wingless (and even feather- less) biped, has not so much even as a dream of wings ever come ? u Talented young parish ioner " ? Among the Arts whereof thou art Ma- e ster, does that of seeing happen to be one? nhappy Artium Magister ! Somehow a Ne- mean lion, fulvous, torrid-eyed, dry-nnrsed in broad-howling sand-wildernesses of a sufficiently rare spirit-Libya (it may be supposed) has got whelped among the sheep. Already he stands wild-glaring, with feet clutching the ground as with oak-roots, gathering for a Remus-spring over the walls of thy little fold. In Heaven s name, go not near him with that fly bite crook of thine ! In good time, thou painful preacher, thou wilt go to the appointed place of departed Artillery -Election Sermons, Right -Hands of 170 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Fellowship, and Results of Councils, gathered to thy spiritual fathers with much Latin of the Epitaphial sort ; thou, too, shalt have thy re ward ; but on him the Eumenides have looked, not Xantippes of the pit, snake-tressed, finger- threatening, but radiantly calm as on antique gems ; for him paws impatient the winged courser of the gods, champing unwelcome bit ; him the starry deeps, the empyrean glooms, and far-flashing splendors await. From the Onion Grove Phoenix. A talented young townsman of ours, recently returned from a Continental tour, and who is already favorably known to our readers by his sprightly letters from abroad which have graced our columns, called at our office yesterday. We learn from him, that, having enjoyed the distin guished privilege, while in Germany, of an in troduction to the celebrated Von Humbug, he took the opportunity to present that eminent man with a copy of the " Biglow Papers." The next morning he received the following note, which he has kindly furnished us for publica tion. We prefer to print it verbatim, knowing that our readers will readily forgive the few errors into which the illustrious writer has fallen, through ignorance of our language. " HIGH- WORTHY MISTER ! " I shall also now especially happy starve, be cause I have more or less a work one those abo riginal Red-Men seen in which have I so deaf an interest ever taken full-worthy on the self shelf with our Gottsched to be upset. "Pardon my in the English-speech un-prac- tice ! VON HUMBUG." He also sent with the above note a copy of his famous work on "Cosmetics," to be presented to Mr. Biglow; but this was taken from our friend by the English custom-house officers, probably through a petty national spite. No doubt, it has by this time found its way into the British Museum. We trust this outrage will be exposed in all our American papers. We shall do our best to bring it to the notice of the State Department. Our numerous readers will share in the pleasure we experience at seeing our young and vigorous national literature thus encouragingly patted on the head by this vener able and world-renowned German. We love to see these reciprocations of good-feeling between the different branches of the great Anglo-Saxon race. [The following genuine " notice " having met my eye, I gladly insert a portion of it here, the more especially as it contains one of Mr. Biglow s poems not elsewhere printed. H. W.] From the Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss. . . . But, while we lament to see our young townsman thus mingling in the heated contests of party politics, we think we detect in him the presence of talents which, if properly directed, might give an innocent pleasure to many. As a proof that he is competent to the production of other kinds of poetry, we copy for our read ers a short fragment of a pastoral by him, the manuscript of which was loaned us by a friend. The title of it is " The Courtin ." ZEKLE crep up, quite unbeknown, An peeked in thru the winder, An there sot Huldy all alone, ith no one nigh to hender. Agin the chimbly crooknecks hung, An in amongst em rusted The ole queen s-arm thet gran ther Young Fetched back frum Concord busted. The wannut logs shot sparkles out Towards the pootiest, bless her 1 An leetle fires danced all about The chiny on the dresser. The very room, coz she wuz in, Looked warm frum floor to ceilin , An she looked full ez rosy agin Ez th apples she wuz peelin . She heerd a foot an knowed it, tu, Araspin on the scraper, All ways to once her f eelins flew Like sparks in burnt-up paper. He kin o 1 itered on the mat, Some doubtfle o the seekle ; His heart kep goin pitypat, But hern went pity Zekle. An yet she gin her cheer a jerk Ez though she wished him f urder, An on her apples kep to work Ez ef a wager spurred her. You want to see my Pa, I sppse ? " " Wall, no ; I come designin " To see my Ma ? She s sprinklin clo ea Agin to-morrow s i nin ." He stood a spell on one foot fust, Then stood a spell on tother, An on which one he felt the wust He could n t ha told ye, nuther. Sez he, " I d better call agin ; Sez she, " Think likely, Mister ; " The last word pricked him like a pin, An wal, he up and kist her. When Ma bimeby upon em slips, Huldy sot pale ez ashes, All kind o smily round the lips An teary round the lashes. Her blood riz quick, though, like the tide Down to the Bay o Fundy, An all I know is they wuz cried In meetin , come nex Sunday. THE BIGLOW PAPERS 171 SATIS multis sese emptores futures libri pro- fessis, Georgius Nichols, Cantabrigiensis, opus emittet de parte gravi sed adhuc neglecta his- toriae naturalis, cum titulo sequente, videlicet : Conatus ad Delineationem naturalem nonnihil perfectiorem Scarabcei Bombilatoris, vulgo dicti HUMBUG, ab HOMEBO WILBUR, Artium Magis- tro, Societatis historico-naturalis Jaalainensis Preside (Secretario, Socioque (eheu !) singulo), multarumque aliarum Societatum eruditarum (sive ineruditarum) tarn domesticarum quam transmarinarum Socio f orsitan future. PROEMIUM LECTORI BENEVOLO S. Toga scholastica nondum deposita, quum systemata varia entomologica, a viris ejus sci- entiae-cultoribus studiosissimis summa diligen- tia aedificata, penitus indagassem, non f uit quin luctuose omnibus in iis, quamvis aliter laude dignissimis, hiatum magni momenti percipe- rem. Tune, nescio quo motu superiore impul- sus, aut qua captus dulcedine operis, ad eum implendum (Curtius alter) me solemniter de- vovi. Nee ab isto labore, Sai/j.ovius imposito, abstinui antequam tractatulum sufficienter in- concinnum lingua vernacula perfeceram. Inde, juveniliter tumef actus, et baratbro ineptiae rS>v &I$XIOTT<I)\>V (necnon " Publici Legentis " ) nus- quam explorato, me composuisse quod quasi placentas prsefervidas (ut sic dicam) homines ingurgitarent credidi. Sed, quum huic et alio bibliopolaa MSS. mea submisissem et nihil so- lidius responsione valde negativa in Musaeum meum retulissem, horror ingens atque miseri- cordia, ob crassitudinem Lambertianam in cere- bris homunculorum istius muneris ccelesti qua- darn ira infixam, me invasere. Extemplo mei solius impensis librum edere decrevi, nihil om- nino dubitans quin " Mundus Scientificus " (ut aiunt) crumenam meam ampliter repleret. Nullam, attamen, ex agro illo meo parvulo se- getem demessui praeter gaudium vacuum bene de Republica merendi. Iste panis meus pretio- sus super aquas literarias faeculentas praefiden- ter jactus, quasi Harpyiarum quarundam (scili cet bibliopolarum istorum facinorosorum su- pradictorum) tactu raneidus, intra perpaucos dies mihi domum rediit. Et, quum ipse tali victu ali non tolerarem, primum in mentem venit pistori (typographo nempe) nihilominus solvendum esse. Animum non idcirco demisi, imo seque ac pueri naviculas suas penes se lino retinent (eo ut e recto cursu delapsas ad ripam retrahant), sic ego Argo meam chartaceam fluctibus laborantem a quaesitu velleris aurei, ipse potius tonsus pelleque exutus, mente solida revocavi. Metaphoram ut mutem, boomaran- gam meam a scopo aberrantem retraxi, dum majore vi, occasione ministrante, adversus For- tunam intorquerem. Ast mihi, talia volventi, et, sicut Saturnus ille Trai5ofi6pos, liberos in- tellectus mei depascere fidenti, casus miseran- dus, nee antea inauditus, supervenit. Nam, ut ferunt Scythas pietatis causa et parsimoniae, parentes suos mortuos devorasse, sic films hie meus primogenitus, Scythis ipsis minus man- suetus, patrem vivum totum et calcitrantem ex- sorbere enixus est. Nee tamen hac de causa sobolem meam esurientem exheredavi. Sed f amem istam pro valido testimonio virilitatis roborisque potius habui, cibumque ad earn sa- tiandam, salva paterna mea carne, petii. Et quia bilem illam scaturientem ad aes etiam con- coquendum idoneam esse estimabam, unde aes alienum, ut minoris pretii, haberem, circum- spexi. Rebus ita se habentibus, ab avunculo meo Johanne Doolittle, Armigero, impetravi ut peeunias necessarias suppeditaret, ne opus esset mihi universitatem relinquendi antequam ad gradum primum in artibus pervenissem. Tune ego, salvum f acere patronum meum munificum maxime cupiens, omnes libros primae editionis operis mei non venditos una cum privilegio in omne aevum ejusdem imprimendi et edendi avunculo meo dicto pigneravi. Ex illo die, atro lapide notando, curae vociferantes familiae sin- gulis annis crescentis eo usque insultabant ut nunquam tarn carum pignus e vinculis istis aheneis solve re possem. Avunculo vero nuper mortuo, quum inter alios consanguineos testamenti ejus lectionem audiendi causa advenissem, erectis auribus verba talia sequentia accepi : " Quoniam per- suasum habeo meum dilectum nepotem Home- rum, longa et intima rerum angustarum domi experientia, aptissimum esse qui divitias tuea- tur, beneficenterque ac prudenter iis divinis creditis utatur, ergo, motus hisce cogitationi- bus, exque amore meo in ilium magno, do, lego- que nepoti caro meo supranominato omnes sin- gularesque istas possessiones nee ponderabiles nee computabiles meas quaa sequuntur, scili cet : quingentos libros quos mihi pigneravit dic- tus Homerus, anno lucis 1792, cum privilegio edendi et repetendi opus istud * scientificum (quod dicunt) suum, si sic elegerit. Tamen D. O. M. precor oculos Homeri nepotis mei ita aperiat eumque moveat, ut libros istos in biblio- theca unius e plurimis castellis suis Hispani- ensibus tuto abscondat." His verbis (vix credibilibus, auditis, cor meum in pectore exsultavit. Deinde, quoniam tractatus Anglice scriptus spem auctoris fefel- lerat, quippe quum studium Histories Natura lis in Republica nostra inter f actionis strepitum languescat, Latine versum edere statui, et eo potius quia nescio quomodo disciplina acade- mica et duo diplomata proficiant, nisi quod 172 THE BIGLOW PAPERS peritos lingnaram omnino mortuarum (et dam- nandarum, ut dicebat iste vavovpyos Guiliel- mus Cobbett) nos f aciant. Et mihi adhuc superstes est tota ilia editio prima, quam quasi crepitaculum per quod dentes caninos dentibam retineo. OPERIS SPECIMEN (Ad exemplum Johannis Physiophili speciminis Monachologice.) 12. S. B. Militaris, WILBUR. Carnifex, JA- BLONSK. Pro/anus, DBSFONT. [Male hancce speciem Cyclopem Fabricius vocat, ut qui singulo oculo ad quod sui interest distinguitur. Melius vero Isaacus Outis nullum inter S. milit. S. que Belzebul (Fabric. 152) discrimen esse defendit.] Habitat civitat. Amerie. austral. Aureis lineis splendidus; plerumque tamen sordidus, utpote lanienas valde frequentans, fcetore sanguinis allectus. Amat quoque in- super septa apricari, neque inde, nisi maxima conatione detruditur. Candidatus ergo popu- lariter vocatus. Caput cristam quasi pennarum ostendit. Pro cibo vaccam publicam callide mulget ; abdomen enorme ; f acultas suctus haud facile estimanda. Otiosus, f atuus ; f erox nihilominus, semperque dimicare paratus. Tor- tuose repit. Capite speae maxima cum cura dissecto, ne illud rudimentum etiam cerebri commune omni bus prope insectis detegere poteram. Unam de hoc S. milit. rem singularem notavi ; nam S. Guineens. (Fabric. 143) servos facit, et idcirco a multis surama in reverentia habitus, quasi scintillas rationis pseae humanse demon- s trans. 24. S. B. Criticus, WILBUR. Zoilus, FABRIC. Pygmceus, CARLSEN. [Stultissime Johannes Stryx cum S. punctato (Fabric. 64-109) confundit. Specimina quam- plurima scrutationi microscopicae subjeci, nun- quam tamen unum ulla indicia ptmcti cujusvis prorsus ostendentem inveni.] Praecipne formidolosus, insectatusque, in proxima rima anonyma sese abscondit, toe, we, creberrime stridens. Ineptus, segnipes. Habitat ubique gentium ; in sicco ; nidum suum terebratione indefessa aedificans. Gibus. Libros depascit ; siccos prsecipue. MELIBCEUS-HIPPONAX. THE EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, GLOSSARY, AND COPIOUS INDEX, HOMER WILBUR, A. M., PASTOB OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN JAALAM, AND (PRO SPECTIVE) MEMBER OF MANY LITERARY, LEARNED, AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES, (for which see page 173). The ploughman s whistle, or the trivial flute, Finds more respect than great Apollo s lute. Quarles s Emblems, B. ii. E. 8. Margaritas, munde porcine, calcasti : en, siliquas accipe. Joe. Car. Fil. ad Pub. Leg. 1. NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE IT will not have escaped the attentive eye, that I have, on the title-page, omitted those honorary appendages to the editorial name which not only add greatly to the value of every book, but whet and exacerbate the appe tite of the reader. For not only does he sur mise that an honorary membership of literary and scientific societies implies a certain amount of necessary distinction on the part of the re cipient of such decorations, but he is willing 1 to trust himself more entirely to an author who writes under the fearful responsibility of involving the reputation of such bodies as the S. Archceol. Dahom. or the Acad. Lit. et Scient. Kamtschat. I cannot but think that the early editions of Shakespeare and Milton would have met with more rapid and general accept ance, but for the barrenness of their respec tive title-pages ; and I believe that, even now, a publisher of the works of either of those justly distinguished men would find his ac count in procuring their admission to the membership of learned bodies on the Conti nent, a proceeding no whit more incongru ous than the reversal of the judgment against Socrates, when he was already more than twenty centuries beyond the reach of anti dotes, and when his memory had acquired a deserved respectability. I conceive that it was a feeling of the importance of this precaution which induced Mr. Locke to style himself " Gent." on the title-page of his Essay, as who should say to his readers that they could re ceive his metaphysics on the honor of a gentle- THE BIGLOW PAPERS Nevertheless, finding that, without descend ing to a smaller size of type than would have been compatible with the dignity of the sev eral societies to be named, I could not com press my intended list within the limits of a single page, and thinking, moreover, that the act would carry with it an air of decorous modesty, I have chosen to take the reader aside, as it were, into my private closet, and there not only exhibit to him the diplomas which I already possess, but also to furnish him with a prophetic vision of those which I may, without undue presumption, hope for, as not beyond the reach of human ambition and attainment. And I am the rather induced to this from the fact that my name has been unaccountably dropped from the last trien nial catalogue of our beloved Alma Mater. Whether this is to be attributed to the diffi culty of Latinizing any of those honorary ad juncts (with a complete list of which I took care to furnish the proper persons nearly a year beforehand), or whether it had its origin in any more culpable motives, I forbear to consider in this place, the matter being in course of painful investigation. But, however this may be, I felt the omission the more keenly, as I had, in expectation of the new catalogue, enriched the library of the Jaalam Athenseum with the old one then in my posses sion, by which means it has come about that my children will be deprived of a never-weary ing winter evening s amusement in looking out the name of their parent in that distinguished roll. Those harmless innocents had at least committed no but I forbear, having in trusted my reflections and animadversions on this painful topic to the safe-keeping of my private diary, intended for posthumous publi cation. I state this fact here, in order that certain nameless individuals, who are, perhaps, overmuch congratulating themselves upon my silence, may know that a rod is in pickle which the vigorous hand of a justly incensed posterity will apply to their memories. The careful reader will note that, in the list which I have prepared, I have included the names of several Cisatlantic societies to which a place is not commonly assigned in proces sions of this nature. I have ventured to do this, not only to encourage native ambition and genius, but also because I have never been able to perceive in what way distance (unless we suppose them at the end of a lever) could increase the weight of learned bodies. As far as I have been able to extend my researches among such stuffed specimens as occasionally reach America, I have discovered no generic difference between the antipodal Fogrum Ja- ponicum and the F. Americanum sufficiently common in our own immediate neighborhood. Yet, with a becoming deference to the popular belief that distinctions of this sort are en hanced in value by every additional mile they travel, I have intermixed the names of some tolerably distant literary and other associa tions with the rest. I add here, also, an advertisement, which, that it may be the more readily understood by those persons especially interested therein, I have written in that curtailed and otherwise maltreated canine Latin, to the writing and reading of which they are accustomed. OMNIB. PEB TOT. ORB. TERRAR. CATALOG. ACADEM. EDD. Minim, gent, diplom. ab inclytiss. acad. vest, orans, vir. honorand. operosiss., at soL ut sciat. quant, glor. nom. meum (dipl. fort, concess.) catal. vest. temp, futur. affer., ilL subjec., addit. omnib. titul. honorar. qu. adh. non tant. opt. quam probab. put. *#* Litt. Uncial distinx. ut Frees. S. Hist. Nat. Jaal. HOMERUS WILBUR, Mr., Episc. Jaalam, S. T. D. 1850, et Yal. 1849, et Neo- Caes. et Brun. et Gulielm. 1852, et Gul. et Mar. et Bowd. et Georgiop. et Viridimont. et Columb. Nov. Ebor. 1853, et Amberst. et Watervill. et S. Jarlath. Hib. et S. Mar. et S. Joseph, et S. And. Scot. 1854, et Nashvill. et Dart, et Dickins. et Concord, et Wash, et Colum bian, et Chariest, et Jeff, et Dubl. et Oxon. et Cantab, et Cset. 1855, P. U. N. C. H. et J. U. D. Gott. et Osnab. et Heidelb. I860, et Acad. BORE us. Berolin. Soc., et SS. RR. Lugd. Bat. et Patav. et Lond. et Edinb. et Ins. Feejee. et Null. Terr, et Pekin. Soc. Hon. et S. H. S. et S. P. A. et A. A. S. et S. Hnmb. Univ. et S. Omn. Rer. Quarund. q. Aliar. Promo v. Passamaquod. et H. P. C. et I. O. H, et A. A. 4>. et II. K. P. et *. B. K. et Peucin. et Erosoph. et Philadelph. et Frat. in Unit, et 2. T. et S. Archaeolog. Athen. et Acad. Scient. et Lit. Panorm. et SS. R. H. Matrit. et Beeloochist. et Caffrar. et Caribb. et M. S. Reg. Paris, et S. Am. Antiserv. Soc. Hon. et P. D. Gott. et LL. D. 1852, et D. C. L. et, Mus. Doc. Oxon. 1860, et M. M. S. S. et M. D. 1854, et Med. Fac. Univ. Harv. Soc. et S. pro Convers. Pollywog. Soc. Hon. et Higgl. Piggl. et LL. B. 1853, et S. pro Christianiz. Moschet. Soc. et SS. Ante- Diluv. ubiq. Gent. Soc. Hon. et Civit. Cleric. Jaalam. et S. pro Diffus. General. Tenebr. Secret. Corr. 174 THE BIGLOW PAPERS INTRODUCTION WHEN, more than three years ago, my tal ented young parishioner, Mr. Big-low, came to me and submitted to my animadversions the first of his poems which he intended to com mit to the more hazardous trial of a city news paper, it never so much as entered my imagi nation to conceive that his productions would ever be gathered into a fair volume, and ush ered into the august presence of the reading public by myself. So little are we short sighted mortals able to predict the event ! I confess that there is to me a quite new sat isfaction in being associated (though only as sleeping partner) in a book which can stand by itself in an independent unity on the shelves of libraries. For there is always this drawback from the pleasure of printing a ser mon, that, whereas the queasy stomach of this generation will not bear a discourse long enough to make a separate volume, those re ligious and godly-minded children (those Sam uels, if I may call them so) of the brain must at first lie buried in an undistinguished heap, and then get such resurrection as is vouch safed to them, mummy-wrapped with a score of others in a cheap binding, with no other mark of distinction than the word "Miscella neous " printed upon the back. Far be it from me to claim any credit for the quite unex pected popularity which I am pleased to find these bucolic strains have attained unto. If I know myself, I am measurably free from the itch of vanity ; yet I may be allowed to say that I was not backward to recognize in them a certain wild, puckery, acidulous (sometimes even verging toward that point which, in our rustic phrase, is termed shut-eyed) flavor, not wholly unpleasing, nor unwholesome, to pal ates cloyed with the sugariness of tamed and cultivated fruit. It may be, also, that some touches of my own, here and there, may have led to their wider acceptance, albeit solely from my larger experience of literature and authorship. 1 I was at first inclined to discourage Mr. Biglow s attempts, as knowing that the desire to poetize is one of the diseases naturally in cident to adolescence, which, if the fitting remedies be not at once and with a bold hand applied, may become chronic, and render one, who might else have become in due time an ornament of the social circle, a painful object even to nearest friends and relatives. But thinking, on a further experience, that there was a germ of promise in him which required 1 The reader curious in such matters may refer (if he can find them) to A sermon prenched on the Anniver- tary of the Dark Day, An Artillery Election Sermon, only culture and the pulling up of weeds from about it, I thought it best to set before him the acknowledged examples of English com position in verse, and leave the rest to natural emulation. With this view, I accordingly lent him some volumes of Pope and Goldsmith, to the assiduous study of which he promised to devote his evenings. Not long afterward, he brought me some verses written upon that model, a specimen of which I subjoin, having changed some phrases of less elegancy, and a few rhymes objectionable to the cultivated ear. The poem consisted of childish reminiscences, and the sketches which follow will not seem destitute of truth to those whose fortunate education began in a country village. And, first, let us hang up his charcoal portrait of the school-dame. " Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see The humble school-house of my A, B, C, Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire, Waited in ranks the wished command to fire, Then all together, when the signal came, Discharged their a-b abs against the dame. Daughter of Danaus, who could daily pour In treacherous pipkins her Pierian store, She, mid the volleyed learning firm and calm, Patted the furloughed ferule on her palm, And, to our wonder, could divine at once Who flashed the pan, and who was downright dunce. " There young Devotion learned to climb with ease The gnarly limbs of Scripture family-trees, And he was most commended and admired Who soonest to the topmost twig perspired ; Each name was called as many various ways As pleased the reader s ear on different days, So that the weather, or the ferule s stings, Colds in the head, or fifty other things, Transformed the helpless Hebrew thrice a week To guttural Pequot or resounding Greek, The vibrant accent skipping here and there, Just as it pleased invention or despair ; No controversial Hebraist was the Dame ; With or without the points pleased her the same ; If any tyro found a name too tough, And looked at her, pride furnished skill enough ; She nerved her larynx for the desperate thing, And cleared the five-barred syllables at a spring. " Ah, dear old times ! there once it was my hap, Perched on a stool, to wear the long-eared cap ; From books degraded, there I sat at ease, A drone, the envy of compulsory bees ; Rewards of merit, too, full many a time, A Discourse on the Late Eclipse, Dorcas, a Funeral Sermon on the Death of Madam Submit Tidd, Relict oj the late Experience Tidd, Esq., &c., &c. THE BIGLOW PAPERS 75 Each with its woodcut and its moral rhyme, And pierced half-dollars hung on ribbons gay About my neck (to be restored next day) I carried home, rewards as shining then As those that deck the lifelong pains of men, More solid than the redemanded praise With which the world beribbons later days. "Ah, dear old times! how brightly ye re turn! How, rubbed afresh, your phosphor traces burn ! The ramble sehoolward through dewsparkling meads, The willow-wands turned Cinderella steeds, The impromptu pin-bent hook, the deep re morse O er the chance-captured minnow s inchlong corse ; The pockets, plethoric with marbles round, That still a space for ball and pegtop found, Nor satiate yet, could manage to confine Horsechestnuts, flagroot, and the kite s wound twine, Nay, like the prophet s carpet could take in, Enlarging still, the popgun s magazine ; The dinner carried in the small tin pail, Shared with some dog, whose most beseeching tail And dripping tongue and eager ears belied The assumed indifference of canine pride ; The caper homeward, shortened if the cart Of Neighbor Pomeroy, trundling from the mart, O ertook me, then, translated to the seat I praised the steed, how stanch he was and fleet, While the bluff farmer, with superior grin, Explained where horses should be thick, where thin, And warned me (joke he always had in store) To shun a beast that four white stockings wore. What a fine natural courtesy was his ! His nod was pleasure, and his full bow bliss ; How did his well-thumbed hat, with ardor rapt, Its curve decorous to each rank adapt ! How did it graduate with a courtly ease The whole long scale of social differences, Yet so gave each his measure running o er, None thought his own was less, his neighbor s more ; The squire was flattered, and the pauper knew Old times acknowledged neath the threadbare blue! Dropped at the corner of the embowered lane, Whistling I wade the knee-deep leaves again, While eager Argus, who has missed all day The sharer of his condescending play, Comes leaping onward with a bark elate And boisterous tail to greet me at the gate ; That I was true in absence to our love Let the thick dog s-ears in my primer prove." I add only one further extract, which will possess a melancholy interest to all such as have endeavored to glean the materials of rev olutionary history from the lips of aged per sons, who took a part in the actual making of it, and, finding the manufacture profitable, continued the supply in an adequate propor tion to the demand. " Old Joe is gone, who saw hot Percy goad His slow artillery up the Concord road, A tale which grew in wonder, year by year, As, every time he told it, Joe drew near To the main fight, till, faded and grown gray, The original scene to bolder tints gave way ; Then Joe had heard the foe s scared double* quick Beat on stove drum with one uncaptured stick> And, ere death came the lengthening tale to lop, Himself had fired, and seen a red-coat drop; Had Joe lived long enough, that scrambling fight Had squared more nearly with his sense of right. And vanquished Percy, to complete the tale, Had hammered stone for life in Concord jail." I do not know that the foregoing extracts ought not to be called my own rather than Mr. Biglow s, as, indeed, he maintained stoutly that my file had left nothing of his in them. I should not, perhaps, have felt entitled to take so great liberties with them, had I not more than suspected an hereditary vein of poetry in myself, a very near ancestor having written a Latin poem in the Harvard Gratulatio on the accession of George the Third. Suffice it to say, that, whether not satisfied with such lim ited approbation as I could conscientiously be stow, or from a sense of natural inaptitude, certain it is that my young friend could never be induced to any further essays in this kind. He affirmed that it was to him like writing in a foreign tongue, that Mr. Pope s versifi cation was like the regular ticking of one of Willard s clocks, in which one could fancy, after long listening, a certain kind of rhythm or tune, but which yet was only a poverty- stricken tick, tick, after all, and that he had never seen a sweet-water on a trellis growing so fairly, or in forms so pleasing to his eye, as a fox-grape over a scrub-oak in a swamp. He added I know not what, to the effect that the sweet-water would only be the more disfigured by having its leaves starched and ironed out, and that Pegasus (so he called him) hardly looked right with his mane and tail in curl papers. These and other such opinions I did not long strive to eradicate, attributing them rather to a defective education and senses un tuned by too long familiarity with purely nat ural objects, than to a perverted moral sense. I was the more inclined to this leniency since I 7 6 THE BIGLOW PAPERS sufficient evidence was not to seek, that his verses, wanting as they certainly were in classic polish and point, had somehow taken hold of the public ear in a surprising manner. So, only setting him right as to the quantity of the proper name Pegasus, I left him to follow the bent of his natural genius. Yet could I not surrender him wholly to the tutelage of the pagan (which, literally inter preted, signifies village) muse without yet a further effort for his conversion, and to this end I resolved that whatever of poetic fire yet burned in myself, aided by the assiduous bel lows of correct models, should be put in requi sition. Accordingly, when my ingenious young parishioner brought to my study a copy of verses which he had written touching the ac quisition of territory resulting from the Mexi can war, and the folly of leaving the question of slavery or freedom to the adjudication of chance, I did myself indite a short fable or apologue after the manner of Gay and Prior, to the end that he might see how easily even such subjects as he treated of were capable of a more refined style and more elegant expres sion. Mr. Biglow s production was as fol lows : THE TWO GUNNERS A FABLE Two fellers, Isrel named and Joe, One Sundy mornin greed to go Agnnnin soon z the bells wuz done And meetin finally begun, So st no one would n t be about Ther Sabbath-breakin to spy out. Joe did n t want to go a mite ; He felt ez though t warn t skeercely right, But, when his doubts he went to speak on, Isrel he up and called him Deacon, An kep apokin fun like sin An then arubbin on it in, Till Joe, less skeered o doin wrong Than bein laughed at, went along. Past noontime they went tranrpin round An nary thing to pop at found, Till, fairly tired o their spree, They leaned their guns agin a tree, An jest ez they wuz settin down To take their noonin , Joe looked roun And see (acrost lots in a pond That warn t mor n twenty rod beyond) A goose that on the water sot Ez ef awaitin to be shot. Isrel he nps and grabs his gun ; Sez he, " By ginger, here s some fun ! " Don t fire," sez .Toe, " it ain t no use, Thet s Deacon Peleg s tame wiP-goose : " Sez Isrel, " I don t care a cent. I Ve sighted an 111 let her went ; " Bang ! went queen s-arm, ole gander flopped His wings a spell, an quorked, an dropped. Sez Joe, " I would n t ha been hired At that poor critter to ha fired, But sence it s clean gin up the ghost, We 11 hev the tallest kind o 1 roast ; I guess our waistbands 11 be tight Fore it comes ten o clock ternight." 41 I won t agree to no such bender," Sez Isrel ; " keep it tell it s tender ; T aint wuth a snap afore it s ripe." Sez Joe, " I d jest ez lives eat tripe ; You air a buster ter suppose I d eat what makes me hoi my nose ! " So they disputed to an fro Till cunnin Isrel sez to Joe, il Don t le s stay here an play the fool, Le s wait till both on us git cool, Jest for a day or two le s hide it, An then toss up an so decide it." " Agreed 1 " sez Joe, an so they did, An the ole goose wuz safely hid. Now t wuz the hottest kind o weather, An when at last they come together, It did n t signify which won, Fer all the mischief hed been done : The goose wnz there, but, fer his soul, Joe would n t ha tetched it with a pole ; But Isrel kind p liked the smell on t An made his dinner very well on t. My own humble attempt was in manner and form following, and I print it here, 1 sincerely trust, out of no vainglory, but solely with the hope of doing good. LEAVING THE MATTER OPEN A TALE BY HOMER WILBUR, A. M. Two brothers once, an ill-matched pair, Together dwelt (no matter where), To whom an Uncle Sam, or some one, Had left a house and farm in common. The two in principles and habits Were different as rats from rabbits ; Stout Farmer North, with frugal care, Laid up provision for his heir, Not scorning with hard sun-browned hands To scrape acquaintance with his lands ; Whatever thing he had to do He did, and made it pay him, too ; He sold his waste stone by the pound, His drains made water-wheels spin round, His ice in summer-time he sold, His wood brought profit when t was cold, He dug and delved from morn till night. Strove to make profit sqnare with right, THE BIGLOW PAPERS 177 Lived on his means, cut no great dash, And paid his debts in honest cash. On tother hand, his brother South Lived very much from hand to mouth, Played gentleman, nursed dainty hands, Borrowed North s money on his lands, And culled his morals and his graces From cock-pits, bar-rooms, fights, and races ; His sole work in the farming line Was keeping droves of long-legged swine, Which brought great bothers and expenses To North in looking after fences, And, when they happened to break through, Cost him both time and temper too, For South insisted it was plain He ought to drive them home again, And North consented to the work Because he loved to buy cheap pork. Meanwhile, South s swine increasing fast. His farm became too small at last ; So, having thought the matter over, And feeling bound to live in clover And never pay the clover s worth, He said one day to Brother North : " Our families are both increasing, And, though we labor without ceasing, Our produce soon will be too scant To keep our children out of want^; They who wish fortune to be lasting Must be both prudent and forecasting ; We soon shall need more land ; a lot I know, that cheaply can be bo t ; You lend the cash, I 11 buy the acres, And we 11 be equally partakers." Poor North, whose Anglo-Saxon blood Gave him a hankering after mud, Wavered a moment, then consented, And, when the cash was paid, repented ; To make the new land worth a pin, Thought he, it must be all fenced in, For, if South s swine once get the run on t No kind of farming can be done on t ; If that don t suit the other side, T is best we instantly divide. But somehow South could ne er incline This way or that to run the line, And always found some new pretence Gainst setting the division fence ; At last he said : " For peace s sake, Liberal concessions I will make ; Though I believe, upon my soul, I ve a just title to the whole, I 11 make an offer which I call Gen rous, we 11 have no fence at all ; Then both of us, whene er we choose, Can take what part we want to use ; If you should chance to need it first, Pick you the best, I 11 take the worst." " Agreed ! " cried North ; thought he, This fall With wheat and rye I 11 sow it all ; In that way I shall get the start, And South may whistle for his part. So thought, so done, the field was sown, Heavens, what a sight ! his brother s swine Had asked themselves all out to dine ; Such grunting, munching, rooting, shoving, The soil seemed all alive and moving, As for his grain, such work they d made on t, He could n t spy a single blade on t. Off in a rage he rushed to South, "My wheat and rye" grief choked hia month : " Pray don t mind me," said South, " but plant All of the new land that you want ; " " Yes, but your hogs," cried North ; "The grain Won t hurt them," answered South again ; " But they destroy my crop ; " "No doubt ; T is fortunate you ve found it out ; Misfortunes teach, and only they, You must not sow it in their way ; " "Nay, you," says North, "must keep them out;" " Did I create them with a snout ? " Asked South demurely ; " as agreed, The land is open to your seed, And would you fain prevent my pigs From running there their harmless rigs ? God knows I view this compromise With not the most approving eyes ; I gave up my unquestioned rights For sake of quiet days and nights ; I offered then, you know t is true, To cut the piece of land in two." " Then cut it now," growls North ; "Abate Your heat," says South, " t is now too late ; I offered you the rocky corner, But you, of your own good the scorner, Refused to take it ; I am sorry ; No doubt you might have found a quarry, Perhaps a gold-mine, for anght I know, Containing heaps of native rhino ; You can t expect me to resign My rights "- " But where," quoth North, " are mine ? " " Your rights," says tother, "well, that s funny, I bought the land " " / paid the money ; " That," answered South, " is from the point, The ownership, you 11 grant, is joint ; I m sure my only hope and trust is Not law so much as abstract justice, Though, you remember, t was agreed That so and so consult the deed ; Objections now are out of date, i 7 8 THE BIGLOW PAPERS They might have answered once, but Fate Quashes them at the point we ve got to ; Obsta principiis, that s my motto." So saying, South began to whistle And looked as obstinate as gristle, While North went homeward, each brown paw Clenched like a knot of natural law, And all the while, in either ear, Heard something clicking wondrous clear. To turn now to other matters, there are two things upon which it should seem fitting to dilate somewhat more largely in this place, the Yankee character and the Yankee dialect. And, first, of the Yankee character, which has wanted neither open maligners, nor even more dangerous enemies in the persons of those un skilful painters who have given to it that hard ness, angularity, and want of proper perspec tive, which, in truth, belonged, not to their subject, but to their own niggard and unskilful pencil. New England was not so much the colony of a mother country, as a Hagar driven forth into the wilderness. The little self - exiled band which came hither in 1620 came, not to seek gold, but to found a democracy. They came that they might have the privilege to work and pray, to sit upon hard benches and listen to painful preachers as long as they would, yea. even unto thirty-seventhly. if the spirit so willed it. And surely, if the Greek might boast his Thermopylae, where three hundred men fell in resisting the Persian, we may well be proud of our Plymouth Rock, where a handful of men, women, and children not merely faced, but vanquished, winter, famine, the wilderness, and the yet more invincible storge that drew them back to the green island far away. These found no lotus growing upon the surly shore, the taste of which could make them forget their little native Ithaca ; nor were they so wanting to themselves in faith as to burn their ship, but could see the fair west-wind belly the homeward sail, and then turn unrepining to grapple with the terrible Unknown. As Want was the prime foe these hardy ex- odists had to fortress themselves against, so it is little wonder if that traditional feud be long in wearing out of the stock. The wounds of the old warfare were long a-healing, and an east- wind of hard times puts a new ache into every one of them. Thrift was the first lesson in their horn-book, pointed out, letter after letter, by the lean finger of the hard schoolmistress, Ne cessity. Neither were those plump, rosy-gilled Englishmen that came hither, but a hard-faced, atrabilious, earnest-eyed race, stiff from long wrestling with the Lord in prayer, and who had taught Satan to dread the new Puritan hug. Add two hundred years influence of soil, cli mate, and exposure, with its necessary result of idiosyncrasies, and we have the present Yankee, full of expedients, half -master of all trades, inventive in all but the beautiful, full of shifts, not yet capable of comfort, armed at all points against the old enemy Hunger, long- animous, good at patching, not so careful for what is best as for what will do, with a clasp to his purse and a button to his pocket, not skilled to build against Time, as in old countries, but against sore-pressing Need, accustomed to move the world with no irov area but his own two feet, and no lever but his own long forecast. A strange hybrid, indeed, did circumstance beget, here in the New World, upon the old Puritan stock, and the earth never before saw such mystic-practicalism, such niggard-gen iality, such calculating-fanaticism, such cast- iron-enthusiasm, such sour-faced-humor, such close - fisted - generosity. This new Grceculus esuriens will make a living out of anything. He will invent new trades as well as tools. His brain is his capital, and he will get educa tion at all risks. Put him on Juan Fernandez, and he would make a spelling-book first, and a salt-pan afterward. In coelum, jusseris, ibit, or the other way either, it is all one, so any thing is to be got by it. Yet, after all, thin, speculative Jonathan is more like the English man of two centuries ago than John Bull him self is. He has lost somewhat in solidity, has become fluent and adaptable, but more of the original groundwork of character remains. He feels more at home with Fulke Greville, Her bert of Cherbury, Quarles, George Herbert, and Browne, than with his modern English cousins. He is nearer than John, by at least a hundred years, to Naseby, Marston Moor, Worcester, and the time when, if ever, there were true Englishmen. John Bull has suffered the idea of the Invisible to be very much fat tened out of him. Jonathan is conscious still that he lives in the world of the Unseen as well as of the Seen. To move John you must make your fulcrum of solid beef and pudding ; an abstract idea will do for Jonathan. *** TO THE INDULGENT READER MY friend, the Rev. Mr. Wilbur, having been seized with a dangerous fit of illness, before this Introduction had passed through the press, and being incapacitated for all literary exertion, sent to me his notes, memoranda, &c., and requested me to fashion them into some shape more fitting for the general eye. This, owing to the frag mentary and disjointed state of his manuscripts, I have felt wholly unable to do ; yet being un willing that the reader should be deprived of such parts of his lucubrations as seemed more finished, THE BIGLOW PAPERS 179 and not well discerning how to segregate these from the rest, I have concluded to send them all to the press precisely as they are. COLUMBUS NYE, Pastor of a Church in Bungtown Corner. It remains to speak of the Yankee dialect. And, first, it may be premised, in a general way, that any one much read in the writings of the early colonists need not be told that the far greater share of the words and phrases now esteemed peculiar to New England, and local there, were brought from the mother country. A person familiar with the dialect of certain portions of Massachusetts will not fail to re cognize, in ordinary discourse, many words now noted in English vocabularies as archaic, the greater part of which were in common use about the time of the King James translation of the Bible. Shakespeare stands less in need of a glossary to most New-Englanders than to many a native of the Old Country. The peculiarities of our speech, however, are rapidly wearing out. As there is no country where reading is so uni versal and newspapers are so multitudinous, so no phrase remains long local, but is transplanted in the mail-bags to every remotest corner of the land. Consequently our dialect approaches nearer to uniformity than that of any other nation. The English have complained of us for coin ing new words. Many of those so stigmatized were old ones by them forgotten, and all make now an unquestioned part of the currency, wherever English is spoken. Undoubtedly, we have a right to make new words, as they are needed by the fresh aspects under which life presents itself here in the New World ; and, indeed, wherever a language is alive, it grows. It might be questioned whether we could not establish a stronger title to the ownership of the English tongue than the mother-islanders themselves. Here, past all question, is to be its great home and centre. And not only is it already spoken here by greater numbers, but with a far higher popular average of correct ness than in Britain. The great writers of it, too, we might claim as ours, were ownership to be settled by the number of readers and lovers. As regards the provincialisms to be met with in this volume, I may say that the reader will not find one which is not (as I believe) either native or imported with the early set tlers, nor one which I have not, with my own ears, heard in familiar use. In the metrical portion of the book, I have endeavored to adapt the spelling as nearly as possible to the ordinary mode of pronunciation. Let the read er who deems me over-particular remember this caution of Martial : " Quern recitas, meus est, O Fidentine, libellus; Sed male cum recitas, incipit essetuus." A few further explanatory remarks will not be impertinent. I shall barely lay down a few general rules for the reader s guidance. 1. The genuine Yankee never gives the rough sound to the r when he can help it, and often displays considerable ingenuity in avoid ing it even before a vowel. 2. He seldom sounds the final g, a piece of self-denial, if we consider his partiality for nasals. The same of the final d, as /tan and stan 1 for hand and stand. o. The h in such words as while, when, where, he omits altogether. 4. In regard to a, he shows some inconsis tency, sometimes giving a close and obscure sound, as hev for have, hendy for handy, ez for as, thet for that, and again giving it the broad sound it has in father, as hansome for hand some. 5. To the sound ou he prefixes an e (hard to exemplify otherwise than orally). The following passage in Shakespeare he would recite thus : " Neow is the winta uv eour discontent Med glorious summa by this sun o Yock, An all the cleouds thet leowered upun eour heouse In the deep buzzum o the oshin buried ; Neow air eour breows beound ith victorious wreaths ; Eour breused arms hung up f er monimunce ; Eour starn alarums changed to merry meetins, Eour dreffle marches to delighfle masures. Grim-visaged war heth smeuthed his wrinkled front, An neow, instid o mountin barebid steeds To fright the souls o ferfle edverseries, He capers nimly in a lady s chamber, To the lascivious pleasin uv a loot." 6. Au, in such words as daughter and slaugh ter, he pronounces ah. 7. To the dish thus seasoned add a drawl ad libitum. [Mr. Wilbur s notes here become entirely fragmen tary. C. N.j a. Unable to procure a likeness of Mr. Big- low, I thought the curious reader might be gratified with a sight of the editorial effigies. And here a choice between two was offered, the one a profile (entirely black) cut by Doyle, the other a portrait painted by a native artist of much promise. The first of these seemed wanting in expression, and in the second a slight obliquity of the visual organs has been heightened (perhaps from an over-desire of force on the part of the artist) into too close i8o THE BIGLOW PAPERS an approach to actual strabismus. This slight divergence in nay optical apparatus from the ordinary model however I may have been taught to regard it in the light of a mercy rather than a cross, since it enabled me to give as much of directness and personal application to my discourses as met the wants of my con gregation, without risk of offending any by being supposed to have him or her in my eye (as the saying is) seemed yet to Mrs. Wil bur a sufficient objection to the engraving of the aforesaid painting. We read of many who either absolutely refused to allow the copying of their features, as especially did Plotinus and Agesilaus among the ancients, not to mention the more modern instances of Scioppius, Palse- ottus, Pinellus, Velserus, Gataker, and others, or were indifferent thereto, as Cromwell. )8. Yet was Caesar desirous of concealing his baldness. Per contra, my Lord Protector s carefulness in the matter of his wart might be cited. Men generally more desirous of being improved in their portraits than characters. Shall probably find very unflattered likenesses of ourselves in Recording Angel s gallery. 7. Whether any of our national peculiarities may be traced to our use of stoves, as a certain closeness of the lips in pronunciation, and a smothered smoulderingness of disposition sel dom roused to open flame ? An unrestrained intercourse with fire probably conducive to generosity and hospitality of soul. Ancient Mexicans used stoves, as the friar Augustin Ruiz reports, Hakluyt, III. 468, but Popish priests not always reliable authority. To-day picked my Isabella grapes. Crop injured by attacks of rose-bug in the spring. Whether Noah was justifiable in preserving this class of insects ? 8. Concerning Mr. Biglow s pedigree. Tol erably certain that there was never a poet among his ancestors. An ordination hymn attributed to a maternal uncle, but perhaps a sort of production not demanding the creative faculty. His grandfather a painter of the grandiose or Michael Angelo school. Seldom painted ob jects smaller than houses or barns, and these with uncommon expression. f. Of the Wilburs no complete pedigree. The crest said to be a wild boar, whence, per haps, the name. (?) A connection with the Earls of Wilbraham (quasi wild boar ham) misrht be made out. This suggestion worth following up. In 1677, John W. m. Expect , had issue, 1. John, 2. Haggai, 3. Expect, 4. Ruhamah. 5. Desire. Hear lyes y* bodye of Mrs Expect Wilber, Y e crewell salvages they kil d her Together w th other Christian soles eleaven, October y ix daye, 1707. Y e stream of Jordan sh as crost ore And now expeacts me on y other shore : I live in hope her soon to join ; Her earthlye yeeres were forty and nine." From Gi-avestone in Pekussett, North Parish. This is unquestionably the same John who afterward (1711) married Tabitha Hagg or Ragg. But if this were the case, she seems to have died early ; for only three years after, namely, 1714, we have evidence that he married Wini fred, daughter of Lieutenant Tipping. He seems to have been a man of substance. for we find him in 1696 conveying * one un* divided eightieth part of a salt-meadow" in Yabbok, and he commanded a sloop in 1702. Those who doubt the importance of genea logical studies/Mste potius quam argumento erU diendi. I trace him as far as 1723, and there lose him. In that year he was chosen selectman. No gravestone. Perhaps overthrown when new hearse-house was built, 1802. He was probably the son of John, who came from Bilham Comit. Salop, circa 1642. This first John was a man of considerable importance, being twice mentioned with the honorable prefix of Mr. in the town records. Name spelt with two /-s. " Hear lyeth y e bod [stone unhappily broken. ] Mr. Ihon Willber [Esq.] [/ inclose this in brackets as doubtful. To me it seems clear.] Ob t die [illegible; looks like xviii.] .... Hi [prob. 1693.] paynt deseased seinte : A friend and [fath]er nntoe all y" opreast, Hee gave y e wicked familists noe reast, When Sat [an bTjewe his Antinomian blaste, Wee clong to TWillber as a steadf]ast maste. [A] gaynst y e horrid Qua[kers] " It is greatly to be lamented that this curious epitaph is mutilated. It is said that the sacri legious British soldiers made a target of the stone during the war of Independence. How odious an animosity which pauses not at the grave ! How brutal that which spares not the monuments of authentic history ! This is not improbably from the pen of Rev. Moody Pyram, who is mentioned by Hubbard as hav ing been noted for a silver vein of poetry. If his papers be still extant, a copy might possi bly be recovered. THE BIGLOW PAPERS 181 THE BIGLOW PAPERS No. I A LETTER FROM MR. EZEKIEL BIGLOW OF JAALAM TO THE HON. JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM, EDITOR OF THE BOSTON COURIER, IN CLOSING A POEM OF HIS SON, MR. HOSEA BIGLOW JAYLEM, June 1846. MISTER EDDYTER : Our Hosea wuz down to Boston last week, and he see a cruetin Sarjimt a struttin round as popler as a hen with 1 chicking, with 2 fellers a drummin and fifin arter him like all nater. the sarjunt he thout Hosea hed n t gut his i teeth cut cos he looked a kindo s though he M jest com down, so he caFlated to hook him in, but Hosy wood n t take none o his sarse for all he hed much as 20 Rooster s tales stuck onto his hat and eenamost enuf brass a bobbin up and down on his shoul ders and figureed onto his coat and trousis, let alone wut nater hed sot in his featers, to make a 6 pounder out on. wal, Hosea he com home considerabal riled, and arter I d gone to bed I heern Him a thrashin round like a short-tailed Bull in fli-time. The old Woman ses she to me ses she, Zekle, ses she, our Hosee s gut the chollery or suthin anuther ses she, don t you Bee skeered, ses I, he s oney amakin pottery * ses i, he s oilers on hand at that ere busynes like Da & martin, and shureenuf, cum mornin, Hosyhe cum down stares full chizzle, hare on eend and cote tales flyin, and sot rite of to go reed his varses to Parson Wilbur bein he haint aney grate shows o book larnin himself, bimeby he cum back and sed the parson wuz dreffle tickled with em as i hoop you will Be, and said they wuz True grit. Hosea ses taint hardly fair to call em hisn now, cos the parson kind o slicked off sum o the last varses, but he told Hosee he did n t want to put his ore in to tetch to the Rest on em, bein they wuz verry well As thay wuz, and then Hosy ses he sed suthin a nuther about Simplex Mundishes or sum sech feller, but I guess Hosea kind o* did n t hear him, for I never hearn o uobody o that name in this villadge, and 1 Autinsanit, out versos facit. H. W. I ve lived here man and boy 76 year cum next tater diggin, and thair aint no wheres a kitting spryer n I be. If you print em I wish you M jest let folks know who hosy s father is, cos my ant Keziah used to say it s nater to be curus ses she, she aint livin though and he s a likely kind o lad. EZEKIEL BIGLOW. THRASH away, you 11 hev to rattle On them kittle-drums o yourn, Taint a knowin kind o cattle Thet is ketched with mouldy corn ; Put in stiff, you fifer feller, Let folks see how spry you be, Guess you 11 toot till you are yeller Fore you git ahold o me ! Thet air flag s a leetle rotten, Hope it aint your Sunday s best; Fact ! it takes a sight o cotton To stuff out a soger s chest: Sence we farmers hev to pay fer t, Ef you must wear humps like these, S posin you should try salt hay fer t, It would du ez slick ez grease. T would n t suit them Southun fellers, They re a dreffle graspin set, We must oilers blow the bellers Wen they want their irons het; May be it s all right ez preachin , But my narves it kind o grates, Wen I see the overreachin O them nigger-drivin States. Them thet rule us, them slave-traders Haint they cut a thunderin swarth (Helped by Yankee renegaders), Thru the vartu o the North ! We begin to think it s nater To take sarse an not be riled; Who d expect to see a tater All on eend at bein biled ? Ez fer war, I call it murder, There you hev it plain an flat; I don t want to go no f urder Thau my Testyment fer that; God hez sed so plump an fairly, It s ez long ez it is broad, An you ve gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God. 182 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Taint your eppyletts an feathers Make the thing a grain more right; Taint afollerin your bell-wethers Will excuse ye in His sight; Ef you take a sword an dror it, An go stick a feller thru, Guv ment aint to answer for it, God 11 send the bill to you. Wut s the use o meetin -goin Every Sabbath, wet or dry, Ef it s right to go amowiii Feller-men like oats an rye ? I dunno but wut it s pooty Trainin round in bobtail coats, But it s curus Christian dooty This ere cuttin folks s throats. They may talk o Freedom s airy Tell they re pupple in the face, It s a grand gret cemetary Fer the barthrights of our race; They jest want this Californy So s to lug new slave-states in To abuse ye, an to scorn ye, An to plunder ye like sin. Aint it cute to see a Yankee Take sech everlastin pains, All to get the Devil s thankee Helpin on em weld their chains ? Wy, it s jest ez clear ez figgers, Clear ez one an one make two, Chaps thet make black slaves o niggers Want to make wite slaves o you. Tell ye jest the eend I ve come to Arter cipherin plaguy smart, An it makes a handy sum, tu, Any gump could larn by heart; Laborin man an laborin woman Hev one glory an one shame. Ev y thin thet s done inhuman Injers all on em the same. Taint by turnin* out to hack folks You re agoin to git your right, Nor by lookin down on black folks Coz you re put upon by wite; Slavery aint o nary color, Taint the hide thet makes it wus, All it keers fer in a feller S jest to make him fill its pus. Want to tackle me in, du ye ? I expect you 11 hev to wait ; Wen cold lead puts daylight thru ye You 11 begin to kal late ; S pose the crows wun t fall to pickin All the carkiss from your bones, Coz you helped to give a lickin To them poor half-Spanish drones ? Jest go home an ask our Nancy Wether I d be sech a goose Ez to jine ye, guess you d fancy The etarnal bung wuz loose ! She wants me fer home consumption, Let alone the hay s to mow, Ef you re arter folks o gumption, You ve a darned long row to hoe. Take them editors thet s crowin Like a cockerel three months old, Don t ketch any on em goin , Though they be so blasted bold; Aint they a prime lot o fellers ? Fore they think on t guess they II sprout (Like a peach thet s got the yellers), With the meanness bustin out. Wai, go long to help em stealin Bigger pens to cram with slaves, Help the men thet s oilers dealin Insults on your fathers graves; Help the strong to grind the feeble, Help the many agin the few, Help the men thet call your people Witewashed slaves an peddlin crew I Massachusetts, God forgive her, She s akneelin with the rest, She, thet ough to ha clung ferever In her grand old eagle-nest; She thet ough to stand so fearless Wile the wracks are round her hurled. Holdin up a beacon peerless To the oppressed of all the world ! Ha n t they sold your colored seamen ? Ha n t they made your env ys w iz ? Wut 11 make ye act like freemen ? Wut 11 git your dander riz ? Come, I 11 tell ye wut I m thinkin Is our dooty in this fix, They d ha done t ez quick ez winkin r In the days o seventy-six. THE BIGLOW PAPERS 183 Clang the bells in every steeple, Call all true men to disown The tradoocers of our people, The enslavers o their own; Let our dear old Bay State proudly Put the trumpet to her mouth, Let her ring this messidge loudly In the ears of all the (South : " I 11 return ye good fer evil Much ez we frail mortils can, But I wun t go help the Devil Makin man the cus o man; Call me coward, call me traiter, Jest ez suits your mean idees, Here I stand a tyrant-hater, An the friend o God an Peace! " Ef I d my way I hed ruther We should go to work an part, They take one way, we take t other, Guess it would n t break my heart; Man hed ough to put asunder Them thet God has noways jined; An I should n t gretly wonder Ef there s thousands o my mind. [The first recruiting- sergeant on record I conceive to have been that individual who is mentioned in the Book of Job as going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and dotvn in it. Bishop Latimer \vill have him to have been a bishop, but to me that other calling 1 would ap pear more congenial. The sect of Cainites is not yet extinct, who esteemed the first-born of Adam to be the most worthy, not only because of that privilege of primogeniture, but inasmuch as he was able to overcome and slay his younger brother. That was a wise saying of the famous Marquis Pescara to the Papal Legate, that it was impossible for men to serve Mars and Christ at the same time. Yet in time past the profession of arms was judged to be /COT Qoxfiv that of a gentleman, nor does this opinion want for stren uous upholders even in our day. Must we sup pose, then, that the profession of Christianity was only intended for losels, or, at best, to afford an opening for plebeian ambition ? Or shall we hold with that nicely metaphysical Pomeranian, Captain Vratz, who was Count Konigsmark s chief instrument in the murder of Mr. Thynne, that the Scheme of Salvation has been arranged with an especial eye to the necessities of the upper classes, and that " God would consider a gentleman and deal with him suitably to the condition and profession he had placed him in " ? It may be said of us all, Exemploplus quam ratione vivimus. H. W.] No. II A LETTER FROM MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE HON. J. T. BUCKINGHAM, EDITOR OF THE BOS TON COURIER, COVERING A LETTER FROM MR. B. SAWIN, PRIVATE IN THE MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT [THIS letter of Mr. Sawin s was not origi nally written in verse. Mr. Biglow, thinking it peculiarly susceptible of metrical adornment, translated it, so to speak, into his own vernacu lar tongue. This is not the time to consider the question, whether rhyme be a mode of ex pression natural to the human race. If leisure from other and more important avocations be granted, I will handle the matter more at large in an appendix to the present volume. In this place I will barely remark, that I have some times noticed in the unlanguaged prattlings of infants a fondness for alliteration, assonance, and even rhyme, in which natural predisposition we may trace the three degrees through which our Anglo-Saxon verse rose to its culmination in the poetry of Pope. I would not be under stood as questioning in these remarks that pious theory which supposes that children, if left entirely to themselves, would naturally dis course in Hebrew. For this the authority of one experiment is claimed, and I could, with Sir Thomas Browne, desire its establishment, inasmuch as the acquirement of that sacred tongue would thereby be facilitated. lam aware that Herodotus states the conclusion of Psam- meticus to have been in favor of a dialect of the Phrygian. But, beside the chance that a trial of this importance would hardly be blessed to a Pagan monarch whose only motive was curiosity, we have on the Hebrew side the comparatively recent investigation of James the Fourth of Scotland. I will add to this pre fatory remark, that Mr. Sawin, though a native of Jaalam, has never been a stated attendant on the religious exercises of my congregation. I consider my humble efforts prospered in that not one of my sheep hath ever indued the wolf s clothing of war, save for the comparatively innocent diversion of a militia training. Not that my flock are backward to undergo the hardships of defensive warfare. They serve cheerfully in the great army which fights, even unto death pro aris et focis, accoutred with the spade, the axe, the plane, the sledge, the spell ing-book, and other such effectual weapons against want and ignorance and unthrift. I have taught them (under God) to esteem our human institutions as but tents of a night, to be stricken whenever Truth puts the bugle to i8 4 THE BIGLOW PAPERS her lips and sounds a march to the heights of wider-viewed intelligence and more perfect organization. H. W.J MISTER BUCKINUM, the follerin Billet was writ hum by a Yung feller of our town that wuz cussed fool enuff to goe atrottin inter Miss Chiff arter a Drum and fife, it ain t Nater for a feller to let on that he s sick o any bizness that He went intu off his own free will and a Cord, but I rather caPlate he s middlin tired o voluntearin By this Time. I bleeve u may put depend- unts on his statemence. For I never heered nothin bad on him let Alone his havin what Parson Wilbur cals a pong shong for cock- tales, and he ses it wuz a soshiashun of idees sot him agoin arter the Crootin Sargient cos he wore a cocktale onto his hat. his Folks gin the letter to me and i shew it to parson Wilbur and he ses it oughter Bee printed, send It to mister Buckinum, ses he, i don t oilers agree with him, ses he, but by Time, 1 ses he, I du like a feller that aint a Feared. I have intusspussed a Few refleckshuns hear and thair. We re kind o prest with Hayin. Ewers respecfly HOSEA BIGLOW. THIS kind o sogerin aint a mite like our October trainin , A chap could clear right out from there ef t only looked like rainin , An th Gunnies, tu, could kiver up their shappoes with bandanners, An send the insines skootin to the bar room with their banners (Fear o gittin on em spotted), an a feller could cry quarter Ef he fired away his ramrod arter tu much rum an water. Recollect wut fun we hed, you n I an Ezry Hollis, Up there to Waltham plain last fall, along o the Cornwallis ? 2 This sort o thing aint jest like thet, I wish thet I wuz f urder, 8 1 In relation to this expression, I cannot but think that Mr. Biglow has been too hasty in attributing it to me. Though Time be a comparatively innocent per sonage to swear by, and though Longinus in his dis course Ilepi *YJovs have commended timely oaths as not only a useful but sublime figure of speech, yet I have always kept my lips free from that abomination. Odi Nimepunce a day fer killin folks comes kind o low fer murder, (Wy I ve worked out to slarterin* some fer Deacon Cephas Billins, An in the hardest times there wuz I oilers tetched ten shillins,) There s sutthin gits into my throat thet makes it hard to s waller, It comes so nateral to think about a hempen collar; It s glory, but, in spite o all my tryin to git callous, I feel a kind o in a cart, aridin to the gallus. But wen it comes to &etV killed, I tell ye I felt streaked The fust time t ever I found out wy bag- gonets wuz peaked; Here s how it wuz: I started out to go to a fandango, The sentinul he ups an sez, " Thet s fur- der an you can go." " None o your sarse," sez I ; sez he, " Stan back ! " Aint you a bus ter?" Sez I, "I m up to all thet air, I guess I ve ben to muster; I know wy sentinuls air sot ; you aint agoin to eat us; Caleb haint no monopoly to court the seenoreetas; My folks to hum air full ez good ez his n be, by golly ! " An so ez I wuz goin by, not thinkin wut would folly, The everlastin ens he stuck his one- pronged pitchfork in me An made a hole right thru my close ez ef I wuz an in my. Wai, it beats all how big I felt hoorawin in ole Funnel Wen Mister Bolles he gin the sword to our Lef tenant Cunnle, (It s Mister Secondary Bolles, 4 thet writ the prize peace essay; Thet s wy he did n t list himself along o us, I dessay,) profanum vulgus, I hate your swearing and hectoring fellows. H. W. 2 i hait the Site of a feller with a muskit as I du pizn But their is fun to a cornwallis I aint agoin to deny it. H. B. 3 he means Not quite so fur I guess. H. B. * the ignorant creeter means Sekketary ; but he oilers stuck to his books like cobbler s wax to an ile- stone. H. B. THE BIGLOW PAPERS 85 An Rantoul, tu, talked pooty loud, but don t put his foot in it, Coz human life s so sacred thet he s principled agin it, Though I myself can t rightly see it s any wus achokin on em, Than puttin bullets thru their lights, or with a bagnet pokin on em; How dreffle slick he reeled it off (like Blitz at our lyceum Ahaulin ribbins from his chops so quick you skeercely see em), About the Anglo-Saxon race (an saxons would be handy To du the buryin down here upon the Rio Grandy), About our patriotic pas an our star- spangled banner, Our country s bird alookin* on an singin out hosanner, An how he (Mister B. himself) wuz happy fer Ameriky, I felt, ez sister Patience sez, a leetle mite histericky. I felt, I swon, ez though it wuz a dreffle kind o privilege Atrampiu round thru Boston streets among the gutter s drivelage ; I act lly thought it wuz a treat to hear a little drummin , An it did bonyfidy seem millanyum wuz acomin Wen all on us got suits (darned like them wore in the state prison) An every feller felt ez though all Mexico wuz hisn. 1 This ere s about the meanest place a skunk could wal diskiver (Saltillo s Mexican, I b lieve, fer wut we call Salt-river) ; The sort o trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater, I d give a year s pay fer a smell o one good blue-nose tater; The country here thet Mister Bolles de clared to be so charmin 1 it must be aloud that thare s a streak of nater in lovin sho, but it sartinly is 1 of the curusest things in nater to see a rispecktable dri goods dealer (deekon off a chutch maybe) a riggin himself out in the Weigh they du and struttin round in the Reign aspilin his trowsis and makin wet goods of himself. Ef any thin s fool- iaher and moor dicklus than militerry gloary it is mi- lishy gloary. H. B. 2 these fellers are verry proppilly called Bank Throughout is swarmin with the most alarmin kind o variniu. He talked about delishis froots, but then it wuz a wopper all, The holl on t s mud an prickly pears, with here an there a chapparal; You see a feller peekin out, an , fust you know, a lariat Is round your throat an you a copse, fore you can say, " Wut air ye at ? " 2 You never see sech darned gret bugs (it may not be irrelevant To say I ve seen a sc.arabceus pilularius 3 big ez a year old elephant), The rigiment come up one day in time to stop a red bug From runnin off with Cunnle Wright, t wuz jest a common cimex lectularius. One night I started up on eend an thought I wuz to hum agin, I heern a horn, thinks I it s Sol the fisher man hez come agin, His bellowses is sound enough, ez I m a livin creeter, I felt a thing go thru my leg, t wuz nothin more n a skeeter ! Then there s the yaller fever, tu, they call it here el vomito, (Come, thet wun t du, you landcrab there, I tell ye to le go my toe ! My gracious ! it s a scorpion thet s took a shine to play with t, I darsn t skeer the tarnal thing fer fear he d run away with t.) Afore I come away from hum I hed a strong persuasion Thet Mexicans worn t human beans, 4 an ourang outang nation, A sort o folks a chap could kill an never dream on t arter, No more n a feller d dream o pigs thet he hed hed to slarter; I d an idee thet they were built arter the darkie fashion all, An kickin colored folks about, you know, s a kind o national; Heroes, and the more tha kill the ranker and more Herowick tha bekum. H. B. 3 it wuz " tumblebug " as he Writ it, but the parson put the Latten instid. i sed tother maid better meeter, but he said tha was eddykated peepl to Boston and tha would n t stan it no how. idnow as tha wood and idnow as tha wood. H. B. 4 he means human beins, that s wut he means, i spose he kinder thought tha wuz human beans ware the Xisle Poles comes from. H. B. i86 THE BIGLOW PAPERS But wen I jined I worn t so wise ez thet air queen o Sheby, Fer, come to look at em, they aint much diff rent from wut we be, An here we air ascrougin em out o thir own dominions, Ashelterin em, ez Caleb sez, under our eagle s pinions, Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o s trowsis An walk him Spanish clean right out o all his homes an houses; Wai, it doos seem a curus way, but then hooraw fer Jackson ! It must be right, fer Caleb sez it s reg lar Anglo-saxon. The Mex cans don t fight fair, they say, they piz n all the water, An du amazin lots o things thet is n t wut they ough to; Bein they haint no lead, they make their bullets out o copper An shoot the darned things at us, tu, wich Caleb sez aint proper; He sez they d ough to stan right up an let us pop em fairly (Guess wen he ketches em at thet he 11 hev to git up airly), Thet our nation s bigger n theirn an so its rights air bigger, An thet it s all to make em free thet we air pullin trigger, Thet Anglo Saxondom s idee s abreakin em to pieces, An thet idee s thet every man doos jest wut he damn pleases; Ef 1 don t make his meanin clear, perhaps in some respex I can, I know thet " every man " don t mean a nigger or a Mexican ; An there s another thing I know, an thet is, ef these creeturs, Thet stick an Anglosaxon mask onto State- prison feeturs, Should come to Jaalam Centre fer to argify an spout on t, The gals ould count the silver spoons the minnit they cleared out on t. This goin ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur, An* ef it worn t fer wakin snakes, I d home agin short meter; 0, would n t I be off, quick time, ef t worn t thet I wuz sartin They d let the daylight into me to pay me fer desartin ! I don t approve o telliii tales, but jest to you I may state Our ossifers aint wut they wuz afore they left the Bay-state; Then it wuz " Mistei Sawin, sir, you re middlin well now, be ye ? Step up an take a nipper, sir; I m dreffle glad to see ye ; " But now it s " Ware s my eppylet ? here, Sawin, step an fetch it ! An mind your eye, be thund rin spry, or, damn ye, you shall ketch it ! " Wai, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will bile so, but by mighty, Ef I hed some on em to hum, I d give em linkum vity, I d play the rogue s march on their hides an other music follerin But I must close my letter here, fer one on em s ahollerin , These Anglosaxon ossifers, wal, taint no use ajawin , I m safe enlisted fer the war, Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. [Those have not been wanting (as, indeed, when hath Satan been to seek for attorneys ?) who have maintained that our late inroad upon Mexico was undertaken not so much for the avenging of any national quarrel, as for the spreading of free institutions and of Protestant ism. Capita vix duabus Anticyris medenda ! Verily I admire that no pious sergeant among these new Crusaders beheld Martin Luther rid ing at the front of the host upon a tamed ponti fical bull, as, in that former invasion of Mexico, the zealous Gomara (spawn though he were of the Scarlet Woman) was favored with a vision of St. James of Compostella, skewering the infidels upon his apostolical lance. We read, also, that Richard of the lion heart, having gone to Palestine on a similar errand of mercy, was divinely encouraged to cut the throats of such Paynims as refused to swallow the bread of life (doubtless that they might be thereafter inca pacitated for swallowing the filthy gobbets of Mahound) by angels of heaven, who cried to the king and his knights, Seigneurs, tuez ! tuez ! providentially using the French tongue, as being the only one understood by their auditors. This -would argue for the pantoglottism of these celestial intelligences, while, on the other hand, the Devil, teste Cotton Mather, is unversed in certain of the Indian dialects. Yet must he be a semeiologist the most expert, making himself intelligible to every people and kindred by signs ; no other discourse, indeed, being needful, than such as the mackerel-fisher holds with hia finned quarry, who, if other bait be wanting, THE BIGLOW PAPERS 187 can by a bare bit of white rag at the end of a string captivate those foolish fishes. Such pis catorial persuasion is Satan cunning in. Before one he trails a hat and feather, or a bare feather without a hat ; before another, a Presidential chair or a tide-waiter s stool, or a pulpit in the city, no matter what. To us, dangling there over our heads, they seem junkets dropped out of the seventh heaven, sops dipped in nec tar, but, once in our mouths, they are all one, bits of fuzzy cotton. This, however, by the way. It is time now revocare gradum. While so many miracles of this sort, vouched by eye-witnesses, have en couraged the arms of Papists, not to speak of Echetlaeus at Marathon and those Dioscuri (whom we must conclude imps of the pit) who sundry times captained the pagan Roman sol diery, it is strange that our first American cru sade was not in some such wise also signalized. Yet it is said that the Lord hath manifestly prospered our armies. This opens the ques tion, whether, when our hands are strengthened to make great slaughter of our enemies, it be absolutely and demonstratively certain that this might is added to us from above, or whether some Potentate from an opposite quar ter may not have a finger in it, as there are few pies into which his meddling digits are not thrust. Would the Sanctifier and Setter-apart of the seventh day have assisted in a victory gained on the Sabbath, as was one in the late war ? Do we not know from Jpsephus, that, careful of His decree, a certain river in Judsea abstained from flowing on the day of Rest ? Or has that day become less an object of His especial care since the year 1697, when so mani fest a providence occurred to Mr. William Trowbridge, in answer to whose prayers, when he and all on shipboard with him were starving, a dolphin was sent daily, "which was enough to serve em; only on Saturdays they still catched a couple, and on the Lord s Days they could catch none at all " ? Haply they might have been permitted, by way of mortification, to take some few sculpins (those banes of the salt-water angler), which unseemly fish would, moreover, have conveyed to them a symbol ical reproof for their breach of the day, being known in the rude dialect of our mariners as Cape Cod Clergymen. It has been a refreshment to many nice con sciences to know that our Chief Magistrate would not regard with eyes of approval the (by many esteemed) sinful pastime of dancing, and I own myself to be so far of that mind, that I could not but set my face against this Mexican Polka, though danced to the Presidential piping with a Gubernatorial second. If ever the coun try should be seized with another such mania pro propaganda fide, I think it would be wise to fill our bombshells with alternate copies of the t Cambridge Platform and the Thirty-nine Articles, which would produce a mixture of the highest explosive power, and to wrap every one of our cannon-balls in a leaf of the New Testa ment, the reading of which is denied to those who sit in the darkness of Popery. Those iron evangelists would thus be able to disseminate vital religion and Gospel truth in quarters inac cessible to the ordinary missionary. I have seen lads, unimpregnate with the more sublimated punctiliousness of Walton, secure pickerel, tak ing their unwary siesta beneath the lily-pads too nigh the surface, with a gun and small shot. Why not, then, since gunpowder was unknown in the time of the Apostles (not to enter here upon the question whether it were discovered before that period by the Chinese), suit our metaphor to the age in which we live, and say shooters as well as. fishers of men ? I do much fear that we shall be seized now and then with a Protestant fervor, as long as we have neighbor Naboths whose wallowings in Papistical mire excite our horror in exact pro portion to the size and desirableness of their vineyards. Yet I rejoice that some earnest Protestants have been made by this war, I mean those who protested against it. Fewer they were than I could wish, for one might im agine America to have been colonized by a tribe of those nondescript African animals the Aye- Ayes, so difficult a word is No to us all. There is some malformation or defect of the vocal organs, which either prevents our uttering it at all, or gives it so thick a pronunciation as to be unintelligible. A mouth filled with the national pudding, or watering in expectation thereof, is wholly incompetent to this refractory monosyllable. An abject and herpetic Public Opinion is the Pope, the Anti-Christ, for us to protest against e corde cordium. And by what College of Cardinals is this our God s- vicar, our binder and looser, elected ? Very like, by the sacred conclave of Tag, Rag, and Bobtail, in the gracious atmosphere of the grog-shop. Yet it is of this that we must all be puppets. This thumps the pulpit-cushion, this guides the edi tor s pen, this wags the senator s tongue. This decides what Scriptures are canonical, and shuf fles Christ away into the Apocrypha. Accord ing to that sentence fathered upon Solon, OUTW Sr)fj.6cri.ov KOLKOV ep^erai otKaS exacrT&j. This Unclean spirit is skilful to assume various shapes. I have known it to enter my own study and nudge my elbow of a Saturday, under the sem blance of a wealthy member of my congregation. It were a great blessing, if every particular of what in the sum we call popular sentiment could carry about the name of its manufacturer stamped legibly upon it. I gave a stab under the fifth rib to that pestilent fallacy, "9 u . r country, right or wrong," by tracing its origi nal to a speech of Ensign Cilley at a dinner of the Bungtown Fencibles. H. W.] No. Ill WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS [A FEW remarks on the following verses will not be out of place. The satire in them was not meant to have any personal, but only a i88 THE BIGLOW PAPERS general, application. Of the gentleman upon whose letter they were intended as a commen tary Mr. Biglow had never heard, till he saw the letter itself. The position of the satirist is oftentimes one which he would not have chosen, had the election been left to himself. In at tacking bad principles, he is obliged to select some individual who has made himself their exponent, and in whom they are impersonate, to the end that what he says may not, through ambiguity, be dissipated tenues in auras. For what says Seneca ? Longum iter per prcecepta, breve et efficace per exempla. A bad principle is comparatively harmless while it continues to be an abstraction, nor can the general mind com prehend it fully till it is printed in that large type which all men can read at sight, namely, the life and character, the sayings and doings, of particular persons. It is one of the cun- ningest fetches of Satan, that he never exposes himself directly to our arrows, but, still dodg ing behind this neighbor or that acquaint ance, compels us to wound him through them, if at all. He holds our affections as hostages, the while he patches up a truce with our con science. Meanwhile, let us not forget that the aim of the true satirist is not to be severe upon persons, but only upon falsehood, and, as Truth and Falsehood start from the same point, and some times even go along together for a little way, his business is to follow the path of the latter after it diverges, and to show her floundering in the bog at the end of it. Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so brave a simplicity in her, that she can no more be made ridiculous than an oak or a pine. The danger of the satirist is, that continual use may deaden his sensibility to the force of language. He becomes more and more liable to strike harder than he knows or intends. He may be careful to put on his box ing-gloves, and yet forget that, the older they grow, the more plainly may the knuckles inside be felt. Moreover, in the heat of contest, the eye is insensibly drawn to the crown of victory, whose tawdry tinsel glitters through that dust of the ring which obscures Truth s wreath of simple leaves. I have sometimes thought that my young friend, Mr. Biglow, needed a moni tory hand laid on his arm, aliquid sufflami- nandus erat. I have never thought it good hus bandry to water the tender plants of reform with aquafortis, yet, where so much is to do in the beds, he were a sorry gardener who should wage a whole day s war with an iron scuffle on those ill weeds that make the garden-walks of life unsightly, when a sprinkle of Attic salt will wither them up. Est ars etiam maledicendi, says Scaliger, and truly it is a hard thing to say where the graceful gentleness of the lamb merges in downright sheepishness. We may conclude with worthy and wise Dr. Fuller, that "one may be a lamb in private wrongs, but in hearing general affronts to goodness they are asses which are not lions." H. W.] GUVENER B. is a sensible man; He stays to his home an looks arter his folks; He draws his f urrer ez straight ez he can, An into nobody s tater-patch pokes; But John P. Robinson he Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. My ! aint it terrible ? Wut shall we du ? We can t never choose him o course, thet s flat; Guess we shall hev to come round, (don t you?) An go in fer thunder an guns, an all that; Fer John P. Robinson he Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man: He s ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; But consistency still wuz a part of his plan, He s ben true to one party, an thet is himself; So John P. Robinson he Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. Gineral C. he goes in fer the war ; He don t vally princerple more n an old cud; Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer, But glory an gunpowder, plunder an blood ? So John P. Robinson he Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. We were gittin on nicely up here to our village, With good old idees o wut s right an wut aint, We kind o thought Christ went agin war an pillage, An thet eppyletts worn t the best mark of a saint; But John P. Robinson he Sez this kind o thing s an exploded idee. THE BIGLOW PAPERS 189 The side of our country must oilers be took, An* Presiduiit Polk, you know, he is our country. An the angel thet writes all our sins in a book Puts the debit to him, an to us the per contry; An John P. Robinson he Sez this is his view o* the thing to a T. Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies; Sez they re nothin on airth but jest/ee, faw, fum; An thet all this big talk of our destinies Is half on it ign auce, an t other half rum; But John P. Robinson he Sez it aint no sech thing; an , of course, so must we. Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life Thet th Apostles rigged out in their s waller- tail coats, An marched round in front of a drum an a fife, To git some on em office, an some on em votes ; But John P. Robinson he Sez they did n t know everythin down in Judee. Wai, it s a marcy we ve gut folks to tell us The rights an the wrongs o these mat ters, I vow, God sends country lawyers, an other wise fellers, To start the world s team wen it gits in a slough; Fer John P. Robinson he Sez the world 11 go right, ef he hollers out Gee! [ The attentive reader will doubtless have per ceived in the foregoing poem an allusion to that pernicious sentiment, " Our country, right or wrong." It is an abuse of language to call a certain portion of land, much more, certain per sonages, elevated for the time being to high sta tion, our country. I would not sever nor loosen a single one of those ties by which we are united to the spot of our birth, nor minish by a tittle the respect due to the Magistrate. I love our own Bay State too well to do the one, and as for the other, I have myself for nigh forty years exercised, however unworthily, the function of Justice of the Peace, having been called thereto by the unsolicited kindness of that most ex cellent man and upright patriot, Caleb Strong. Patrice fumus igne alieno luculentior is best qualified with this, Ubi libertas, ibi patria. We are inhabitants of two worlds, and owe a double, but not a divided, allegiance. In virtue of our clay, this little ball of earth exacts a certain loyalty of us, while, in our capacity as spirits, we are admitted citizens of an invisible and holier fatherland. There is a patriotism of the soul whose claim absolves us from our other and terrene fealty. Our true country is that ideal realm which we represent to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, and the like. Our terres trial organizations are but far-off approaches to so fair a model, and all they are verily traitors who resist not any attempt to divert them from this their original intendment. When, therefore, one would have us to fling up our caps and shout with the multitude, " Our country, however bounded ! " he demands of us that we sacrifice the larger to the less, the higher to the lower, and that we yield to the imaginary claims of a few acres of soil our duty and privilege as liege men of Truth. Our true country is bounded on the north and the south, on the east and the west, by Justice, and when she oversteps that invisible boundary- line by so much as a hair s- breadth, she ceases to be our mother, and chooses rather to be looked upon quasi noverca. That is a hard choice when our earthly love of country calls upon us to tread one path and our duty points us to another. We must make as noble and becoming an election as did Penelope be tween Icarius and Ulysses. Veiling our faces, we must take silently the hand of Duty to follow her. Shortly after the publication of the foregoing poem, there appeared some comments upon it in one of the public prints which seemed to call for animadversion. I accordingly addressed to Mr. Buckingham, of the Boston Courier, the following letter. " JAALAM, November 4, 1847. " To the Editor of the Courier : "RESPECTED SIB, Calling at the post- office this morning, our worthy and efficient postmaster offered for my perusal a paragraph in the Boston Morning Post of the 3d instant, wherein certain effusions of the pastoral muse are attributed to the pen of Mr. James Russell Lowell. For aught I know or can affirm to the contrary, this Mr. Lowell may be a very deserving person and a youth of parts (though I have seen verses of his which I could never rightly understand) ; and if he be such, he, I am certain, as well as I, would be free from any proclivity to appropriate to himself what ever of credit (or discredit) may honestly be long to another. I am confident, that, in pen ning these few lines, I am only forestalling a disclaimer from that young gentleman, whose 190 THE BIGLOW PAPERS silence hitherto, when rumor pointed to him- ward, has excited in my bosom mingled emo tions of sorrow and surprise. Well may my young parishioner, Mr. Biglow, exclaim with the poet, " Sic vos non vobis, &c. ; though, in saying this, I would not convey the impression that he is a proficient in the Latin tongue, the tongue, I might add, of a Horace and a Tully. " Mr. B. does not employ his pen, I can safely say, for any lucre of worldly gain, or to be ex alted by the carnal plaudits of men, digitp monstrari, &c. He does not wait upon Provi dence for mercies, and in his heart mean merces- But I should esteem myself as verily deficient in my duty (who am his friend and in some un worthy sort his spiritual, fidus Achates, &c.), if I did not step forward to claim for him whatever measure of applause might be assigned to him by the judicious. " If this were a fitting occasion, I might ven ture here a brief dissertation touching the man ner and kind of my young friend s poetry. But I dubitate whether this abstruser sort of specu lation (though enlivened by some apposite in stances from Aristophanes) would sufficiently interest your oppidan readers. As regards their satirical tone, and their plainness of speech, I will only say, that, in my pastoral experience, I have found that the Arch-Enemy loves nothing better than to be treated as a religious, moral, and intellectual being, and that there is no apage Satkanas ! so potent as ridicule. But it is a kind of weapon that must have a button of good-nature on the point of it. " The productions of Mr. B. have been stig matized in some quarters as unpatriotic ; but I can vouch that he loves his native soil with that hearty, though discriminating, attachment which springs from an intimate social inter course of many years standing. In the plough ing season, no one has a deeper share in the well-being of the country than he. If Dean Swift were right in saying that he who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew be fore confers a greater benefit on the state than he who taketh a city, Mr. B. might exhibit a fairer claim to the Presidency than General Scott himself. I think that some of those disinterested lovers of the hard-handed demo cracy, whose fingers have never touched any thing rougher than the dollars of our common country, would hesitate to compare palms with him. It would do your heart good, respected Sir, to see that young man mow. He cuts a cleaner and wider swath than any in this town. " But it is time for me to be at my Post. It is very clear that my young friend s shot has struck the lintel, for the Post is shaken (Amos ix. 1). The editor of that paper is a strenuous advocate of the Mexican war, and a colonel, as I am given to understand. I presume, that, being necessarily absent in Mexico, he has left his journal in some less judicious hands. At any rate, the Post has been too swift on this occasion. It could hardly have cited a more incontrovertible line from any poem than that which it has selected for animadversion, namely, " We kind o thought Christ went agin war an pillage. " If the Post maintains the converse of this proposition, it can hardly be considered as a safe guide-post for the moral and religious por tions of its party, however many other excellent qualities of a post it may be blessed with. There is a sign in London on which is painted, The Green Man. It would do very well as a portrait of any individual who should support so unscriptural a thesis. As regards the lan guage of the line in question, I am bold to say that He who readeth the hearts of men will not account any dialect unseemly which con veys a sound and pious sentiment. I could wish that such sentiments were more common, however uncouthly expressed, fcaint Ambrose affirms, that veritas a guocunque (why not, then, quomodocunque f) dicatur, a spiritu sancto est. Digest also this of Baxter : * The plainest words are the most profitable oratory in the weighti est matters. " When the paragraph in question was shown to Mr. Biglow, the only part of it which seemed to give him any dissatisfaction was that which classed him with the Whig party. He says, that, if resolutions are a nourishing kind of diet, that party must be in a very hearty and flourishing condition ; for that they have qui etly eaten more good ones of their own bak ing than he could have conceived to be possi ble without repletion. He has been for some years past (I regret to say) an ardent opponent of those sound doctrines of protective policy which form so prominent a portion of the creed of that party. I confess, that, in some discus sions which I have had with him on this point in my study, he has displayed a vein of obstinacy which I had not hitherto detected in his compo sition. He is also (horresco referens) infected in no small measure with the peculiar notions of a print called the Liberator, whose heresies I take every proper opportunity of combating, and of which, I thank God, I have never read a single line. " I did not see Mr. B. s verses until they ap peared in print, and there is certainly one thing in them which I consider highly improper. I allude to the personal references to myself by name. To confer notoriety on an humble indi vidual who is laboring quietly in his vocation, and who keeps his cloth as free as he can from the dust of the political arena (though vce mihi si non evangelizavero) , is no doubt an indeco rum. The sentiments which he attributes to me I will not deny to be mine. They were em bodied, though in a different form, in a dis course preached upon the last day of public fasting, and were acceptable to my entire people (of whatever political views), except the postmaster, who dissented ex officio. I observe that you sometimes devote a portion of your paper to a religious summary. I should be THE BIGLOW PAPERS 191 well pleased to furnish a copy of my discourse for insertion in this department of your instruc tive journal. By omitting the advertisements, it might easily be got within the limits of a single number, and I venture to insure you the sale of some scores of copies in this town. I will cheerfully render myself responsible for ten. It might possibly be advantageous to is sue it as an extra. But perhaps you will not esteem it an object, and I will not press it. My offer does not spring from any weak desire of seeing my name in print ; for I can enjoy this satisfaction at any time by turning to the Tri ennial Catalogue of the University, where it also possesses that added emphasis of Italics with which those of my calling are distin guished. " I would simply add, that I continue to fit ingenuous youth for college, and that I have two spacious and airy sleeping apartments at this moment unoccupied. Ingenuas didicisse, &c. Terms, which vary according to the circum stances of the parents, may be known on appli cation to me by letter, post-paid. In all cases the lad will be expected to fetch his own towels. This rule, Mrs. W. desires me to add, has no exceptions. "Respectfully, your obedient servant, "HOMER WILBUR, A. M. " P. S. Perhaps the last paragraph may look like an attempt to obtain the insertion of my circular gratuitously. If it should appear to you in that light, I desire that you would erase it, or charge for it at the usual rates, and deduct the amount from the proceeds in your hands from the sale of my discourse, when it shall be printed. My circular is much longer and more explicit, and will be forwarded without charge to any who may desire it. It has been very neatly executed on a letter sheet, by a very de serving printer, who attends uoon my ministry, and is a creditable specimen of the typographic art. I have one hung over my mantelpiece in a neat frame, where it makes a beautiful and appropriate ornament, and balances the profile of Mrs. W., cut with her toes by the young lady born without arms. "H. W." I have in the foregoing letter mentioned Gen eral Scott in connection with the Presidency, because I have been given to understand that he has blown to pieces and otherwise caused to be destroyed more Mexicans than any other commander. His claim would therefore be de servedly considered the strongest. Until accu rate returns of the Mexicans killed, wounded, and maimed be obtained, it will be difficult to settle these nice points of precedence. Should it prove that any other officer has been more meritorious and destructive than General S., and has thereby rendered himself more worthy of the confidence and support of the conservative portion of our community, I shall cheerfully insert his name, instead of that of General S-, in a future edition. It may be thought, like wise, that General S. has invalidated his claims by too much attention to the decencies of ap parel, and the habits belonging to a gentleman. These abstruser points of statesmanship are be yond my scope. I wonder not that successful inilitary achievement should attract the admira tion of the multitude. Rather do I rejoice with wonder to behold how rapidly this sentiment is losing its hold upon the popular mind. It is related of Thomas Warton, the second of that honored name who held the office of Poetry Professor at Oxford, that, when one wished to find him, being absconded, as was his wont, in some obscure alehouse, he was counselled to traverse the city with a drum and fife, the sound of which inspiring music would be sure to draw the Doctor from his retirement into the street. We are all more or less bitten with this martial insanity. Nescio qua dulcedine . . . cunctos ducit. I confess to some infection of that itch myself. When I see a Brigadier-General maintaining his insecure elevation in the saddle under the severe fire of the training-field, and when I remember that some military enthusiasts, through haste, inexperience, or an over-desire to lend reality to those fictitious combats, will sometimes dis charge their ramrods, I cannot but admire, while I deplore, the mistaken devotion of those Leroic officers. Semel insanivimus omnes. I was myself, during the late war with Great Britain, chaplain of- a regiment, which was for tunately never called to active military duty. I mention this circumstance with regret rather than pride. Had I been summoned to actual warfare, I trust that I might have been strength ened to bear myself after the manner of that reverend father in our New England Israel, Dr. Benjamin Colman, who, as we are told in Tu- rell s life of him, when the vessel in which he had taken passage for England was attacked by a French privateer, " fought like a philoso pher and a Christian, . . . and prayed all the while he charged and fired." As this note is already long, I shall not here enter upon a dis cussion of the question, whether Christians may lawfully be soldiers. I think it sufficiently evi dent, that, during the first two centuries of the Christian era, at least, the two professions were esteemed incompatible. Consult Jortin on this head.-H. W.] No. IV REMARKS OF INCREASE D. O PHACE, ESQUIRE, AT AN EXTRUMPERY CAUCUS IN STATE STREET, REPORTED BY MR. H. BIG- LOW [THE ingenious reader will at once understand that no such speech as the following was ever totidem verbis pronounced. But there are simpler and less guarded wits, for the satisfying of which I 9 2 THE BIGLOW PAPERS such an explanation may be needful. For there are certain invisible lines, which as Truth successively overpasses, she becomes Untruth to one and another of us, as a large river, flowing from one kingdom into another, some times takes a new name, albeit the waters undergo no change, how small soever. There is, moreover, a truth of fiction more veracious than the truth of fact, as that of the Poet, which represents to us things and events as they ought to be, rather than servilely copies them as they are imperfectly imaged in the crooked and smoky glass of our mundane aft airs. It is this which makes the speech of Antonius, though originally spoken in no wider a forum than the brain of Shakespeare, more historically valuable than that other which Appian has reported, by as much as the understanding of the English man was more comprehensive than that of the Alexandrian. Mr. Biglow, in the present in stance, has only made use of a license assumed by all the historians of antiquity, who put into the mouths of various characters such words as seem to them most fitting to the occasion and to the speaker. If it be objected that no such oration could ever have been delivered, 1 answer, that there are few assemblages for speech- making which do not better deserve the title of P arli amentum Indoctorum than did the sixth Parliament of Henry the Fourth, and that men still continue to have as much faith in the Or acle of Fools as ever Pantagruel had. Howell, in his letters, recounts a merry tale of a certain ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, who, having written two letters, one to her Majesty, and the other to his wife, directed them at cross- purposes, so that the Queen was beducked and bedeared and requested to send a change of hose, and the wife was beprincessed and other wise unwontedly besuperlatived, till the one feared for the wits of her ambassador, and the other for those of her husband. In like manner it may be presumed that our speaker has misdi rected some of his thoughts, and given to the whole theatre what he would have wished to confide only to a select auditory at the back of the curtain. For it is seldom that we can get any frank utterance from men, who address, for the most part, a Buncombe either in this world or the next. As for their audiences, it may be truly said of our people, that they enjoy one political institution in common with the an cient Athenians: I mean a certain profitless kind of ostracism, wherewith, nevertheless, they seem hitherto well enough content. For in Presidential elections, and other affairs of the sort, whereas I observe that the oysters fall to the lot of comparatively few, the shells (such as the privileges of voting as they are told to do by the ostrivori aforesaid, and of huz/aing at public meetings) are very liberally distributed among 1 The speaker is of a different mind from T"lly, who, in his recently discovered tractate De Pepnblicn, tells us, NfC vero hfbcre virtutem srrti,t f,xt, quasi artem aliqunm, nisi ulare, and from our Milton, who says : " I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, un- the people, as being their prescriptive and quite sufficient portion. The occasion of the speech is supposed to be Mr. Palfrey s refusal to vote for the Whig can didate for the JSpeakership. H. W.j No ? Hez he ? He haint, though ? Wut ? Voted agin him ? Ef the bird of our country could ketch him, she d skin him ; I seem s though 1 see her, with wrath in each quill, Like a chancery lawyer, afilin her bill, An grindin her talents ez sharp ez all nater, To pounce like a writ on the back o the traitor. Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be het, But a crisis like this must with vigor be met; Wen an Arnold the star-spangled banner bestains, Holl Fourth o j Julys seem to bile in my Who ever d ha thought sech a pisonous rig Would be run by a chap thet wuz chose f er a Wig? " We knowed wut his princerples wuz fore we sent him " ? Wut wuz there in them from this vote to pervent him ? A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler O purpose thet we might our princerples s waller; It can hold any quantity on em, the belly can, An bring em up ready fer use like the pelican, Or more like the kangaroo, who (wich is stranger) Puts her family into her pouch wen there s danger. Aint princerple precious ? then, who s goin to use it Wen there s resk o some chap s gittin up to abuse it ? I can t tell the wy on fc, but nothin is so sure Ez thet princerple kind o gits spiled by exposure; 1 exercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat." Areop. He had taken the words out of the Roman s mouth, without knowing it, and might well THE BIGLOW PAPERS A man thet lets all sorts o folks git a sight on t Ough to hev it all took right away, every mite on t; Ef he can t keep it all to himself wen it s wise to, He aint one it s fit to trust nothin so nice to. Besides, ther s a wonderful power in lati tude To shift a man s morril relations an atti tude; Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty s granted The minnit it s proved to be thoroughly wanted, Thet a change o demand makes a change o condition, An thet everythin s nothin except by position; Ez, fer instance, thet rubber-trees fust be gun bearin Wen p litikle conshunces come into wear- in , Thet the fears of a monkey, whose holt chanced to fail, Drawed the vertibry out to a prehensile tail; So, wen one s chose to Congriss, ez soon ez he s in it, A collar grows right round his neck in a minnit, An* sartin it is thet a man cannot be strict In bein himself, wen he gits to the Dees- trict, Fer a coat thet sets wal here in ole Massa chusetts, Wen it gits on to Washinton, somehow askew sets. Resolves, do you say, o the Springfield Convention ? Thet s percisely the pint I was goin to mention; Resolves air a thing we most gen ally keep ill, They re a cheap kind o dust fer the eyes o the people; A parcel o delligits jest git together An chat fer a spell o the crops an the weather, exclaim with Donatus (if Saint Jerome s tutor may stand sponsor for a curse), Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerinU H. W. Then, comin to order, they squabble awile An let off the speeches they re ferf ul 11 spile ; Then Resolve, Thet we wunt hev an inch o slave territory; Thet Presidunt Polk s holl perceedins air very tory; Thet the war is a damned war, an them thet enlist in it Should hev a cravat with a dreffle tight twist in it; Thet the war is a war fer the spreadin o slavery; Thet our army desarves our best thanks fer their bravery; Thet we re the original friends o the nation, All the rest air a paltry an base fabrica tion; Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an C, An ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an G. In this way they go to the eend o the chapter, An then they bust out in a kind of a rap- tur About their own vartoo, an folks s stone- blindness To the men thet ould actilly do em a kindness, The American eagle, the Pilgrims thet landed, Till on ole Plymouth Rock they git finally stranded. Wal, the people they listen an say, " Thet s the ticket; Ez fer Mexico, t aint no great glory to lick it, But t would be a darned shame to go pull- in o triggers To extend the aree of abusin the nig gers. So they march in percession, an git up hooraws, An tramp thru the mud fer the good o the cause, An think they re a kind o fulfillin the prophecies, Wen they re on y jest changin the holders of offices; Ware A sot afore, B is comf tably seated, One humbug s victor ous an t other de feated, i 9 4 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Each honnable doughface gits jest wut he axes, An the people, their annooal sof t-sodder an taxes. Now, to keep unimpaired all these glorious feeturs Thet characterize morril an reasonin cree- turs, Thet give every paytriot all he can cram, Thet oust the untrustworthy Presidunt Flam, An stick honest Presidunt Sham in his place, To the manifest gain o the holl human race, An to some indervidgewals on t in par- tickler, Who love Public Opinion an know how to tickle her, I say thet a party with gret aims like these Must stick jest ez close ez a hive full o bees. I m willin a man should go tollable strong Agin wrong in the abstract, fer thet kind o wrong Is oilers unpop lar an never gits pitied, Because it s a crime no one never com mitted ; But he inns n t be hard on partickler sins, Coz then he 11 be kickin the people s own shins; On y look at the Demmercrats, see wut they ve done Jest simply by stickin together like fun; They ve sucked us right into a mis able war Thet no one on airth aint responsible for; They ve run us a hundred cool millions in debt (An fer Demmercrat Homers ther s good plums left yet) ; They talk agin tayriffs, but act fer a high one, An so coax all parties to build up their Zion; To the people they re oilers ez slick ez mo lasses, An butter their bread on both sides with The Masses, Half o whom they Ve persuaded, by way of a joke, Thet Washinton s mantelpiece fell upon Polk. Now all o these blessin s the Wigs might enjoy, Ef they d gumption enough the right means to imploy ; 1 Fer the silver spoon born in Dermoc acy s mouth Is a kind of a scringe thet they hev to the South; Their masters can cuss em an kick em an wale em, An they notice it less an the ass did to Ba laam; In this way they screw into second-rate offices Wich the slaveholder thinks ould substract too much off his ease; The file-leaders, I mean, du, fer they, by their wiles, Unlike the old viper, grow fat on their files. Wai, the Wigs hev been tryin to grab all this prey frum em An to hook this nice spoon o good fortin away frum em, An they might ha succeeded, ez likely ez not, In lickin the Demmercrats all round the lot, Ef it warn t the t, wile all faithful Wigs were their knees on, Some stuffy old codger would holler out, "Treason! You must keep a sharp eye on a dog thet hez bit you once, An / aint agoin to cheat my constitoo- unts," Wen every fool knows thet a man repre sents Not the fellers thet sent him, but them on the fence, Impartially ready to jump either side An make the fust use of a turn o the tide, The waiters on Providunce here in the city, Who compose wut they call a State Centerl Committy. Constitoounts air hendy to help a man in, But arterwards don t weigh the heft of a pin. Wy, the people can t all live on Uncle Sam s pus, So they ve nothin to du with t fer better or wus; 1 That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits politicians without a wrinkle, Magister artis, \ niique largitor venter, H. W. our inge- THE BIGLOW PAPERS It s the folks thet air kind o brought up to depend on t Thet hev any consarn in t, an thet is the end on t. Now here wuz New England ahevin the honor Of a chance at the Speakership showered upon her; Do you say, "She don t want no more Speakers, but fewer; She s hed plenty o them, wut she wants is a doer " ? Fer the matter o thet, it s notorous in town Thet her own representatives du her quite brown. But thet s nothin to du with it; wut right hed Palfrey To mix himself up with fanatical small fry? Warn t we gittin on prime with our hot an cold bio win , Acondemnin the war wilst we kep it ago in ? We d assumed with gret skill a command- in position, On this side or thet, no one could u t tell wich one, So, wutever side wipped, we d a chance at the plunder An could sue fer infringin our paytented thunder; We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz eligible, Ef on all pints at issoo he d stay unintelli- gible. Wai, sposin we hed to gulp down our per- fessions, We were ready to come out next mornin with fresh ones; Besides, ef we did, t was our business alone, Fer could n t we du wut we would with our own ? An ef a man can, wen pervisions hev riz so, Eat up his own words, it s a marcy it is so. Wy, these chaps f rum the North, with back bones to em, darn em, Ould be wuth more an Gennle Tom Thumb is to Barnum: Ther s enough thet to office on this very plau grow, By exhibitin how very small a man can grow; But an M. C. frum here oilers hastens to state he Belongs to the order called invertebraty, Wence some gret filologists judge primy fashy Thet M. C. is M. T. by paronomashy; An these few exceptions air loosus naytury Folks ould put down their quarters to stare at, like fury. It s no use to open the door o success, Ef a member can bolt so fer nothin or less; Wy, all o them grand constitootional pillers Our fore-fathers fetched with em over the billers, Them pillers the people so soundly hev slep on, Wile to slav ry, invasion, an debt they were swep on, Wile our Destiny higher an higher kep mountin (Though I guess folks 11 stare wen she heuds her account in), Ef members in this way go kickin agin em, They wunt hev so much ez a feather left in em. An , ez fer this Palfrey, 1 we thought wen we d gut him in, He d go kindly in wutever harness we put him in; Supposin we did know thet he wuz a peace man ? Doos he think he can be Uncle Sammle s policeman, An wen Sam gits tipsy an kicks up a riot, Lead him off to the lockup to snooze till he s quiet ? Wy, the war is a war thet true paytriots can bear, ef It leads to the fat promised land of a tayriff; We don t go an fight it, nor aint to be driv on, Nor Demmercrats nuther, thet hev wut to live on; Ef it aint jest the thing thet s well pleasin to God, It makes us thought highly on elsewhere abroad ; The Rooshian black eagle looks blue in his eerie An shakes both his heads wen he hears o Monteery ; In the Tower Victory sets, all of a fluster, 1 There is truth yet in this of Juvenal, "Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura colurubas." H- W 196 THE BIGLOW PAPERS An reads, with locked doors, how we won Cherry Buster; An* old Philip Lewis thet come an kep school here Fer the mere sake o scorin his ryalist ruler On the tenderest part of our kings in futuro Hides his crown underneath an old shut in his bureau, Breaks off in his brags to a suckle o merry kings, How he often hed hided young native Amerrikins, An turnin quite faint in the midst of his fooleries, Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front door o the Tooleries. 1 You say, " We d ha scared em by grow- in in peace, A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these"? Who is it dares say thet our naytional eagle Wun t much longer be classed with the birds thet air regal, Coz theirn be hooked beaks, an she, arter this slaughter, 11 bring back a bill ten times longer n she d ough to ? Wut s your name ? Come, I see ye, you up-country feller, You Ve put me out severil times with your beller; Out with it ! Wut ? Biglow ? I say no- thin f urder, Thet feller would like nothin better n a murder; He s a traiter, blasphemer, an wut ruther worse is, He puts all his ath ism in dreffle bad verses; Socity aint safe till sech monsters air out on it, Refer to the Post, ef you hev the least doubt on it; Wy, he goes agin war, agin indirect taxes, Agin sellin wild lands cept to settlers with axes, 1 Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles besides those recorded in Holy Writ, and why not of other prophecies ? It is granting too much to Satan to sup pose him, as divers of the learned have done, the in- 0pirer of the ancient oracles. Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance the credit of the successful ones. What is aaid here of Louis Philippe was verified in some of its minute particulars within a few months time. Enough to have made the fortune of Delphi or Hammon, and Agiu holdiii o slaves, though he knows it s the corner Our libbaty rests on, the mis able scorner ! In short, he would wholly upset with his ravages All thet keeps us above the brute critters an savages, An pitch into all kinds o briles an con fusions The holl of our civerlized, free institu tions ; He writes fer thet ruther unsafe print, the Courier, An likely ez not hez a squintin to Foorier; I n be , thet is, I mean I 11 be blest, Ef I hark to a word frum so noted a pest; I sha u t talk with him, my religion s too fervent. Good mornin , my friends, I m your most humble servant. [Into the question whether the ability to ex press ourselves in articulate language has been productive of more good or evil, I shall not here enter at large. The two faculties of speech and of speech-making are wholly diverse in their natures. By the first we make ourselves intelligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. It has not seldom occurred to me (not ing how in our national legislature everything runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming handsome heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for the manufacture of gabble. In these days, what with Town Meetings, fcchool Committees, Boards (lumber) of one kind and another, Con gresses, Parliaments, Diets, Indian Councils, Palavers, and the like, there is scarce a village which has not its factories of this description driven by milk-and-water power. I cannot conceive the confusion of tongues to have been the curse of Babel, since I esteem my ignorance of other languages as a kind of Martello-tower, in which I am safe from the furious bombard ments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I have ever preferred the study of the dead lan guages, those primitive formations being Ara- rats upon whose silent peaks I sit secure and watch this new deluge without fear, though it rain figures (simulacra, semblances) of speech no thanks to Beelzebub neither ! That of Seneca in Medea will suit here : " Ranida fprtuna ac levis Praecepsque regno eripuit, exsilio dedit." Let us allow, even to richly deserved misfortune, out commiseration, and be not over-hasty meanwhile in our censure of the French people, left for the firrt time to govern themselves, remembering that wise sentence of ^Eschylus, Airas 6e rpa^VS carts a.v veov Kpa.TJ}. H. W. THE BIGLOW PAPERS 197 forty days and nights together, as it not uncom monly happens. Thus is my coat, as it were, without buttons by "which any but a vernacular wild bore can seize me. Is it not possible that the Shakers may intend to convey a quiet re proof and hint, in fastening their outer gar ments with hooks and eyes ? This reflection concerning Babel, which I find in no Commentary, was first thrown upon rny mind when an excellent deacon of my con gregation (being infected with the Second Ad vent delusion) assured me that he had received a first instalment of the gift of tongues as a small earnest of larger possessions in the like kind to follow. For, of a truth, I could not reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice and mercy that the single wall which protected people of other languages from the incursions of this otherwise well-meaning propagandist should be broken down. In reading Congressional debates, I have fancied, that, after the subsidence of those painful buzzings in the brain which result from such exercises, I detected a slender residuum of valuable information. I made the discovery that nothing takes longer in the saying than anything else, for as ex nihilo nihil.fit, so from one polypus nothing any number of similar ones may be produced. I would recommend to the attention of viva voce debaters and controver sialists the admirable example of the monk Copres, who, in the fourth century, stood for half an hour in the midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced a Manichsean antagonist who had less of the salamander in him. As for those who quarrel in print, I have no concern with them here, since the eyelids are a divinely granted shield against all such. Moreover, I have observed in many modern books that the printed portion is becoming gradually smaller, and the number of blank or fly-leaves (as they are called) greater. Should this fortunate ten dency of literature continue, books will grow more valuable from year to year, and the whole Serbonian bog yield to the advances of firm arable land. The sagacious Lacedaemonians, hearing that Tesephone had bragged that he could talk all day long on any given subject, made no more ado, but forthwith banished him, whereby they supplied him a topic and at the same time took care that his experiment upon it should be tried out of earshot. I have wondered, in the Representatives Chamber of our own Commonwealth, to mark how little impression seemed to be produced by that emblematic fish suspended over the heads of the members. Our wiser ancestors, no doubt, hung it there as being the animal which the Pythagoreans reverenced for its silence, and which certainly in that particular does not so well merit the epithet cold-blooded, by which naturalists distinguish it, as certain bipeds, af flicted with ditch-water on the brain, who take occasion to tap themselves in Faneuil Halls, meeting-houses, and other places of public re sort. H.W.] No. V THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT SOT TO A NUSRY RHYME [THE incident which gave rise to the debate satirized in the following verses was the unsuc cessful attempt of Drayton and Sayres to give freedom to seventy men and women, fellow- beings and fellow-Christians. Had Tripoli, in stead of Washington, been the scene of this undertaking, the unhappy leaders in it would have been as secure of the theoretic as they now are of the practical part of martyrdom. I ques tion whether the Dey of Tripoli is blessed with a District Attorney so benighted as ours at the seat of government. Very fitly is he named Key, who would allow himself to be made the instrument of locking the door of hope against sufferers in such a cause. Not all the waters of the ocean can cleanse the vile smutch of the jailer s fingers from off that little Key. Ahenea clavis, a brazen Key indeed ! Mr. Calhoun, who is made the chief speaker in this burlesque, seems to think that the light of the nineteenth century is to be put out as soon as he tinkles his little cow-bell curfew. Whenever slavery is touched, he sets up his scarecrow of dissolving the Union. This may do for the North, but I should conjecture that something more than a pumpkin-lantern is re quired to scare manifest and irretrievable Des tiny out of her path. Mr. Calhoun cannot let go the apron-string of the Past. The Past is a good nurse, but we must be weaned from her sooner or later, even though, like Plotinus, we should run home from school to ask the breast, after we are tolerably well-grown youths. It will not do for us to hide our faces in her lap, whenever the strange Future holds out her arms and asks us to come to her. But we are all alike. We have all heard it said, often enough, that little boys must not play with fire ; and yet, if the matches be taken away from us, and put out of reach upon the shelf, we must needs gets into our little corner, and scowl and stamp and threaten the dire re venge of going to bed without our supper. The world shall stop till we get our dangerous play thing again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who has more than enough household matters to mind, goes bustling hither and thither as a hiss or a sputter tells her that this or that kettle of hers is boiling over, arid before bedtime we are glad to eat our porridge cold, and gulp down our dig nity along with it. Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the name of a great statesman, and, if it be great states manship to put lance in rest and run a tilt at the Spirit of the Age with the certainty of being next moment hurled neck and heels into the dust amid universal laughter, he deserves the title. He is the Sir Kay of our modern chivalry. He should remember the old Scan dinavian mythus. Thor was the strongest of 198 THE BIGLOW PAPERS gods, but he could not wrestle with Time, nor so much as lift up a fold of the great snake which bound the universe together ; and when he smote the Earth, though with his terrible mallet, it was but as if a leaf had fallen. Yet all the while it seemed to Thor that he had only been wrestling with an old woman, striving to lift a cat, and striking a stupid giant on the head. And in old times, doubtless, the giants were stupid, and there was no better sport for the Sir Launcelots and Sir Gawains than to go about cutting off their great blundering heads with enchanted swords. But things have wonder fully changed. It is the giants, nowadays, that have the science and the intelligence, while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of Conservatism still cumber themselves with the clumsy armor of a bygone age. On whirls the restless globe through unsounded time, with its cities and its silences, its births and funerals, half light, half shade, but never wholly dark, and sure to swing round into the happy morning at last. With an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun letting slip his pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the Past. H. W.] TO MR. BUCKENAM MR. EDITER, As i wuz kinder prunin round in a little nussry sot out a year or 2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit cum inter my mine An so i took & Sot it to wut I call a nnssry rime. I hev made sum onnable Gentlemun speak thut dident speak in a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the seeson is dreffle backerd up This way ewers as ushul HOSEA BIGLOW. "HERE we stan on the Constitution, by thunder ! It s a fact o wich ther s bushils o proofs ; Fer how could we trample on t so, I wonder, Ef t worn t thet it s oilers under our hoofs ? " Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; " Human rights haint no more Right to come on this floor, No more n the man in the moon," sez he. * The North haint no kind o bisness with nothin , An you ve no idee how much bother it saves ; We aint noue riled by their frettiu an frothin , We re used to layin the string on our slaves," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; Sez Mister Foote, " I should like to shoot The holl gang, by the gret horn spoon ! " sez he. " Freedom s Keystone is Slavery, thet ther s no doubt on, It s sutthin thet s wha d ye call it ? divine, An the slaves thet we oilers make the most out on Air them north o Mason an Dixon s line," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; " Fer all that," sez Mangum, " T would be better to hang em An so git red on em soon," sez he. " The mass ough to labor an we lay on soffies, Thet s the reason I want to spread Free dom s aree; It puts all the cunninest on us in office, An reelises our Maker s orig nal idee," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; "Thet s ez plain," sez Cass, " Ez thet some one s an ass, It s ez clear ez the sun is at noon," sez he. "Now don t go to say I m the friend of oppression, But keep all your spare breath f er coolin* your broth, Fer I oilers hev strove (at least thet s my impression) To make cussed free with the rights o* the North," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; " Yes," sez Davis o Miss., " The perfection o bliss Is in skinnin thet same old coon," sez he. " Slavery s a thing thet depends on com. plexion, It s God s law thet fetters on black skins don t chafe ; Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection 1 Wich of our onnable body d be safe ? " THE BIGLOW PAPERS 199 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; Sez Mister Hannegan, Afore he began agin, " Thet exception is quite oppertoon," sez he. Gen nle Cass, Sir, you need n t be twitchin your collar, Your merit s quite clear by the dut on your kuees, At the North we don t make no distinctions o color; You can all take a lick at our shoes wen you please," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; Sez Mister Jarnagin, " They wun t hev to larn agin, They all on em know the old toon," sez he. " The slavery question aint no ways bewil- derin , North an South hev one int rest, it s plain to a glance; No thern men, like us patriarchs, don t sell their childrin, But they du sell themselves, ef they git a good chance," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; Sez Atherton here, " This is gittin severe, I wish I could dive like a loon," sez he. " It 11 break up the Union, this talk about freedom, An your fact ry gals (soon ez we split) 11 make head, An gittin some Miss chief or other to lead em, 11 go to work raisin permiscoous Ned," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; "Yes, the North," sez Colquitt, " Ef we Southeners all quit, Would go down like a busted balloon," sez he. "Jest look wut is doin , wut annyky s brew in In the beautiful clime o the olive an vine, All the wise aristoxy s atumblin to ruin, An the sankylots drorin an drinkin their wine," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; " Yes," sez Johnson, " in France They re begininn to dance Beelzebub s own rigadoon," sez he. " The South s safe enough, it don t feel a mite skeery, Our slaves in their darkness an dut air tu blest Not to welcome with proud hallylugers the ery Wen our eagle kicks yourn from the nay- tional nest," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; " Oh," sez Westcott o Florida, " Wut treason is horrider Than our priv leges tryin to proon ? " sez he. " It s coz they re so happy, thet, wen crazy sarpints Stick their nose in our bizness, we git so darned riled; We think it s our dooty to give pooty sharp hints, Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth sha n t be spiled," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; " Ah," sez Dixon H. Lewis, " It perfectly true is Thet slavery s airth s grettest boon," sez he. [It was said of old time, that riches have wings ; and, though this be not applicable in a literal strictness to the wealth of our patriarchal brethren of the South, yet it is clear that their possessions have legs, and an unaccountable propensity for using them in a northerly direc tion. I marvel that the grand jury of Washing ton did not find a true bill against the North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and Sayres. It would have been quite of a piece with the intelligence displayed by the South on other questions connected with slavery. I think that no ship of state was ever freighted with a more veritable Jonah than this same domestic institu tion of ours. Mephistopheles himself could not feign so bitterly, so satirically sad a sight as this of three millions of human beings crushed beyond help or hope by this one mighty argu ment, Our fathers knew no better ! Neverthe less, it is the unavoidable destiny of Jonahs to be cast overboard sooner or later. Or shall we try the experiment of hiding our Jonah in a safe place, that none may lay hands on him to make jetsam of him ? Let us, then, with equal fore thought and wisdom, lash ourselves to the an chor, and await, in pious confidence, the cer tain result. Perhaps our suspicious passenger is no Jonah after all, being black. For it is well known that a superintending Providence made 2OO THE BIGLOW PAPERS a kind of sandwich of Ham and his descendants, to be devoured by the Caucasian race. In God s name, let all, who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of the storm and the growl of the breakers, speak out ! But, alas ! we have no right to interfere. If a man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in danger of the justice ; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who says this ? Our Constitution, con secrated by the callous consuetude of sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument by the left hand of him whose right hand clutches the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable with the undethronable majesty of countless aeons, says, SPEAK ! The Past, wise with the sorrows and desolations of ages, from amid her shattered fanes and wolf - housing palaces, echoes, SPEAK ! Nature, through her thousand trum pets of freedom, her stars, her sunrises, her seas, her winds, her cataracts, her mountains blue with cloudy pines, blows jubilant encourage ment, and cries, SPEAK! From the soul s trembling abysses the still, small voice not vaguely murmurs, SPEAK! But, alas! the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C., say BE DUMB ! It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of in quiry in this connection, whether, on that mo mentous occasion when the goats and the sheep shall be parted, the Constitution and the Hon orable Mr. Bagowind, M. C., will be expected to take their places on the left as our hircine vicars, Quid sum miser tune dicturus f Quern patronum rogaturus f There is a point where toleration sinks into sheer baseness and poltroonery. The toleration of the worst leads us to look on what is barely better as good enough, and to worship what is only moderately good. Woe to that man, or that nation, to whom mediocrity has become an ideal ! Has our experiment of self-government suc ceeded, if it barely manage to rub and go ? Here, now, is a piece of barbarism which Christ and the nineteenth century say shall cease, and which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and others say shall not cease. I would by no means deny the eminent respectability of these gentlemen, but I confess, that, in such a wrestling-match, I cannot help having my fears for them. Discite justitiam, moniti, el non temnere divos. H.W.] No. VI THE PIOUS EDITOR S CREED [AT the special instance of Mr. Biglow, I pre face the following satire with an extract from a sermon preached during the past summer, from Ezekiel xxxiv. 2 : " Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel." Since the Sabbath on which this discourse was delivered, the editor of the " Jaalam Independent Blun derbuss " has unaccountably absented himself from our house of worship. " I know of no so responsible position as that of the public journalist. The editor of our day bears the same relation to his time that the clerk bore to the age before the invention of printing. Indeed, the position which he hold? is that which the clergyman should hold even now. But the clergyman chooses to walk off to the extreme edge of the world, and to throw such seed as he has clear over into that dark ness which he calls the Next Life. As if next did not mean nearest, and as if any life wera nearer than that immediately present one which boils and eddies all around him at the caucus, the ratification meeting, and the polls ! Who taught him to exhort men to prepare for eter nity, as for some future era of which the pres ent forms no integral part ? The furrow which Time is even now turning runs through the Everlasting, and in that must he plant, or no where. Yet he would fain believe and teach that we are going to have more of eternity than we have now. This going of his is like that of the auctioneer, on which gone follows before we have made up our minds to bid, in which manner, not three months back, I lost an excel lent copy of Chappelow on Job. So it has come to pass that the preacher, instead of being a living force, has faded into an emblematic figure at christenings, weddings, and funerals. Or, if he exercise any other function, it is as keeper and feeder of certain theologic dogmas, which, when occasion offers, he unkennels w ith a stdboy ! to bark and bite as t is their nature to, whence that reproach of odium theologicum has arisen. "Meanwhile, see what a pulpit the editor mounts daily, sometimes with a congregation of fifty thousand within reach of his voice, and never so much as a nodder, even, among them ! And from what a Bible can he choose his text, a Bible which needs no translation, and which no priestcraft can shut and clasp from the laity, the open volume of the world, upon which, with a pen of sunshine or destroying fire, the in spired Present is even now writing the annals of God ! Methinks the editor who should under stand his calling, and be equal thereto, would truly deserve that title of Troi/aV Aau>i , which Homer bestows upon princes. He would be the Moses of our nineteenth century ; and whereas the old Sinai, silent now, is but a common mountain stared at by the elegant tourist and crawled over by the hammering geologist, he must find his tables of the new law here among factories and cities in this Wilderness of Sin (Numbers xxxiii. 12) called Progress of Civiliza tion, and be the captain of our Exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order. " Nevertheless, our editor will not come so far within even the shadow of Sinai as Mahomet did, but chooses rather to construe Moses by Joe Smith. He takes up the crook, not that the sheep may be fed, but that he may never want a warm woollen suit and a joint of mutton. THE BIGLOW PAPERS 2OI Immemor, O, fidei, pecommquc oblite tuorum ! For which reason I would derive the name ed itor not so much from edo, to publish, as from edo, to eat, that being the peculiar profession to which he esteems himself called. He blows up the flames of political discord for no other occa sion than that he may thereby handily boil his own pot. I believe there are two thousand of these mutton-loving shepherds in the United States, and of these, how many have even the dimmest perception of their immense power, and the duties consequent thereon ? Here and there, haply, one. Nine hundred and ninety- nine labor to impress upon the people the great principles of Tweedledum, and other nine hun dred and ninety-nine preach with equal earnest ness the gospel according to Tweedledee." H.W.] I DU believe in Freedom s cause, Ez fur away ez Payris is ; I love to see her stick her claws In them infarnal Phayrisees ; It s wal enough agin a king To dror resolves an triggers, But libbaty s a kind o thing Thet don t agree with niggers. I du believe the people want A tax on teas an coffees, Thet nothin aint extravygunt, Purvidin I m in office ; Fer I hev loved my country sence My eye-teeth filled their sockets, An Uncle Sam I reverence, Partic larly his pockets. I du believe in any plan O levyin the texes, Ez long ez, like a lumberman, I git jest wut I axes ; I go free-trade thru thick an thin, Because it kind o rouses The folks to vote, an keeps us in Our quiet custom-houses. I du believe it s wise an good To sen out furrin missions, Thet is, on sartin understood An orthyclox conditions ; I mean nine thousan dolls, per ann.. Nine thousan more fer outfit, An me to recommend a man The place ould jest about fit. I du believe in special ways O prayin an convartin ; The bread comes back in many days, An buttered, tu, fer sartin ; I mean in preyiu till one busts On wut the party chooses, An in convartin public trusts To very privit uses. I du believe hard coin the stuff Fer lectioueers to spout on; The people s oilers soft enough To make hard money out on; Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his, An gives a good-sized junk to all, I don t care how hard money is, Ez long ez mine s paid puuctooal. I du believe with all my soul In the gret Press s freedom, To pint the people to the goal An in the traces lead em; Palsied the arm thet forges yokes At my fat contracts squintin , An withered be the nose thet pokes Inter the gov ment printm ! I du believe thet I should give Wnt s his n unto Caesar, Fer it s by him I move an live, Frum him my bread an cheese air; I du believe thet all o me Doth bear his superscription, Will, conscience, honor, honesty, An things o thet description. I du believe in prayer an praise To him thet hez the grantin O jobs, in every thin thet pays, But most of all in CANTIN ; This doth my cup with marcies fill, This lays all thought o sin to rest, I don t believe in princerple, But oh, I du in interest. I du believe in bein this Or thet, ez it may happen One way or t other hendiest is To ketch the people nappin ; It aint by princerples nor men My preudunt course is steadied, I scent wich pays the best, an then. Go into it baldheaded. I du believe thet holdin slaves Comes nat ral to a Presidunt, Let lone the rowdedow it saves To hev a wal-broke precedunt; 202 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Fer any office, small or gret, I could n t ax with no face, iithout I d ben, thru dry an wet, , Th uurizzest kind o doughface. I du believe wutever trash 11 keep the people in blindness, Thet we the Mexicuus can thrash Right inter brotherly kindness, Thet bombshells, grape, an powder n ball Air good-will s strongest magnets, Thet peace, to make it stick at all, Must be druv in with bagnets. In short, I firmly du believe In Humbug generally, Fer it s a thing thet I perceive To hev a solid vally; This heth my faithful shepherd ben, In pasturs sweet heth led me, An this 11 keep the people green To feed ez they hev fed me. [I subjoin here another passage from my be fore-mentioned discourse. 4 Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it rightly, is the newspaper. To me, for example, sitting on the critical front bench of the pit, in my study here in Jaalam, the advent of my weekly journal is as that of a strolling theatre, or rather of a puppet-show, on whose stage, nar row as it is, the tragedy, comedy, and farce of life are played in little. Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in a brown- paper wrapper ! Hither, to my obscure corner, by wind or steam, on horseback or dromedary-back, in the pouch of the Indian runner, or clicking over the magnetic wires, troop all the famous per formers from the four quarters of the globe. Looked at from a point of criticism, tiny pup pets they seem all, as the editor sets up his booth upon my desk and officiates as showman. Now I can truly see how little and transitory is life. The earth appears almost as a drop of vinegar, on which the solar microscope of the imagination must be broiight to bear in order to make out anything distinctly. That animal cule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis Philippe, just landed on the coast of England. That other, in the gray surtout and cocked hat, is Napoleon Bonaparte Smith, assuring France that she need apprehend no interference from him in the present alarming juncture. At that spot, where you seem to see a speck of some thing in motion, is an immense mass-meeting. Look sharper, and you will see a mite brandish ing his mandibles in an excited manner. That is the great Mr. Soandso, defining his position amid tumultuous and irrepressible cheers. That infinitesimal creature, upon whom some score of others, as minute as he, are gazing in open-mouthed admiration, is a famous philoso pher, expounding to a select audience their capacity for the Infinite. That scarce discerni ble pufflet of smoke and dust is a revolution. That speck there is a reformer, just arranging the lever with which he is to move the world. And lo, there creeps forward the shadow of a skeleton that blows one breath between its grinning teeth, and all our distinguished actors are whisked off the slippery stage into the dark Beyond. Yes, the little show-box has its solemner suggestions. Now and then we catch a glimpse of a grim old man, w ho lays down a scythe and hour-glass in the corner while he shifts the scenes. There, too, in the dim background, a weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he leans upon his mattock, and gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly married on their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe brought home from christening. Suddenly (for the scene grows larger and larger as we look) a bony hand snatches back a performer in the midst of his part, and him, whom yesterday two infinities (past and future) would not suf fice, a handful of dust is enough to cover and silence forever. Nay, we see the same fleshless fingers opening to clutch the showman himself, and guess, not without a shudder, that they are lying in wait for spectator also. " Think of it : for three dollars a year I buy a season-ticket to this great Globe Theatre, for which God would write the dramas (only that we like farces, spectacles, and the tragedies of Apollyon better), whose scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is rung down by Death. " Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes as I am tearing off the wrapper of my news paper. Then suddenly that otherwise too often vacant sheet becomes invested for me with a strange kind of awe. Look ! deaths and mar riages, notices of inventions, discoveries, and books, lists of promotions, of killed, wounded, and missing, news of fires, accidents, of sudden wealth and as sudden poverty ; I hold in my hand the ends of myriad invisible electric con ductors, along which tremble the joys, sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, hopes, and despairs of as many men and women everywhere. So that upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate me from mankind as a spectator of their puppet- pranks, another supervenes, in which I feel that I, too, unknown and unheard of, am yet of some import to my fellows. For, through my news paper here, do not families take pains to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death among them ? Are not here two who would have me know of their marriage ? And, strangest of all, is not this singular person anxious to have me informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry Bruisgins ? But to none of us does the Present continue miraculous (even if for a mo ment discerned as such). We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this sheet, (Acts x. 11, 12,) in which a vision was THE BIGLOW PAPERS 203 let down to me from Heaven, shall be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a beggar s broken victuals." H. W.] No. VII A LETTER FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESI DENCY IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUES TIONS PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIG- LOW, INCLOSED IN A NOTE FROM MR. BIGLOW TO S. H. GAY, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ANTI - SLAVERY STANDARD [CURIOSITY may be said to be the quality which preeminently distinguishes and segregates man from the lower animals. As we trace the scale of animated nature downward, we find this faculty (as it may truly be called) of the mind diminished in the savage, and wellnigh extinct in the brute. The first object which civilized man proposes to himself I take to be the finding out whatsoever he can concerning his neighbors. Nihil humanum a me alienum puto ; I am curious about even John Smith. The de sire next in strength to this (an opposite pole, in deed, of the same magnet) is that of commu nicating the unintelligence we have carefully picked up. Men in general may be divided into the in quisitive and the communicative. To the first class belong Peeping Toms, eaves-droppers, navel-contemplating Brahmins, metaphysicians, travellers, Empedocleses, spies, the various so cieties for promoting Rhinothism, Columbuses, Yankees, discoverers, and men of science, who present themselves to the mind as so many marks of interrogation wandering up and down the world, or sitting in studies and laboratories. The second class I should again subdivide into four. In the first subdivision I would rank those who have an itch to tell us about them selves, as keepers of diaries, insignificant per sons generally, Montaignes, Horace Walpoles, autobiographers, poets. The second includes those who are anxious to impart information concerning other people, as historians, bar bers, and such. To the third belong those who labor to give us intelligence about nothing at all, as novelists, political orators, the large majority of authors, preachers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth come those who are communicative from motives of public benevo lence, as finders of mares -nests and bringers of ill news. Each of us two-legged fowls without feathers embraces all these subdivisions in him self to a greater or less degree, for none of us so much as lays an egg, or incubates a chalk one, but straightway the whole barnyard shall know it by our cackle or our cluck. Omnibus hoc vitium est. There are different grades in all these classes. One will turn his telescope toward a back-yard, another toward Uranus ; one will tell you that he dined with Smith, another that he supped with Plato. In one particular, all men may be considered as belonging to the first grand division, inasmuch as they all seem equally desirous of discovering the mote in their neighbor s eye. To one or another of these species every human being may safely be referred. I think it beyond a peradventure that Jonah prosecuted some in quiries into the digestive apparatus of whales, and that Noah sealed up a letter in an empty bottle, that news in regard to him might not be wanting in case of the worst. They had else been super or subter human. I conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons who contin ually peep and pry at the keyhole of that mys terious door through which, sooner or later, we all make our exits, so there are doubtless ghosts fidgeting and fretting on the other side of it, because they have no means of conveying back to this world the scraps of news they have picked up in that. For there is an answer ready some where to every question, the great law of give and take runs though all nature, and if we see a hook, we may be sure that an eye is waiting for it. I read in every face I meet a standing ad vertisement of information wanted in regard to A. B., or that the friends of C. D. can hear something to his disadvantage by application to such a one. It was to gratify the two great passions of asking and answering that epistolary correspon dence was first invented. Letters (for by this usurped title epistles are now commonly known) are of several kinds. First, there are those which are not letters at all as letters-patent, letters dimissory, letters enclosing bills, letters of administration, Pliny s letters, letters of di plomacy, of Cato, of Mentor, of Lords Lyttel- ton, Chesterfield, and Orrery, of Jacob Behmen, Seneca (whom St. Jerome includes in his list of sacred writers), letters from abroad, from sons in college to their fathers, letters of marque, and letters generally, which are in no wise letters of mark. Second, are real letters, such as those of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, Howell, Lamb, D. Y., the first letters from children (printed in stagger ing capitals), Letters from New York, letters of credit, and others, interesting for the sake of the writer or the thing written. I have read also letters from Europe by a gentleman named Pinto, containing some curious gossip, and which I hope to see collected for the benefit of the curious. There are, besides, letters addressed to posterity, as epitaphs, for example, written for their own monuments by monarchs, where by we have lately become possessed of the names of several great conquerors and kings of kings, hitherto unheard of and still unpronounceable, but valuable to the student of the entirely dark ages. The letter of our Saviour to King Ab- garus, that which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in the year of grace 755, that of the Virgin to the magistrates of Messina, that of the Sanhe drim of Toledo to Annas and Caiaphas, A. D. 35, 204 THE BIGLOW PAPERS that of Galeazzo Sfprza s spirit to his brother Lodovico, that of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus to the D 1, and that of this last-mentioned active police-magistrate to a nun of Cirgenti, I would place in a class by themselves, as also the letters of candidates, concerning which I shall dilate more fully in a note at the end of the following poem. At present sat prata biberunt. Only, concerning the shape of letters, they are all either square or oblong, to which general figures circular letters and round-robins also conform themselves. H. W.] DEER SIR its gut to be the fashun now to rite letters to the candid 8s and i wus chose at a publick Meetin in Jaalam to du wut wus nessary fur that town, i writ to 271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha air called candid 8s but I don t see nothin can did about em. this here 1 wich I send wus thought satty s factory. I dunno as it s ushle to print Poscrips, but as all the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it wus best, times has gretly changed. Formaly to knock a man into a cocked hat wus to use him up, but now it ony gives him a chance fur the cheef madgustracy. H. B. DEAR SIR, You wish to know my notions On sartin pints thet rile the land ; There s nothin thet my natur so shuns Ez bein mum or underhand ; I m a straight-spoken kind o creetur Thet blurts right out wut s in his head, An ef I ve one pecooler feetur, It is a nose thet wunt be led. So, to begin at the beginnin An come direcly to the pint, I think the country s underpinnm* Is some consid ble out o jint ; I aint agoin to try your patience By tellin who done this or thet, I don t make no insinooations, I jest let on I smell a rat. Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so, But, ef the public think I m wrong, I wunt deny but wut I be so, An , fact, it don t smell very strong ; My mind s tu fair to lose its balance An say wich party hez most sense ; There may be folks o greater talence Thet can t set stiddier on the fence. I m an eclectic ; ez to choosin Tvrixt this an thet, I m plaguy lawth ; I leave a side thet looks like losin , But (wile there s doubt) I stick to both j I staii upon the Constitution, Ez preuduut statesmuu say, who ve planned A way to git the most profusion O chances ez to ware they 11 stand. Ez fer the war, I go agin it, I mean to say I kind o du, Thet is, I mean thet, bein in it, The best way wuz to fight it thru ; Not but wut abstract war is horrid, I sign to thet with all my heart, But civlyzation doos git forrid Sometimes upon a powder-cart. About thet darned Proviso matter I never hed a grain o doubt, Nor I aint one my sense to scatter So st no one could n t pick it out : My love fer North an South is equil, So I 11 jest answer plump an frank, No matter wut may be the sequil, Yes, Sir, I am agin a Bank. Ez to the answerin o questions, I m an off ox at bein druv, Though I aint one thet ary test shuns 111 give our folks a helpin shove; Kind o permiscoous I go it Fer the holl country, an the ground I take, ez nigh ez I can show it, Is pooty gen ally all round. I don t appruve o givin pledges; You d ough to leave a feller free, An not go knockin out the wedges To ketch his fingers in the tree; Pledges air awfle breachy cattle Thet preudunt farmers don t turn out,- Ez long z the people git their rattle, Wut is there fer m to grout about ? Ez to the slaves, there s no confusion In my idees consarnin them, / think they air an Institution, A sort of yes. jest so, ahem: Do / own any ? Of my merit On thet pint you yourself may jedge; All is, I never drink no sperit, Nor I haint never signed no pledge. Ez to my princerples, I glory In hevin nothin o the sort; THE BIGLOW PAPERS 205 I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory, I m jest a canderdate, in short; Thet s fair an square an parpeudicler But, ef the Public cares a fig To hev me an thin in particler, Wy, I m a kind o peri- Wig. P. S. Ez we re a sort o privateerin , O course, you know, it s sheer an sheer, An there is sutthin wuth your heariu I 11 mention in your privit ear; Ef you git me inside the White House, Your head with ile I 11 kin o nint By gittin you inside the Light-house Down to the eend o Jaalam Pint. An ez the North hez took to brustlin* At bein scrouged frum off the roost, I 11 tell ye wut 11 save all tusslin An give our side a harnsome boost, Tell em thet on the Slavery question I in RIGHT, although to speak I m lawth; This gives you a safe pint to rest on, An leaves me frontin South by North. [And now of epistles candidatial, which are of two kinds, namely, letters of acceptance, and letters definitive of position. Our republic, on the eve of an election, may safely enough be called a republic of letters. Epistolary compo sition becomes then an epidemic, which seizes one candidate after another, not seldom cutting short the thread of political life. It has come to such a pass, that a party dreads less the at tacks of its opponents than a letter from its can didate. Litera scripta manet, and it will go hard if something bad cannot be made of it. General Harrison, it is well understood, was surrounded, during his candidacy, with the cor don sanitaire of a vigilance committee. No prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously deprived of writing materials. The soot was scraped carefully from the chimney-places ; outposts of expert rifle-shooters rendered it sure death for any goose (who came clad in feathers) to approach within a certain limited distance of North Bend ; and all domestic fowls about the premises were reduced to the condition of Pla to s original man. By these precautions the General was saved. Parva componere magnis, I remember, that, when party-spirit once ran nigh among my people, upon occasion of the choice of a new deacon, I, having my prefer ences, yet not caring too openly to express them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring about that result which I deemed most desirable. My stratagem was no other than the throwing a copy of the Complete Letter- Writer in the way of the candidate whom I wished to defeat. He caught the infection, and addressed a short note to his constituents, in which the opposite party detected so many and so grave improprieties (he had modelled it upon the letter of a young lady accepting a proposal of marriage), that he not only lost his election, but, falling under a suspi cion of Sabellianism and I know not what (the widow Endive assured me that he was a Parali- pomenon, to her certain knowledge), was forced to leave the town. Thus it is that the letter killeth. The object which candidates propose to them selves in writing is to convey no meaning at all. And here is a quite unsuspected pitfall into which they successively plunge headlong. For it is precisely in such cryptographies that man kind are prone to seek for and find a wonder ful amount and variety of significance. Omne ignotum pro mirifico. How do we admire at the antique world striving to crack those orac ular nuts from Delphi, Hamnion, and else where, in only one of which can I so much as surmise that any kernel had ever lodged ; that, namely, wherein Apollo confessed that he was mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, related to have written six thousand books on the single subject of grammar, a topic rendered only more tenebrific by the labors of his successors, and which seems still to possess an attraction for authors in proportion as they can make nothing of it. A singular loadstone for theologians, also, is the Beast in the Apocalypse, whereof, in the course of my studies, I have noted two hundred and three several interpretations, each lethiferal to all the rest. Non nostrum est tantas componere lites, yet I have myself ven tured upon a two hundred and fourth, which I embodied in a discourse preached on occasion of the demise of the late usurper, Napoleon Bonaparte, and which quieted, in a large meas ure, the minds of my people. It is true that my views on this important point were ardently controverted by Mr. Shear jashub Holden, the then preceptor of our academy, and in other particulars a very deserving and sensible young man, though possessing a somewhat limited knowledge of the Greek tongue. But his heresy struck down no deep root, and, he having been lately removed by the hand of Providence, I had the satisfaction of reaffirming my cherished sentiments in a sermon preached upon the Lord s day immediately succeeding his funeral. This might seem like taking an unfair advan tage, did I not add that he had made provision in his last will (being celibate) for the publica tion of a posthumous tractate in support of his own dangerous opinions. I know of nothing in our modern times which approaches so nearly to the ancient oracle as the letter of a Presidential candidate. Now, among the Greeks, the eating of beans was strictly forbidden to all such as had it in mind to consult those expert amphibolos^sts, and this same prohibition on the part of Pythagoras to his disciples is understood to imply an absti nence from politics, beans having been used as 206 THE BIGLOW PAPERS ballots. That other explication, quod videlicet sensus eo cibo obtundi existimaret, though sup ported pugnis et calcibus by many of the learned, and not wanting the countenance of Cicero, is confuted by the larger experience of New England. On the whole, I think it safer to apply here the rule of interpretation which now generally obtains in regard to antique cos mogonies, myths, fables, proverbial expressions, and knotty points generally, which is, to find a common-sense meaning, and then select what ever can be imagined the most opposite there to. In this way we arrive at the conclusion, that the Greeks objected to the questioning of candidates. And very properly, if, as I con ceive, the chief point be not to discover what a person in that position is, or what he will do, but whether he can be elected. Vos exem- plaria Grceca nocturna versale manu, versate diurna. But, since an imitation of the Greeks in this particular (the asking of questions being one chief privilege of freemen) is hardly to be hoped for, and our candidates will answer, whether they are questioned or not, I would recommend that these ante-electionary dia logues should be carried on by symbols, as were the diplomatic correspondences of the Scythians and Macrobii, or confined to the language of signs, like the famous interview of Panurge and Goatsnose. A candidate might then convey a suitable reply to all committees of inquiry by closing one eye, or by presenting them with a phial of Egyptian darkness to be speculated upon by their respective constituen cies. These answers would be susceptible of whatever retrospective construction the exigen cies of the political campaign might seem to demand, and the candidate could take his posi tion on either side of the fence with entire con sistency. Or, if letters must be written, profit able use might be made of the Dighton rock hieroglyphic or the cuneiform script, every fresh decipherer of which is enabled to educe a differ ent meaning, whereby a sculptured stone or two supplies us, and will probably continue to supply posterity, with a very vast and various body of authentic history. For even the brief est epistle in the ordinary ehirography is dan gerous. There is scarce any style so compressed that superfluous words may not be detected in it. A severe critic might curtail that famous brevity of Caesar s by two thirds, drawing his pen through the supererogatory veni and vidi. Perhaps, after all, the surest footing of hope is to be found in the rapidly increasing tendency to demand less and less of qualification in can didates. Already have statesmanship, experi ence, and the possession (nay, the profession, even) of principles been rejected as superfluous, and may not the patriot reasonably hope that the ability to write will follow ? At present, there may be death in pot-hooks as well as pots, the loop of a letter may suffice for a bow-string, and all the dreadful heresies of Antislavery may lurk in a flourish. H. W.] No. VIII A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ. [!N the following epistle, we behold Mr. Sawin returning, a miles emeritus, to the bosom of his family. Quantum mutatus ! The good Father of us all had doubtless intrusted to the keeping of this child of his certain faculties of a constructive kind. He had put in him a share of that vital force, the nicest economy of every minute atom of which is necessary to the per fect development of Humanity. He had given him a brain and heart, and so had equipped his soul with the two strong wings of knowledge and love, whereby it can mount to hang its nest under the eaves of heaven. And this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to the keeping of his vicar, the State. How stands the account of that stewardship? The State, or Society (call her by what name you will), had taken no man ner of thought of him till she saw him swept out into the street, the pitiful leavings of last night s debauch, with cigar-ends, lemon-par ings, tobacco-quids, slops, vile stenches, and the whole loathsome next-morning of the bar room, an own child of the Almighty God 1 I remember him as he was brought to be christ ened, a ruddy, rugged babe ; and now there he wallows, reeking, seething, the dead corpse, not of a man, but of a soul, a putrefying lump, horrible for the life that is in it. Comes the wind of heaven, that good Samaritan, and parts the hair upon his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss those parched, cracked lips ; the morn ing opens upon him her eyes full of pitying sun shine, the sky yearns down to him, and there he lies fermenting. O sleep ! let me not pro fane thy holy name by calling that stertorous unconsciousness a slumber ! By and by comes along the State, God s vicar. Does she say, "My poor, forlorn foster-child! Behold here a force which I will make dig and plant and build for me"? Not so, but, "Here is a re cruit ready-made to my hand, a piece of de stroying energy lying unprofitably idle." So she claps an ugly gray suit on him, puts a mus ket in his grasp, and sends him off, with Guber natorial and other godspeeds, to do duty as a destroyer. I made one of the crowd at the last Mechan ics Fair, and, with the rest, stood gazing in wonder at a perfect machine, with its soul of fire, its boiler-heart that sent the hot blood pulsing along the iron arteries, and its thews of steel. And while I was admiring the adapta tion of means to end, the harmonious involu tions of contrivance, and the never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, the imperious engine s lackey and drudge, whose sole office was to let fall, at intervals, & drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then my soul said within me, See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you marvel at is but as the rude first effort of a child, a force THE BIGLOW PAPERS 207 -which not merely suffices to set a few wheels in motion, but which can send an impulse all through the infinite future, a contrivance, not for turning out pins, or stitching button holes, but for making Hamlets and Lears. And yet this thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from rust and dust, and it shall be a crime but so much as to scratch it with a pin ; while the other, with its fire of God in it, shall be buffeted hither and thither, and finally sent carefully a thousand miles to be the target for a Mexican cannon-ball. Unthrifty Mother State ! My heart burned within me for pity and indig nation, and I renewed this covenant with my own soul, In aliis mansuetus ero, a, in blas- phemiis contra Christum, non ita. H. W. I SPOSE you wonder ware I be; I can t tell, fer the soul o me, Exacly ware I be myself, meanin by thet the holl o me. Wen I left hum, I bed two legs, an they worn t bad ones neither, (The scaliest trick they ever played wuz bringin on me hither,) Now one on em s I dunno ware; they thought I wuz adyin , An sawed it off because they said t wuz kin o mortify in ; I J m willin to believe it wuz, an yit I don t see, nuther, Wy one shoud take to feelin cheap a min- nit sooner n t other, Sence both wuz equilly to blame; but things is ez they be ; It took on so they took it off, an thet s enough fer me: There s one good thing, though, to be said about my wooden new one, The liquor can t git into it ez t used to in the true one; So it saves drink ; an then, besides, a feller could n t beg A gretter blessin then to hev one oilers sober peg; It s true a chap s in want o two fer fol- lerin a drum, But alJ the march I m up to now is jest to Kingdom Come. I ve lost one eye, but thet s a loss it s easy to supply Out o the glory thet I ve gut, fer thet is all my eye; An* one is big enough, I guess, by dili gently usin it, To sec all I shall ever git by way o pay fer losin it; Off cers I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an kickiiis, Du wal by keepin* single eyes arter the fattest pickins; So, ez the eye s put fairly out, I 11 larn to go without it, An not allow myself to be no gret put out about it. Now, le me see, thet is n t all; I used, fore leavin Jaalam, To count things on my fmger-eends, but sutthin seems to ail em: Ware s my left hand ? Oh, darn it, yes, I recollect wut s come on t ; I haint no left arm but my right, an thet s gut jest a thumb on t; It aint so hendy ez it wuz to cal late a sum on t. I ve bed some ribs broke, six (I b lieve), I haint kep no account on em; Wen pensions git to be the talk, I 11 settle the amount on em. An now I m speakin about ribs, it kin o brings to mind One thet I could n t never break, the one I lef behind; Ef you should see her, jest clear out the spout o your invention An pour the longest sweetniu in about an annooal pension, An kin o hint (in case, you know, the critter should refuse to be Consoled) I aint so xpensive now to keep ez wut I used to be; There s one arm less, ditto one eye, an* then the leg thet s wooden Can be took off an sot away wenever ther s a puddin . I spose you think I m comin back ez op- perlunt ez thunder, With shiploads o gold images an varus sorts o plunder; Wal, fore I vullinteered, I thought this country wuz a sort o Canaan, a reg lar Promised Land flowin with rum an water, Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultivation, An gold wuz dug ez taters be among our Yankee nation, Ware nateral advantages were pufficly amazin , Ware every rock there wuz about with pre cious stuns wuz blazin , 208 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez thick ez you could cram em, An desput rivers run about a beggiu folks to dam em; Then there were meetinhouses, tu, chockf ul o gold an silver Thet you could take, an no one could n t hand ye in no bill fer; Thet s wut I thought afore I went, thet s wut them fellers told us Thet stayed to hum an speechified an to the buzzards sold us; I thought thet gold-mines could be gut cheaper than Chiny asters, An see myself acomin back like sixty Ja cob Astors; But sech idees soon melted down an did n t leave a grease-spot; I vow my holl sheer o the spiles would n t come nigh a V spot; Although, most anywares we ve ben, you need n t break no locks, Nor run no kin o risks, to fill your pocket full o rocks. I xpect I mentioned in my last some o the nateral feeturs O this all-fiered buggy hole in th way o awfle creeturs, But I fergut to name (new things to speak on so abounded) How one day you 11 most die o thust, an fore the next git drownded- The clymit seems to me jest like a teapot made o pewter Our Preudence hed, thet would n t pour (all she could du) to suit her; Fust place the leaves ould choke the spout, so s not a drop ould dreen out, Then Prude ould tip an tip an tip, till the holl kit bust clean out, The kiver-hinge-pin bein lost, tea-leaves an tea an kiver ould all come down kerswosh ! ez though the dam bust in a river. Jest so t is here; holl months there aint a day o rainy weather, An jest ez th officers ould be a layin heads together Ez t how they d mix their drink at sech a milingtary deepot, T would pour ez though the lid wuz off the everlastin teapot. The cons quence is, thet I shall take, wen I m allowed to leave here, One piece o propaty along, an thet s the shakin fever; It s reggilar employment, though, an thet aiiit thought to harm one, Nor t aint so tiresome ez it wuz with t other leg an arm on; An it s a consolation, tu, although it doos n t pay, To hev it said you re some gret shakes in any kin o way. T worn t very long, I tell ye wut, I thought o fortin-makin , One day a reg lar shiver-de-freeze, an next ez good ez bakin , One day abrilin in the sand, then smoth rin in the mashes, Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o hacks an smashes. But then, thinks I, at any rate there s glory to be hed, Thet s an investment, arter all, thet may n t turn out so bad ; But somehow, wen we d fit an licked, I oilers found the thanks Gut kin o lodged afore they come ez low down ez the ranks; The Gin rals gut the biggest sheer, the Cunnles next, an so on, We never gut a blasted mite o glory ez I know on; An spose we hed, I wonder how you re goin to contrive its Division so s to give a piece to twenty thousand privits; Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o the brav st one, You would n t git more n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun; We git the licks, we re jest the grist thet s put into War s hoppers ; Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the coppers. It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in t, An aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in t; But glory is a kin o thing I sha n t pursue no furder, Coz thet s the offc ers parquisite, yourn s on y jest the murder. Wai, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there s one Thing in the bills we aint hed yit, an thet s the GLORIOUS FUN: THE BIGLOW PAPERS 209 Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persuiue we All day an night shall revel in the halls o Montezumy. I 11 tell ye wut my revels wuz, an see how you would like em; We never gut inside the hall: the nighest ever / come Wuz stan in sentry in the sun (an , fact, it seemed a cent ry) A ketchin smells o biled an roast thet come out thru the entry, An hearin ez I sweltered thru my passes an repasses, A rat-tat-too o knives an forks, a clinkty- clink o glasses: I can t tell off the bill o fare the Gin rals hed inside ; All I know is, thet out o doors a pair o soles wuz fried, An not a hunderd miles away frum ware this child wuz posted, A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an biled an roasted ; The on y thing like revellin thet ever come to me Wuz bein routed out o sleep by thet darned revelee. They say the quarrel s settled now; fer my part I ve some doubt on t, t 11 take more fish-skin than folks think to take the rile clean out on t; At any rate I m so used up I can t do no more fightin , The on y chance thet s left to me is politics or writin ; Now, ez the people s gut to hev a miling- tary man, An I aint nothin else jest now, I ve hit upon a plan; The can idatin line, you know, ould suit me to a T, An* ef I lose, t wunt hurt my ears to lodge another flea; So I 11 set up ez can idate fer any kin o office, (I mean fer any thet includes good easy- cheers an soffies; Fer ez tu runnin fer a place ware work s the time o day, You know thet s wut I never did, ex cept the other way;) Ef it s the Presidential cheer fer wich I M better run, Wut two legs any wares about could keep up with my one ? There aint no kin o quality in can idates, it s said, So useful ez a wooden leg, except a wooden head; There s nothin aint so poppy lar (wy, it s a parfect sin To think wut Mexico hez paid fer Saiity Anny s pin;) Then I haint gut no princerples, an , sence I wuz knee-high, I never did hev any gret, ez you can tes tify; I m a decided peace-man, tu, an go agin the war, Fer now the holl on t s gone an past, wut is there to go for ? Ef, wile you re lectioneerin round, some curus chaps should beg To know my views o state affairs, jest answer WOODEN LEG ! Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an kin o pry an doubt An ax fer sutthin deffynit, jest say ONE EYE PUT OUT ! Thet kin o talk I guess you ll find 11 answer to a charm, An wen you re druv tu nigh the wall, hoi up my missin arm; Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, put on a vartoous look An tell em thet s percisely wut I never gin nor took ! Then you can call me " Timbertoes," thet s wut the people likes; Sutthin combinin morril truth with phrases sech ez strikes; Some say the people s fond o this, or thet, or wut you please, I tell ye wut the people want is jest correct idees; " Old Timbertoes," you see, s a creed it s safe to be quite bold on, There s nothin in t the other side can any ways git hold on; It s a good tangible idee, a sutthin to em body Thet valooable class o men who look thru brandy-toddy; It gives a Party Platform, tu, jest level with the mind Of all right-thinkin , honest folks thet mean to go it blind; 210 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Then there air other good hooraws to dror on ez you need em, Sech ez the ONE-EYED SLARTERER, the BLOODY BlRDOFREDUM : Them s wut takes hold o folks thet think, ez well ez o the masses, An makes you sartin o the aid o good men of all classes. There s one thing I m in doubt about; in order to be Presidunt, It s absolutely ne ssary to be a Southern residunt ; The Constitution settles thet, an also thet a feller Must own a nigger o some sort, jet black, or brown, or yeller. Now I haint no objections agin particklar climes, Nor agin owiiin anythin (except the truth sometimes), But, ez I haint no capital, up there among ye, maybe, You might raise funds enough fer me to buy a low-priced baby, An then to suit the No thern folks, who feel obleeged to say They hate an cus the very thing they vote fer every day, Say you re assured I go full but fer Lib- baty s diffusion An made the purchis on y jest to spite the Institootion; But, golly ! there s the currier s boss upon the pavement pawin ! I 11 be more xplicit in my next. Yourn, BlRDOFREDUM SAWIN. [We have now a tolerably fair chance of esti mating how the balance-sheet stands between our returned volunteer and glory. Supposing the entries to be set down on both sides of the account in fractional parts of one hundred, we shall arrive at something like the following re sult : B. SAWIN, Esq., in account with (BLANK) GLORY. Cr. Dr. By loss of one leg . . . 20 To one 675th three " do. one arm . . 15 cheers in Fan- " do. four fingers 5 euil Hall .... 30 " do. one eye . . 10 " do. do. on oc- " the breaking of six casion of presen- ribs 6 tation of sword " having: served nn~ to Colonel derColonolCush- Wright 25 ing one month . . 44 100 55 Brought forward . . . 100 Brouyht forward ... 55 To one suit of gray clothes (ingeni ously unbecom ing) 15 1 musical enter- tainments(drum and fife six months) 5 " one dinner after return 1 " chance of pen sion 1 " privilege of draw ing longbow dur ing rest of nat ural life .... 23 E. E. 100 100 It should appear that Mr. Sawin found the actual feast curiously the reverse of the bill of fare advertised in Faneuil Hall and other places. His primary object seems to have been the making of his fortune. Qucerenda pecunia primum, virtus post nummos. He hoisted sail for Eldorado, and shipwrecked on Point Tribu lation. Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames? The speculation has sometimes crossed my mind, in that dreary interval of drought which intervenes between quarterly stipendiary showers, that Providence, by the creation of a money-tree, might have simplified wonderfully the sometimes perplexing problem of human life. We read of bread-trees, the butter for which lies ready-churned in Irish bogs. Milk-trees we are assured of in South America, and stout Sir John Hawkins testifies to water-trees in the Canaries. Boot-trees bear abundantly in Lynn and elsewhere ; and I have seen, in the entries of the wealthy, hat-trees with a fair show of fruit. A family-tree I once cultivated myself, and found therefrom but a scanty yield, and that quite tasteless and in- mitritious. Of trees bearing men we are not without examples ; as those in the park of Louis the Eleventh of France. Who has for gotten, moreover, that olive-tree, growing in the Athenian s back-garden, with its strange uxorious crop, for the general propagation of which, as of a new and precious variety, the philosopher Diogenes, hitherto uninterested in arboriculture, was so zealous ? In the sylva of our own Southern States, the females of my family have called my attention to the china- tree. Not to multiply examples, I will barely add to my list the birch-tree, in the smaller branches of which has been implanted so miraculous a virtue for communicating the Latin and Greek languages, and which may well, therefore, be classed among the trees pro ducing necessaries of life, venerabile donum fatalis virgce. That money-trees existed in the golden age there want not prevalent reasons for our believing. For does not the old proverb, when it asserts that money does not grow on every bush, imply a fortiori that there were certain bushes which did produce it ? Again, there is another ancient saw to the effect that THE BIGLOW PAPERS 211 money is the root of all evil. From which two adages it may be safe to infer that the afore said species of tree first degenerated into a shrub, then absconded underground, and finally, in our iron age, vanished altogether. In favor able exposures it may be conjectured that a specimen or two survived to a great age, as in the garden of the Hesperides ; and, indeed, what else could that tree in the {Sixth ^Eneid have been, with a branch whereof the Trojan hero procured admission to a territory, for the entering of which money is a surer passport than to a certain other more profitable and too foreign kingdom ? Whether these speculations of mine have any force in them, or whether they will not rather, by most readers, be deemed impertinent to the matter in hand, is a question which I leave to the determination of an indulgent posterity. That there were, in more primitive and happier times, shops where money was sold, and that, too, on credit and at a bargain, I take to be matter of demon stration. For what but a dealer in this article was that ^Eolus who supplied Ulysses with motive-power for his fleet in bags ? what that Ericus, King of Sweden, who is said to have kept the winds in his cap ? what, in more re cent times, those Lapland Nornas who traded in favorable breezes ? All which will appear the more clearly when we consider, that, even to this day, raising the wind is proverbial for rais ing money, and that brokers and banks were invented by the Venetians at a later period. And now for the improvement of this digres sion. I find a parallel to Mr. Sawin s fortune in an adventure of my own. For, shortly after I had first broached to myself the before-stated natural-historical and archasological theories, as I was passing, hcec negotia penitus mecum revol- vens, through one of the obscure suburbs of our New England metropolis, my eye was attracted by these words upon a signboard, CHEAP CASH-STORE. Here was at once the confirma tion of my speculations, and the substance of my hopes. Here lingered the fragment of a happier past, or stretched out the first tremulous organic filament of a more fortunate future. Thus glowed the distant Mexico to the eyes of Sawin, as he looked through the dirty pane of the recruiting-office window, or speculated from the summit of that mirage-Pisgah which the imps of the bottle are so cunning to raise up. Al ready had my Alnaschar-fancy (even during that first half-believing glance) expended in vari ous useful directions the funds to be obtained by pledging the manuscript of a proposed vol ume of discourses. Already did a clock orna ment the tower of the Jaalam meeting-house, a gift appropriately, but modestly, commemorated in the parish and town records, both, for now many years, kept by myself. Already had my son Seneca completed his course at the Univer sity. Whether, for the moment, we may not be considered as actually lording it over those Ba- ratarias with the viceroyalty of which Hope in vests us, and whether we are ever so warmly housed as in our Spanish castles, would afford matter of argument. Enough that I found that signboard to be no other than a bait to the trap of a decayed grocer. Nevertheless, I bought a pound of dates (getting short weight by reason of immense flights of harpy flies who pursued and lighted upon their prey even in the very scales), which purchase I made not only with an eye to the little ones at home, but also as a fig urative reproof of that too frequent habit of my mind, which, forgetting the due order of chro nology, will often persuade me that the happy sceptre of Saturn is stretched over this Astrsea- forsaken nineteenth century. Having glanced at the ledger of Glory under the title Sawin, B., let us extend our investiga tions, and discover if that instructive volume does not contain some charges more personally interesting to ourselves. I think we should be more economical of our resources, did we thoroughly appreciate the fact, that, whenever Brother Jonathan seems to be thrusting his hand into his own pocket, he is, in fact, picking ours. I confess that the late muck which the country has been running has materially changed my views as to the best method of raising revenue. If, by means of direct taxation, the bills for every extraordinary outlay were brought under our immediate eye, so that, like thrifty housekeepers, we could see where and how fast the money was going, we should be less likely to commit extravagances. At present, these things are managed in such a hugger-mugger way, that we know not what we pay for ; the poor man is charged as much as the rich ; and, while we are saving and scrimping at the spigot, the government is drawing off at the bung. If we could know that a part of the money we expend for tea and coffee goes to buy powder and balls, and that it is Mexican blood which makes the clothes on our backs more costly, it would set some of us athinking. During the present fall, I have often pictured to myself a government official entering my study and hand ing me the following bill : WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 1848. REV. HOMER WLLBUR to SEnric Dr. To his share of work done in Mexico on partner ship account, sundry jobs, as below. " killing, maiming and wounding about 5,000 Mexicans ............ $2.00 " slaughtering one woman carrying water to wounded ............. 10 " extra work on two different Sabbaths (one bombardment and one assault), whereby the Mexicans were prevented from defiling themselves with the idolatries of high mass 3.50 " throwing an especially fortunate and Prot estant bombshell into the Cathedral at Vera Cruz, whereby several female Papists were slain at the altar .......... 50 " his proportion of cash paid for conquered ter ritory ............. 1.75 " do. do. for conquering do ........ 1.50 " manuring do. with new superior compost called " American Citizen " .50 212 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Brought forward $9-85 To extending the area of freedom and Protes tantism 01 " glory 01 $9.87 Immediate payment is requested, N. B. Thankful for former favors, IT. S. requests a continuance of patronage. Orders executed with neatness and despatch. Terms as low as those of any other contractor for the same kind and style of work. I can fancy the official answering my look of horror with "Yes, Sir, it looks like a high charge, Sir ; but in these days slaughtering is slaughtering." Verily, I would that every one understood that it was ; for it goes about obtain ing money under the false pretence of being glory. For me, I have an imagination which plays me uncomfortable tricks. It happens to me sometimes to see a slaughterer on his way home from his day s work, and forthwith my imagination puts a cocked-hat upon his head and epaulettes upon his shoulders, and sets him up as a candidate for the Presidency. So, also, on a recent public occasion, as the place assigned to the "Reverend Clergy" is just behind that of " Officers of the Army and Navy " in pro cessions, it was my fortune to be seated at the dinner-table over against one of these respecta ble persons. He was arrayed as (out of his own profession) only kings, court-officers, and foot men are in Europe, and Indians in America. NOAV what does my over-officious imagination but set to work upon him, strip him of his gay livery, and present him to me coatless, his trousers thrust into the tops of a pair of boots thick with clotted blood, and a basket on his arm out of which lolled a gore-smeared axe, thereby de stroying my relish for the temporal mercies upon the board before me ! H. W.] No. IX A THIRD LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ. the following letter slender comment will be needful. In what river Selemnus has Mr. Sawin bathed, that he has become so swiftly oblivious of his former loves ? From an ardent and (as befits a soldier) confident wooer of that coy bride, the popular favor, we see him subside of a sudden into the (I trust not jilted) Cincinnatus, returning to his plough with a goodly sized branch of willow in his hand; fig uratively returning, however, to a figurative plough, and from no profound affection for that honored implement of husbandry (for which, indeed, Mr. Sawin never displayed any decided predilection), but in order to be gracefully sum moned therefrom to more congenial labors. It should seem that the character of the ancient Dictator had become part of the recognized stock of our modern political comedy, though, as our term of office extends to a quadrennial length, the parallel is not so minutely exact as could be desired. It is sufficiently so, however, for purposes of scenic representation. An hum ble cottage (if built of logs, the better) forms the Arcadian background of the stage. This rustic paradise is labelled Ashland, Jaalam, North Bend, Marshfield, Kinderhook, or Baton Rouge, as occasion demands. Before the door stands a something with one handle (the other painted in proper perspective), which represents, in happy ideal vagueness, the plough. To this the defeated candidate rushes with delirious joy, welcomed as a father by appropriate groups of happy laborers, or from it the successful one is torn with difficulty, sustained alone by a noble sense of public duty. Only I have ob served, that, if the scene be laid at Baton Rouge or Ashland, the laborers are kept care fully in the background, and are heard to shout from behind the scenes in a singular tone re sembling ululation, and accompanied by a sound not unlike vigorous clapping. This, however, may be artistically in keeping with the habits of the rustic population of those localities. The precise connection between agricultural pursuits and statesmanship I have not been able, after diligent inquiry, to discover. But, that my in vestigations may not be barren of all fruit, I will mention one curious statistical fact, which I consider thoroughly established, namely, that no real farmer ever attains practically beyond a seat in the General Court, however theoret ically qualified for more exalted station. It is probable that some other prospect has been opened to Mr. Sawin, and that he has not made this great sacrifice without some definite understanding in regard to a seat in the cabinet or a foreign mission. It maybe supposed that we of Jaalam were not untouched by a feeling of villatic pride in beholding our townsman occu pying so large a space in the public eye. And to me, deeply revolving the qualifications necessary to a candidate in these frugal times, those of Mr. S. seemed peculiarly adapted to a successful campaign. The loss of a leg, an arm. an eye, and four fingers reduced him so nearly to the condition of a vox et prceterea nihil that I could think of nothing but the loss of his head by which his chance could have been bettered. But since he has chosen to balk our suffrages, we must content ourselves with what we can get, remembering lactucas non esse dandas, dum cardui sufficiant. H. W.] I SPOSE you recollect thet I explained my gennle views In the last billet thet I writ, way down frum Veery Cruze, Jest arter I d a kin o ben spontanously sot up To run unannermously fer the Preserden- tial cup; THE BIGLOW PAPERS 213 O course it worn t no wish o mine, t wuz ferflely distressing But poppiler enthusiasm gut so almighty pressin Thet, though like sixty all along I fumed an fussed an sorrered, There didn t seem no ways to stop their bringin on me forrerd: Fact is, they udged the matter so, I could n t help admittin The Father o his Country s shoes no feet but mine ould fit in, Besides the savin o the soles fer ages to succeed, Seein thet with one wannut foot, a pair d be more n I need; AJI , tell ye wut, them shoes 11 want a thund rin sight o patchin , Ef this ere fashion is to last we ve gut into o hatchin A pair o second Washintons fer every new election, Though, fer ez number one s consarned, I don t make no objection. I wuz agoin on to say thet wen at fust I saw The masses would stick to t I wuz the Country s father- n-law, (They would ha hed it Father, but I told em t would n t du, Coz thet wuz sutthin of a sort they could n t split in tu, An Washinton hed hed the thing laid fairly to his door, Nor darsn t say t worn t his n, much ez sixty year afore,) But t aint no matter ez to thet; wen I wuz nomernated, T worn t natur but wut I should feel con- sid able elated, An wile the hooraw o the thing wuz kind o noo an fresh, I thought our ticket would ha caird the country with a resh. Sence I ve come hum, though, an looked round, I think I seem to find Strong argimunts ez thick ez fleas to make me change my mind; It s clear to any one whose brain aint fur gone in a phthisis, Thet hail Columby s happy land is goin thru a crisis, An* twould n t noways du to hev the people s mind distracted By bein all to once by sev ral pop lar names attackted; T would save holl haycartloads o fuss an* three four months o jaw, Ef some illustrous paytriot should back out an withdraw; So, ez I aint a crooked stick, jest like like ole (I swow, I dunno ez I know his name) I 11 go back to my plough. Wenever an Amerikin distinguished poli- tishin Begins to try et wut they call definin his posishin, Wai, I, fer one, feel sure he aint gut nothin to define; It s so nine cases out o ten, but jest that tenth is mine; An t aint no more n is proper n right in sech r, sitooation To hint the course you think 11 be the savin o the nation; To funk right out o p lit cal strife aint thought to be the thing, Without you deacon off the toon you want your folks should sing; So I edvise the noomrous friends thet s in one boat with me To jest up killick, jam right down their helium hard alee, Haul the sheets taut, an , layin out upon the Suthun tack, Make fer the safest port they can, wich, / think, is Ole Zack. Next thing you 11 want to know, I spose, wut argimunts I seem To see thet makes me think this ere 11 be the strongest team; Fust place, I ve ben consid ble round in bar-rooms an saloons Agetherin public sentiment, inongst Dem- mercrats and Coons, An t aint ve y offen thet I meet a chap but wut goes in Fer Rough an Ready, fair an square, hufs, taller, horns, an skin; I don t deny but wut, fer one, ez fur ez I could see, I did n t like at fust the Pheladelphy nom- ernee: I could ha pinted to a man thet wuz, I guess, a peg Higher than him, a soger, tu, an with a wooden leg; 214 THE BIGLOW PAPERS But every day with more an* more o Tay lor zeal I m burnin , Seein wich way the tide thet sets to office is aturnin ; Wy, into Bellers s we notched the votes down on three sticks, T wuz Birdofredum one, Cass aught, an Taylor twenty-six, An bein the on y canderdate thet wuz upon the ground, They said t wuz no more n right thet I should pay the drinks all round; Ef I d expected sech a trick, I would n t ha cut my foot By goin an votin fer myself like a con sumed coot; It didn t make no deff rence, though; I wish I may be cust, Ef Bellers wuz n t slim enough to say he would n t trust ! Another pint thet influences the minds o sober jedges Is thet the Gin ral hez n t gut tied hand an foot with pledges; He hez n t told ye wut he is, an so there aint no knowin But wut he may turn out to be the best there is agoin ; This, at the on y spot thet pinched, the shoe directly eases, Coz every one is free to xpect percisely wut he pleases : I want free-trade; you don t; the Gin ral is n t bound to neither; I vote my way; you, yourn; an both air sooted to a T there. Ole Rough an Ready, tu, s a Wig, but without bein ultry; He s like a holsome hayin day, thet s warm, but is n t sultry ; He s jest wut I should call myself, a kin o scratch ez t ware, Thet aint exacly all a wig nor wholly your own hair; I ve ben a Wig three weeks myself, jest o this mod rate sort, An* don t find them an Demmercrats so defferent ez I thought; They both act pooty much alike, an push an scrouge an cus; They re like two pickpockets in league fer Uncle Sam well s pus; Each takes a side, an then they squeeze the ole man in between em, Turn all his pockets wrong side out an quick ez lightnin clean em; To nary one on em I d trust a secon - handed rail No furder off an I could sling a bullock by the tail. Webster sot matters right in thet air Mash- fiel speech o his n ; " Taylor," sez he, " aint nary ways the one thet I d a chizzen, NOT he aint fittin fer the place, an like ez not he aint No more n a tough ole bullethead, an no gret of a saint; But then," sez he, " obsarve my pint, he s jest ez good to vote fer Ez though the greasin on him woru t a thing to hire Choate fer; Aint it ez easy done to drop a ballot in a box Fer one ez t is fer t other, fer the bull-dog ez the fox ? " It takes a mind like Dannel s, fact, ez big ez all ou doors, To find out thet it looks like rain arter it fairly pours; I gree with him, it aint so dreffle trouble some to vote Fer Taylor arter all, it s jest to go an change your coat; Wen he s once greased, you 11 swaller him an never know on t, source, Unless he scratches, goin down, with them ere Gin ral s spurs. I ve ben a votin Demmercrat, ez reg lar as a clock, But don t find goin Taylor gives my narves no gret f a shock; Truth is, the cutest leadin Wigs, ever sence fust they found Wich side the bread gut buttered on, hev kep a edgin round; They kin o slipt the planks frum out th* ole platform one by one An made it gradooally noo, fore folks know d wut wuz done, Till, fur z I know, there aint an inch thet I could lay my han on, But I, or any Demmercrat, feels comf table to stan on, An ole Wig doctrines act lly look, their occ pants bein gone, Lonesome ez s teddies on a mash without no hayricks on. THE BIGLOW PAPERS 215 I spose it s time now I should give my thoughts upon the plan, Thet chipped the shell at Buffalo, o settin up ole Van. I used to vote fer Martin, but, I swan, I m clean disgusted, He aint the man thet I can say is fittin to be trusted; He aint half antislav ry nough, nor I aint sure, ez some be, He d go in fer abolishin the Deestrick o Columby; An , now I come to racollec , it kin o makes me sick z A horse, to think o wut he wuz in eighteen thirty-six. An then, another thing; I guess, though mebby I am wrong, This Buff lo plaster aint agoin to dror al mighty strong; Some folks, I know, hev gut th idee thet No thun dough 11 rise, Though, fore I see it riz an baked, I would n t trust my eyes; T will take more emptins, a long chalk, than this noo party s gut, To give sech heavy cakes ez them a start, I tell ye wut. But even ef they caird the day, there would n t be no endurin To stan upon a platform with sech critters ez Van Buren; An his son John, tu, I can t think how thet ere chap should dare To speak ez he doos; wy, they say he used to cuss an swear ! I spose he never read the hymn thet tells how down the stairs A feller with long legs wuz throwed thet would n t say his prayers. This brings me to another pint: the leaders o the party Aint jest sech men ez I can act along with free an hearty; They aint not quite respectable, an wen a feller s morrils Don t toe the straightest kin o mark, wy, him an me jest quarrils. I went to a free soil meetin once, an wut d ye think I see ? A feller was aspoutin there thet act lly come to me, About two year ago last spring, ez nigh ez I can jedge, An axed me ef I did n t want to sign the Temprunce pledge! He s one o them that goes about an sez you hed n t oughter Drink nothin , mornin , noon, or night, stronger an Taunton water. There s one rule I ve ben guided by, in settlin how to vote, oilers, I take the side thet isn t took by them consarned teetotallers. Ez fer the niggers, I ve ben South, an thet hez changed my min ; A lazier, more ongratef ul set you could n t nowers fin . You know I mentioned in my last thet I should buy a nigger, Ef I could make a purchase at a pooty mod rate figger; So, ez there s nothin in the world I m fonder of an gunnin , I closed a bargain finally to take a feller runnin . I shou dered queen s-arm an stumped out, an wen I come t th swamp, T worn t very long afore I gut upon the nest o Pomp; I come acrost a kin o hut, an , playin round the door, Some little woolly-headed cubs, ez many z six or more. At fust I thought o firm , but think twice is safest oilers; There aint, thinks I, not one on em but s wuth his twenty dollars, Or would be, ef I hed em back into a Christian land, How temptin all on em would look upon an auction-stand! (Not but wut / hate Slavery, in th abstract, stem to starn, I leave it ware our fathers did, a privit State consarn.) Soon z they see me, they yelled an run, but Pomp wuz out ahoein A leetle patch o corn he hed, or else there aint no knowin He would n t ha took a pop at me ; but I hed gut the start, An wen he looked, I vow he groaned ez though he d broke his heart; He done it like a wite man, tu, ez uat ral ez a pictur, The imp dunt, pis nous hypocrite! wus an a boy constrictur. 2l6 THE BIGLOW PAPERS " You can t gum me, I tell ye now, an so you need n t try, I xpect my eye-teeth every mail, so jest shet up," sez I. " Don t go to actin ugly now, or else I 11 let her strip, You d best draw kindly, seem z how I Ve gut ye on the hip; Besides, you darned ole fool, it aint no gret of a disaster To be benev lently druv back to a contented master, Ware you hed Christian priv ledges you don t seem quite aware on, Or you d ha never run away from bein well took care on; Ez fer kin treatment, wy, he wuz so fond on ye, he said He d give a fifty spot right out, to git ye, live or dead; Wite folks aint sot by half ez much; mem ber I run away, Wen I wuz bound to Cap n Jakes, to Mat- tysqumscot Bay; Don know him, likely ? Spose not; wal, the mean old codger went An offered wut reward, think ? Wal, it worn t no less n a cent." Wal, I jest gut em into line, an druv em on afore me; The pis nous brutes, I d no idee o the ill- will they bore me; We walked till som ers about noon, an* then it grew so hot I thought it best to camp awile, so I chose out a spot Jest under a magnoly tree, an there right down I sot; Then I unstrapped my wooden leg, coz it begun to chafe, An laid it down longside o me, supposin all wuz safe; I made my darkies all set down around me in a ring, An sot an kin o ciphered up how much the lot would bring; But, wile I drinked the peaceful cup of a pure heart an min (Mixed with some whiskey, now an then), Pomp he snaked up behin , An creepin grad lly close tu, ez quiet ez a mink, Jest grabbed my leg, an then pulled foot, quicker an you could wink, An , come to look, they each on em hed gut behin a tree, An Pomp poked out the leg a piece, jest so ez I could see, An yelled to me to throw away my pistils an my gun, Or else thet they d cair off the leg, an* fairly cut an run. I vow I did n t b lieve there wuz a decent alligatur Thet hed a heart so destitoot o common human natur; However, ez there worn t no help, I finally give in An heft my arms away to git my leg safe back agin. Pomp gethered all the weapins up, an then he come an grinned, He showed his ivory some, I guess, an sez, " You re fairly pinned ; Jest buckle on your leg agin, an git right up come, T wun t du fer f ammerly men like me to be so long frum hum." At fust I put my foot right down an swore I would n t budge. " Jest ez you choose," sez he, quite cool, " either be shot or trudge." So this black-hearted monster took an act lly druv me back Along the very feetmarks o my happy mornin track, An kep me pris ner bout six months, an worked me, tu, like sin, Till I hed gut his corn an his Carliny taters in; He made me larn him readin , tu (although the crittur saw How much it hut my morril sense to act agin the law), So st he could read a Bible he d gut; an* axedef I could pint The North Star out; but there I put his nose some out o jint, Fer I weeled roun about sou west, an , lookin up a bit, Picked out a middlin shiny one an tole him thet wuz it. Fin lly he took me to the door, an givin me a kick, Sez, " Ef you know wut s best fer ye, be off, now, double-quick; The winter-time s a comin on, an though I gut ye cheap, THE BIGLOW PAPERS 217 You re so darned lazy, I don t think you re hardly wuth your keep; Besides, the childrin s growin up, an you aint jest the model I d like to hev em immertate, an so you d better toddle ! " Now is there any thin on airth 11 ever prove to me Thet renegader slaves like him air fit fer bein free ? D you think they 11 suck me in to jine the Buff lo chaps, an them Rank infidels thet go agin the Scriptur l cus o Shem ? Not by a jugfull ! sooner n thet, I d go thru fire an water; Wen I hev once made up my mind, a meet nhus aint setter; No, not though all the crows thet flies to pick my bones wuz cawin , I guess we re in a Christian land, Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. [Here, patient reader, we take leave of each other, I trust with some mutual satisfaction. I say patient, for I love not that kind which skims dippingly over the surface of the page, as swallows over a pool before rain. By such no pearls shall be gathered. But if no pearls there be (as, indeed, the world is not without example of books wherefrom the longest-winded diver shall bring up no more than his proper handful of mud), yet let us hope than an oyster or two may reward adequate perseverance. If neither pearls nor oysters, yet is patience itself a gem worth diving deeply for. It may seem to some that too much space has been usurped by my own private lucubrations, and some may be fain to bring against me that old jest of him who preached all his hearers out of the meeting-house save only the sexton, who, remaining for yet a little space, from a sense of official duty, at last gave out also, and, pre senting the keys, humbly requested our preacher to lock the doors, when be should have wholly relieved himself of his testimony. I confess to a satisfaction in the self act of preaching, nor do I esteem a discourse to be wholly thrown away even upon a sleeping or unintelligent auditory. I cannot easily believe that the Gos pel of Saint John, which Jacques Cartier or dered to be read in the Latin tongue to the Canadian savages, upon his first meeting with them, fell altogether upon stony ground. For the earnestness of the preacher is a sermon ap preciable by dullest intellects and most alien ears. In this wise did Episcopius convert many to his opinions, who yet understood not the language in which he discoursed. The chief thing is that tbe messenger believe that be has an authentic message to deliver. For counter feit messengers that mode of treatment which Father John de Piano Carpini relates to have prevailed among the Tartars would seem ef fectual, and, perhaps, deserved enough. For my own part, I may lay claim to so much of tbe spirit of martyrdom as would have led me to go into banishment with those clergymen whom Alphpnso tbe Sixth of Portugal drave out of his kingdom for refusing to shorten their pulpit eloquence. It is possible, that, having been in vited into my brother Biglow s desk, I may have been too little scrupulous in using it for tbe venting of my own peculiar doctrines to a congregation drawn together in tbe expectation and with the desire of hearing him. I am not wholly unconscious of a peculiarity of mental organization which impels me, like the railroad-engine with its train of cars, to run backward for a short distance in order to obtain a fairer start. I may compare myself to one fishing from the rocks when the sea runs high, who, misinterpreting the suction of the under tow for the biting of some larger fish, jerks suddenly, and finds that he has caught bottom, hauling in upon the end of bis line a trail of various algce, among which, nevertheless, the naturalist may haply find somewhat to repay the disappointment of the angler. Yet have I conscientiously endeavored to adapt myself to the impatient temper of tbe age, daily degener ating more and more from the high standard of our pristine New England. To the catalogue of lost arts I would mournfully add also that of listening to two-hour sermons. Surely we have been abridged into a race of pygmies. For, truly, in those of the old discourses yet subsist ing to us in print, the endless spinal column of divisions and subdivisions can be likened to nothing so exactly as to the vertebrae of the saurians, whence the theorist may conjecture a race of Anakim proportionate to the withstand ing of these other monsters. I say Anakim rather than Nephelim, because there seem reasons for supposing that the race of those whose heads (though no giants) are constantly enveloped in clouds (which that name imports) will never become extinct. The attempt to vanquish the innumerable heads of one of those afore-mentioned discourses may supply us with a plausible interpretation of the second labor of Hercules, and his successful experiment with fire affords us a useful precedent. But while I lament the degeneracy of the age in this regard, I cannot refuse to succumb to its influence. Looking out through my study- window, I see Mr. Biglow at a distance busy in gathering his Baldwins, of which, to judge by the number of barrels lying about under the trees, his crop is more abundant than my own, by which sight I am admonished to turn to those orchards of the mind wherein my labors may be more prospered, and apply myself dili gently to the preparation of my next Sabbath s discourse. H. W.] 218 THE BIGLOW PAPERS MKLIBCEUS-HIPPONAX THE ttfbfe SECOND SERIES. Ecrriv ap* 6 i&coTKT/ibs cviore TOV KOCT/AOU irapaTroAv LONGINUS. " J aimerois mieubc que mon fils apprinst aux tavernes 4 parler, qu aux esc boles de la parlerie." MONTAIGNE. ,, Unfer pra* iyt aud^ ein pradj unb Jan fo roo^I ein ai nennen al^ Die 2ateiner saccus." FISCHABT. " Vim rebus aliquando ipsa verborum humilitas alfert." " O ma lengo, Plantarey une estelo a toun froun encrumit ! " JASMIN. " Multos enim, quibus loquendi ratio non desit, in- venias, quos curiose potiua loqui dixeris quam Latine ; quomodo et ilia Attica anus Theophrastum, hominem alioqui disertissimum, annotata unius aff ectatioiie verbi, hospitem dixit, nee alio se id deprehendisse interrogata respondit, quam quod nimium Attice loqueretur." QUINTILIANUS. " Et Anglice sermonicari solebat populo, sed secun- dum linguam Norfolchie ubi natus et nutritus erat." CEONICA JOCELJNI. " La politique est une pierre attaches au cou de la litte~rature, et qui en moins de six mois la submerge. . . . Cette politique va offenser mortellement une moitie des lecteurs, et ennuyer 1 autre qui 1 a trouve e bien autreruent spe"ciale et nergique dans le journal du matin." HENBI BEYLE. THE best introduction to the Second Series of the Big-low Papers is to be found in Low ell s prose papers on political topics contributed to the Atlantic Monthly and the North Ameri can Review from 1858 to 1860, some of which have been reprinted in the fifth volume of the Riverside edition of his Writings. Just before Mr. Lincoln s election in 1860 he wrote : " We are approaching 1 a crisis in our domestic pol icy more momentous than any that has arisen since we became a nation." The crisis arrived, and during 1861 his political sagacity, his ar dent patriotism, his moral genius were dis played in a series of essays which did much to enlighten and confirm the roused spirit of the Northern people. But more was wanting of him. His verse could reach more ears than his or any other writer s prose. He was urged to write fresh Biglow Papers, and in a letter dated the last day of the year 1860, Lowell wrote : " As for new Biglow Papers, God knows how I should like to write them, if they would only make me as they did before. But I am so occupied and bothered that I have no time to brood, which with me is as needful a prelimi nary to hatching anything as with a clucking hen. However, I am going to try my hand, and see what comes of it." It was a year, however, before the first of the new series appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, and he wrote of it to Miss Norton : " I have been writing a Biglow Paper, and I feel as nervous about it as a young au thor not yet weaned of public favor. It was clean against my critical judgment, for I don t believe in resuscitations, we hear no good of the posthumous Lazarus, but I may get into the vein and do some good." The first of the series was published in January, 1862, and the stimulus Lowell needed came quickly in the Trent affair, which drew out of him at once Mason and Slidell : a Yankee Idyll, which ap peared in February. " If I am not mistaken," he wrote to Mr. Fields on sending it, "it will take." The third followed in March, and Low ell wrote again to Mr. Fields : " As for the Biglow glad you like it. If not so good as the others, the public will be sure to. I think well of the Fable and believe there is nothing exotic therein. I am going to kill Wilbur before long, and give a would-have-been obituary on him in the American style. That is, for example, he wrote no epic, but if he had, he would have been, etc. I don t know how many of these future-conditional geniuses we have produced many score, certainly. . . . Good-by-yours with a series of Biglows rising, like the visionary kings before Macbeth, to de stroy all present satisfaction." Lowell did not kill Parson Wilbur imme diately. Three more numbers followed, the fourth, fifth, and sixth, in April, May, and June. Then there was an interval when the rustic muse refused to come at a call. " It s no use," the poet wrote June 5, 1862, to Fields, who had evidently been asking for the July portion ; " I reverse the gospel difficulty, and while the flesh is willing enough the spirit is weak. My brain must lie fallow a spell there is no su perphosphate for those worn-out fields. Bet ter no crop than small potatoes. I want to have the passion of the thing on me again and beget lusty Biglows. I am all the more de jected because you have treated me so well. But I must rest awhile. My brain is out of kilter." Mr. Fields returned to the attack the next month, and Lowell wrote him a humorous letter in which he expressed his amazement at having kept his word about the six already written, and had some hopes that two ideas he cherished might come to something. At last he seems to have fallen back on his scheme for putting Parson Wilbur to death, and made it an excuse for the seventh paper, Latest Views of Mr. Biglow, which appeared in The Atlantic for February, 1863. Other occupations at this time THE BIGLOW PAPERS 219 engrossed him, and he again wrote to Mr. Fields, October 18, 1864 : " Firstly, whar s Biglow ? Let echo repeat her customary observation, adding* only that I began one, but it would not go. I had idees in plenty, but all I could do, they would not marry themselves to immortal worse. Not only did I wish to write, for there was a chance of a thousand, but I wanted money so there can be no doubt I was in earnest." It was not till peace was imminent that he wrote again, the moving- tenth satire, which was published in April, 1865. The final paper, called out by the Johnson retrograde movement, was published in The Atlantic for May, 1866. The papers numbered VIII. and IX. did not appear in print until the book was published in the fall of the same year. Lowell more than once spoke of this second series of Biglow Papers as in his judgment better than the first. In a letter to Thomas Hughes twenty years after the book appeared, he wrote as follows: "Pray, who is F. T., who has been writing about me in so friendly a way in the Cornhill ? He is a little out now and then, but strikes me as in the main judi cious. He is wrong about the second part of the Biglow Papers. I think had he read these first, he would have seen they had more per manent qualities than their predecessors, less fun and more humor perhaps. And pray what natural scenery would he have me describe but my own ? If you know him, tell him I think two European birds beat any of ours, the nightin gale and the blackbird. The lark beats any of them also by sentiment and association, though not vocally. I suppose I should have been a more poetical poet if I had not been a profes sor. A poet should feed on nothing but poetry as they used to say a drone could be turned into a queen-bee by a diet of bee-bread." When the book appeared it bore a dedica tion to E. R. Hoar, and was introduced by the essay on the Yankee form of English speech, which, as we have seen, he had long ago pro posed writing. This Introduction is so dis tinctly an essay that it has been thought best to print it as an appendix to this volume, rather than allow it to break in upon the pages of verse. There is, however, one passage in it which may be repeated here, since it bears di rectly upon the poem which serves as a sort of prelude to the series. " The only attempt I had ever made at any thing like a pastoral (if that may be called an attempt which was the result almost of pure accident) was in The Courtin . While the intro duction to the First Series was going through the press, I received word from the printer that there was a blank page left which must be filled. I sat down at once and improvised another fictitious notice of the press, in which, because verse would fill up space more cheaply than prose, I inserted an extract from a sup posed ballad of Mr. Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the printer, as directed, cut it off when the gap was filled. Presently I began to receive letters asking for the rest of it, sometimes for the balance of it. I had none, but to answer such demands, I patched a con clusion upon it in a later edition. Those who had only the first continued to importune me. Afterward, being asked to write it out as an autograph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commis sion Fair, I added other verses, into some of which I infused a little more sentiment in a homely way, and after a fashion completed it by sketching in the characters and making a connected story. Most likely I have spoiled it, but I shall put it at the end of this Introduc tion, to answer once for all those kindly impor- tunings." THE COURTIN GOD makes sech nights, all white an still Fur z you can look or listen, Moonshine an snow on field an hill, All silence an all glisten. Zekle crep up quite unbeknown An peeked in thru the winder, An there sot Huldy all alone, ith no one nigh to hender. A fireplace filled the room s one side With half a cord o wood in There war n t no stoves (tell comfort died) To bake ye to a puddin . The wa nut logs shot sparkles out Towards the pootiest, bless her, An leetle flames danced all about The chiny on the dresser. Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, An in amongst em rusted The ole queen s-arm thet gran ther Young Fetched back f om Concord busted. The very room, coz she was in, Seemed warm f om floor to ceilin , An she looked full ez rosy agin Ez the apples she was peelin . T was kin o kingdom-come to look On sech a blessed cretur, A dogrose blushin to a brook Ain t modester nor sweeter. 22O THE BIGLOW PAPERS He was six foot o man, A 1 , Clear grit an human natur , None could n t quicker pitch a ton Nor dror a furrer straighter. He d sparked it with full twenty gals, Hed squired em, danced em, druv em, Fust this one, an then thet, by spells All is, he could n t love em. But long o her his veins ould run All crinkly like curled maple, The side she breshed felt full o sun Ez a south slope in Ap il. She thought no v ice hed sech a swing Ez hisn in the choir; My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, She knowed the Lord was nigher. An she d blush scarlit, right in prayer, When her new meetin -bunnet Felt somehow thru its crown a pair O blue eyes sot upun it. Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! She seemed to ve gut a new soul, For she felt sartin-sure he d come, Down to her very shoe-sole. She heered a foot, an knowed it tu, A-raspin on the scraper, All ways to once her feelins flew Like sparks in burnt-up paper. He kin o 1 itered on the mat, Some doubtfle o the sekle, His heart kep goin pity-pat, But hern went pity Zekle. An yit she gin her cheer a jerk Ez though she wished him furder, An on her apples kep to work, Parin away like murder. "You want to see my Pa, I s pose ? " " Wai ... no ... I come dasignin " " To see my Ma ? She s sprinklin clo es Agin to-morrer s i nin ." To say why gals acts so or so, Or don t, ould be persumin ; Mebby to mean yes an say no Conies nateral to women. He stood a spell on one foot fust, Then stood a spell on t other, An on which one he felt the wust He could n t ha told ye nuther. Says he, "I d better call agin;" Says she, " Think likely, Mister:" Thet last word pricked him like a pin, An . . . Wai, he up an kist her. When Ma bimeby upon em slips, Huldy sot pale ez ashes, All kin o suaily roun the lips An teary roun the lashes. For she was jes the quiet kind Whose naturs never vary, Like streams that keep a summer mind Snowhid in Jenooary. The blood clost roun her heart felt glued Too tight for all expressing Tell mother see how metters stood, An gin em both her blessin . Then her red come back like the tide Down to the Bay o Fundy, An all I know is they was cried In meetin come nex Sunday. THE BIGLOW PAPERS SECOND SERIES No. I BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW LETTER FROM THE REVEREND HOMER WILBUR, M. A., ENCLOSING THE EPISTLE AFORESAID JAALAM, 15th Nov., 1861. IT is not from any idle wish to obtrude my humble person with undue prominence upon the publick view that I resume my pen upon the present occasion. Juniores ad labores. But having been a main instrument in rescuing the talent of my young parish ioner from being buried in the ground, by giving it such warrant with the world as could be derived from a name already THE BIGLOW PAPERS 221 widely known by several printed discourses (all of which I may be permitted without im modesty to state have been deemed worthy of preservation in the Library of Harvard College by my esteemed friend Mr. Sibley), it seemed becoming that I should not only testify to the genuineness of the following production, but call attention to it, the more as Mr. Biglow had so long been silent as to be in danger of absolute oblivion. I insinuate no claim to any share in the authorship (vix ea nostra voco) of the works already published by Mr. Biglow, but merely take to myself the credit of having fulfilled toward them the office of taster (experto crede), who, having first tried, could afterward bear witness (credenzen it was aptly named by the Germans), an office al ways arduous, and sometimes even danger ous, as in the case of those devoted persons who venture their lives in the deglutition of patent medicines (dolus latet in generalibus, there is deceit in the most of them) and thereafter are wonderfully preserved long enough to append their signatures to tes timonials in the diurnal and hebdomadal prints. I say not this as covertly glancing at the authors of certain manuscripts which have been submitted to my literary judg ment (though an epick in twenty-four books on the " Taking of Jericho " might, save for the prudent forethought of Mrs. Wilbur in secreting the same just as I had arrived beneath the walls and was beginning a catalogue of the various horns and their blowers, too ambitiously emulous in longa nimity of Homer s list of ships, might, I say, have rendered frustrate any hope I could entertain vacare Musis for the small remainder of my days), but only the further to secure myself against any imputation of unseemly forthputting. I will barely sub join, in this connexion, that, whereas Job was left to desire, in the soreness of his heart, that his adversary had written a book, as perchance misanthropically wish ing to indite a review thereof, yet was not Satan allowed so far to tempt him as to send Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar each with an unprinted work in his wallet to be sub mitted to his censure. But of this enough. Were I in need of other excuse, I might add that I write by the express desire of Mr. Biglow himself, whose entire winter leisure is occupied, as he assures me, in an swering demands for autographs, a labor exacting enough in itself, and egregiously so to him, who, being no ready penman, cannot sign so much as his name without strange contortions of the face (his nose, even, being essential to complete success) and painfully suppressed Saint- Vitus-dance of every muscle in his body. This, with his having been put in the Commission of the Peace by our excellent Governor (0, si sic omnes /) immediately on his accession to office, keeps him continually employed. Hand inexpertus loquor, having for many years written myself J. P., and being not seldom applied to for specimens of my chi- rography, a request to which I have some times over weakly assented, believing as I do that nothing written of set purpose can properly be called an autograph, but only those unpremeditated sallies and lively runnings which betray the fireside Man in stead of the hunted Notoriety doubling on his pursuers. But it is time that I should bethink me of St. Austin s prayer, libera me a meipso, if I would arrive at the matter in hand. Moreover, I had yet another reason for taking up the pen myself. I am informed that " The Atlantic Monthly " is mainly in debted for its success to the contributions and editorial supervision of Dr. Holmes, whose excellent "Annals of America" occupy an honored place upon my shelves. The journal itself I have never seen; but if this be so, it might seem that the recom mendation of a brother-clergyman (though par magis quam similis) should carry a greater weight. I suppose that you have a department for historical lucubrations, and should be glad, if deemed desirable, to for ward for publication my " Collections for the Antiquities of Jaalam," and my (now happily complete) pedigree of the Wilbur family from its fons et origo, the Wild Boar of Ardennes. Withdrawn from the active duties of my profession by the settlement of a colleague-pastor, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus Four-Cor ners, I might find time for further contri butions to general literature on similar topicks. I have made large advances to wards a completer genealogy of Mrs. Wil bur s family, the Pilcoxes, not, if I know myself, from any idle vanity, but with the sole desire of rendering myself useful in my 222 THE BIGLOW PAPERS day and generation. Nulla dies sine lined. I inclose a meteorological register, a list of the births, deaths, and marriages, and a few me morabilia of longevity in Jaalam East Parish for the last half-century. Though spared to the unusual period of more than eighty years, I find no diminution of my faculties or abatement of my natural vigor, except a scarcely sensible decay of memory and a necessity of recurring to younger eyesight or spectacles for the finer print in Cruden. It would gratify me to make some further provision for declining years from the emoluments of my literary labors. I had intended to effect an insurance on my life, but was deterred therefrom by a circular from one of the offices, in which the sudden death of so large a proportion of the in sured was set forth as an inducement, that it seemed to me little less than a tempting of Providence. Neque in summd inopid levis esse senectus potest, ne sapienti quidem. Thus far concerning Mr. Biglow ; and so much seemed needful (brevis esse laboro) by way of preliminary, after a silence of fourteen years. He greatly fears lest he may in this essay have fallen below himself, well knowing that, if exercise be dangerous on a full stomach, no less so is writing on a full reputation. Beset as he has been on all sides, he could not refrain, and would only imprecate patience till he shall again have " got the hang " (as he calls it) of an accomplishment long disused. The letter of Mr. Sawin was received some time in last June, and others have followed which will in due season be submitted to the pub- lick. How largely his statements are to be depended on, 1 more than merely dubitate. He was always distinguished for a tendency to exaggeration, it might almost be quali fied by a stronger term. Fortiter mentire, aliquid hceret, seemed to be his favorite rule of rhetoric. That he is actually where he says he is the postmark would seem to con firm ; that he was received with the publick demonstrations he describes would appear consonant with what we know of the habits of those regions ; but further than this I venture not to decide. 1 have sometimes suspected a vein of humor in him which leads him to speak by contraries ; but since, in the unrestrained intercourse of private life, I have never observed in him any striking powers of invention, I am the more willing to put a certain qualified faith in the incidents and the details of life and manners which give to his narratives some portion of the interest and entertainment which characterizes a Century Sermon. It may be expected of me that I should say something to justify myself with the world for a seeming inconsistency with my well-known principles in allowing my youngest son to raise a company for the war, a fact known to all through the me dium of the publick prints. I did reason with the young man, but expellas naturam fared, tamen usque recurrit. Having myself been a chaplain in 1812, I could the less wonder that a man of war had sprung from my loins. It was, indeed, grievous to send my Benjamin, the child of my old age ; but after the discomfiture of Manassas, I with my own hands did buckle on his armor, trusting in the great Comforter and Commander for strength according to my need. For truly the memory of a brave son dead in his shroud were a greater staff of my declining years than a living coward (if those may be said to have lived who carry all of themselves into the grave with them), though his days might be long in the land, and he should get much goods. It is not till our earthen vessels are broken that we find and truly possess the treasure that was laid up in them. Migravi in animam meam, I have sought refuge in my own soul ; nor would I be shamed by the heathen comedian with his Nequam illud verbum, bene vult, nisi bene facit. During our dark days, I read constantly in the inspired book of Job, which I believe to contain more food to maintain the fibre of the soul for right living and high thinking than all pagan literature together, though I would by no means vilipend the study of the classicks. There I read that Job said in his despair, even as the fool saith in his heart there is no God, " The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure." (Job xii. 6.) But I sought farther till I found this Scripture also, which I would have those perpend who have striven to turn our Israel aside to the worship of strange gods : " If I did de spise the cause of my man-servant or of my maid-servant when they contended with me, what then shall I do when God riseth up ? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer THE BIGLOW PAPERS 223 him ? " (Job xxxi. 13, 14.) On this text I preached a discourse on the last day of Fasting and Humiliation with general ac ceptance, though there were not wanting one or two Laodicean s who said that I should have waited till the President an nounced his policy. But let us hope and pray, remembering this of Saint Gregory, Vult Deus rogari, vult cogi, vult quddam im- portunitate vinci. We had our first fall of snow on Friday last. Frosts have been unusually backward this fall. A singular circumstance occurred in this town on the 20th October, in the family of Deacon Pelatiah Tinkham. On the previous evening, a few moments be fore family prayers, [The editors of the " Atlantic " find it neces sary here to cut short the letter of their valued correspondent, which seemed calculated rather on the rates of longevity in Jaalam than for less favored localities. They have every encourage ment to hope that he will write again.] With esteem and respect, Your obedient servant, HOMER WILBUR, A. M. IT s some consid ble of a spell sence I hain t writ no letters, An ther s gret changes hez took place in all polit cle metters; Some canderdates air dead an gone, an some hez ben defeated, Which mounts to pooty much the same; fer it s ben proved repeated A betch o bread thet hain t riz once ain t goin to rise agin, An it s jest money throwed away to put the emptins in: But thet s wut folks wun t never larn ; they dunno how to go, Arter you want their room, no more n a bullet-headed beau ; Ther s oilers chaps a-hangin roun thet can t see peatime s past, Mis ble as roosters in a rain, heads down an tails half-mast: It ain t disgraceful bein beat, when a holl nation doos it, But Chance is like an amberill, it don t take twice to lose it. I spose you re kin o cur ous, now, to know why I hain t writ. Wai, I ve ben where a .litt ry taste don t somehow seem to git Th encouragement a feller d think, thet s used to public schools, An where sech things ez paper n ink air clean agin the rules: A kind o vicyvarsy house, built dreffle strong an stout, So s t honest people can t get in, ner t other sort git out, An with the winders so contrived, you d prob ly like the view Better alookin in than out, though it seems sing lar, tu; But then the landlord sets by ye, can t bear ye out o sight, And locks ye up ez reg lar ez an outside door at night. This world is awfle contrary: the rope may stretch your neck Thet mebby kep another chap frum washin* off a wreck; An you may see the taters grow in one poor feller s patch, So small no self-respectin hen thet vallied time ould scratch, So small the rot can t find em out, an then agin, nex door, Ez big ez wut hogs dream on when they re most too fat to snore. But groutin ain t no kin o use ; an ef the fust throw fails, Why, up an try agin, thet s all, the cop pers ain t all tails, Though I hev seen em when I thought they hed n t no more head Than d sarve a nussin Brigadier thet gits some ink to shed. When I writ last, I d ben turned loose by thet blamed nigger, Pomp, Ferlorner than a musquash, ef you d took an dreened his swamp: But I ain t o the meechin kind, thet sets an thinks fer weeks The bottom s out o th univarse coz their own gillpot leaks. I hed to cross bayous an criks, (wal, it did beat all natur ,) Upon a kin o corderoy, fust log, then alligator; Luck ly, the critters warn t sharp-sot; I guess t wuz overruled 224 THE BIGLOW PAPERS They d done their mornin s marketin an gut their hunger cooled; Fer missionaries to the Creeks an runaways are viewed By them an folks ez sent express to be their reg lar food; Wutever t wuz, they laid an snoozed ez peacefully ez sinners, Meek ez disgestin deacons be at ordination dinners ; Ef any on em turned an snapped, I let em kin o taste My live-oak leg, an so, ye see, ther warn t no gret o waste; Fer they found out in quicker time than ef they d ben to college T warn t heartier food then though t wuz made out o the tree o knowledge. But / tell you my other leg hed larned wut pizon-nettle meant, An var ous other usefle things, afore I reached a settlement, An all o me thet wuz n t sore an sendin prickles thru me Wuz jest the leg I parted with in lickin Montezumy : A useful limb it s ben to me, an more of a support Than wut the other hez ben, coz I dror my pension for t. Wai, I gut in at last where folks wuz civer- lized an white, Ez I diskivered to my cost afore t warn t hardly night; Fer z I wuz settin in the bar a-takin sun- thin hot, An feelin like a man agin, all over in one spot, A feller thet sot oppersite, arter a squint at me, Lep up an drawed his peacemaker, an , " Dash it, Sir," suz he, " I m doubledashed ef you ain t him thet stole my yaller chettle, (You re all the stranger thet s around,) so now you ve gut to settle; It ain t no use to argerfy ner try to cut up frisky, I know ye ez I know the smell of ole chain- lightnin whiskey; We re lor-abidin folks down here, we 11 fix ye so s t a bar Would n tech ye with a ten-foot pole; (Jedge, you jest warm the tar;) You 11 think you d better ha gut among a tribe o Mongrel Tartars, fore we ve done showin how we raise our Southun prize tar-martyrs; A moultin fallen cherubim, ef he should see ye, d snicker, Thinkin he warn t a suckemstance. Come, genlemun, le *s liquor; An , Gin ral, when you ve mixed the drinks an chalked em up, tote roun An see ef ther s a feather-bed (thet s borryable) in town. We 11 try ye fair, ole Grafted-Leg, an ef the tar wun t stick, Th ain t not a juror here but wut 11 quit ye double-quick." To cut it short, I wun t say sweet, they gi* me a good dip, (They ain t perfessin Bahptists here,) then give the bed a rip, The jury d sot, an quicker thin a flash they hetched me out, a livin Extemp ry mammoth turkey-chick fer a Fejee Thanksgivin . Thet I felt some stuck up is wut it s nat ral to suppose, When poppylar enthusiasm hed funnished me sech clo es; (Ner t ain t without edvantiges, this kin* o suit, ye see, It s water-proof, an water s wut I like kep out o me;) But nut content with thet, they took a ker- ridge from the fence An rid me roun to see the place, entirely free f expense, With forty- leven new kines o sarse with out no charge acquainted me, Gi me three cheers, an vowed thet I wuz all their f ahncy painted me ; They treated me to all their eggs; (they keep em I should think, Fer sech ovations, pooty long, for they wuz mos distinc ;) They starred me thick z the Milky-Way with indiscrim nit cherity, Fer wut we call reception eggs air sunthin of a rerity; Green ones is plentifle anough, skurce wuth a nigger s getherin , But your dead-ripe ones ranges high fer treatin Nothun bretherin; A spotteder, ring streakeder child the 1 warn t in Uncle Sam s THE BIGLOW PAPERS 225 Holl farm, a cross of striped pig an one o Jacob s lambs; J T wuz Dannil in the lions den, new an enlarged edition, An every thin fust-rate o ts kind; the warn t no impersition. People s impulsiver down here than wut our folks to home be, An kin o go it ith a resh in raisin Hail Columby: Thet s so : an they swarmed out like bees, for your real Southun men s Time is n t o much more account than an ole settin hen s; (They jest work semioccashnally, or else don t work at all, An so their time an tention both air at saci ty s call.) Talk about hospatality ! wut Nothun town d ye know Would take a totle stranger up an treat him gratis so ? You d better b lieve ther s nothin like this spendin days an nights Along ith a dependent race fer civerlizin whites. But this wuz all prelim nary; it s so Gran Jurors here Fin a true bill, a hendier way than ourn, an nut so dear; So arter this they sentenced me, to make all tight n snug, Afore a reg lar court o law, to ten years in the Jug. I did n t make no gret defence : you don t feel much like speakin , When, ef you let your clamshells gape, a quart o tar will leak in: I hev hearn tell o winged words, but pint o fact it tethers The spoutin gift to hev your words tu thick sot on with feathers, An Choate ner Webster would n t ha made an A 1 kin o speech Astride a Southun chestnut horse sharper n a baby s screech. Two year ago they ketched the thief, n seein I wuz innercent, They jest uncorked an le me run, an in my stid the sinner sent To see how he liked pork n pone flavored with wa nut saplin , An nary social priv ledge but a one-boss, starn-wheel chaplin. When I come out, the folks behaved mos gen manly an harnsome; They lowed it would n t be more n right, ef I should cuss n darn some: The Cunnle he apolergized; suz he, "I ll du wut s right, I 11 give ye settisfection now by shootin* ye at sight, An give the nigger (when he s caught), to pay him fer his trickin In gittin the wrong man took up, a most H fired lickin , It s jest the way with all on em, the in consistent critters, They re most enough to make a man blas pheme his mornin bitters; I 11 be your frien thru thick an thin an in all kines o weathers, An all you 11 hev to pay fer s jest the waste o tar an feathers: A lady owned the bed, ye see, a widder, tu, Miss Shennon; It wuz her mite ; we would ha took another, ef ther d ben one: We don t make no charge for the ride an* all the other fixins. Le s liquor; Gin ral, you can chalk our friend for all the mixins." A meetin then wuz called, where they " RESOLVED, Thet we respec B. S. Esquire for quallerties o heart an* intellec Peculiar to Columby s sile, an not to no one else s, Thet makes Eurdpean tyrans scringe in all their gilded pel ces, An doos gret honor to our race an* Southun institootions : " (I give ye jest the substance o the leadin* resolootions :) " RESOLVED, Thet we revere in him a soger thout a flor, A martyr to the princerples o libbaty an* lor : RESOLVED, Thet other nations all, ef sot longside o us, For vartoo, larnin , chivverlry, ain t noways wuth a cuss." They gut up a subscription, tu, but no gret come o ihet; I xpect in cairin of it roun they took a leaky hat; Though Southun genelmun ain t slow at puttin down their name, 226 THE BIGLOW PAPERS (When they can write,) fer in the eend it comes to jes the same, Because, ye see, t s the fashion here to sign an not to think A critter d be so sordid ez to ax em for the chink: I did n t call but jest on one, an he drawed tooth-pick on me, An reckoned he warn t goin to stan no sech dog-gauned econ my; So nothin more wuz realized, ceptin the Food-will shown, t had ben from fust to last a regu lar Cotton Loan. It s a good way, though, come to think, coz ye enjy the sense O lendin lib rally to the Lord, an nary red o xpense : Sence then I ve gut my name up for a gin rous-hearted man By jes subscribin right an left on this high-minded plan; I ve gin away my thousans so to every Southun sort O missions, colleges, an sech, ner ain t no poorer for t. I warn t so bad off, arter all; I needn t hardly mention That Guv ment owed me quite a pile for my arrears o pension, I mean the poor, weak thing we hed : we run a new one now, Thet strings a feller with a claim up ta the nighes bough, An prectises the right o man, purtects down-trodden debtors, Ner wun t hev creditors about ascrougin o their betters: Jeff s gut the last idees ther is, poscrip , fourteenth edition, He knows it takes some enterprise to run an oppersition; Ourn s the fust thru-by-daylight train, with all ou doors for deepot; Yourn goes so slow you d think t wuz drawed by a las cent ry teapot; Wai, I gut all on t paid in gold afore our State seceded, An done wal, for Confed rit bonds warn t jest the cheese I needed: Nut but wut they re ez good ez gold, but then it s hard a-breakin on em, An ignorant folks is oilers sot an wun t git used to takin on em; They re wuth ez much ez wut they wuz afore ole Mem nger signed em, An go off middlin wal for drinks, when ther s a knife behind em; We du miss silver, jes fer thet an ridin in a bus, Now we ve shook off the desputs thet wuz suckin at our pus; An* it s because the South s so rich; t wuz nat ral to expec Supplies o change wuz jes the things we should n t recollec ; We d ough to ha thought aforehan , though, o thet good rule o Crock ett s, For t s tiresome cairin cotton-bales an niggers in your pockets, Ner t ain t quite hendy to pass off one o your six-foot Guineas An git your halves an quarters back in gals an pickaninnies: Wal, t ain t quite all a feller d ax, but then ther s this to say, It s on y jest among ourselves thet we expec to pay; Our system would ha caird us thru in any Bible cent ry, fore this onscripterl plan come up o books by double entry; We go the patriarkle here out o all sight an hearin , For Jacob warn t a suckemstance to Jeff at financierin ; He never d thought o borryin from Esau like all nater An then cornfiscatin all debts to sech a small pertater; There s p litickle econ my, now, combined ith morril beauty Thet saycrifices privit eends (your in iny s, tu) to dooty ! Wy, Jeff d ha gin him five an won his eye-teeth fore he knowed it, An , stid o wastin pottage, he d ha eat it up an owed it. But I wuz goin on to say how I come here to dwall ; Nough said, thet, arter lookin rouii , I liked the place so wal, Where niggers doos a double good, with us atop to stiddy em, By bein proofs o prophecy an suckleatin* medium, Where a man s sunthin coz he s white, an whiskey s cheap ez fleas, THE BIGLOW PAPERS 227 An the financial pollercy jes sooted my idees, Thet I friz down right where I wuz, mer- ried the Widder Shennon, (Her thirds wuz part in cotton-land, part in the curse o Canaan,) An here I be ez lively ez a chipmunk on a wall, With nothin to feel riled about much later n Eddam s fall. Ez fur ez human foresight goes, we made an even trade: She gut an overseer, an I a fem ly ready- made, The youngest on em s mos growed up, rugged an spry ez weazles, So s t ther s no resk o doctors bills fer hoopin -cough an measles. Our farm s at Turkey-Buzzard Roost, Little Big Boosy River, Wai located in all respex, fer t ain t the chills n fever Thet makes my writin seem to squirm; a Southuner d allow I d Some call to shake, for I ve jest hed to meller a new cowhide. Miss S. is all f a lady; th ain t no better on Big Boosy Ner one with more accomplishmunts twixt here an Tuscaloosy; She s an F. F., the tallest kind, an* prouder n the Gran Turk, An never hed a relative thet done a stroke o work; Hern ain t a scrimpin fem ly sech ez you git up Down East, Th ain t a growed member on t but owes his thousuns et the least: She is some old ; but then agin ther s draw backs in my sheer: Wut s left o me ain t more n enough to make a Brigadier: Wust is, thet she hez tantrums ; she s like Seth Moody s gun (Him thet wuz nicknamed frum his limp Ole Dot an Kerry One); He d left her loaded up a spell, an hed to git her clear, So he onhitched, Jeerusalem ! the middie o last year Wuz right nex door compared to where she kicked the critter tu (Though jest where he brought up wuz wut no human never knew); His brother Asaph picked her up an tied her to a tree, An then she kicked an hour n a half afore she d let it be: Wai, Miss S. doos hev cuttins-up an pourius- out o vials, But then she hez her widder s thirds, an all on us hez trials. My objec , though, in writin now warn t to allude to sech, But to another suckemstance more dellykit to tech, I want thet you should grad lly break my merriage to Jerushy, An there s a heap of argymunts thet s emple to indooce ye: Fust place, State s Prison, wal, it s true it warn t fer crime, o course, But then it s jest the same fer her in gittin a disvorce ; Nex place, my State s secedin out hez leg lly lef me free To merry any one I please, pervidin it s a she; Fiu lly, I never wun t come back, she need n t hev no fear on t, But then it s wal to fix things right fer fear Miss S. should hear on t; Lastly, I ve gut religion South, an Rushy she s a pagan Thet sets by th graven imiges o the gret Nothun Dagon; (Now I hain t seen one in six munts, for, sence our Treashry Loan, Though yaller boys is thick anough, eagles hez kind o flown;) An ef J wants a stronger pint than them thet I hev stated, Wy, she s an aliun in my now, an I ve been cornfiscated, For sence we ve entered on th estate o the late nayshnul eagle, She hain t no kin o right but jes wut I allow ez legle: Wut doos Secedin mean, ef t ain t thet nat rul rights hez riz, n Thet wut is mine s my own, but wut s another man s ain t his n ? Besides, I could n t do no else ; Miss S. suz she to me, " You ve sheered my bed," [thet s when I paid my interduction fee To Southun rites,] " an kep your sheer," [wal, I allow it sticked 228 THE BIGLOW PAPERS So s t I wuz most six weeks in jail afore I gut me picked,] "Ner never paid 110 demmiges; but thet wun t do no harm, Pervidin thet you 11 ondertake to oversee the farm: (My eldes boy he s so took up, wut with the Ringtail Rangers An* settin in the Jestice-Court for welcomin o strangers ; ") [He sot on me;] " an so, ef you 11 jest on dertake the care Upon a mod rit sellery, we 11 up an* call it square ; But ef you can t conclude," suz she, an give a kin o grin, Wy, the Gran Jurymen, I xpect, 11 hev to set agin." That s the way metters stood at fust; now wut wuz I to du, But jes to make the best on t an off coat an buckle tu ? Ther ain t a livin man thet finds an income necessarier Than me, bimeby I 11 tell ye how I fin lly come to merry her. She hed another motive, tu: I mention of it here T encourage lads thet s growin up to study V persevere, An show em how much better J t pays to mind their winter-schoolin Than to go off on benders V sech, an waste their time in foolin ; Ef twarn t for studyin evenins, why, I never d ha ben here A orn ment o saciety, in my approprut spear: She wanted somebody, ye see, o taste an* cultivation, To talk along o preachers when they stopt to the plantation ; For folks in Dixie th t read an rite, onless it is by jarks, Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th ori- genle patriarchs ; To fit a feller f wut they call the soshle higherarchy, All thet you ve gut to know is jes beyund an evrage darky; Schoolin s wut they can t seem to stan , they re tu consarned high-pressure, An knowin t much might spile a boy for bein a Secesher. We hain t no settled preachin here, ner ministeril taxes ; The min ster s only settlement s the carpet bag he packs his Razor an soap-brush intu, with his hym- book an his Bible, But they du preach, I swan to man, it s puf kly indescrib le ! They go it like an Ericsson s ten-hoss- power coleric ingine. An make Ole Split-Foot winch an squirm, for all he s used to singein ; Hawkins s whetstone ain t a pinch o primin to the innards To hearin on em put free grace t a lot o tough old sinhards ! But I must eend this letter now : fore long I 11 send a fresh un ; I ve lots o things to write about, pertick- lerly Seceshun : I m called off now to mission-work, to let a leetle law in To Cynthy s hide : an so, till death, Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. No. II MASON AND SLIDELL: A YANKEE IDYLL TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY JAALAM, 6th Jan., 1862. GENTLEMEN, I was highly gratified by the insertion of a portion of my letter in the last number of your valuable and entertain ing Miscellany, though in a type which rendered its substance inaccessible even to the beautiful new spectacles presented to me by a Committee of the Parish on New Year s Day. I trust that I was able to bear your very considerable abridgment of my lucubrations with a spirit becoming a Chris tian. My third granddaughter, Rebekah, aged fourteen years, and whom I have trained to read slowly and with proper em phasis (a practice too much neglected in our modern systems of education), read aloud to me the excellent essay upon " Old Age," the author of which I cannot help suspecting to be a young man who has THE BIGLOW PAPERS 229 never yet known what it was to have snow (canities morosa) upon his own roof. Dis solve frigus, large super foco ligna reponens, is a rule for the young, whose wood-pile is yet abundant for such cheerful lenitives. A good life behind him is the best thing to keep an old man s shoulders from shiver ing at every breath of sorrow or ill-fortune. But methinks it were easier for an old man to feel the disadvantages of youth than the advantages of age. Of these latter I reckon one of the chiefest to be this : that we at tach a less inordinate value to our own pro ductions, and, distrusting daily more and more our own wisdom (with the conceit whereof at twenty we wrap ourselves away from knowledge as with a garment), do reconcile ourselves with the wisdom of God. I could have wished, indeed, that room might have been made for the residue of the anecdote relating to Deacon Tink- ham, which would not only have gratified a natural curiosity on the part of the publick (as I have reason to know from several letters of inquiry already received), but would also, as I think, have largely in creased the circulation of your Magazine in this town. Nihil humani alienum, there is a curiosity about the affairs of our neighbors which is not only pardonable, but even commendable. But I shall abide a more fitting season. As touching the following literary effort of Esquire Biglow, much might be profit ably said on the topick of Idyllick and Pas toral Poetry, and concerning the proper dis tinctions to be made between them, from Theocritus, the inventor of the former, to Collins, the latest authour I know of who has emulated the classicks in the latter style. But in the time of a Civil War worthy a Milton to defend and a Lucan to sing, it may be reasonably doubted whether the publick, never too studious of serious instruction, might not consider other objects more deserving of present attention. Con cerning the title of Idyll, which Mr. Biglow has adopted at my suggestion, it may not .be improper to animadvert, that the name properly signifies a poem somewhat rustick in phrase (for, though the learned are not agreed as to the particular dialect employed by Theocritus, they are universanimous both as to its rusticity and its capacity of rising now and then to the level of more elevated sentiments and expressions), while it is also descriptive of real scenery and manners. Yet it must be admitted that the produc tion now in question (which here and there bears perhaps too plainly the marks of my correcting hand) does partake of the nature of a Pastoral, inasmuch as the interlocutors therein are purely imaginary beings, and the whole is little better than KO.TTVOV <ricias tvap. The plot was, as I believe, suggested by the " Twa Briggs " of Robert Burns, a Scottish poet of the last century, as that found its prototype in the " Mutual Com plaint of Plainstanes and Causey " by Fer- gusson, though the metre of this latter be different by a foot in each verse. Perhaps the Two Dogs of Cervantes gave the first hint. I reminded my talented young pa rishioner and friend that Concord Bridge had long since yielded to the edacious tooth of Time. But he answered me to this effect : that there was no greater mistake of an authour than to suppose the reader had no fancy of his own ; that, if once that faculty was to be called into activity, it were better to be in for the whole sheep than the shoul der ; and that he knew Concord like a book, an expression questionable in propriety, since there are few things with which he is not more familiar than with the printed page. In proof of what he affirmed, he showed me some verses which with others he had stricken out as too much delaying the action, but which I communicate in this place because they rightly define " punkin- seed " (which Mr. Bartlett would have a kind of perch, a creature to which I have found a rod or pole not to be so easily equivalent in our inland waters as in the books of arithmetic), and because it con veys an eulogium on the worthy son of an excellent father, with whose acquaintance (eheu, fugaces anni / ) I was formerly hon oured. " But nowadays the Bridge ain t wut they show, So much ez Em son, Hawthorne, an Thoreau. I know the village, though ; was sent there once A-schoolin , cause to home I played the dunce ; An I ve ben sence a visitin the Jedge, Whose garding whispers with the river s edge, Where I ve sot raornin s lazy as the bream, Whose on y business is to head up-stream, (We call era punkin-seed,) or else in chat Along th the Jedge, who covers with his hat More wit an gumption an shrewd Yankee sense Than there is mosses on an ole stone fence," 230 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Concerning the subject-matter of the verses, I have not the leisure at present to write so fully as I could wish, my time being occupied with the preparation of a discourse for the forthcoming bicentenary celebration of the first settlement of Jaa- lam East Parish. It may gratify the pub- lick interest to mention the circumstance, that my investigations to this end have en abled me to verify the fact (of much his- torick importance, and hitherto hotly de bated) that Shearjashub Tarbox was the first child of white parentage born in this town, being named in his father s will under date August 7th, or 9th, 1662. It is well known that those who advocate the claims of Mehetable Goings are unable to find any trace of her existence prior to Oc tober of that year. As respects the settle ment of the Mason and Slidell question, Mr. Biglow has not incorrectly stated the popular sentiment, so far as I can judge by its expression in this locality. For myself, I feel more sorrow than resentment: for I am old enough to have heard those talk of England who still, even after the unhappy estrangement, could not unschool their lips from calling her the Mother-Country. But England has insisted on ripping up old wounds, and has undone the healing work of fifty years; for nations do not reason, they only feel, and the spretce injuria formce rankles in their minds as bitterly as in that of a woman. And because this is so, I feel the more satisfaction that our Government has acted (as all Governments should, standing as they do between the people and their passions) as if it had arrived at years of discretion. There are three short and simple words, the hardest of all to pro nounce in any language (and I suspect they were no easier before the confusion of tongues), but which no man or nation that cannot utter can claim to have arrived at manhood. Those words are, I was wrong- and I am proud that, while England played the boy, our rulers had strength enough from the People below and wisdom enough from God above to quit themselves like men. The sore points on both sides have been skilfully exasperated by interested and un scrupulous persons, who saw in a war be tween the two countries the only hope of profitable return for their investment in Confederate stock, whether political or financial. The always supercilious, often insulting, and sometimes even brutal tone of British journals and publick men has certainly not tended to soothe whatever resentment might exist in America. 4 Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, But why did you kick me down stairs ? " We have no reason to complain that England, as a necessary consequence of her clubs, has become a great society for the minding of other people s business, and we can smile good-naturedly when she lectures other nations on the sins of arrogance and conceit; but we may justly consider it a breach of the political convenances which are expected to regulate the intercourse of one well-bred government with another, when men holding places in the ministry allow themselves to dictate our domestic policy, to instruct us in our duty, and to stigmatize as unholy a war for the rescue of whatever a high-minded people should hold most vital and most sacred. Was it in good taste, that I may use the mild est term, for Earl Russell to expound our own Constitution to President Lincoln, or to make a new and fallacious application of an old phrase for our benefit, and tell us that the Rebels were fighting for indepen dence and we for empire ? As if all wars for independence were by nature just and deserving of sympathy, and all wars for empire ignoble and worthy only of repro bation, or as if these easy phrases in any way characterized this terrible struggle, terrible not so truly in any superficial sense, as from the essential and deadly enmity of the principles that underlie it. His Lordship s bit of borrowed rhetoric would justify Smith O Brien, Nana Sahib, and the Maori chieftains, while it would condemn nearly every war in which Eng land has ever been engaged. Was it so very presumptuous in us to think that it would be decorous in English statesmen if they spared time enough to acquire some kind of knowledge, though of the most ele mentary kind, in regard to this country and the questions at issue here, before they pronounced so off-hand a judgment ? Or is political information expected to come Dogberry-fashion in England, like reading and writing, by nature ? THE BIGLOW PAPERS 231 And now all respectable England is won dering at our irritability, and sees a quite satisfactory explanation of it in our na tional vanity. Suave marimagno, it is pleas ant, sitting in the easy-chairs of Downing Street, to sprinkle pepper on the raw wounds of a kindred people struggling for life, and philosophical to find in self-conceit the cause of our instinctive resentment. Surely we were of all nations the least liable to any temptation of vanity at a time when the gravest anxiety and the keenest sor row were never absent from our hearts. Nor is conceit the exclusive attribute of any one nation. The earliest of English travel lers, Sir John Mandeville, took a less pro vincial view of the matter when he said, " For fro what partie of the erthe that men duellen, other aboveu or beneathen, it sem- ethe alweys to hem that duellen that thei gon more righte than any other folke." The English have always had their fair share of this amiable quality. We may say of them still, as the authour of the " Lettres Cabalistiques " said of them more than a century ago, " Ces derniers disent naturellement qu il n y a qu eux qui soient esti- mables." And, as he also says, " J aimerois presque autant tomber entre les mains d un Inquisiteur que d un Anglois qui me fait sentir sans cesse combien il s estime plus que moi, et qui ne daigne me parler que pour injurier ma Nation et pour m ennuyer du recit des grandes qualites de la sienne." Of this Bull we may safely say with Horace, habetfcenum in cornu. What we felt to be especially in sulting was the quiet assumption that the descendants of men who left the Old World for the sake of principle, and who had made the wilderness into a New World patterned after an Idea, could not possibly be suscep tible of a generous or lofty sentiment, could have no feeling of nationality deeper than that of a tradesman for his shop. One would have thought, in listening to Eng land, that we were presumptuous in fancy ing that we were a nation at all, or had any other principle of union than that of booths at a fair, where there is no higher notion of government than the constable, or better image of God than that stamped upon the current coin. It is time for Englishmen to consider whether there was nothing in the spirit of their press and of their leading public men calculated to rouse a just indignation, and to cause a permanent estrangement on the part of any nation capable of self-respect, and sensitively jealous, as ours then was, of foreign interference. Was there nothing in the indecent haste with which belligerent rights were conceded to the Rebels, nothing in the abrupt tone assumed in the Trent case, nothing in the fitting out of Confeder ate privateers, that might stir the blood of a people already overcharged with doubt, suspicion, and terrible responsibility ? The laity in any country do not stop to consider points of law, but they have an instinctive perception of the animus that actuates the policy of a foreign nation ; and in our own case they remembered that the British authorities in Canada did not wait till di plomacy could send home to England for her slow official tinder-box to fire the "Car oline." Add to this, what every sensible American knew, that the moral support of England was equal to an army of two hun dred thousand men to the Rebels, while it insured us another year or two of exhaust ing war. It was not so much the spite of her words (though the time might have been more tastefully chosen) as the actual power for evil in them that we felt as a deadly wrong. Perhaps the most imme diate and efficient cause of mere irritation was the sudden and unaccountable change of manner on the other side of the water. Only six months before, the Prince of Wales had come over to call us cousins ; and every where it was nothing but " our American brethren," that great offshoot of British institutions in the New World, so almost identical with them in laws, language, and literature, this last of the alliterative compliments being so bitterly true, that perhaps it will not be retracted even now. To this outburst of long-repressed affection we responded with genuine warmth, if with something of the awkwardness of a poor relation bewildered with the sudden tighten ing of the ties of consanguinity when it is rumored that he has come into a large estate. Then came the Rebellion, and, presto I a flaw in our titles was discovered, the plate we were promised at the family table is flung at our head, and we were again the scum of creation, intolerably vulgar, at once cowardly and overbearing, no rela tions of theirs, after all, but a dreggy hy- 232 THE BIGLOW PAPERS brid of the basest bloods of Europe. Panurge was not quicker to call Friar Johii his former friend. I cannot help thinking of Walter Mapes s jingling paraphrase of Pe- tronius, * Dummodo sim splendidis vestibus ornatus, Et multa familia sim cireumvallatus, Prudens sum et sapiens et morigeratus, Et tuus nepos sum et tu meus cognatus," which I may freely render thus : So long as I was prosperous, I d dinners by the dozen, Was well-bred, witty, virtuous, and everybody s cousin ; If luck should turn, as well she may, her fancy is so flexile, Will virtue, eousinship, and all return with her from exile ? There was nothing in all this to exasper ate a philosopher, much to make him smile rather; but the earth s surface is not chiefly inhabited by philosophers, and I revive the recollection of it now in perfect good-hu mour, merely by way of suggesting to our ci-devant British cousins, that it would have been easier for them to hold their tongues than for us to keep our tempers under the circumstances. The English Cabinet made a blunder, unquestionably, in taking it so hastily for granted that the United States had fallen for ever from their position as a first-rate power, and it was natural that they should vent a little of their vexation on the people whose inexplicable obstinacy in maintaining free dom and order, and in resisting degradation, was likely to convict them of their mistake. But if bearing a grudge be the sure mark of a small mind in the individual, can it be a proof of high spirit in a nation ? If the result of the present estrangement between the two countries shall be to make us more independent of British twaddle (Indomito nee dira ferens stipendia Tauro), so much the better; but if it is to make us insensible to the value of British opinion in matters where it gives us the judgment of an im partial and cultivated outsider, if we are to shut ourselves out from the advantages of English culture, the loss will be ours, and not theirs. Because the door of the old homestead has been once slammed in our faces, shall we in a huff reject all future advances of conciliation, and cut ourselves foolishly off from any share in the human izing influences of the place, with its in effable riches of association, its heirlooms of immemorial culture, its historic monu ments, ours no less than theirs, its noble gallery of ancestral portraits ? We have only to succeed, and England will not only respect, but, for the first time, begin to understand us. And let us not, in our jus tifiable indignation at wanton insult, forget that England is not the England only of snobs who dread the democracy they do not comprehend, but the England of history, of heroes, statesmen, and poets, whose names are dear, and their influence as salutary to us as to her. Let us strengthen the hands of those in authority over us, and curb our own tongues, remembering that General Wait commonly proves in the end more than a match for General Headlong, and that the Good Book ascribes safety to a multitude, indeed, but not to a mob, of counsellours. Let us remember and perpend the words of Paulus Emilius to the people of Rome ; that, " if they judged they could manage the war to more advantage by any other, he would willingly yield up his charge ; but if they confided in him, they were not to make themselves his colleagues in his office, or raise reports, or criticise his actions, but, with out talking, supply him with means and assist ance necessary to the carrying on of the war for, if they proposed to command their own commander, they would render this expedition more ridiculous than the former." (Vide Plutarchum in Vita P. E.} Let us also not forget what the same excellent authour says concerning Perseus s fear of spending money, and not permit the covetousness of Brother Jonathan to be the good fortune of Jefferson Davis. For my own part, till I am ready to admit the Commander-in- Chief to my pulpit, I shall abstain from planning his battles. If courage be the sword, yet is patience the armour of a nation ; and in our desire for peace, let us never be willing to surrender the Constitu tion bequeathed us by fathers at least as wise as ourselves (even with Jefferson Davis to help us), and, with those degenerate Romans, tuta et prcesentia quam vetera et periculosa matte. And not only should we bridle our own tongues, but the pens of others, which are swift to convey useful intelligence to the THE BIGLOW PAPERS 233 enemy. This is no new inconvenience ; for, under date, 3d June, 1745, General Pep- perell wrote thus to Governor Shirley from Louisbourg : " What your Excellency ob serves of the army s being made acquainted with any plans proposed, until ready to be put in execution, has always been disagree able to me, and I have given many cautions relating to it. But when your Excellency considers that our Council of War consists of more than twenty members, I am persuaded you will think it impossible for me to hinder it, if any of them will persist in communi cating to inferior officers and soldiers what ought to be kept secret. I am informed that the Boston newspapers are filled with paragraphs from private letters relating to the expedition. Will your Excellency per mit me to say I think it may be of ill con sequence ? Would it not be convenient, if your Excellency should forbid the Printers inserting such news ? " Verily, if tempora mutantur, we may question the et nos mu- tamur in illis ; and if tongues be leaky, it will need all hands at the pumps to save the Ship of State. Our history dotes and repeats itself. If Sassy cus (rather than Alcibiades) find a parallel in Beauregard, so Weakwash, as he is called by the brave Lieutenant Lion Gardiner, need not seek far among our own Sachems for his anti type. With respect, Your ob humble serv*, HOMER WILBUR, A. M. I LOVE to start out arter night s begun, An all the chores about the farm are done, The critters milked an foddered, gates shet fast, Tools cleaned aginst to-morrer, supper past, An Nancy darnin by her ker sene lamp, I love, I say, to start upon a tramp, To shake the kinkles out o back an legs, An kind o rack my life off from the dregs Thet s apt to settle in the buttery-hutch Of folks thet foller in one rut too much : Hard work is good an wholesome, past all doubt ; But t ain t so, ef the mind gits tuckered out. Now, bein born in Middlesex, you know, There s certin spots where I like best to go: The Concord road, for instance (I, for one, Most gin lly oilers call it John Bull s Run), The field o Lexiu ton where England tried The fastest colours thet she ever dyed, An Concord Bridge, thet Davis, when he came, Found was the bee-line track to heaven an fame, Ez all roads be by natur , ef your soul Don t sneak thru shuu-pikes so s to save the toll. They re most too fur away, take too much time To visit of en, ef it ain t in rhyme ; But the s a walk thet s hendier, a sight, An suits me fust-rate of a winter s night, I mean the round whale s-back o Prospect Hill. I love to Piter there while night grows still, An in the twinklin villages about, Fust here, then there, the well-saved lights goes out, An nary sound but watch - dogs false alarms, Or muffled cock-crows from the drowsy farms, Where some wise rooster (men act jest thet way) Stands to t thet moon-rise is the break o day : (So Mister Seward sticks a three-months pin Where the war d oughto eend, then tries agin ; My gran ther s rule was safer n tis to crow : Don t never prophesy onless ye know.) I love to muse there till it kind o seems Ez ef the world went eddyin off in dreams; The northwest wind thet twitches at my baird Blows out o sturdier days not easy scared, An the same moon thet this December shines Starts out the tents an booths o Putnam s lines ; The rail-fence posts, acrost the hill thet runs, Turn ghosts o sogers should rin ghosts o guns ; Ez wheels the sentry, glints a flash o light, Along the firelock won at Concord Fight, 234 THE BIGLOW PAPERS An , twixt the silences, now fur, now nigh, Rings the sharp chellenge, hums the low reply. Ez I was settin so, it warn t long sence, Mixin the puffict with the present tense, I heerd two voices som ers in the air, Though, ef I was to die, I can t tell where: Voices I call em: t was a kind o sough Like pine-trees thet the wind s ageth rin through ; An , fact, I thought it was the wind a spell, Then some misdoubted, could n t fairly tell, Fust sure, then not, jest as you hold an eel, I knowed, an did n t, fin lly seemed to feel T was Concord Bridge a talkin off to kill With the Stone Spike thet s druv thru Bunker s Hill ; Whether t was so, or ef I ou y dreamed, I could n t say; I tell it ez it seemed. THE BRIDGE Wai, neighbor, tell us wut s turned up thet s new ? You re younger n I be, nigher Bos ton, tu : An down to Boston, ef you take their showin , Wut they don t know ain t hardly wuth the knowin*. There s sunthin goin on, I know : las night The British sogers killed in our gret fight (Nigh fifty year they hedn t stirred nor spoke) Made sech a coil you d thought a dam hed broke : Why, one he up an beat a revellee With his own crossbones on a holler tree, Till all the graveyards swarmed out like a hive With faces I hain t seen sence Seventy- five. Wut is the news ? T ain t good, or they d be cheerin . Speak slow an clear, for I m some hard o hearin . THE MONIMENT I don t know hardly ef it s good or bad, THE BRIDGE At wust, it can t be wus than wut we ve had. THE MONIMENT You know them envys thet the Rebbles sent, Aii Cap n Wilkes he berried o the Trent ? THE BRIDGE Wut ! they ha n t hanged em ? Then their wits is gone ! Thet s the sure way to make a goose a swan ! THE MONIMENT No : England she would hev em, Fee, Faw, Fum! (Ez though she hed n t fools enough to home,) So they ve returned em THE BRIDGE Hev they ? Wai, by heaven, Thet s the wust news I ve heerd sence Seventy-seven ! By George, I meant to say, though I de clare It s most enough to make a deacon swear, THE MONIMENT Now don t go off half-cock : folks never gains By usin Come, sn pepper-sarse instid o brains. , neighbor, you don t understan THE BRIDGE How ? Hey ? Not understan ? Why, wut s to heiider, pray? Must I go huntin round to find a chap To tell me when my face hez hed a slap ? THE MONIMENT See here : the British they found out a flaw In Cap n Wilkes s readin o the law : (They make all laws, you know, an so, o course, It s nateral they should understan their force :) He d oughto ha took the vessel into port, An hed her sot on by a reg lar court ; She was a mail-ship, an a steamer, tu, An thet, they say, hez changed the pint o ! view, Coz the old practice, bein meant for sails, Ef tried upon a steamer, kind o fails ; THE BIGLOW PAPERS 2 35 You may take out despatches, but you mus n t Take nary man THE BRIDGE You mean to say, you dus n t ! Changed pint o view ! No, no, it s overboard With law an gospel, when their ox is gored ! I tell ye, England s law, on sea an land, Hez oilers ben, " / ve gut the heaviest hand." Take nary man ? Fine preachin from her lips! Why, she hez taken hunderds from our An would agin, an swear she had a right to, Ef we warn t strong enough to be per- lite to. Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind, England doos make the most onpleasant kind: It s you re the sinner oilers, she s the saint ; Wut s good s all English, all thet is n t ain t ; Wut profits her is oilers right an just, An ef you don t read Scriptur so, you must ; She s praised herself ontil she fairly thinks There ain t no light in Natur when she winks ; Hain t she the Ten Comman ments in her pus ? Could the world stir thout she went, tu, ez nus ? She ain t like other mortals, thet s a fact : She never stopped the habus-corpus act, Nor specie payments, nor she never yet Cut down the int rest on her public debt ; She don t put down rebellions, lets em breed, An* s oilers willin Ireland should secede ; She s all thet s honest, honnable, an fair, An when the vartoos died they made her heir. THE MONUMENT Wai, wal, two wrongs don t never make a right ; Ef we re mistaken, own up, an don t fight: For gracious sake, ha n t we enough to du thout gettin up a fight with England, tu ? She thinks we re rabble-rid THE BRIDGE An* so we can t Distinguish twixt You oughtn t an You sha rft! She jedges by herself ; she s no idear How t stiddies folks to give em their fair sheer : The odds twixt her an us is plain s a steeple, Her People s turned to Mob, our Mob s turned People. THE MONIMENT She s riled jes now THE BRIDGE Plain proof her cause ain t strong, The one thet fust gits mad s most oilers wrong. Why, sence she helped in lickin Nap the Fust, An* pricked a bubble jest agoin to bust, With Rooshy, Prooshy, Austry, all assist- in , Th ain t nut a face but wut she s shook her fist in, Ez though she done it all, an ten times more, An nothin never hed gut done afore, Nor never could agin, thout she wuz spliced On to one eend an gin th old airth a hoist. She is some punkins, thet I wun t deny, (For ain t she some related to you V I ?) But there s a few small intrists here be low Outside the counter o John Bull an Co, An though they can t conceit how t should be so, I guess the Lord druv down Creation s spiles thout no gret helpin from the British Isles, An could contrive to keep things pooty stiff Ef they withdrawed from business in a miff; I ha n t no patience with sech swellin fel lers ez Think God can t forge thout them to blow the bellerses. THE MONIMENT You re oilers quick to set your back aridge, Though t suits a tom-cat more n a sober bridge : 236 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Don t you git het : they thought the thing was planned ; They 11 cool off when they come to under stand. THE BRIDGE Ef tJiet s wut you expect, you 11 hev to wait ; Folks never understand the folks they hate : She 11 fin some other grievance jest ez good, fore the month s out, to git misunderstood. England cool off ! She 11 do it, ef she sees She s run her head into a swarm o bees. I ain t so prejudiced ez wut you spose : I hev thought England was the best thet goes ; Remember (no, you can t), when / was reared, God save the King was all the tune you heerd : But it s enough to turn Wachuset roun This stumpin fellers when you think they re down. THE MONIMENT But, neighbor, ef they prove their claim at law, The best way is to settle, an not jaw. An don t le s mutter bout the awfle bricks We 11 give em, ef we ketch em in a fix : That ere s most frequently the kin o talk Of critters can t be kicked to toe the chalk; Your "You ll see nex time !" an j "Look out btimby ! " Most oilers ends in eatin umble-pie. T wun t pay to scringe to England : will it P a y To fear thet meaner bully, old " They 11 say"? Suppose they du say : words are dreffle bores, But they ain t quite so bad ez seventy-fours. Wut England wants is jest a wedge to fit Where it 11 help to widen out our split : She s found her wedge, an t ain t for us to come An lend the beetle thet s to drive it home. For growed-up folks like us t would be a scandle, When we git sarsed, to fly right off the handle. England ain t all bad, coz she thinks us blind : Ef she can t change her skin, she can her mind ; An we shall see her change it double-quick, Soon ez we ve proved thet we re a-goin to lick. She an Columby s gut to be fas friends : For the world prospers by their privit ends: T would put the clock back all o fifty years Ef they should fall together by the ears. THE BRIDGE I gree to thet ; she s nigh us to wut France is ; But then she 11 hev to make the fust ad vances ; We ve gut pride, tu, an gut it by good rights, An ketch me stoopin to pick up the mites O condescension she 11 be lettin fall When she finds out we ain t dead arter all ! I tell ye wut, it takes more u one good week Afore my nose forgits it s hed a tweak. THE MONIMENT She 11 come out right bumby, thet 1 11 engage, Soon ez she gits to seein we re of age ; This talkin down o hers ain t wuth a fuss ; It s nat ral ez nut likin t is to us ; Ef we re agoin to prove we be growed-up, T wun t be by barkin like a tarrier pup, But turnin to an makin things ez good Ez wut we re oilers braggin that we could; We re boun to be good friends, an so we d oughto, In spite of all the fools both sides the water. THE BRIDGE I b lieve thet s so ; but hearken in your ear, I m older n you, Peace wun t keep house with Fear : Ef you want peace, the thing you Ve gut tu du Is jes to show you re up to fightin , tu. / recollect how sailors rights was won, Yard locked in yard, hot gun-lip kissin gun : Why, afore thet, John Bull sot up thet he Hed gut a kind o mortgage on the sea; You d thought he held by Gran ther Adam s will, An ef you knuckle down, he 11 think so still. Better thet all our ships an all their crews Should sink to rot in ocean s dreamless ooze, Each torn flag wavin chellenge ez it went, An each dumb gun a brave man s moni- ment, THE BIGLOW PAPERS 237 Than seek sech peace ez only cowards crave : Give me the peace of dead men or of brave ! THE MONIMENT I say, ole boy, it ain t the Glorious Fourth: You d oughto lamed fore this wut talk wuz worth. It ain t our nose thet gits put out o jint; It s England thet gives up her dearest pint. We ve gut, I tell ye now, enough to du In our own fem ly fight, afore we re thru. I hoped, las spring, jest arter Sumter s shame, When every flag-staff flapped its tethered flame, An* all the people, startled from their doubt, Come must rin to the flag with sech a shout, I hoped to see things settled fore this fall, The Rebbles licked, Jeff Davis hanged, an all; Then come Bull Run, an sence then I ve ben waitin Like boys in Jennooary thaw for skatin , Nothin to du but watch my shadder s trace Swing, like a ship at anchor, roun my base, With daylight s flood an ebb: it s gittin slow, An* I most think we d better let em go. I tell ye wut, this war s a-goin to cost THE BRIDGE An I tell you it wun t be money lost; Taxes milks dry, but, neighbor, you 11 allow Thet havin things onsettled kills the cow: We ve gut to fix this thing for good an all; It s no use buildin wut s a-goin to fall. I m older n you, an I ve seen things an men, An my experunce, tell ye wut it s ben: Folks thet worked thorough was the ones thet thriv, But bad work f oilers ye ez long s ye live ; You can t git red on t; jest ez sure ez sin, It s oilers askin to be done agin: Ef we should part, it would n t be a week Fore your soft-soddered peace would spring aleak. We ve turned our cuffs up, but, to put her thru, We must git mad an off with jackets, tu ; T wun t du to think thet kiJiin ain t per- lite, You ve gut to be in airnest, ef you fight; Why, two thirds o the Rebbles ould cut dirt, Ef they once thought thet Guv ment meant to hurt; An I du wish our Gin rals bed in mind The folks in front more than the folks be hind ; You wun t do much ontil you think it s God, An not constitoounts, thet holds the rod; We want some more o Gideon s sword, I jedge, For proclamations ha n t no gret of edge; There s nothin for a cancer but the knife, Onless you set by t more than by your life. / ve seen hard times; I see a war begun Thet folks thet love their bellies never d won; Pharo s lean kine hung on for seven long year; But when t was done, we did n t count it dear; Why, law an order, honor, civil right, Ef they ain t wuth it, wut is wuth a fight ? I m older n you: the plough, the axe, the mill, All kin s o labor an all kin s o skill, Would be a rabbit in a wile-cat s claw, Ef t warn t for thet slow critter, stablished law; Onsettle thet, an all the world goes whiz, A screw s gut loose in every thin there is: Good buttresses once settled, don t you fret An stir em; take a bridge s word for thet! Young folks are smart, but all ain t good thet s new; I guess the gran thers they knowed sunthin , tu. THE MONIMENT Amen to thet! build sure in the beginnin : An then don t never tech the underpinning Th older a guv ment is, the better t suits; New ones hunt folks s corns out like new boots: Change jes for change, is like them big hotels Where they shift plates, an let ye live on smells. THE BRIDGE Wai, don t give up afore the ship goes down: It s a stiff gale, but Providence wun t drown; THE BIGLOW PAPERS An God wun t leave us yit to sink or swirn, Ef we don t fail to du wut s right by Him. This land o ourn, I tell ye, s gut to be A better country than man ever see. I feel my sperit swellin with a cry Thet seems to say, " Break forth an pro phesy! " strange New World, thet yit wast never young, Whose youth from thee by gripin need was wrung, Brown foundlin o the woods, whose baby- bed Was prowled roun by the Injun s cracklin tread, An who grew st strong thru shifts an wants an pains, Nussed by stern men with empires in their brains, Who saw in vision their young Ishmel strain With each hard hand a vassal ocean s mane, Thou, skilled by Freedom an by gret events To pitch new States ez Old- World men pitch tents, Thou, taught by Fate to know Jehovah s plan Thet man s devices can t unmake a man, An whose free latch -string never was drawed in Against the poorest child of Adam s kin, The grave s not dug where traitor hands shall lay In fearful haste thy murdered corse away! 1 see Jest here some dogs begun to bark, So thet I lost old Concord s last remark: I listened long, but all I seemed to hear Was dead leaves gossipin on some birch- trees near; But ez they hed ri t no gret things to say, An sed em often, I come right away, An , walkin home ards, jest to pass the time, I put some thoughts thet bothered me in rhyme; I hain t hed time to fairly try em on, But here they be it s JONATHAN TO JOHN IT don t seem hardly right, John, When both my hands was full, To stump me to a fight, John, Your cousin, tu, John Bull! Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess We know it now," sez he, " The lion s paw is all the law, Accordin to J. B., Thet s fit for you an me! " You wonder why we re hot, John ? Your mark wuz on the guns, The neutral guns, thet shot, John, Our brothers an our sons : Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess There s human blood," sez he, " By fits an starts, in Yankee hearts, Though t may surprise J. B. More n it would you an me." Ef 1 turned mad dogs loose, John, On your front-parlor stairs, Would it jest meet your views, John, To wait an sue their heirs ? Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, I on y guess," sez he, " Thet ef Vattel on his toes fell, T would kind o rrle J. B., Ez wal ez you an me ! " Who made the law thet hurts, John, Heads 1 win, ditto tails ? "J. jB." was on his shirts, John, Onless my memory fails. Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess (I m good at thet)," sez he, " Thet sauce for goose ain t jest the juice For ganders with J. B., No more n with you or me ! " When your rights was our wrongs, John, You did n t stop for fuss, Britanny s trident prongs, John, Was good nough law for us. Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, Though physic s good," sez he, " It does n t foller thet he can swaller Prescriptions signed J. B., Put up by you an me ! " We own the ocean, tu, John : You mus n take it hard, Ef we can t think with you, John, It s jest your own back-yard. Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, Ef thet s his claim," sez he, " The fencin -stuff 11 cost enough To bust up friend J. B., Ez wal ez you an me ! " THE BIGLOW PAPERS 239 Why talk so dreffle big, John, Of honor when it meant You did n t care a fig, John, But jest for ten per cent ? Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess He s like the rest," sez he : " When all is done, it s number one Thet s nearest to J. B., Ez wal ez t you an me ! " We give the critters back, John, Cos Abram thought twas right ; It warn t your bullyin clack, John, Provokin us to fight. Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess We ve a hard row," sez he, ** To hoe jest now ; but thet, somehow, May happen to J. B., Ez wal ez you an me ! " We ain t so weak an poor, John, With twenty million people, An close to every door, John, A school-house an a steeple. Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, It is a fact," sez he, " The surest plan to make a Man Is, think him so, J. B., Ez much ez you or me ! " Our folks believe in Law, John ; An it s for her sake, now, They ve left the axe an saw, John, The anvil an the plough. Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, Ef t warn t for law," sez he, " There d be one shindy from here to Indy ; An thet don t suit J. B. (When t ain t twixt you an me !) " We know we ve got a cause, John, Thet s honest, just, an true ; We thought t would win applause, John, Ef nowheres else, from you. Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess His love of right," sez he, * Hangs by a rotten fibre o cotton : There s natur in J. B., Ez wal z in you an me ! " The South says, "Poor folks down ! " John, An "All men up!" say we, White, yaller, black, an brown, John : . Now which is your idee ? Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, John preaches wal," sez he ; " But, sermon thru, an come to du, Why, there s the old J. B. A-crowdin you an me ! " Shall it be love, or hate, John ? It s you thet s to decide ; Ain t your bonds held by Fate, John Like all the world s beside ? Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess Wise men forgive," sez he, " But not forgit ; an some time yit Thet truth may strike J. B., Ez wal ez you an me ! " God means to make this land, John, Clear thru, from sea to sea, Believe an understand, John, The wuth o bein free. Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, God s price is high," sez he ; " But nothin else than wut He sells Wears long, an thet J. B. May larn, like you an me ! " No. Ill BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW With the following Letter from the REV EREND HOMER WILBUR, A. M. TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY JAALAM, 7th Feb., 1862. RESPECTED FRIENDS, If I know my self, and surely a man can hardly be supposed to have overpassed the limit of fourscore years without attaining to some proficiency in that most useful branch of learning (e ccelo descendit, says the pagan poet), I have no great smack of that weakness which would press upon the pub- lick attention any matter pertaining to my private affairs. But since the following letter of Mr. Sawin contains not only a direct allusion to myself, but that in con nection with a topick of interest to all those engaged in the publick ministrations of the sanctuary, I may be pardoned for touching briefly thereupon. Mr. Sawin was never a stated attendant upon my 240 THE BIGLOW PAPERS preaching, never, as I believe, even an occasional one, since the erection of the new house (where we now worship) in 1845. He did, indeed, for a time, supply a not unacceptable bass in the choir ; but, whether on some umbrage (omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus) taken against the bass-viol, then, and till his decease in 1850 ((Kt. 77,) under the charge of Mr. Asaph Perley, or, as was reported by others, on account of an imminent subscription for a new bell, he thenceforth absented himself from all outward and visible communion. Yet he seems to have preserved (alta mente repostum), as it were, in the pickle of a mind soured by prejudice, a lasting scun ner, as he would call it, against our staid and decent form of worship ; for I would rather in that wise interpret his fling, than suppose that any chance tares sown by my pulpit discourses should survive so long, while good seed too often fails to root it self. 1 humbly trust that I have no per sonal feeling in the matter ; though I know that, if we sound any man deep enough, our lead shall bring up the mud of human nature at last. The Bretons believe in an evil spirit which they call ar c houskezik, whose office it is to make the congregation drowsy ; and though I have never had reason to think that he was specially busy among my flock, yet have I seen enough to make me sometimes regret the hinged seats of the ancient meeting-house, whose lively clatter, not unwillingly intensified by boys beyond eye shot of the tithing-man, served at inter vals as a wholesome reveil. It is true, I have numbered among my parishioners some who are proof against the prophylac- tick fennel, nay, whose gift of somnolence rivalled that of the Cretan Rip Van Win kle, Epimenides, and who, nevertheless, complained not so much of the substance as of the length of my (by them unheard) discourses. Some ingenious persons of a philosophick turn have assured us that our pulpits were set too high, and that the soporifick tendency increased with the ratio of the angle in which the hearer s eye was constrained to seek the preacher. This were a curious topick for investigation. There can be no doubt that some sermons are pitched too high, and I remember many struggles with the drowsy fiend in my youth. Happy Saint Anthony of Padua, whose finny acolytes, however they might profit, could never murmur ! Quarefremu- erunt gentes? Who is he that can twice a week be inspired, or has eloquence (ut ita dicam) always on tap ? A good man, and, next to David, a sacred poet (himself, haply, not inexpert of evil in this particu lar), has said, " The worst speak something good : if all want sense, God takes a text and preacheth patience." There are one or two other points in Mr. Sawin s letter which I would also briefly animadvert upon. And first, concerning the claim he sets up to a certain superior ity of blood and lineage in the people of our Southern States, now unhappily in re bellion against lawful authority and their own better interests. There is a sort of opinions, anachronisms at once and ana- chorisms, foreign both to the age and the country, that maintain a feeble and buzz ing existence, scarce to be called life, like winter flies, which in mild weather crawl out from obscure nooks and crannies to expatiate in the sun, and sometimes acquire vigor enough to disturb with their enforced familiarity the studious hours of the scholar. One of the most stupid and pertinacious of these is the theory that the Southern States were settled by a class of emigrants from the Old World socially superior to those who founded the institutions of New England. The Virginians especially lay claim to this generosity of lineage, which were of no possible accoxmt, were it not for the fact that such superstitions are some times not without their effect on the course of human affairs. The early adventurers to Massachusetts at least paid their pas sages ; no felons were ever shipped thither ; and though it be true that many deboshed younger brothers of what are called good families may have sought refuge in Vir ginia, it is equally certain that a great part of the early deportations thither were the sweepings of the London streets and the leavings of the London stews. It was this my Lord Bacon hafl in mind when he wrote : " It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men to be the people with whom you plant." That certain names are found there is nothing to the THE BIGLOW PAPERS 241 purpose, for, even had an alias been be yond the invention of the knaves of that generation, it is known that servants were often called by their masters names, as slaves are now. On what the heralds call the spindle side, some, at least, of the old est Virginian families are descended from matrons who were exported and sold for so many hogsheads of tobacco the head. So notorious was this, that it became one of the jokes of contemporary playwrights, not only that men bankrupt in purse and char acter were "food for the Plantations" (and this before the settlement of New England), but also that any drab would suffice to wive such pitiful adventurers. " Never choose a wife as if you were going to Virginia," says Middleton in one of his comedies. The mule is apt to forget all but the equine side of his pedigree. How early the counterfeit nobility of the Old Dominion became a topick of ridicule in the Mother Country may be learned from a play of Mrs. Behn s, founded on the Re bellion of Bacon : for even these kennels of literature may yield a fact or two to pay the raking. Mrs. Flirt, the keeper of a Virginia ordinary, calls herself the daughter of a baronet, " undone in the late rebellion," her father having in truth been a tailor, and three of the Council, assuming to themselves an equal splendor of origin, are shown to have been, one " a broken exciseman who came over a poor servant," another a tinker transported for theft, and the third " a common pickpocket often flogged at the cart s tail." The ancestry of South Carolina will as little pass muster at the Herald s Visitation, though I hold them to have been more reputable, inasmuch as many of them were honest tradesmen and artisans, in some measure exiles for conscience sake, who would have smiled at the high-flying non sense of their descendants. Some of the more respectable were Jews. The absurd ity of supposing a population of eight mil lions all sprung from gentle loins in the course of a century and a half is too mani fest for confutation. But of what use to discuss the matter ? An expert geneal ogist will provide any solvent man with a genus et proavos to order. My Lord Bur- leigh used to say, with Aristotle and the Emperor Frederick II. to back him, that " nobility was ancient riches," whence also the Spanish were wont to call their nobles ricos hombres, and the aristocracy of Amer ica are the descendants of those who first became wealthy, by whatever means. Pe troleum will in this wise be the source of much good blood among our posterity. The aristocracy of the South, such as it is, has the shallowest of all foundations, for it is only skin-deep, the most odious of all, for, while affecting to despise trade, it traces its origin to a successful traffick in men, women, and children, and still draws its chief revenues thence. And though, as Doctor Chamberlayne consolingly says in his " Present State of England," " to become a Merchant of Foreign Commerce, with out serving any Apprentisage, hath been allowed no disparagement to a Gentleman born, especially to a younger Brother," yet I conceive that he would hardly have made a like exception in favour of the particular trade in question. Oddly enough this trade reverses the ordinary standards of social respectability no less than of morals, for the retail and domestick is as creditable as the wholesale and foreign is degrading to him who follows it. Are our morals, then, no better than mores after all ? I do not believe that such aristocracy as exists at the South (for I hold with Marius, fortissimum quemque generosissi- mum) will be found an element of any thing like persistent strength in war, thinking the saying of Lord Bacon (whom one quaintly called inductionis dominus et Verulamii) as true as it is pithy, that " the more gentlemen, ever the lower books of subsidies." It is odd enough as an histor ical precedent, that, while the fathers of New England were laying deep in religion, education, and freedom the basis of a polity which has substantially outlasted any then existing, the first work of the founders of Virginia, as may be seen in Wingfield s " Memorial," was conspiracy and rebellion, odder yet, as showing the changes which are wrought by circumstance, that the first insurrection in South Carolina was against the aristocratical scheme of the Proprie tary Government. I do not find that the cuticular aristocracy of the South has added anything to the refinements of civilization except the carrying of bowie-knives and the chewing of tobacco, a high - toned 242 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Southern gentleman being commonly not only quadrumanous but quidruminant. I confess that the present letter of Mr. Sawin increases my doubts as to the sincer ity of the convictions which he professes, and I am inclined to think that the triumph of the legitimate Government, sure sooner or later to take place, will find him and a large majority of his newly adopted fellow- citizens (who hold with Daedalus, the pri mal sitter-on-the-feuce, that medium tenere tutissimum) original Union men. The crit icisms towards the close of his letter on certain of our failings are worthy to be seriously perpended ; for he is not, as I think, without a spice of vulgar shrewd ness. Fas est et ab hoste doceri : there is no reckoning without your host. As to the good-nature in us which he seems to gird at, while I would not consecrate a chapel, as they have not scrupled to do in France, to Notre Dame de la Haine (Our Lady of Hate), yet I cannot forget that the cor ruption of good-nature is the generation of laxity of principle. Good -nature is our national characteristick ; and though it be, perhaps, nothing more than a culpable weakness or cowardice, when it leads us to put up tamely with manifold impositions and breaches of implied contracts (as too frequently in our publick conveyances) it becomes a positive crime when it leads us to look unresentfully on peculation, and to regard treason to the best Government that ever existed as something with which a gentleman may shake hands without soil ing his fingers. I do not think the gallows- tree the most profitable member of our Sylva ; but, since it continues to be planted, I would fain see a Northern limb ingrafted on it, that it may bear some other fruit than loyal Tennesseeans. A relick has recently been discovered on the east bank of Bushy Brook in North Jaalam, which I conceive to be an inscrip tion in Runick characters relating to the early expedition of the Northmen to this continent. I shall make fuller investiga tions, and communicate the result in due season. Respectfully, Your obedient servant, HOMER WILBUR, A. M. P. S. I inclose a year s subscription from Deacon Tinkham. I HED it on my min las time, when I to write ye started, To tech the leadin f eaturs o my gittin me convarted ; But, ez my letters hez to go clearn roun* by way o Cuby, T wun t seem no staler now than then, by th time it gits where you be. You know up North, though sees an things air plenty ez you please, Ther warn t nut one on em thet come jes square with my idees : They all on em wuz too much mixed with Covenants o Works, An would hev answered jest ez wal for Afrikins an Turks, Fer where s a Christian s privilege an his rewards ensuin , Ef t ain t perfessin right and eend thout nary need o doin ? I dessay they suit workin -folks thet ain t noways pertic lar, But nut your Southun gen leman thet keeps his parpendic lar ; I don t blame nary man thet casts his lot along o his folks, But ef you cal late to save me, t must be with folks thet is folks ; Cov nants o works go ginst my grain, but down here I ve found out The true fus -fem ly A 1 plan, here s how it come about. When I fus sot up with Miss S., sez she to me, sez she, " Without you git religion, Sir, the thing can t never be ; Nut but wut I respeck," sez she, " your intellectle part, But you wun t noways du for me athout a change o heart : Nothun religion works wal North, but it s ez soft ez spruce, Compared to ourn, for keepin sound," sez she, " upon the goose ; A day s experunce d prove to ye, ez easy z pull a trigger, It takes the Southun pint o view to raise ten bales a nigger ; You 11 fin thet human natur , South, ain t wholesome more n skin-deep, An once t a darkie s took with it, he wun t be wuth his keep." " How shell I git it, Ma am ? " sez I. "Attend the nex camp-meet- in ," THE BIGLOW PAPERS 243 Sez she, " an it 11 come to ye ez cheap ez onbleached sheetinV Wai, so I went along an hearn most an impressive sarmon About besprinklin Afriky with fourth- proof dew o Harmon : He did n t put no weaknin in, but gin it tu us hot, Z ef he an Satan d ben two bulls in one five-acre lot : I don t purtend to foller him, but give ye jes the heads; For pulpit ellerkence, you know, most oilers kin o spreads. Ham s seed wuz gin to us in chairge, an should n t we be li ble In Kingdom Come, ef we kep back their priv lege in the Bible ? The cusses an the promerses make one gret chain, an ef You snake one link out here, one there, how much on t ud be lef ? All things wuz gin to man for s use, his sarvice, an delight; An don t the Greek an Hebrew words thet mean a Man mean White ? Ain t it belittlin the Good Book in all its proudes featurs To think t wuz wrote for black an brown an lasses-colored creaturs, Thet could n read it, ef they would, nor ain t by lor allowed to, But ough to take wut we think suits their naturs, an be proud to ? Warn t it more prof table to bring your raw materil thru Where you can work it inta grace an inta cotton, tu, Than sendin missionaries out where fevers might defeat em, An ef the butcher did n call, their p rish- ioners might eat em ? An* then, agin, wut airthly use ? Nor twarn t our fault, in so fur Ez Yankee skippers would keep on atotin on em over. T improved the whites by savin em from ary need o workin , An kep the blacks from bein lost thru idleness an shirkin ; We took to em ez nat ral ez a barn-owl doos to mice, An hed our hull time on our hands to keep us out o vice; It made us feel ez pop lar ez a hen doos with one chicken, An fill our place in Natur s scale by givin em a lickin : For why should Csesar git his dues more n Juno, Pomp, an Cuffy ? It s justifyin Ham to spare a nigger when he s stuffy. Where d their soles go tu, like to know, ef we should let em ketch Freeknowledgism an Fourierism an Speri- toolism an sech ? When Satan sets himself to work to raise his very bes muss, He scatters roun onscriptur l views relatin to Ones mus. You d ough to seen, though, how his facs an argymunce an figgers Drawed tears o real conviction from a lot o pen tent niggers! It warn t like Wilbur s meetin , where you re shet up in a pew, Your dickeys sorrin off your ears, an bilin to be thru; Ther wuz a tent clost by thet hed a kag o sunthin in it, Where you could go, ef you wuz dry, an damp ye in a minute; An ef you did dror off a spell, ther wuz n t no occasion To lose the thread, because, ye see, he bellered like all Bashan. It s dry work follerin argymunce an so, twix this an thet, I felt conviction weighin down somehow inside my hat; It growed an growed like Jonah s gourd, a kin o whirlin ketched me, Ontil I fin lly clean gin out an owned up thet he d fetched me; An when nine tenths o th perrish took to tumblin roun an hollerin , I did n fin no gret in th way o turnin tu an follerin . Soon ez Miss S. see thet, sez she, " Thet s wut I call wtith seein ! Thet s actin like a reas nable an intellectle bein ! " An so we fin lly made it up, concluded to hitch bosses, An here I be n my ellermunt among crea tion s bosses; Arter I d drawed sech heaps o blanks, Fortin at last hez sent a prize, 244 THE BIGLOW PAPERS An chose me for a shinin light o mission ary entaprise. This leads me to another pint on which I ve changed my plan O thinkin so s t I might become a straight-out Southun man. Miss S. (her maiden name wuz Higgs, o the fus fem ly here) On her Ma s side s all Juggernot, on Pa s all Cavileer, An sence I ve merried into her an stept into her shoes, It ain t more n nateral thet I should mod- derfy my views: I ve ben a-readin in Debow ontil I ve fairly gut So nlightened thet I d full ez lives ha ben a Dook ez nut; An when we ve laid ye all out stiff, an Jeff hez gut his crown, An comes to pick his nobles out, wun t this child be in town ! We 11 hev an Age o Chivverlry surpassin Mister Burke s, Where every fem ly is fus -best an nary white man works: Our system s sech, the thing 11 root ez easy ez a tater; For while your lords in furrin parts ain t noways marked by natur , Nor sot apart from ornery folks in featurs nor in figgers, Ef ourn 11 keep their faces washed, you 11 know em from their niggers. Ain t sech things wuth secedin for, an gittin red o you Thet waller in your low idees, an will tell all is blue ? Fact is, we air a diff rent race, an I, for one, don t see, Sech havin oilers ben the case, how w ever did agree. It s sunthin thet you lab rin -folks up North hed ough to think on, Thet Higgses can t bemean themselves to rulin by a Lincoln, Thet men, (an guv nors, tu,) thet hez sech Normal names ez Pickens, Accustomed to no kin o work, J thout t is to givin lickins, Can t measure votes with folks thet get their livins from their farms, An prob ly think thet Law s ez good ez hevin coats o arms. Sence I ve ben here, I ve hired a chap to look about for me To git me a trausplantable an thrifty fem ly-tree, An he tells me the Sawins is ez much o Normal blood Ez Pickens an the rest on em, an older n Noah s flood. Your Normal schools wun t turn ye into Normals, for it s clear, Ef eddykatin done the thing, they d be some skurcer here. Pickenses, Boggses, Pettuses, Magoffins, Letchers, Polks, Where can you scare up names like them among your mudsill folks ? Ther s nothin to compare with em, you d fin , ef you should glance, Among the tip-top femerlies in Englan , nor in France : I ve hearn frum sponsible men whose word wuz full ez good s their note, Men thet can run their face for drinks, an keep a Sunday coat, That they wuz all on em come down, an come down pooty fur, From folks thet, thout their crowns wuz on, ou doors would n never stir, Nor thet ther warn t a Southun man but wut wuz primy fashy O the bes blood in Europe, yis, an Af riky an Ashy: Sech bein the case, is t likely we should bend like cotton wickin , Or set down under anythin so low-lived ez a lickin ? More n this, hain t we the literatoor an science, tu, by gorry ? Hain t we them intellectle twins, them giants, Simms an Maury, Each with full twice the ushle brains, like nothin thet I know, thout t wuz a double-headed calf I see once to a show ? For all thet, I warn t jest at fust in favor o secedin ; I wuz for layin low a spell to find out where t wuz leadin , For hevin South-Carliny try her hand at sepritnationin , She takin resks an findin funds, an we co- operationin , THE BIGLOW PAPERS 245 I mean a kin o hangin roun an settin on the fence, Till Prov dunce pin ted how to jump an save the most expense; I recollected thet ere mine o lead to Shiraz Centre Thet bust up Jabez Pettibone, an didn t want to ventur Fore I wuz sartin wut come out ud pay for wut went in, For swappin silver off for lead ain t the sure way to win; (An , fact, it doos look now ez though but folks must live an larn We should git lead, an more n we want, out o the Old Consarn;) But when I see a man so wise an honest ez Buchanan A-lettin us hev all the forts an all the arms an cannon, Admittin we wuz nat lly right an you wuz nat lly wrong, Coz you wuz lab rin -folks an we wuz wut they call bong-tong, An coz there warn t no fight in ye more n in a mashed potater, While two o us can t skurcely meet but wut we fight by natur , An th ain t a bar-room here would pay for openin on t a night, Without it giv the priverlege o bein shot at sight, Which proves we re Natur s noblemen, with whom it don t surprise The British aristoxy should feel boun to sympathize, Seem all this, an seem , tu, the thing wuz strikin roots While Uncle Sam sot still in hopes thet some one d bring his boots, I thought th ole Union s hoops wuz off, an* let myself be sucked in To rise a peg an jine the crowd thet went for reconstructin , Thet is to hev the pardnership under th ole name continner Jest ez it wuz, we drorrin pay, you findin bone an sinner, On y to put it in the bond, an enter t in the journals, Thet you re the nat ral rank an file, an we the nat ral kurnels. Now this I thought a fees ble plan, thet ud work smooth ez grease, Suitin the Nineteenth Century an Upper Ten idees, An there I meant to stick, an so did most o th leaders, tu, Coz we all thought the chance wuz good o puttin on it thru ; But Jeff he hit upon a way o helpin on us forrard By bein unannermous, a trick you ain t quite up to, Norrard. A Baldin hain t no more f a chance with them new apple-corers Than folks s oppersition views aginst the Ringtail Roarers ; They 11 take em out on him bout east, one canter on a rail Makes a man feel unannermous ez Jonah in the whale ; Or ef he s a slow-moulded cuss thet can t seem quite t gree, He gits the noose by tellergraph upon the nighes tree :" Their mission-work with Afrikins hez put em up, thet s sartin, To all the mos across-lot ways o preachin an convartin ; I 11 bet my hat th ain t nary priest, nor all on em together, Thet cairs conviction to the min like Rev- eren Taranfeather ; Why, he sot up with me one night, an la bored to sech purpose, Thet (ez an owl by daylight mongst a flock o teazin chirpers Sees clearer n mud the wickedness o eatin* little birds) I see my error an agreed to shen it arter- wurds ; An I should say, (to jedge our folks by facs in my possession,) Thet three s Unannermous where one s a Riginal Secession ; So it s a thing you fellers North may safely bet your chink on, Thet we re all water-proofed agin th usurpin reign o Lincoln. Jeff s some. He s gut another plan thet hez pertic lar merits, In givin things a cheerfle look an stiffnin* loose-hung sperits ; For while your million papers, wut with lyin an discussin , Keep folks s tempers all on eend a-fumin an a-fussiu , 246 THE BIGLOW PAPERS A-wondrin this an guessin thet, an dreadin every night The breechin o the Univarse 11 break afore it s light, Our papers don t purtend to print on y wut Guv ment choose, An thet insures us all to git the very best o noose : Jeff hez it of all sorts an kines, an sarves it out ez wanted, So s t every man gits wut he likes an no body ain t scanted ; Sometimes it s vict ries (they re bout all ther is that s cheap down here,) Sometimes it s France an England on the jump to interfere. Fact is, the less the people know o wut ther is a-doin , The hendier t is for Guv ment, sence it benders trouble brewin ; An* noose is like a shinplaster, it s good, ef you believe it, Or, wut s all same, the other man thet s goin to receive it : Ef you ve a son in th army, wy, it s com- fortin to hear He 11 hev no gretter resk to run than seein th in my s rear, Coz, ef an F. F. looks at em, they oilers break an run, Or wilt right down ez debtors will thet stumble on a dun, (An* this, ef an thin , proves the wuth o proper fem ly pride, Fer sech mean shucks ez creditors are all on Lincoln s side) ; Ef I hev scrip thet wun t go off no more n a Belgin rifle, An read thet it s at par on Change, it makes me feel deli fle; It s cheerin , tu, where every man mus fortify his bed, To hear thet Freedom s the one thing our darkies mos ly dread, An thet experunce, time n agin, to Dixie s Land hez shown Ther s nothin like a powder-cask fer a stiddy corner-stone ; Ain t it ez good ez nuts, when salt is sellin by the ounce For its own weight in Treash ry-bons, (ef bought in small amounts,) When even whiskey s gittin skurce an sugar can t be found, To know thet all the ellerrnents o luxury abound ? An don t it glorify sal -pork, to come to understand It s wut the Kichmon editors call fatness o the land ! Nex thing to knowin you re well off is nut to know when y* ain t ; An ef Jeff says all s goin wal, who ll ventur t say it ain t ? This cairn the Constitooshun roun ez Jeff doos in his hat Is hendier a dreffle sight, an comes more kin o pat. I tell ye wut, my jedgment is you re pooty sure to fail, Ez long z the head keeps turnin back for counsel to the tail : Th advantiges of our consarn for bein prompt air gret, While, long o Congress, you can t strike, f you git an iron het ; They bother roun with argooin , an* va- r ous sorts o foolin , To make sure ef it s leg lly het, an all the while it s coolin , So s t when you come to strike, it ain t no gret to wish ye j y on, An hurts the hammer z much or more ez wut it doos the iron, Jeff don t allow no jawin -sprees for three months at a stretch, Knowin the ears long speeches suits air mostly made to metch ; He jes ropes in your tonguey chaps an reg lar ten-inch bores An lets em play at Congress, ef they 11 du it with closed doors ; So they ain t no more bothersome than ef we d took an sunk em, An yit en j y th exclusive right to one another s Buncombe thout doin nobody no hurt, an thout its costin nothin , Their pay bein jes Confedrit funds, they findin keep an clothin ; They taste the sweets o public life, an* plan their little jobs, An suck the Treash ry (no gret harm, for it s ez dry ez cobs,) An go thru all the motions jest ez safe ez in a prison, An hev their business to themselves, while Buregard hez hisn : THE BIGLOW PAPERS 2 47 Ez long z he gives the Hessians fits, com mittees can t make bother bout whether t s done the legle way or whether t s done tother. An / tell you you ve gut to larn thet War ain t one long teeter Betwixt / wan to an Twun t du, debatin like a skeetur Afore he lights, all is, to give the other side a millin , An arter thet s done, th ain t no resk but wut the lor 11 be willin ; No metter wut the guv ment is, ez nigh ez I can hit it, A lickin s constitooshunal, pervidin We don t git it. Jeff don t stan dilly-dallyin , afore he takes a fort, (With no one in,) to git the leave o the nex Soopreme Court, Nor don t want f orty- leven weeks o jawin an expounding To prove a nigger hez a right to save him, ef he s drowndin ; Whereas ole Abe ud sink afore he d let a darkie boost him, Ef Taney should n t come along an hed n t iuterdooced him. It ain t your twenty millions thet 11 ever block Jeff s game, But one Man thet wun t let em jog jest ez he s takin aim : Your numbers they may strengthen ye or weaken ye, ez t heppens They re willin to be helpiii hands or wuss- n-nothin cap ns. I ve chose my side, an t ain t no odds ef I wuz drawed with magnets, Or ef I thought it prudenter to jine the nighes bagnets ; I ve made my ch ice, an ciphered out, from all I see an heard, Th ole Constitooshun never d git her decks for action cleared, Long z you elect for Congressmen poor shotes thet want to go Coz they can t seem to git their grub no otherways than so, An let your bes men stay to home coz they wun t show ez talkers, Nor can t be hired to fool ye an sof -soap ye at a caucus, Long z ye set by Rotashun more n ye do by folks s merits, Ez though experunce thriv by change o sile, like corn an kerrits, Long z you allow a critter s " claims " coz, spite o shoves an tippins, He s kep his private pan jest where twould ketch inos public drip- pin s, Long z A. 11 turn tu an grin B. s exe, ef B. 11 help him grin hisn, (An thet s the main idee by which your leadiu men hev risen,) Long z you let ary exe be groun , less t is to cut the weasan O sneaks thet dunno till they re told wut is an wut ain t Treason, Long z ye give out commissions to a lot o peddlin drones Thet trade in whiskey with their men an* skin em to their bones, Long z ye sift out " safe " canderdates thet no one ain t afeard on Coz they re so thund rin eminent for bein* never heard on, An hain t no record, ez it s called, for folks to pick a hole in, Ez ef it hurt a man to hev a body with a soul in, An it wuz ostentashun to be showin on t about, When half his feller-citizens contrive to du without, Long z you suppose your votes can turn biled kebbage into brain, An ary man thet s pop lar s fit to drive a lightnin -train, Long z you believe democracy means / wi ez good ez you be, An that a feller from the ranks can t be a knave or booby, Long z Congress seems purvided, like yer street-cars an yer busses, With oilers room for jes one more o your spiled-in-bakin cusses, Dough thout the emptins of a soul, an yit with means about em (Like essence-peddlers J ) thet 11 make folks long to be without em, Jes heavy nough to turn a scale thet s doubtfle the wrong way, An make their nat ral arsenal o bein nasty P a 7> Long z them things last, (an 7 don t see no gret signs of improvin ,) 1 A rustic euphemism for the American variety of the Mephitis. H. W. THE BIGLOW PAPERS I sha n t up stakes, not hardly yit, nor t would n t pay for movin ; For, fore you lick us, it 11 be the long st day ever you see. Yourn, (ez I xpec to be nex spring,) B., MARKISS o BIG BOOSY. No. IV A MESSAGE OF JEFF DAVIS IN SECRET SESSION Conjecturally reported by H. BIGLOW TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY JAALAM, 10 March, 1862. GENTLEMEN, My leisure has been so entirely occupied with the hitherto fruitless endeavour to decypher the Runick inscrip tion whose fortunate discovery I mentioned in my last communication, that I have not found time to discuss, as I had intended, the great problem of what we are to do with slavery, a topick on which the publick mind in this place is at present more than ever agitated. What my wishes and hopes are I need not say, but for safe conclusions I do not conceive that we are yet in posses sion of facts enough on which to bottom them with certainty. Acknowledging the hand of Providence, as I do, in all events, I am sometimes inclined to think that they are wiser than we, and am willing to wait till we have made this continent once more a place where freemen can live in security and honour, before assuming any further responsibility. This is the view taken by my neighbour Habakkuk Sloansure, Esq., the president of our bank, whose opinion in the practical affairs of life has great weight with me, as I have generally found it to be justified by the event, and whose counsel, had I followed it, would have saved me from an unfortunate investment of a con siderable part of the painful economies of half a century in the Northwest-Passage Tunnel. After a somewhat animated discus sion with this gentleman a few days since, I expanded, on the audi alteram partem prin ciple, something which he happened to say by way of illustration, into the following fable. FESTINA LENTE ONCE on a time there was a pool Fringed all about with flag-leaves cool And spotted with cow-lilies garish, Of frogs and pouts the ancient parish. Alders the creaking redwings sink on, Tussocks that house blithe Bob o Lincoln Hedged round the unassailed seclusion, Where muskrats piled their cells Carthusian ; And many a moss-embroidered log, The watering-place of summer frog, Slept and decayed with patient skill, As watering-places sometimes will. Now in this Abbey of Theleme, Which realized the fairest dream That ever dozing bull-frog had, Sunned on a half-sunk lily-pad, There rose a party with a mission To mend the polliwogs condition, Who notified the selectmen To call a meeting there and then. " Some kind of steps," they said, "are needed : They don t come on so fast as we did: Let s dock their tails ; if that don t make em Frogs by brevet, the Old One take em ! That boy, that came the other day To dig some flag-root down this way, His jack-knife left, and t is a sign That Heaven approves of our design : T were wicked not to urge the step on, When Providence has sent the weapon." Old croakers, deacons of the mire, That led the deep batrachian choir, Uk ! Uk ! Caronk ! with bass that might Have left Lablache s out of sight, Shook nobby heads, and said, " No go ! You d better let em try to grow : Old Doctor Time is slow, but still He does know how to make a pill." But vain was all their hoarsest bass, Their old experience out of place, And spite of croaking and entreating, The vote was carried in marsh-meeting. " Lord knows," protest the polliwogs, " We re anxious to be grown-up frogs ; But don t push in to do the work Of Nature till she prove a shirk ; T is not by jumps that she advances, But wins her way by circumstances : Pray, wait awhile, until you know We re so contrived as not to grow ; Let Nature take her own direction, And she 11 absorb our imperfection ; You might n t like em to appear with, t But we must have the things to steer with. " No," piped the party of reform, " All great results are ta en by storm ; Fate holds her best gifts till we show We Ve strength to make her let them go; The Providence that works in history, THE BIGLOW PAPERS 249 And seems to some folks such a mystery, Does not creep slowly on incog., But moves by jumps, a mighty frog ; No more reject the Age s chrism, Your queues are an anachronism ; No more the Future s promise mock, But lay your tails upon the block, Thankful that we the means have voted To have you thus to frogs promoted." The thing was done, the tails were cropped, And home each philotadpole hopped, In faith rewarded to exult, And wait the beautiful result. Too soon it came ; our pool, so long The theme of patriot bull-frog s song, Next day was reeking, fit to smother, With heads and tails that missed each other, Here snoutless tails, there tailless snouts ; The only gainers were the pouts. MORAL From lower to the higher next, Not to the top, is Nature s text ; And embryo Good, to reach full stature, Absorbs the Evil in its nature. I think that nothing will ever give per manent peace and security to this continent but the extirpation of Slavery therefrom, and that the occasion is nigh ; but I would do nothing hastily or vindictively, nor pre sume to jog the elbow of Providence. No desperate measures for me till we are sure that all others are hopeless, flectere si ne- queo SUPEROS, Acheronta movebo. To make Emancipation a reform instead of a revolu tion is worth a little patience, that we may have the Border States first, and then the non-slaveholders of the Cotton States, with us in principle, a consummation that seems to be nearer than many imagine. Fiat justitia, mat ccdum, is not to be taken in a literal sense by statesmen, whose prob lem is to get justice done with as little jar as possible to existing order, which has at least so much of heaven in it that it is not chaos. Our first duty toward our enslaved brother is to educate him, whether he be white or black. The first need of the free black is to elevate himself according to the standard of this material generation. So soon as the Ethiopian goes in his chariot, he will find not only Apostles, but Chief Priests and Scribes and Pharisees willing to ride with him. " Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se Quam quod ridicules homines facit." I rejoice in the President s late Message, which at last proclaims the Government on the side of freedom, justice, and sound policy. As I write, comes the news of our dis aster at Hampton Roads. I do not un derstand the supineness which, after fair warning, leaves wood to an unequal conflict with iron. It is not enough merely to have the right on our side, if we stick to the old flint-lock of tradition. I have observed in my parochial experience Qiaud ignarus mali) that the Devil is prompt to adopt the latest inventions of destructive warfare, and may thus take even sucb a three-decker as Bishop Butler at an advantage. It is curious, that, as gunpowder made armour useless on shore, so armour is having its revenge by baffling its old enemy at sea ; and that, while gunpowder robbed land warfare of nearly all its picturesqueness to give even greater stateliness and sub limity to a sea-fight, armour bids fair to degrade the latter into a squabble between two iron-shelled turtles. Yours, with esteem and respect, HOMER WILBUR, A. M. p. g. I had wellnigh forgotten to say that the object of this letter is to enclose a communication from the gifted pen of Mr. Biglow. I SENT you a messige, my friens, t other day, To tell you I d nothin pertickler to say : t wuz the day our new nation gut kin o* stillborn, So t wuz my pleasant dooty t acknow ledge the corn, An I see clearly then, ef I did n t before, Thet the augur in inauguration means bore. I need n t tell you tbet my messige wuz written To diffuse correc notions in France an Gret Britten, An agin to impress on the poppy lar mind The comfort an wisdom o goin it blind, To say thet I did n t abate not a hooter O my faith in a happy an glorious futur , Ez rich in each soshle an p litickle blessin Ez them thet we now hed the joy o pos sessing With a people united, an longin to die For wut we call their country, without ask- in why, 250 THE BIGLOW PAPERS An all the gret things we concluded to slope For Ez much within reach now ez ever to hope for. We ve gut all the ellerments, this very hour, Thet make up a fus -class, self-governin power: We ve a war, an a debt, an a flag; an ef this Ain t to be inderpendunt, why, wut on airth is? An nothin now henders our takin our station Ez the freest, enlightenedest, civerlized nation, Built up on our bran -new politickle thesis Thet a Gov ment s fust right is to tumble to pieces, I say nothin henders our takin our place Ez the very fus -best o the whole human race, A spittin tobacker ez proud ez you please On Victory s bes carpets, or loafin at ease In the Tool ries front-parlor, discussin af fairs With our heels on the backs o Napoleon s new chairs, An princes a-mixin our cocktails an slings, Excep , wal, excep jest a very few things, Sech ez navies an armies an wherewith to P a y> An* gettin our sogers to run t other way, An not be too over-pertickler in tryin To hunt up the very las ditches to die in. Ther are critters so base thet they want it explained Jes wut is the totle amount thet we Ve gained, Ez ef we could maysure stupendous events By the low Yankee stan ard o dollars an cents: They seem to forgit, thet, sence last year revolved, We ve succeeded in gittin seceshed an dissolved, An thet no one can t hope to git thru dis- solootion thout some kin o strain on the best Con- stitootion. Who asks for a prospec more flettrin an bright, When from here clean to Texas it s all one free fight ? Hain t we rescued from Seward the gret leadin featurs Thet makes it wuth while to be reasonin creaturs ? Hain t we saved Habus Coppers, improved it in fact, By suspendin the Unionists stid o the Act? Ain t the laws free to all ? Where on airth else d ye see Every freeman improvin his own rope an tree? Ain t our piety sech (in our speeches an* messiges) Ez t astonish ourselves in the bes -com- posed pessiges, An to make folks thet knowed us in th ole state o things Think convarsion ez easy ez drinkin gin- slings ? It s ne ssary to take a good confident tone With the public; but here, jest amongst us, I own Things look blacker n thunder. Ther s no use denyiii We re clean out o money, an most out o lyin ; Two things a young nation can t mennage without, Ef she wants to look wal at her fust comin out; For the fust supplies physickle strength, while the second Gives a morril edvantage thet s hard to be reckoned: For this latter I m willin to du wut I can; For the former you 11 hev to consult on a plan, Though our fust want (an this pint I want your best views on) Is plausible paper to print I. O. U.s on. Some gennlemen think it would cure all our cankers In the way o finance, ef we jes hanged the bankers; An I own the proposle ud square with my views, Ef their lives wuz n t all thet we d left em to lose. Some say thet more confidence might be inspired, THE BIGLOW PAPERS 25 Ef we voted our cities an towns to be fired, A plan thet ud suttenly tax our endurance, Coz t would be our own bills we should git for th insurance; But cinders, no metter how sacred we think era, Might n t strike furrin minds ez good sources of income, Nor the people, perhaps, would n t like the eclaw O bein all turned into paytriots by law. Some want we should buy all the cotton an burn it, On a pledge, when we ve gut thru the war, to return it, Then to take the proceeds an hold them ez security For an issue o* bonds to be met at maturity With an issue o notes to be paid in hard cash On the fus Monday follerin the tarnal Allsmash: This hez a safe air, an , once hold o the gold, ud leave our vile plunderers out in the cold, An might temp John Bull, ef it warn t for the dip he Once gut from the banks o my own Mas- sissippi. Some think we could make, by arrangin the figgers, A hendy home-currency out of our niggers; But it wun t du to lean much on ary sech staff, For they re gittin tu current a ready, by half. One gennleman says, ef we lef our loan out Where Floyd could git hold on t he d take it, no doubt; But t ain t jes the takin, though t hez a good look, We mus git sunthin out on it arter it s took, An we need now more n ever, with sorrer I own, Thet some one another should let us a loan, Sence a soger wun t fight, on y jes while he draws his Pay down on the nail, for the best of all causes, thout askin to know wut the quarrel s about, An once come to thet, why, our game is played out. It s ez true ez though I should n t never hev said it, Thet a hitch hez took place in our system o credit; I swear it s all right in my speeches an messiges, But ther s idees afloat, ez ther is about sessiges : Folks wun t take a bond ez a basis to trade on, Without nosin round to find out wut it s made on, An the thought more an more thru the public min crosses Thet our Treshry hez gut mos too many dead bosses. Wut s called credit, you see, is some like a balloon, Thet looks while it s up most ez harn- some z a moon, But once git a leak in t, an wut looked so grand Caves righ down in a jiffy ez flat ez your hand. Now the world is a dreffle mean place, for our sins, Where ther ollus is critters about with long pins A-prickin the bubbles we ve blowed with sech care, An provin ther s nothin inside but bad air : They re all Stuart Millses, poor- white trash, an sneaks, Without no more chivverlry n Choctaws or Creeks, Who think a real gennleman s promise to pay Is meant to be took in trade s ornery way : Them fellers an I could n never agree ; They re the nateral foes o the Soutnun Idee; I d gladly take all of our other resks on me To be red o this low-lived politikle con- my! Now a dastardly notion is gittin about Thet our bladder is bust an the gas oozin out, 252 THE BIGLOW PAPERS An oiiless we can mennage in some way to stop it, Why, the thing s a gone coon, an we might ez wal drop it. Brag works wal at fust, but it ain t jes the thing For a stiddy inves ment the shiners to bring, An votin we re prosp rous a hundred times over Wun t change bein starved into livin in clover. Manassas done sunthiu tow rds drawin the wool O er the green, antislavery eyes o John Bull: Oh, warn t it a godsend, jes when sech tight fixes Wuz crowdin us mourners, to throw double-sixes ! I wuz tempted to think, an it wuz n t no wonder, Ther wuz reelly a Providence, over or under, When, all packed for Nashville, I fust ascertained From the papers up North wut a victory we d gained, t wuz the time for diffusin correc views abroad Of our union an strength an relyin on God; An , fact, when I d gut thru my fust big surprise, I much ez half b lieved in my own tallest lies, An conveyed the idee thet the whole Southun popperlace Wuz Spartans all on the keen jump for Thermopperlies, Thet set on the Lincolnites bombs till they bust, An fight for the priv lege o dyin the fust; But Roanoke, Bufort, Millspring, an the rest Of our recent starn-foremost successes out West, Hain t left us a foot for our swellin to stand on, We Ve showed too much o wut Buregard calls abandon, For all our Thermopperlies (an it s a marcy We hain t hed no more) hev ben clean vicy- varsy, An wut Spartans wuz lef when the battle wuz done Wuz them thet wuz too unambitious to run. Oh, ef we hed on y jes gut Reecognition, Things now would ha ben in a different position ! You d ha hed all you wanted : the paper blockade Smashed up into toothpicks ; unlimited trade In the one thing thet s ueedfle, till niggers, I swow, Hed ben thicker 11 provisional shin-plasters now ; Quinine by the ton ginst the shakes when they seize ye ; Nice paper to coin into C. S. A. specie ; The voice of the driver d be heerd in our land, An the univarse scringe, ef we lifted our hand : Would n t thet be some like a fulfillin the prophecies, With all the fus fern lies in all the fust offices ? t wuz a beautiful dream, an all sorrer is idle, But ef Lincoln would ha hanged Mason an Slidell ! For would n t the Yankees hev found they d ketched Tartars, Ef they d raised two sech critters as them into marty Mason wuz F. F. V., though a cheap card to win on, But t other was jes New York trash tc begin on ; They ain t o no good in Eurdpean pellices, But think wut a help they d ha ben on their gallowses ! They d ha felt they wuz truly fulfillin* their mission, An oh, how dog-cheap we d ha gut Ree cognition ! But somehow another, wutever we ve tried, Though the the ry s fust-rate, the facs Wun t coincide : Facs are contrary z mules, an ez hard in the mouth, THE BIGLOW PAPERS 253 An they all us hev showed a mean spite to the South. Sech bein the case, we hed best look about For some kin o way to slip our necks out : Le s vote our las dollar, ef one can be found, (An , at any rate, votin it hez a good sound,) Le s swear thet to arms all our people is flyin , (The critters can t read, an wun t know how we re lyin ,) Thet Toombs is advancin to sack Cincin- nater, With a rovin commission to pillage an slahter, Thet we ve throwed to the winds all regard for wut s lawfle, An gone in for sunthin promiscu sly awfle. Ye see, hitherto, it s our own knaves an fools Thet we ve used, (those for whetstones, an t others ez tools,) An now our las chance is in puttin to test The same kin o cattle up North an out West, Your Belmonts, Vallandighams, Woodses, an sech, Poor shotes thet ye could n t persuade us to tech, Not in ornery times, though we re willin to feed em With a nod now an then, when we happen to need em ; Why, for my part, I d ruther shake hands 1 with a nigger Than with cusses that load an don t darst ! dror a trigger; They re the wust wooden nutmegs the Yankees perdooce, Shaky everywhcres else, an jes sound on the goose; They ain t wuth a cuss, an I set nothin by em, But we re in sech a fix thet I s pose we mus try em. I But, Gennlemen, here s a despatch jes come in Which shows thet the tide s begun turnin agin , Gret Cornfedrit success ! C lumbus eeva- cooated! I mus run down an hev the thing properly stated, An show wut a triumph it is, an how lucky To fin lly git red o thet cussed Kentucky, An how, sence Fort Douelson, winuin* the day Consists in triumphantly gittin away. No. V SPEECH OF HONOURABLE PRE SERVED DOE IN SECRET CAU CUS TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY JAALAM, 12th April, 1862. GENTLEMEN, As I cannot but hope that the ultimate, if not speedy, success of the national arms is now sufficiently ascer tained, sure as I am of the righteousness of our cause and its consequent claim on the blessing of God, (for 1 would not show a faith inferior to that of the Pagan historian with his Facile evenit quod Dis cordi est,) it seems to me a suitable occasion to withdraw our minds a moment from the confusing din of battle to objects of peaceful and per manent interest. Let us not neglect the monuments of preterite history because what shall be history is so diligently mak ing under our eyes. Cras ingens iterabimus cequor to-morrow will be time enough for that stormy sea ; to-day let me engage the attention of your readers with the Runick inscription to whose fortunate discovery I have heretofore alluded. Well may we say with the poet, Multa renascuntur qu.ce, jam cecidere. And I would premise, that, al though I can no longer resist the evidence of my own senses from the stone before me to the ante-Columbian discovery of this continent by the Northmen, gens inclytissima, as they are called in a Palermitan inscrip tion, written fortunately in a less debatable character than that which I am about to decipher, yet I would by no means be un derstood as wishing to vilipend the merits of the great Genoese, whose name will never be forgotten so long as the inspiring strains of "Hail Columbia" shall continue to be heard. Though he must be stripped also of whatever praise may belong to the experiment of the egg, which I find prover bially attributed by Castilian authors to a certain Juanito or Jack, (perhaps an off shoot of our giant-killing my thus,) his name 254 THE BIGLOW PAPERS will still remain one of the most illustrious of modern times. But the impartial histo rian owes a duty likewise to obscure merit, and my solicitude to render a tardy justice is perhaps quickened by my having known those who, had their own field of labour been less secluded, might have found a readier acceptance with the reading publick. I could give an example, but I forbear : forsitan nostris ex ossibus oritur ultor. Touching Runick inscriptions, I find that they may be classed under three general heads: 1. Those which are understood by the Danish Royal Society of Northern An tiquaries, and Professor Rafn, their Secre tary; 2. Those which are comprehensible only by Mr. Rafn; and 3. Those which neither the Society, Mr. Rafn, nor anybody else can be said in any definite sense to un derstand, and which accordingly offer pe culiar temptations to enucleating sagacity. These last are naturally deemed the most valuable by intelligent antiquaries, and to this class the stone now in my possession fortunately belongs. Such give a pictur esque variety to ancient events, because susceptible oftentimes of as many interpre tations as there are individual archaeologists ; and since facts are only the pulp in which the Idea or event-seed is softly imbedded till it ripen, it is of little consequence what colour or flavour we attribute to them, provided it be agreeable. Availing myself of the obliging assistance of Mr. Arphaxad Bowers, an ingenious photographick artist, whose house-on-wheels has now stood for three years on our Meeting-House Green, with the somewhat contradictory inscrip tion, "our motto is onward" I have sent accurate copies of my treasure to many learned men and societies, both na tive and European. I may hereafter com municate their different and (me judice) equally erroneous solutions. I solicit also, Messrs. Editors, your own acceptance of the copy herewith enclosed. I need only premise further, that the stone itself is a goodly block of metamorphick sandstone, and that the Runes resemble very nearly the ornithichnites or fossil bird-tracks of Dr. Hitchcock, but with less regularity or apparent design than is displayed by those remarkable geological monuments. These are rather the non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum. Resolved to leave no door open to cavil, I first of all attempted the elucidation of this remarkable example of lithick literature by the ordinary modes, but with no adequate return for my labour. I then considered myself amply justified in resorting to that heroick treatment the felicity of which, as applied by the great Bentley to Milton, had long ago enlisted my admiration. Indeed, I had already made up my mind, that, in case good fortune should throw any such invaluable record in my way, I would proceed with it in the following simple and satisfactory method. After a cursory examination, merely suf ficing for an approximative estimate of its length, I would write down a hypothetical inscription based upon antecedent probabil ities, and then proceed to extract from the characters engraven on the stone a meaning as nearly as possible conformed to this a priori product of my own ingenuity. The result more than justified my hopes, inas much as the two inscriptions were made without any great violence to tally in all essential particulars. I then proceeded, not without some anxiety, to my second test, which was, to read the Runick letters diagonally, and again with the same success. With an excitement pardonable under the circumstances, yet tempered with thankful humility, I now applied my last and sever est trial, my experimentum crucis. I turned the stone, now doubly precious in my eyes, with scrupulous exactness upside down. The physical exertion so far displaced my spectacles as to derange for a moment the focus of vision. I confess that it was with some tremulousness that I readjusted them upon my nose, and prepared my mind to bear with calmness any disappointment that might ensue. But, O albo dies notanda lapillo ! what was my delight to find that the change of position had effected none in the sense of the writing, even by so much as a single letter! I was now, and justly, as I think, satisfied of the conscientious exact ness of my interpretation. It is as follows: HEBE BJARNA GRIMOLFSSON FIRST DRANK CLOUD-BROTHER THROUGH CHILD-OF-LAND-AND- WATER : that is, drew smoke through a reed stem. In other words, we have here a record of the first smoking of the herb Nicotiana Ta* THE BIGLOW PAPERS 255 bacum by an European on this continent. The probable results of this discovery are so vast as to baffle conjecture. If it be objected, that the smoking of a pipe would hardly justify the setting up of a memorial stone, I answer, that even now the Moquis Indian, ere he takes his first whiff, bows reverently toward the four quarters of the sky in succession, and that the loftiest monuments have been reared to perpetuate fame, which is the dream of the shadow of smoke. The Saga, it will be remembered, leaves this Bjarna to a fate something like that of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, on board a sinking ship in the " wormy sea," having generously given up his place in the boat to a certain Icelander. It is doubly pleasant, therefore, to meet with this proof that the brave old man arrived safely in Vinland, and that his declining years were cheered by the respectful attentions of the dusky denizens of our then uninvaded forest. Most of all was I gratified, however, in thus linking forever the name of my native town with one of the most momentous occurrences of modern times. Hitherto Jaalam, though in soil, climate, and geo graphical position as highly qualified to be the theatre of remarkable historical inci dents as any spot on the earth s surface, has been, if I may say it without seem ing to question the wisdom of Providence, almost maliciously neglected, as it might appear, by occurrences of world-wide inter est in want of a situation. And in matters of this nature it must be confessed that adequate events are as necessary as the votes sacer to record them. Jaalam stood always modestly ready, but circumstances made no fitting response to her generous intentions. Now, however, she assumes her place on the historick roll. I have hitherto been a zealous opponent of the Circean herb, but I shall now reexamiue the question without bias. I am aware that the Rev. Jonas Tutchel, in a recent communication to the " Bogus Four Corners Weekly Meridian," has en deavored to show that this is the sepulchral inscription of Thorwald Eriksson, who, as is well known, was slain in Vinland by the natives. But I think he has been misled by a preconceived theory, and cannot but feel that he has thus made an ungracious return for my allowing him to inspect the stone with the aid of my own glasses (he having by accident left his at home) and in my own study. The heathen ancients might have instructed this Christian minister in the rites of hospitality; but much is to be pardoned to the spirit of self-love. He must indeed be ingenious who can make out the words her hvilir from any characters in the in scription in question, which, whatever else it may be, is certainly not mortuary. And even should the reverend gentleman succeed in persuading some fantastical wits of the soundness of his views, I do not see what use ful end he will have gained. For if the Eng lish Courts of Law hold the testimony of gravestones from the burial-grounds of Pro testant dissenters to be questionable, even where it is essential in proving a descent, I cannot conceive that the epitaphial asser tions of heathens should be esteemed of more authority by any man of orthodox sentiments. At this moment, happening to cast my eyes upon the stone, whose characters a transverse light from my southern window brings out with singular distinctness, an other interpretation has occurred to me, promising even more interesting results. I hasten to close my letter in order to follow at once the clue thus providentially sug- I inclose, as usual, a contribution from Mr. Biglow, and remain, Gentlemen, with esteem and respect, Your Obedient Humble Servant, HOMER WILBUR, A. M. I THANK ye, my frien s, for the warmth o* your greetin : Ther s few airthly blessin s but wut s vain an fleetin ; But ef ther is one thet hain t no cracks an flaws, An is wuth goin in for, it s pop lar ap plause; It sends up the sperits ez lively ez rockets, An I feel it wal, down to the eend o my pockets. Jes* lovin the people is Canaan in view, But it s Canaan paid quarterly t hev em love you; It s a blessin thet s breakin out ollus in fresh spots; It s a-f ollerin Moses thout losin the flesh- pots. THE BIGLOW PAPERS But, Gennlemen, scuse me, I ain t sech a raw cus Ez to go luggin ellerkence into a caucus, Thet is, into one where the call compre- hen s Nut the People in person, but on y their frien s; I m so kin o used to convincin the masses Of th edvantage o bein self-governin asses, I forgut thet we re all o the sort thet pull wires An arrange for the public their wants an desires, An thet wut we hed met for wuz jes to agree Wut the People s opinions in futur should be. Now, to come to the nub, we ve ben all disappinted, An our leadin idees are a kind o disjinted, Though, fur ez the nateral man could discern, Things ough to ha took most an oppersite turn. But The ry is jes like a train on the rail, Thet, weather or no, puts her thru without fail, While Fac s the ole stage thet gits sloughed in the ruts, An hez to allow for your darned efs an buts, An so, nut intendin no pers nal reflections, They don t don t nut allus, thet is, make connections: Sometimes, when it really doos seem thet they d oughter Combine jest ez kindly ez new rum an water, Both 11 be jest ez sot in their ways ez a bagnet, Ez otherwise-minded ez th eends of a mag net, An folks like you V me, thet ain t ept to be sold, Git somehow or nother left out in the cold. I expected fore this, thout no gret of a row, Jeff D. would ha ben where A. Lincoln is now, With Taney to say t wuz all legle an fair, An a jury o Deemocrats ready to swear Thet the ingin o State gut throwed into the ditch By the fault o the North in misplacin the switch. Things wuzripenin fust-rate with Buchanan to nuss em; But the People they would n t be Mexi cans, cuss em! Ain t the safeguards o freedom upsot, z you may say, Ef the right o rev lution is took clean away ? An* doos n t the right primy-fashy include The bein entitled to nut be subdued ? The feet is, we d gone for the Union so strong, When Union meant South ollus right an j North wrong, Thet the People gut fooled into thinkin it might Worry on middlin wal with the North in the right. We might ha ben now jest ez prosp rous ez France, Where p litikle enterprise hez a fair chance, An the People is heppy an proud et this hour, Long ez they hev the votes, to let Nap hev the power; But our folks they went an believed wut we d told em An , the flag once insulted, no mortle could hold em. T wuz pervokin jest when we wuz cert in to win, An I, for one, wun t trust the masses agin: For a People thet knows much ain t fit to be free In the self-cockin , back-action style o J. D. I can t believe now but wut half on t is lies; For who d thought the North wuz agoin* to rise, Or take the pervokin est kin of a stump, thout t wuz sunthin 1 ez pressin ez Ga- br el slas trump? Or who d ha supposed, arter sech swell an bluster bout the lick-ary-ten-on-ye fighters they d muster, Raised by hand on briled lightnin , ez op lent z you please In a primitive furrest o femmily-trees, Who d ha thought thet them Southun- ers ever ud show THE BIGLOW PAPERS Starns with pedigrees to em like theirn to the foe, Or, when the vamosin come, ever to find Nat ral masters in front an mean white folks behind ? By ginger, ef I d ha known half I know now, When I wuz to Congress, I would n t, I swow, Hev let em cair on so high-minded an sarsy, thout some show o wut you may call vicy- varsy. To be sure, we wuz under a contrac jes then To be dreffle forbearin towards Southun men ; We lied to go sheers in preservin the bel- lance : An ez they seemed to feel they wuz wastin their tellents thout some un to kick, t warn t more n proper, you know. Each should funnish his part ; an sence they found the toe, An we wuz n t cherubs wal, we found the buffer, For fear thet the Compromise System should suffer. I wun t say the plan hed n t onpleasant featurs, For men are perverse an onreasonin crea- turs, An forgit thet in this life t ain t likely to heppen Their own privit fancy should ollus be cappen, But it worked jest ez smooth ez the key of a safe, An the gret Union bearin s played free from all chafe. They warn t hard to suit, ef they hed their own way, An* we (thet is, some on us) made the thing pay : t wuz a fair give-an -take out of Uncle Sam s heap ; Ef they took wut warn t theirn, wut we give come ez cheap ; The elect gut the offices down to tide- waiter, The people took skinnin ez mild ez a tater, Seemed to choose who they wanted tu, footed the bills, An felt kind o z though they wuz havin their wills, Which kep em ez harmless an cherfle ez crickets, While all we invested wuz names on the tickets : Wal, ther s nothin , for folks fond o lib ral consumption Free o charge, like democ acy tempered with gumption ! Now warn t thet a system wuth pains in presarvin , Where the people found jints an their f rien s done the carvin , Where the many done all o their thinkin by proxy, An were proud on t ez long ez t wuz christened Democ cy, Where the few let us sap all o Freedom s foundations, Ef you call it reformin with prudence an patience, An were willin Jeff s snake-egg should hetch with the rest, Ef you writ " Constitootional " over the nest? But it s all out o kilter, ( t wuz too good to last,) An all ies by J. D. s perceedin too fast ; Ef he d more, on y hung on for a month or two We d ha gut things fixed nicer n they hed ben before : Afore he drawed off an lef all in confu sion, We wuz safely entrenched in the ole Con- stitootion, With an outlyin , heavy-gun, casemated fort To rake all assailants, I mean th S. J. Court. Now I never 11 acknowledge (nut ef you should skin me) t wuz wise to abandon sech works to the in my, An let him fin out thet wut scared him so long, Our whole line of argyments, lookin so strong, All our Scriptur an law, every the ry an fac , Wuz Quaker -guns daubed with Pro-sla* very black. Why, ef the Republicans ever should git 25 8 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Andy Johnson or some one to lend em the wit An the spunk jes to mount Constitootion an Court With Coltimbiad guns, your real ekle-rights sort, Or drill out the spike from the ole Declara tion Thet can kerry a solid shot clearn rouii creation, We d better take maysures for shettin up shop, An put off our stock by a vendoo or swop. But they wun t never dare tu ; you 11 see em in Edom fore they ventur to go where their doc trines ud lead em : They ve ben takin our princerples up ez we dropt em, An thought it wuz terrible cute to adopt em; But they ll fin out fore long thet their hope s ben deceivin em, An thet princerples ain t o no good, ef you b lieve in em ; It makes em tu stiff for a party to use, Where they d ongh to be easy z an ole pair o shoes. If we say n our pletform thet all men are brothers, We don t mean thet some folks ain t more so n some others ; An it s wal understood thet we make a selection, An thet brotherhood kin o subsides arter lection. The fust thing for sound politicians to larn is, Thet Truth, to dror kindly in all sorts o harness, Mus be kep in the abstract, for, come to apply it, You re ept to hurt some folks s interists by it. Wal, these ere Republicans (some on em) ects Ez though gineral mexims ud suit speshle facts ; An there s where we 11 nick em, there s where they 11 be lost : For applyin your princerple s wut makes it cost, An folks don t want Fourth o July t in terfere With the busiuess-consarns o the rest o the year, No more n they want Sunday to pry an 1 to peek Into wut they are doin the rest o the week. A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, Ef he must hev beliefs, nut to b lieve era tu hard ; For, ez sure ez he does, he 11 be blartin em out thout regardin the natur o man more n a spout, Nor it don t ask much gumption to pick out a flaw In a party whose leaders are loose in the jaw : An so in our own case I ventur to hint Thet we d better nut air our perceedin s in print, Nor pass resserlootions ez long ez your arm Thet may, ez things heppen to turn, du us harm ; For when you ve done all your real mean- in to smother, The darned things 11 up an mean suntbin or nother. Jeff son prob ly meant wal with his " born free an ekle," But it s turned out a real crooked stick in the sekle ; It s taken full eighty-odd year don t you see? From the pop lar belief to root out thet idee, An , arter all, suckers on t keep buddin* forth In the nat lly onprincipled mind o the North. No, never say nothin without you re com pelled tu, An then don t say nothin thet you can be held tu, Nor don t leave no friction-idees layin* loose For the ign ant to put to incend ary use. You know I m a feller thet keeps a skinned eye On the leetle events thet go skurryin by, Coz it s of ner by them than by gret ones you 11 see Wut the p litickle weather is likely to be. THE BIGLOW PAPERS 259 Now I don t think the South s more n begun to be licked, But I du think, ez Jeff says, the wind-bag s gut pricked ; It 11 blow for a spell an keep puffin an wheeziu , The tighter our army an navy keep squeezin , For they can t help spread-eaglein long z ther s a mouth To blow Enfield s Speaker thru lef at the South. But it s high time for us to be settin our faces Towards reconstructin the national basis, With an eye to beginnin agin on the jolly ticks We used to chalk up hind the back-door o politics ; An* the fus thing s to save wut of Slav ry ther s lef Arter this (I mus call it) imprudence o Jeff: For a real good Abuse, with its roots fur an wide, Is the kin o thing I like to hev on my side ; A Scriptur name makes it ez sweet ez a rose, An* it s tougher the older an uglier it grows (I ain t speakin now o the righteousness of it, But the p litickle purchase it gives an the profit). Things look pooty squally, it must be allowed, An* I don t see much signs of a bow in the cloud : Ther s too many Deemocrats leaders wut s wuss Thet go for the Union thout carin a cuss Ef it helps ary party thet ever wuz heard on, So our eagle ain t made a split Austrian bird on. But ther s still some consarvative signs to be found Thet shows the gret heart o the People is sound : (Excuse me for usin a stump-phrase agin, But, once in the way on t, they will stick like sin :) There s Phillips, for instance, hez jes* ketched a Tartar In the Law- n -Order Party of ole Cincin- nater ; An the Compromise System ain t gone out o reach, Long z you keep the right limits on free dom o speech. T warn t none too late, neither, to put on the gag, For he s dangerous now he goes in for the flag. Nut thet I altogether approve o bad eggs^ They re mos gin lly argymunt on its las legs, An their logic is ept to be tu indiscrimi nate, Nor don t ollus wait the right objecs to liminate ; But there is a variety on em, you 11 find, Jest ez usefle an more, besides bein re fined, I mean o the sort thet are laid by the dic tionary, Sech ez sophisms an cant, thet 11 kerry conviction ary Way thet you want to the right class o men, An are staler than all t ever come from a hen : " Disunion " done wal till our resh Southun friends Took the savor all out on t for national ends ; But I guess " Abolition " 11 work a spell yit, When the war s done, an so will " Forgive- an -forgit." Times mus be pooty thoroughly out o all jint, Ef we can t make a good constitootional pint ; An the good time 11 come to be grindin our exes, When the war goes to seed in the nettle o texes : Ef Jon than don t squirm, with sech helps to assist him, I give up my faith in the free-suffrage sys tem ; Democ cy wun t be nut a mite interesting Nor p litikle capital much wuth investin ; An my notion is, to keep dark an lay low Till we see the right minute to put in our blow. 260 THE BIGLOW PAPERS But I ve talked longer now n I bed any idee, An ther s others you want to hear more n you du me ; So I 11 set down an give thet ere bottle a skrimmage, For I ve spoke till I m dry ez a real graven image. No. VI SUNTHIN IN THE PASTORAL LINE TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY JAALAM, 17th May, 1862. GENTLEMEN, At the special request of Mr. Biglow, I intended to inclose, together with his own contribution, (into which, at my suggestion, he has thrown a little more of pastoral sentiment than usual,) some pas sages from my sermon on the day of the National Fast, from the text, "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them," Heb. xiii. 3. But I have not leisure sufficient at present for the copying of them, even were I altogether satisfied with the production as it stands. I should pre fer, I confess, to contribute the entire dis course to the pages of your respectable miscellany, if it should be found acceptable upon perusal, especially as I find the diffi culty in selection of greater magnitude than I had anticipated. What passes with out challenge in the fervour of oral deliv ery, cannot always stand the colder crit icism of the closet. I am not so great an enemy of Eloquence as my friend Mr. Biglow would appear to be from some pas sages in his contribution for the current month. I would not, indeed, hastily sus pect him of covertly glancing at myself in his somewhat caustick animadversions, al beit some of the phrases he girds at are not entire strangers to my lips. I am a more hearty admirer of the Puritans than seems now to be the fashion, and believe, that, if they Hebraized a little too much in their speech, they showed remarkable prac tical sagacity as statesmen and founders. But such phenomena as Puritanism are the results rather of great religious than of merely social convulsions, and do not long survive them. So soon as an earnest con viction has cooled into a phrase, its work is over, and the best that can be done with it is to bury it. Ite, missa est. I am inclined to agree with Mr. Biglow that we cannot settle the great political questions which are now presenting themselves to the nation by the opinions of Jeremiah or Ezekiel as to the wants and duties of the Jews in their time, nor do I believe that an entire com munity with their feelings and views would be practicable or even agreeable at the present day. At the same time I could wish that their habit of subordinating the actual to the moral, the flesh to the spirit, and this world to the other, were more common. They had found out, at least, the great military secret that soul weighs more than body. But I am suddenly called to a sick-bed in the household of a valued parishioner. With esteem and respect, Your obedient servant, HOMER WILBUR. ONCE git a smell o musk into a draw, An it clings hold like precedents in law: Your gra ma am put it there, when, goodness knows, To jes this-worldify her Sunday-clo es; But the old chist wun t sarve her gran son s wife, (For, thout new funnitoor, wut good in life ?) An so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread O the spare chamber, slinks into the shed, Where, dim with dust, it fust or last sub sides To holdin seeds an fifty things besides; But better days stick fast in heart an husk, An all you keep in t gits a scent o musk. Jes so with poets: wut they ve airly read Gits kind o worked into their heart an head, So s t they can t seem to write but jest on sheers With furrin countries or played-out ideers> Nor hev a feelin , ef it doos n t smack O wut some critter chose to feel way back: This makes em talk o daisies, larks, an things, THE BIGLOW PAPERS 261 Ez though we d nothin here that blows an sings, - (Why, I d give more for one live bobolink Than a square mile o larks in printer s ink,) This makes em think our fust o May is May, Which t ain t, for all the almanicks can say. little city-gals, don t never go it Blind on the word o noospaper or poet! They re apt to puff, an May-day seldom looks Up in the country ez it doos in books; They re no more like than hornets -nests an hives, Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. I, with my trouses perched on cowhide boots, Tuggin my foundered feet out by the roots, Hev seen ye come to fling on April s hearse Your muslin nosegays from the milliner s, Puzzlin to find dry ground your queen to choose, An dance your throats sore in morocker shoes: 1 ve seen ye an felt proud, thet, come wut would, Our Pilgrim stock wuz pethed with hardi hood. Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o winch, Ez though t wuz sunthin paid for by the inch; But yit we du contrive to worry thru, Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing s to du, An kerry a hollerday, ef we set out, Ez stiddily ez though t wuz a redoubt. I, country-born an bred, know where to find Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind, An seem to metch the doubtin bluebird s notes, Half-vent rin liverworts in furry coats, Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl, Each on em s cradle to a baby-pearl, But these are jes Spring s pickets; sure ez sin, The rebble frosts 11 try to drive em in; For half our May s so awfully like May n t, t would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint; Though I own up I like our back ard springs Thet kind o haggle with their greens an* things, An when you most give up, uthout more words Toss the fields full e blossoms, leaves, an* birds; Thet s Northun natur , slow an apt to doubt, But when it doos git stirred, ther s no gin- out! Fust come the blackbirds clatt rin in tall trees, An settlin things in windy Congresses, Queer politicians, though, for I 11 be skinned Ef all on em don t head aginst the wind, fore long the trees begin to show belief, The maple crimsons to a coral-reef, Then saffern swarms swing off from all the willers So plump they look like yaller caterpil lars, Then gray hossches nuts leetle hands unfold Softer n a baby s be at three days old: Thet s robin - redbreast s almanick; he knows Thet arter this ther s only blossom-snows ; So, choosin out a handy crotch an spouse, He goes to plast rin his adobe house. Then seems to come a hitch, things lag behind, Till some fine mornin Spring makes up her mind, An ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an* jams, A leak comes spirtin thru some pin-hole cleft, Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an* left, Then all the waters bow themselves an* come, Suddin, in one gret slope o shedderin foam r Jes so our Spring gits everythin in tune An gives one leap from Aperl into June : Then all comes crowdin in ; afore you think, Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pink ; The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud ; 262 THE BIGLOW PAPERS The orchards turn to heaps o rosy cloud ; Red-cedars blossom tu, though few folks know it, An look all dipt in sunshine like a poet ; The lime-trees pile their solid stacks o shade An drows ly simmer with the bees sweet trade ; In ellum-shrouds the flashin hangbird clings An for the summer vy ge his hammock All down the loose-walled lanes in archin bowers The barb ry droops its strings o golden flowers, Whose shrinkin hearts the school-gals love to try With pins, they 11 worry yourn so, boys, bimeby ! But I don t love your cat logue style, do you ? Ez ef to sell off Natur by vendoo ; One word with blood in t s twice ez good ez two : miff sed, June s bridesman, poet o the year, Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here ; Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin ^ wings, Or, givin way to t in a mock despair, Runs down, a brook o laughter, thru the air. I ollus feel the sap start in my veins In Spring, with curus heats an prickly pains, Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walk Off by myself to hev a privit talk With a queer critter thet can t seem to gree Along o me like most folks, Mister Me. Ther* s times when I m unsoshle ez a stone, An* sort o suffercate to be alone, I m crowded jes to think thet folks are nigh, An* can t bear nothin closer than the sky; Now the wind s full ez shifty in the mind Ez wut it is ou -doors, ef I ain t blind, An sometimes, in the fairest sou west weather, My innard vane pints east for weeks to gether, My natur gits all goose-flesh, an my sins Come drizzlin on my conscience sharp ez pins : Wai, et sech times I jes slip out o sight An take it out in a fair stan -up fight With the one cuss I can t lay on the shelf, The crook dest stick in all the heap, My self. T wuz so las Sabbath arter meetin -time : Findin my feelin s would n t noways rhyme With nobody s, but off the hendle flew An took things from an east-wind pint o view, I started off to lose me in the hills Where the pines be, up back o Siah s Mills : Pines, ef you re blue, are the best friends I know, They mope an sigh an sheer your feelin s so, They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan, You half-forgit you ve gut a body on. Ther s a small schooFus there where four roads meet, The door-steps hollered out by little feet, An side-posts carved with names whose owners grew To gret men, some on em, an deacons, tu ; t ain t used no longer, coz the town hez gut A high-school, where they teach the Lord knows wut : Three-story larnin s pop lar now ; I guess We thriv ez wal on jes two stories less, For it strikes me ther s sech a thing ez sinnin By overloadin children s underpinnin : Wal, here it wuz I larned my ABC, An it s a kind o favorite spot with me. We re curus critters : Now ain t jes the minute Thet ever fits us easy while we re in it ; Long ez t wuz futur , t would be perfect bliss, Soon ez it s past, thet time s wuth ten o this; An yit there ain t a man thet need be told Thet Now s the only bird lays eggs o gold. A knee-high lad, I used to plot an plan An think twuz life s cap -sheaf to be a man; THE BIGLOW PAPERS 263 Now, gittin gray, there s notbin I enjoy Like dreamin back along into a boy : So the ole school us is a place I choose Afore all others, ef I want to muse ; I set down where I used to set, an git My boyhood back, an better things with it, Faith, Hope, an sunthin , ef it is n t Cher- rity, It s want o guile, an thet s ez gret a rer- rity, While Fancy s cushin , free to Prince and Clown, Makes the hard bench ez soft ez milk weed-down. Now, fore I knowed, thet Sabbath arter- noon When I sot out to tramp myself in tune, I found me in the school us on my seat, Drummin the march to No-wheres with my feet. Thinkin o nothin , I ve heerd ole folks say Is a hard kind o dooty in its way: It s thinkin everythin you ever knew, Or ever hearn, to make your feelin s blue. I sot there tryin thet on for a spell : I thought o the Rebellion, then o Hell, Which some folks tell ye now is jest a met- terfor (A the ry, p raps, it wun t feel none the better for) ; I thought o Reconstruction, wut we d win Patchin our patent self-blow-up agin : I thought ef this ere mil kin o the wits, So much a month, warn t givin Natur fits, Ef folks warn t druv, findin their own milk fail, To work the cow thet hez an iron tail, An ef idees thout ripenin in the pan Would send up cream to humor ary man : From this to thet I let my worryin creep, Till finally I must ha fell asleep. Our lives in sleep are some like streams thet glide twixt flesh an sperrit boundin on each side, Where both shores shadders kind o mix an mingle In sunthin thet ain t jes like either sin- g ] e; An* when you cast off moorin s from To day, An down towards To-morrer drift away, The imiges thet tengle on the stream Make a new upside - do wn ard world o dream : Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks an warnin s O wut 11 be in Heaven on Sabbath-morn- in s, An , mixed right in ez ef jest out o spite, Sunthin thet says your supper ain t gone right. I m gret on dreams, an often when I wake, I ve lived so much it makes my mem ry ache, An* can t skurce take a cat-nap in my cheer thout hevin em, some good, some bad, all queer. Now I wuz settin where I d ben, it seemed, An ain t sure yit whether I r ally dreamed, Nor, ef I did, how long I might ha slep , When I hearn some un stompin up the step, An lookin round, ef two an two make four, I see a Pilgrim Father in the door. He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an spurs With rowels to em big ez ches nut-burrs, An his gret sword behind him sloped away Long z a man s speech thet dunno wut to say. " Ef your name s Biglow, an your given- name Hosee," sez he, " it s arter you I came; I m your gret-gran ther multiplied by three." "My tout?" sez I. "Your gret-gret- gret," sez he: " You would n t ha never ben here but for me. Two hundred an three year ago this May The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay; I d been a cunnle in our Civil War, But wut on airth hev you gut up one for ? Coz we du things in England, t ain t for you To git a notion you can du em tu: I m told you write in public prints: ef true, It s nateral you should know a thing or two." "Thet air s an argymunt I can t en dorse, 264 THE BIGLOW PAPERS t would prove, coz you wear spurs, you kep a horse: For brains," sez I, "wutever you may think, Ain t boun to cash the drafs o pen-an - ink, Though mos folks write ez ef they hoped jes quickeiiin The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin ; But skim-milk ain t a thing to change its view O wut it s meant for more n a smoky flue. But du pray tell me, fore we furder go, How in all Natur did you come to know bout our affairs," sez I, "in Kingdom- Come ? " " Wai, I worked round at sperrit-rappin some, An danced the tables till their legs wuz gone, In hopes o larnin wut wuz goin on," Sez he, " but mejums lie so like all-split Thet I concluded it wuz best to quit. But, come now, ef you wun t confess to knowin , You ve some conjectures how the thing s a-goin ." " Gran ther," sez I, " a vane warn t never known Nor asked to hev a jedgment of its own; An yit, ef t ain t gut rusty in the jints, It s safe to trust its say on certin pints: It knows the wind s opinions to a T, An the wind settles wut the weather 11 be." " I never thought a scion of our stock Could grow the wood to make a weather cock; When I wuz younger n you, skurce more n a shaver, No airthly wind," sez he, "could make me waver ! " (Ez he said this, he clinched his jaw an forehead, Hitchin his belt to bring his sword-hilt forrard.) " Jes so it wuz with me," sez I, " I swow, When / wuz younger n wut you see me now, Nothin from Adam s fall to Huldy s bon net, Thet I warn t full-cocked with my jedg ment on it; But now I m gittin on in life, I find It s a sight harder to make up my mind, Nor I don t often try tu, when events Will du it for me free of all expense. The moral question s ollus plain enough, It s jes the human - natur side thet s tough; Wut s best to think may n t puzzle me nor you, The pinch comes in decidin wut to du ; Ef you read History, all runs smooth ez grease, Coz there the men ain t nothin more n idees, But come to make it, ez we must to-day, Th idees hev arms an legs an stop the way: It s easy fixin things in facts an figgers, They can t resist, nor warn t brought up with niggers; But come to try your the ry on, why., then Your facts an figgers change to ign ant men Actin ez ugly " " Smite em hip an* thigh ! " Sez gran ther, "and let every man-child die ! Oh for three weeks o Crommle an the Lord! Up, Isr el, to your tents an grind the sword ! " " Thet kind o thing worked wal in ole Judee, But you forgit how long it s ben A. D. ; You think thet s ellerkence, I call it shoddy, A thing," sez I, " wun t cover soul nor body ; I like the plain all-wool o common-sense, Thet warms ye. now, an will a twelve month hehce. You took to follerin where the Prophets beckoned, An , fust you knowed on, back come Charles the Second; Now wut I want s to hev all we gain stick, An* not to start Millennium too quick; We hain t to punish only, but to keep, An* the cure s gut to go a cent ry deep." "Wall, milk-an -water ain t the best o 1 glue," Sez he, "an so you ll find afore you re thru; Ef reshness venters sunthin , shilly-shally THE BIGLOW PAPERS 265 Loses ez often wut s ten times the vally. Thet exe of ourn, when Charles s neck gut split, Opened a gap thet ain t bridged over yit: Slav ry s your Charles, the Lord hez gin the exe " " Our Charles," sez I, " hez gut eight mil lion necks. The hardest question ain t the black man s right, The trouble is to mancipate the white ; One s chained in body an can be sot free, But t other s chained in soul to an idee : It s a long job, but we shall worry thru it; Ef bagnets fail, the spellin -book must du it." " Hosee," sez he, I think you re goin to fail: The rettlesnake ain t dangerous in the tail ; This ere rebellion s nothing but the ret- tle, You 11 stomp on thet an think you ve won the bettle; It s Slavery thet s the fangs an thinkin head, An ef you want selvation, cresh it dead, An cresh it suddin, or you 11 larn by waitin Thet Chance wun t stop to listen to de- batin !" "God s truth ! " sez I, an ef I held the club, An knowed jes j where to strike, but there s the rub!" " Strike soon," sez he, " or you 11 be deadly ailin , Folks thet s afeared to fail are sure o f ailin ; God hates your sneakin creturs thet be lieve He 11 settle things they run away an leave ! " He brought his foot down fercely, ez he spoke, An give me sech a startle thet I woke. No. VII LATEST VIEWS OF MR. BIGLOW PRELIMINARY NOTE [!T is with feelings of the liveliest pain that we inform our readers of the death of the Rev erend Homer Wilbur, A. M., which took place suddenly, by an apoplectic stroke, on the after noon of Christmas day, 1862. Our venerable friend (for so we may venture to call him, though we never enjoyed the high privilege ot his personal acquaintance) was in his eighty- fourth year, haying been born June 12, 1779, at Pigsgusset Precinct (now West Jerusha) in the then District of Maine. Graduated with dis tinction at Hubville College in 1805, he pursued his theological studies with the late Reverend Preserved Thacker, D. D., and was called to the charge of the First Society in Jaalam in 1809, where he remained till his death. "As an antiquary he has probably left no superior, if, indeed, an equal," writes his friend and colleague, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitch cock, to whom we are indebted for the above facts ; " in proof of which I need only allude to his History of Jaalam, Genealogical, Topo graphical, and Ecclesiastical, 1849, which has won him an eminent and enduring place in our more solid and useful literature. It is only to be regretted that his intense application to his torical studies should have so entirely with drawn him from the pursuit of poetical compo sition, for which he was endowed by Nature with a remarkable aptitude. His well-known hymn, beginning With clouds of care encom passed round, has been attributed in some col lections to the late President Dwight, and it is hardly presumptuous to affirm that the simile of the rainbow in the eighth stanza would do no discredit to that polished pen." We regret that we have not room at present for the whole of Mr. Hitchcock s exceedingly valuable communication. We hope to lay more liberal extracts from it before our readers at an early day. A summary of its contents will give some notion of its importance and interest. It contains : 1st, A biographical sketch of Mr. Wilbur, with notices of his predecessors in the pastoral office, and of eminent clerical contem poraries ; 2d, An obituary of deceased, from the Punkin-Falls "Weekly Parallel; " 3d, A list of his printed and manuscript productions and of projected works ; 4th, Personal anec dotes and recollections, with specimens of table- talk ; 5th, A tribute to his relict, Mrs. Dorcas (Pilcox) Wilbur ; 6th, A list of graduates fitted for different colleges by Mr. Wilbur, with bio graphical memoranda touching the more dis tinguished ; 7th, Concerning learned, charitable, and other societies, of which Mr. Wilbur was a member, and of those with which, had his life been prolonged, he would doubtless have been associated, with a complete catalogue of such Americans as have been Fellows of the Royal Society ; 8th, A brief summary of Mr. Wilbur s latest conclusions concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast in its special application to recent events, for which the public, as Mr. Hitchcock assures us, have been waiting with feelings of lively anticipation ; 9th, Mr. Hitchcock s own views on the same topic ; and, 10th, A brief essay on the importance of local histories. It will be apparent that the duty of preparing Mr. Wilbur s biography could not have fallen into more sympathetic hands. 266 THE BIGLOW PAPERS In a private letter with which the reverend gentleman has since favored us, he expresses the opinion that Mr. Wilbur s life was short ened by our unhappy civil war. It disturbed his studies, dislocated all his habitual associa tions and trains of thought, and unsettled the foundations of a faith, rather the result of habit than conviction, in the capacity of man for self- government. "Such has been the felicity of my life," he said to Mr. Hitchcock, on the very morning of the day he died, 4t that, through the divine mercy, I could always say, Summum nee metuo diem, nee opto. It has been my habit, as you know, on every recurrence of this blessed anniversary, to read Milton s Hymn of the Nativity till its sublime harmonies so dilated my soul and quickened its spiritual sense that I seemed to hear that other song which gave assur ance to the shepherds that there was One who would lead them also in green pastures and be side the still waters. But to-day I have been unable to think of anything but that mournful text, I came not to send peace, but a sword, and, did it not smack of Pagan presumptuous- ness, could almost wish I had never lived to see this day." Mr. Hitchcock also informs us that his friend " lies buried in the Jaalam graveyard, under a large red-cedar which he specially admired. A neat and substantial monument is to be erected over his remains, with a Latin epitaph written by himself ; for he was accustomed to say, pleasantly, * that there was at least one occasion in a scholar s life when he might show the ad vantages of a classical training. " The following fragment of a letter addressed to us, and apparently intended to accompany Mr. Biglow s contribution to the present num ber, was found upon his table after his decease. EDITORS ATLANTIC MONTHLY.] TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY JAALAM, 24th Dec., 1862. RESPECTED SIRS, The infirm state of my bodily health would be a sufficient apology for not taking up the pen at this time, wholesome as I deem it for the mind to apricate in the shelter of epistolary con fidence, were it not that a considerable, I might even say a large, number of individ uals in this parish expect from their pastor some publick expression of sentiment at this crisis. Moreover, Qui tacitus ardet magis uritur. In trying times like these, the besetting sin of undisciplined minds is to seek refuge from inexplicable realities in the dangerous stimulant of angry partisan ship or the indolent narcotick of vague and hopeful vaticination : fortunamque suo tem- perat arbitrio. Both by reason of my age and my natural temperament, I am unfitted for either. Unable to penetrate the inscru table judgments of God, I am more than ever thankful that my life has been pro longed till I cculd in some small measure comprehend His mercy. As there is no man who does not at some time render him self amenable to the one, quum vix Jus tus sit securus, so there is none that does not feel himself in daily need of the other. I confess I cannot feel, as some do, a personal consolation for the manifest evils of this war in any remote or contingent advantages that may spring from it. I am old and weak, I can bear little, and can scarce hope to see better days ; nor is it any adequate compensation to know that Nature is young and strong and can bear much. Old men philosophize over the past, but the present is only a burthen and a weariness. The one lies before them like a placid evening landscape ; the other is full of the vexations and anxieties of house keeping. It may be true enough that mis- cet hcec illis, prohibetque Clotho fortunam stare, but he who said it was fain at last to call in Atropos with her shears before her time ; and I cannot help selfishly mourn ing that the fortune of our Republick could not at least stay till my days were num bered. Tibullus would find the origin of wars in the great exaggeration of riches, and does not stick to say that in the days of the beechen trencher there was peace. But averse as I am by nature from all wars, the more as they have been especially fatal to libraries, I would have this one go on till we are reduced to wooden platters again, rather than surrender the principle to defend which it was undertaken. Though I believe Slavery to have been the cause of it, by so thoroughly demoralizing Northern politicks for its own purposes as to give opportunity and hope to treason, yet I would not have our thought and purpose diverted from their true object, the maintenance of the idea of Government. We are not merely suppressing an enormous riot, but contending for the possibility of permanent order coexisting with democratical fickle ness; and while I would not superstitiously venerate form to the sacrifice of substance, neither would I forget that an adherence to precedent and prescription can alone give THE BIGLOW PAPERS 267 that continuity and coherence under a dem- ocratical constitution which are inherent in the person of a despotick monarch and the selfishness of an aristocratical class. Stet pro ratione voluntas is as dangerous in a ma jority as in a tyrant. I cannot allow the present production of my young friend to go out without a protest from me against a certain extremeness in his views, more pardonable in the poet than in the philosopher. While I agree with him, that the only cure for rebellion is suppres sion by force, yet I must animadvert upon certain phrases where I seem to see a coin cidence with a popular fallacy on the sub ject of compromise. On the one hand there are those who do not see that the vital prin ciple of Government and the seminal prin ciple of Law cannot properly be made a subject of compromise at all, and on the other those who are equally blind to the truth that without a compromise of indi vidual opinions, interests, and even rights, no society would be possible. In medio tutissimus. For my own part, I would gladly EF I a song or two could make Like rockets druv by their own burnin , All leap an light, to leave a wake Men s hearts an* faces skyward turn- in ! But, it strikes me, t ain t jest the time Fer stringin words with settisf action: Wut s wanted now s the silent rhyme Twixt upright Will an downright Ac tion. Words, ef you keep em, pay their keep, But gabble s the short cut to ruin ; It s gratis, (gals half-price,) but cheap At no rate, ef it benders doin ; Ther s nothin wuss, less t is to set A martyr-prem um upon jawrin : Teapots git dangerous, ef you shet Their lids down on em with Fort War ren. Bout long enough it s ben discussed Who sot the magazine afire, An whether, ef Bob Wickliffe bust, T would scare us more or blow us higher. D ye s pose the Gret Foreseer s plan Wuz settled fer him in town-meetin ? Or thet ther d ben no Fall o Man, Ef Adam d on y bit a sweetin ? Oh, Jon than, ef you want to be A rugged chap agin an hearty, Go fer wutever 11 hurt Jeff D., Nut wut 11 boost up ary party. Here s hell broke loose, an we lay flat With half the univarse a-singein , Till Seu tor This an Gov nor Thet Stop squabblin fer the garding-ingin. It s war we re in, not politics; It s systems wrastlin now, not parties; An victory in the eend 11 fix Where longest will an truest heart is. An wut s the Guv ment folks about ? Try in to hope ther s nothin doin , An look ez though they did n t doubt Sunthin pertickler wuz a-brewin . Ther s critters yit thet talk an act Fer wut they call Conciliation; They d hand a buff lo-drove a tract When they wuz madder than all Ba- shan. Conciliate ? it jest means be kicked, No metter how they phrase an tone it; It means thet we re to set down licked, Thet we re poor shotes an glad to own it! A war on tick s ez dear J z the deuce, But it wun t leave no lastin traces, Ez t would to make a sneakin truce Without no moral specie-basis: Ef greenbacks ain t nut jest the cheese, I guess ther s evils thet s extremer, Fer instance, shinplaster idees Like them put out by Gov nor Seymour. Last year, the Nation, at a word, When tremblin Freedom cried to shield her, Flamed weldin into one keen sword Waitin an longin fer a wielder: A splendid flash! but how d the grasp With sech a chance ez thet wuz tally ? Ther warn t no meanin in our clasp, Half this, half thet, all shilly-shally. More men? More Man! It s there we fail; Weak plans grow weaker yit by length- enin : 2 68 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Wut use in addin to the tail, When it s the head s in need o strength- enin ? We wanted one tbet felt all Chief From roots o hair to sole o stockin , Square-sot with thousan -ton belief In him an us, ef earth went rockin ! Ole Hick ry would n t ha stood see-saw Bout doin things till they wuz done with, He d smashed the tables o the Law In time o need to load his gun with; He could n t see but jest one side, Ef his, t wuz God s, an thet wuz plenty ; An so his " Forrards ! " multiplied An army s nghtin weight by twenty. But this ere histin , creak, creak, creak, Your cappen s heart up with a derrick, This tryin to coax a lightnin -streak Out of a half-discouraged hay-rick, This hangin on mont arter mont Fer one sharp purpose mongst the twitter, I tell ye, it doos kind o stunt The peth and sperit of a critter. In six months where 11 the People be, Ef leaders look on revolution Ez though it wuz a cup o tea, Jest social el ments in solution ? This weighin things doos wal enough When war cools down, an conies to writin ; But while it s makin , the true stuff Is pison-mad, pig-headed fightin*. Democracy gives every man The right to be his own oppressor ; But a loose Gov ment ain t the plan, Helpless ez spilled beans on a dresser : I tell ye one thing we might larn From them smart critters, the Seced- ers, Ef bein right s the fust consarn, The fore-the-fust s cast-iron leaders. But pears to me I see some signs Thet we re a-goin to use our senses : Jeff druv us into these hard lines, An ough to bear his half th expenses ; Slavery s Secession s heart an will, South, North, East, West, where er you find it, An ef it drors into War s mill, D ye say them thunder-stones sha n t grind it ? D ye s pose, ef Jeff giv him a lick, Ole Hick ry d tried his head to sof n So s t would n t hurt thet ebony stick Thet s made our side see stars so of n ? "No!" he d ha thundered, "on your knees, An own one flag, one road to glory ! Soft-heartedness, in times like these, Shows sof ness in the upper story ! " An why should we kick up a muss About the Pres dunt s proclamation ? It ain t a-goin to lib rate us, Ef we don t like emancipation : The right to be a cussed fool Is safe from all devices human, It s common (ez a gin l rule) To every critter born o woman. So we re all right, an I, fer one, Don t think our cause 11 lose in vally By rammin Scriptur in our gun, An gittin Natur fer an ally : Thank God, say I, fer even a plan To lift one human bein s level, Give one more chance to make a man, Or, anyhow, to spile a devil ! Not thet I m one thet much expec Millennium by express to-morrer; They will miscarry, I rec lec Tu many on em, to my sorrer : Men ain t made angels in a day, No matter how you mould an labor em, Nor riginal ones, I guess, don t stay With Abe so of n ez with Abraham. The ry thinks Fact a pooty thing, An wants the banns read right en- suin ; But fact wun t noways wear the ring, Thout years o settin up an wooin : Though, arter all, Time s dial-plate Marks cent ries with the minute-finger, An Good can t never come tu late, Though it doos seem to try an linger. An come wut will, I think it s grand Abe s gut his will et last bloom-fur- naced THE BIGLOW PAPERS 269 in trial-flames till it 11 stand The strain o bein in deadly earnest : Thet s wut we want, we want to know The folks on our side hez the bravery To b lieve ez hard, come weal, come woe, In Freedom ez Jeff doos in Slavery. Set the two forces foot to foot, An every man knows who 11 be winner, Whose faith in God hez ary root Thet goes down deeper than his dinner: Then t will be felt from pole to pole, Without no need o proclamation, Earth s biggest Country s gut her soul An risen up Earth s Greatest Nation ! No. VIII KETTELOPOTOMACHIA PRELIMINARY NOTE [!N the month of February, 1866, the editors of the " Atlantic Monthly " received from the Rev. Mr. Hitchcock of Jaalama letter enclosing the macaronic verses which follow, and promis ing to send more, if more should be communi cated. " They were rapped out on the evening of Thursday last past," he says, " by what claimed to be the spirit of my late predecessor in the ministry here, the Rev. Dr. Wilbur, through the medium of a young man at present domiciled in my family. As to the possibility of such spiritual manifestations, or whether they be properly so entitled, I express no opinion, as there is a division of sentiment on that subject in the parish, and many persons of the highest respectability in social standing entertain opposing views. The young man who was improved as a medium submitted himself to the experiment with manifest reluc tance, and is still unprepared to believe in the authenticity of the manifestations. During his residence with me his deportment has al ways been exemplary ; he has been constant in his attendance upon our family devotions and the public ministrations of the Word, and has more than once privately stated to me, that the latter had often brought him under deep concern of mind. The table is an ordinary quadrupedal one, weighing about thirty pounds, three feet seven inches and a half in height, four feet square on the top, and of beech or maple, I am not definitely prepared to say which. It had once belonged to my respected predecessor, and had been, so far as I can learn upon careful inquiry, of perfectly regular and correct habits up to the evening in ques tion. On that occasion the young man previ ously alluded to had been sitting with his hands resting carelessly upon it, while I read over to him at his request certain portions of my last Sabbath s discourse. On a sudden the rappings, as they are called, commenced to render themselves audible, at first faintly, but in process of time more distinctly and witk violent agitation of the table. The young man expressed himself both surprised and pained by the wholly unexpected, and, so far as he was concerned, unprecedented occurrence. At the earnest solicitation, however, of several who happened to be present, he consented to go on with the experiment, and with the assistance of the alphabet commonly employed in similar emergencies, the following communication was obtained and written down immediately by myself. Whether any, and if so, how much weight should be attached to it, I venture no decision. That Dr. Wilbur had sometimes, employed his leisure in Latin versification I have ascertained to be the case, though all that has been discovered of that nature among his papers consists of some fragmentary pass ages of a version into hexameters of portions of the Song of Solomon. These I had com municated about a week or ten days previ ous [ly] to the young gentleman who officiated as medium in the communication afterwards received. I have thus, I believe, stated all the material facts that have any elucidative bear ing upon this mysterious occurrence." So far Mr. Hitchcock, who seems perfectly master of Webster s unabridged quarto, and whose flowing style leads him into certain further expatiations for which we have not room. We have since learned that the young man he speaks of was a sophomore, put under his care during a sentence of rustication from College, where he had distinguished him self rather by physical experiments on the comparative power of resistance in window- glass to various solid substances, than in the more regular studies of the place. In answer to a letter of inquiry, the professor of Latin says, " There was no harm in the boy that I know of beyond his loving mischief more than Latin, nor can I think of any spirits likely to possess him except those commonly called animal. He was certainly not remarkable for his Latinity, but I see nothing in the verses you enclose that would lead me to think them beyond his capacity, or the result of any special inspiration whether of beech or maple. Had that of birch been tried upon him earlier and more faithfully, the verses would perhaps have been better in quality and certainly in quan tity." This exact and thorough scholar then goes on to point out many false quantities and 270 THE BIGLOW PAPERS barbarisms. It is but fair to say, however, that the author, whoever he was, seems not to have been unaware of some of them himself, as is shown by a great many notes appended to the verses as we received them, and purporting 1 to be by Scaliger, Bentley, and others, among- them the Esprit de Voltaire ! These we have omit ted as clearly meant to be humorous and alto gether failing therein. Though entirely satisfied that the verses are altogether unworthy of Mr. Wilbur, who seems to have been a tolerable Latin scholar after the fashion of his day, yet we have determined to print them here, partly as belonging to the res gestce of this collection, and partly as a warning to their putative author which may keep him from such indecorous pranks for the future. KETTELOPOTOMACHIA P. Ovidii Nasonis carmen heroicum macaron- icum perplexametrum, inter Getas getico more compostum, denuo per medium ardentispiritu- alem adjuvante mensa diabolice obsessa", re- cuperatum, curaque Jo. Conrarli Schwarzii um brae, aliis necnon plurimis adjuvantibus, re- stitutum. LIBER I. PUNCTORUM garretos colens et cellara Quinque, Gutteribus quse et gaudes sundayam abstin- gere frontem, Plerumque iiisidos solita fluitare liquore Tanglepedem quern homines appellant Di quoque rotgut, Pimpliidis, rubicundaque, Musa, O, bour- bonolensque, 5 Fenianas rixas procul, alma, brogipotentis Patricii cyathos iterantis et horrida bella, Backos dum virides viridis Brigitta remit- tit, Linquens, eximios celebrem, da,Virginienses Rowdes, prsecipue et TE, heros alte, Polar- de! 10 Insignes juvenesque, illo certamine lictos, Colemane, Tylere, nee vos oblivione relin- quam. Ampla aquilse invictse fausto est sub teg- mine terra, Backyfer, ooiskeo pollens, ebenoque bi- pede, Socors prsesidum et altrix (denique quidru- minantium), 15 Duplefveorum uberrima; illis et integre cordi est Deplere assidue et sine proprio incommodo fiscum; Nunc etiam placidum hoc opus invictique secuti, Goosam aureos ni eggos voluisseut immo necare Qua3 peperit, saltern ac de illis meliora me- rentem. 20 Condidit hanc Smithius Dux, Captinus inclytus ille Regis Ulyssse instar, docti arcum intendere longum ; Condidit ille Johnsmith, Virginiamque vo- cavit, Settledit autem Jacobus rex, nomine pri mus, Rascalis implens ruptis, blagardisque de- boshtis, 25 Militibusque ex Falstaffi legione fugatis Wenchisque illi quas poterant seducere nuptas ; Virgineum, ah, littus matronis talibus im- par! Progeniem stirpe ex hoc non sine stigmate ducunt Multi sese qui jactant regum esse nepotes: Haud omnes, Mater, genitos quse nuper habebas si Bello fortes, consilio cautos, virtute decoros, Jamque et habes, sparso si patrio in san guine virtus, Mostrabisque iterurn, antiquis sub astris reducta ! De illis qui upkikitant, dicebam, rumpora tanta, 35 Letcheris et Floydis magnisque Extra or- dine Billis ; Est his prisca fides jurare et breakere wor- dum ; Poppere fellerum a tergo, aut stickere clam bowiknifo, Haud sane facinus, dignum sed victrice lauro ; Larrupere et nigerum, factum prsestantius ullo : 40 Ast chlamydem piciplumatam, Icariam, flito et ineptam, Yanko gratis induere, ilium et valid o railo Insuper acri equitare docere est hospitio uti. Nescio an ille Polardus duplefveoribus ortus, Sed reputo potius de radice poorwiteman- THE BIGLOW PAPERS 271 Fortuiti proles, ni fallor, Tylerus erat Prsesidis, omnibus ab Whiggis nominatus a poor cuss ; Et nobilem tertium evincit venerabile no- men. Ast animosi omnes bellique ad tympana ha ! ha! Vociferant laeti, procul et si prrelia, sive so Hostem incautum atsito possint shootere salvi ; Imperiique capaces, esset si stylus aginen, Pro dulci spoliabant et sine dangere fito. Prse ceterisque Polardus : si Secessia licta, Se nuuquam licturum jurat, res et unheard- of, 55 Verbo hsesit, similisque audaci roosteri in- victo, Dunghilli solitus rex pullos whoppere molles, Grantum, hirelingos stripes quique et splen- dida tollunt Sidera, et Yankos, territum et omnem sars- uit orbem. Usque dabant operam isti omnes, noctes- que diesque, eo Samuelem demulgere avunculum, id vero siccum ; Uberibus sed ejus, et horum est culpa, re- motis, Parvam domi vaccam, nee mora minima, quserunt, Lacticarentem autem et droppam vix in die dantem ; Reddite avunculi, et exclainabant, reddite pappam ! 65 Polko ut consule, gemens, Billy immur- murat Extra ; Echo respondit, thesauro ex vacuo, pap pam ! Frustra explorant pocketa, ruber nare re- pertum ; Offieia expulsi aspiciunt rapta, et Para- disum Occlusum, viridesque hand illis nascere backos ; 70 Stupent tune oculis madidis spittantque si- lenter. Adhibere usu ast longo vires prorsus in- epti, Si non ut qui grindeat axve trabemve re- uolvat, Virginiam excruciant totis nunc mightibu matrem ; Non melius, puta, nono panis dimidiumne est ? 75 Readere ibi non posse est casus commoner ullo; Tanto intentius imprimere est opus ergo statuta; Nemo propterea pejor, melior, sine doubto, Obtineat qui contractum, si et postea rhino ; Ergo Polardus, si quis, iuexsuperabilis he- ros, 80 Colemanus impavidus nondum, atque in purpure natus Tylerus lohanides celerisque in flito Na thaniel, Quisque optans digitos in tantum stickere pium, Adstant accincti imprimere aut perrumpere Quales os miserum rabidi tres segre mo- lossi, SA Quales aut dubium textum atra in veste ministri, Tales circumstabant nunc nostri inopes hocr job. Hisque Polardus voce canoro talia fatus: Primum autem, veluti est mos, prseceps quisque liquorat, Quisque et Nicotianum ingens quid inserit atrum, 90 Heroum nitidum decus et solamen avi- tum, Masticat ac simul altisonans, spittatque profuse : Quis de Virginia meruit prsestantius un- quam ? Quis se pro patria curavit impigre tu- tum? Speechisque articulisque hominum quis for- tior ullus, 95 Ingeminans pennse lickos et vulnera vo- cis? Quisnam putidius (hie) sarsuit Yankinimi- cos, Ssepius aut dedit ultro datam et broke his parolam ? Mente inquassatus solidaque, tyranno mi- nante, Horrisonis (hie) bombis mcenia et alta qua- tente, 100 Sese promptum (hie) jactans Yankos lickere centum, Atque ad lastum invictus non surrendidit unquam ? Ergo hand meddlite, posco, mique relinquite (hie) hoc job, Si non knif unique enormem mostrat spit tatque tremendus. 272 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Dixerat: ast alii reliquoraut et sine pauso Pluggos incumbunt maxillis, uterque vicis- sim Certamine innocuo valde madidam inquinat assem: Tylerus autera, dumque liquorat aridus hostis, Mirum aspicit duplumque bibentem, astante Lyseo; Ardens impavidusque edidit tamen impia verba; no Duplum quamvis te aspicio, esses atque viginti, Mendacem dicerem totumque (bic) thrash- erem acervum; Neinpe et thrasham, doggonatus (hie) sim nisi faxem; Lambastabo omnes catawompositer-(hic) que cbawam! Dixit et impulsus Ryeo ruitur bene ti- tuS, 115 Illi nam gravidum caput et laterem habet in hatto. Hunc inhiat titubansque Polardus, optat et ilium Stickere inermem, protegit autem rite Lyseus, Et pronos geminos, oculis dubitantibus, he- ros Cernit et irritus hostes, dumque excogitat utrum 120 Primum inpitchere, corruit, inter utrosque recumbit, Magno asiuo similis nimio sub pondere quas- sns: Colemanus hos mcestus, triste ruminansque solamen, Inspicit hiccans, circumspittat terque cu- bantes ; Funereisque his ritibus humidis inde solu- tis, 125 Stenritur, invalidusque illis superincidit in- fans; Hos sepelit somnus et snorunt cornisonan- tes, Watchmanus inscios ast calybooso deinde reponit. No. IX [THE Editors of the " Atlantic " have re ceived so many letters of inquiry concerning the literary remains of the late Mr. Wilbur, men tioned by his colleague and successor, Rev. Jeduthun Hitchcock, in a communication from which we made some extracts in our number for February, 1863, and have been so repeatedly urged to print some part of them for the grati fication of the public, that they felt it their duty at least to make some effort to satisfy so urgent a demand. They have accordingly carefully examined the papers intrusted to them, but find most of the productions of Mr. Wilbur s pen so fragmentary, and even chaotic, written as they are on the backs of letters in an exceedingly cramped chirography, here a memorandum for a sermon; there an observation of the weather ; now the measurement of an extraor dinary head of cabbage, and then of the cerebral capacity of some reverend brother deceased ; a calm inquiry into the state of modern literature, ending in a method of detecting if milk be im poverished with water, and the amount thereof ; one leaf beginning with a genealogy, to be inter rupted halfway down with an entry that the brindle cow had calved, that any attempts at selection seemed desperate. His only complete work, "An Enquiry concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast," even in the abstract of it given by Mr. Hitchcock, would, by a rough computa tion of the printers, fill five entire numbers of our journal, and as he attempts, by a new appli cation of decimal fractions, to identify it with the Emperor Julian, seems hardly of immediate concern to the Teneral reader. Even the Table- Talk, though doubtless originally highly inter esting in the domestic circle, is so largely made up of theological discussion and matters of local or preterite interest, that we have found it hard to extract anything that would at all satisfy ex pectation. But, in order to silence further in quiry, we subjoin a few passages as illustrations of its general character.] I think I could go near to be a perfect Chris tian if I were always a visitor, as I have some times been, at the house of some hospitable friend. I can show a great deal of self-denial where the best of everything is urged upon me with kindly importunity. It is not so very hard to turn the other cheek for a kiss. And when I meditate upon the pains taken for our entertainment in this life, on the endless va riety of seasons, of human character and for tune, on the costliness of the hangings and furniture of our dwelling here, I sometimes feel a singular joy in looking upon myself as God s guest, and cannot but believe that we should all be wiser and happier, because more grateful, if we were always mindful of our priv ilege in this regard. And should we not rate more cheaply any honor that men could pay us, if we remembered that every day we sat at the table of the Great King ? Yet must we not forget that we are in strictest bonds His ser vants also; for there is no impiety so ahject as that which expects to he dead-headed (ut ita dicam) through life, and which, calling itself trust in Providence, is in reality asking Provi- THE BIGLOW PAPERS 2 73 dence to trust us and taking up all our goods on false pretences. It is a wise rule to take the world as we find it, not always to leave it so. It has often set me thinking when I find that I can always pick up plenty of empty nuts under my shagbark-tree. The squirrels know them by their lightness, and I have seldom seen one with the marks of their teeth in it. What a school-house is the world, if our wits would only not play truant! For I observe that men set most store by forms and symbols in proportion as they are mere shells. It is the outside they want and not the kernel. What stores of such do not many, who in material things are as shrewd as the squirrels, lay up for the spiritual winter-supply of themselves and their children! I have seen churches that seemed to me garners of these withered nuts, for it is wonderful how prosaic is the appre hension of symbols by the minds of most men. It is not one sect nor another, but all, who, like the dog of the fable, have let drop the spiritual substance of symbols for their material shadow, j If one attribute miraculous virtues to mere holy water, that beautiful emblem of inward purification at the door of God s house, another cannot comprehend the significance of baptism without being ducked over head and ears in the liquid vehicle thereof. [Perhaps a word of historical comment may be permitted here. My late revered predecessor was, I would humbly affirm, as free from pre judice as falls to the lot of the most highly fa vored individuals of our species. To be sure, I have heard him say that "what were called strong prejudices were in fact only the repulsion of sensitive organizations from that moral and even physical effluvium through which some natures by providential appointment, like cer tain unsavory quadrupeds, gave warning of their neighborhood. Better ten mistaken suspicions of this kind than one close encounter." This he said somewhat in heat, on being questioned as to his motives for always refusing his pulpit to those itinerant professors of vicarious benevo lence who end their discourses by taking up a collection. But at another time I remember his saying, "that there was one large thing which small minds always found room for, and that was great prejudices." This, however, by the way. The statement which I purposed to make was simply this. Down to A. D. 1830, Jaalam had consisted of a single parish, with one house set apart for religious services. In that year the foundations of a Baptist Society were laid by the labors of Elder Joash Q. Bal- com, 2d. As the members of the new body were drawn from the First Parish, Mr. Wilbur was for a time considerably exercised in mind. He even went so far as on one occasion to follow the reprehensible practice of the earlier Puritan divines in choosing a punning text, and preached from Hebrews xiii. 9: "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines." He after wards, in accordance with one of his own maxims, "to get a dead injury out of the mind as soon as is decent, bury it, and then ven tilate," in accordance with this maxim, I say, he lived on very friendly terms with Rev. Shear- jashub Scrimgour, present pastor of the Baptist Society in Jaalam. Yet I think it was never unpleasing to him that the church edifice of that society (though otherwise a creditable specimen of architecture) remained without a bell, as indeed it does to this day. So much seemed necessary to do away with any appearance of acerbity toward a respectable community of professing Christians, which might be suspected in the conclusion of the above paragraph. J. H.] In lighter moods he was not averse from an innocent play upon words. Looking up from his newspaper one morning, as I entered his study, he said, " When I read a debate in Con gress, I feel as if I were sitting at the feet of Zeno in the shadow of the Portico." On my ex pressing a natural surprise, he added, smiling, " Why, at such times the only view which hon orable members give me of what goes on in the world is through their intercalumniations." I smiled at this after a moment s reflection, and he added gravely, " The most punctilious refinement of manners is the only salt that will keep a democracy from stinking ; and what are we to expect from the people, if their repre sentatives set them such lessons ? Mr. Everett s whole life has been a sermon from this text. There was, at least, this advantage in duelling, that it set a certain limit on the tongue. When Society laid by the rapier, it buckled on the more subtle blade of etiquette wherewith to keep obtrusive vulgarity at bay." In this connection, I may be permitted to recall a playful remark of his upon another occasion. The painful divisions in the First Parish, A. D. 1844, occasioned by the wild notions in respect to the rights of (what Mr. Wilbur, so far as concerned the reasoning faculty, always called) the unfairer part of creation, put forth by Miss Parthenia Almira Fitz, are too well known to need more than a passing allusion. It was during these heats, long since happily allayed, that Mr. Wilbur remarked that " the Church had more trouble in dealing with one staresiarch than with twenty Aeresiarchs," and that the men s conscia recti, or certainty of being right, was nothing to the women s. Wlhen I once asked his opinion of a poetical composition on which I had expended no little pains, he read it attentively, and then re marked, " Unless one s thought pack more neatly in verse than in prose, it is wiser to 274 THE BIGLOW PAPERS refrain. Commonplace gains nothing by being translated into rhyme, for it is something which no hocus-pocus can transubstantiate with the real presence of living thought. You en title your piece, My Mother s Grave, and ex pend four pages of useful paper in detailing your emotions there. But, my dear sir, water ing does not improve the quality of ink, even though you should do it with tears. To pub lish a sorrow to Tom, Dick, and Harry is in some sort to advertise its unreality, for I have observed in my intercourse with the afflicted that the deepest grief instinctively hides its face with its hands and is silent. If your piece were printed, I have no doubt it would be popular, for people like to fancy that they feel much better than the trouble of feeling. I would put all poets on oath whether they have striven to say everything they possibly could think of, or to leave out all they could not help saying. In your own case, my worthy young friend, what you have written is merely a deliberate exercise, the gymnastic of senti ment. For your excellent maternal relative is still alive, and is to take tea with me this even ing, D. V. Beware of simulated feeling ; it is hypocrisy s first cousin ; it is especially dan gerous to a preacher ; for he who says one day, 4 Go to, let me seem to be pathetic, may be nearer than he thinks to saying, Go to, let me seem to be virtuous, or earnest, or under sorrow for sin. Depend upon it, Sappho loved her verses more sincerely than she did Phaon, and Petrarch his sonnets better than Laura, who was indeed but his poetical stalk ing-horse. After you shall have once heard that muffled rattle of clods on the coffin-lid of an irreparable loss, you will grow acquainted with a pathos that will make all elegies hate ful. When I was of your age, I also for a time mistook my desire to write verses for an authentic call of my nature in that direction. But one day as I was going forth for a walk, with my head full of an Elegy on the Death of Flirtilla, and vainly groping after a rhyme for lily that should not be silly or chilly, I saw my eldest boy Homer busy over the rain-water hogshead, in that childish experiment at par thenogenesis, the changing a horse-hair into a water-snake. An immersion of six weeks showed no change in the obstinate filament. Here was a stroke of unintended sarcasm. Had I not been doing in my study precisely what my boy was doing out of doors ? Had ray thoughts any more chance of coming to life by being submerged in rhyme than his hair by soaking in water ? I burned my elegy and took a course of Edwards on the Will. People do not make poetry ; it is made out of them by a process for which I do not find my self fitted. Nevertheless, the writing of verses is a good rhetorical exercitation, as teaching us what to shun most carefully in prose. For prose bewitched is like window-glass with bubbles in it, distorting what it should show with pellucid veracity." It is unwise to insist on doctrinal points as vital to religion. The Bread of Life is whole some and sufficing in itself, but gulped down with these kickshaws cooked up by theologians, it is apt to produce an indigestion, nay, even at last an incurable dyspepsia of scepticism. One of the most inexcusable weaknesses of Americans is in signing their names to what are called credentials. But for my interposi tion, a person who shall be nameless would have taken from this town a recommendation for an office of trust subscribed by the select men and all the voters of both parties, ascrib ing to him as many good qualities as if it had been his tombstone. The excuse was that it would be well for the town to be rid of him, as it would erelong be obliged to maintain him. I would not refuse my name to modest merit, but I would be as cautious as in signing a bond. [I trust I shall be subjected to no imputation of unbecoming vanity, if I mention the fact that Mr. W. indorsed my own qualifi cations as teacher of the high-school at Pe- quash Junction. J. H.] When I see a cer tificate of character with everybody s name to it, I regard it as a letter of introduction from the Devil. Never give a man your name un less you are willing to trust him with your reputation. There seem nowadays to be two sources of literary inspiration, fulness of mind and emptiness of pocket. I am often struck, especially in reading Montaigne, with the obviousness and famil iarity of a great writer s thoughts, and the freshness they gain because said by him. The truth is, we mix their greatness with all they say and give it our best attention. Johannes Faber sic cogitavit would be no enticing pre face to a book, but an accredited name gives credit like the signature to a note of hand. It is the advantage of fame that it is always privileged to take the world by the button, and a thing is weightier for Shakespeare s ut tering it by the whole amount of his person ality. It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how patient with over praise of themselves ; and yet the one does them no injury while the other may be their THE BIGLOW PAPERS People are apt to confound mere alertness of mind with attention. The one is but the flying abroad of all the faculties to the open doors and windows at every passing 1 rumor ; the other is the concentration of every one of them in a single focus, as in the alchemist over his alembic at the moment of expected pro jection. Attention is the stuff that memory is made of, and memory is accumulated genius. Do not look for the Millennium as imminent. One generation is apt to get all the wear it can out of the cast clothes of the last, and is al ways sure to use up every paling of the old fence that will hold a nail in building the You suspect a kind of vanity in my genea logical enthusiasm. Perhaps you are right ; but it is a universal foible. Where it does not show itself in a personal and private way, it becomes public and gregarious. We flatter ourselves in the Pilgrim Fathers, and the Vir ginian offshoot of a transported convict swells with the fancy of a cavalier ancestry. Pride of birth, I have noticed, takes two forms. One complacently traces himself up to a coronet ; another, defiantly, to a lapstone. The senti ment is precisely the same in both cases, only that one is the positive and the other the neg ative pole of it. Seeing a goat the other day kneeling in order to graze with less trouble, it seemed to me a type of the common notion of prayer. Most people are ready enough to go down on their knees for material blessings, but how few for those spiritual gifts which alone are an answer to our orisons, if we but knew it ! Some people, nowadays, seem to have hit upon a new moralization of the moth and the candle. They would lock up the light of Truth, lest poor Psyche should put it out in her effort to draw nigh to it. No. X MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY DEAR SIR, Your letter come to ban* Requestin me to please be funny; But I ain t made upon a plan Thet knows wut s comin , gall or honey: Ther s times the world doos look so queer, Odd fancies come afore I call em; An then agin, for half a year, No preacher thout a call s more solemn. You re n want o sunthin light an cute, Rattlin an shrewd an kin o jingle- ish, An wish, pervidin it ould suit, I d take an citify my English. I ken write long-tailed, ef I please, But when I m jokin , no, I thankee; Then, fore I know it, my idees Run helter-skelter into Yankee. Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, I tell ye wut, I hain t ben foolin ; The parson s books, life, death, an time Hev took some trouble with my school- in ; Nor th airth don t git put out with me, Thet love her z though she wuz a wo man; Why, th ain t a bird upon the tree But half forgives my bein human. An yit I love th unhighschooled way OP farmers bed when I wuz younger; Their talk wuz meatier, an ould stay, While book-froth seems to whet your hunger; For puttin in a downright lick twixt Humbug s eyes, ther s few can metch it, An then it helves my thoughts ez slick Ez stret-grained hickory doos a hetchet. But when I can t, I can t, thet s all, For Natur won t put up with gullin ; Idees you hev to shove an haul Like a druv pig ain t wuth a mullein: Live thoughts ain t sent for ; thru all rifts O sense they pour an resh ye onwards, Like rivers when south-lyin drifts Feel thet th old airth s a-wheelin sun wards. Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin thick Ez office-seekers arter lection, An into ary place ould stick Without no bother nor objection ; But sence the war my thoughts hang back Ez though I wanted to enlist em, An* subs tutes, they don t never lack, But then they 11 slope afore you ve mist em. 276 THE BIGLOW PAPERS Nothin don t seem like wut it wuz; I cau t see wut there is to bender, An yit my brains jes go buzz, buzz, Like bumblebees agin a winder; fore these times come, in all airth s row, Ther wuz one quiet place, my head in, Where I could hide an think, but now It s all one teeter, hopin , dreadin . Where s Peace ? I start, some clear- blown night, When gaunt stone walls grow numb an number, An , creakin cross the snow-crus white, Walk the col starlight into summer; Up grows the moon, an swell by swell Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer Than the last smile thet strives to tell O love gone heavenward in its shim mer. I hev been gladder o sech things Than cocks o spring or bees o clover, They filled my heart with livin springs, But now they seem to freeze em over; Sights innercent ez babes on knee, Peaceful ez eyes o pastur d cattle, Jes coz they be so, seem to me To rile me more with thoughts o bat tle. Indoors an out by spells I try; Ma am Natur keeps her spin -wheel goin , But leaves my natur* stiff and dry Ez fiel s o clover arter mowin ; An her jes keepin on the same, Calmer n a clock, an never carin , An findin nary thing to blame, Is wus than ef she took to swearin . Snow-flakes come whisperin on the pane The charm makes blazin logs so pleas ant, But I can t hark to wut they re say n , With Grant or Sherman oilers present; The chimbleys shudder in the gale, Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flap- pin Like a shot hawk, but all s ez stale To me ez so much sperit-rappin . Under the yaller-pines I house, When sunshine makes em all sweet- scented, An hear among their furry boughs The baskin west-wind purr contented, While way o erhead, ez sweet an low Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin , The wedged wil geese their bugles blow, Further an lurther South retreating Or up the slippery knob I strain An see a hundred hills like islan s Lift their blue woods in broken chain Out o the sea o snowy silence; The farm -smokes, sweetes sight on airth, Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin Seem kin o sad, an roun the hearth Of empty places set me thinkin . Beaver roars hoarse with meltin snows, An rattles di mon s from his granite ; Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, An into psalms or satires ran it; But he, nor all the rest thet once Started my blood to country-dances, Can t set me goin more n a dunce Thet hain t no use for dreams an fancies. Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street I hear the drummers makin riot, An I set thinkin o the feet Thet follered once an now are quiet, White feet ez snowdrops innercent, Thet never knowed the paths o Satan, Whose comin step ther s ears thet won t, No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin . Why, hain t I held em on my knee ? Did n t I love to see em growin , Three likely lads ez wal could be, Hahnsome an brave an not tu knowin ? I set an look into the blaze Whose natur , jes like theirn, keeps climbin , Ez long z it lives, in shinin ways, An half despise myself for rhymin*. Wut s words to them whose faith an truth On War s red techstone rang true metal, Who ventered life an love an youth For the gret prize o death in battle ? To him who, deadly hurt, agen Flashed on afore the charge s thunder, Tippin with fire the bolt of men Thet rived the Rebel line asunder ? THE BIGLOW PAPERS 277 Tain t right to hev the young go fust, All throbbin full o gifts an graces, Leavin life s paupers dry ez dust To try an make b lieve fill their places : Nothin but tells us wut we miss, Ther s gaps our lives can t never fay in, An thet world seems so fur from this Lef for us loafers to grow gray in ! My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth Will take to twitchin roun the corners; I pity mothers, tu, down South, For all they sot among the scorners: I d sooner take my chance to stan At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, Than at God s bar hoi up a han Ez drippin red ez yourn, Jeff Davis ! Come, Peace ! not like a mourner bowed For honor lost an dear ones wasted, But proud, to meet a people proud, With eyes thet tell o triumph tasted ! Come, with han grippin on the hilt, An step thet proves ye Victory s daugh ter ! Longin for you, our sperits wilt Like shipwrecked men s on raf s for water. Come, while our country feels the lift Of a gret instinct shoutin " Forwards ! " An knows thet freedom ain t a gift Thet tarries long in ban s o cowards ! Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, An* bring fair wages for brave men, A nation saved, a race delivered ! No. XI MR. HOSEA BIGLOW S SPEECH IN MARCH MEETING TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY JAALAM, April 5, 1866. MY DEAR SIR, (an noticin by your kiver thet you re some dearer than wut you wuz, I enclose the deffrence) I dunno ez I know jest how to interdooce this las perduction of my mews, ez Parson Willber allus called em, which is goin to be the last an stay the last onless suiithin pertikler sh d interfear which I don t expee ner I wun t yield tu ef it wuz ez pressin ez a deppity Shiriff. Sence Mr. Wilbur s disease I hev n t bed no one thet could dror out my talons. He ust to kind o wine me up an set the penderlum agoin an then somehow I seemed to go on tick as it wear tell I run down, but the noo minister ain t of the same brewin nor I can t seem to git ahold of no kine of burning nater in him but sort of slide rite off as you du on the eedge of a mow. Minnysteeril natur is wal enough an a site better n most other kines I know on, but the other sort sech as Welbor hed wuz of the Lord s makin an naterally more wonderfle an sweet tastin leastways to me so fur as heerd from. He used to in terdooce em smooth ez ile athout sayin nothin in pertickler an I misdoubt he did n t set so much by the sec nd Ceres as wut he done by the Fust, fact, he let on onct thet his mine misgive him of a sort of fallin off in spots. He wuz as outspoken as a norwester he wuz, but I tole him I hoped the fall wuz from so high up thet a feller could ketch a good many times fust afore comin bunt onto the ground as I see Jethro C. Swett from the meetin house steeple up to th old perrish, an took up for dead but he s alive now an spry as wut you be. Turnin of it over I recclected how they ust to put wut they called Argy- munce onto the frunts of poymns, like poorches afore housen whare you could rest ye a spell whilst you wuz concludin whether you d go in or nut espeshully ware tha wuz darters, though I most allus found it the best plen to go in fust an think after wards an the gals likes it best tu. I dno as speechis ever hez any argimunts to em, I never see none thet hed an I guess they never du but tha must allus be a B ginnin to everythin athout it is Etarnity so I 11 begin rite away an anybody may put it afore any of his speeches ef it soots an welcome. I don t claim no paytent. THE ARGYMUNT Interducshin, w ich may be skipt. Be gins by talkin about himself : thet s jest natur an* most gin ally allus pleasin , I 2 7 8 THE BIGLOW PAPERS b leeve I ve notist, to one of the cumpany, an thet s more than wut you can say of most speshes of talkin . Nex comes the gittin the goodwill of the orjunce by lettin em gether from wut you kind of ex den- tally let drop thet they air about East, A one, an no mistaik, skare em up an take em as they rise. Spring interdooced with a new approput flours. Speach finally begins witch nobuddy need n t feel oboly- gated to read as I never read em an never shell this one ag in. Subjick staited ; ex panded; delay ted; extended. Pump lively. Subjick staited ag in so s to avide all mis- taiks. Ginnle remarks ; continooed ; ker- ried on; pushed furder ; kind o gin out. Subjick restaited ; dielooted ; stirred up permiscoous. Pump ag in. Gits back to where he sot out. Can t seem to stay thair. Ketches into Mr. Seaward s hair. Breaks loose ag in an staits his subjick ; stretches it ; turns it ; folds it ; enfolds it ; folds it ag in so s t no one can t find it. Argoos with an imedginary bean thet ain t aloud to say nothin in repleye. Gives him a real gjod dressin an is settysfide he s rite, its into Johnson s hair. No use tryin to git into his head. Gives it up. Hez to stait his subjick ag in ; doos it back ards, sideways, eendways, criss-cross, bevellin , noways. Gits finally red on it. Concloods. Concloods more. Reads some xtrax. Sees his subjick a-nosin round arter him ag in. Tries to avide it. Wun t du. M estates it. Can t conjectur no other plawsable way of staytin on it. Tries pump. No fx. Finely concloods to conclood. Yeels the flore. You kin spall an punctooate thet as you please. I allns do, it kind of puts a noo soot of close onto a word, thisere funattick spellin doos an takes em out of the pris- sen dress they wair in the Dixonary. Ef I squeeze the cents out of em it s the main thing, an wut they wuz made for ; wut s left s jest pnmxnis. Mistur Wilbur sez he to me onct, sez he, " Hosee," sez he, " in litterytoor the only good thing is Natur. It s amazin hard to come at," sez he, "but onct git it an you ve gut everythin . Wut s the sweet est small on airth ? " sez he. " Noomone hay," sez I, pooty bresk, for he wuz allus hankerin round in hayin . " Nawthin of the kine," sez he. "My leetle Huldy s breath," sez I ag in. " You re a good lad," sez he, his eyes sort of ripplin like, for he lost a babe onct nigh about her age, " you re a good lad ; but t ain t thet nuther," sez he. "Ef you want to know," sez he, " open your winder of a mornin et ary season, and you 11 larn thet the best of perfooms is jest fresh air, fresh air" sez he, emphysizin , " athout no mixtur. Thet s wut / call natur in writin , and it bathes my lungs and washes em sweet whenever I git a whiff on t," sez he. I often think o thet when I set down to write, but the winders air so ept to git stuck, an breakin* a pane costs sunthin . Yourn for the last time, Nut to be continooed, HOSEA BIGLOW. I DON T much s pose, hows ever I should plen it, I could git boosted into th House or Sen nit, Nut while the twolegged gab-machine s so plenty, nablin one man to du the talk o twenty ; I m one o them thet finds it ruther hard To mannyfactur wisdom by the yard, An may sure off, accordin to demand, The piece-goods el kence that I keep on hand, The same ole pattern runnin thru an* thru, An nothin but the customer thet s new. I sometimes think, the furder on I go, Thet it gits harder to feel sure I know, An when I ve settled my idees, I find t warn t I sheered most in makin up my mind ; t wnz this an thet an t other thing thet done it, Sunthin in th air, I could n seek nor shun it. Mos folks go off so quick now in discusr sion, All th ole flint-locks seems altered to per cussion, Whilst I in agin sometimes git a hint, Thet I m percussion changin back to flint; Wai, ef it s so, I ain t agoin to werrit, For th ole Queen s-arm hez this pertickler merit, It gives the mind a hahnsome wedth o 1 margin To kin o make its will afore dischargin : THE BIGLOW PAPERS 279 I can t make out but jest one ginnle rule, No man need go an make himself a fool, Nor jedgment ain t like mutton, thet can t bear Cookin tu long, nor be took up tu rare. Ez I wuz say n , I hain t no chance to speak So s t all the country dreads me onct a week, But I ve consid ble o thet sort o head Thet sets to home an thinks wut might be said, The sense thet grows an werrits under neath, Comin belated like your wisdom-teeth, An git so el kent, sometimes, to my gardin Thet I don vally public life a fardin . Our Parson Wilbur (blessin s on his head !) mongst other stories of ole times he hed, Talked of a feller thet rehearsed his spreads Beforehan to his rows o kebbige-heads, (Ef t warn t Demossenes, I guess t wuz Sisro,) Appealin fust to thet an then to this row, Accordin ez he thought thet his idees Their diff runt ev riges o brains ould please ; " An J ," sez the Parson, " to hit right, you must Git used to maysurin your hearers fust ; For, take my word for t, when all s come an past, The kebbige-heads 11 cair the day et last ; Th ain t ben a meetin sence the worl begun But they made (raw or biled ones) ten to one." I ve allus f oun em, I allow, sence then About ez good for talkin tu ez men ; They 11 take edvice, like other folks, to keep, (To use it ould be holdin on t tu cheap,) They listen wal, don kick up when you scold em, An ef they ve tongues, hev sense enough to hold em ; Though th ain t no denger we shall lose the breed, I gin lly keep a score or so for seed, An when my sappiness gits spry in spring, So s t my tongue itches to run on full swing, I fin em ready-planted in March-meetin , Warm ez a lyceum - audience in their greetin , An pleased to hear my spoutin frum the fence, Comin , ez t doos, entirely free f expense. This year I made the follerin observations Extrump ry, like most other tri ls o pa tience, An , no reporters bein sent express To work their abstrac s up into a mess Ez like th oridg nal ez a woodcut pictur Thet chokes the life out like a boy-constric tor, I ve writ em out, an so avide all jeal sies twixt nonsense o my own an some one s else s. (N. B. Reporters gin lly git a hint To make dull orjunces seem live in print, An , ez I hev t report myself, I vum, I 11 put th applauses where they d ough* to come !) MY FELLER KEBBIGE-HEADS, who look SO green, I vow to gracious thet ef I could dreen The world of all its hearers but jest you, t would leave bout all tha is wuth talkin to, An you, my ven able ol frien s, thet show Upon your crowns a sprinklin o March snow, Ez ef mild Time had christened every sense For wisdom s church o second innocence, Nut Age s winter, no, no sech a thing, But jest a kin o slippin -back o spring, [Sev ril noses blowed.] We Ve gathered here, ez ushle, to decide Which is the Lord s an which is Satan s side, Coz all the good or evil thet can heppen Is long o which on em you choose for Cappen. [Cries o " Thet s eo."] Aprul s come back ; the swelliu buds of oak Dim the fur hillsides with a purplish smoke ; The brooks are loose an , singing to be seen, (Like gals,) make all the hollers soft an 1 green ; 280 THE BIGLOW PAPERS The birds are here, for all the season s late; They take the sun s height an don never wait: Soon z he officially declares it s spring Their light hearts lift em on a north ard wing, An th ain t an acre, fur ez you can hear, Can t by the music tell the time o year; But thet white dove Carliny scared away, Five year ago, jes sech an Aprul day; Peace, that we hoped ould come an build last year An coo by every housedoor, is n t here, No, nor wun t never be, for all our jaw, Till we re ez brave in pol tics ez in war ! O Lord, ef folks wuz made so s t they could see The begnet-pint there is to an idee ! [Sensation.] Ten times the danger in em th is in steel; They run your soul thru an you never feel, But crawl about an* seem to think you re livin , Poor shells o men, nut wuth the Lord s forgivin , Tell you come bunt ag in a real live feet, An go to pieces when you d ough to ect! Thet kin o begnet s wut we re crossin now, An* no man, fit to nevvigate a scow, ould stan expectin help from Kingdom Come, While t other side druv their cold iron home. My frien s, you never gethered from my mouth, No, nut one word ag in the South ez South, Nor th ain t a livin man, white, brown, nor black, Gladder n wut I should be to take em back; But all I ask of Uncle Sam is fust To write up on his door, " No goods on trust " ; [Cries o " Thet s the ticket ! "] Give us cash down in ekle laws for all, An they 11 be snug inside afore nex fall. Give wut they ask, an we shell hev Jama- ker, Wuth minus some consid able an acre ; Give wut they need, an we shell git fore long A nation all one piece, rich, peacefle, strong; Make em Amerikin, an they 11 begin To love their country ez they loved their sin ; Let em stay Southun, an you ve kep a sore Ready to fester ez it done afore. No mortle man can boast of perfic vision, But the one moleblin thing is Indecision, An th ain t no f utur for the man nor state Thet out of j-u-s-t can t spell great. Some folks ould call thet reddikle ; do you ? Twas commonsense afore the war wuz thru; Thet loaded all our guns an made em speak So s t Europe heared em clearn acrost the creek ; " They re drivin o their spiles down now," sez she, " To the hard grennit o God s fust idee ; Ef they reach thet, Democ cy need n t fear The tallest airthquakes we can git up here." Some call t insultin to ask ary pledge, An say t will only set their teeth on edge, But folks you ve jest licked, fur z I ever see, Are bout ez mad z they wal know how to be ; It s better than the Rebs themselves ex pected fore they see Uncle Sam wilt down hen- pected; Be kind z you please, but fustly make things fast, For plain Truth s all the kindness thet 11 last; Ef treason is a crime, ez some folks say, How could we punish it in a milder way Than sayin to em, " Brethren, lookee here, We 11 jes divide things with ye, sheer an sheer, An sence both come o pooty strong-backed daddies, You take the Darkies, ez we ve took the Paddies; Ign ant an poor we took em by the hand, An they re the bones an sinners o the land." I ain t o them thet fancy there s a loss on Every inves ment thet don t start from Bos on; But I know this: our money s safest trusted In sunthin , come wut will, thet can t be busted, An thet s the old Amerikin idee, THE BIGLOW PAPERS 281 To make a man a Man an let him be. [Gret applause.] Ez for their 1 yalty, don t take a goad to t, But I do want to block their only road to t By lettin em believe thet they can git Mor n wut they lost, out of our little wit: I tell ye wut, I m fraid we 11 drif to lee ward thout we can put more stiffenin into Seward; He seems to think Columby d better ect Like a scared widder with a boy stiff- necked Thet stomps an swears he wun t come in to supper; She mus set up for him, ez weak ez Tapper, Keepin* the Constitootion on to warm, Tell he 11 eccept her pologies in form : The neighbors tell her he s a cross-grained cuss Thet needs a hidin fore he comes to wus; " No," sez Ma Seward, " he s ez good z the best, All he wants now is sugar-plums an rest; " "He sarsed my Pa," sez one; "He stoned my son," Another edds. " Oh wal, t wus jes his fun." " He tried to shoot our Uncle Sam well dead." " T wuz only tryin a noo gun he hed." " Wal, all we ask s to hev it understood You ll take his gun away from him for good; We don t, wal, nut exac ly, like his play, Seein he alias kin o shoots our way. You kill your fatted calves to no good eend, thout his fust sayin , * Mother, I hev sinned! [" Amen ! " frum Deac n Greenleaf.] The Pres dunt he thinks thet the slickest plan ould be t allow thet he s our on y man, An thet we fit thru all thet dreffle war Jes for his private glory an* eclor; " Nobody ain t a Union man," sez he, " thout he agrees, thru thick an thin, with me; Warn t Andrew Jackson s nitials jes like mine ? n ain t thet sunthin like a right divine To cut up ez kentenkerous ez I please, An treat your Congress like a nest o fleas ? " Wal, I expec the People would n care, if The question now wuz techin bank or tariff, But I conclude they ve bout made up their min This ain t the fittest time to go it blin , Nor these ain t metters thet with pol tics swings, But goes way down amongst the roots o things; . Coz Sumner talked o whitewashin one day They wun t let four years war be throwed away. " Let the South hev her rights ? " They say, " Thet s you ! But nut greb hold of other folks s tu." Who owns this country, is it they or Andy ? Leastways it ough to be the People and he; Let him be senior pardner, ef he s so, But let them kin o smuggle in ez Co; [Laughter.] Did he diskiver it ? Consid ble numbers Think thet the job wuz taken by Columbus. Did he set tu an make it wut it is ? Ef so, I guess the One-Man-power hez riz. Did he put thru the rebbles, clear the docket, An J pay th expenses out of his own pocket ? Ef thet s the case, then everythin I exes Is t hev him come an pay my ennooal texes. [Profoun sensation.] Was t he thet shou dered all them million guns ? Did he lose all the fathers, brothers, sons ? Is this ere pop lar gov ment thet we run A kin o sulky, made to kerry one ? An is the country goin to knuckle down To hev Smith sort their letters stid o* Brown ? Who wuz the Nited States fore Richmon fell? Wuz the South needfle their full name to spell ? An* can t we spell it in thet short-ban way Till th underpinnin s settled so s to stay ? Who cares for the Resolves of 61, Thet tried to coax an airthquake with a bun? Hez act ly nothin taken place sence then 282 THE BIGLOW PAPERS To larn folks they must hendle fects like men ? Ain t this the true p iut ? Did the Rebs accep em ? Ef nut, whose fault is t thet we hev n t kep em ? War n t there two sides ? an don t it stend to reason Thet this week s Nited States ain t las week s treason ? When all these sums is done, with nothin missed, An nut afore, this school 11 be dismissed. I knowed ez wal ez though I d seen t with eyes Thet when the war wuz over copper d rise, An thet we d hev a rile-up in our kettle t would need Leviathan s whole skin to settle: I thought t would take about a generation fore we could wal begin to be a nation, But I allow I never did imegine t would be our Pres dunt thet ould drive a wedge in To keep the split from closin ef it could, An healin over with new wholesome wood; For th ain t no chance o healin while they think Thet law an gov ment s only printer s ink; I mus confess I thank him for discoverin The curus way in which the States are sov ereign ; They ain t nut quite enough so to rebel, But, when they fin it s costly to raise h , [A groan from Deac n G.] Why, then, for jes the same superl tive reason, They re most too much so to be tetched for treason; They can t go out, but ef they somehow du, Their sovereignty don t noways go out tu; The State goes out, the sovereignty don t stir, But stays to keep the door ajar for her. He thinks secession never took em out, An mebby he s correc , but I misdoubt; Ef they war n t out, then why, n the name o sin, Make all this row bout lettin of em in ? In law, p r aps nut; but there s a diffur- ence, ruther, Betwixt your mother- n-law an real mother, [Derisive cheers.] An I, for one, shall wish they d all ben Long z U. S. Texes are sech reg lar comers. But, O my patience ! must we wriggle back Into th ole crooked, pettyfoggin track, When our artil ry-wheels a road hev cut Stret to our purpose ef we keep the rut ? War s jes dead waste excep to wipe the slate Clean for the cyph rin of some nobler fate. [Applause.] Ez for dependin on their oaths an thet, t wun t bind em mor n the ribbin roun* my het: I beared a fable once from Othniel Starns, That pints it slick ez weathercocks do barns: Onct on a time the wolves hed certing rights Inside the fold ; they used to sleep there nights, An , bein cousins o the dogs, they took Their turns et watchin , reg lar ez a book; But somehow, when the dogs hed gut asleep, Their love o mutton beat their love o sheep, Till gradilly the shepherds come to see Things war n t agoin ez they d ough to be; So they sent off a deacon to remonstrate Along th the wolves an urge em to go on straight; They did n seem to set much by the dea con, Nor preachin did n cow em, nut to speak on; Fin ly they swore thet they d go out an* stay, An hev their fill o mutton every day; Then dogs an shepherds, after much hard dammin , [Groan from Deac n G.] Turned tu an* give em a tormented lam- min , An* sez, " Ye sha n t go out, the murrain rot ye, To keep us wastin half our time to watch ye!" But then the question come, How live to gether thout losin sleep, nor nary yew nor wether ? Now there wuz some dogs (noways wuth their keep) THE BIGLOW PAPERS That sheered their cousins tastes an sheered the sheep; They sez, " Be gin rous, let em swear right in, An , ef they backslide, let em swear ag in; Jes let em put on sheep - skins whilst they re swearin ; To ask for more ould be beyond all bear- in ." " Be gin rous for yourselves, where you re to pay, Thet s the best prectice," sez a shepherd gray; " Ez for their oaths they wun t be wuth a button, Long z you don t cure em o their taste for mutton; Th ain t but one solid way, howe er you puzzle : Tell they re convarted, let em wear a muzzle." [Cries of " Bully for you ! "] I ve noticed thet each half-baked scheme s abetters Are in the hebbit o producin* letters Writ by all sorts o never-heared-on fel lers, bout ez oridge nal ez the wind in bellers; I ve noticed, tu, it s the quack med cine gits (An* needs) the grettest heaps o stiffykits; [Two pothekeries goes out.] Now, sence I lef off creepin on all fours, I hain t ast no man to endorse my course; It s full ez cheap to be your own endorser, An ef I ve made a cup, I 11 fin the saucer; But I ve some letters here from t other side, An them s the sort thet helps me to decide ; Tell me for wut the copper-comp nies hanker, An I 11 tell you jest where it s safe to anchor. [Faint hiss.] Fus ly the Hon ble B. O. Sawin writes Thet for a spell he could n t sleep o nights, Puzzlin which side wuz preudentest to pin to, Which wuz th ole homestead, which the temp ry leanto; Et fust he jedged t would right-side-up his pan To come out ez a ridge nal Union man, " But now," he sez, " I ain t nut quite so fresh; The winnin 1 horse is goin to be Secesh; You might, las spring, hev eas ly walked the course, fore we contrived to doctor th Union horse ; Now we re the ones to walk aroun the nex track: Jest you take hoi an* read the follerin ex- trac , Out of a letter I received last week From an ole frien thet never sprung a leak, A Nothun Democrat o th ole Jarsey blue, Born copper-sheathed an copper-fastened tu." " These four years past it hez ben tough To say which side a feller went for; Guideposts all gone, roads muddy n rough, An* nothin duin wut t wuz meant for; Pickets a-firin left an right, Both sides a lettin rip et sight, Life warn t wuth hardly payin rent for. " Columby gut her back up so, It warn t no use a-tryin to stop her, War s emptin s riled her very dough An made it rise an act improper; T wuz full ez much ez I could du To jes lay low an worry thru, Thout hevin to sell out my copper. " Afore the war your mod rit men Could set an sun em on the fences, Cyph rin the chances up, an then Jump off which way bes paid expenses; Sence, t wuz so resky ary way, / did n t hardly darst to say I greed with Paley s Evidences. [Groan from Deac n Gk] " Ask Mac ef tryin to set the fence Warn t like bein rid upon a rail on t, Headin your party with a sense O bein tipjint in the tail on t, An tryin to think thet, on the whole, You kin o quasi own your soul When Belmont s gut a bill o sale on t ? [Three cheers for Grant and Sherman.] " Come peace, I sposed thet folks ould like Their pol tics done ag in by proxy Give their noo loves the bag an strike A fresh trade with their reg lar doxy; 284 THE BIGLOW PAPERS But the drag s broke, now slavery s gone, An there s gret resk they 11 blunder on, Ef they ain t stopped, to real Democ cy. " We ve gut an awful row to hoe In this ere job o reconstruct! n ; Folks dunno skurce which way to go, Where th ain t some boghole to be ducked in; But one thing s clear; there is a crack, Ef we pry hard, twixt white an black, Where the ole makebate can be tucked in. " No white man sets in airth s broad aisle Thet I ain t willin t own ez brother, An ef he s heppened to strike ile, I dunno, fin ly, but I d ruther; An Paddies, long z they vote all right, Though they ain t jest a nat ral white, I hold one on em good z another. [Applause.] " Wut is there lef I d like to know, Ef t ain t the defference o color, To keep up self-respec an show The human natur of a fullah ? Wut good in bein white, onless It s fixed by law, nut lef to guess, We re a heap smarter an they duller ? " Ef we re to hev our ekle rights, t wun t du to low no competition; Th ole debt doo us for bein whites Ain t safe onless we stop th emission O these noo notes, whose specie base Is human natur , thout no trace O shape, nor color, nor condition. [Continood applause.] " So fur I d writ an* could n jedge Aboard wut boat I d best take pessige, My brains all mincemeat, thout no edge Upon em more than tu a sessige, But now it seems ez though I see Sunthin resemblin an idee, Sence Johnson s speech an veto message. " I like the speech best, I confess, The logic, preudence, an good taste on % An it s so mad, I ruther guess There s some dependence to be placed on t; [Laughter.] It s narrer, but twixt you an me, Out o the allies o J. D. A temp ry party can be based on t. " Jes to hold on till Johnson s thru An dug his Presidential grave is, An then ! who knows but we could slew The country roun to put in ? Wun t some folks rare up when we pull Out o their eyes our Union wool An larn ern wut a p lit cle shave is I " Oh, did it seem z ef Providunce Could ever send a second Tyler ? To see the South all back to once, Reapin the spiles o the Freesiler, Is cute ez though an ingineer Should claim th old iron for his sheer Coz t was himself that bust the biler ! " [Gret laughter.] Thet tells the story ! Thet s wut we shall git By tryin squirtguns on the burnin Pit; For the day never comes when it 11 du To kick off Dooty like a worn-out shoe. I seem to hear a whisperin in the air, A sighin like, of unconsoled despair, Thet comes from nowhere an from every where, An seems to say, " Why died we ? warn t it, then, To settle, once for all, thet men wuz men ? Oh, airth s sweet cup snetched from us barely tasted, The grave s real chill is feelin life wuz wasted ! Oh, you we lef, long-lingerin et the door, Lovin you best, coz we loved Her the more, Thet Death, not we, had conquered, we should feel Ef she upon our memory turned her heel, An unregretful throwed us all away To flaunt it in a Blind Man s Holiday ! " My frien s, I ve talked nigh on to long enough. I hain t no call to bore ye coz ye re tough; My lungs are sound, an our own v ice delights Our ears, but even kebbige-heads hez rights. It s the las time thet I shell e er address ye, But you ll soon fin some new tormentor: bless ye ! [Tumult ous applause and cries of " Go on ! " " Don t stop 1 "] TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON 285 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS "THE WILLOWS," as was pointed out in the introductory note to An Indian-Summer Rev erie, was a clump of trees not far from Elm- wood. Lowell took a peculiar pleasure in their gnarled and umbrageous forms, and wrote to Fields while the volume which took its title from the trees was in press : " My heart was almost broken yesterday by seeing nailed to my willow a board with these words on it, * These trees for sale. The wretch is going to peddle them for firewood ! If I had the money, I would buy the piece of ground they stand on to save them the dear friends of a lifetime. They would be a loss to the town. But what can one do ? They belong to a man who values them by the cord. I wish Fenn had sketched them at least. One of them I hope will stand a few years yet in my poem but he might just as well have outlasted me and my works, making his own green ode every summer." Not all the trees have been destroyed, for some yet remain, and it is a pleasure to record the refusal of a new comer into the neighborhood to have one de stroyed which was inconveniently near the site of the house she was to build. She changed, instead, the site. The varying minds Lowell was in regarding the title of the volume may be learned from the following letter to C. E. Norton, dated ELMWOOD, October 7, 1868. ..." The summer is past, the harvest is ended," and I have not yet written to you ! Well, I was resolved I would not write till the printers had in their hands all the copy of my new volume of old poems. And that has taken longer than I expected. I have been Marthaized by many small troubles. But last TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON AGRO DOLCE THE wind is roistering out of doors, My windows shake and my chimney roars; My Elm wood chimneys seem crooning to me, As of old, in their moody, minor key, And out of the past the hoarse wind blows, As I sit in my arm-chair, and toast my toes. ** Ho ! ho I nine-and-forty," they seem to sing, " We saw you a little toddling thing. night I fairly ended my work. ... I had de cided to put the " June Idyl " in the forefront and call it " A June Idyl, and Other Poems." But Fieldr; told me that Whittier s new volume was to be called " A Summer Idyl " so I was blocked there. Then I took " Apple- dore," merely because it was a pretty name, though I did not wish to put that in the van. So it was all settled for the second time. Then I was suddenly moved to finish my " Voyage to Vinland," . . . and, as I liked the poem, thought no title so good as " The Voyage to Vinland, and Other Poems." But Fields would not hear of it, and proposed that I should rechristen the Idyl " Elmwood," and name the book after that. But the more I thought of it the less I liked it. It was throw ing my sanctuary open and making a show- house of my hermitage. It was indecent. So I fumed and worried. I was riled. Then it occurred to me that I had taken the name of " June Idyl " as a pis-aller, because in my haste I could think of nothing else. Why not name it over? So I hit upon "Under the Willows," and that it is to be. . . . But it is awfully depressing work. They call back so many moods, and they are so bad. I think, though, there is a suggestion of something good in them at least, and they are not silly. But how much the public will stand ! I some times wonder they don t drive all us authors into a corner and make a battue of the whole concern at once. In making the collection, the first miscellane ous one since the Poems published in 1849, Low ell gathered not only those published mean while in magazines and other periodicals, but went back and recovered some earlier verses. We knew you child and youth and man, A wonderful fellow to dream and plan, With a great thing always to come, who knows ? Well, well! t is some comfort to toast one s toes. " How many times have you sat at gaze Till the mouldering fire forgot to blaze, Shaping among the whimsical coals Fancies and figures and shining goals! What matters the ashes that cover those ? While hickory lasts you can toast your toes. 2 86 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS " O dream - ship - builder ! where are they all, Your grand three-deckers, deep -chested and tall, That should crush the waves under canvas piles, And anchor at last by the Fortunate Isles ? There s gray in your beard, the years turn foes, While you muse in your arm-chair, and toast your toes." I sit and dream that I hear, as of yore, My Elm wood chimneys deep - throated roar ; If much be gone, there is much remains ; By the embers of loss I count my gains, You and yours with the best, till the old hope glows In the fanciful flame, as I toast my toes. Instead of a fleet of broad-browed ships, To send a child s armada of chips! Instead of the great guns, tier on tier, A freight of pebbles and grass -blades sere! " Well, maybe more love with the less gift goes," I growl, as, half moody, I toast my toes. UNDER THE WILLOWS FRANK-HEARTED hostess of the field and wood, Gypsy, whose roof is every spreading tree, June is the pearl of our New England year. Still a surprisal, though expected long, Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait, Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, Then, from some southern ambush in the sky, With one great gush of blossom storms the world. A week ago the sparrow was divine; The bluebird, shifting his light load of song From post to post along the cheerless fence, Was as a rhymer ere the poet come ; But now, oh rapture ! sunshine winged and voiced, Pipe blown through by the warm wild breath of the West Shepherding his soft droves of fleecy cloud, Gladness of woods, skies, waters, all in one, The bobolink has come, and, like the soul Of the sweet season vocal in a bird, Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what Save June I Dear June ! Now God be praised for June. May is a pious fraud of the almanac, A ghastly parody of real Spring Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern wind; Or if, o er-confident, she trust the date. And, with her handful of anemones, Herself as shivery, steal into the sun, The season need but turn his hour-glass round, And Winter suddenly, like crazy Lear, Reels back, and brings the dead May in his arms, Her budding breasts and wan dislustred front With frosty streaks and drifts of his white beard All overblown. Then, warmly walled with books, While my wood-fire supplies the sun s de fect, Whispering old forest-sagas in its dreams, I take my May down from the happy shelf Where perch the world s rare song-birds in a row, Waiting my choice to open with full breast, And beg an alms of springtime, ne er de nied Indoors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh woods Throb thick with merle and mavis all the year. July breathes hot, sallows the crispy fields, Curls up the wan leaves of the lilac-hedge, And every eve cheats us with show of clouds That braze the horizon s western rim, or hang Motionless, with heaped canvas drooping idly, Like a dim fleet by starving men besieged, Conjectured half, and half descried afar, Helpless of wind, and seeming to slip back Adown the smooth curve of the oily sea. UNDER THE WILLOWS 287 But June is full of invitations sweet, Forth from the chimney s yawn and thrice- read tomes To leisurely delights and sauntering thoughts That brook no ceiling narrower than the blue. The cherry, drest for bridal, at my pane Brushes, then listens, Will he come ? The bee, All dusty as a miller, takes his toll Of powdery gold, and grumbles. What a day To sun me and do nothing ! Nay, I think Merely to bask and ripen is sometimes The student s wiser business ; the brain That forages all climes to line its cells, Ranging both worlds on lightest wings of wish, Will not distil the juices it has sucked To the sweet substance of pellucid thought, Except for him who hath the secret learned To mix his blood with sunshine, and to take The winds into his pulses. Hush! t is he! My oriole, my glance of summer fire, Is come at last, and, ever on the watch, Twitches the packthread I had lightly wound About the bough to help his housekeep ing* Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck, Yet fearing me who laid it in his way, Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs, Divines the providence that hides and helps. Heave, ho I Heave, ho I he whistles as the twine Slackens its hold; once more, now! and a flash Lightens across the sunlight to the elm Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt. Nor all his booty is the thread; he trails My loosened thought with it along the air, And I must follow, would I ever find The inward rhyme to all this wealth of life. I care not how men trace their ancestry, To ape or Adam: let them please their whim; But I in June am midway to believe A tree among my far progenitors, Such sympathy is mine with all the race, Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet There is between us. Surely there are times When they consent to own me of their kin, And condescend to me, and call me cousin, Murmuring faint lullabies of eldest time, Forgotten, and yet dumbly felt with thrills Moving the lips, though fruitless of all words. And I have many a lifelong leafy friend, Never estranged nor careful of my soul, That knows I hate the axe, and welcomes me Within his tent as if I were a bird, Or other free companion of the earth, Yet undegenerate to the shifts of men. Among them one, an ancient willow, spreads Eight balanced limbs, springing at once all round His deep-ridged trunk with upward slant diverse, In outline like enormous beaker, fit For hand of Jotun, where mid snow and mist He holds unwieldy revel. This tree, spared, I know not by what grace, for in the blood Of our New World subduers lingers yet Hereditary feud with trees, they being (They and the red-man most) our fathers foes, Is one of six, a willow Pleiades, The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink Where the steep upland dips into the marsh, Their roots, like molten metal cooled in flowing, Stiffened in coils and runnels down the bank. The friend of all the winds, wide-armed he towers And glints his steely aglets in the sun, Or whitens fitfully with sudden bloom Of leaves breeze-lifted, much as when a shoal Of devious minnows wheel from where a pike Lurks balanced neath the lily-pads, and whirl A rood of silver bellies to the day. Alas! no acorn from the British oak 288 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS Neath which slim fairies tripping wrought those rings Of greenest emerald, wherewith fireside life Did with the invisible spirit of Nature wed, Was ever planted here! No darnel fancy Might choke one useful blade in Puritan fields; With horn and hoof the good old Devil came, The witch s broomstick was not contra band, But all that superstition had of fair, Or piety of native sweet, was doomed. And if there be who nurse unholy faiths, Fearing their god as if he were a wolf That snuffed round every home and was not seen, There should be some to watch and keep alive All beautiful beliefs. And such was that, By solitary shepherd first surmised Under Thessaliau oaks, loved by some maid Of royal stirp, that silent came and van ished, As near her nest the hermit thrush, nor dared Confess a mortal name, that faith which gave A Hamadryad to each tree; and I Will hold it true that in this willow dwells The open-handed spirit, frank and blithe, Of ancient Hospitality, long since, With ceremonious thrift, bowed out of doors. In June t is good to lie beneath a tree While the blithe season comforts every sense, Steeps all the brain in rest, and heals the heart, Brimming it o er with sweetness unawares, Fragrant and silent as that rosy snow Wherewith the pitying apple-tree fills up And tenderly lines some last-year robin s nest. There muse I of old times, old hopes, old friends, Old friends! The writing of those words has borne My fancy backward to the gracious past, The generous past, when all was possible, For all was then untried; the years between Have taught some sweet, some bitter lessons, Wiser than this, to spend in all things else, But of old friends to be most miserly. Each year to ancient friendships adds a ring, As to an oak, and precious more and more, Without deserviugness or help of ours, They grow, and, silent, wider spread, each year, Their unbought ring of shelter or of shade. Sacred to me the lichens on the bark, Which Nature s milliners would scrape away; Most dear and sacred every withered limb! T is good to set them early, for our faith Pines as we age, and, after wrinkles come, Few plant, but water dead ones with vain tears. This willow is as old to me as life ; And under it full often have I stretched, Feeling the warm earth like a thing alive, And gathering virtue in at every pore Till it possessed me wholly, and thought ceased, Or was transfused in something to which thought Is coarse and dull of sense. Myself was lost, Gone from me like an ache, and what re mained Become a part of the universal joy. My soul went forth, and, mingling with the tree, Danced in the leaves; or, floating in the cloud, Saw its white double in the stream below; Or else, sublimed to purer ecstasy, Dilated in the broad blue over all. I was the wind that dappled the lush grass, The tide that crept with coolness to its roots, The thin-winged swallow skating on the air; The life that gladdened everything was mine,, Was I then truly all that I beheld ? Or is this stream of being but a glass Where the mind sees its visionary self, As, when the kingfisher flits o er his bay, Across the river s hollow heaven below His picture flits, another, yet the same ? But suddenly the sound of human voice Or footfall, like the drop a chemist pours, UNDER THE WILLOWS 289 Doth in opacous cloud precipitate The consciousness that seemed but now dissolved Into an essence rarer than its own, And I am narrowed to myself once more. For here not long is solitude secure, Nor Fantasy left vacant to her spell. Here, sometimes, in this paradise of shade, Rippled with western winds, the dusty Tramp, Seeing the treeless causey burn beyond, Halts to unroll his bundle of strange food And munch an unearned meal. I cannot help Liking this creature, lavish Summer s bedesman, Who from the almshouse steals when nights grow warm, Himself his large estate and only charge, To be the guest of haystack or of hedge, Nobly superior to the household gear That forfeits us our privilege of nature. I bait him with my match-box and my pouch, Nor grudge the uncostly sympathy of smoke, His equal now, divinely unemployed. Some smack of Robin Hood is in the man, Some secret league with wild wood- wander ing things; He is our ragged Duke, our barefoot Earl, By right of birth exonerate from toil, Who levies rent from us his tenants all, And serves the state by merely being. Here The Scissors-grinder, pausing, doffs his hat, And lets the kind breeze, with its delicate fan, Winnow the heat from out his dank gray hair, A grimy Ulysses, a much-wandered man, Whose feet are known to all the populous ways, And many men and manners he hath seen, Not without fruit of solitary thought. He, as the habit is of lonely men, Unused to try the temper of their mind In fence with others, positive and shy, Yet knows to put an edge upon his speech, Pithily Saxon in unwilling talk. Him I entrap with my long-suffering knife, And, while its poor blade hums away in sparks, Sharpen my wit upon his gritty mind, In motion set obsequious to his wheel, And in its quality not much unlike. Nor wants my tree more punctual visitors. The children, they who are the only rich, Creating for the moment, and possessing Whate er they choose to feign, for still with them Kind Fancy plays the fairy godmother, Strewing their lives with cheap material For winged horses and Aladdin s lamps, Pure elfin-gold, by manhood s touch pro fane To dead leaves disenchanted, long ago Between the branches of the tree fixed seats, Making an o erturned box their table. Oft The shrilling girls sit here between school hours, And play at What s my thought like ? while the boys, With whom the age chivalric ever bides, Pricked on by knightly spur of female eyes, Climb high to swing and shout on perilous boughs, Or, from the willow s armory equipped With musket dumb, green banner, edge- less sword, Make good the rampart of their tree- redoubt Gainst eager British storming from below, And keep alive the tale of Bunker s Hill. Here, too, the men that mend our village ways, Vexing Macadam s ghost with pounded slate, Their nooning take ; much noisy talk they spend On horses and their ills ; and, as John Bull Tells of Lord This or That, who was his friend, So these make boast of intimacies long With famous teams, and add large esti mates, By competition swelled from mouth to mouth, Of how much they could draw, till one, ill pleased To have his legend overbid, retorts : "You take and stretch truck-horses in a string From here to Long Wharf end, one thing I know, 290 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS Not heavy neither, they could never draw, Ensign s long bow ! " Then laughter loud and long. So they in their leaf-shadowed microcosm Image the larger world; for wheresoe er Ten men are gathered, the observant eye Will find mankind in little, as the stars Glide up and set, and all the heavens re volve In the small welkin of a drop of dew. I love to enter pleasure by a postern, Not the broad popular gate that gulps the mob; To find my theatres in roadside nooks, Where men are actors, and suspect it not; Where Nature all unconscious works her will, And every passion moves with easy gait, Unhampered by the buskin or the train. Hating the crowd, where we gregarious men Lead lonely lives, I love society, Nor seldom find the best with simple souls Unswerved by culture from their native bent, The ground we meet on being primal man And nearer the deep bases of our lives. But oh, half heavenly, earthly half, my soul, Canst thou from those late ecstasies de scend, Thy lips still wet with the miraculous wine That transubstantiates all thy baser stuff To such divinity that soul and sense, Once more commingled in their source, are lost, Canst thou descend to quench a vulgar thirst With the mere dregs and rinsings of the world ? Well, if my nature find her pleasure so, I am content, nor need to blush; I take My little gift of being clean from God, Not haggling for a better, holding it Good as was ever any in the world, My days as good and full of miracle. I pluck my nutriment from any bush, Finding out poison as the first men did By tasting and then suffering, if I must. Sometimes my bush burns, and sometimes it is A leafless wilding shivering by the wall ; But I have known when winter barberries Pricked the effeminate palate with sur prise Of savor whose mere harshness seemed divine. Oh, benediction of the higher mood And human -kindness of the lower! for both I will be grateful while I live, nor question The wisdom that hath made us what we are, With such large range as from the ale house bench Can reach the stars and be with both at home. They tell us we have fallen on prosy days, Condemned to glean the leavings of earth s feast Where gods and heroes took delight of old; But though our lives, moving in one dull round Of repetition infinite, become Stale as a newspaper once read, and though History herself, seen in her workshop, seem To have lost the art that dyed those glori ous panes, Rich with memorial shapes of saint and That pave with splendor the Past s dusky aisles, Panes that enchant the light of common day With colors costly as the blood of kings, Till with ideal hues it edge our thought, Yet while the world is left, while nature lasts, And man the best of nature, there shall be Somewhere contentment for these human hearts, Some freshness, some unused material For wonder and for song. I lose myself In other ways where solemn guide-posts say, This way to Knowledge, This way to Repose, But here, here only, I am ne er betrayed, For every by-path leads me to my love. God s passionless reformers, influences, That purify and heal and are not seen, Shall man say whence your virtue is, or how Ye make medicinal the wayside weed ? I know that sunshine, through whatever rift DARA 291 How shaped it matters not, upon ray walls Paints discs as perfect - rounded as its source, And, like its antitype, the ray divine, However finding entrance, perfect still, Repeats the image unimpaired of God. We, who by shipwreck only find the shores Of divine wisdom, can but kneel at first; Can but exult to feel beneath our feet, That long stretched vainly down the yield ing deeps, The shock and sustenance of solid earth; Inland afar we see what temples gleam Through immemorial stems of sacred groves, And we conjecture shining shapes there in ; Yet for a space we love to wander here Among the shells and seaweed of the beach. So mused I once within my willow-tent One brave June morning, when the bluff northwest, Thrusting aside a dank and snuffling day That made us bitter at our neighbors sins, Brimmed the great cup of heaven with sparkling cheer And roared a lusty stave ; the sliding Charles, Blue toward the west, and bluer and more blue, Living and lustrous as a woman s eyes Look once and look no more, with south ward curve Ran crinkling sunniness, like Helen s hair Glimpsed in Elysium, insubstantial gold; From blossom-clouded orchards, far away The bobolink tinkled; the deep meadows flowed With multitudinous pulse of light and shade Against the bases of the southern hills, While here and there a drowsy island rick Slept and its shadow slept; the wooden bridge Thundered, and then was silent; on the roofs The sun-warped shingles rippled with the heat; Summer on field and hill, in heart and brain, All life washed clean in this high tide of June. DARA WHEN Persia s sceptre trembled in a hand Wilted with harem-heats, and all the land Was hovered over by those vulture ills That snuff decaying empire from afar, Then, with a nature balanced as a star, Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills. He who had governed fleecy subjects well Made his own village by the selfsame spell Secure and quiet as a guarded fold; Then, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees Under his sway, to neighbor villages Order returned, and faith and justice old. Now when it fortuned that a king more wise Endued the realm with brain and hands and eyes, He sought on every side men brave and just ; And having heard our mountain shepherd s praise, How he refilled the mould of elder days, To Dara gave a satrapy in trust. So Dara shepherded a province wide, Nor in his viceroy s sceptre took more pride Than in his crook before ; but envy finds More food in cities than on mountains bare ; And the frank sun of natures clear and rare Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish minds. Soon it was hissed into the royal ear, That, though wise Dara s province, year by year, Like a great sponge, sucked wealth and plenty up, Yet, when he squeezed it at the king s be hest, Some yellow drops, more rich than all the rest, Went to the filling of his private cup. For proof, they said, that, wheresoe er he went, A chest, beneath whose weight the camel bent, 292 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS Went with him ; and no mortal eye had seen What was therein, save only Dara s own ; But, when t was opened, all his tent was known To glow and lighten with heaped jewels sheen. The King set forth for Dara s province straight ; There, as was fit, outside the city s gate, The viceroy met him with a stately train, And there, with archers circled, close at hand, A camel with the chest was seen to stand: The King s brow reddened, for the guilt was plain. " Open me here," he cried, " this treasure- chest!" T was done ; and only a worn shepherd s vest Was found therein. Some blushed and hung the head ; Not Dara ; open as the sky s blue roof He stood, and "O my lord, behold the proof That I was faithful to my trust," he said. " To govern men, lo all the spell I had ! My soul in these rude vestments ever clad Still to the unstained past kept true and leal, Still on these plains could breathe her mountain air, And fortune s heaviest gifts serenely bear, Which bend men from their truth and make them reel. "For ruling wisely I should have small skill, Were I not lord of simple Dara still; That sceptre kept, I could not lose my way." Strange dew in royal eyes grew round and bright, And strained the throbbing lids; before twas night Two added provinces blest Dara s sway. THE FIRST SNOW-FALL One of the " earlier verses " sent to the Anti- Slavery Standard. In a letter to Mr. Gay, dated Elmwood, December 22, 1849, Lowell wrote : " Print that as if you loved it. Let not a comma be blundered. Especially I fear they will put " gleaming for gloaming in the first line unless you look to it. May you never have the key which shall unlock the whole meaning of the poem to you ! " THE snow had begun in the gloaming, And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white. Every pine and fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch deep with pearl. From sheds new-roofed with Carrara Came Chanticleer s muffled crow, The stiff rails softened to swan s-down, And still fluttered down the snow. I stood and watched by the window The noiseless work of the sky, And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, Like brown leaves whirling by. I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn Where a little headstone stood; How the flakes were folding it gently, As did robins the babes in the wood. Up spoke our own little Mabel, Saying, " Father, who makes it snow ? " And I told of the good All-father Who cares for us here below. Again I looked at the snow-fall, And thought of the leaden sky That arched o er our first great sorrow, When that mound was heaped so high. I remembered the gradual patience That fell from that cloud like snow, Flake by flake, healing and hiding The scar that renewed our woe. And again to the child I whispered, " The snow that husheth all, Darling, the merciful Father Alone can make it fall ! " Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her; And she, kissing back, could not know That my kiss was given to her sister, Folded close under deepening snow. THE SINGING LEAVES 293 THE SINGING LEAVES A BALLAD " WHAT fairings will ye that I bring ? " Said the King to his daughters three; " For I to Vanity Fair am boun, Now say what shall they be ? " Then up and spake the eldest daughter, That lady tall and grand: " Oh, bring me pearls and diamonds great, And gold rings for my hand." Thereafter spake the second daughter, That was both white and red: " For me bring silks that will stand alone, And a gold comb for my head." Then came the turn of the least daughter, That was whiter than thistle-down, And among the gold of her blithesome hair Dim shone the golden crown. " There came a bird this morning, And sang neath my bower eaves, Till I dreamed, as his music made me, Ask thou for the Singing Leaves. " Then the brow of the King swelled crimson With a flush of angry scorn: "Well have ye spoken, my two eldest, And chosen as ye were born; " But she, like a thing of peasant race, That is happy binding the sheaves;" Then he saw her dead mother in her face, And said, " Thou shalt have thy leaves." II He mounted and rode three days and nights Till he came to Vanity Fair, And t was easy to buy the gems and the silk, But no Singing Leaves were there. Then deep in the greenwood rode he, And asked of every tree, " Oh, if you have ever a Singing Leaf, I pray you give it me! " But the trees all kept their counsel, And never a word said they, Only there sighed from the pine-tops A music of seas far away. Only the pattering aspen Made a sound of growing rain, That fell ever faster and faster, Then faltered to silence again. " Oh, where shall I find a little foot-page That would win both hose and shoon, And will bring to me the Singing Leaves If they grow under the moon ? " Then lightly turned him Walter the page, By the stirrup as he ran: " Now pledge you me the truesome word Of a king and gentleman, " That you will give me the first, first thing You meet at your castle-gate, And the Princess shall get the Singing Leaves, Or mine be a traitor s fate." The King s head dropt upon his breast A moment, as it might be; T will be my dog, he thought, and said, "My faith I plight to thee." Then Walter took from next his heart A packet small and thin, " Now give you this to the Princess Anne, The Singing Leaves are therein." Ill As the King rode in at his castle-gate, A maiden to meet him ran, And " Welcome, father! " she laughed and cried Together, the Princess Anne. " Lo, here the Singing Leaves," quoth he, " And woe, but they cost me dear! " She took the packet, and the smile Deepened down beneath the tear. It deepened down till it reached her heart, And then gushed up again, And lighted her tears as the sudden sun Transfigures the summer rain. And the first Leaf, when it was opened, Sang: " I am Walter the page, And the songs I sing neath thy window Are my only heritage." 294 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS And the second Leaf sang: "But in the land That is neither on earth nor sea, My lute and I are lords of more Than thrice this kingdom s fee." And the third Leaf sang, "Be mine! Be mine! " And ever it sang, " Be mine! " Then sweeter it sang and ever sweeter, And said, "I am thine, thine, thine!" At the first Leaf she grew pale enough, At the second she turned aside, At the third, t was as if a lily flushed With a rose s red heart s tide. " Good counsel gave the bird," said she, " I have my hope thrice o er, For they sing to my very heart," she said, " And it sings to them evermore." She brought to him her beauty and truth, But and broad earldoms three, And he made her queen of the broader lands He held of his lute in fee. SEAWEED NOT always unimpeded can I pray, Nor, pitying saint, thine intercession claim; Too closely clings the burden of the day, And all the mint and anise that I pay But swells my debt and deepens my self- blame. Shall I less patience have than Thou, who know That Thou revisit st all who wait for thee, Nor only fill st the unsounded deeps be low, But dost refresh with punctual overflow The rifts where unregarded mosses be ? The drooping seaweed hears, in night abyssed, Far and more far the wave s receding shocks, Nor doubts, for all the darkness and the mist, That the pale shepherdess will keep her tryst, And shoreward lead again her foam-fleeced flocks. For the same wave that rims the Carib shore With momentary brede of pearl and gold, Goes hurrying thence to gladden with its roar Lorn weeds bound fast on rocks of Labra dor, By love divine on one sweet errand rolled. And, though Thy healing waters far with draw, I, too, can wait and feed on hope of Thee And of the dear recurrence of Thy law, Sure that the parting grace my morning saw Abides its time to come in search of me. THE FINDING OF THE LYRE THERE lay upon the ocean s shore What once a tortoise served to cover; A year and more, with rush and roar, The surf had rolled it over, Had played with it, and flung it by, As wind and weather might decide it, Then tossed it high where sand-drifts dry Cheap burial might provide it. It rested there to bleach or tan, The rains had soaked, the suns had burned it; With many a ban the fisherman Had stumbled o er and spurned it; And there the fisher-girl would stay, Conjecturing with her brother How in their play the poor estray Might serve some use or other. So there it lay, through wet and dry As empty as the last new sonnet, Till by and by came Mercury, And, having mused upon it, "Why, here," cried he, "the thing of things In shape, material, and dimension ! Give it but strings, and, lo, it sings, A wonderful invention ! " So said, so done; the chords he strained, And, as his fingers o er them hovered, The shell disdained a soul had gained, The lyre had been discovered. O empty world that round us lies, Dead shell, of soul and thought forsaken, AL FRESCO 2 95 Brought we but eyes like Mercury s, In thee what songs should waken ! NEW-YEAR S EVE, 1850 THIS is the midnight of the century, hark! Through aisle and arch of Godminster have gone Twelve throbs that tolled the zenith of the dark, And mornward now the starry hands move on; " Mornward ! " the angelic watchers say, " Passed is the sorest trial; No plot of man can stay The hand upon the dial; Night is the dark stem of the lily Day." If we, who watched in valleys here below, Toward streaks, misdeemed of morn, our faces turned When volcan glares set all the east aglow, We are not poorer that we wept and yearned; Though earth swing wide from God s in tent, And though no man nor nation Will move with full consent In heavenly gravitation, Yet by one Sun is every orbit bent. FOR AN AUTOGRAPH THOUGH old the thought and oft exprest, *T is his at last who says it best, I 11 try my fortune with the rest. Life is a leaf of paper white Whereon each one of us may write His word or two, and then comes night. " Lo, time and space enough," we cry, " To write an epic ! " so we try Our nibs upon the edge, and die. Muse not which way the pen to hold, Luck hates the slow and loves the bold, Soon come the darkness and the cold. Greatly begin 1 though thou have time But for a line, be that sublime, Not failure, but low aim, is crime. Ah, with what lofty hope we came ! But we forget it, dream of fame, And scrawl, as I do here, a name. AL FRESCO THE dandelions and buttercups Gild all the lawn; the drowsy bee Stumbles among the clover-tops, And summer sweetens all but me: Away, unfruitful lore of books, For whose vain idiom we reject The soul s more native dialect, Aliens among the birds and brooks, Dull to interpret or conceive What gospels lost the woods retrieve 1 Away, ye critics, city-bred, Who springes set of thus and so, And in the first man s footsteps tread, Like those who toil through drifted snow ! Away, my poets, whose sweet spell Can make a garden of a cell ! I need ye not, for I to-day Will make one long sweet verse of play. Snap, chord of manhood s tenser strain 1 To-day I will be a boy again; The mind s pursuing element, Like a bow slackened and unbent, In some dark corner shall be leant. The robin sings, as of old, from the limb I The cat-bird croons in the lilac-bush ! Through the dim arbor, himself more dim, Silently hops the hermit-thrush, The withered leaves keep dumb for him ; The irreverent buccaneering bee Hath stormed and rifled the nunnery Of the lily, and scattered the sacred floor With haste - dropt gold from shrine to door; There, as of yore, The rich, milk-tingeing buttercup Its tiny polished urn holds up, Filled with ripe summer to the edge, The sun in his own wine to pledge ; And our tall elm, this hundredth year Doge of our leafy Venice here, Who, with an annual ring, doth wed The blue Adriatic overhead, Shadows with his palatial mass The deep canals of flowing grass. O unestranged birds and bees ! O face of Nature always true ! 296 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS never-unsympathizing trees ! never-rejecting roof of blue, Whose rash disherison never falls On us unthinking prodigals, Yet who convictest all our ill, So grand and unappeasable ! Methinks my heart from each of these Plucks part of childhood back again, Long there imprisoned, as the breeze Doth every hidden odor seize Of wood and water, hill and plain ; Once more am I admitted peer In the upper house of Nature here, And feel through all my pulses run The royal blood of wind and sun. Upon these elm-arched solitudes No hum of neighbor toil intrudes; The only hammer that I hear Is wielded by the woodpecker, The single noisy calling his In all our leaf -hid Sybaris; The good old time, close-hidden here, Persists, a loyal cavalier, While Roundheads prim, with point of fox, Probe wainscot-chink and empty box; Here no hoarse-voiced iconoclast Insults thy statues, royal Past; Myself too prone the axe to wield, 1 touch the silver side of the shield With lance reversed, and challenge peace, A willing convert of the trees. How chanced it that so long I tost A cable s length from this rich coast, With foolish anchors hugging close The beckoning weeds and lazy ooze, Nor had the wit to wreck before On this enchanted island s shore, Whither the current of the sea, With wiser drift, persuaded me ? Oh, might we but of such rare days Build up the spirit s dwelling-place ! A temple of so Parian stone Would brook a marble god alone, The statue of a perfect life, Far-shrined from earth s bestaining strife. Alas ! though such felicity In our vext world here may not be, Yet, as sometimes the peasant s hut Shows stones which old religion eut With text inspired, or mystic sign Of the Eternal and Divine, Torn from the consecration deep Of some fallen nunnery s mossy sleep, So, from the ruins of this day Crumbling in golden dust away, The soul one gracious block may draw, Carved with some fragment of the law, Which, set in life s prosaic wall, Old benedictions may recall, And lure some nunlike thoughts to take Their dwelling here for memory s sake. MASACCIO IN THE BRANCACCI CHAPEL HE came to Florence long ago, And painted here these walls, that shone For Raphael and for Angelo, With secrets deeper than his own, Then shrank into the dark again, And died, we know not how or when. The shadows deepened, and I turned Half sadly from the fresco grand ; " And is this," mused I, " all ye earned, High-vaulted brain and cunning hand, That ye to greater men could teach The skill yourselves could never reach ? " "And who were they," I mused, "that wrought Through pathless wilds, with labor long, The highways of our daily thought ? Who reared those towers of earliest song That lift us from the crowd to peace Remote in sunny silences ? " Out clanged the Ave Mary bells, And to my heart this message came : Each clamorous throat among them tells What strong-souled martys died in flame To make it possible that thou Shouldst here with brother sinners bow. Thoughts that great hearts once broke for, we Breathe cheaply in the common air ; The dust we trample heedlessly Throbbed once in saints and heroes rare, Who perished, opening for their race New pathways to the commonplace. Henceforth, when rings the health to those Who live in story and in song, O nameless dead, that now repose GODMINSTER CHIMES 297 Safe in Oblivion s chambers strong, One cup of recognition true Shall silently be drained to you ! WITHOUT AND WITHIN " Madrid, January 15, 1879. I wrote some verses thirty odd years ago called Without and Within, and they originally ended with the author s looking up at the stars through six feet of earth and feeling dreadfully bored, while a passer-by deciphers the headstone and envies the supposed sleeper beneath. I was per suaded to leave out this ending as too grim but I often think of it. They have a fine name for this kind of feeling nowadays, and would fain make out pessimism to be a monstrous birth of our century. I suspect it has always been common enough, especially with naughty children who get tired of their playthings as soon as I do the absurdity being that then we are not content with smashing the toy which turns out to be finite but everything else into the bargain." J. R. L. to Miss Grace Norton. Letters II. 236. MY coachman, in the moonlight there, Looks through the side-light of the door; I hear him with his brethren swear, As I could do, but only more. Flattening his nose against the pane, He envies me my brilliant lot, Breathes on his aching fists in. vain, And dooms me to a place more hot. He sees me in to supper go, A silken wonder by my side, Bare arms, bare shoulders, and a row Of flounces, for the door too wide. He thinks how happy is my arm Neath its white-gloved and jewelled load; And wishes me some dreadful harm, Hearing the merry corks explode. Meanwhile I inly curse the bore Of hunting still the same old coon, And envy him, outside the door, In golden quiets of the moon. The winter wind is not so cold As the bright smile he sees me win, Nor the host s oldest wine so old As our poor gabble sour and thin. I envy him the ungyved prance With which his freezing feet he warms, And drag my lady s-chains and dance The galley-slave of dreary forms. Oh, could he have my share of din, And I his quiet ! past a doubt T would still be one man bored within, And just another bored without. Nay, when, once paid my mortal fee, Some idler on my headstone grim Traces the moss-blurred name, will he Think me the happier, or I him ? GODMINSTER CHIMES WRITTEN IN AID OF A CHIME OF BELLS FOR CHRIST CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE GODMINSTER ? Is it Fancy s play ? I know not, but the word Sings in my heart, nor can I say Whether t was dreamed or heard; Yet fragrant in my mind it clings As blossoms after rain, And builds of half-remembered things This vision in my brain. Through aisles of long-drawn centuries My spirit walks in thought, And to that symbol lifts its eyes Which God s own pity wrought; From Calvary shines the altar s gleam, The Church s East is there, The Ages one great minster seem, That throbs with praise and prayer. And all the way from Calvary down The carven pavement shows Their graves who won the martyr s crown And safe in God repose; The saints of many a warring creed Who now in heaven have learned That all paths to the Father lead Where Self the feet have spurned. And, as the mystic aisles I pace, By aureoled workmen built, Lives ending at the Cross I trace Alike through grace and guilt; One Mary bathes the blessed feet With ointment from her eyes, 298 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS With spikenard one, and both are sweet, For both are sacrifice. Moravian hymn and Roman chant In one devotion blend, To speak the soul s eternal want Of Him, the inmost friend; One prayer soars cleansed with martyr fire, One choked with sinner s tears, In heaven both meet in one desire, And God one music hears. Whilst thus I dream, the bells clash out Upon the Sabbath air, Each seems a hostile faith to shout, A selfish form of prayer; My dream is shattered, yet who knows But in that heaven so near These discords find harmonious close In God s atoning ear ? O chime of sweet Saint Charity, Peal soon that Easter morn When Christ for all shall risen be, And in all hearts new-born ! That Pentecost when utterance clear To all men shall be given, When all shall say My Brother here, And hear My Son in heaven ! THE PARTING OF THE WAYS WHO hath not been a poet ? Who hath not, With life s new quiver full of winged years, Shot at a venture, and then, following on, Stood doubtful at the Parting of the Ways ? There once I stood in dream, and as I paused, Looking this way and that, came forth to me The figure of a woman veiled, that said, " My name is Duty, turn and follow me ; " Something there was that chilled me in her voice; I felt Youth s hand grow slack and cold in mine, As if to be withdrawn, and I exclaimed: " Oh, leave the hot wild heart within my breast ! Duty comes soon enough, too soon comes Death; This slippery globe of life whirls of itself, Hasting our youth away into the dark; These senses, quivering with electric heats, Too soon will show, like nests on wintry boughs Obtrusive emptiness, too palpable wreck, Which whistling north- winds line with downy snow Sometimes, or fringe with foliaged rime, in vain, Thither the singing birds no more return." Then glowed to me a maiden from the left, With bosom half disclosed, and naked arms More white and undulant than necks of swans; And all before her steps an influence ran Warm as the whispering South that opens buds And swells the laggard sails of Northern May. " I am called Pleasure, come with me ! " she said, Then laughed, and shook out sunshine from her hair, Nor only that, but, so it seemed, shook out All memory too, and all the moonlit past, Old loves, old aspirations, and old dreams, More beautiful for being old and gone. So we two went together; downward sloped The path through yellow meads, or so I dreamed, Yellow with sunshine and young green, but I Saw naught nor heard, shut up in one close jy; I only felt the hand within my own, Transmuting all my blood to golden fire, Dissolving all my brain in throbbing mist. Suddenly shrank the hand; suddenly burst A cry that split the torpor of my brain, And as the first sharp thrust of lightning loosens From the heaped cloud its rain, loosened my sense : "Save me!" it thrilled; "oh, hide me! there is Death ! Death the divider, the unmerciful, That digs his pitfalls under Love and Youth, THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 299 And covers Beauty up in the cold ground; Horrible Death ! briiiger of endless dark; Let him not see me ! hide me in thy breast ! " Thereat I strove to clasp her, but my arms Met only what slipped crumbling down, and fell, A handful of gray ashes, at my feet. I would have fled, I would have followed back That pleasant path we came, but all was changed; Rocky the way, abrupt, and hard to find; Yet I toiled on, and, toiling on, I thought, " That way lies Youth, and Wisdom, and all Good; For only by unlearning Wisdom comes And climbing backward to diviner Youth ; What the world teaches profits to the world, What the soul teaches profits to the soul, Which then first stands erect with God- ward face, When she lets fall her pack of withered facts, The gleanings of the outward eye and ear, And looks and listens with her finer sense ; Nor Truth nor Knowledge cometh from without." After long, weary days I stood again And waited at the Parting of the Ways; Again the figure of a woman veiled Stood forth and beckoned, and I followed now: Down to no bower of roses led the path, But through the streets of towns where chattering Cold Hewed wood for fires whose glow was owned and fenced, Where Nakedness wove garments of warm wool Not for itself; or through the fields it led Where Hunger reaped the unattainable grain, Where idleness enforced saw idle lands, Leagues of unpeopled soil, the common earth, Walled round with paper against God and Man. "I cannot look," I groaned, "at only these; The heart grows hardened with perpetual wont, And palters with a feigned necessity, Bargaining with itself to be content; Let me behold thy face." The Form replied: " Men follow Duty, never overtake ; Duty nor lifts her veil nor looks behind." But, as she spake, a loosened lock of hair Slipped from beneath her hood, and I, who looked To see it gray and thin, saw amplest gold; Not that dull metal dug from sordid earth, But such as the retiring sunset flood Leaves heaped on bays and capes of island cloud. " O Guide divine," I prayed, " although not yet I may repair the virtue which I feel Gone out at touch of untuned things and foul With draughts of Beauty, yet declare how soon ! " " Faithless and faint of heart," the voice returned, " Thou seest no beauty save thou make it first; Man, Woman, Nature each is but a glass Where the soul sees the image of herself, Visible echoes, offsprings of herself. But, since thou need st assurance of how soon, Wait till that angel comes who opens all, The reconciler, he who lifts the veil, The reuniter, the rest-bringer, Death." I waited, and methought he came; but how, Or in what shape, I doubted, for no sign, By touch or mark, he gave me as he Only I knew a lily that I held Snapt short below the head and shrivelled up; Then turned my Guide and looked at me unveiled, And I beheld no face of matron stern, But that enchantment I had followed erst, Only more fair, more clear to eye and brain, Heightened and chastened by a household charm ; She smiled, and "Which is fairer," said her eyes, " The hag s unreal Florimel or mine ? " 300 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS ALADDIN WHEN I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin s lamp; When I could not sleep for the cold, I had fire enough in my brain, And builded, with roofs of gold, My beautiful castles in Spain ! Since then I have toiled day and night, I have money and power good store, But I d give all my lamps of silver bright For the one that is mine no more; Take, Fortune, whatever you choose, You gave, and may snatch again; I have nothing t would pain me to lose, For I own no more castles in Spain ! AN INVITATION TO J[OHN] F[RANCIS] H[EATH] NINE years have slipt like hour-glass sand From life s still-emptying globe away, Since last, dear friend, 1 clasped your hand, And stood upon the impoverished land, Watching the steamer down the bay. I held the token which you gave, While slowly the smoke-pennon curled O er the vague rim tween sky and wave, And shut the distance like a grave, Leaving me in the colder world; The old, worn world of hurry and heat, The young, fresh world of thought and scope ; While you, where beckoning billows fleet Climb far sky-beaches still and sweet, Sank wavering down the ocean-slope. You sought the new world in the old, I found the old world in the new, All that our human hearts can hold, The inward world of deathless mould, The same that Father Adam knew. He needs no ship to cross the tide, Who, in the lives about him, sees Fair window-prospects opening wide O er history s fields on every side, To Ind and Egypt, Rome and Greece. Whatever moulds of various brain E er shaped the world to weaJ or woe, Whatever empires wax and wane, To him that hath not eyes in vain, Our village-microcosm can show. Come back our ancient walks to tread, Dear haunts of lost or scattered friends, Old Harvard s scholar-factories red, Where song and smoke and laughter sped The nights to proctor-haunted ends. Constant are all our former loves, Unchanged the icehouse-girdled pond, Its hemlock glooms, its shadowy coves, Where floats the coot and never moves, Its slopes of long-tamed green beyond. Our old familiars are not laid, Though snapt our wands and sunk our books; They beckon, not to be gainsaid, Where, round broad meads that mowers wade, The Charles his steel-blue sickle crooks. Where, as the cloudbergs eastward blow, From glow to gloom the hillsides shift Their plumps of orchard-trees arow, Their lakes of rye that wave and flow, Their snowy whiteweed s summer drift. There have we watched the West unfurl A cloud Byzantium newly born, With flickering spires and domes of pearl, And vapory surfs that crowd and curl Into the sunset s Golden Horn. There, as the flaming Occident Burned slowly down to ashes gray, Night pitched o erhead her silent tent, And glimmering gold from Hesper sprent Upon the darkened river lay, Where a twin sky but just before Deepened, and double swallows skimmed, And from a visionary shore Hung visioned trees, that more and more Grew dusk as those above were dimmed. Then eastward saw we slowly grow Clear-edged the lines of roof and spire, THE NOMADES 301 While great elm-masses blacken slow, And linden-ricks their round heads show Against a flush of widening fire. Doubtful at first and far away, The moon-flood creeps more wide and wide; Up a ridged beach of cloudy gray, Curved round the east as round a bay, It slips and spreads its gradual tide. Then suddenly, in lurid mood, The disk looms large o er town and field As upon Adam, red like blood, Tween him and Eden s happy wood, Glared the commissioned angel s shield. Or let us seek the seaside, there To wander idly as we list, Whether, on rocky headlands bare, Sharp cedar-horns, like breakers, tear The trailing fringes of gray mist, Or whether, under skies full flown, The brightening surfs, with foamy din, Their breeze-caught forelocks backward blown, Against the beach s yellow zone Curl slow, and plunge forever in. And, as we watch those canvas towers That lean along the horizon s rim, " Sail on," I 11 say ; " may sunniest hours Convoy you from this land of ours, Since from my side you bear not him ! " For years thrice three, wise Horace said, A poem rare let silence bind ; And love may ripen in the shade, Like ours, for nine long seasons laid In deepest arches of the mind. Come back ! Not ours the Old World s The Old World s ill, thank God, not ours ; But here, far better understood, The days enforce our native mood, And challenge all our manlier powers. Kindlier to me the place of birth That first my tottering footsteps trod ; There may be fairer spots of earth, But all their glories are not worth The virtue in the native sod. Thence climbs an influence more benign Through pulse and nerve, through heart and brain ; Sacred to me those fibres fine That first clasped earth. Oh, ne er be mine The alien sun and alien rain ! These nourish not like homelier glows Or waterings of familiar skies, And nature fairer blooms bestows On the heaped hush of wintry snows, In pastures dear to childhood s eyes, Than where Italian earth receives The partial sunshine s ampler boons, Where vines carve friezes neath the eaves, And, in dark firmaments of leaves, The orange lifts its golden moons. THE NOMADES WHAT Nature makes in any mood To me is warranted for good, Though long before I learned to see She did not set us moral theses, And scorned to have her sweet caprices Strait-waistcoated in you or me. I, who take root and firmly cling, Thought fixedness the only thing ; Why Nature made the butterflies, (Those dreams of wings that float and hover At noon the slumberous poppies over,) Was something hidden from mine eyes, Till once, upon a rock s brown bosom, Bright as a thorny cactus-blossom, I saw a butterfly at rest ; Then first of both I felt the beauty; The airy whim, the grim-set duty, Each from the other took its best. Clearer it grew than winter sky That Nature still had reasons why ; And, shifting sudden as a breeze, My fancy found no satisfaction, No antithetic sweet attraction, So great as in the Nomades. Scythians, with Nature not at strife, Light Arabs of our complex life, They build no houses, plant no mills 302 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS To utilize Time s sliding river, Content that it flow waste forever, If they, like it, may have their wills. An hour they pitch their shifting tents In thoughts, in feelings, and events ; Beneath the palm-trees, on the grass, They sing, they dance, make love, and chatter, Vex the grim temples with their clatter, And make Truth s fount their looking- glass. A picnic life ; from love to love, From faith to faith they lightly move, And yet, hard-eyed philosopher, The flightiest maid that ever hovered To me your thought-webs fine discovered, No lens to see them through like her. So witch ingly her finger- tips To Wisdom, as away she trips, She kisses, waves such sweet farewells To Duty, as she laughs " To-morrow ! " That both from that mad contrast borrow A perfectness found nowhere else. The beach-bird on its pearly verge Follows and flies the whispering surge, While, in his tent, the rock-stayed shell Awaits the flood s star-timed vibrations, And both, the flutter and the patience, The sauntering poet loves them well. Fulfil so much of God s decree As works its problem out in thee, Nor dream that in thy breast alone The conscience of the changeful seasons, The Will that in the planets reasons With space-wide logic, has its throne. Thy virtue makes not vice of mine, Unlike, but none the less divine ; Thy toil adorns, not chides, my play ; Nature of sameness is so chary, With such wild whim the freakish fairy Picks presents for the christening-day. SELF-STUDY A PRESENCE both by night and day, That made my life seem just begun, Yet scarce a presence, rather say The warning aureole of one. And yet I felt it everywhere ; Walked I the woodland s aisles along It seemed to brush me with its hair ; Bathed I, I heard a mermaid s song. How sweet it was ! A buttercup Could hold for me a day s delight, A bird could lift my fancy up To ether free from cloud or blight. Who was the nymph ? Nay, I will see, Methought, and I will know her near; If such, divined, her charm can be, Seen and possessed, how triply dear! So every magic art I tried, And spells as numberless as sand, Until, one evening, by my side I saw her glowing fulness stand. I turned to clasp her, but " Farewell," Parting she sighed, " we meet no more; Not by my hand the curtain fell That leaves you conscious, wise, and poor. " Since you have found me out, I go ; Another lover I must find, Content his happiness to know, Nor strive its secret to unwind." PICTURES FROM APPLEDORE In 1854 Lowell contributed to The Crayon, then just started by W. J. Stillman, a poem, My Appledore Gallery, which reappears in part in the following poem under a slightly changed title. In sending the first portion to Mr. Still man, he wrote : " You may add a note, if you like, saying that Appledore is one of the Isles of Shoals, off Portsmouth, N. H., discovered by the great Captain Smith, and once named after him. A cairn on the apex of Appledore is said to be of his building." A HEAP of bare and splintery crags Tumbled about by lightning and frost, With rifts and chasms and storm-bleached jags, That wait and growl for a ship to be lost; No island, but rather the skeleton Of a wrecked and vengeance-smitten one, Where, aeons ago, with half-shut eye, The sluggish saurian crawled to die, Gasping under titanic ferns; PICTURES FROM APPLEDORE 303 Ribs of rock that seaward jut, Granite shoulders and boulders and snags, Hound which, though the winds in heaven be shut, The nightmared ocean murmurs and yearns, Welters, and swashes, and tosses, and turns, And the dreary black seaweed lolls and wags; Only rock from shore to shore, Only a moan through the bleak clefts blown, With sobs in the rifts where the coarse kelp shifts, Falling and lifting, tossing and drifting, And under all a deep, dull roar, Dying and swelling, forevermore, Rock and moan and roar alone, And the dread of some nameless thing un known, These make Appledore. These make Appledore by night: Then there are monsters left and right; Every rock is a different monster; All you have read of, fancied, dreamed, When you waked at night because you screamed, There they lie for half a mile, Jumbled together in a pile, And (though you know they never once stir) If you look long, they seem to be moving Just as plainly as plain can be, Crushing and crowding, wading and shov ing Out into the awful sea, Where you can hear them snort and spout With pauses between, as if they were listen ing? Then tumult anon when the surf breaks glistening In the blackness where they wallow about. II All this you would scarcely comprehend, Should you see the isle on a sunny day ; Then it is simple enough in its way, Two rocky bulges, one at each end, With a smaller bulge and a hollow between; Patches of whortleberry and bay; Accidents of open green, Sprinkled with loose slabs square and gray, Like graveyards for ages deserted ; a few Unsocial thistles ; an elder or two, Foamed over with blossoms white as spray; And on the whole island never a tree Save a score of sumachs, high as your knee, That crouch in hollows where they may, (The cellars where once stood a village, men say,) Huddling for warmth, and never grew Tall enough for a peep at the sea; A general dazzle of open blue; A breeze always blowing and playing rat- tat With the bow of the ribbon round your hat; A score of sheep that do nothing but stare Up or down at you everywhere; Three or four cattle that chew the cud Lying about in a listless despair; A medrick that makes you look overhead With short, sharp scream, as he sights his prey, And, dropping straight and swift as lead, Splits the water with sudden thud; This is Appledore by day. A common island, you will say; But stay a moment: only climb Up to the highest rock of the isle, Stand there alone for a little while, And with gentle approaches it grows sub lime, Dilating slowly as you win A sense from the silence to take it in. So wide the loneness, so lucid the air, The granite beneath you so savagely bare, You well might think you were looking down From some sky-silenced mountain s crown, Whose waist-belt of pines is wont to tear Locks of wool from the topmost cloud. Only be sure you go alone, For Grandeur is inaccessibly proud, And never yet has backward thrown Her veil to feed the stare of a crowd; To more than one was never shown That awful front, nor is it fit That she, Cothurnus-shod, stand bowed Until the self-approving pit Enjoy the gust of its own wit In babbling plaudits cheaply loud; She hides her mountains and her sea From the harriers of scenery, Who hunt down sunsets, and huddle and bay, Mouthing and mumbling the dying day. Trust me, t is something to be cast Face to face with one s Self at last, UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS To be taken out of the fuss and strife, The endless clatter of plate and knife, The bore of books and the bores of the street, From the singular mess we agree to call Life, Where that is best which the most fools vote is, And planted firm on one s own two feet So nigh to the great warm heart of God, You almost seem to feel it beat Down from the sunshine and up from the sod; To be compelled, as it were, to notice All the beautiful changes and chances Through which the landscape flits and glances, And to see how the face of common day Is written all over with tender histories, When you study it that intenser way In which a lover looks at his mistress. Till now you dreamed not what could be done With a bit of rock and a ray of sun ; But look, how fade the lights and shades Of keen bare edge and crevice deep ! How doubtfully it fades and fades, And glows again, yon craggy steep, O er which, through color s dreamiest grades, The musing sunbeams pause and creep ! Now pink it blooms, now glimmers gray, Now shadows to a filmy blue, Tries one, tries all, and will not stay, But flits from opal hue to hue, And runs through every tenderest range Of change that seems not to be change, So rare the sweep, so nice the art, That lays no stress on any part, But shifts and lingers and persuades; So soft that sun-brush in the west, That asks no costlier pigments aids, But mingling knobs, flaws, angles, dints, Indifferent of worst or best, Enchants the cliffs with wraiths and hints And gracious preludings of tints, Where all seems fixed, yet all evades, And indefinably pervades Perpetual movement with perpetual rest ! ill Away northeast is Boone Island light; You might mistake it for a ship, Only it stands too plumb upright, And like the others does not slip Behind the sea s unsteady brink; Though, if a cloud-shade chance to dip Upon it a moment, t will suddenly sink, Levelled and lost in the darkened main, Till the sun builds it suddenly up again, As if with a rub of Aladdin s lamp. On the mainland you see a misty camp Of mountains pitched tumultuously: That one looming so long and large Is Saddleback, and that point you see Over yon low and rounded marge, Like the boss of a sleeping giant s targe Laid over his breast, is Ossipee; That shadow there may be Kearsarge ; That must be Great Haystack; I love these names, Wherewith the lonely farmer tames Nature to mute companionship With his own mind s domestic mood, And strives the surly world to clip In the arms of familiar habitude. T is well he could not contrive to make A Saxon of Agamenticus: He glowers there to the north of us, Wrapt in his blanket of blue haze, Unconvertibly savage, and scorns to take The white man s baptism or his ways. Him first on shore the coaster divines Through the early gray, and sees him shake The morning mist from his scalp-lock of pines ; Him first the skipper makes out in the west, Ere the earliest sunstreak shoots tremu lous, Plashing with orange the palpitant lines Of mutable billow, crest after crest, And murmurs Agamenticus! As if it were the name of a saint. But is that a mountain playing cloud, Or a cloud playing mountain, just there, so faint ? Look along over the low right shoulder Of Agamenticus into that crowd Of brassy thunderheads behind it; Now you have caught it, but, ere you are older By half an hour, you will lose it and find it A score of times; while you look t is gone, And, just as you ve given it up, anon It is there again, till your weary eyes Fancy they see it waver and rise, With its brother clouds; it is Agiochook, PICTURES FROM APPLEDORE 305 There if you seek not, and gone if you look, Ninety miles off as the eagle flies. But mountains make not all the shore The mainland shows to Appledore; Eight miles the heaving water spreads To a long, low coast with beaches and heads That run through unimagined mazes, As the lights and shades and magical hazes Put them away or bring them near, Shimmering, sketched out for thirty miles Between two capes that waver like threads, And sink in the ocean, and reappear, Crumbled and melted to little isles, With filmy trees, that seem the mere Half-fancies of drowsy atmosphere; And see the beach there, where it is Flat as a threshing-floor, beaten and packed With the flashing flails of weariless seas, How it lifts and looms to a precipice, O er whose square front, a dream, no more, The steepened sand-stripes seem to pour, A murmurless vision of cataract; You almost fancy you hear a roar, Fitful and faint from the distance wander ing; But t is only the blind old ocean maunder ing* Raking the shingle to and fro, Aimlessly clutching and letting go The kelp-haired sedges of Appledore, Slipping down with a sleepy forgetting, And anon his ponderous shoulder setting, With a deep, hoarse pant against Apple dore. IV Eastward as far as the eye can see, Still eastward, eastward, endlessly, The sparkle and tremor of purple sea That rises before you, a flickering hill, On and on to the shut of the sky, And beyond, you fancy it sloping until The same multitudinous throb and thrill That vibrate under your dizzy eye In ripples of orange and pink are sent Where the poppied sails doze on the yard, And the clumsy junk and proa lie Sunk deep with precious woods and nard, Mid the palmy isles of the Orient. Those leaning towers of clouded white On the farthest brink of doubtful ocean, That shorten and shorten out of sight, Yet seem on the selfsame spot to stay, Receding with a motionless motion, Fading to dubious films of gray, Lost, dimly found, then vanished wholly, Will rise again, the great world under/ First films, then towers, then high-heaped clouds, Whose Hearing outlines sharpen slowly Into tall ships with cobweb shrouds, That fill long Mongol eyes with wonder, Crushing the violet wave to spray Past some low headland of Cathay ; What was that sigh which seemed so near. Chilling your fancy to the core ? T is only the sad old sea you hear, That seems to seek forevermore Something it cannot find, and so, Sighing, seeks on, and tells its woe To the pitiless breakers of Appledore. How looks Appledore in a storm ? I have seen it when its crags frantic, Butting against the mad Atlantic, When surge on surge would heap enorme, Cliffs of emerald topped with snow, That lifted and lifted, and then let go A great white avalanche of thunder, A grinding, blinding, deafening ire Monadnock might have trembled under; And the island, whose rock-roots pierce below To where they are warmed with the cen tral fire, You could feel its granite fibres racked, As it seemed to plunge with a shudder and thrill Right at the breast of the swooping hill, And to rise again snorting a cataract Of rage-froth from every cranny and ledge, While the sea drew its breath in hoarse and deep, And the next vast breaker curled its edge, Gathering itself for a mightier leap. North, east, and south there are reefs and breakers You would never dream of in smooth weather, That toss and gore the sea for acres, Bellowing and gnashing and snarling to gether; Look northward, where Duck Island lies, 306 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS And over its crown you will see arise, Against a background of slaty skies, A row of pillars still and white, That glimmer, and then are gone from sight, As if the moon should suddenly kiss, While you crossed the gusty desert by night, The long colonnades of Persepolis; Look southward for White Island light, The lantern stands ninety feet o er the tide; There is first a half-mile of tumult and fight, Of dash and roar and tumble and fright, And surging bewilderment wild and wide, Where the breakers struggle left and right, Then a mile or more of rushing sea, And then the lighthouse slim and lone; And whenever the weight of ocean is thrown Full and fair on White Island head, A great mist-jotun you will see Lifting himseif up silently High and huge o er the lighthouse top, With hands of wavering spray outspread, Groping after the little tower, That seems to shrink and shorten and cower, Till the monster s arms of a sudden drop, And silently and fruitlessly He sinks back into the sea. You, meanwhile, where drenched you stand, Awaken once more to the rush and roar, And on the rock-point tighten your hand, As you turn and see a valley deep, That was not there a moment before, Suck rattling down between you and a heap Of toppling billow, whose instant fall Must sink the whole island once for all, Or watch the silenter, stealthier seas Feeling their way to you more and more ; If they once should clutch you high as the knees, They would whirl you down like a sprig of kelp, Beyond all reach of hope or help ; And such in a storm is Appledore. VI *T is the sight of a lifetime to behold The great shorn sun as you see it now, Across eight miles of undulant gold That widens landward, weltered and rolled, With freaks of shadow and crimson stains; To see the solid mountain brow As it notches the disk, and gains and gains, Until there comes, you scarce know when, A tremble of fire o er the parted lips Of cloud and mountain, which vanishes; then From the body of day the sun-soul slips And the face of earth darkens; but now the strips Of western vapor, straight and thin, From which the horizon s swervings win A grace of contrast, take fire and burn Like splinters of touchwood, whose edges a mould Of ashes o erfeathers; northward turn For an instant, and let your eye grow cold On Agamenticus, and when once more You look, t is as if the land-breeze, grow ing, From the smouldering brands the film were blowing, And brightening them down to the very core; Yet they momently cool and dampen and deaden, The crimson turns golden, the gold turns leaden, Hardening into one black bar O er which, from the hollow heaven afar, Shoots a splinter of light like diamond, Half seen, half fancied; by and by Beyond whatever is most beyond In the uttermost waste of desert sky, Grows a star; And over it, visible spirit of dew, Ah, stir not, speak not, hold your breath, Or surely the miracle vanisheth, The new moon, tranced in unspeakable blue ! No frail illusion ; this were true, Rather, to call it the canoe Hollowed out of a single pearl, That floats us from the Present s whirl Back to those beings which were ours, When wishes were winged things like pow ers ! Call it not light, that mystery tender, Which broods upon the brooding ocean That flush of ecstasied surrender To indefinable emotion, That glory, mellower than a mist Of pearl dissolved with amethyst, Which rims Square Rock, like what they paint THE WIND-HARP 307 Of mitigated heavenly splendor Hound the stern forehead of a Saint ! No more a vision, reddened, largened, The moon dips toward her mountain nest, And, fringing it with palest argent, Slow sheathes herself behind the margent Of that long cloud-bar in the West, Whose nether edge, erelong, you see The silvery chrism in turn anoint, And then the tiniest rosy point Touched doubtfully and timidly Into the dark blue s chilly strip, As some mute, wondering thing below, Awakened by the thrilling glow, Might, looking up, see Dian dip One lucent foot s delaying tip In Latmian fountains long ago. Knew you what silence was before ? Here is no startle of dreaming bird That sings in his sleep, or strives to sing; Here is no sough of branches stirred, Nor noise of any living thing, Such as one hears by night on shore; Only, now and then, a sigh, With fickle intervals between, Sometimes far, and sometimes nigh, Such as Andromeda might have heard, And fancied the huge sea-beast unseen Turning in sleep ; it is the sea That welters and wavers uneasily Round the lonely reefs of Appledore. THE WIND-HARP "Your inspiration is still to you a living mistress make her immortal in her prompt ings and her consolations by imaging her truly in art. Mine looks at me with eyes of paler flame and beckons across a gulf. You came into my loneliness like an incarnate as piration. And it is dreary enough sometimes, for a mountain-peak on whose snow your foot makes the first mortal print is not so lonely as a room full of happy faces from which one is missing forever. This was originally the fifth stanza of The Windharp. O tress ! that so oft in my heart hast lain, Rocked to rest within rest by its thankful beating, Say, which is harder to bear the pain Of laughter and light, or to wait in vain Neath the unleaved tree the impossible meeting ? If Death s lips be icy, Life gives, iwis, Some kisses more clay-cold and darkening than his ! Forgive me, but you spoke of it first." J. R. L. to W. J. Stillman, December 7, 1854. I TREASURE in secret some long, fine hair Of tenderest brown, but so inwardly golden I half used to fancy the sunshine there, So shy, so shifting, so waywardly rare, Was only caught for the moment and holden While I could say Dearest! and kiss it, and then In pity let go to the summer again. I twisted this magic in gossamer strings Over a wind-harp s Delphian hollow; Then called to the idle breeze that swings All day in the pine-tops, and clings, and sings Mid the musical leaves, and said, " Oh, follow The will of those tears that deepen my words, And fly to my window to waken these chords." So they trembled to life, and, doubtfully Feeling their way to my sense, sang, " Say whether They sit all day by the greenwood tree, The lover and loved, as it wont to be, When we " But grief conquered, and all together They swelled such weird murmur as haunts a shore Of some planet dispeopled, " Never more ! " Then from deep in the past, as seemed to me, The strings gathered sorrow and sang forsaken, "One lover still waits neath the green wood tree, But t is dark," and they shuddered, where lieth she Dark and cold ! Forever must one be taken?" But I groaned, " O harp of all ruth be reft, This Scripture is sadder, the other left !" There murmured, as if one strove to speak, And tears came instead; then the sad tones wandered And faltered among the uncertain chords 3 o8 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS In a troubled doubt between sorrow and words; At last with themselves they questioned and pondered, " Hereafter ? who knoweth?" and so they sighed Down the long steps that lead to silence and died. AUF WIEDERSEHEN SUMMER THE little gate was reached at last, Half hid in lilacs down the lane; She pushed it wide, and, as she past, A wistful look she backward cast, And said, " Auf wiedersehen /" With hand on latch, a vision white Lingered reluctant, and again Half doubting if she did aright, Soft as the dews that fell that night, She said, "Auf wiedersehen ! " The lamp s clear gleam flits up the stair; I linger in delicious pain; Ah, in that chamber, whose rich air To breathe in thought I scarcely dare, Thinks she, " Auf wiedersehen f " . . . T is thirteen years ; once more I press The turf that silences the lane ; I hear the rustle of her dress, I smell the lilacs, and ah, yes, I hear " Auf wiedersehen / " Sweet piece of bashful maiden art ! The English words had seemed too fain, But these they drew us heart to heart, Yet held us tenderly apart; She said, " Auf wiedersehen ! " PALINODE AUTUMN STILL thirteen years: t is autumn now On field and hill, in heart and brain; The naked trees at evening sough; The leaf to the forsaken bough Sighs not, " Auf wiedersehen ! " Two watched yon oriole s pendent dome, That now is void, and dank with rain, And one, oh, hope more frail than foam f The bird to his deserted home Sings not, " Auf wiedersehen ! " The loath gate swings with rusty creak; Once, parting there, we played at pain; There came a parting, when the weak And fading lips essayed to speak Vainly, " Auf wiedersehen I " Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith, Though thou in outer dark remain; One sweet sad voice ennobles death, And still, for eighteen centuries saith Softly, " Auf wiedersehen / " If earth another grave must bear, Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strain, And something whispers .my despair, That, from an orient chamber there, Floats down, " Auf wiedersehen 1 " AFTER THE BURIAL Lowell s second child, Rose, died after a week s illness in the spring of 1850. Her father wrote shortly after her death to Mr. Gay : " She was very beautiful fair, with large dark-gray eyes and fine features. Her smile was especially charming, and she was full of smiles till her sickness began. Dear little child, she had never spoken, only smiled. To show you that I am not unable to go along with you in the feeling expressed in your let ter, I will copy a few verses out of my com mon-place book." The verses were the first form of the following poem, and will be found in the notes at the end of this volume. The poem, with its personal feeling over a universal human experience, found its way into many hearts. It " has roused," Lowell -wrote in 1875, " strange echoes in men who assured me they were generally insensible to poetry. After all, the only stuff a solitary man has to spin is himself." YES, faith is a goodly anchor; When skies are sweet as a psalm, At the bows it lolls so stalwart, In its bluff, broad-shouldered calm. And when over breakers to leeward The tattered surges are hurled, It may keep our head to the tempest, With its grip on the base of the world. THE DEAD HOUSE 309 But, after the shipwreck, tell me What help in its iron thews, Still true to the broken hawser, Deep down among sea-weed and ooze ? In the breaking gulfs of sorrow, When the helpless feet stretch out And find in the deeps of darkness No footing so solid as doubt, Then better one spar of Memory, One broken plank of the Past, That our human heart may cling to, Though hopeless of shore at last ! To the spirit its splendid conjectures, To the flesh its sweet despair, Its tears o er the thin- worn locket With its anguish of deathless hair ! Immortal ? I feel it and know it, Who doubts it of such as she ? But that is the pang s very secret, Immortal away from me. There s a narrow ridge in the graveyard Would scarce stay a child in his race, But to me and my thought it is wider Than the star-sown vague of Space. Your logic, my friend, is perfect, Your moral most drearily true; But, since the earth clashed on her coffin, I keep hearing that, and not you. Console if you will, I can bear it; T is a well-meant alms of breath; But not all the preaching since Adam Has made Death other than Death. It is pagan; but wait till you feel it, That jar of our earth, that dull shock When the ploughshare of deeper passion Tears down to our primitive rock. Communion in spirit ! Forgive me, But I, who am earthly and weak, Would give all my incomes from dream land For a touch of her hand on my cheek. That little shoe in the corner, So worn and wrinkled and brown, With its emptiness confutes you, And argues your wisdom down. THE DEAD HOUSE I have a notion that the inmates of a house should never be changed. When the first oc cupants go out it should be burned, and a stone set up with Sacred to the Memory of a Home on it. Suppose the body were eternal, and that when one spirit went out another took the lease. How frightful the strange expression of the eyes would be ! I fancy sometimes that the look in the eyes of a familiar house changes when aliens have come into it. For certainly a dwelling adapts itself to its occupants. The front door of a hospitable man opens easily and looks broad, and you can read Welcome ! on every step that leads to it. " I stopped there and tried to put that into verse. I have only half succeeded, and I shall not give it to you. I shall copy it and thrust it into Jane s letter." J. R. L. to C. E. Norton, August 31, 1858. A similar fancy appears in an earlier letter to Mrs. Francis G. Shaw, to whom Lowell wrote January 11, 1853 : " I spent Sunday with Edmund Quincy at Dedham, and, as I came back over the rail yesterday, I was roused from a reverie by seeing West Rox- bury Station written up over the door of a kind of Italian villa at which we stopped. I almost twisted my head off looking for the house on the hill. There it stood in mourning still, just as Frank painted it. The color suited my mood exactly. The eyes of the house were shut, the welcoming look it had was gone ; it was dead. I am a Platonist about houses. They get to my eye a shape from the souls that inhabit them. My friends dwellings seem as peculiar to them as their bodies, looks, and motions. People have no right to sell their dead houses ; they should burn them as they used to burn corpses. ... I have buried that house now and flung my pious handful of earth over it and set up a headstone and I shall never look up to the hill-top again, let me pass it never so often." HERE once my step was quickened, Here beckoned the opening door, And welcome thrilled from the threshold To the foot it had known before. A glow came forth to meet me From the flame that laughed in the grate, And shadows adance on the ceiling, Danced blither with mine for a mate. " I claim you, old friend," yawned the arm chair, " This corner, you know, is your seat;" 3io UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS "Rest your slippers on ine," beamed the fender, " I brighten at touch of your feet." " We know the practised finger," Said the books, " that seems like brain; " And the shy page rustled the secret It had kept till I came again. Sang the pillow, " My down once quivered On nightingales throats that flew Through moonlit gardens of Haliz To gather quaint dreams for you." Ah me, where the Past sowed heart s-ease, The Present plucks rue for us men ! I come back : that scar unhealing Was not in the churchyard then. But, I think, the house is unaltered, I will go and beg to look At the rooms that were once familiar To my life as its bed to a brook. Unaltered ! Alas for the sameness That makes the change but more ! T is a dead man I see in the mirrors, Tis his tread that chills the floor ! To learn such a simple lesson, Need I go to Paris and Rome, That the many make the household, But only one the home ? T was just a womanly presence, An influence unexprest, But a rose she had worn, on my grave- sod Were more than long life with the rest ! T was a smile, t was a garment s rustle, T was nothing that I can phrase, But the whole dumb dwelling grew con scious, And put on her looks and ways. Were it mine I would close the shutters, Like lids when the life is fled, And the funeral fire should wind it, This corpse of a home that is dead. For it died that autumn morning When she, its soul, was borne To lie all dark on the hillside That looks over woodland and corn. A MOOD I GO to the ridge in the forest I haunted in days gone by, But thou, O Memory, pourest No magical drop in mine eye, Nor the gleam of the secret restorest That hath faded from earth and sky : A Presence autumnal and sober Invests every rock and tree, And the aureole of October Lights the maples, but darkens me. Pine in the distance, Patient through sun or rain, Meeting with graceful persistence, With yielding but rooted resistance, The northwind s wrench and strain, No memory of .past existence Brings thee pain; Right for the zenith heading, Friendly with heat or cold, Thine arms to the influence spreading Of the heavens, just from of old, Thou only aspirest the more, Unregretful the old leaves shedding That fringed thee with music before, And deeper thy roots embedding In the grace and the beauty of yore ; Thou sigh st not, " Alas, I am older, The green of last summer is sear ! " But loftier, hopef uller, bolder, Winnest broader horizons each year. To me J t is not cheer thou art singing: There *s a sound of the sea, O mournful tree, In thy boughs forever clinging, And the far-off roar Of waves on the shore A shattered vessel flinging. As thou musest still of the ocean On which thou must float at last, And seem st to foreknow The shipwreck s woe And the sailor wrenched from the broken mast, Do I, in this vague emotion, This sadness that will not pass, Though the air throb with wings, And the field laughs and sings, Do I forebode, alas ! The ship-building longer and wearier* THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND The voyage s struggle and strife, And then the darker and drearier Wreck of a broken life ? THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND In the letter to Mr. Norton, quoted at the beginning 1 of this section, reference is made to The Voyage to V inland, which Lowell had some thought of making- the title-poem of the vol ume. In the same letter he says further re garding it : " Part of [this poem], you remem ber, was written eighteen years ago. I meant to have made it much longer, but maybe it is better as it is. I clapt a beginning upon it, patched it in the middle, and then got to what has always been my favorite part of the plan. This was to be a prophecy by Gudrida, a woman who went with them, of the future America. I have written in an unrhymed alliterated measure, in very short verse and stanzas of five lines each. It does not aim at following the law of the Icelandic alliterated stave, but hints at it and also at the asonante, without being properly either. But it runs well and is melodious, and we think it pretty good here, as does also Howells. Well, after that, of course, I was all for alliteration." The poem had apparently first borne the title of Leifs Voyage, as he writes of that poem to Mr. Briggs in 1850. I BIORN S BECKONERS Now Biorn, the son of Heriulf , had ill days Because the heart within him seethed with blood That would not be allayed with any toil, Whether of war or hunting or the oar, But was anhungered for some joy untried: For the brain grew not weary with the limbs, But, while they slept, still hammered like a Troll, Building all night a bridge of solid dream Between him and some purpose of his soul, Or will to find a purpose. With the dawn The sleep-laid timbers, crumbled to soft mist, Denied all foothold. But the dream re mained, And every night with yellow-bearded kings His sleep was haunted, mighty men of old, Once young as he, now ancient like the gods, And safe as stars in all men s memories. Strange sagas read he in their sea-blue eyes Cold as the sea, grandly compassionless; Like life, they made him eager and then mocked. Nay, broad awake, they would not let him be; They shaped themselves gigantic in the mist, They rose far-beckoning in the lamps of heaven, They whispered invitation in the winds, And breath came from them, mightier than the wind, To strain the lagging sails of his resolve, Till that grew passion which before was wish, And youth seemed all too costly to be staked On the soiled cards wherewith men played their game, Letting Time pocket up the larger life, Lost with base gain of raiment, food, and roof. "What helpeth lightness of the feet?" they said, " Oblivion runs with swifter foot than they; Or strength of sinew ? New men come as strong, And those sleep nameless; or renown in war? Swords grave no name on the long-mem- oried rock But moss shall hide it; they alone who wring Some secret purpose from the unwilling gods Survive in song for yet a little while To vex, like us, the dreams of later men, Ourselves a dream, and dreamlike all we did." II THORWALD S LAY So Biorn went comfortless but for his thought, And by his thought the more discomforted, Till Eric Thurlson kept his Yule-tide feast: And thither came he, called among the rest, Silent, lone-minded, a church-door to mirth : But, ere deep draughts forbade such seri ous song As the grave Skald might chant nor after blush, UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS Then Eric looked at Thorwald where he sat Mute as a cloud amid the stormy hall, And said: " O Skald, sing now an olden song, Such as our fathers heard who led great lives; And, as the bravest on a shield is borne Along the waving host that shouts him king, So rode their thrones upon the thronging seas ! " Then the old man arose; white-haired he stood, White-bearded, and with eyes that looked afar From their still region of perpetual snow, Beyond the little smokes and stirs of men: His head was bowed with gathered flakes of years, As winter bends the sea-foreboding pine, But something triumphed in his brow and eye, Which whoso saw it could not see and crouch: Loud rang the emptied beakers as he mused, Brooding his eyried thoughts; then, as an Circles smooth - winged above the wind- vexed woods, So wheeled his soul into the air of song High o er the stormy hall; and thus he sang: " The fletcher for his arrow-shaft picks out Wood closest - grained, long - seasoned, straight as light; And from a quiver full of such as these The wary bowman, matched against his peers, Long doubting, singles yet once more the best. Who is it needs such flawless shafts as Fate? What archer of his arrows is so choice, Or hits the white so surely ? They are men, The chosen of her quiver; nor for her Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained stick At random from life s vulgar fagot plucked: Such answer household ends; but she will have Souls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, sound Down to the heart of heart ; from these she strips All needless stuff, all sap wood; seasons them; From circumstance untoward feathers plucks Crumpled and cheap; and barbs with iron will: The hour that passes is her quiver-boy: When she draws bow, t is not across the wind, Nor gainst the sun her haste - snatched arrow sings, For sun and wind have plighted faith to her: Ere men have heard the sinew twang:, be hold In the butt s heart her trembling messen ger ! " The song is old and simple that I sing; But old and simple are despised as cheap, Though hardest to achieve of human things : Good were the days of yore, when men were tried By ring of shields, as now by ring of words ; But while the gods are left, and hearts of men, And wide-doored ocean, still the days are good. Still o er the earth hastes Opportunity, Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for her. Be not abroad, nor deaf with household cares That chatter loudest as they mean the least; Swift- willed is thrice -willed; late means nevermore ; Impatient is her foot, nor turns again." He ceased; upon his bosom sank his beard Sadly, as one who oft had seen her pass Nor stayed her: and forthwith the frothy tide Of interrupted wassail roared along. But Biorn, the son of Heriulf, sat apart Musing, and, with his eyes upon the fire, Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen. " A ship," he muttered, "is a winged bridge That leadeth every way to man s desire, And ocean the wide gate to manful luck." And then with that resolve his heart was bent, Which, like a humming shaft, through many a stripe Of day and night, across the unpathwayed Shot the brave prow that cut on Vinland sands The first rune in the Saga of the West. THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND in GUDRIDA S PROPHECY Four weeks they sailed, a speck in sky-shut Life, where was never life that knew itself, But tumbled lubber-like in blowing whales; Thought, where the like had never been before Since Thought primeval brooded the abyss ; Alone as men were never in the world. They saw the icy foundlings of the sea, White cliffs of silence, beautiful by day, Or looming, sudden-perilous, at night In monstrous hush ; or sometimes in the dark The waves broke ominous with paly gleams Crushed by the prow in sparkles of cold fire. Then came green stripes of sea that prom ised land But brought it not, and on the thirtieth day Low in the west were wooded shores like cloud. They shouted as men shout with sudden hope; But Biorn was silent, such strange loss there is Between the dream s fulfilment and the dream, Such sad abatement in the goal attained. Then Gudrida, that was a prophetess, Rapt with strange influence from Atlantis, sang: Her words: the vision was the dreaming shore s. Looms there the New Land: Locked in the shadow Long the gods shut it, Niggards of newness They, the o er-old. Little it looks there, Slim as a cloud-streak; It shall fold peoples Even as a shepherd Foldeth his flock. Silent it sleeps now; Great ships shall seek it, Swarming as salmon; Noise of its numbers Two seas shall hear. Men from the Northland, Men from the Southland, Haste empty-handed; No more than manhood Bring they, and hands. Dark hair and fair hair, Red blood and blue blood, There shall be mingled; Force of the ferment Makes the New Man. Pick of all kindreds, Kings blood shall theirs be, Shoots of the eldest Stock upon Midgard, Sons of the poor. Them waits the New Land; They shall subdue it, Leaving their sons sons Space for the body, Space for the soul. Leaving their sons sons All things save song-craft, Plant long in growing, Thrusting its tap-root Deep in the Gone. Here men shall grow up Strong from self-helping; Eyes for the present Bring they as eagles , Blind to the Past. They shall make over Creed, law, and custom; Driving-men, doughty Builders of empire, Builders of men. Here is no singer; What should they sing of ? They, the unresting ? Labor is ugly, Loathsome is change. These the old gods hate, Dwellers in dream-land, Drinking delusion Out of the empty Skull of the Past. 314 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS These hate the old gods, Warring against them; Fatal to Odin, Here the wolf Fenrir Lieth in wait. Here the gods Twilight Gathers, earth-gulfing; Blackness of battle, Fierce till the Old World Flare up in fire. Doubt not, my Northmen; Fate loves the fearless; Fools, when their roof-tree Falls, think it doomsday; Firm stands the sky. Over the ruin See I the promise; Crisp waves the cornfield, Peace-walled, the homestead Waits open-doored. There lies the New Land; Yours to behold it, Not to possess it; Slowly Fate s perfect Fulness shall come. Then from your strong loins Seed shall be scattered, Men to the marrow, Wilderness tamers, Walkers of waves. Jealous, the old gods Shut it in shadow, Wisely they ward it, Egg of the serpent, Bane to them all. Stronger and sweeter New gods shall seek it, Fill it with man-folk Wise for the future, Wise from the past. Here all is all men s, Save only Wisdom; King he that wins her; Him hail they helmsman, Highest of heart. Might makes no master Here any longer; Sword is not swayer; Here e en the gods are Selfish no more. Walking the New Earth, Lo, a divine One Greets all men godlike, Calls them his kindred, He, the Divine. Is it Thor s hammer Rays in his right hand ? Weaponless walks he ; It is the White Christ, Stronger than Thor. Here shall a realm rise Mighty in manhood; Justice and Mercy Here set a stronghold Safe without spear. Weak was the Old World, Wearily war-fenced; Out of its ashes, Strong as the morning, Springeth the New. Beauty of promise, Promise of beauty, Safe in the silence Sleep thou, till cometh Light to thy lids ! Thee shall awaken Flame from the furnace, Bath of all brave ones, Cleanser of conscience, Welder of will. Lowly shall love thee, Thee, open-handed ! Stalwart shall shield thee, Thee, worth their best blood, Waif of the West ! Then shall come singers, Singing no swan-song, Birth-carols, rather, Meet for the man child Mighty of bone. INVITA MINERVA MAHMOOD THE IMAGE- BREAKER OLD events have modern meanings; only that survives Of past history which finds kindred in all hearts and lives. Mahmood once, the idol-breaker, spreader of the Faith, Was at Sumnat tempted sorely, as the legend saith. In the great pagoda s centre, monstrous and abhorred, Granite on a throne of granite, sat the temple s lord. Mahmood paused a moment, silenced by the silent face That, with eyes of stone unwavering, awed the ancient place. Then the Brahmins knelt before him, by his doubt made bold, Pledging for their idol s ransom countless gems and gold. Gold was yellow dirt to Mahmood, but of precious use, Since from it the roots of power suck a potent juice. " Were yon stone alone in question, this would please me well," Mahmood said; " but, with the block there, I my truth must sell. " Wealth and rule slip down with Fortune, as her wheel turns round ; He who keeps his faith, he only cannot be discrowned. " Little were a change of station, loss of life or crown, But the wreck were past retrieving if the Man fell down." So his iron mace he lifted, smote with might and main, And the idol, on the pavement tumbling, burst in twain. Luck obeys the downright striker ; from the hollow core, Fifty times the Brahmins offer deluged all the floor. INVITA MINERVA THE Bardling came where by a river grew The pennoned reeds, that, as the west- wind blew, Gleamed and sighed plaintively, as if they knew What music slept enchanted in each stem, Till Pan should choose some happy one of them, And with wise lips enlife it through and through. The Bardling thought, "A pipe is all I need; Once I have sought me out a clear, smooth reed, And shaped it to my fancy, I proceed To breathe such strains as, yonder mid the rocks, The strange youth blows, that tends Ad* metus flocks, And all the maidens shall to me pay heed." The summer day he spent in questful round, And many a reed he marred, but never found A conjuring-spell to free the imprisoned sound ; At last his vainly wearied limbs he laid Beneath a sacred laurel s flickering shade, And sleep about his brain her cobweb wound. Then strode the mighty Mother through his dreams, Saying: "The reeds along a thousand streams Are mine, and who is he that plots and schemes To snare the melodies wherewith my breath Sounds through the double pipes of Life and Death, Atoning what to men mad discord seems ? " He seeks not me, but I seek oft in vain For him who shall my voiceful reeds con strain, 3 i6 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS And make them utter their melodious pain ; He flies the immortal gift, for well he knows His life of life must with its overflows Flood the unthankful pipe, nor come again. Thou fool, who dost my harmless subjects wrong, T is not the singer s wish that makes the song: The rhythmic beauty wanders dumb, how long, Nor stoops to any daintiest instrument, Till, found its mated lips, their sweet con sent Makes mortal breath than Time and Fate more strong." THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH This poem, written apparently in the win ter of 1849-50, was to have been included in the projected work, The Nooning. I T is a woodland enchanted ! By no sadder spirit Than blackbirds and thrushes, That whistle to cheer it All day in the bushes, This woodland is haunted: And in a small clearing, Beyond sight or hearing Of human annoyance, The little fount gushes, First smoothly, then dashes And gurgles and flashes, To the maples and ashes Confiding its joyance; Unconscious confiding, Then, silent and glossy, Slips winding and hiding Through alder-stems mossy, Through gossamer roots Fine as nerves, That tremble, as shoots Through their magnetized curves The allurement delicious Of the water s capricious Thrills, gushes, and swerves. *T is a woodland enchanted ! I am writing no fiction; And this fount, its sole daughter, To the woodland was granted To pour holy water And win benediction; In summer-noon flushes, When all the wood hushes, Blue dragon-flies knitting To and fro in the sun, With sidelong jerk flitting Sink down on the rushes, And, motionless sitting, Hear it bubble and run, Hear its low inward singing, With level wings swinging On green tasselled rushes, To dream in the sun. ill T is a woodland enchanted ! The great August noonlight ! Through myriad rifts slanted, Leaf and bole thickly sprinkles With flickering gold ; There, in warm August gloaming, With quick, silent brightenings, From meadow-lands roaming, The firefly twinkles His fitful heat-lightnings; There the magical moonlight With meek, saintly glory Steeps summit and wold; There whippoorwills plain in the soli tudes hoary With lone cries that wander Now hither, now yonder, Like souls doomed of old To a mild purgatory; But through noonlight and moonlight The little fount tinkles Its silver saints -bells, That no sprite ill-boding May make his abode in Those innocent dells. IV T is a woodland enchanted ! When the phebe scarce whistles Once an hour to his fellow, And, where red lilies flaunted, Balloons from the thistles Tell summer s disasters, The butterflies yellow, As caught in an eddy Of air s silent ocean, THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH Sink, waver, and steady O er goats -beard and asters, Like souls of dead flowers, With aimless emotion Still lingering unready To leave their old bowers; And the fount is no dumber, But still gleams and flashes, And gurgles and plashes, To the measure of summer; The butterflies hear it, And spell-bound are holden, Still balancing near it O er the goats -beard so golden. T is a woodland enchanted! A vast silver willow, I know not how planted, (This wood is enchanted, And full of surprises,) Stands stemming a billow, A motionless billow Of ankle-deep mosses; Two great roots it crosses To make a round basin, And there the Fount rises; Ah, too pure a mirror For one sick of error To see his sad face in! No dew-drop is stiller In its lupin-leaf setting Than this water moss-bounded; But a tiny sand-pillar From the bottom keeps jetting, And mermaid ne er sounded Through the wreaths of a shell, Down amid crimson dulses In some cavern of ocean, A melody sweeter Than the delicate pulses, The soft, noiseless metre, The pause and the swell Of that musical motion: I recall it, not see it; Could vision be clearer ? Half I m fain to draw nearer Half tempted to flee it; The sleeping Past wake not, Beware! One forward step take not, Ah! break not That quietude rare ! By my step unaffrighted A thrush hops before it, And o er it A birch hangs delighted, Dipping, dipping, dipping its tremulous hair; Pure as the fountain, once I came to the place, (How dare I draw nearer ?) I bent o er its mirror, And saw a child s face Mid locks of bright gold in it; Yes, pure as this fountain once, Since, how much error! Too holy a mirror For the man to behold in it His harsh, bearded countenance! VI T is a woodland enchanted! Ah, fly unreturning! Yet stay; T is a woodland enchanted, Where wonderful chances Have sway; Luck flees from the cold one, But leaps to the bold one Half-way ; Why should I be daunted ? Still the smooth mirror glances, Still the amber sand dances, One look, then away! O magical glass! Canst keep in thy bosom Shades of leaf and of blossom When summer days pass, So that when thy wave hardens It shapes as it pleases, Unharmed by the breezes, Its fine hanging gardens ? Hast those in thy keeping, And canst not uncover, Enchantedly sleeping, The old shade of thy lover ? It is there! I have found it! He wakes, the long sleeper! The pool is grown deeper, The sand dance is ending, The white floor sinks, blending With skies that below me Are deepening and bending, And a child s face alone That seems not to know me, With hair that fades golden In the heaven-glow round it, Looks up at my own; Ah, glimpse through the portal UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS That leads to the throne, That opes the child s olden Regions Elysian! Ah, too holy vision For thy skirts to be holden By soiled hand of mortal! It wavers, it scatters, T is gone past recalling! A tear s sudden falling The magic cup shatters, Breaks the spell of the waters, And the sand cone once more, With a ceaseless renewing, Its dance is pursuing On the silvery floor, O er and o er, With a noiseless and ceaseless renew ing. VII T is a woodland enchanted! If you ask me, Where is it ? I can but make answer, T is past my disclosing; " Not to choice is it granted By sure paths to visit The still pool enclosing Its blithe little dancer; But in some day, the rarest Of many Septembers, When the pulses of air rest, And all things lie dreaming In drowsy haze steaming From the wood s glowing embers, Then, sometimes, unheeding, And asking not whither, By a sweet inward leading My feet are drawn thither, And, looking with awe in the magical mirror, I see through my tears, Half doubtful of seeing, The face unperverted, The warm golden being Of a child of five years ; And spite of the mists and the error, And the days overcast, Can feel that I walk undeserted, But forever attended By the glad heavens that bended O er the innocent past; Toward fancy or truth Doth the sweet vision win me ? Dare I think that I cast In the fountain of youth The fleeting reflection Of some bygone perfection That still lingers in me ? YUSSOUF A STRANGER came one night to Yussouf s tent, Saying, " Behold, one outcast and in dread, Against whose life the bow of power is bent, Who flies, and hath not where to lay his head; I come to thee for shelter and for food, To Yussouf, called through all our tribes The Good. " " This tent is mine," said Yussouf, " but no more Than it is God s; come in and be at peace; Freely shalt thou partake of all my store As I of His who buildeth over these Our tents his glorious roof of night and day, And at whose door none ever yet heard Nay." So Yussouf entertained his guest that night, And, waking him ere day, said: "Here is gold; My swiftest horse is saddled for thy flight; Depart before the prying day grow bold." As one lamp lights another, nor grows less, So nobleness enkindleth nobleness. That inward light the stranger s face made grand, Which shines from all self -conquest; kneel ing low, He bowed his forehead upon Yussouf s hand, Sobbing: " O Sheik, I cannot leave thee so; I will repay thee ; all this thou hast done Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son ! " " Take thrice the gold," said Yussouf, for with thee Into the desert, never to return, My one black thought shall ride away from me ; ALL-SAINTS First-born, for whom by day and night I yearn, Balanced and just are all of God s de crees; Thou art avenged, my first-born, sleep in peace ! " THE DARKENED MIND THE fire is burning clear and blithely, Pleasantly whistles the winter wind; We are about thee, thy friends and kin dred, On us all nickers the firelight kind; There thou sittest in thy wonted corner Lone and awful in thy darkened mind. There thou sittest; now and then thou meanest ; Thou dost talk with what we cannot see, Lookest at us with an eye so doubtful, It doth put us very far from thee; There thou sittest; we would fain be nigh thee, But we know that it can never be. We can touch tliee, still we are no nearer; Gather round thee, still thou art alone; The wide chasm of reason is between us; Thou confutest kindness with a moan; We can speak to thee, and thou canst an swer, Like two prisoners through a wall of stone. Hardest heart would call it very awful When thou look st at us and seest oh, what? If we move away, thou sittest gazing With those vague eyes at the selfsame spot, And thou mutterest, thy hands thou wring- est, Seeing something, us thou seest not. Strange it is that, in this open bright ness, Thou shouldst sit in such a narrow cell; Strange it is that thou shouldst be so lone some Where those are who love thee all so well; Not so much of thee is left among us As the hum outliving the hushed bell. WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID Originally written for a Fair in St. Louis. RABBI JEHOSHA used to say That God made angels every day, Perfect as Michael and the rest First brooded in creation s nest, Whose only office was to cry Hosanna I once, and then to die; Or rather, with Life s essence blent, To be led home from banishment. Rabbi Jehosha had the skill To know that Heaven is in God s will; And doing that, though for a space One heart-beat long, may win a grace As full of grandeur and of glow As Princes of the Chariot know. T were glorious, no doubt, to be One of the strong-winged Hierarchy, To burn with Seraphs, or to shine With Cherubs, deathlessly divine; Yet I, perhaps, poor earthly clod, Could I forget myself in God, Could I but find my nature s clue Simply as birds and blossoms do, And but for one rapt moment know T is Heaven must come, not we must go. Should win my place as near the throne As the pearl-angel of its zone, And God would listen mid the throng For my one breath of perfect song, That, in its simple human way, Said all the Host of Heaven could say. ALL-SAINTS ONE feast, of holy days the crest, I, though no Churchman, love to keep, All-Saints, the unknown good that rest In God s still memory folded deep ; The bravely dumb that did their deed, And scorned to blot it with a name, Men of the plain heroic breed, That loved Heaven s silence more than fame. Such lived not in the past alone, But thread to-day the unheeding street, 320 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS And stairs to Sin and Famine known Sing with the welcome of their feet; The den they enter grows a shrine, The grimy sash an oriel burns, Their cup of water warms like wine, Their speech is filled from heavenly urns. About their brows to me appears An aureole traced in tenderest light, The rainbow-gleam of smiles through tears In dying eyes, by them made bright, Of souls that shivered on the edge Of that chill ford repassed no more, And in their mercy felt the pledge And sweetness of the farther shore. A WINTER-EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE BEAUTY on my hearth-stone blazing ! To-night the triple Zoroaster Shall my prophet be and master: To-night will I pure Magian be, Hymns to thy sole honor raising, While thou leapest fast and faster, Wild with self-delighted glee, Or sink st low and glowest faintly As an aureole still and saintly, Keeping cadence to my praising Thee ! still thee ! and only thee ! Elfish daughter of Apollo ! Thee, from thy father stolen and bound To serve in Vulcan s clangorous smithy, Prometheus (primal Yankee) found, And, when he had tampered with thee, (Too confiding little maid !) In a reed s precarious hollow To our frozen earth conveyed: For he swore I know not what; Endless ease should be thy lot, Pleasure that should never falter, Lifelong play, and not a duty Save to hover o er the altar, Vision of celestial beauty, Fed with precious woods and spices ; Then, perfidious ! having got Thee in the net of his devices, Sold thee into endless slavery, Made thee a drudge to boil the pot, Thee, Helios daughter, who dost bear His likeness in thy golden hair; Thee, by nature wild and wavery, Palpitating, evanescent As the shade of Dian s crescent, Life, motion, gladness, everywhere I in Fathom deep men bury thee In the furnace dark and still, There, with dreariest mockery, Making thee eat, against thy will, Blackest Pennsylvanian stone; But thou dost avenge thy doom, For, from out thy catacomb, Day and night thy wrath is blown In a withering simoom, And, adown that cavern drear, Thy black pitfall in the floor, Staggers the lusty antique cheer, Despairing, and is seen no more I IV Elfish I may rightly name thee ; We enslave, but cannot tame thee; With fierce snatches, now and then, Thou pluckest at thy right again, And thy down-trod instincts savage To stealthy insurrection creep While thy wittol masters sleep, And burst in undiscerning ravage: Then how thou shak st thy bacchant locks I While brazen pulses, far and near, Throb thick and thicker, wild with fear And dread conjecture, till the drear Disordered clangor every steeple rocks 1 But when we make a friend of thee, And admit thee to the hall On our nights of festival, Then, Cinderella, who could see In thee the kitchen s stunted thrall ? Once more a Princess lithe and tall, Thou dancest with a whispering tread, While the bright marvel of thy head In crinkling gold floats all abroad, And gloriously dost vindicate The legend of thy lineage great, Earth-exiled daughter of the Pythian god ! Now in the ample chimney-place, To honor thy acknowledged race, We crown thee high with laurel good, Thy shining father s sacred wood, Which, guessing thy ancestral right, Sparkles and snaps its dumb delight, And, at thy touch, poor outcast one, A WINTER-EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE 321 Feels through its gladdened fibres go The tingle and thrill and vassal glow Of instincts loyal to the sun. VI O thou of home the guardian Lar, And, when our earth hath wandered far Into the cold, and deep snow covers The walks of our New England lovers, Their sweet secluded evening-star ! T was with thy rays the English Muse Ripened her mild domestic hues ; T was by thy flicker that she conned The fireside wisdom that enrings With light from heaven familiar things; By thee she found the homely faith In whose mild eyes thy comfort stay th, When Death, extinguishing his torch, Gropes for the latch-string in the porch ; The love that wanders not beyond His earliest nest, but sits and sings While children smooth his patient wings; Therefore with thee I love to read Our brave old poets: at thy touch how stirs Life in the withered words ! how swift recede Time s shadows ! and how glows again Through its dead mass the incandescent verse, As when upon the anvils of the brain It glittering lay, cyclopically wrought By the fast - throbbing hammers of the poet s thought ! Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred, The aspirations unattained, The rhythms so rathe and delicate, They bent and strained And broke, beneath the sombre weight Of any airiest mortal word. VII What warm protection dost thou bend Round curtained talk of friend with friend, While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, To softest outline rounds the roof, Or the rude North with baffled strain Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane ! Now the kind nymph to Bacchus born By Morpheus daughter, she that seems Gifted upon her natal morn By him with fire, by her with dreams, Nicotia, dearer to the Muse Than all the grape s bewildering juice, We worship, unforbid of thee; And, as her incense floats and curls In airy spires and wayward whirls, Or poises on its tremulous stalk A flower of frailest revery, So winds and loiters, idly free, The current of unguided talk, Now laughter-rippled, and now caught In smooth, dark pools of deeper thought. Meanwhile thou mellowest every word, A sweetly unobtrusive third; For thou hast magic beyond wine, To unlock natures each to each; The unspoken thought thou canst divine ; Thou fill st the pauses of the speech With whispers that to dream-land reach And frozen fancy-springs unchain In Arctic outskirts of the brain : Sun of all inmost confidences, To thy rays doth the heart unclose Its formal calyx of pretences, That close against rude day s offences, And open its shy midnight rose ! VIII Thou boldest not the master key With which thy Sire sets free the mystic gates Of Past and Future: not for common fates Do they wide open fling, And, with a far-heard ring, Swing back their willing valves melodi ously; Only to ceremonial days, And great processions of imperial song That set the world at gaze, Doth such high privilege belong: But thou a postern-door canst ope To humbler chambers of the selfsame Where Memory lodges, and her sister Hope, Whose being is but as a crystal chalice Which, with her various mood, the elder fills Of joy or sorrow, So coloring as she wills With hues of yesterday the unconscious IX Thou sinkest, and my fancy sinks with thee: For thee I took the idle shell, And struck the unused chords again, But they are gone who listened well; 322 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS Some are in heaven, and all are far from me: Even as I sing, it turns to pain, And with vain tears my eyelids throb and swell: Enough; I come not of the race That hawk their sorrows in the market place. Earth stops the ears I best had loved to please ; Then break, ye untuned chords, or rust in peace ! As if a white-haired actor should come back Some midnight to the theatre void and black, And there rehearse his youth s great part Mid thin applauses of the ghosts, So seems it now : ye crowd upon my heart, And I bow down in silence, shadowy hosts ! FANCY S CASUISTRY How struggles with the tempest s swells That warning of tumultuous bells ! The fire is loose ! and frantic knells Throb fast and faster, As tower to tower confusedly tells News of disaster. But on my far-off solitude No harsh alarums can intrude ; The terror comes to me subdued And charmed by distance, To deepen the habitual mood Of my existence. Are those, I muse, the Easter chimes ? And listen, weaving careless rhymes While the loud city s griefs and crimes Pay gentle allegiance To the fine quiet that sublimes These dreamy regions. And when the storm o erwhelms the shore, I watch entranced as, o er and o er, The light revolves amid the roar So still and saintly, Now large and near, now more and more Withdrawing faintly. This, too, despairing sailors see Flash out the breakers neath their lee In sudden snow, then liugeringly Wane tow rd eclipse, While through the dark the shuddering sea Gropes for the ships. And is it right, this mood of mind That thus, in revery enshrined, Can in the world mere topics find For musing stricture, Seeing the life of humankind Only as picture ? The events in line of battle go ; In vain for me their trumpets blow As unto him that lieth low In death s dark arches, And through the sod hears throbbing slow The muffled marches. O Duty, am I dead to thee In this my cloistered ecstasy, In this lone shallop on the sea That drifts tow rd Silence ? And are those visioned shores I see But sirens islands ? My Dante frowns with lip-locked mien, As who would say, " T is those, I ween, Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes lean That win the laurel ; " But where is Truth ? What does it mean, The world-old quarrel ? Such questionings are idle air : Leave what to do and what to spare To the inspiring moment s care, Nor ask for payment Of fame or gold, but just to wear Unspotted raiment. TO MR. JOHN BARTLETT WHO HAD SENT ME A SEVEN-POUND TROUT Mr. Bartlett, the editor of Familiar Quota tions , was a near neighbor of Lowell, and with him was long a member of a whist-party. FIT for an Abbot of Theleme, For the whole Cardinals College, or The Pope himself to see in dream Before his lenten vision gleam, He lies there, the sogdologer ! ODE TO HAPPINESS 323 His precious flanks with stars besprent, Worthy to swim in Castaly ! The friend by whom such gifts are sent, For him shall bumpers full be spent, His health ! be Luck his fast ally ! I see him trace the wayward brook Amid the forest mysteries, Where at their shades shy aspens look, Or where, with many a gurgling crook, It croons its wo9dland histories. I see leaf-shade and sun-fleck lend Their tremulous, sweet vicissitude To smooth, dark pool, to crinkling bend, (Oh, stew him, Ann, as t were your frieud, With amorous solicitude !) I see him step with caution due, Soft as if shod with moccasins, Grave as in church, for who plies you, Sweet craft, is safe as in a pew From all our common stock o sins. The unerring fly I see him cast, That as a rose-leaf falls as soft, A flash ! a whirl ! he has him fast ! We tyros, how that struggle last Confuses and appalls us oft. Unfluttered he : calm as the sky Looks on our tragi-comedies, This way and that he lets him fly, A sunbeam-shuttle, then to die Lands him, with cool aplomb, at ease. The friend who gave our board such gust, Life s care may he o erstep it half, And, when Death hooks him, as he must, He 11 do it handsomely, I trust, And John H write his epitaph! Oh, born beneath the Fishes* sign, Of constellations happiest, May he somewhere with Walton dine, May Horace send him Massic wine, And Burns Scotch drink, the nappi es t! And when they come his deeds to weigh, And how he used the talents his, One trout-scale in the scales he 11 lay (If trout had scales), and t will out- sway The wrong side of the balances. ODE TO HAPPINESS SPIRIT, that rarely comest now And only to contrast my gloom, Like rainbow-feathered birds that bloom A moment on some autumn bough That, with the spurn of their farewell, Sheds its last leaves, thou once didst dwell With me year-long, and make intense To boyhood s wisely vacant days Their fleet but all-sufficing grace Of trustful inexperience, While soul could still transfigure sense, And thrill, as with love s first caress, At life s mere unexpectedness. Days when my blood would leap and run As full of sunshine as a breeze, Or spray tossed up by Summer seas That doubts if it be sea or sun! Days that flew swiftly like the band That played iu Grecian games at strife, And passed from eager hand to hand The onward-dancing torch of life! Wing-footed! thou abid st with him Who asks it not; but he who hath Watched o er the waves thy waning path, Shall nevermore behold returning Thy high-heaped canvas shoreward yearn ing! Thou first reveal st to us thy face Turned o er the shoulder s parting grace, A moment glimpsed, then seen no more, Thou whose swift footsteps we can trace Away from every mortal door. Nymph of the unreturning feet, How may I win thee back ? But no, I do thee wrong to call thee so; T is I am changed, not thou art fleet: The man thy presence feels again, Not in the blood, but iu the brain, Spirit, that lov st the upper air Serene and passionless and rare, Such as on mountain heights we find And wide-viewed uplands of the mind; Or such as scorns to coil and sing Round any but the eagle s wing Of souls that with long upward beat Have won an undisturbed retreat Where, poised like winged victories, They mirror in relentless eyes 3 2 4 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS The life broad - basking neath their feet, Man ever with his Now at strife, Pained with first gasps of earthly air, Then praying Death the last to spare, Still fearful of the ampler life. Not unto them dost thou consent Who, passionless, can lead at ease A life of unalloyed content A life like that of land-locked seas, Who feel no elemental gush Of tidal forces, no fierce rush Of storm deep-grasping scarcely spent Twixt continent and continent. Such quiet souls have never known Thy truer inspiration, thou Who lov st to feel upon thy brow Spray from the plunging vessel thrown Grazing the tusked lee shore, the cliff That o er the abrupt gorge holds its breath, Where the frail hair-breadth of an if Is all that sunders life and death: These, too, are cared for, and round these Bends her mild crook thy sister Peace; These in unvexed dependence lie, Each neath his strip of household sky; O er these clouds wander, and the blue Hangs motionless the whole day through; Stars rise for them, and moons grow large And lessen in such tranquil wise As joys and sorrows do that rise Within their nature s sheltered marge; Their hours into each other flit Like the leaf-shadows of the vine And fig-tree under which they sit, And their still lives to heaven incline With an unconscious habitude, Unhistoried as smokes that rise From happy hearths and sight elude In kindred blue of morning skies. Wayward! when once we feel thy lack, T is worse than vain to woo thee back! Yet there is one who seems to be Thine elder sister, in whose eyes A faint far northern light will rise Sometimes, and bring a dream of thee ; She is not that for which youth hoped, But she hath blessings all her own, Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped, And faith to sorrow given alone: Almost I deem that it is thou Come back with graver matron brow, With deepened eyes and bated breath, Like one that somewhere hath met Death: But " No," she answers, " I am she Whom the gods love, Tranquillity; That other whom you seek forlorn Half earthly was; but I am born Of the immortals, and our race Wears still some sadness on its face: He wins me late, but keeps me long, Who, dowered with every gift of passion, In that fierce flame can forge and fashion Of sin and self the anchor strong; Can thence compel the driving force Of daily life s mechanic course, Nor less the nobler energies Of needful toil and culture wise; Whose soul is worth the tempter s lure Who can renounce, and yet endure, To him I come, not lightly wooed, But won by silent fortitude." VILLA FRANCA 1859 WAIT a little: do we not wait ? Louis Napoleon is not Fate, Francis Joseph is not Time; There s One hath swifter feet than Crime; Cannon-parliaments settle naught; Venice is Austria s, whose is Thought ? Minid is good, but, spite of change, Gutenberg s gun has the longest range. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever. Wait, we say: our years are long; Men are weak, but Man is strong; Since the stars first curved their rings, We have looked on many things; Great wars come and great wars go, Wolf-tracks light on polar snow; We shall see him come and gone, This second-hand Napoleon. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever. We saw the elder Corsican, And Clotho muttered as she span, While crowned lackeys bore the train, THE MINER 325 Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne : " Sister, stint not length of thread! Sister, stay the scissors dread! On Saint Helen s granite bleak, Hark, the vulture whets his beak!" Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever. The Bonapartes, we know their bees That wade in honey red to the knees; Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep sound In dreamless garners underground: We know false glory s spendthrift race Pawning nations for feathers and lace; It may be short, it may be long, " Tis reckoning -day!" sneers unpaid Wrong. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever. The Cock that wears the Eagle s skin Can promise what he ne er could win; Slavery reaped for fine words sown, System for all, and rights for none, Despots atop, a wild clan below, Such is the Gaul from long ago; Wash the black from the Ethiop s face, Wash the past out of man or race ! Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever. Neath Gregory s throne a spider swings, And snares the people for the kings; " Luther is dead; old quarrels pass; The stake s black scars are healed with grass; " So dreamers prate; did man e er live Saw priest or woman yet forgive ? But Luther s broom is left, and eyes Peep o er their creeds to where it lies. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever. Smooth sails the ship of either realm, Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm ; We look down the depths, and mark Silent workers in the dark Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs, Old instincts hardening to new beliefs; Patience a little; learn to wait; Hours are long on the clock of Fate. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, But surely God endures forever! THE MINER DOWN mid the tangled roots of things That coil about the central fire, I seek for that which giveth wings To stoop, not soar, to my desire. Sometimes I hear, as t were a sigh, The sea s deep yearning far above, " Thou hast the secret not," I cry, " In deeper deeps is hid my Love." They think I burrow from the sun, In darkness, all alone, and weak; Such loss were gain if He were won, For t is the sun s own Sun I seek. " The earth," they murmur, " is the tomb That vainly sought his life to prison ; Why grovel longer in the gloom ? He is not here; he hath arisen." More life for me where he hath lain Hidden while ye believed him dead, Than in cathedrals cold and vain, Built on loose sands of It is said. My search is for the living gold; Him I desire who dwells recluse, And not his image worn and old, Day-servant of our sordid use. If him I find not, yet I find The ancient joy of cell and church, The glimpse, the surety undefined, The unquenched ardor of the search. Happier to chase a flying goal Than to sit counting laurelled gains, To guess the Soul within the soul Than to be lord of what remains. Hide still, best Good, in subtile wise, Beyond my nature s utmost scope; Be ever absent from mine eyes To be twice present in my hope I 326 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS GOLD EGG: A DREAM-FANTASY HOW A STUDENT IN SEARCH OF THE BEAUTIFUL FELL ASLEEP IN DRESDEN OVER HERR PROFESSOR DOCTOR VI- SCHER S WISSENSCHAFT DES SCHONEN, AND WHAT CAME THEREOF I SWAM with undulation soft, Adrift on Vischer s ocean, And, from my cockboat up aloft, Sent down my mental plummet oft In hope to reach a notion. But from the metaphysic sea No bottom was forthcoming, And all the while (how drearily !) In one eternal note of B My German stove kept humming. " What s Beauty ? " mused I; "is it told By synthesis ? analysis ? Have you not made us lead of gold ? To feed your crucible, not sold Our temple s sacred chalices ? " Then o er my senses came a change; My book seemed all traditions, Old legends of profoundest range, Diablery, and stories strange Of goblins, elves, magicians. Old gods in modern saints I found, Old creeds in strange disguises; I thought them safely underground, And here they were, all safe and sound, Without a sign of phthisis. Truth was, my outward eyes were closed, Although I did not know it; Deep into dream-land I had dozed, And thus was happily transposed From proser into poet. So what I read took flesh and blood, And turned to living creatures: The words were but the dingy bud That bloomed, like Adam, from the mud, To human forms and features. I saw how Zeus was lodged once more By Baucis and Philemon; The text said, " Not alone of yore, But every day, at every door Knocks still the masking Demon." D AIM ON t was printed in the book And, as I read it slowly, The letters stirred and changed, and took Jove s stature, the Olympian look Of painless melancholy. He paused upon the threshold worn: " With coin I cannot pay you ; Yet would I fain make some return; The gift for cheapness do not spurn, Accept this hen, I pray you. " Plain feathers wears my Hemera, And has from ages olden; She makes her nest in common hay, And yet, of all the birds that lay, Her eggs alone are golden." He turned, and could no more be seen; Old Baucis stared a moment, Then tossed poor Partlet on the green, And with a tone, half jest, half spleen, Thus made her housewife s comment: u The stranger had a queerish face, His smile was hardly pleasant, And, though he meant it for a grace, Yet this old hen of barnyard race Was but a stingy present. " She s quite too old for laying eggs, Nay, even to make a soup of; One only needs to see her legs, You might as well boil down the pegs I made the brood-hen s coop of ! " Some eighteen score of such do I Raise every year, her sisters; Go, in the woods your fortunes try, All day for one poor earthworm pry, And scratch your toes to blisters ! " Philemon found the rede was good, And, turning on the poor hen, He clapt his hands, and stamped, and shooed, Hunting the exile tow rd the wood, To house with snipe and moor-hen. A poet saw and cried: " Hold ! hold ! What are you doing, madman ? Spurn you more wealth than can be told, The fowl that lays the eggs of gold, Because she s plainly clad, man ? " A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND 327 To him Philemon: M I 11 not balk Thy will with any shackle; Wilt add a burden to thy walk ? There ! take her without further talk: You re both but fit to cackle ! " But scarce the poet touched the bird, It swelled to stature regal; And when her cloud-wide wings she stirred, A whisper as of doom was heard, T was Jove s bolt-bearing eagle. As when from far-off cloud-bergs springs A crag, and, hurtling under, From cliif to cliif the rumor flings, So she from flight-foreboding wings Shook out a murmurous thunder. She gripped the poet to her breast, And ever, upward soaring, Earth seemed a new moon in the west, And then one light among the rest Where squadrons lie at mooring. How tell to what heaven hallowed seat The eagle bent his courses ? The waves that on its bases beat, The gales that round it weave and fleet, Are life s creative forces. Here was the bird s primeval nest, High on a promontory Star-pharosecl, where she takes her rest To brood new aeons neath her breast, The future s unfledged glory. I know not how, but I was there All feeling, hearing, seeing; It was not wind that stirred my hair But living breath, the essence rare Of unembodied being. And in the nest an egg of gold Lay soft in self-made lustre, Gazing whereon, what depths untold Within, what marvels manifold, Seemed silently to muster ! Daily such splendors to confront Is still to me and you sent ? It glowed as when Saint Peter s front, Illumed, forgets its stony wont, And seems to throb translucent. One saw therein the life of man, (Or so the poet found it,) The yolk and white, conceive who can, Were the glad earth, that, floating, span In the glad heaven around it. I knew this as one knows in dream, Where no effects to causes Are chained as in our work-day scheme, And then was wakened by a scream That seemed to come from Baucis. Bless Zeus ! " she cried, " I m safe be- low ! " First pale, then red as coral ; And I, still drowsy, pondered slow, And seemed to find, but hardly know, Something like this for moral. Each day the world is born anew For him who takes it rightly; Not fresher that which Adam knew, Not sweeter that whose moonlit dew Entranced Arcadia nightly. Rightly ? That s simply: t is to see Some substance casts these shadows Which we call Life and History, That aimless seem to chase and flee Like wind-gleams over meadows. Simply ? That s nobly: t is to know That God may still be met with, Nor groweth old, nor doth bestow These senses fine, this brain aglow, To grovel and forget with. Beauty, Herr Doctor, trust in me, No chemistry will win you; Charis still rises from the sea: If you can t find her, might it be Because you seek within you ? A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND The friend was Miss Jane Norton, sister of Mr. C. E. Norton. ALIKE I hate to be your debtor, Or write a mere perfunctory letter; For letters, so it seems to me, Our careless quintessence should be, Our real nature s truant play 328 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS When Consciousness looks t other way; Not drop by drop, with watchful skill, Gathered in Art s deliberate still, But life s insensible completeness Got as the ripe grape gets its sweetness, As if it had a way to fuse The golden sunlight into juice. Hopeless my mental pump I try, The boxes hiss, the tube is dry; As those petroleum wells that spout Awhile like M. C. s, then give out, My spring, once full as Arethusa, Is a mere bore as dry s Creusa; And yet you ask me why I m glum, And why my graver Muse is dumb. Ah me ! I ve reasons manifold Condensed in one, I m getting old ! When life, once past its fortieth year, Wheels up its evening hemisphere, The mind s own shadow, which the boy Saw onward point to hope and joy, Shifts round, irrevocably set Tow rd morning s loss and vain regret And, argue with it as we will, The clock is unconverted still. " But count the gains," I hear you say, 11 Which far the seeming loss outweigh; Friendships built firm gainst flood and wind On rock-foundations of the mind; Knowledge instead of scheming hope; For wild adventure, settled scope; Talents, from surface-ore profuse, Tempered and edged to tools for use; Judgment, for passion s headlong whirls; Old sorrows crystalled into pearls; Losses by patience turned to gains, Possessions now, that once were pains; Joy s blossom gone, as go it must, To ripen seeds of faith and trust ; Why heed a snow-flake on the roof If fire within keep Age aloof, Though blundering north-winds push and strain With palms benumbed against the pane ? " My dear old Friend, you re very wise; We always are with others eyes, And see so clear ! (our neighbor s deck on) What reef the idiot s sure to wreck on; Folks when they learn how life has quizzed em Are fain to make a shift with Wisdom, And, finding she nor breaks nor bends, Give her a letter to their friends. Draw passion s torrent whoso will Through sluices smooth to turn a mill, And, taking solid toll of grist, Forget the rainbow in the mist, The exulting leap, the aimless haste Scattered in iridescent waste; Prefer who likes the sure esteem To cheated youth s midsummer dream, When every friend was more than Damon, Each quicksand safe to build a fame on ; Believe that prudence snug excels Youth s gross of verdant spectacles, Through which earth s withered stubble seen Looks autumn-proof as painted green, I side with Moses gainst the masses, Take you the drudge, give me the glasses ! And, for your talents shaped with practice, Convince me first that such the fact is; Let whoso likes be beat, poor fool, On life s hard stithy to a tool, Be whoso will a ploughshare made, Let me remain a jolly blade ! What s Knowledge, with her stocks and lands, To gay Conjecture s yellow strands ? What s watching her slow flock s increase To ventures for the golden fleece ? What her deep ships, safe under lee, To youth s light craft, that drinks the sea, For Flying Islands making sail, And failing where t is gain to fail ? Ah me ! Experience (so we re told), Time s crucible, turns lead to gold; Yet what s experience won but dross, Cloud-gold transmuted to our loss ? What but base coin the best event To the untried experiment ? T was an old couple, says the poet, That lodged the gods and did not know it; Youth sees and knows them as they were Before Olympus top was bare; From Swampscot s flats his eye divine Sees Venus rocking on the brine, With lucent limbs, that somehow scatter a Charm that turns Doll to Cleopatra ; Bacchus (that now is scarce induced To give Eld s lagging blood a boost), With cymbals clang and pards to draw him, Divine as Ariadne saw him, AN EMBER PICTURE 329 Stprms through Youth s pulse with all his train And wins new Indies in his brain; Apollo (with the old a trope, A sort of finer Mister Pope), Apollo but the Muse forbids: At his approach cast down thy lids, And think it joy enough to hear Far off his arrows singing clear; He knows enough who silent knows The quiver chiming as he goes; He tells too much who e er betrays The shining Archer s secret ways. Dear Friend, you re right and I am wrong; My quibbles are not worth a song, And I sophistically tease My fancy sad to tricks like these. I could not cheat you if I would; You know me and my jesting mood, Mere surface-foam, for pride concealing The purpose of my deeper feeling. I have not spilt one drop of joy Poured in the senses of the boy, Nor Nature fails my walks to bless With all her golden inwardness; And as blind nestlings, unafraid, Stretch up wide-mouthed to every shade By which their downy dream is stirred, Taking it for the mother-bird, So, when God s shadow, which is light, Unheralded, by day or night, My wakening instincts falls across, Silent as sunbeams over moss, In my heart s nest half-conscious things Stir with a helpless sense of wings, Lift themselves up, and tremble long With premonitions sweet of song. Be patient, and perhaps (who knows ?) These may be winged one day like those; If thrushes, close-embowered to sing, Pierced through with June s delicious sting; If swallows, their half-hour to run Star- breasted in the setting sun. At first they re but the unfledged proem, Or songless schedule of a poem; When from the shell they re hardly dry If some folks thrust them forth, must I ? But let me end with a comparison Never yet hit upon by e er a son Of our American Apollo, (And there s where I shall beat them hol low, If he indeed s no courtly St. John, But, as West said, a Mohawk Injun.) A poem s like a cruise for whales: Through untried seas the hunter sails, His prow dividing waters known To the blue iceberg s hulk alone; At last, on farthest edge of day, He marks the smoky puff of spray; Then with bent oars the shallop flies To where the basking quarry lies; Then the excitement of the strife, The crimsoned waves, ah, this is life! But, the dead plunder once secured And safe beside the vessel moored, All that had stirred the blood before Is so much blubber, nothing more, (I mean no pun, nor image so Mere sentimental verse, you know,) And all is tedium, smoke, and soil, In trying out the noisome oil. Yes, this is life! And so the bard Through briny deserts, never scarred Since Noah s keel, a subject seeks, And lies upon the watch for weeks ; That once harpooned and helpless lying, What follows is but weary trying. Now I ve a notion, if a poet Beat up for themes, his verse will show it; I wait for subjects that hunt me, By day or night won t let me be, And hang about me like a curse, Till they have made me into verse, From line to line my fingers tease Beyond my knowledge, as the bees Build no new cell till those before With limpid summer-sweet run o er; Then, if I neither sing nor shine, Is it the subject s fault, or mine ? AN EMBER PICTURE How strange are the freaks of memory! The lessons of life we forget, While a trifle, a trick of color, In the wonderful web is set, Set by some mordant of fancy, And, spite of the wear and tear 33 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS Of time or distance or trouble, Insists on its right to be there. A chance had brought us together; Our talk was of matters-of-course ; We were nothing, one to the other, But a short half-hour s resource. We spoke of French acting and actors, And their easy, natural way : Of the weather, for it was raining As we drove home from the play. We debated the social nothings We bore ourselves so to discuss; The thunderous rumors of battle Were silent the while for us. Arrived at her door, we left her With a drippingly hurried adieu, And our wheels went crunching the gravel Of the oak-darkened avenue. As we drove away through the shadow, The candle she held in the door From rain-varnished tree-trunk to tree- trunk Flashed fainter, and flashed no more; Flashed fainter, then wholly faded Before we had passed the wood; But the light of the face behind it Went with me and stayed for good. The vision of scarce a moment, And hardly marked at the time, It comes unbidden to haunt me, Like a scrap of ballad-rhyme. Had she beauty? Well, not what they call so; You may find a thousand as fair; And yet there s her face in my memory With no special claim to be there. As I sit sometimes in the twilight, And call back to life in the coals Old faces and hopes and fancies Long buried, (good rest to their souls!) Her face shines out in the embers; I see her holding the light, And hear the crunch of the gravel And the sweep of the rain that night. T is a face that can never grow older, That never can part with its gleam, T is a gracious possession forever, For is it not all a dream ? TO H. W. L. ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 27TH FEBRUARY, 1867 " ELMWOOD, February 27, 1867. "MY DEAR LONGFELLOW, On looking back, I find that our personal intercourse is now of nearly thirty years date. It began on your part in a note acknowledging 1 my Class Poem much more kindly than it deserved. Since then it has ripened into friendship, and there has never been a jar between us. If there had been, it would certainly have been my fault and not yours. Friendship is called the wine of life, and there certainly is a stimulus in it that warms and inspires as we grow older. Ours should have some body to have kept so long. " I planned you a little surprise in the Ad vertiser for your birthday breakfast. I hope my nosegay did not spoil the flavor of your coffee. It is a hard thing to make one that will wholly please, for some flowers will not bear to be handled without wilting, and the kind I have tried to make a pretty bunch of is of that variety. But let me hope the best from your kindness, if not from their color or per fume. " In case they should please you (and be cause there was one misprint in the Advertiser, and two phrases which 1 have now made more to my mind), I have copied them that you might have them in my own handwriting. In print, you see, I have omitted the tell-tale ciphers not that there was anything to regret in them, for we have a proverbial phrase like sixty which implies not only unabated but ex traordinary vigor. " Wishing you as many happy returns as a wise man should desire, I remain always affec tionately yours, J. R. L." Letters I. 378, 379. I NEED not praise the sweetness of his song, Where limpid verse to limpid verse succeeds Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing lest he wrong The new moon s mirrored skiff, he slides along, Full without noise, and whispers in his reeds. THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY 331 With loving breath of all the winds his name Is blown about the world, but to his friends A sweeter secret hides behind his fame, And Love steals shyly through the loud acclaim To murmur a God bless you I and there ends. As I muse backward up the checkered years Wherein so much was given, so much was lost, Blessings in both kinds, such as cheapen tears, But hush ! this is not for profaner ears; Let them driuk molten pearls nor dream the cost. Some suck up poison from a sorrow s core, As naught but nightshade grew upon earth s ground; Love turned all his to heart s-ease, and the more Fate tried his bastions, she but forced a door Leading to sweeter manhood and more sound. Even as a wind-waved fountain s swaying shade Seems of mixed race, a gray wraith shot with sun, So through his trial faith translucent rayed Till darkness, half disnatured so, betrayed A heart of sunshine that would fain o errun. Surely if skill in song the shears may stay And of its purpose cheat the charmed abyss, If our poor life be lengthened by a lay, He shall not go, although his presence may, And the next age in praise shall double this. Long days be his, and each as lusty-sweet As gracious natures find his song to be; May Age steal on with softly-cadenced feet Falling in music, as for him were meet Whose choicest verse is harsher-toned than he ! THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY " While I was most unwell," Lowell wrote to a friend, September 21, 1875, " I could not find any reading that would seclude me from myself till one day I bethought me of Cal- deron. I took down a volume of his plays, and in half an hour was completely absorbed. He is surely one of the most marvellous of poets. I have recorded my debt to him in a poem, The Nightingale in the Study." " COME forth ! " my catbird calls to me, " And hear me sing a cavatina That, in this old familar tree, Shall hang a garden of Alcina. " These buttercups shall brim with wine Beyond all Lesbian juice or Massic; May not New England be divine ? My ode to ripening summer classic ? " Or, if to me you will not hark, By Beaver Brook a thrush is ringing Till all the alder-coverts dark Seem sunshine-dappled with his sing ing. " Come out beneath the unmastered sky, With its emancipating spaces, And learn to sing as well as I, Without premeditated graces. " What boot your many-volumed gains, Those withered leaves forever turning, To win, at best, for all your pains, A nature mummy-wrapt in learning ? " The leaves wherein true wisdom lies On living trees the sun are drinking; Those white clouds, drowsing through the skies, Grew not so beautiful by thinking. " Come out ! with me the oriole cries, Escape the demon that pursues you ! And, hark, the cuckoo weatherwise, Still hiding farther onward, wooes you." "Alas, dear friend, that, all my days, Hast poured from that syringa thicket The quaintly discontinuous lays To which I hold a season-ticket, 33 2 UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS " A season-ticket cheaply bought With a dessert of pilfered berries, And who so oft my soul hast caught With morn and evening voluntaries, " Deem me not faithless, if all day Among my dusty books I linger, No pipe, like thee, for June to play With fancy-led, half-conscious finger. " A bird is singing in my brain And bubbling o er with mingled fan cies, Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain Fed with the sap of old romances. " I ask no ampler skies than those His magic music rears above me, No falser friends, no truer foes, And does not Dona Clara love me ? "Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars, A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing, Then silence deep with breathless stars, And overhead a white hand flashing. " O music of all moods and climes, Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly, Where still, between the Christian chimes, The Moorish cymbal tinkles faintly ! " O life borne lightly in the hand, For friend or foe with grace Castil- ian ! O valley safe in Fancy s land, Not tramped to mud yet by the mil lion ! " Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale To his, my singer of all weathers, My Calderon, my nightingale, My Arab soul in Spanish feathers. " Ah, friend, these singers dead so long, And still, God knows, in purgatory, Give its best sweetness to all song, To Nature s self her better glory." IN THE TWILIGHT MEN say the sullen instrument, That, from the Master s bow, With pangs of joy or woe, Feels music s soul through every fibre sent, Whispers the ravished strings More than he knew or meant ; Old summers in its memory glow ; The secrets of the wind it sings ; It hears the April-loosened springs ; And mixes with its mood All it dreamed when it stood In the murmurous pine-wood Long ago ! The magical moonlight then Steeped every bough and cone ; The roar of the brook in the glen Came dim from the distance blown ; The wind through its glooms sang low, And it swayed to and fro With delight as it stood, In the wonderful wood, Long ago ! O my life, have we not had seasons That only said, Live and rejoice ? That asked not for causes and reasons, But made us all feeling and voice ? When we went with the winds in their blowing, When Nature and we were peers, And we seemed to share in the flowing Of the inexhaustible years ? Have we not from the earth drawn juices Too fine for earth s sordid uses ? Have I heard, have I seen All I feel, all I know ? Doth my heart overween ? Or could it have been Long ago ? Sometimes a breath floats by me, An odor from Dreamland sent, That makes the ghost seem nigh me Of a splendor that came and went, Of a life lived somewhere, I know not In what diviner sphere, Of memories that stay not and go not, Like music heard once by an ear That cannot forget or reclaim it, A something so shy, it would shame it To make it a show, A something too vague, could I name it, For others to know, As if I had lived it or dreamed it, As if I had acted or schemed it, Long ago ! THE FOOT-PATH 333 And yet, could I live it over, This life that stirs in my brain, Could I be both maiden and lover, Moon and tide, bee and clover, As I seem to have been, once again, Could I but speak it and show it, This pleasure more sharp than pain, That baffles and lures me so, The world should once more have a poet, Such as it had In the ages glad, Long ago ! THE FOOT-PATH IT mounts athwart the windy hill Through sallow slopes of upland bare, And Fancy climbs with foot-fall still Its narrowing curves that end in air. By day, a warmer-hearted blue Stoops softly to that topmost swell ; Its thread-like windings seem a clue To gracious climes where all is well. By night, far yonder, I surmise An ampler world than clips my ken, Where the great stars of happier skies Commingle nobler fates of men. I look and long, then haste me home, Still master of my secret rare ; Once tried, the path would end in Rome, But now it leads me everywhere. Forever to the new it guides, From former good, old overmuch ; What Nature for her poets hides, T is wiser to divine than clutch. The bird I list hath never come Within the scope of mortal ear ; My prying step would make him dumb, And the fair tree, his shelter, sear. Behind the hill, behind the sky, Behind my inmost thought, he sings ; No feet avail ; to hear it nigh, The song itself must lend the wings. Sing on, sweet bird close hid, and raise Those angel stairways in my brain, That climb from these low- vaulted days To spacious sunshines far from pain. Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet, I leave thy covert haunt untrod, And envy Science not her feat To make a twice-told tale of God. They said the fairies tript no more, And long ago that Pan was dead; T was but that fools preferred to bore Earth s rind inch-deep for truth instead. Pan leaps and pipes all summer long, The fairies dance each full-mooned night, Would we but doff our lenses strong, And trust our wiser eyes delight. City of Elf-land, just without Our seeing, marvel ever new, Glimpsed in fair weather, a sweet doubt Sketched-in, mirage-like, on the blue, I build thee in yon sunset cloud, Whose edge allures to climb the height; I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loud, From still pools dusk with dreams of night. Thy gates are shut to hardiest will, Thy countersign of long-lost speech, Those fountained courts, those chambers still, Fronting Time s far East, who shall reach? I know not, and will never pry, But trust our human heart for all; Wonders that from the seeker fly Into an open sense may fall. Hide in thine own soul, and surprise The password of the unwary elves; Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies; Unsought, they whisper it themselves. 334 POEMS OF THE WAR POEMS OF THE WAR THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD OCTOBER, l86l Lowell wrote at some length to C. E. Norton concerning the production of this poem. ELMWOOD, Oct. 12, 1861. . . . You urged me to read poetry to feed myself on bee bread so that I might g et into the mood of writing some. Well, I have n t been reading any, but I have written something whether poetry or no I cannot tell yet. But I want you to like it if you can. Leigh Hunt speaks somewhere of our writing things for par ticular people, and wondering as we write if such or such a one will like it. Just so I thought of you, after I had written for while I was writing I was wholly absorbed. I had just two days allowed me by Fields for the November Atlantic, and I got it done. It had been in my head some time, and when you see it you will remember my having spoken to you about it. Indeed, I owe it to you, for the hint came from one of those books of Souvestre s you lent me the Breton legends. The writ ing took hold of me enough to leave me tired out and to satisfy me entirely as to what was the original of my head and back pains. But whether it is good or not, I am not yet far enough off to say. But do like it, if you can. Fields says it is " splendid," with tears in his eyes but then I read it to him, which is half the battle. I began it as a lyric, but it would be too aphoristic for that, and finally flatly refused to sing at any price. So I submit ted, took to pentameters, and only hope the thoughts are good enough to be preserved in the ice of the colder and almost glacier-slow measure. I think I have done well in some stanzas at least and not wasted words. It is about present matters but abstract enough to be above the newspapers. . . . /ALONG a river-side, I know not where, I walked one night in mystery of dream; A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my hair, To think what chanced me by the pallid gleam Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air. Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow- inist Their halos, wavering thistle downs of light; The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst, Laughed; and the echoes, huddling in af fright, Like Odin s hounds, fled baying down the night. Then all was silent, till there smote my ear A movement in the stream that checked my breath: Was it the slow plash of a wading deer ? But something said, " This water is of Death ! The Sisters wash a shroud, ill thing to tear!" I, looking then, beheld the ancient Three Known to the Greek s and to the North man s creed, That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree, Still crooning, as they weave their endless brede, One song: "Time was, Time is, and Time shall be." No wrinkled crones were they, as I had deemed, But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, To mourner, lover, poet, ever seemed; Something too high for joy, too deep for sorrow, Thrilled in their tones, and from their faces gleamed. I " Still men and nations reap as they have strawn," So sang they, working at their task the while ; " The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere dawn: For Austria? Italy? the Sea -Queen s isle? O er what quenched grandeur must our shroud be drawn ? THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD 335 " Or is it for a younger, fairer corse, That gatnered States like children round his knees, That tamed the wave to be his posting- horse, Feller of forests, linker of the seas, Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son of Thor s ? " What make we, murmur st thou ? and what are we ? When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud, The time-old web of the implacable Three : Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud ? Earth s mightiest deigned to wear it, why not he ? " ** Is there no hope? " I moaned, " so strong, - so fair! Our Fowler whose proud bird would brook erewhile No rival s swoop in all our western air! Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file For him, life s morn yet golden in his hair? "Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying U_^ dames! I see, half seeing. Tell me, ye who scanned The stars, Earth s elders, still must noblest aims Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sands? Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of names ? " " When grass-blades stiffen with red battle- dew, Ye deem we choose the victor and the slain: Say, choose we them that shall be leal and true To the heart s longing, the high faith of brain? Yet there the victory lies, if ye but knew. "Three roots bear up Dominion: Know ledge, Will, These twain are strong, but stronger yet the third, Obedience, t is the great tap-root that still, Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred, Though Heaven - loosed tempests spend their utmost skill. " Is the doom sealed for Hesper? T is not we Denounce it, but the Law before all time: The brave makes danger opportunity; The waverer, paltering with the chance sub lime, Dwarfs it to peril: which shall Hesper be? " Hath he let vultures climb his eagle s seat To make Jove s bolts purveyors of their maw ? Hath he the Many s plaudits found more sweet Than Wisdom ? held Opinion s wind for Law? Then let him hearken for the doomster s feet! " Hough are the steps, slow-hewn in flint iest rock, States climb to power by; slippery those with gold Down which they stumble to eternal mock: No chafferer s hand shall long the sceptre hold, Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell the block. " We sing old Sagas, songs of weal and woe, Mystic because too cheaply understood; Dark sayings are not ours; men hear and know, See Evil weak, see strength alone in Good, Yet hope to stem God s fire with walls of tow. "Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is, That offers choice of fflory or of gloom; The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his. But hasten, Sisters! for even now the tomb Grates its slow hinge and calls from the abyss." " But not for him," I cried, " not yet for him, Whose large horizon, westering, star by star Wins from the void to where on Ocean s rim The sunset shuts the world with golden bar, Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow dim! 336 POEMS OF THE WAR " His shall be larger manhood, saved for those That walk uublenching through the trial- fires ; Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of And he no base-born son of craven sires, Whose eye need blench confronted with his foes. " Tears may be ours, but proud, for those who win Death s royal purple in the foeman s lines; Peace, too, brings tears ; and mid the bat tle-din, The wiser ear some text of God divines, For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin. "God, give us peace! not such as lulls to sleep, But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit! And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep, Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit, And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap! " So cried I with clenched hands and passion ate pain, Thinking of dear ones by Potomac s side ; Again the loon laughed mocking, and again The echoes bayed far down the night and died, While waking I recalled my wandering U brain. TWO SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF BLONDEL AUTUMN, 1863 SCENE I. Near a castle in Germany. TWERE no hard task, perchance, to win The popular laurel for my song ; T were only to comply with sin, And own the crown, though snatched by wrong: Rather Truth s chaplet let me wear, Though sharp as death its thorns may sting; Loyal to Loyalty, I bear No badge but of my rightful king. Patient by town and tower I wait, Or o er the blustering moorland go; I buy no praise at cheaper rate, Or what faint hearts may fancy so; For me, no joy in lady s bower, Or hall, or tourney, will I sing, Till the slow stars wheel round the hour That crowns my hero and my king. While all the land runs red with strife, And wealth is won by pedler-crimes, Let who will find content in life And tinkle in unmanly rhymes; I wait and seek ; through dark and light, Safe in my heart my hope I bring, Till I once more my faith may plight To him my whole soul owns her king. When power is filched by drone and dolt, And, with caught breath and flashing eye, Her knuckles whitening round the bolt, Vengeance leans eager from the sky, While this and that the people guess, And to the skirts of praters cling, Who court the crowd they should compress, I turn in scorn to seek my king. Shut in what tower of darkling chance Or dungeon of a narrow doom, Dream st thou of battle-axe and lance That for the Cross make crashing room ? Come! with hushed breath the battle waits In the wild van thy mace s swing; While doubters parley with their fates, Make thou thine own and ours, my king! O strong to keep upright the old, And wise to buttress with the new, Prudent, as only are the bold, Clear-eyed, as only are the true, To foes benign, to friendship stern, Intent to imp Law s broken wing, Who would not die, if death might earn The right to kiss thy hand, my king ? SCENE II. An Inn near the Chateau of Chains. Well, the whole thing is over, and here I sit With one arm in a sling and a milk-score of gashes, And this flagon of Cyprus must e en warm my wit, Since what s left of youth s flame is a head flecked with ashes. MEMORLE POSITUM 337 I remember I sat in this very same inn, I was young then, and one young man thought I was handsome, I had found out what prison King Richard was in, And was spurring for England to push on the ransom. How I scorned the dull souls that sat guz zling around And knew not my secret nor recked my derision! Let the world sink or swim, John or Richard be crowned, All one, so the beer-tax got lenient revi sion. How little I dreamed, as I tramped up and down, That granting our wish one of Fate s saddest jokes is! I had mine with a vengeance, my king got his crown, And made his whole business to break other folks s. I might as well join in the safe old turn, turn: A hero s an excellent loadstar, but, bless ye, What infinite odds twixt a hero to come And your only too palpable hero in esse ! Precisely the odds (such examples are rife) Twixt the poem conceived and the rhyme we make show of, Twixt the boy s morning dream and the wake-up of life, Twixt the Blondel God meant and a Blondel I know of! But the world s better off, I m convinced of it now, Than if heroes, like buns, could be bought for a penny To regard all mankind as their haltered milch-cow, And just care for themselves. Well, God cares for the many; For somehow the poor old Earth blunders along, Each son of hers adding his mite of un- fitness, And, choosing the sure way of coming out wrong, Gets to port as the next generation will witness. You think her old ribs have come all crash ing through, If a whisk of Fate s broom snap your cobweb asunder; But her rivets were clinched by a wiser than you, And our sins cannot push the Lord s right hand from under. Better one honest man who can wait for God s mind In our poor shifting scene here though heroes were plenty! Better one bite, at forty, of Truth s bitter rind, Than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty! I see it all now: when I wanted a king, T was the kingship that failed in myself I was seeking, T is so much less easy to do than to sing, So much simpler to reign by a proxy than be king! Yes, I think I do see: after all s said and sung, Take this one rule of life and you never will rue it, T is but do your own duty and hold your own tongue And Blondel were royal himself, if he knew it! MEMORLE POSITUM R. G. SHAW In a letter to Colonel Shaw s mother, written August 28, 1863, Lowell says : " I have been writing something about Robert ; and if, after keeping a little while, it should turn out to be a poem I shall print it, but not unless I think it some way worthy of what I feel, however, for the best verse falls short of noble living and dying such as his. I would rather have my name known and blest, as his will be, through all the hovels of an outcast race, than blaring from all the trumpets of repute." He kept the poem three months and then wrote to Mr. Fields, "You know I owe you a poem two in my reckoning, and here is one of them. If this is not to your mind, I can hammer you out another. I have a feeling that some of it is good but is it too long ? I want to fling my leaf on dear Shaw s grave. Perhaps I was wrong in stiffening the feet of my verses a little, in order to give them a kind 338 POEMS OF THE WAR of slow funeral tread. But I conceived it so, and so it would be. I wanted the poem a little monumental, perhaps I have made it obit uary. But tell me just how it strikes you, and don t be afraid of my nerves. They can stand much in the way of friendly frankness, and besides, I find I am acquiring a vice of modesty as I grow older." In another letter, when speaking of the dis tinction between odes for the closet and odes for recitation, he says: " I chose my measures with my ears open. So I did in writing the poem on Rob Shaw. That is regular because meant only to be read, and because also I thought it should have in the form of its stanza something of the formality of an epitaph." When, in the last stanza, Lowell wrote " I write of one, While with dim eyes I think of three," the reader recalls that moving passage in No. X. of the second series of Biglow Papers, where Mr. Hosea Biglow in his homely speech bursts forth: " Why, hain t I held em on my knee ? Did n t 1 love to see em growin , Three likely lads ez wal could be," and one knows of whom Lowell was thinking. BENEATH the trees, My lifelong friends in this dear spot, Sad now for eyes that see them not, I hear the autumnal breeze Wake the dry leaves to sigh for gladness gone, Whispering vague omens of oblivion, Hear, restless as the seas, Time s grim feet rustling through the with ered grace Of many a spreading realm and strong- stemmed race, Even as my own through these. Why make we moan For loss that doth enrich us yet With upward yearnings of regret ? Bleaker than unmossed stone Our lives were but for this immortal gain Of unstillerl longing and inspiring pain ! As thrills of long-hushed tone Live in the viol, so our souls grow fine With keen vibrations from the touch divine Of noble natures gone. T were indiscreet To vex the shy and sacred grief With harsh obtrusions of relief; Yet, Verse, with noiseless feet, Go whisper : " This death hath far choicer ends Than slowly to impearl in hearts of friends ; These obsequies t is meet Not to seclude in closets of the heart, But, church-like, with wide doorways, to impart Even to the heedless street." II Brave, good, and true, I see him stand before me now, And read again on that young brow, Where every hope was new, How sweet were life! Yet, by the mouth firm-set, And look made up for Duty s utmost debt, I could divine he knew That death within the sulphurous hostile lines, In the mere wreck of nobly-pitched designs, Plucks heart s-ease, and not rue. Happy their end Who vanish down life s evening stream Placid as swans that drift in dream Round the next river-bend ! Happy long life, with honor at the close, Friends painless tears, the softened thought of foes ! And yet, like him, to spend All at a gush, keeping our first faith sure From mid-life s doubt and eld s content ment poor, What more could Fortune send ? Right in the van, On the red rampart s slippery swell, With heart that beat a charge, he fell Foe ward, as fits a man ; But the high soul burns 011 to light men s feet Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet ; His life her crescent s span Orbs full with share in their undarkening days Who ever climbed the battailous steeps of praise Since valor s praise began. in His life s expense Hath won him coeternal youth ON BOARD THE 76 339 With the immaculate prime of Truth ; While we, who make pretence At living on, and wake and eat and sleep, And life s stale trick by repetition keep, Our fickle permanence (A poor leaf -shadow on a brook, whose play Of busy idlesse ceases with our day) Is^the mere cheat of sense. We bide our chance, Unhappy, and make terms with Fate A little more to let us wait ; He leads for aye the advance, Hope s forlorn-hopes that plant the des perate good For nobler Earths and days of manlier mood ; Our wall of circumstance Cleared at a bound, he flashes o er the fight, A saintly shape of fame, to cheer the right And steel each wavering glance. I write of one, While with dim eyes I think of three ; Who weeps not others fair and brave as he? Ah, when the fight is won, Dear Land, whom triflers now make bold to scorn, (Thee ! from whose forehead Earth awaits her morn,) How nobler shall the sun Flame in thy sky, how braver breathe thy air, That thou bred st children who for thee could dare And die as thine have done ! ON BOARD THE 76 WRITTEN FOR MR. BRYANT S SEVEN TIETH BIRTHDAY NOVEMBER 3, 1864 In a letter written to R. W. Gilder, Febru ary 9, 1887, Lowell characterizes this poem as " a kind o palinode to what I said of him in the Fable for Critics, which has something 1 of youth s infallibility in it, or at any rate of youth s irresponsibility." OUR ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, Her rudder gone, her mainmast o er the side ; Her scuppers, from the waves clutch stag gering free, Trailed threads of priceless crimson through the tide ; Sails, shrouds, and spars with pirate cannon torn, We lay, awaiting morn. Awaiting morn, such morn as mocks de spair ; And she that bare the promise of the world Within her sides, now hopeless, helmless, bare, At random o er the wildering waters hurled ; The reek of battle drifting slow alee Not sullener than we. Morn came at last to peer into our woe, When lo, a sail ! Now surely help was nigh ; The red cross flames aloft, Christ s pledge ; but no, Her black guns grinning hate, she rushes by And hails us : " Gains the leak ! Ay, so we thought ! Sink, then, with curses fraught ! " I leaned against my gun still angry-hot, And my lids tingled with the tears held back : This scorn methought was crueller than shot: The manly death-grip in the battle- wrack, Yard-arm to yard-arm, were more friendly far Than such fear-smothered war. There our foe wallowed, like a wounded brute The fiercer for his hurt. What now were best ? Once more tug bravely at the peril s root, Though death came with it ? Or evade the test If right or wrong in this God s world of ours Be leagued with mightier powers ? 340 POEMS OF THE WAR Some, faintly loyal, felt their pulses lag With the slow beat that doubts and then despairs; Some, caitiff, would have struck the starry flag That knits us with our past, and makes us heirs Of deeds high-hearted as were ever done Neath the all-seeing sun. But there was one, the Singer of our crew, Upon whose head Age waved his peace ful sign, But whose red heart s-blood no surrender knew; And couchant under brows of massive line, The eyes, like guns beneath a parapet, Watched, charged with lightnings yet. The voices of the hills did his obey; The torrents flashed and tumbled in his song; He brought our native fields from far away, Or set us mid the innumerable throng Of dateless woods, or where we heard the calm Old homestead s evening psalm. But now he sang of faith to things unseen, Of freedom s birthright given to us in trust; And words of doughty cheer he spoke be tween, That made all earthly fortune seem as dust, Matched with that duty, old as Time and new, Of being brave and true. We, listening, learned what makes the might of words, Manhood to back them, constant as a star; His voice rammed home our cannon, edged our swords, And sent our boarders shouting; shroud and spar Heard him and stiffened; the sails heard, and wooed The winds with loftier mood. In our dark hours he manned our guns again; Remanned ourselves from his own man hood s stores; Pride, honor, country, throbbed through all his strain; And shall we praise ? God s praise was his before; And on our futile laurels he looks down, Himself our bravest crown. ODE RECITED AT THE HAR VARD COMMEMORATION JULY 21, 1865 Of none of his poems did Lowell himself write more critically, and into none, perhaps, did he pour so much fervor in the composition. In a playful letter to Miss Norton, written in somewhat of a reaction four days after the de livery of the poem, he wrote : " Was I not so rapt with the fervor of conception as I have not been these ten years, losing my sleep, my appetite and my flesh, those attributes to which I before alluded as iiobly uniting 1 us in a com mon nature with our kind ? Did I not for two days exasperate everybody that came near me by reciting passages in order to try them on ? Did I not even fall backward and downward to the old folly of hopeful youth, and think I had written something really good at last ? And am I not now enduring those retributive dumps which ever follow such sinful exultations, the Erynnyes of Vanity ? . . . Like a boy, I mis took my excitement for inspiration, and here I am in the mud. You see I am a little disap pointed and a little few (un petit pen) vexed. I did not make the hit I expected, and am ashamed at having been again tempted into thinking I could write poetry, a delusion from which I have been tolerably free these dozen years." The next day in a postscript he added : " I have not got cool yet (I mean as to nerves), and lie awake at night thinking how much better my verses might have been, only I can t make em so." Twenty years later in recall ing the circumstances of composition he wrote to Mr. Gilder : " The passage about Lincoln was not in the ode as originally recited, but added immediately after. . . . The ode itself was an improvisation. Two days before the Commemoration I had told my friend [F. J.j Child that it was impossible that I was dull as a door-mat. But the next day something gave me a jog and the whole thing came out of me with a rush. I sat up all night writing it out clear, and took it on the morning of the day to Child. I have something, but don t yet know what it is, or whether it will do. ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION 341 1 Look at it and tell me. He went a little way apart with it under an elm-tree in the College Yard. He read a passage here and there, brought it back to me and said : Do ? I should think so ! Don t you be scared. And I was n t, but virtue enough had gone out of me to make me weak for a fortnight after. I was amazed at the praises I got. Trevelyan told me afterwards that he never could have carried through the abolition of purchase in the Brit ish Army but for the re-enforcement he got from that poem." A few months after the delivery of the Ode the proposal to reprint it in Harvard Memorial Biographies led to a correspondence with the editor, Col. T. W. Higginson, in which some emendations and additions were proposed. " Your criticism," Lowell writes, " is perfectly just, and I am much obliged to you for it though I might defend myself, I believe, by some constructions even looser in some of the Greek choruses. But, on the whole, where I have my choice I prefer to make sense. The fact is that the Ode was written at a heat such a one, indeed, as leaves one colder than common afterwards and I have hardly looked at it since. There is a horrible truth in the liter a scripta manet, and the confounded things make mouths at us when we try to alter, but I think this may do : Ere yet the sharp, decisive word Redden the cannon s lips, and while the sword. (Stanza v.) On looking farther, I find to my intense dis gust a verse without a mate in the last stanza but one, and I must put in a patch. If I had only kept my manuscript ! We must read And bid her navies, that so lately hurled Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in, or else the poor * world just below will have no law of gravitation to hold itself up by. I know I had something better originally, but I can t get it back. Item, in the eighth please make this change : Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave, But through those constellations go That shed celestial influence on the brave. If life were but to draw this dusty breath That doth our wits enslave, And with the crowd to hurry to and fro, Seeking we know not what, and finding death, These did unwisely ; but if living be, As some are born to know, The power to ennoble, and inspire In other souls our brave desire For fruit, not leaves, of Time s immortal tree, These truly live, our thought s essential fire, And to the saner, etc. There ! I won t open the book again, or I shall write you another ode instead of mending this. But in this latter passage the metre wanted limbering a little it was built too much with blank- verse bricks and I think I have bettered it, at least to the ear." The second only of these emendations was incorpo rated in the ode at some later date. In writing some time afterward to J. B. Thayer, who had been raising some questions regarding the structure of the Ode, Lowell again recurred to the manner in which he had been possessed by the poem. " I am not sure," he writes, " if I understand what you say about the tenth strophe. You will observe that it leads naturally to the eleventh, and that I there justify a certain narrowness in it as an expression of the popular feeling as well as my own. I confess I have never got over the feeling of wrath with which (just after the death of my nephew Willie) I read in an English paper that nothing was to be hoped of an army officered by tailors apprentices and butcher-boys. The poem was written with a vehement speed, which I thought I had lost in the skirts of my professor s gown. Till within two days of the celebration I was hopelessly dumb, and then it all came with a rush, liter ally making me lean (mi fece magro) and so nervous that I was weeks in getting over it. I was longer in getting the new (eleventh) strophe to my mind than in writing the rest of the poem. In that I hardly changed a word, and it was so undeliberate that I did not find out till after it was printed that some of the verses lacked corresponding rhymes. ... I doubt you are right in wishing it more histori cal. But then 1 could not have written it. I had put the ethical and political view so often in prose that I was weary of it. The motives of the war ? I had impatiently argued them again and again but for an ode they must be in the blood and not the memory. One of my great defects (I have always been conscious of it) is an impatience of mind which makes me contemptuously indifferent about arguing matters that have once become convictions." Once more, in 1877, in writing to the same correspondent, he quotes a passage from a paper in the Cornhill : " Mr. Lowell s Com memoration Ode is a specimen of the formless poem of unequal lines and broken stanzas sup posed to be in the manner of Pindar, but truly the descendant of our royalist poet s [Cowley] majestick numbers. " In animadversion on this Lowell goes on : " Whatever my other shortcomings (and they are plenty, as none knows better than I), want of reflection is not one of them. The poems [this and Lowell s other odes] were all intended for public reci tation. That was the first thing to be consid ered. I suppose my ear (from long and pain ful practice on * B K poems) has more tech nical experience in this than almost any. The least tedious measure is the rhymed heroic, 342 POEMS OF THE WAR but this, too, palls unless relieved by passages of wit or even mere fun. A long series of uni form stanzas (I am always speaking of public recitation) with regularly recurring rhymes produces somnolence among the men and a desperate resort to their fans on the part of the women. No method has yet been invented by which the train of thought or feeling can be shunted off from the epical to the lyrical track. My ears have been jolted often enough over the sleepers on such occasions to know that. I know something (of course an Amer ican can t know much) about Pindar. But his odes had the advantage of being chanted. Now, my problem was to contrive a measure which should not be tedious by uniformity, which should vary with varying moods, in which the transitions (including those of the voice) should be managed without jar. I at first thought of mixed rhymed and blank verses of unequal measures, like those in the choruses of Samson Agonistes, which are in the main masterly. Of course Milton deliberately departed from that stricter form of the Greek Chorus to which it was bound quite as much (I suspect) by the law of its musical accom paniment as by any sense of symmetry. I wrote some stanzas of the Commemoration Ode on this theory at first, leaving some verses without a rhyme to match. But my ear was better pleased when the rhyme, coming at a longer interval, as a far-off echo rather than instant reverberation, produced the same effect almost, and yet was grateful by unexpectedly recalling an association and faint reminiscence of consonance." I WEAK-WINGED is song, Nor aims at that clear-ethered height Whither the brave deed climbs for light: We seem to do them wrong, Bringing our robin s-leaf to deck their hearse Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse, Our trivial song to honor those who come With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum, And shaped in squadron-strophes their de sire, Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire: Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, A gracious memory to buoy up and save From Lethe s dreamless ooze, the common grave Of the unventurous throng. To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back Her wisest Scholars, those who under stood The deeper teaching of her mystic tome, And offered their fresh lives to make it good: No lore of Greece or Rome, No science peddling with the names of things, Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, Can lift our life with wings Far from Death s idle gulf that for the many waits, And lengthen out our dates With that clear fame whose memory sings In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates: Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all ! Not such the trumpet-call Of thy diviner mood, That could thy sons entice From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest Of those half-virtues which the world calls best, Into War s tumult rude; But rather far that stern device The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood In the dim, un ventured wood, The VERITAS that lurks beneath The letter s unprolific sheath, Life of whate er makes life worth living, Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food, One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving. Ill Many loved Truth, and lavished life s best oil Amid the dust of books to find her, Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, With the cast mantle she hath left be hind her. Many in sad faith sought for her, Many with crossed hands sighed for her; But these, our brothers, fought for her, At life s dear peril wrought for her, So loved her that they died for her, Tasting the raptured fleetness ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION 343 Of her divine completeness: Their higher instinct knew Those love her best who to themselves are true, And what they dare to dream of, dare to do; They followed her and found her Where all may hope to find, Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, But beautiful, with danger s sweetness round her. Where faith made whole with deed Breathes its awakening breath Into the lifeless creed, They saw her plumed and mailed, With sweet, stern face unveiled, And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death. IV Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides Into the silent hollow of the past; What is there that abides To make the next age better for the last ? Is earth too poor to give us Something to live for here that shall outlive us ? Some more substantial boon Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune s fickle moon ? The little that we see From doubt is never free; The little that we do Is but half-nobly true; With our laborious hiving What men call treasure, and the gods call dross, Life seems a jest of Fate s contriving, Only secure in every one s conniving, A long account of nothings paid with loss, Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, After our little hour of strut and rave, With all our pasteboard passions and de sires, Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. But stay ! no age was e er degenerate, Unless men held it at too cheap a rate, For in our likeness still we shape our fate. Ah, there is something here Unfathomed by the cynic s sneer, Something that gives our feeble light A high immunity from Night, Something that leaps life s narrow bars To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven; A seed of sunshine that can leaven Our earthly dullness with the beams of stars, And glorify our clay With light from fountains elder than the Day; A conscience more divine than we, A gladness fed with secret tears, A vexing, forward-reaching sense Of some more noble permanence; A light across the sea, Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, Still beaconing from the heights of unde- generate years. Whither leads the path To ampler fates that leads ? Not down through flowery meads, To reap an aftermath Of youth s vainglorious weeds, But up the steep, amid the wrath And shock of deadly-hostile creeds, Where the world s best hope and stay By battle s flashes gropes a desperate way, And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, Ere yet the sharp, decisive word Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword Dreams in its easeful sheath; But some day the live coal behind the thought, Whether from Baal s stone obscene, Or from the shrine serene Of God s pure altar brought, Bursts up in flame ; the war of tongue and pen Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught, And, helpless in the fiery passion caught, Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men: Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, And cries reproachful: "Was it, then, my praise, And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth; 344 POEMS OF THE WAR I claim of thee the promise of thy youth; Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, The victim of thy genius, not its mate ! " Life may be given in many ways, And loyalty to Truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field, So bountiful is Fate; But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her, To front a lie in arms and not to yield, This shows, methinks, God s plan And measure of a stalwart man, Limbed like the old heroic breeds, Who stands self-poised on manhood s solid earth, Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, Fed from within with all the strength he needs. VI Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, Whom late the Nation he had led, With ashes on her head, Wept with the passion of an angry grief: Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote: For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw, And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. How beautiful to see Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, Not lured by any cheat of birth, But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity! They knew that outward grace is dust; They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind s unfaltering skill, And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind, Thrusting to thin air o er our cloudy bars, A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; Broad prairie rather, genial, level- lined, Fruitful and friendly for all human kind, Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of lofti est stars. Nothing of Europe here, Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, Ere any names of Serf and Peer Could Nature s equal scheme deface And thwart her genial will; Here was a type of the true elder race, And one of Plutarch s men talked with us face to face. I praise him not; it were too late; And some iunative weakness there must be In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, Safe in himself as in a fate. So always firmly he: He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, Still patient in his simple faith sublime, Till the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns and drums, Disturb our judgment for the hour, But at last silence comes; These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame. The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first Amer- VII Long as man s hope insatiate can discern Or only guess some more inspiring goal Outside of Self, enduring as the pole, Along whose course the flying axles burn Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth s man lier brood; ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION 345 Long as below we cannot find The meed that stills the inexorable mind; So long this faith to some ideal Good, Under whatever mortal names it masks, Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, Feeling its challenged pulses leap, While others skulk in subterfuges cheap, And, set in Danger s van, has all the boon it asks, Shall win man s praise and woman s love, Shall be a wisdom that we set above All other skills and gifts to culture dear, A virtue round whose forehead we in- wreathe Laurels that with a living passion breathe When other crowns grow, while we twine them, sear. What brings us thronging these high rites to pay, And seal these hours the noblest of our year, Save that our brothers found this better way? VIII We sit here in the Promised Land That flows with Freedom s honey and milk; But t was they won it, sword in hand, Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk. We welcome back our bravest and our best; Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest, Who went forth brave and bright as any here! I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, But the sad strings complain, And will not please the ear: I sweep them for a paean, but they wane Again and yet again Into a dirge, and die away, in pain. In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, Dark to the triumph which they died to gain: Fitlier may others greet the living, For me the past is unforgiving; I with uncovered head Salute the sacred dead, Who went, and who return not. Say not so! T is not the grapes of Canaan that repay, But the high faith that failed not by the way; Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; No ban of endless night exiles the brave ; And to the saner mind We rather seem the dead that stayed be hind. Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! For never shall their aureoled presence lack: I see them muster in a gleaming row, With ever-youthful brows that nobler show; We find in our dull road their shining track; In every nobler mood We feel the orient of their spirit glow, Part of our life s unalterable good, Of all our saintlier aspiration; They come transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, Beautiful evermore, and with the rays Of morn on their white Shields of Expecta tion! IX But is there hope to save Even this ethereal essence from the grave ? What ever scaped Oblivion s subtle wrong Save a few clarion names, or golden threads of song ? Before my musing eye The mighty ones of old sweep by, Disvoiced now and insubstantial things, As noisy once as we ; poor ghosts of kings, Shadows of empire wholly gone to dust, And many races, nameless long ago, To darkness driven by that imperious gust Of ever-rushing Time that here doth blow: O visionary world, condition strange, Where naught abiding is but only Change, Where the deep-bolted stars themselves still shift and range! Shall we to more continuance make pre tence ? Renown builds tombs; a life-estate is Wit; And, bit by bit, The cunning years steal all from us but woe ; Leaves are we, whose decays no harvest sow. 346 POEMS OF THE WAR But, when we vanish hence, Shall they lie forceless in the dark below, Save to make green their little length of sods, Or deepen pansies for a year or two, Who now to us are shining-sweet as gods? Was dying all they had the skill to do? That were not fruitless : but the Soul resents Such short-lived service, as if blind events Kuled without her, or earth could so endure ; She claims a more divine investiture Of longer tenure than Fame s airy rents; Whate er she touches doth her nature share ; Her inspiration haunts the ennobled air, Gives eyes to mountains blind, Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the wind, And her clear trump sings succor every where By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful mind; For soul inherits all that soul could dare : Yea, Manhood hath a wider span And larger privilege of life than man. The single deed, the private sacrifice, So radiant now through proudly-hidden tears, Is covered up erelong from mortal eyes With thoughtless drift of the deciduous years; But that high privilege that makes all men peers, That leap of heart whereby a people rise Up to a noble anger s height, And, flamed on by the Fates, not shrink, but grow more bright, That swift validity in noble veins, Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, Ot being set on flame By the pure fire that flies all contact base But wraps its chosen with angelic might, These are imperishable gains, Sure as the sun, medicinal as light, These hold great futures in their lusty reins And certify to earth a new imperial race. Who now shall sneer? Who dare again to say we trace Our lines to a plebeian race? Roundhead and Cavalier! Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud; Dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud, They flit across the ear: That is best blood that hath most iron in t. To edge resolve with, pouring without stint For what makes manhood dear. Tell us not of Plantagenets, Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl Down from some victor in a border-brawl! How poor their outworn coronets, Matched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath Our brave for honor s blazon shall bequeath, Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears Shout victory, tingling Europe s sullen ears With vain resentments and more vain regrets! XI Not in anger, not in pride, Pure from passion s mixture rude Ever to base earth allied, But with far-heard gratitude, Still with heart and voice renewed, To heroes living and dear martyrs dead, The strain should close that consecrates our brave. Lift the heart and lift the head ! Lofty be its mood and grave, Not without a martial ring, Not without a prouder tread And a peal of exultation : Little right has he to sing Through whose heart in such an hour Beats no march of conscious power, Sweeps no tumult of elation ! T is no Man we celebrate, By his country s victories great, A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, But the pith and marrow of a Nation Drawing force from all her men, Highest, humblest, weakest, all, For her time of need, and then Pulsing it again through them, Till the basest can no longer cower, Feeling nis soul spring up divinely tall, Touched but in passing by her mantle- hem. Come back, then, noble pride, for t ia her dower ! TO THE MUSE 347 How could poet ever tower, If his passions, hopes, and fears, If his triumphs and his tears, Kept not measure with his people ? Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves ! Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple ! Banners, adance with triumph, bend your staves ! And from every mountain-peak Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he, And so leap on in light from sea to sea, Till the glad news be sent Across a kindling continent, Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver : " Be proud ! for she is saved, and all have helped to .save her ! She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, She of the open soul and open door, With room about her hearth for all mankind ! The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more ; From her bold front the helm she doth unbind, Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, And bids her navies, that so lately hurled Their crashing battle, hold their thun ders in, Swimming like birds of calm along the imharmful shore. No challenge sends she to the elder world, That looked askance and hated ; a light scorn Plays o er her mouth, as round her mighty knees She calls her children back, and waits the morn Of nobler day, enthroned between her sub ject seas." XII Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release ! Thy God, in these distempered days, Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways, And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace ! Bow down in prayer and praise! No poorest in thy borders but may now Lift to the juster skies a man s enfran chised brow. O Beautiful ! my Country ! ours once more ! Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair O er such sweet brows as never other wore, And letting thy set lips, Freed from wrath s pale eclipse, The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, What words divine of lover or of poet Could tell our love and make thee know it, Among the Nations bright beyond com pare ? What were our lives without thee ? What all our lives to save thee ? We reck not what we gave thee; We will not dare to doubt thee, But ask whatever else, and we will dare ! L ENVOI TO THE MUSE WHITHER ? Albeit I follow fast, In all life s circuit I but find, Not where thou art, but where thou wast, Sweet beckoner, more fleet than wind ! I haunt the pine-dark solitudes, With soft brown silence carpeted, And plot to snare thee in the woods: Peace I o ertake, but thou art fled! I find the rock where thou didst rest, The moss thy skimming foot hath prest; All Nature with thy parting thrills, Like branches after birds new-flown; Thy passage hill and hollow fills With hints of virtue not their own; In dimples still the water slips Where thou hast dipt thy finger-tips; Just, just beyond, forever burn Gleams of a grace without return; 348 L ENVOI Upon thy shade I plant my foot, And through my frame strange raptures shoot; All of thee but thyself I grasp; I seem to fold thy luring shape, And vague air to my bosom clasp, Thou lithe, perpetual Escape ! One mask and then another drops, And thou art secret as before: Sometimes with flooded ear I list, And hear thee, wondrous organist, From mighty continental stops A thunder of new music pour ; Through pipes of earth and air and stone Thy inspiration deep is blown; Through mountains, forests, open downs, Lakes, railroads, prairies, states, and towns, Thy gathering fugue goes rolling on From Maine to utmost Oregon; The factory-wheels in cadence hum, From brawling parties concords come; All this I hear, or seem to hear, But when, enchanted, I draw near To mate with words the various theme, Life seems a whiff of kitchen steam, History an organ-grinder s thrum, For thou hast slipt from it and me And all thine organ-pipes left dumb, Most mutable Perversity ! Not weary yet, I still must seek, And hope for luck next day, next week; I go to see the great man ride, Shiplike, the swelling human tide That floods to bear him into port, Trophied from Senate-hall and Court; Thy magnetism, I feel it there, Thy rhythmic presence fleet and rare, Making the Mob a moment fine With glimpses of their own Divine, As in their demigod they see Their cramped ideal soaring free; T was thou didst bear the fire about, That, like the springing of a mine, Sent up to heaven the street-long shout; Full well I know that thou wast here, It was thy breath that brushed my ear; But vainly in the stress and whirl I dive for thee, the moment s pearl. Through every shape thou well canst run, Proteus, twixt rise and set of sun, Well pleased with logger-camps in Maine As where Milan s pale Duomo lies A stranded glacier on the plain, Its peaks and pinnacles of ice Melted in many a quaint device, And sees, above the city s din, Afar its silent Alpine kin: I track thee over carpets deep To wealth s and beauty s inmost keep; Across the sand of bar-room floors Mid the stale reek of boosing boors; Where drowse the hay-field s fragrant heats, Or the flail-heart of Autumn beats; I dog thee through the market s throngs To where the sea with myriad tongues Laps the green edges of the pier, And the tall ships that eastward steer, Curtsy their farewells to the town, O er the curved distance lessening down; I follow allwhere for thy sake, Touch thy robe s hem, but ne er o ertake, Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies, Warm from thy limbs, thy last disguise; But thou another shape hast donned, And lurest still just, just beyond ! But here a voice, I know not whence, Thrills clearly through my inward sense, Saying : " See where she sits at home While thou in search of her dost roam ! All summer long her ancient wheel Whirls humming by the open door, Or, when the hickory s social zeal Sets the wide chimney in a roar, Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth, It modulates the household mirth With that sweet serious undertone Of duty, music all her own; Still as of old she sits and spins Our hopes, our sorrows, and our sins; With equal care she twines the fates Of cottages and mighty states; She spins the earth, the air, the sea, The maiden s unschooled fancy free, The boy s first love, the man s first grief, The budding and the fall o the leaf; The piping west-wind s snowy care For her their cloudy fleeces spare, Or from the thorns of evil times She can glean wool to twist her rhymes; Morning and noon and eve supply To her their fairest tints for dye, But ever through her twirling thread There spires one line of warmest red, Tinged from the homestead s genial heart, THE CATHEDRAL 349 The stamp and warrant of her art; With this Time s sickle she outwears, And blunts the Sisters baffled shears. " Harass her not : thy heat and stir But greater coyness breed in her; Yet thou mayst find, ere Age s frost, Thy long apprenticeship not lost, Learning at last that Stygian Fate Unbends to him that knows to wait. The Muse is womanish, nor deigns Her love to him that pules and plains; With proud, averted face she stands To him that wooes with empty hands. Make thyself free of Manhood s guild; Pull down thy barns and greater build; The wood, the mountain, and the plain Wave breast-deep with the poet s grain; Pluck thou the sunset s fruit of gold, Glean from the heavens and ocean old; From fireside lone and trampling street Let thy life garner daily wheat; The epic of a man rehearse, Be something better than thy verse; Make thyself rich, and then the Muse Shall court thy precious interviews, Shall take thy head upon her knee, And such enchantment lilt to thee, That thou shalt hear the life-blood flow From farthest stars to grass-blades low, And find the Listener s science still Transcends the Singer s deepest skill ! " THE CATHEDRAL To MR. JAMES T. FIELDS MY DEAR FIELDS : Dr. Johnson s sturdy self-respect led him to invent the Bookseller as a substitute for the Patron. My relations with you have enabled me to discover how pleasantly the Friend may replace the Bookseller. Let me record my sense of many thoughtful ser vices by associating your name with a poem which owes its appearance in this form to your partiality. Cordially yours, J. R. LOWELL. CAMBRIDGE, November 29, 1869. The Cathedral was printed first in The Atlan tic Monthly for January, 1870, but was shortly after published in a volume by itself with changes and additions. The poem was wrought at apparently with something of the loving enthusiasm which we are wont to ascribe to the builders of actual cathedrals. It was writ ten in the summer of 1869 and returned to frequently before publication. When in the midst of the work he wrote to Mr. Howells, then editor of the Atlantic, " Up to time indeed ! The fear is not about time, but space. You won t have room in your menagerie for such a displeaseyousaurus. The verses if stretched end to end in a continuous line would go clear round the cathedral they celebrate, and nobody (I fear) the wiser. I can t tell yet what they are. There seems a bit of clean carving here and there, a solid buttress or two, and perhaps a gleam through painted glass but I have not copied it out yet, nor indeed read it over consecutively." A little later he wrote to Miss Norton : " I hope it is good, for it fairly trussed me at last and bore me up as high as my poor lungs will bear into the heaven of invention. I was happy writing it, and so steeped in it that if I had written to you it would have been in blank verse. It is a kind of religious poem, and is called A Day at Chartres. ... I can t tell yet how it will stand. Already I am beginning to to you know what I mean to taste my champagne next morning." The poem received some comment from two distinguished critics, Mr. Leslie Stephen and Mr. Ruskin. To the former Lowell wrote : " I am glad you liked The Cathedral and sorry for anything in it you did n t like. The name was none of my choosing. I called it A Day at Chartres, and Fields rechristened it. You see with my name the episode of the Britons comes in naturally enough (it is historical, by the 35 THE CATHEDRAL way). The truth is, I had no notion of being satirical, but wrote what I did just as I might have said it to you in badinage. But of course the tone is lost in print. Anyhow, there is one Englishman I am fond enough of to balance any spite I might have against others, as you know. But I have n t a particle. If I had met two of my own countrymen at Chartres I should have been quite as free with them." In reply to some advice and strictures of Mr. Ruskin, he wrote to Mr. Norton : " I am glad to find that the poem sticks. Those who liked it at first like it still, some of them better than ever, some extravagantly. At any rate it wrote itself ; all of a sudden it was there, and that is something in its favor. Now Ruskin wants me to go over it with a file. That is just what I did. I wrote in pencil, then copied it out in FAR through the memory shines a happy day, Cloudless of care, down-shod to every sense, And simply perfect from its own resource, As to a bee the new campanula s Illuminate seclusion swung in air. Such days are not the prey of setting suns, Nor ever blurred with mist of after thought; Like words made magical by poets dead, Wherein the music of all meaning is The sense hath garnered or the soul divined, They mingle with our life s ethereal part, Sweetening and gathering sweetness ever more, By beauty s franchise disenthralled of time. I can recall, nay, they are present still, Parts of myself, the perfume of my mind, Days that seem farther off than Homer s now Ere yet the child had loudened to the boy, And I, recluse from playmates, found per force Companionship in things that not denied Nor granted wholly; as is Nature s wont, Who, safe in uncontaminate reserve, Lets us mistake our longing for her love, And mocks with various echo of ourselves. These first sweet frauds upon our con sciousness, That blend the sensual with its imaged world, These virginal cognitions, gifts of morn, ink, and worked over it as I never worked over anything before. I may fairly say there is not a word in it over which I have not thought, not an objection which I did not foresee and maturely consider. Well, in my second copy I made many changes, as I thought for the better, and then put it away in my desk to cool for three weeks or so. When I came to print it, I put back, I believe, every one of the original readings which I had changed. Those which had come to me were far better than those I had come at. Only one change I made (for the worse), in order to escape a rhyme that had crept in without my catching it." Ruskin made some verbal criticism, which Lowell proceeded to examine, and the reader will find the discussion in the notes at the end of this volume. Ere life grow noisy, and slower-footed thought Can overtake the rapture of the sense, To thrust between ourselves and what we feel, Have something in them secretly divine. Vainly the eye, once schooled to serve the brain, With pains deliberate studies to renew The ideal vision : second-thoughts are prose; For beauty s acme hath a term as brief As the wave s poise before it break in pearl. Our own breath dims the mirror of the sense, Looking too long and closely : at a flash We snatch the essential grace of meaning out, And that first passion beggars all behind, Heirs of a tamer transport prepossessed. Who, seeing once, has truly seen again The gray vague of unsympathizing sea That dragged his Fancy from her moor ings back To shores inhospitable of eldest time, Till blank foreboding of earth-gendered powers, Pitiless seiguories in the elements, Omnipotences blind that darkling smite, Misgave him, and repaganized the world? Yet, by some subtler touch of sympathy, These primal apprehensions, dimly stirred, Perplex the eye with pictures from within. This hath made poets dream of lives fore gone In worlds fantastical, more fair than ours; THE CATHEDRAL 351 So Memory cheats us, glimpsing half- revealed. Even as I write she tries her wonted spell In that continuous redbreast boding rain: The bird I hear sings not from yonder elm ; But the flown ecstasy my childhood heard Is vocal in my mind, renewed by him, Haply made sweeter by the accumulate thrill That threads my undivided life and steals A pathos from the years and graves be tween. I know not how it is with other men, Whom I but guess, deciphering myself; For me, once felt is so felt nevermore. The fleeting relish at sensation s brim Had in it the best ferment of the wine. One spring I knew as never any since: All night the surges of the warm southwest Boomed intermittent through the wallowing elms, And brought a morning from the Gulf adrift, Omnipotent with sunshine, whose quick charm Startled with crocuses the sullen turf And wiled the bluebird to his whiff of song: One summer hour abides, what time I perched, Dappled with noonday, under simmering leaves, And pulled the pulpy oxhearts, while aloof An oriole clattered and the robins shrilled, Denouncing me an alien and a thief: One morn of autumn lords it o er the rest, When in the lane I watched the ash-leaves fall, Balancing softly earthward without wind, Or twirling with director impulse down On those fallen yesterday, now barbed with frost, While I grew pensive with the pensive year: And once I learned how marvellous winter was, When past the fence-rails, downy-gray with rime, I creaked adventurous o er the spangled crust That made familiar fields seem far and strange As those stark wastes that whiten endlessly In ghastly solitude about the pole, And gleam relentless to the unsetting sun: Instant the candid chambers of my brain Were painted with these sovran images ; And later visions seem but copies pale From those unfading frescos of the past, Which I, young savage, in my age of flint, Gazed at, and dimly felt a power in me Parted from Nature by the joy in her That doubtfully revealed me to myself. Thenceforward I must stand outside the gate; And paradise was paradise the more, Known once and barred against satiety. What we call Nature, all outside ourselves, Is but our own conceit of what we see, Our own reaction upon what we feel; The world s a woman to our shifting mood, Feeling with us, or making due pretence; And therefore we the more persuade our selves To make all things our thought s confeder ates, Conniving with us in whate er we dream. So when our Fancy seeks analogies, Though she have hidden what she after finds, She loves to cheat herself with feigned sur prise. I find my own complexion everywhere: No rose, I doubt, was ever, like the first, A marvel to the bush it dawned upon, The rapture of its life made visible, The mystery of its yearning realized, As the first babe to the first woman born; No falcon ever felt delight of wings As when, an eyas, from the stolid cliff Loosing himself, he followed his high heart To swim on sunshine, masterless as wind; And I believe the brown earth takes delight In the new snowdrop looking back at her, To think that by some vernal alchemy It could transmute her darkness into pearl; What is the buxom peony after that, With its coarse constancy of hoyden blush? What the full summer to that wonder new? But, if in nothing else, in us there is A sense fastidious hardly reconciled To the poor makeshifts of life s scenery, Where the same slide must double all its parts, Shoved in for Tarsus and hitched back for Tyre. I blame not in the soul this daintiness, Rasher of surfeit than a humming-bird, In things indifferent by sense purveyed; 352 THE CATHEDRAL It argues her an immortality And dateless incomes of experience, This unthrift housekeeping that will not brook A dish warmed-over at the feast of life, And finds Twice stale, served with what- I ever sauce. Nor matters much how it may go with me Who dwell in Grub Street and am proud to drudge Where men, my betters, wet their crust with tears : Use can make sweet the peach s shady side, That only by reflection tastes of sun. But she, my Princess, who will sometimes deign My garret to illumine till the walls, Narrow and dingy, scrawled with hack neyed thought (Poor Richard slowly elbowing Plato out), Dilate and drape themselves with tapestries Nausikaa might have stooped o er, while, between, Mirrors, effaced in their own clearness, send Her only image on through deepening deeps With endless repercussion of delight, Bringer of life, witching each sense to soul, That sometimes almost gives me to believe I might have been a poet, gives at least A brain desaxonized, an ear that makes Music where none is, and a keener pang Of exquisite surmise outleaping thought, Her will I pamper in her luxury: No crumpled rose-leaf of too careless choice Shall bring a northern nightmare to her dreams, Vexing with sense of exile; hers shall be The in vitiate firstlings of experience, Vibrations felt but once and felt life long: Oh, more than half-way turn that Grecian front Upon me, while with self-rebuke I spell, On the plain fillet that confines thy hair In conscious bounds of seeming uncon- straint, The Naught in overplus, thy race s badge! One feast for her I secretly designed In that Old World so strangely beautiful To us the disinherited of eld, A day at Chartres, with no soul beside To roil with pedant prate my joy serene And make the minster shy of confidence. I went, and, with the Saxon s pious care, First ordered dinner at the pea-green inn, The flies and I its only customers. Eluding these, I loitered through the town, With hope to take my minster unawares In its grave solitude of memory. A pretty burgh, and such as Fancy loves For bygone grandeurs, faintly rumorous now Upon the mind s horizon, as of storm Brooding its dreamy thunders far aloof, That mingle with our mood, but not dis turb. Its once grim bulwarks, tamed to lovers walks, Look down unwatchf ul on the sliding Eure, Whose listless leisure suits the quiet place, Lisping among his shallows homelike sounds At Concord and by Bankside heard before. Chance led me to a public pleasure-ground, Where I grew kindly with the merry groups, And blessed the Frenchman for his simple art Of being domestic in the light of day. His language has no word, we growl, for Home ; But he can find a fireside in the sun, Play with his child, make love, and shriek his mind, By throngs of strangers undisprivacied. He makes his life a public gallery, Nor feels himself till what he feels comes back In manifold reflection from without; While we, each pore alert with conscious ness, Hide our best selves as we had stolen them, And each bystander a detective were, Keen-eyed for every chink of undisguise. So, musing o er the problem which was best, A life wide-windowed, shining all abroad, Or curtains drawn to shield from sight profane The rites we pay to the mysterious I, With outward senses furloughed and head bowed I followed some fine instinct in my feet, Till, to unbend me from the loom of thought, Looking up suddenly, I found mine eyes Confronted with the minster s vast repose. Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff Left inland by the ocean s slow retreat, THE CATHEDRAL 353 That hears afar the breeze-borne rote and longs, Remembering shocks of surf that clomb and fell, Spume-sliding down the baffled decuman, It rose before me, patiently remote From the great tides of life it breasted once, Hearing the noise of men as in a dream. I stood before the triple northern port, Where dedicated shapes of saints and kings, Stern faces bleared with immemorial watch, Looked down benignly grave and seemed to say, Ye come and go incessant; we remain Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past; Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, Of faith so nobly realized as this. I seem to have heard it said by learned folk Who drench you with sesthetics till you feel As if all beauty were a ghastly bore, The faucet to let loose a wash of words, That Gothic is not Grecian, therefore worse ; But, being convinced by much experiment How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies, I give thanks For a new relish, careless to inquire My pleasure s pedigree, if so it please, Nobly, I mean, nor renegade to art. The Grecian gluts me with its perfect- ness, Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained, The one thing finished in this hasty world, Forever finished, though the barbarous pit, Fanatical on hearsay, stamp and shout As if a miracle could be encored. But ah! this other, this that never ends, Still climbing, luring fancy still to climb, As full of morals half-divined as life, Graceful, grotesque, with ever new surprise Of hazardous caprices sure to please, Heavy as nightmare, airy-light as fern, Imagination s very self in stone! With one long sigh of infinite release From pedantries past, present, or to come, I looked, and owned myself a happy Goth. Your blood is mine, ye architects of dream, Builders of aspiration incomplete, So more consummate, souls self-confident, Who felt your own thought worthy of re cord In monumental pomp! No Grecian drop Rebukes these veins that leap with kindred thrill, After long exile, to the mother-tongue. Ovid in Pontus, puling for his Rome Of men invirile and disnatured dames That poison sucked from the Attic bloom decayed, Shrank with a shudder from the blue-eyed race Whose force rough-handed should renew the world, And from the dregs of Romulus express Such wine as Dante poured, or he who blew Roland s vain blast, or sang the Campeador In verse that clanks like armor in the charge, Homeric juice, though brimmed in Odin s horn. And they could build, if not the columned fane That from the height gleamed seaward many-hued, Something more friendly with their ruder skies: The gray spire, molten now in driving mist, Now lulled with the incommunicable blue ; The carvings touched to meaning new with snow, Or commented with fleeting grace of shade ; The statues, motley as man s memory, Partial as that, so mixed of true and false, History and legend meeting with a kiss Across this bound-mark where their realms confine ; The painted windows, freaking gloom with glow, Dusking the sunshine which they seem to cheer, Meet symbol of the senses and the soul, And the whole pile, grim with the North man s thought Of life and death, and doom, life s equal fee, These were before me : and I abashed, Child of an age that lectures, not creates, Plastering our swallow-nests on the awful Past, And twittering round the work of larger men, As we had builded what we but deface. Far up the great bells wallowed in delight, Tossing their clangors o er the heedless town, To call the worshippers who never came, Or women mostly, in loath twos and threes. I entered, reverent of whatever shrine Guards piety and solace for my kind 354 THE CATHEDRAL Or gives the soul a moment s truce of God, And shared decorous in the ancient rite My sterner fathers held idolatrous. The service over, I was tranced in thought : Solemn the deepening vaults, and most to me, Fresh from the fragile realm of deal and paint, Or brick mock-pious with a marble front ; Solemn the lift of high-embowered roof, The clustered steins that spread in boughs disleaved, Through which the organ blew a dream of storm, Though not more potent to sublime with awe And shut the heart up in tranquillity, Than aisles to me familiar that o erarch The conscious silences of brooding woods, Centurial shadows, cloisters of the elk : Yet here was sense of undefined regret, Irreparable loss, uncertain what : Was all this grandeur but anachronism, A shell divorced of its informing life, Where the priest housed him like a hermit- crab, An alien to that faith of elder days That gathered round it this fair shape of stone ? Is old Religion but a spectre now, Haunting the solitude of darkened minds, Mocked out of memory by the sceptic day ? Is there no corner safe from peeping Doubt, Since Gutenberg made thought cosmopolite And stretched electric threads from mind to mind ? Nay, did Faith build this wonder ? or did Fear, That makes a fetish and misnames it God (Blockish or metaphysic, matters not), Contrive this coop to shut its tyrant in, Appeased with playthings, that he might not harm ? I turned and saw a beldame on her knees ; With eyes astray, she told mechanic beads Before some shrine of saintly womanhood, Bribed intercessor with the far-off Judge : Such my first thought, by kindlier soon re buked, Pleading for whatsoever touches life With upward impulse : be He nowhere else, God is in all that liberates and lifts, In all that humbles, sweetens, and con soles : Blessed the natures shored on every side With landmarks of hereditary thought ! Thrice happy they that wander not life long Beyond near succor of the household faith, The guarded fold that shelters, not con fines ! Their steps find patience in familiar paths, Printed with hope by loved feet gone be fore Of parent, child, or lover, glorified By simple magic of dividing Time. My lids were moistened as the woman knelt, And was it will, or some vibration faint Of sacred Nature, deeper than the will ? My heart occultly felt itself in hers, Through mutual intercession gently leagued. Or was it not mere sympathy of brain ? A sweetness intellectually conceived In simpler creeds to me impossible ? A juggle of that pity for ourselves In others, which puts on such pretty masks And snares self-love with bait of charity ? Something of all it might be, or of none : Yet for a moment I was snatched away And had the evidence of things not seen ; For one rapt moment ; then it all came back, This age that blots out life with question- marks, This nineteenth century with its knife and That make thought physical, and thrust far off The Heaven, so neighborly with man of old, To voids sparse-sown with alienated stars. T is irrecoverable, that ancient faith, Homely and wholesome, suited to the time, With rod or candy for child-minded men : No theologic tube, with lens on lens Of syllogism transparent, brings it near, At best resolving some new nebula, Or blurring some fixed-star of hope to mist. Science was Faith once ; Faith were Science now, Would she but lay her bow and arrows by THE CATHEDRAL 355 And arm her with the weapons of the time. Nothing that keeps thought out is safe from thought. For there s no virgin -fort but self-respect, And Truth defensive hath lost hold on God. Shall we treat Him as if He were a child That knew not His own purpose ? nor dare trust The Rock of Ages to their chemic tests, Lest some day the all-sustaining base divine Should fail from under us, dissolved in gas? The armed eye that with a glance discerns In a dry blood-speck between ox and man Stares helpless at this miracle called life, This shaping potency behind the egg, This circulation swift of deity, Where suns and systems inconspicuous float As the poor blood -disks in our mortal veins. Each age must worship its own thought of God, More or less earthy, clarifying still With subsidence continuous of the dregs ; Nor saint nor sage could fix immutably The fluent image of the unstable Best, Still changing in their very hands that wrought : To-day s eternal truth To-morrow proved Frail as frost-landscapes on a window-pane. Meanwhile Thou smiledst, inaccessible, At Thought s own substance made a cage for Thought, And Truth locked fast with her own mas ter-key ; Nor didst Thou reck what image man might make Of his own shadow on the flowing world; The climbing instinct was enough for Thee. Or wast Thou, then, an ebbing tide that left Strewn with dead miracle those eldest shores, For men to dry, and dryly lecture on, Thyself thenceforth incapable of flood ? Idle who hopes with prophets to be snatched By virtue in their mantles left below; Shall the soul live on other men s report, Herself a pleasing fable of herself ? Man cannot be God s outlaw if he would, Nor so abscond him in the caves of sense But Nature still shall search some crevice out With messages of splendor from that Source Which, dive he, soar he, baffles still and lures. This life were brutish did we not some times Have intimation clear of wider scope, Hints of occasion infinite, to keep The soul alert with noble discontent And onward yearnings of unstilled desire; Fruitless, except we now and then divined A mystery of Purpose, gleaming through The secular confusions of the world, Whose will we darkly accomplish, doing ours. No man can think nor in himself perceive, Sometimes at waking, in the street some times, Or on the hillside, always unforewarned, A grace of being, finer than himself, That beckons and is gone, a larger life Upon his own impinging, with swift glimpse Of spacious circles luminous with mind, To which the ethereal substance of his own Seems but gross cloud to make that visible, Touched to a sudden glory round the edge. Who that hath known these visitations fleet Would strive to make them trite and ritual ? I, that still pray at morning and at eve, Loving those roots that feed us from the past, And prizing more than Plato things I learned At that best academe, a mother s knee, Thrice in my life perhaps have truly prayed, Thrice, stirred below my conscious self, have felt That perfect disenth raiment which is God ; Nor know I which to hold worst enemy, Him who on speculation s windy waste Would turn me loose, stript of the raiment warm By Faith contrived against our nakedness, Or him who, cruel-kind, would fain obscure, With painted saints and paraphrase of God, The soul s east-window of divine surprise. Where others worship I but look and long; For, though not recreant to my fathers faith, 356 THE CATHEDRAL Its forms to me are weariness, and most That drony vacuum of compulsory prayer, Still pumping phrases for the Ineffable, Though all the valves of memory gasp and wheeze. Words that have drawn transcendent mean ings up From the best passion of all bygone time, Steeped through with tears of triumph and remorse, Sweet with all sainthood, cleansed in mar tyr-fires, Can they, so consecrate and so inspired, By repetition wane to vexing wind ? Alas ! we cannot draw habitual breath In the thin air of life s supremer heights, We cannot make each meal a sacrament, Nor with our tailors be disbodied souls, We men, too conscious of earth s comedy, Who see two sides, with our posed selves debate, And only for great stakes can be sublime ! Let us be thankful when, as I do here, We can read Bethel on a pile of stones, And, seeing where God has been, trust in Him. Brave Peter Fischer there in Nuremberg, Moulding Saint Sebald s miracles in bronze, Put saint and stander-by in that quaint garb Familiar to him in his daily walk, Not doubting God could grant a miracle Then and in Nuremberg, if so He would; But never artist for three hundred years Hath dared the contradiction ludicrous Of supernatural in modern clothes. Perhaps the deeper faith that is to come Will see God rather in the strenuous doubt, Than in the creed held as an infant s hand Holds purposeless whatso is placed therein. Say it is drift, not progress, none the less, With the old sextant of the fathers creed, We shape our courses by new-risen stars, And, still lip-loyal to what once was truth, Smuggle new meanings under ancient names, Unconscious perverts of the Jesuit, Time. Change is the mask that all Continuance wears To keep us youngsters harmlessly amused; Meanwhile some ailing or more watchful child, Sitting apart, sees the old eyes gleam out, Stern, and yet soft with humorous pity too. Whilere, men burnt men for a doubtful point, As if the mind were quenchable with fire, And Faith danced round them with her war-paint on, Devoutly savage as an Iroquois ; Now Calvin and Servetus at one board Snuff in grave sympathy a milder roast, And o er their claret settle Comte unread. Fagot and stake were desperately sincere: Our cooler martyrdoms are done in types; And flames that shine in controversial eyes Burn out no brains but his who kindles them. This is no age to get cathedrals built: Did God, then, wait for one in Bethlehem ? Worst is not yet: lo, where his coming looms, Of earth s anarchic children latest born, Democracy, a Titan who hath learned To laugh at Jove s old-fashioned thunder bolts, Could he not also forge them, if he would ? He, better skilled, with solvents merciless, Loosened in air and borne on every wind, Saps unperceived: the calm Olympian height Of ancient order feels its bases yield, And pale gods glance for help to gods as pale. What will be left of good or worshipful, Of spiritual secrets, mysteries, Of fair religion s guarded heritage, Heirlooms of soul, passed downward un- profaned From eldest Ind? This Western giant coarse, Scorning refinements which he lacks him self, Loves not nor heeds the ancestral hierar chies, Each rank dependent on the next above In orderly gradation fixed as fate. Bang by mere manhood, nor allowing aught Of holier unction than the sweat of toil; In his own strength sufficient; called to solve, On the rough edges of society, Problems long sacred to the choicer few, And improvise what elsewhere men re ceive As gifts of deity; tough foundling reared Where every man s his own Melchisedek, THE CATHEDRAL 357 How make him reverent of a King of kings ? Or Judge self-made, executor of laws By him not first discussed and voted on ? For him no tree of knowledge is forbid, Or sweeter if forbid. How save the ark, Or holy of holies, unprofaned a day From his unscrupulous curiosity That handles everything as if to buy, Tossing aside what fabrics delicate Suit not the rough - and - tumble of his ways ? What hope for those fine-nerved humani ties That made earth gracious once with gentler arts, Now the rude hands have caught the trick of thought And claim an equal suffrage with the brain ? The born disciple of an elder time, (To me sufficient, friendlier than the new,) Who in my blood feel motions of the Past, I thank benignant nature most for this, A force of sympathy, or call it lack Of character firm-planted, loosing me From the pent chamber of habitual self To dwell enlarged in alien modes of thought, Haply distasteful, wholesomer for that, And through imagination to possess, As they were mine, the lives of other men. This growth original of virgin soil, By fascination felt in opposites, Pleases and shocks, entices and perturbs. In this brown-fisted rough, this shirt-sleeved Cid, This backwoods Charlemagne of empires new, Whose blundering heel instinctively finds out The goutier foot of speechless dignities, Who, meeting Caesar s self, would slap his back, Call him " Old Horse," and challenge to a drink, My lungs draw braver air, my breast dilates With ampler manhood, and I front both worlds, Of sense and spirit, as my natural fiefs, To shape and then reshape them as I will. It was the first man s charter; why not mine ? How forfeit ? when deposed in other hands ? Thou shudder st, Ovid ? Dost in him fore bode A new avatar of the large-limbed Goth, To break, or seem to break, tradition s clue, And chase to dreamland back thy gods dethroned ? I think man s soul dwells nearer to the east, Nearer to morning s fountains than the sun; Herself the source whence all tradition sprang, Herself at once both labyrinth and clue. The miracle fades out of history, But faith and wonder and the primal earth Are born into the world with every child. Shall this self-maker with the prying eyes, This creature disenchanted of respect By the New World s new fiend, Publicity, Whose testing thumb leaves everywhere its smutch, Not one day feel within himself the need Of loyalty to better than himself, That shall ennoble him with the upward look? Shall he not catch the Voice that wanders earth, With spiritual summons, dreamed or heard, As sometimes, just ere sleep seals up the sense, We hear our mother call from deeps of Time, And, waking, find it vision, none the less The benediction bides, old skies return, And that unreal thing, preeminent, Makes air and dream of all we see and feel? Shall he divine no strength unmade of votes, Inward, impregnable, found soon as sought, Not cognizable of sense, o er sense su preme ? Else were he desolate as none before. His holy places may not be of stone, Nor made with hands, yet fairer far than aught By artist feigned or pious ardor reared, Fit altars for who guards inviolate God s chosen seat, the sacred form of man. Doubtless his church will be no hospital THE CATHEDRAL For superannuate forms and mumping shams, No parlor where men issue policies Of life-assurance on the Eternal Mind, Nor his religion but an ambulance To fetch life s wounded and malingerers in, Scorned by the strong; yet he, unconscious heir To the influence sweet of Athens and of Rome, And old Judaea s gift of secret fire, Spite of himself shall surely learn to know And worship some ideal of himself, Some divine thing, large-hearted, bro therly, Not nice in trifles, a soft creditor, Pleased with his world, and hating only cant. And, if his Church be doubtful, it is sure That, in a world, made for whatever else, Not made for mere enjoyment, in a world Of toil but half-requited, or, at best, Paid in some futile currency of breath, A world of incompleteness, sorrow swift And consolation laggard, whatsoe er The form of building or the creed pro fessed, The Cross, bold type of shame to homage turned, Of an unfinished life that sways the world, Shall tower as sovereign emblem over all. The kobold Thought moves with us when we shift Our dwelling to escape him ; perched aloft On the first load of household-stuff he went; 1 For, where the mind goes, goes old furni ture. I, who to Chartres came to feed my eye And give to Fancy one clear holiday, Scarce saw the minster for the thoughts it stirred Buzzing o er past and future with vain quest. Here once there stood a homely wooden church, Which slow devotion nobly changed for this That echoes vaguely to my modern steps. By suffrage universal it was built, As practised then, for all the country came From far as Rouen, to give votes for God, Each vote a block of stone securely laid Obedient to the master s deep-mused plan. Will what our ballots rear, responsible To no grave forethought, stand so long as this? Delight like this the eye of after days Brightening with pride that here, at least, were men Who meant and did the noblest thing they knew? Can our religion cope with deeds like this ? We, too, build Gothic contract-shams, be cause Our deacons have discovered that it pays, And pews sell better under vaulted roofs Of plaster painted like an Indian squaw. Shall not that Western Goth, of whom we spoke, So fiercely practical, so keen of eye, Find out, some day, that nothing pays but God, Served whether on the smoke-shut battle field, In work obscure done honestly, or vote For truth unpopular, or faith maintained To ruinous convictions, or good deeds Wrought for good s sake, mindless of heaven or hell ? Shall he not learn that all prosperity, Whose bases stretch not deeper than the sense, Is but a trick of this world s atmosphere, A desert-born mirage of spire and dome, Or find too late, the Past s long lesson missed, That dust the prophets shake from off their feet Grows heavy to drag down both tower and wall ? I know not; but, sustained by sure belief That man still rises level with the height Of noblest opportunities, or makes Such, if the time supply not, I can wait. I gaze round on the windows, pride of France, Each the bright gift of some mechanic guild Who loved their city and thought gold well spent To make her beautiful with piety; I pause, transfigured by some stripe of bloom, And my mind throngs with shining augur ies, Circle on circle, bright as seraphim, With golden trumpets, silent, that await The signal to blow news of good to men. THE CATHEDRAL 359 Then the revulsion came that always comes After these dizzy elations of the mind: And with a passionate pang of doubt I cried, " O mountain - born, sweet with snow- filtered air From uncontaminate wells of ether drawn And never-broken secrecies of sky, Freedom, with anguish won, misprized till lost, They keep thee not who from thy sacred eyes Catch the consuming lust of sensual good And the brute s license of unfettered will. Far from the popular shout and venal breath Of Cleon blowing the mob s baser mind To bubbles of wind-piloted conceit, Thou shrinkest, gathering up thy skirts, to hide In fortresses of solitary thought And private virtue strong in self-restraint. Must we too forfeit thee misunderstood, Content with names, nor inly wise to know That best things perish of their own ex cess, And quality o er-driven becomes defect ? Nay, is it thou indeed that we have glimpsed, Or rather such illusion as of old Through Athens glided menadlike and Rome, A shape of vapor, mother of vain dreams And mutinous traditions, specious plea Of the glaived tyrant and long-memoried priest ? " I walked forth saddened; for all thought is sad, And leaves a bitterish savor in the brain, Tonic, it may be, not delectable, And turned, reluctant, for a parting look At those old weather-pitted images Of bygone struggle, now so sternly calm. About their shoulders sparrows had built nests, And fluttered, chirping, from gray perch to perch, Now on a mitre poising, now a crown, Irreverently happy. While I thought How confident they were, what careless hearts Flew on those lightsome wings and shared the sun, A larger shadow crossed; and looking up, I saw where, nesting in the hoary towers, The sparrow-hawk slid forth on noiseless air, With sidelong head that watched the joy below, Grim Norman baron o er this clan of Kelts. Enduring Nature, force conservative, Indifferent to our noisy whims ! Men prate Of all heads to an equal grade cashiered On level with the dullest, and expect (Sick of no worse distemper than them selves) A wondrous cure-all in equality; They reason that To-morrow must be wise Because To-day was not, nor Yesterday, As if good days were shapen of themselves, Not of the very life blood of men s souls; Meanwhile, long-suffering, imperturbable, Thou quietly complet st thy syllogism, And from the premise sparrow here below Draw st sure conclusion of the hawk above, Pleased with the soft - billed songster, pleased no less With the fierce beak of natures aquiline. Thou beautiful Old Time, now hid away In the Past s valley of Avilion, Haply, like Arthur, till thy wound be healed, Then to reclaim the sword and crown again ! Thrice beautiful to us; perchance less fair To who possessed thee, as a mountain seems To dwellers round its bases but a heap Of barren obstacle that lairs the storm And the avalanche s silent bolt holds back Leashed with a hair, meanwhile some far-off clown, Hereditary delver of the plain, Sees it an unmoved vision of repose, Nest of the morning, and conjectures there The dance of streams to idle shepherds pipes, And fairer habitations softly hung On breezy slopes, or hid in valleys cool, For happier men. No mortal ever dreams That the scant isthmus he encamps upon Between two oceans, one, the Stormy, And one, the Peaceful, yet to venture on, Has been that future whereto prophets yearned For the fulfilment of Earth s cheated hope, 3 6 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS Shall be that past which nerveless poets moan As the lost opportunity of song. O Power, more near my life than life itself (Or what seems life to us in sense im mured), Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth, Share in the tree-top s joyance, and con ceive Of sunshine and wide air and winged things By sympathy of nature, so do I Have evidence of Thee so far above, Yet in and of me ! Rather Thou the root Invisibly sustaining, hid in light, Not darkness, or in darkness made by us. If sometimes I must hear good men debate Of other witness of Thyself than Thou, As if there needed any help of ours To nurse Thy flickering life, that else must cease, Blown out, as t were a candle, by men s breath, My soul shall not be taken in their snare, To change her inward surety for their doubt Muffled from sight in formal robes of proof: While she can only feel herself through Thee, I fear not Thy withdrawal; more I fear, Seeing, to know Thee not, hoodwinked with dreams Of signs and wonders, while, unnoticed, Thou, Walking Thy garden still, commun st with men, Missed in the commonplace of miracle. THREE MEMORIAL POEMS " Coscienza fusca O della propria o dell altrui vergogna Pur sentira latua parola brusca." If I let fall a word of bitter mirth When public shames more shameful pardon won, Some have misjudged me, and my service done, If small, yet faithful, deemed of little worth: Through veins that drew their life from Western earth Two hundred years and more my blood hath run In no polluted course from sire to son ; And thus was I predestined ere my birth To love the soil wherewith my fibres own Instinctive sympathies ; yet love it so As honor would, nor lightly to dethrone Judgment, the stamp of manhood, nor forego The son s right to a mother dearer grown With growing knowledge and more chaste than snow. To E. L. GODKIN, IN CORDIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS EMINENT SERVICE IN HEIGHTENING AND PURIFYING THE TONE OF OUR POLITICAL THOUGHT, ARE DEDICATED. V* Readers, it is hoped, will remember that, by his Ode at the Harvard Commemo ration, the author had precluded himself from many of the natural outlets of thought and feeling common to such occasions as are celebrated in these poems. ODE READ AT CONCORD 361 ODE READ AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNI VERSARY OF THE FIGHT AT CONCORD BRIDGE IQTH APRIL, 1875 In the letter to Mr. Thayer quoted in the note introducing the Commemoration Ode, Lowell wrote at some length regarding- the structure of his odes in general. He added : " The sentiment of the Concord Ode demanded a larger proportion of lyrical movements, of course, than the others. Harmony, without sacrifice of melody, was what I had mainly in view." He wrote to another friend that the ode was " an improvisation written in the two days before the celebration." WHO cometh over the hills, Her garments with morning sweet, The dance of a thousand rills Making music before her feet? Her presence freshens the air; Sunshine steals light from her face; The leaden footstep of Care Leaps to the tune of her pace, Fairness of all that is fair, Grace at the heart of all grace, Sweetener of hut and of hall, Bringer of life out of naught, Freedom, oh, fairest of all The daughters of Time and Thought! II She cometh, cometh to-day: Hark ! hear ye not her tread, Sending a thrill through your clay, Under the sod there, ye dead, Her nurslings and champions ? Do ye not hear, as she comes, The bay of the deep-mouthed guns, The gathering rote of the drums ? The bells that called ye to prayer, How wildly they clamor on her, Crying, " She cometh ! prepare Her to praise and her to honor, That a hundred years ago Scattered here in blood and tears Potent seeds wherefrom should grow Gladness for a hundred years ! " III Tell me, young men, have ye seen Creature of diviner mien For true hearts to long and cry for, Manly hearts to live and die for ? What hath she that others want ? Brows that all endearments haunt, Eyes that make it sweet to dare, Smiles that cheer untimely death, Looks that fortify despair, Tones more brave than trumpet s breath; Tell me, maidens, have ye known Household charm more sweetly rare, Grace of woman ampler blown, Modesty more debonair, Younger heart with wit full grown ? Oh for an hour of my prime, The pulse of my hotter years, That I might praise her in rhyme Would tingle your eyelids to tears, Our sweetness, our strength, and our star, Our hope, our joy, and our trust, Who lifted us out of the dust, And made us whatever we are ! IV Whiter than moonshine upon snow Her raiment is, but round the hem Crimson stained; and, as to and fro Her sandals flash, we see on them, And on her instep veined with blue, Flecks of crimson, on those fair feet, High-arched, Diana-like, and fleet, Fit for no grosser stain than dew: Oh, call them rather chrisms than stains, Sacred and from heroic veins ! For, in the glory-guarded pass, Her haughty and far-shining head She bowed to shrive Leonidas With his imperishable dead; Her, too, Morgarten saw, Where the Swiss lion fleshed his icy paw; She followed Cromwell s quenchless star Where the grim Puritan tread Shook Marston, Naseby, and Dunbar: Yea, on her feet are dearer dyes Yet fresh, nor looked on with untearful eyes. Our fathers found her in the woods Where Nature meditates and broods, The seeds of unexampled things 362 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS Which Time to consummation brings Through life and death and man s unstable moods; They met her here, not recognized, A sylvan huntress clothed in furs, To whose chaste wants her bow sufficed, Nor dreamed what destinies were hers: She taught them bee-like to create Their simpler forms of Church and State; She taught them to endue The past with other functions than it knew, And turn in channels strange the uncertain stream of Fate; Better than all, she fenced them in their need With iron-handed Duty s sternest creed, Gainst Self s lean wolf that ravens word and deed. VI Why cometh she hither to-day To this low village of the plain Far from the Present s loud highway, From Trade s cool heart and seething brain? Why cometh she ? She was not far away. Since the soul touched it, not in vain, With pathos of immortal gain, Tis here her fondest memories stay. She loves yon pine-bemurmured ridge Where now our broad-browed poet sleeps, Dear to both Englands ; near him he Who wore the ring of Canace; But most her heart to rapture leaps Where stood that era-parting bridge, O er which, with footfall still as dew, The Old Time passed into the New; Where, as your stealthy river creeps, He whispers to his listening weeds Tales of sublimest homespun deeds. Here English law and English thought Gainst the self-will of England fought; And here were men (coequal with their fate), Who did great things, unconscious they were great. They dreamed not what a die was cast With that first answering shot; what then ? There was their duty ; they were men Schooled the soul s inward gospel to obey, Though leading to the lion s den. They felt the habit-hallowed world give way Beneath their lives, and on went they, Unhappy who was last. When Buttrick gave the word, That awful idol of the unchallenged Past, Strong in their love, and in their lineage strong, Fell crashing: if they heard it not, Yet the earth heard, Nor ever hath forgot, As on from startled throne to throne, Where Superstition sate or conscious Wrong, A shudder ran of some dread birth un known. Thrice venerable spot ! River more fateful than the Rubicon ! O er those red planks, to snatch her diadem, Man s Hope, star-girdled, sprang with them, And over ways untried the feet of Doom strode on. VII Think you these felt no charms In their gray homesteads and embowered farms ? In household faces waiting at the door Their evening step should lighten up no more ? In fields their boyish feet had known ? In trees their fathers hands had set, And which with them had grown, Widening each year their leafy coronet ? Felt they no pang of passionate regret For those unsolid goods that seem so much our own ? These things are dear to every man that lives, And life prized more for what it lends than gives. Yea, many a tie, through iteration sweet, Strove to detain their fatal feet; And yet the enduring half they chose, Whose choice decides a man life s slave or king, The invisible things of God before the seen and known: Therefore their memory inspiration blows With echoes gathering on from zone to zone; For manhood is the one immortal thing Beneath Time s changeful sky, And, where it lightened once, from age to age, Men come to learn, in grateful pilgrimage, That length of days is knowing when to die. VIII What marvellous change of things and men ! She, a world- wandering orphan then, ODE READ AT CONCORD 363 So mighty now ! Those are her streams That whirl the myriad, myriad wheels Of all that does, and all that dreams, Of all that thinks, and all that feels, Through spaces stretched from sea to sea; By idle tongues and busy brains, By who doth right, and who refrains, Hers are our losses and our gains; Our maker and our victim she. IX Maiden half mortal, half divine, We triumphed in thy coming; to the brinks Our hearts were filled with pride s tumul tuous wine; Better to-day who rather feels than thinks. Yet will some graver thoughts intrude, And cares of sterner mood; They won thee : who shall keep thee ? From the deeps Where discrowned empires o er their ruins brood, And many a thwarted hope wrings its weak hands and weeps, I hear the voice as of a mighty wind From all heaven s caverns rushing uncon- fined, "I, Freedom, dwell with Knowledge: I abide With men whom dust of faction cannot blind To the slow tracings of the Eternal Mind; With men by culture trained and fortified, Who bitter duty to sweet lusts prefer, Fearless to counsel and obey. Conscience my sceptre is, and law my sword, Not to be drawn in passion or in play, But terrible to punish and deter; Implacable as God s word, Like it, a shepherd s crook to them that blindly err. Your firm-pulsed sires, my martyrs and my saints, Offshoots of that one stock whose patient sense Hath known to mingle flux with perma nence, Rated my chaste denials and restraints Above the moment s dear-paid paradise : Beware lest, shifting with Time s gradual creep, The light that guided shine into your eyes. The envious Powers of ill nor wink nor sleep: Be therefore timely wise, Nor laugh when this one steals, and that one lies, As if your luck could cheat those sleepless spies, Till the deaf Fury comes your house to sweep ! " I hear the voice, and unaff righted bow; Ye shall not be prophetic now, Heralds of ill, that darkening fly Between my vision and the rainbowed sky, Or on the left your hoarse forebodings croak From many a blasted bough On Yggdrasil s storm-sinewed oak, That once was green, Hope of the West, as thou: Yet pardon if I tremble while I boast; For I have loved as those who pardon most. Away, ungrateful doubt, away ! At least she is our own to-day. Break into rapture, my song, Verses, leap forth in the sun, Bearing the joyance along Like a train of fire as ye run ! Pause not for choosing of words, Let them but blossom and sing Blithe as the orchards and birds With the new coming of spring ! Dance in your jollity, bells; Shout, cannon; cease not, ye drums; Answer, ye hillside and dells; Bow, all ye people ! She comes, Radiant, calm-fronted, as when She hallowed that April day. Stay with us ! Yes, thou shalt stay, Softener and strengthener of men, Freedom, not won by the vain, Not to be courted in play, Not to be kept without pain. Stay with us ! Yes, thou wilt stay, Handmaid and mistress of all, Kindler of deed and of thought, Thou that to hut and to hall Equal deliverance brought ! Souls of her martyrs, draw near, Touch our dull lips with your fire, That we may praise without fear Her our delight, our desire, Our faith s inextinguishable star, Our hope, our remembrance, our trust, Our present, our past, our to be, Who will mingle her life with our dust And makes us deserve to be free ! 364 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS UNDER THE OLD ELM POEM READ AT CAMBRIDGE ON THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF WASH INGTON S TAKING COMMAND OF THE AMERICAN ARMY, $D JULY, 1775 Lowell was disposed to think this ode the best of these three memorial odes, " mainly be cause," he says, "it was composed after my college duties were over, though even in that I was distracted by the intervention of the Commencement dinner." Two days after de livering it, he wrote to a friend in another State : " We, too, here in my birthplace, hav ing found out that something happened here a hundred years ago, must have our centen nial ; and, since my friend and townsman Dr. Holmes could n t be had, I felt bound to do the poetry for the day. We have still stand ing the elm under which Washington took command of the American (till then provin cial) army, and under which also Whitefield had preached some thirty years before. I took advantage of the occasion to hold out a hand of kindly reconciliation to Virginia. I could do it with the profounder feeling, that no family lost more than mine by the civil war. Three nephews (the hope of our race) were killed in one or other of the Virginia battles, and three cousins on other of those bloody fields." Lowell afterward, when he was in Baltimore giving lectures at Johns Hopkins University, read a part of this poem in public. " I actually drew tears," he wrote, " from the eyes of bitter secessionists comparable with those iron ones that rattled down Pluto s cheek. I did n t quite like to read the invocation to Virginia here I was willing enough three or four hundred miles north but I think it did good." I I. WORDS pass as wind, but where great deeds were done A power abides transfused from sire to son: The boy feels deeper meanings thrill his ear, That tingling through his pulse life-long shall run, With sure impulsion to keep honor clear, When, pointing down, his father whispers, " Here, Here, where we stand, stood he, the purely Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, Then nameless, now a power and mixed with fate." Historic town, thou boldest sacred dust, Once known to men as pious, learned, just, And one memorial pile that dares to last; But Memory greets with reverential kiss No spot in all thy circuit sweet as this, Touched by that modest glory as it past, O er which yon elm hath piously displayed These hundred years its monumental shade. 2. Of our swift passage through this scenery Of life and death, more durable than we, What landmark so congenial as a tree Repeating its green legend every spring, And, with a yearly ring, Recording the fair seasons as they flee, Type of our brief but still-renewed mortal ity ? We fall as leaves : the immortal trunk re mains, Builded with costly juice of hearts and brains Gone to the mould now, whither all that be Vanish returnless, yet are procreant still In human lives to come of good or ill, And feed unseen the roots of Destiny. ii Men s monuments, grown old, forget their names They should eternize, but the place Where shining souls have passed imbibes a grace id me Beyond mere earth; some sweetness of their fames Leaves in the soil its unextinguished trace, Pungent, pathetic, sad with nobler aims, That penetrates our lives and heightens them or shames. This insubstantial world and fleet Seems solid for a moment when we stand On dust ennobled by heroic feet Once mighty to sustain a tottering land, And mighty still such burthen to upbear, Nor doomed to tread the path of things that merely were: Our sense, refined with virtue of the spot, Across the mists of Lethe s sleepy stream Recalls him, the sole chief without a blot, UNDER THE OLD ELM 365 No more a pallid image and a dream, But as he dwelt with men decorously su preme. 2. Our grosser minds need this terrestrial hint To raise long-buried days from tombs of print: " Here stood he," softly we repeat, And lo, the statue shrined and still In that gray minster-front we call the Past, Feels in its frozen veins our pulses thrill, Breathes living air and mocks at Death s deceit. It warms, it stirs, comes down to us at last, Its features human with familiar light, A man, beyond the historian s art to kill, Or sculptor s to efface with patient chisel- blight. Sure the dumb earth hath memory, nor for naught Was Fancy given, on whose enchanted loom Present and Past commingle, fruit and bloom Of one fair bough, inseparably wrought Into the seamless tapestry of thought. So charmed, with undeluded eye we see In history s fragmentary tale Bright clues of continuity, Learn that high natures over Time prevail, And feel ourselves a link in that entail That binds all ages past with all that are to be. Ill Beneath our consecrated elm A century ago he stood, Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood Whose red surge sought, but could not overwhelm The life foredoomed to wield our rough- hewn helm: From colleges, where now the gown To arms had yielded, from the town, Our rude self-summoned levies flocked to see The new-come chiefs and wonder which was he. No need to question long; close-lipped and tall, Long trained in murder-brooding forests lone To bridle others clamors and his own, Firmly erect, he towered above them all, The incarnate discipline that was to free With iron curb that armed democracy. A motley rout was that which came to stare, In raiment tanned by years of sun and storm, Of every shape that was not uniform, Dotted with regimentals here and there; An army all of captains, used to pray And stiff in fight, but serious drill s despair, Skilled to debate their orders, not obey; Deacons were there, selectmen, men of note In half-tamed hamlets ambushed round with woods, Ready to settle Freewill by a vote, But largely liberal to its private moods; Prompt to assert by manners, voice, or pen, Or ruder arms, their rights as Englishmen, Nor much fastidious as to how and when: Yet seasoned stuff and fittest to create A thought-staid army or a lasting state: Haughty they said he was, at first; severe; But owned, as all men own, the steady hand Upon the bridle, patient to command, Prized, as all prize, the justice pure from fear, And learned to honor first, then love him, then revere. Such power there is in clear-eyed self- restraint And purpose clean as light from every selfish taint. Musing beneath the legendary tree, The years between furl off: I seem to see The sun-flecks, shaken the stirred foliage through, Dapple with gold his sober buff and blue And weave prophetic aureoles round the head That shines our beacon now nor darkens with the dead. O man of silent mood, A stranger among strangers then, 3 66 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS How art thou since renowned the Great, the Good, Familiar as the day in all the homes of men ! The winged years, that winnow praise and blame, Blow many names out : they but fan to flame The self-renewing splendors of thy fame. IV How many subtlest influences unite, With spiritual touch of joy or pain, Invisible as air and soft as light, To body forth that image of the brain We call our Country, visionary shape, Loved more than woman, fuller of fire than wine, Whose charm can none define, Nor any, though he flee it, can escape ! All party-colored threads the weaver Time Sets in his web, now trivial, now sublime, All memories, all forebodings, hopes and fears, Mountain and river, forest, prairie, sea, A hill, a rock, a homestead, field, or tree, The casual gleanings of unreckoned years, Take goddess-shape at last and there is She, Old at our birth, new as the springing hours, Shrine of our weakness, fortress of our powers, Consoler, kindler, peerless mid her peers, A force that ueath our conscious being stirs, A life to give ours permanence, when we Are borne to mingle our poor earth with hers, And all this glowing world goes with us on our biers. 2. Nations are long results, by ruder ways Gathering the might that warrants length of days; They may be pieced of half - reluctant shares Welded by hammer - strokes of broad- brained kings, Or from a doughty people grow, the heirs Of wise traditions widening cautious rings; At best they are computable things, A strength behind us making us feel bold In right, or, as may chance, in wrong; Whose force by figures may be summed and told, So many soldiers, ships, and dollars strong, And we but drops that bear compulsory part In the dumb throb of a mechanic heart; But Country is a shape of each man s mind Sacred from definition, unconfined By the cramped walls where daily drudger ies grind; An inward vision, yet an outward birth Of sweet familiar heaven and earth; A brooding Presence that stirs motions blind Of wings within our embryo being s shell That wait but her completer spell To make us eagle-natured, fit to dare Life s nobler spaces and untarnished air. 3- You, who hold dear this self - conceived ideal, Whose faith and works alone can make it real, Bring all your fairest gifts to deck her shrine Who lifts our lives away from Thine and Mine And feeds the lamp of manhood more di vine With fragrant oils of quenchless constancy. When all have done their utmost, surely he Hath given the best who gives a character Erect and constant, which nor any shock Of loosened elements, nor the forceful sea Of flowing or of ebbing fates, can stir From its deep bases in the living rock Of ancient manhood s sweet security : And this he gave, serenely far from pride As baseness, boon with prosperous stars allied, Part of what nobler seed shall in our loins abide. No bond of men as common pride so strong, In names time-filtered for the lips of song, Still operant, with the primal Forces bound Whose currents, on their spiritual round, Transfuse our mortal will nor are gain said : UNDER THE OLD ELM 367 These are their arsenals, these the exhaust- less mines That give a constant heart in great de signs ; These are the stuff whereof such dreams are made As make heroic men : thus surely he Still holds in place the massy blocks he laid Neath our new frame, enforcing soberly The self-control that makes and keeps a people free. Oh, for a drop of that Cornelian ink Which gave Agricola dateless length of days, To celebrate him fitly, neither swerve To phrase unkempt, nor pass discretion s brink, With him so statue-like in sad reserve, So diffident to claim, so forward to de serve ! Nor need I shun due influence of his fame Who, mortal among mortals, seemed as now The equestrian shape with unimpassioned brow, That paces silent on through vistas of ac claim. What figure more immovably august Than that grave strength so patient and so pure, Calm in good fortune, when it wavered, sure, That mind serene, impenetrably just, Modelled on classic lines so simple they endure ? That soul so softly radiant and so white The track it left seems less of fire than light, Cold but to such as love distemperature ? And if pure light, as some deem, be the force That drives rejoicing planets on their course, Why for his power benign seek an impurer source ? His was the true enthusiasm that burns long, Domestically bright, Fed from itself and shy of human sight, The hidden force that makes a lifetime strong, And not the short-lived fuel of a song. Passionless, say you ? What is passion for But to sublime our natures and control To front heroic toils with late return, Or none, or such as shames the conqueror ? That fire was fed with substance of the soul And not with holiday stubble, that could burn, Unpraised of men who after bonfires run, Through seven slow years of unadvancing war, Equal when fields were lost or fields were won, With breath of popular applause or blame, Nor fanned nor damped, uiiquenchably the same, Too inward to be reached by flaws of idle fame. Soldier and statesman, rarest unison ; High-poised example of great duties done Simply as breathing, a world s honors worn As life s indifferent gifts to all men born; Dumb for himself, unless it were to God, But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent, Tramping the snow to coral where they trod, Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content; Modest, yet firm as Nature s self; un- blamed Save by the men his nobler temper shamed ; Never seduced through show of present good By other than unsetting lights to steer New -trimmed in Heaven, nor than his steadfast mood More steadfast, far from rashness as from fear; Rigid, but with himself first, grasping still In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will; Not honored then or now because he wooed The popular voice, but that he still with stood ; Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is but one Who was all this and ours, and all men s, WASHINGTON. 3 68 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS Minds strong by fits, irregularly great, That flash and darken like revolving lights, Catch more the vulgar eye unschooled to wait On the long curve of patient days and nights Rounding a whole life to the circle fair Of orbed fulfilment; and this balanced soul, So simple in its grandeur, coldly bare Of draperies theatric, standing there In perfect symmetry of self-control, Seems not so great at first, but greater grows Still as we look, and by experience learn How grand this quiet is, how nobly stern The discipline that wrought through life long throes That energetic passion of repose. A nature too decorous and severe, Too self-respectful in its griefs and joys, For ardent girls and boys Who find no genius in a mind so clear That its grave depths seem obvious and near, Nor a soul great that made so little noise. They feel no force in that calm-cadenced phrase, The habitual full-dress of his well-bred mind, That seems to pace the minuet s courtly maze And tell of ampler leisures, roomier length of days. His firm-based brain, to self so little kind That no tumultuary blood could blind, Formed to control men, not amaze, Looms not like those that borrow height of haze: It was a world of statelier movement then Than this we fret in, he a denizen Of that ideal Rome that made a man for men. VI I. The longer on this earth we live And weigh the various qualities of men, Seeing how most are fugitive, Or fitful gifts, at best, of now and then, Wind-wavered corpse-lights, daughters of the fen, The more we feel the high stern-featured beauty Of plain devotedness to duty, Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal praise, But finding amplest recompense For life s ungarlanded expense In work done squarely and unwasted days. For this we honor him, that he could know How sweet the service and how free Of her, God s eldest daughter here below, And choose in meanest raiment which was she. 2. Placid completeness, life without a fall From faith or highest aims, truth s breach- less wall, Surely if any fame can bear the touch, His will say " Here ! " at the last trumpet s call, The unexpressive man whose life expressed so much. VII Never to see a nation born Hath been given to mortal man, Unless to those who, on that summer morn, Gazed silent when the great Virginian Unsheathed the sword whose fatal flash Shot union through the incoherent clash Of our loose atoms, crystallizing them Around a single will s unpliant stem, And making purpose of emotion rash. Out of that scabbard sprang, as from its womb, Nebulous at first but hardening to a star, Through mutual share of sunburst and of gloom, The common faith that made us what we are. 2. That lifted blade transformed our jangling clans, Till then provincial, to Americans, And made a unity of wildering plans; Here was the doom fixed: here is marked the date When this New World awoke to man s estate, UNDER THE OLD ELM 369 Burnt its last ship and ceased to look be hind : Nor thoughtless was the choice; no love or hate Could from its poise move that deliberate mind, Weighing between too early and too late Those pitfalls of the man refused by Fate: His was the impartial vision of the great Who see not as they wish, but as they find. He saw the dangers of defeat, nor less The incomputable perils of success; The sacred past thrown by, an empty rind; The future, cloud-land, snare of prophets blind; The waste of war, the ignominy of peace; On either hand a sullen rear of woes, Whose garnered lightnings none could guess, Piling its thunder - heads and muttering "Cease!" Yet drew not back his hand, but gravely chose The seeming-desperate task whence our new nation rose. 3- A noble choice and of immortal seed ! Nor deem that acts heroic wait on chance Or easy were as in a boy s romance ; The man s whole life preludes the single deed That shall decide if his inheritance Be with the sifted few of matchless breed, Our race s sap and sustenance, Or with the unmotived herd that only sleep and feed. Choice seems a thing indifferent; thus or so, What matters it ? The Fates with mock ing face Look on inexorable, nor seem to know Where the lot lurks that gives life s fore most place. Yet Duty s leaden casket holds it still, And but two ways are offered to our will, Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe dis grace, The problem still for us and all of human race. He chose, as men choose, where most dan ger showed, Nor ever faltered neath the load Of petty cares, that gall great hearts the most, But kept right on the strenuous up-hill road, Strong to the end, above complaint or boast: The popular tempest on his rock-mailed coast Wasted its wind-borne spray, The noisy marvel of a day; His soul sate still in its uustormed abode. VIII Virginia gave us this imperial man Cast in the massive mould Of those high-statured ages old Which into grander forms our mortal metal ran; She gave us this unblemished gentleman: What shall we give her back but love and praise As in the dear old unestranged days Before the inevitable wrong began ? Mother of States and undiminished men, Thou gavest us a country, giving him, And we owe alway what we owed thee then: The boon thou wouldst have snatched from us agen Shines as before with no abatement dim. A great man s memory is the only thing With influence to outlast the present whim And bind us as when here he knit our golden ring. All of him that was subject to the hours Lies in thy soil and makes it part of ours: Across more recent graves, Where unresentful Nature waves Her pennons o er the shot-ploughed sod, Proclaiming the sweet Truce of God, We from this consecrated plain stretch out Our hands as free from afterthought or doubt As here the united North Poured her embrowned manhood forth In welcome of our savior and thy son. Through battle we have better learned thy worth, The long-breathed valor and undaunted will, Which, like his own, the day s disaster done, Could, safe in manhood, suffer and be still. Both thine and ours the victory hardly won; If ever with distempered voice or pen We have misdeemed thee, here we take it back, And for the dead of both don common black. Be to us evermore as thou wast then, 37 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS As we forget thou hast not always been, Mother of States and unpolluted men, Virginia, fitly named from England s manly queen! AN ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876 I ENTRANCED I saw a vision in the cloud That loitered dreaming in yon sunset sky, Full of fair shapes, half creatures of the eye, Half chance-evoked by the wind s fantasy In golden mist, an ever-shifting crowd: There, mid unreal forms that came and went In air-spun robes, of evanescent dye, A woman s semblance shone preeminent; Not armed like Pallas, not like Hera proud, But, as on household diligence intent, Beside her visionary wheel she bent Like Arete or Bertha, nor than they Less queenly in her port : about her knee Glad children clustered confident in play: Placid her pose, the calm of energy; And over her broad brow in many a round (That loosened would have gilt her gar ment s hem), Succinct, as toil prescribes, the hair was wound In lustrous coils, a natural diadem. The cloud changed shape, obsequious to the whim Of some transmuting influence felt in me, And, looking now, a wolf I seemed to see Limned in that vapor, gaunt and hunger- bold, Threatening her charge: resolve in every limb, Erect she flamed in mail of sun-wove gold, Penthesilea s self for battle dight; One arm uplifted braced a flickering spear, And one her adamantine shield made light; Her face, helm-shadowed, grew a thing to fear, And her fierce eyes, by danger challenged, took Her trident - sceptred mother s dauntless look. " I know thee now, O goddess-born ! " I cried, And turned with loftier brow and firmer stride; For in that spectral cloud-work I had seen Her image, bodied forth by love and pride, The fearless, the benign, the mother-eyed, The fairer world s toil-consecrated queen. What shape by exile dreamed elates the mind Like hers whose hand, a fortress of the poor, No blood in vengeance spilt, though lawful, stains ? Who never turned a suppliant from her door? Whose conquests are the gains of all man kind? To-day her thanks shall fly on every wind, Unstinted, unrebuked, from shore to shore, One love, one hope, and not a doubt behind ! Cannon to cannon shall repeat her praise, Banner to banner flap it forth in flame; Her children shall rise up to bless her name, And wish her harmless length of days, The mighty mother of a mighty brood, Blessed in all tongues and dear to every blood, The beautiful, the strong, and, best of all, the good. Seven years long was the bow Of battle bent, and the heightening Storm-heaps convulsed with the throe Of their uncontainable lightning; Seven years long heard the sea Crash of navies and wave-borne thunder; Then drifted the cloud-rack a-lee, And new stars were seen, a world s won- der; Each by her sisters made bright, All binding all to their stations, Cluster of manifold light Startling the old constellations: Men looked up and grew pale: Was it a comet or star, Omen of blessing or bale, Hung o er the ocean afar ? Stormy the day of her birth: Was she not born of the strong, She, the last ripeness of earth, ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876 371 Beautiful, prophesied long ? Stormy the days of her prime: Hers are the pulses that beat Higher for perils sublime, Making them fawn at her feet. Was she not born of the strong ? Was she not born of the wise ? Daring and counsel belong Of right to her confident eyes: Human and motherly they, Careless of station or race: Hearken ! her children to-day Shout for the joy of her face. No praises of the past are hers, No fanes by hallowing time caressed, No broken arch that ministers To Time s sad instinct in the breast: She has not gathered from the years Grandeur of tragedies and tears, Nor from long leisure the unrest That finds repose in forms of classic grace: These may delight the coming race Who haply shall not count it to our crime That we who fain would sing are here before our time. She also hath her monuments ; Not such as stand decrepitly resigned To ruin-mark the path of dead events That left no seed of better days behind, The tourist s pensioners that show their scars And maunder of forgotten wars ; She builds not on the ground, but in the mind, Her open-hearted palaces For larger-thoughted men with heaven and earth at ease : Her march the plump mow marks, the sleepless wheel, The golden sheaf, the self-swayed com monweal ; The happy homesteads hid in orchard trees Whose sacrificial smokes through peaceful air Rise lost in heaven, the household s silent prayer; What architect hath bettered these ? With softened eye the westward traveller sees A thousand miles of neighbors side by side, Holding by toil-won titles fresh from God The lands no serf or seigneur ever trod, With manhood latent in the very sod, Where the long billow of the wheatfield s tide Flows to the sky across the prairie wide, A sweeter vision than the castled Rhine, Kindly with thoughts of Ruth and Bible- days benign. 2. O ancient commonwealths, that we revere Haply because we could not know you near, Your deeds like statues down the aisles of Time Shine peerless in memorial calm sublime, And Athens is a trumpet still, and Rome; Yet which of your achievements is not foam Weighed with this one of hers (below you far In fame, and born beneath a milder star), That to Earth s orphans, far as curves the dome Of death-deaf sky, the bounteous West means home, With dear precedency of natural ties That stretch from roof to roof and make men gently wise ? And if the nobler passions wane, Distorted to base use, if the near goal Of insubstantial gain Tempt from the proper race-course of the soul That crowns their patient breath Whose feet, song-sandalled, are too fleet for Death, Yet may she claim one privilege urbane And haply first upon the civic roll, That none can breathe her air nor grow humane. Oh, better far the briefest hour Of Athens self-consumed, whose plastic power Hid Beauty safe from Death in words or stone ; Of Rome, fair quarry where those eagles crowd Whose fulgurous vans about the world had blown Triumphant storm and seeds of polity; Of Venice, fading o er her shipless sea, Last iridescence of a sunset cloud; 372 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS Than this inert prosperity, This bovine comfort in the sense alone ! Yet art came slowly even to such as those, Whom no past genius cheated of their own With prudence of o ermastering precedent; Petal by petal spreads the perfect rose, Secure of the divine event; And only children rend the bud half-blown To forestall Nature in her calm intent: Time hath a quiver full of purposes Which miss not of their aim, to us un known, And brings about the impossible with ease: Haply for us the ideal dawn shall break From where in legend-tinted line The peaks of Hellas drink the morning s wine, To tremble on our lids with mystic sign Till the drowsed ichor in our veins awake And set our pulse in tune with moods divine : Long the day lingered in its sea-fringed nest, Then touched the Tuscan hills with golden lance And paused; then on to Spain and France The splendor flew, and Albion s misty crest: Shall Ocean bar him from his destined West? Or are we, then, arrived too late, Doomed with the rest to grope disconsolate, Foreclosed of Beauty by our modern date ? ill Poets, as their heads grow gray, Look from too far behind the eyes, Too long-experienced to be wise In guileless youth s diviner way; Life sings not now, but prophesies; Time s shadows they no more behold, But, under them, the riddle old That mocks, bewilders, and defies: In childhood s face the seed of shame, In the green tree an ambushed flame, In Phosphor a vaunt-guard of Night, They, though against their will, divine, And dread the care-dispelling wine Stored from the Muse s vintage bright, By age imbued with second-sight. From Faith s own eyelids there peeps out, Even as they look, the leer of doubt; The festal wreath their fancy loads With care that whispers and forebodes: Nor this our triumph-day can blunt Me- gsera s goads. 2. Murmur of many voices in the air Denounces us degenerate, Unfaithful guardians of a noble fate, And prompts indifference or despair: Is this the country that we dreamed in youth, Where wisdom and not numbers should have weight, Seed-field of simpler manners, braver truth, Where shams should cease to dominate In household, church, and state ? Is this Atlantis ? This the unpoisoned soil, Sea-whelmed for ages and recovered late, Where parasitic greed no more should coil Round Freedom s stem to bend awry and blight What grew so fair, sole plant of love and light? Who sit where once in crowned seclusion sate The long-proved athletes of debate Trained from their youth, as none thinks needful now ? Is this debating club where boys dispute, And wrangle o er their stolen fruit, The Senate, erewhile cloister of the few, Where Clay once flashed and Webster s cloudy brow Brooded those bolts of thought that all the horizon knew ? Oh, as this pensive moonlight blurs my pines, Here while I sit and meditate these lines, To gray-green dreams of what they are by day, So would some light, not reason s sharp- edged ray, Trance me in moonshine as before the flight Of years had won me this unwelcome right To see things as they are, or shall be soon, In the frank prose of unassembling noon ! Back to my breast, ungrateful sigh ! Whoever fails, whoever errs, The penalty be ours, not hers ! The present still seems vulgar, seen too nigh; ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876 373 The goldeu age is still the age that s past: I ask no drowsy opiate To dull my vision of that only state Founded on faith in man, and therefore sure to last. For, O my country, touched by thee, The gray hairs gather back their gold; Thy thought sets all my pulses free ; The heart refuses to be old; The love is all that I can see. Not to thy natal-day belong Time s prudent doubt or age s wrong, But gifts of gratitude and song: Unsummoned crowd the thankful words, As sap in spring-time floods the tree, Foreboding the return of birds, For all that thou hast been to me ! IV Flawless his heart and tempered to the core Who, beckoned by the forward-leaning wave, First left behind him the firm-footed shore, And, urged by every nerve of sail and oar, Steered for the Unknown which gods to mortals gave, Of thought and action the mysterious door, Bugbear of fools, a summons to the brave : Strength found he in the unsympathizing sun, And strange stars from beneath the horizon won, And the dumb ocean pitilessly grave: High-hearted surely he; But bolder they who first off-cast Their moorings from the habitable Past And ventured chartless on the sea Of storm-engendering Liberty: For all earth s width of waters is a span, And their convulsed existence mere repose, Matched with the unstable heart of man, Shoreless in wants, mist - girt in all it knows, Open to every wind of sect or clan, And sudden-passionate in ebbs and flows. 2. They steered by stars the elder shipmen knew, And laid their courses where the currents draw Of ancient wisdom channelled deep in law, The undaunted few Who changed the Old World for the New, And more devoutly prized Than all perfection theorized The more imperfect that had roots and grew. They founded deep and well, Those danger-chosen chiefs of men Who still believed in Heaven and Hell, Nor hoped to find a spell, In some fine flourish of a pen, To make a better man Than long-considering Nature will or can, Secure against his own mistakes, Content with what life gives or takes, And acting still on some fore-ordered plan, A cog of iron in an iron wheel, Too nicely poised to think or feel, Dumb motor in a clock-like commonweal. They wasted not their brain in schemes Of what man might be in some bubble- sphere, As if he must be other than he seems Because he was not what he should be here, Postponing Time s slow proof to petulant dreams : Yet herein they were great Beyond the incredulous lawgivers of yore, And wiser than the wisdom of the shelf, That they conceived a deeper-rooted state, Of hardier growth, alive from rind to core, By making man sole sponsor of himself. God of our fathers, Thou who wast, Art, and shalt be when those eye-wise who flout Thy secret presence shall be lost In the great light that dazzles them to doubt, We, sprung from loins of stalwart men Whose strength was in their trust That Thou wouldst make thy dwelling in their dust And walk with those a fellow-citizen Who build a city of the just, We, who believe Life s bases rest Beyond the probe of chemic test, Still, like our fathers, feel Thee near, Sure that, while lasts the immutable de cree, The land to Human Nature dear Shall not be unbeloved of Thee. 374 HEARTSEASE AND RUE HEARTSEASE AND RUE THIS title was given to the volume of poems collected and published in 1888 after Lowell s return to private life. He took occasion to glean after his earlier harvest and preserved in it several poems written before the publi cation of Under the Willows. I. FRIENDSHIP AGASSIZ Come Dicesti egli ebbe f non viv egli aiicora ? Non Here gli occhi suoi lo dolce lome ? Lowell was in Florence when Agassiz died, and sent this poem home to Mr. Norton for publication. "His death," he says, "came home to me in a singular way, growing into my consciousness from day to day as if it were a graft new-set, that by degrees became part of my own wood and drew a greater share of my sap than belonged to it, as grafts sometimes will. I suppose that, unconsciouslv to myself, a great part of the ferment it pro duced in me was owing to the deaths of my sister Anna [Mrs. Charles R. Lowell], of Mrs. , whom I knew as a child in my early manhood, and of my cousin Amory, who was inextricably bound up with the primal associa tions of my life, associations which always have a singular sweetness for me. A very deep chord had been touched also at Florence by the sight of our old lodgings in the Casa Guidi, of the balcony Mabel used to run on, and the windows we used to look out at so long ago. I got sometimes into the mood I used to be in when I was always repeating to myself, King Panclion he is dead ; All thy friends are lapt in lead, verses which seem to me desolately pathetic. At last I began to hum over bits of my poem in my head till it took complete possession of me and worked me up to a delicious state of excitement, all the more delicious as my brain (or at any rate the musical part of it) had been lying dormant so long. My old trick of seeing things with my eyes shut after I had gone to bed (I mean whimsical things utterly alien to the train of my thoughts for ex ample, a hospital ward with a long row of white, untenanted beds, and on the farthest a pile of those little wooden dolls with red- painted slippers) revived in full force. Ner vous, horribly nervous, but happy for the first time (I mean consciously happy) since I came over here. And so by degrees my poem worked itself out. The parts came to me as I came awake, and I wrote them down in the morning. I had all my bricks but the mor tar would n t set, as the masons say. However, I got it into order at last. You will see there is a logical sequence if you look sharp. It was curious to me after it was done to see how fleshly it was. This impression of Ag assiz had wormed itself into my consciousness, and with out my knowing it had colored my whole poem. I could not help feeling how, if I had been writing of Emerson, for example, I should have been quite otherwise ideal. But there it is, and you can judge for yourself. I think there is some go in it somehow, but it is too near me yet to be judged fairly by me. It is old-fashioned, you see, but none the worse for that." The poem was dated February, 1874. I. THE electric nerve, whose instantaneous thrill Makes next-door gossips of the antipodes, Confutes poor Hope s last fallacy of ease, The distance that divided her from ill: Earth sentient seems again as when of old The horny foot of Pan Stamped, and the conscious horror ran Beneath men s feet through all her fibres- cold: Space s blue walls are mined; we feel the throe From underground of our night-mantled foe: The flame-winged feet Of Trade s new Mercury, that dry-shod run Through briny abysses dreamless of the sun, Are mercilessly fleet, And at a bound annihilate Ocean s prerogative of short reprieve; Surely ill news might wait, And man be patient of delay to grieve: Letters have sympathies And tell-tale faces that reveal, AGASSIZ 375 To senses finer than the eyes, Their errand s purport ere we break the seal; They wind a sorrow round with circum stance To stay its feet, nor all unwarned displace The veil that darkened from our sidelong glance The inexorable face : But now Fate stuns as with a mace; The savage of the skies, that men have caught And some scant use of language taught, Tells only what he must, The steel-cold fact in one laconic thrust. 2. So thought I, as, with vague, mechanic eyes, I scanned the festering news we half de spise Yet scramble for no less, And read of public scandal, private fraud, Crime flaunting scot-free while the mob applaud, Office made vile to bribe unworthiness, And all the unwholesome mess The Land of Honest Abraham serves of late To teach the Old World how to wait, When suddenly, As happens if the brain, from overweight Of blood, infect the eye, Three tiny words grew lurid as I read, And reeled commingling: Agassiz is dead. As when, beneath the street s familiar jar, An earthquake s alien omen rumbles far, Men listen and forebode, I hung my head, And strove the present to recall, As if the blow that stunned were yet to fall. 3- Uprooted is our mountain oak, That promised long security of shade And brooding-place for many a winged thought ; Not by Time s softly-cadenced stroke With pauses of relenting pity stayed, But ere a root seemed sapt, a bough de cayed, From sudden ambush by the whirlwind caught And in his broad maturity betrayed ! 4- Well might I, as of old, appeal to you, O mountains woods and streams, To help us mourn him, for ye loved him too; But simpler moods befit our modern themes, And no less perfect birth of nature can, Though they yearn tow rd him, sympathize with man, Save as dumb fellow-prisoners through a wall; Answer ye rather to my call, Strong poets of a more unconscious day, When Nature spake nor sought nice "rea sons why, Too much for softer arts forgotten since That teach our forthright tongue to lisp and mince, And drown in music the heart s bitter cry ! Lead me some steps in your director way, Teach me those words that strike a solid root Within the ears of men; Ye chiefly, virile both to think and feel, Deep-chested Chapman and firm-footed Ben, For he was masculine from head to heel. Nay, let himself stand undiminished by With those clear parts of him that will not die. Himself from out the recent dark I claim To hear, and, if I flatter him, to blame; To show himself, as still I seem to see, A mortal, built upon the antique plan, Brimful of lusty blood as ever ran, And taking life as simply as a tree ! To claim my foiled good-by let him ap pear, Large-limbed and human as I saw him near, Loosed from the stiffening uniform of fame : And let me treat him largely: I should fear, (If with too prying lens I chanced to err, Mistaking catalogue for character,) His wise forefinger raised in smiling blame. Nor would I scant him with judicial breath And turn mere critic in an epitaph; I choose the wheat, incurious of the chaff That swells fame living, chokes it after death, 376 HEARTSEASE AND RUE And would but memorize the shining half Of his large nature that was turned to me: Fain had I joined with those that honored him With eyes that darkened because his were dim, And now been silent: but it might not be. II In some the genius is a thing apart, A pillared hermit of the brain, Hoarding with incommunicable art Its intellectual gain; Man s web of circumstance and fate They from their perch of self observe, Indifferent as the figures on a slate Are to the planet s sun-swung curve Whose bright returns they calculate; Their nice adjustment, part to part, Were shaken from its serviceable mood By unpremeditated stirs of heart Or jar of human neighborhood: Some find their natural selves, and only then, In furloughs of divine escape from men, And when, by that brief ecstasy left bare, Driven by some instinct of desire, They wander world ward, t is to blink and stare, Like wild things of the wood about a fire, Dazed by the social glow they cannot share; His nature brooked no lonely lair, But basked and bourgeoned in copartnery, Companionship, and open-windowed glee: He knew, for he had tried, Those speculative heights that lure The unpractised foot, impatient of a guide, Tow rd ether too attenuately pure For sweet unconscious breath, though dear to pride, But better loved the foothold sure Of paths that wind by old abodes of men Who hope at last the churchyard s peace secure, And follow time-worn rules, that them suffice, Learned from their sires, traditionally wise, Careful of honest custom s how and when; His mind, too brave to look on Truth askance, No more those habitudes of faith could share, But, tinged with sweetness of the old Swiss manse, Lingered around them still and fain would spare. Patient to spy a sullen egg for weeks, The enigma of creation to surprise, His truer instinct sought the life that speaks Without a mystery from kindly eyes; In no self-spun cocoon of prudence wound, He by the touch of men was best inspired, And caught his native greatness at re bound From generosities itself had fired; Then how the heat through every fibre ran, Felt in the gathering presence of the man, While the apt word and gesture came un- bid! Virtues and faults it to one metal wrought, Fined all his blood to thought, And ran the molten man in all he said or did. All Tully s rules and all Quintilian s too He by the light of listening faces knew, And his rapt audience all unconscious lent Their own roused force to make him elo quent; Persuasion fondled in his look and tone; Our speech (with strangers prudish) he could bring To find new charm in accents not her own ; Her coy constraints and icy hindrances Melted upon his lips to natural ease, As a brook s fetters swell the dance of spring. Nor yet all sweetness: not in vain he wore, Nor in the sheath of ceremony, controlled By velvet courtesy or caution cold, That sword of honest anger prized of old, But, with two-handed wrath, If baseness or pretension crossed his path, Struck once nor needed to strike more. 2. His magic was not far to seek, He was so human ! Whether strong or weak, Far from his kind he neither sank nor soared, But sate an equal guest at every board: No beggar ever felt him condescend, No prince presume; for still himself he bare At manhood s simple level, and where er He met a stranger, there he left a friend. AGASSIZ 377 How large an aspect ! nobly unsevere, With freshness round him of Olympian cheer, Like visits of those earthly gods he came ; His look, wherever its good-fortune fell, Doubled the feast without a miracle, And on the hearthstone danced a happier flame; Philemon s crabbed vintage grew benign; Amphitryon s gold-juice humanized to wine. ill The garrulous memories Gather again from all their far-flown nooks, Singly at first, and then by twos and threes, Then in a throng innumerable, as the rooks Thicken their twilight files Tow rd Tintern s gray repose of roofless aisles : Once more I see him at the table s head When Saturday her monthly banquet spread To scholars, poets, wits, All choice, some famous, loving things, not names, And so without a twinge at others fames; Such company as wisest moods befits, Yet with no pedant blindness to the worth Of undeliberate mirth, Natures benignly mixed of air and earth, Now with the stars and now with equal zest Tracing the eccentric orbit of a jest. 2. I see in vision the warm-lighted hall, The living and the dead I see again, And but my chair is empty; mid them all T is I that seem the dead: they all remain Immortal, changeless creatures of the brain: Wellnigh I doubt which world is real most, Of sense or spirit, to the truly sane ; In this abstraction it were light to deem Myself the figment of some stronger dream ; They are the real things, and I the ghost That glide unhindered through the solid door, Vainly for recognition seek from chair to chair, And strive to speak and am but futile air, As truly most of us are little more. Him most I see whom we most dearly miss, The latest parted thence, His features poised in genial armistice And armed neutrality of self-defence Beneath the forehead s walled preeminence, While Tyro, plucking facts with careless reach, Settles off-hand our human how and whence ; The long-trained veteran scarcely wincing hears The infallible strategy of volunteers Making through Nature s walls its easy breach, And seems to learn where he alone could teach. Ample and ruddy, the board s end he fills As he our fireside were, our light and heat, Centre where minds diverse and various skills Find their warm nook and stretch unham pered feet; I see the firm benignity of face, Wide-smiling champaign, without tameness sweet, The mass Teutonic toned to Gallic grace, The eyes whose sunshine runs before the lips While Holmes s rockets curve their long ellipse, And burst in seeds of fire that hurst again To drop in scintillating rain. There too the face half-rustic, half-divine, Self-poised, sagacious, freaked with hu mor fine, Of him who taught us not to mow and mope About our fancied selves, but seek our scope In Nature s world and Man s, nor fade to hollow trope, Content with our New World and timely bold To challenge the o ermastery of the Old; Listening with eyes averse I see him sit Pricked with the cider of the Judge s wit (Ripe-hearted homebrew, fresh and fresh again), While the wise nose s firm-built aquiline Curves sharper to restrain The merriment whose most unruly moods 373 HEARTSEASE AND RUE Pass not the dumb laugh learned in listen ing woods Of silence-shedding pine: Hard by is he whose art s consoling spell Hath given both worlds a whiif of asphodel, His look still vernal mid the wintry ring Of petals that remember, not foretell, The paler primrose of a second spring. And more there are: but other forms arise And seen as clear, albeit with dimmer eyes: First he from sympathy still held apart By shrinking over-eagerness of heart, Cloud charged with searching fire, whose shadow s sweep Heightened mean things with sense of brooding ill, And steeped in doom familiar field and hill, New England s poet, soul reserved and deep, November nature with a name of May, Whom high o er Concord plains we laid to sleep, While the orchards mocked us in their white array And building robins wondered at our tears, Snatched in his prime, the shape august That should have stood unbent neath fourscore years, The noble head, the eyes of furtive trust, All gone to speechless dust. And he our passing guest, Shy nature, too, and stung with life s unrest, Whom we too briefly had but could not hold, Who brought ripe Oxford s culture to our board, The Past s incalculable hoard, Mellowed by scutcheoned panes in clois ters old, Seclusions ivy-hushed, and pavements sweet With immemorial lisp of musing feet; Young head time-tonsured smoother than a friar s, Boy face, but grave with answerless desires, Poet in all that poets have of best, But foiled with riddles dark and cloudy aims, Who now hath found sure rest, Not by still Isis or historic Thames, Nor by the Charles he tried to love with me, But, not misplaced, by Arno s hallowed brim, Nor scorned by Santa Croce s neighboring fames, Haply not mindless, wheresoe er he be, Of violets that to-day I scattered over him. He, too, is there, After the good centurion fitly named, Whom learning dulled not, nor convention tamed, Shaking with burly mirth his hyacinthine hair, Our hearty Grecian of Homeric ways, Still found the surer friend where least he hoped the praise. 6. Yea truly, as the sallowing years Fall from us faster, like frost-loosened leaves Pushed by the misty touch of shortening days, And that tmwakened winter nears, T is the void chair our surest guest receives, T is lips long cold that give the warmest kiss, T is the lost voice comes oftenest to our ears; We count our rosary by the beads we miss : To me, at least, it seemeth so, An exile in the land once found divine, While my starved fire burns low, And homeless winds at the loose casement whine Shrill ditties of the snow-roofed Apen- nine. IV Now forth into the darkness all are gone, But memory, still unsated, follows on, Retracing step by step our homeward walk, With many a laugh among our serious talk, Across the bridge where, on the dimpling tide, AGASSIZ 379 The long red streamers from the windows glide, Or the dim western moon Rocks her skiff s image on the broad lagoon, And Boston shows a soft Venetian side In that Arcadian light when roof and tree, Hard prose by daylight, dream in Italy; Or haply in the sky s cold chambers wide Shivered the winter stars, while all below, As if an end were come of human ill, The world was wrapt in innocence of snow And the cast-iron bay was blind and still; These were our poetry; in him perhaps Science had barred the gate that lets in dream, And he would rather count the perch and bream Than with the current s idle fancy lapse; And yet he had the poet s open eye That takes a frank delight in all it sees, Nor was earth voiceless, nor the mystic sky, To him the life-long friend of fields and trees: Then came the prose of the suburban street, Its silence deepened by our echoing feet, And converse such as rambling hazard finds ; Then he who many cities knew and many minds, And men once world - noised, now mere Ossian forms Of misty memory, bade them live anew As when they shared earth s manifold de light, In shape, in gait, in voice, in gesture true, And, with an accent heightening as he warms, Would stop forgetful of the shortening night, Drop my confining arm, and pour profuse Much worldly wisdom kept for others use, Not for his own, for he was rash and free, His purse or knowledge all men s, like the sea. Still can I hear his voice s shrilling might (With pauses broken, while the fitful spark He blew more hotly rounded on the dark To hint his features with a Rembrandt light) Call Oken back, or Humboldt, or Lamarck, Or Cuvier s taller shade, and many more Whom he had seen, or knew from others sight, And mnke them men to me as ne er before : Not seldom, as the undeadened fibre stirred Of noble friendships knit beyond the sea, German or French thrust by the lagging word, For a good leash of mother-tongues had he. At last, arrived at where our paths divide, " Good night ! " and, ere the distance grew too wide, "Good night!" again; and now with cheated ear I half hear his who mine shall never hear. 2. Sometimes it seemed as if New England air For his large lungs too parsimonious were, As if those empty rooms of dogma drear Where the ghost shivers of a faith austere Counting the horns o er of the Beast, Still scaring those whose faith in it is least, As if those snaps o th moral atmosphere That sharpen all the needles of the East, Had been to him like death, Accustomed to draw Europe s freer breath In a more stable element; Nay, even our landscape, half the year morose, Our practical horizon grimly pent, Our air, sincere of ceremonious haze, Forcing hard outlines mercilessly close, Our social monotone of level days, Might make our best seem banish ment; But it was nothing so; Haply his instinct might divine, Beneath our drift of puritanic snow, The marvel sensitive and fine Of sanguinaria over-rash to blow And trust its shyness to an air malign; Well might he prize truth s warranty and pledge In the grim outcrop of our granite edge, Or Hebrew fervor flashing forth at need In the gaunt sons of Calvin s iron breed, As prompt to give as skilled to win and keep; But, though such intuitions might not cheer, Yet life was good to him, and, there or here, With that sufficing joy, the day was never cheap; Thereto his mind was its own ample sphere, 3 8o HEARTSEASE AND RUE And, like those buildings great that through the year Carry one temperature, his nature large Made its own climate, nor could any marge Traced by convention stay him from his bent: He had a habitude of mountain air; He brought wide outlook where he went, And could on sunny uplands dwell Of prospect sweeter than the pastures fair High-hung of viny Neufchatel; Nor, surely, did he miss Some pale, imaginary bliss Of earlier sights whose inner landscape still was Swiss. I cannot think he wished so soon to die With all his senses full of eager heat, And rosy years that stood expectant by To buckle the winged sandals on their feet, He that was friends with Earth, and all her sweet Took with both hands unsparingly : Truly this life is precious to the root, And good the feel of grass beneath the foot; To lie in buttercups and clover-bloom, Tenants in common with the bees, And watch the white clouds drift through gulfs of trees, Is better than long waiting in the tomb; Only once more to feel the coming spring As the birds feel it, when it bids them sing, Only once more to see the moon Through leaf-fringed abbey-arches of the elms Curve her mild sickle in the West Sweet with the breath of hay-cocks, were a boon Worth any promise of soothsayer realms Or casual hope of being elsewhere blest; To take December by the beard And crush the creaking snow with springy foot, While overhead the North s dumb streamers shoot, Till Winter fawn upon the cheek en deared, Then the long evening-ends Lingered by cosy chimney-nooks, With high companionship of books Or slippered talk of friends And sweet habitual looks, Is better than to stop the ears with dust: Too soon the spectre comes to say, " Thou must ! " 2. When toil-crooked hands are crost upon the breast, They comfort us with sense of rest; They must be glad to lie forever still; Their work is ended with their day; Another fills their room; t is the World s ancient way, Whether for good or ill; But the deft spinners of the brain, Who love each added day and find it gain, Them overtakes the doom To snap the half-grown flower upon the loom (Trophy that was to be of life-long pain), The thread no other skill can ever knit again. T was so with him, for he was glad to live, T was doubly so, for he left work begun ; Could not this eagerness of Fate forgive Till all the allotted flax were spun ? It matters not ; for, go at night or noon, A friend, whene er he dies, has died too soon, And, once we hear the hopeless He is dead, So far as flesh hath knowledge, all is said. VI I seem to see the black procession go: That crawling prose of death too well I know, The vulgar paraphrase of glorious woe; I see it wind through that unsightly grove, Once beautiful, but long defaced With granite permanence of cockney taste And all those grim disfigurements we love : There, then, we leave him : Him ? such costly waste Nature rebels at : and it is not true TO HOLMES Of those most precious parts of him we knew: Could we be conscious but as dreamers be, T were sweet to leave this shifting life of tents Sunk in the changeless calm of Deity; Nay, to be mingled with the elements, The fellow-servant of creative powers, Partaker in the solemn year s events, To share the work of busy -fingered hours, To be night s silent almoner of dew, To rise again in plants and breathe and grow, To stream as tides the ocean caverns through, Or with the rapture of great winds to blow About earth s shaken coignes, were not a fate To leave us all-disconsolate; Even endless slumber in the sweetening sod Of charitable earth That takes out all our mortal stains, And makes us cleanlier neighbors of the clod, Methinks were better worth Than the poor fruit of most men s wake ful pains, The heart s insatiable ache: But such was not his faith, Nor mine : it may be he had trod Outside the plain old path of God thus spake, But God to him was very God, And not a visionary wraith Skulking in murky corners of the mind, And he was sure to be Somehow, somewhere, imperishable as He, Not with His essence mystically combined, As some high spirits long, but whole and free, A perfected and conscious Agassiz. And such I figure him : the wise of old Welcome and own him of their peaceful fold, Not truly with the guild enrolled Of him who seeking inward guessed Diviner riddles than the rest, And groping in the darks of thought Touched the Great Hand and knew it not; Rather he shares the daily light, From reason s charier fountains won, Of his great chief, the slow-paced Stagy- rite, And Cuvier clasps once more his long-lost son. 2. The shape erect is prone: forever stilled The winning tongue ; the forehead s high- piled heap, A cairn which every science helped to build, Unvalued will its golden secrets keep: He knows at last if Life or Death be best: Wherever he be flown, whatever vest The being hath put on which lately here So many-friended was, so full of cheer To make men feel the Seeker s noble zest, We have not lost him all ; he is not gone To the dumb herd of them that wholly die; The beauty of his better self lives on In minds he touched with fire, in many an eye He trained to Truth s exact severity; He was a Teacher : why be grieved for him Whose living word still stimulates the air ? In endless file shall loving scholars come The glow of his transmitted touch to share, And trace his features with an eye less dim Than ours whose sense familiar wont makes numb. TO HOLMES ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY DEAR Wendell, why need count the years Since first your genius made me thrill, If what moved then to smiles or tears, Or both contending, move me still ? What has the Calendar to do With poets? What Time s fruitless tooth With gay immortals such as you Whose years but emphasize your youth 1 One air gave both their lease of breath ; The same paths lured our boyish feet; One earth will hold us safe in death With dust of saints and scholars sweet. 382 HEARTSEASE AND RUE Our legends from one source were drawn, I scarce distinguish yours from mine, And don t we make the Gentiles yawn With " You remembers ? " o er our wine ! If I, with too senescent air, Invade your elder memory s pale, You snub me with a pitying " Where Were you iu the September Gale ? " Both stared entranced at Lafayette, Saw Jackson dubbed with LL. D. What Cambridge saw not strikes us yet As scarcely worth one s while to see. Ten years my senior, when my name In Harvard s entrance-book was writ, Her halls still echoed with the fame Of you, her poet and her wit. T is fifty years from then to now: But your Last Leaf renews its green, Though, for the laurels on your brow (So thick they crowd), t is hardly seen. The oriole s fledglings fifty times Have flown from our familiar elms; As many poets with their rhymes Oblivion s darkling dust o er whelms. The birds are hushed, the poets gone Where no harsh critic s lash can reach, And still your winged brood sing on To all who love our English speech. Nay, let the foolish records be That make believe you re seventy-five: You re the old Wendell still to me, And that s the youngest man alive. The gray-blue eyes, I see them still, The gallant front with brown o erhung, The shape alert, the wit at will, The phrase that stuck, but never stung. You keep your youth as yon Scotch firs, Whose gaunt line my horizon hems, Though twilight all the lowland blurs, Hold sunset in their ruddy stems. You with the elders ? Yes, t is true, But in no sadly literal sense, With elders and coevals too, Whose verb admits no preterite tense. Master alike in speech and song Of fame s great antiseptic Style, You with the classic few belong Who tempered wisdom with a smile. Outlive us all ! Who else like you Could sift the seedcorn from our chaff, And make us with the pen we knew Deathless at least in epitaph ? IN A COPY OF OMAR KHAYYAM THESE pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, Each softly lucent as a rounded moon; The diver Omar plucked them from their bed, Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread. Fit rosary for a queen, in shape and hue, When Contemplation tells her pensive beads Of mortal thoughts, forever old and new. Fit for a queen ? Why, surely then for you! The moral ? Where Doubt s eddies toss and twirl Faith s slender shallop till her footing reel, Plunge : if you find not peace beneath the whirl, Groping, you may like Omar grasp a pearl. ON RECEIVING A COPY OF MR. AUSTIN DOBSON S "OLD WORLD IDYLLS" AT length arrived, your book I take To read in for the author s sake; Too gray for new sensations grown, Can charm to Art or Nature known This torpor from my senses shake ? Hush ! my parched ears what runnels slake? Is a thrush gurgling from the brake ? Has Spring, on all the breezes blown, At length arrived ? Long may you live such songs to make, And I to listen while you wake. BANKSIDE 383 With skill of late disused, each tone Of the Lesboum barbiton, At mastery, through long finger-ache, At length arrived. II As I read on, what changes steal O er me and through, from head to heel ? A rapier thrusts coat-skirt aside, My rough Tweeds bloom to silken pride, Who was it laughed ? Your hand, Dick Steele ! Down vistas long of dipt charmille Watteau as Pierrot leads the reel; Tabor and pipe the dancers guide As I read on. While in and out the verses wheel The wind-caught robes trim feet reveal, Lithe ankles that to music glide, But chastely and by chance descried; Art ? Nature ? Which do I most feel As I read on ? TO C. F. BRADFORD ON THE GIFT OF A MEERSCHAUM PIPE THE pipe came safe, and welcome too, As anything must be from you; A meerschaum pure, t would float as light As she the girls call Amphitrite. Mixture divine of foam and clay, From both it stole the best away: Its foam is such as crowns the glow Of beakers brimmed by Veuve Clicquot; Its clay is but congested lymph Jove chose to make some choicer nymph; And here combined, why, this must be The birth of some enchanted sea, Shaped to immortal form, the type And very Venus of a pipe. When high I heap it with the weed From Lethe wharf, whose potent seed Nicotia, big from Bacchus, bore And cast upon Virginia s shore, I 11 think, So fill the fairer bowl And wise alembic of thy soul, With herbs far-sought that shall distil, Not fumes to slacken thought and will, But bracing essences that nerve To wait, to dare, to strive, to serve. When curls the smoke in eddies soft, And hangs a shifting dream aloft, That gives and takes, though chance-de signed, The impress of the dreamer s mind, I 11 think, So let the vapors bred By Passion, in the heart or head, Pass off and upward into space, Waving farewells of tenderest grace, Remembered in some happier time, To blend their beauty with my rhyme. While slowly o er its candid bowl The color deepens (as the soul That burns in mortals leaves its trace Of bale or beauty on the face), I 11 think, So let the essence rare Of years consuming make me fair; So, gainst the ills of life profuse, Steep me in some narcotic juice; And if my soul must part with all That whiteness which we greenness call, Smooth back, O Fortune, half thy frown, And make me beautifully brown ! Dream-forger, I refill thy cup With reverie s wasteful pittance up, And while the fire burns slow away, Hiding itself in ashes gray, I 11 think, As inward Youth retreats, Compelled to spare his wasting heats, When Life s Ash- Wednesday comes about, And my head s gray with fires burnt out, While stays one spark to light the eye, With the last flash of memory, T will leap to welcome C. F. B., Who sent my favorite pipe to me. BANKSIDE (HOME OF EDMUND QUINCY) DEDHAM, MAY 21, 1877 Edmund Quincy was eleven years the senior of Lowell, but their common labors in the early days of the anti-slavery movement, and their congeniality of temper and wit, made them very intimate friends. I CHRISTENED you in happier days, before These gray forebodings on my brow were seen; 384 HEARTSEASE AND RUE You are still lovely in your new-leaved green ; The brimming river soothes his grassy shore ; The bridge is there; the rock with lichens hoar; And the same shadows on the water lean, Outlasting us. How many graves between That day and this ! How many shadows more Darken my heart, their substance from these eyes Hidden forever ! So our world is made Of life and death commingled; and the sighs Outweigh the smiles, in equal balance laid: What compensation ? None, save that the A 11 wise So schools us to love things that cannot fade. II Thank God, he saw you last in pomp of May, Ere any leaf had felt the year s regret; Your latest image in his memory set Was fair as when your landscape s peaceful sway Charmed dearer eyes with his to make delay On Hope s long prospect, as if They for get The happy, They, the unspeakable Three, whose debt, Like the hawk s shadow, blots our brightest day: Better it is that ye should look so fair, Slopes that he loved, and ever-murmuring pines That make a music out of silent air, And bloom-heaped orchard-trees in pros perous lines; In you the heart some sweeter hints divines, And wiser, than in winter s dull despair. Ill Old Friend, farewell ! Your kindly door again I enter, but the master s hand in mine No more clasps welcome, and the temperate wine, That cheered our long nights, other lips must stain: All is unchanged, but I expect in vain The face alert, the manners free and fine, The seventy years borne lightly as the pine Wears its first down of snow in green dis dain : Much did he, and much well; yet most of all I prized his skill in leisure and the ease Of a life flowing full without a plan; For most are idly busy ; him I call Thrice fortunate who knew himself to please, Learned in those arts that make a gentle- IV Nor deem he lived unto himself alone; His was the public spirit of his sire, And in those eyes, soft with domestic fire, A quenchless light of fiercer temper shone What time about the world our shame was blown On every wind; his soul would not con spire With selfish men to soothe the mob s de sire, Veiling with garlands Moloch s bloody stone ; The high-bred instincts of a better day Ruled in his blood, when to be citizen Rang Roman yet, and a Free People s sway Was not the exchequer of impoverished men, Nor statesmanship with loaded votes to Nor public office a tramps boosing-ken. JOSEPH WINLOCK DIED JUNE II, 1875 Mr. Winlock was at the head of the Harvard Astronomical Observatory at the time of his death. SHY soul and stalwart, man of patient will Through years one hair s-breadth on our Dark to gain, Who, from the stars he studied not in vain, Had learned their secret to be strong and still, Careless of fames that earth s tin trum pets fill; Born under Leo, broad of build and brain, While others slept, he watched in that hushed fane Of Science, only witness of his skill: WITH AN ARMCHAIR Sudden as falls a shooting-star he fell, But inextinguishable his luminous trace In mind and heart of all that knew him well. Happy man s doom ! To him the Fates were known Of orbs dim hovering on the skirts of space, Unprescient, through God s mercy, of his own ! SONNET TO FANNY ALEXANDER The daughter of an American portrait painter who spent his life in Italy, and herself known through her sympathetic and delicate portraiture of Italian peasant life, especially in her Roadside Songs of Tuscany. The poem is dated at Florence in 1873. UNCONSCIOUS as the sunshine, simply sweet And generous as that, thou dost not close Thyself in art, as life were but a rose To rumple bee-like with luxurious feet; Thy higher mind therein finds sure retreat, But not from care of common hopes and woes; Thee the dark chamber, thee the unfriended, knows, Although no babbling crowds thy praise repeat: Consummate artist, who life s landscape bleak Hast brimmed with sun to many a clouded eye, Touched to a brighter hue the beggar s cheek, Hung over orphaned lives a gracious sky, And traced for eyes, that else would vainly seek, Fair pictures of an angel drawing nigh ! JEFFRIES WYMAN DIED SEPTEMBER 4, 1874 An associate of Lowell in Cambridge, and eminent as a man of science in the field of comparative anatomy. THE wisest man could ask no more of Fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, Safe from the Many, honored by the Few; To count as naught in World, or Church, or State, But inwardly in secret to be great; To feel mysterious Nature ever new; To touch, if not to grasp, her endless clue, And learn by each discovery how to wait. He widened knowledge and escaped the praise ; He wisely taught, because more wise to learn ; He toiled for Science, not to draw men s gaze, But for her lore of self-denial stern. That such a man could spring from our decays Fans the soul s nobler faith until it burn. TO A FRIEND WHO GAVE ME A GROUP OF WEEDS AND GRASSES, AFTER A DRAWING OF DURER TRUE as the sun s own work, but more refined, It tells of love behind the artist s eye, Of sweet companionships with earth and sky, And summers stored, the sunshine of the mind. What peace ! Sure, ere you breathe, the fickle wind Will break its truce and bend that grass- plume high, Scarcely yet quiet from the gilded fly That flits a more luxurious perch to find. Thanks for a pleasure that can never pall, A serene moment, deftly caught and kept To make immortal summer on my wall. Had he who drew such gladness ever wept? Ask rather could he else have seen at all, Or grown in Nature s mysteries an adept ? WITH AN ARMCHAIR ABOUT the oak that framed this chair, of old The seasons danced their round; delighted wings Brought music to its boughs; shy wood land things 3 86 HEARTSEASE AND RUE Shared its broad roof, neath whose green glooms grown bold, Lovers, more shy than they, their secret told; The resurrection of a thousand springs Swelled in its veins, and dim imaginings Teased them, perchance, of life more mani fold. Such shall it know when its proud arms enclose My Lady Goshawk, musing here at rest, Careless of him who into exile goes, Yet, while his gift by those fair limbs is prest, Through some fine sympathy of nature knows That, seas between us, she is still his guest. 2. Yet sometimes, let me dream, the con scious wood A momentary vision may renew Of him who counts it treasure that he knew, Though but in passing, such a priceless good, And, like an elder brother, felt his mood Uplifted by the spell that kept her true, Amid her lightsome compeers, to the few That wear the crown of serious woman hood: Were he so happy, think of him as one Who in the Louvre or Pifcti feels his soul Rapt by some dead face which, till then unseen. Moves like a memory, and, till life outrun, Is vexed with vague misgiving past con trol, Of nameless loss and thwarted might-have- been. E. G. DE R. WHY should I seek her spell to decompose Or to its source each rill of influence trace That feeds the brimming river of her grace ? The petals numbered but degrade to prose Summer s triumphant poem of the rose: Enough for me to watch the wavering chase, Like wind o er grass, of moods across her face, Fairest in motion, fairer in repose. Steeped in her sunshine, let me, while I may, Partake the bounty: ample t is for me That her mirth cheats my temples of their gray, Her charm makes years long spent seem yet to be. Wit, goodness, grace, swift flash from grave to gay, All these are good, but better far is she. BON VOYAGE SHIP, blest to bear such freight across the blue, May stormless stars control thy horoscope; In keel and hull, in every spar and rope, Be night and day to thy dear office true ! Ocean, men s path and their divider too, No fairer shrine of memory and hope To the underworld adown thy westering slope E er vanished, or whom such regrets pur sue: Smooth all thy surges as when Jove to Crete Swam with less costly burthen, and pre pare A pathway meet for her home-coming soon With golden undulations such as greet The printless summer-sandals of the moon And tempt the Nautilus his cruise to dare I TO WHITTIER ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY NEW ENGLAND S poet, rich in love as ^ years, Her hills and valleys praise thee, her swift brooks Dance in thy verse; to her grave sylvan nooks Thy steps allure us, which the wood-thrush hears As maids their lovers , and no treason fears ; Through thee her Merrimacs and Agio- chooks And many a name uncouth win gracious looks, Sweetly familiar to both Englands ears: ON PLANTING A TREE AT INVERARAY 3S7 Peaceful by birthright as a virgin lake, The lily s anchorage, which no eyes behold Save those of stars, yet for thy brother s That lay in bonds, thou blewst a blast as bold As that wherewith the heart of Roland brake, Far heard across the New World and the Old. ON AN AUTUMN SKETCH OF H. G. WILD THANKS to the artist, ever on my wall The sunset stays: that hill in glory rolled, Those trees and clouds in crimson and in gold, Burn on, nor cool when evening s shadows fall. Kot round these splendors Midnight wraps her pall; These leaves the flush of Autumn s vintage hold In Winter s spite, nor can the Northwind bold Deface my chapel s western window small: On one, ah me ! October struck his frost, But not repaid him with those Tyrian hues; His naked boughs but tell him what is lost, And parting comforts of the sun refuse: His heaven is bare, ah, were its hollow crost Even with a cloud whose light were yet to lose ! TO MISS D. T. ON HER GIVING ME A DRAWING OF LITTLE STREET ARABS Miss Dorothy Tennant afterward married Henry M. Stanley, the African explorer. As, cleansed of Tiber s and Oblivion s slime, Glow Fames ina s vaults with shapes again That dreamed some exiled artist from his pain Back to his Athens and the Muse s clime, So these world - orphaned waifs of Want and Crime, Purged by Art s absolution from the stain Of the polluting city-flood, regain Ideal grace secure from taint of time. An Attic frieze you give, a pictured song; For as with words the poet paints, for you The happy pencil at its labor sings, Stealing his privilege, nor does him wrong, Beneath the false discovering the true, And Beauty s best in unregarded things. WITH A COPY OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE LEAVES fit to have been poor Juliet s cradle-rhyme, With gladness of a heart long quenched in mould They vibrate still, a nest not yet grown cold From its fledged burthen. The numb hand of Time Vainly his glass turns; here is endless prime; Here lips their roses keep and locks their gold; Here Love in pristine innocency bold Speaks what our grosser conscience makes a crime. Because it tells the dream that all have known Once in their lives, and to life s end the few; Because its seeds o er Memory s desert blown Spring up in heartsease such as Eden knew; Because it hath a beauty all its own, Dear Friend, I plucked this herb of grace for you. ON PLANTING A TREE AT IN VERARAY WHO does his duty is a question Too complex to be solved by me, But he, I venture the suggestion, Does part of his that plants a tree. For after he is dead and buried, And epitaphed, and well forgot, Nay, even his shade by Charon ferried To let us not inquire to what, 3 88 HEARTSEASE AND RUE His deed, its author long outliving, By Nature s mother-care increased, Shall stand, his verdant almoner, giving A kindly dole to man and beast. The wayfarer, at noon reposing, Shall bless its shadow on the grass, Or sheep beneath it huddle, dozing Until the thundergust o erpass. The owl, belated in his plundering, Shall here await the friendly night, Blinking whene er he wakes, and wondering What fool it was invented light. Hither the busy birds shall flutter, With the light timber for their nests, And, pausing from their labor, utter The morning sunshine in their breasts. What though his memory shall have van ished, Since the good deed he did survives ? It is not wholly to be banished Thus to be part of many lives. Grow, then, my foster-child, and strengthen, Bough over bough, a murmurous pile, And, as your stately stem shall lengthen, So may the statelier of Argyll ! AN EPISTLE TO GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS " De prodome, Des qu il s atorne a grant bonte Ja n iert tot dit ne tot conte, Que leingue ne puet pas retraire Tant d enor com prodom set faire." CRESTIEN DE TROIES, Li Romans dou Chevalier au Lyon, 784-788. 1874 CURTIS, whose Wit, with Fancy arm in arm, Masks half its muscle in its skill to charm, And who so gently can the Wrong expose As sometimes to make converts, never foes, Or only such as good men must expect, Knaves sore with conscience of their own defect, I come with mild remonstrance. Ere I start, A kindlier errand interrupts my heart, And I must utter, though it vex your ears, The love, the honor, felt so many years. Curtis, skilled equally with voice and pen To stir the hearts or mould the minds of men, That voice whose music, for I ve heard you sing Sweet as Casella, can with passion ring, That pen whose rapid ease ne er trips with haste, Nor scrapes nor sputters, pointed with good taste, First Steele s, then Goldsmith s, next it came to you, Whom Thackeray rated best of all our crew, Had letters kept you, every wreath were yours; Had the World tempted, all its chariest doors Had swung on flattered hinges to admit Such high-bred manners, such good-natured wit; At courts, in senates, who so fit to serve ? And both invited, but you would not swerve, All meaner prizes waiving that you might In civic duty spend your heat and light, Unpaid, untrammelled, with a sweet disdain Refusing posts men grovel to attain. Good Man all own you; what is left me, then, To heighten praise with but Good Citizen ? But why this praise to make you blush and stare, And give a backache to your Easy-Chair? Old Crestien rightly says no language can Express the worth of a true Gentleman, And I agree; but other thoughts deride My first intent, and lure my pen aside. Thinking of you, I see my firelight glow On other faces, loved from long ago, Dear to us both, and all these loves com bine With this I send and crowd in every line; Fortune with me was in such generous mood That all my friends were yours, and all were good; Three generations come when one I call, And the fair grandame, youngest of them all, In her own Florida who found and sips The fount that fled from Ponce s longing lips. How bright they rise and wreathe my hearthstone round, AN EPISTLE TO GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 389 Divine my thoughts, reply without a sound, And with them many a shape that memory sees, As dear as they, but crowned with aureoles these ! What wonder if, with protest in my thought, Arrived, I find t was only love I brought ? I came with protest; Memory barred the road Till I repaid you half the debt I owed. No, t was not to bring laurels that I came, Nor would you wish it, daily seeing fame, (Or our cheap substitute, unknown of yore,) Dumped like a load of coal at every door, Mime and hetsera getting equal weight With him whose toils heroic saved the State. But praise can harm not who so calmly met Slander s worst word, nor treasured up the debt, Knowing, what all experience serves to show, No mud can soil us but the mud we throw. You have heard harsher voices and more loud, As all must, not sworn liegemen of the crowd, And far aloof your silent mind could keep As when, in heavens with winter-midnight deep, The perfect moon hangs thoughtful, nor can know What hounds her lucent calm drives mad below. But to my business, while you rub your eyes And wonder how you ever thought me wise. Dear friend and old, they say you shake your head And wish some bitter words of mine un said: I wish they might be, there we are agreed; I hate to speak, still more what makes the need; But I must utter what the voice within Dictates, for acquiescence dumb were sin; I blurt ungrateful truths, if so they be, That none may need to say them after me. T were my felicity could I attain The temperate zeal that balances your brain ; But nature still o erleaps reflection s plan, And one must do his service as he can. Think you it were not pleasanter to speak Smooth words that leave unflushed the brow and cheek ? To sit, well-dined, with cynic smile, unseen In private box, spectator of the scene Where men the comedy of life rehearse, Idly to judge which better and which worse Each hireling actor spoiled his worthless part? Were it not sweeter with a careless heart, In happy commune with the untainted brooks, To dream all day, or, walled with silent books, To hear nor heed the World s unmeaning noise, Safe in my fortress stored with lifelong joys? I love too well the pleasures of retreat Safe from the crowd and cloistered from the street; The fire that whispers its domestic joy. Flickering on walls that knew me still a boy, And knew my saintly father; the full days, Not careworn from the world s soul-squan dering ways, Calm days that loiter with snow -silent tread, Nor break my commune with the undying dead; Truants of Time, to-morrow like to-day, That come unbid, and claimless glide away By shelves that sun them in the indulgent Past, Where Spanish castles, even, were built to last, Where saint and sage their silent vigil keep, And wrong hath ceased or sung itself to sleep. Dear were my walks, too, gathering fra grant store Of Mother Nature s simple-minded lore: I learned all weather-signs of day or night; No bird but I could name him by his flight, No distant tree but by his shape was known, Or, near at hand, by leaf or bark alone. This learning won by loving looks I hived As sweeter lore than all from books derived. I know the charm of hillside, field, and wood, 39 HEARTSEASE AND RUE Of lake and stream, and the sky s downy brood, Of roads sequestered rimmed with sallow sod, But friends with hardhack, aster, golden- rod, Or succory keeping summer long its trust Of heaven-blue fleckless from the eddying dust: These were my earliest friends, and latest too, Still unestranged, whatever fate may do. For years I had these treasures, knew their worth, Estate most real man can have on earth. I sank too deep in this soft-stuffed repose That hears but rumors of earth s wrongs and woes; Too well these Capuas could my muscles waste, Not void of toils, but toils of choice and taste ; These still had kept me could I but have quelled The Puritan drop that in my veins rebelled. But there were times when silent were my books As jailers are, and gave me sullen looks, When verses palled, and even the woodland path, By innocent contrast, fed my heart with wrath, And I must twist my little gift of words Into a scourge of rough and knotted cords Unmusical, that whistle as they swing To leave on shameless backs their purple sting. How slow Time comes ! Gone, who so swift as he? Add but a year, t is half a century Since the slave s stifled moaning broke my sleep, Heard gainst my will in that seclusion deep, Haply heard louder for the silence there, And so my fancied safeguard made my snare. After that moan had sharpened to a cry, And a cloud, hand-broad then, heaped all our sky With its stored vengeance, and such thun ders stirred As heaven s and earth s remotest chambers heard, I looked to see an ampler atmosphere By that electric passion-gust blown clear. I looked for this ; consider what I see But I forbear, t would please nor you nor me To check the items in the bitter list Of all I counted on and all I mist. Only three instances I choose from all, And each enough to stir a pigeon s gall: Office a fund for ballot-brokers made To pay the drudges of their gainful trade; Our cities taught what conquered cities feel By aediles chosen that they might safely steal ; And gold, however got, a title fair To such respect as only gold can bear. I seem to see this; how shall I gainsay What all our journals tell me every day ? Poured our young martyrs their high hearted blood That we might trample to congenial mud The soil with such a legacy sublimed ? Methinks an angry scorn is here well- timed: Where find retreat ? How keep reproach at bay ? Where er I turn some scandal fouls the way. Dear friend, if any man I wished to please, T were surely you whose humor s honied ease Flows flecked with gold of thought, whose generous mind Sees Paradise regained by all mankind, Whose brave example still to vanward shines, Checks the retreat, and spurs our lagging lines. Was I too bitter ? Who his phrase can choose That sees the life-blood of his dearest ooze ? I loved my Country so as only they Who love a mother fit to die for may; I loved her old renown, her stainless fame, What better proof than that I loathed her shame ? That many blamed me could not irk me long, But, if you doubted, must I not be wrong ? T is not for me to answer: this I know, That man or race so prosperously low AN EPISTLE TO GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS Sunk in success that wrath they cannot feel, Shall taste the spurn of parting Fortune s heel; For never land long lease of empire won Whose sons sate silent when base deeds were done. POSTSCRIPT, 1887 Curtis, so wrote I thirteen years ago, Tost it unfinished by, and left it so ; Found lately, I have pieced it out, or tried, Since time for callid juncture was denied. Some of the verses pleased me, it is true, And still were pertinent, those honoring you. These now I offer : take them, if you will, Like the old hand-grasp, when at Shady Hill We met, or Staten Island, in the days When life was its own spur, nor needed praise. If once you thought me rash, no longer fear ; Past my next milestone waits my seven tieth year. I mount no longer when the trumpets call; My battle-harness idles on the wall, The spider s castle, camping - ground of dust, Not without dints, and all in front, I trust. Shivering sometimes it calls me as it hears Afar the charge s tramp and clash of spears ; But t is such murmur only as might be The sea-shell s lost tradition of the sea, That makes me muse and wonder Where ? and When ? While from my cliff I watch the waves of men That climb to break midway their seeming gain, And think it triumph if they shake their chain. Little I ask of Fate ; will she refuse Some days of reconcilement with the Muse? I take my reed again and blow it free Of dusty silence, murmuring, " Sing to me !" And, as its stops my curious touch retries, The stir of earlier instincts I surprise, Instincts, if less imperious, yet more strong, And happy in the toil that ends with song. Home am I come : not, as I hoped might be, To the old haunts, too full of ghosts for me, But to the olden dreams that time en dears, And the loved books that younger grow with years ; To country rambles, timing with my tread Some happier verse that carols in my head, Yet all with sense of something vainly mist, Of something lost, but when I never wist. How empty seems to me the populous street, One figure gone I daily loved to meet, The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below ! And, ah, what absence feel I at my side, Like Dante when he missed his laurelled guide, What sense of diminution in the air Once so inspiring, Emerson not there ! But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet Lessen like sound of friends departing feet, And Death is beautiful as feet of friend Coming with welcome at our journey s end; For me Fate gave, whate er she else de nied, A nature sloping to the southern side ; I thank her for it, though when clouds arise Such natures double-darken gloomy skies. I muse upon the margin of the sea, Our common pathway to the new To Be, Watching the sails, that lessen more and more, Of good and beautiful embarked before; With bits of wreck I patch the boat shall bear Me to that unexhausted Otherwhere, Whose friendly-peopled shore I sometimes see, By soft mirage uplifted, beckon me, Nor sadly hear, as lower sinks the sun, My "moorings to the past snap one by one. 39 2 HEARTSEASE AND RUE II. SENTIMENT ENDYMION A MYSTICAL COMMENT ON TITIAN S " SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE " MY day began not till the twilight fell, And, lo, in ether from heaven s sweetest well, The New Moon swam divinely isolate In maiden silence, she that makes my fate Haply not knowing it, or only so As I the secrets of my sheep may know ; Nor ask I more, entirely blest if she, In letting me adore, ennoble me To height of what the Gods meant mak ing man, As only she and her best beauty can. Mine be the love that in itself can find Seed of white thoughts, the lilies of the mind, Seed of that glad surrender of the will That finds in service self s true purpose still ; Love that in outward fairness sees the tent Pitched for an inmate far more excellent; Love with a light irradiate to the core, Lit at her lamp, but fed from inborn store ; Love thrice-requited with the single joy Of an immaculate vision naught could cloy, Dearer because, so high beyond my scope, My life grew rich with her, unbribed by hope < , y Of other guerdon save to think she knew One grateful votary paid her all her due; Happy if she, high-radiant there, resigned To his sure trust her image in his mind. O fairer even than Peace is when she comes Hushing War s tumult, and retreating drums ,-JL)R. Fade to a murmur like the sough of bees Hidden among the noon-stilled linden-trees, Bringer of quiet, thou that canst allay The dust and din and travail of the day, Strewer of Silence, Giver of the dew That doth our pastures and our souls re new, Still dwell remote, still on thy shoreless sea Float unattained in silent empery, Still light my thoughts, nor listen to a prayer Would make thee less imperishably fair ! Can, then, my twofold nature fmc^ content In vain conceits of airy blCh&islmTemV ? Ask I no more ? Since yesterday I task My storm-strewn thoughts to tell me what I ask: Faint premonitions of mutation strange Steal o er my perfect orb, and, with the change, Myself am changed; the shadow of my earth Darkens the disk of that celestial worth Which only yesterday could still suffice Upwards to waft my thoughts in sacrifice; My heightened fancy with its touches warm Moulds to a woman s that ideal form; Nor yet a woman s wholly, but divine With awe her purer essence bred in mine. Was it long brooding on their own surmise, Which, of the eyes engendered, fools the eyes, Or have I seen through that translucent air A Presence shaped in its seclusions bare, My Goddess looking on me from above As look our russet maidens when they love, But high-uplifted o er our human heat And passion-paths too rough for her pearl feet? Slowly the Shape took outline as I gazed At her full-orbed or crescent, till, bedazed With wonder-working light that subtly wrought My brain to its own substance, steeping thought In trances such as poppies give, I saw Things shut from vision by sight s sober >,-, , .law, AmorpTiOus, changeful, but defined at last Into the peerless Shape mine eyes hold fast. This, too, at first I worshipt: soon, like wine, Her eyes, in mine poured, frenzy-philtred mine; G**zr* t G*J~e Passion put Worship s priestly raiment on And to the woman knelt, the Goddess gone. Was I, then, more than mortal made ? or she ENDYMION 393 Less than divine that she might mate with me ? If mortal merely, could my nature cope With such o ermastery of maddening hope ? If Goddess, could she feel the blissful woe That women in their self-surrender know ? ill /Long she abode aloof there in her heaven, \FgJjJLJ he- grape^bunch of the_Plejadjse.ven Beyond my madness utmost leap; but here Mine eyes have feigned of late her rapture near, Moulded of mind-mist that broad day dis pels, Here in these shadowy woods and brook- lulled dells. $lJrtX) Of 6G& Have no heaven-habitants e er felt a void In hearts sublimed with ichor unalloyed ? E er longed to mingle with a mortal fate Intense with pathos of its briefer date ? Could she partake, and live, our human stains ? Even with the thought there tingles through my veins Sense of unwarned renewal; I, the dead, Receive and house again the ardor fled, i As once Alcestis ; to the ruddy brim ^ Feel mascTiline virtue flooding every limb, And life, like Spring returning, brings the key That sets my senses from their winter free, Dancing like naked fauns too glad for shame. Her passion, purified to palest flame, Can it thus kindle ? Is her purpose this ? I will not argue, lest I lose a bliss That makes me dream Tithonus^fortune mine, Or what of it was palpably divine "re came the fruitlessly immortal gift;) I cannot curb my hope s imperious drift That wings with fire my dull mortality; Though fancy-forged, t is all I feel or see. IV My Goddess sinks; round Latmos darken ing brow Trembles the parting of her presence now, Faint as the perfume left upon the grass By her limbs pressure or her feet that By me conjectured, but conjectured so As things I touch far fainter substance show. Was it mine eyes imposture I have seen Flit with the moonbeams on from shade to sheen Through the wood-openings ? Nay, I see her now Out of her heaven new-lighted, from her brow The hair breeze-scattered, like loose mists that blow Across her crescent, goldening as they go High-kirtled for the chase, and what was shown, JtPUMD*)S^ Of maiden rondure, like the rose half- blown. If dream, turn real ! If a vision, stay ! Take mortal shape, my philtre s spell obey ! If hags compel thee from thy secret sky Witli gruesome incantations, why not I, Whose only magic is that I distil A potion, blent of passion, thought, and will, Deeper in reach, in force of fate more rich, Than e er was juice wrung by Thessalian witch From moon-enchanted herbs, a potion brewed Of my best life in each diviner mood ? Myself the elixir am, myself the bowl Seething and mantling with my soul of soul. Taste and be humanized: what though the cup, With thy lips frenzied, shatter ? Drink it up ! If but these arms may clasp, o erquited so, My world, thy heaven, all life means I shall know. Sure she hath heard my prayer and granted half, As Gods do who at mortal madness laugh. Yet if life s solid things illusion seem, Why may not substance wear the mask of dream ? In sleep she comes; she visits me in dreams, And, as her image in a thousand streams, So in my veins, that her obey, she sees, Floating and flaming there, her images Bear to my little world s remotest zone Glad messages of her, and her alone. With silence-sandalled Sleep she comes to /. 394 HEARTSEASE AND RUE (But softer-footed, sweeter-browed, than she,) In motion gracious as a seagull s wing, And all her bright limbs, moving, seem to sing. Let me believe so, then, if so I may With the night s bounty feed my beggared day. In dreams I see her lay the goddess down With bow and quiver, and her cresceiit- crown Flicker and fade away to dull eclipse As down to mine she deigns her longed-for lips; And as her neck my happy arms enfold, Flooded and lustred with her loosened gold, She whispers words each sweeter than a kiss: Then, wakened with the shock of sudden bliss, My arms are empty, my awakener fled, And, silent in the silent sky o erhead, But coldly as on ice - plated snow, she gleams, Herself the mother and the child of dreams. Gone is the time when phantasms could appease My quest phantasmal and bring cheated ease; When, if she glorified my dreams, I felt Through all my limbs a change immortal melt At touch of hers illuminate with soul. Not lon could I be stilled with Fancy s >^ Too soon the mortal mixture in me caught Red fire from her celestial flame, and fought For tyrannous control in all my veins: My fool s prayer was accepted; what re mains ? pjfftislTOH Or was it some eidolon merely, sent By her who rules the shades in banishment, To mock me with her semblance ? Were it thus, How scape I shame, whose will was trai torous ? What shall compensate an ideal dimmed ? \ ^_H2w_J?lanch again my statue virgin-limbed, Soiled with the incense-smoke her chosen priest Poured more profusely as within decreased The fire unearthly, fed with coals from far Within the soul s shrine ? Could my fallen star Be set in heaven again by prayers and tears And quenchless sacrifice of all my years, How would the victim to the flame n leap, And life for life s redemption paid hold cheap ! But what resource when she herself de scends From her blue throne, and o er her vassal bends - --- That shape .thrice-deifie3jl by love, those . Wherein the Lethe of all others lies ? When my white queen of heaven s remote ness tires, Herself against her other self conspires, Takes woman s nature, walks in mortal ways, And finds in my remorse her beauty s praise ? Yet all would I renounce to dream again The dream in dreams fulfilled that made my pain, My noble pain that heightened all my years ^y^{^ Rrr\> /AJ HULI-TY With crowns to win and prowess-breeding tears ; Nay, would that dream renounce once more to see Her from her sky there looking down at me ! VII Goddess, reclimb thy heaven, and be once more An inaccessible splendor to adore, A faith, a hope of such transcendent worth As bred ennobling discontent with earth; Give back the longing, back the elated mood That, fed with thee, spurned every meaner good; Give even the spur of impotent despair That, without hope, still bade aspire and dare; Give back the need to worship, that still pours Down to the soul the virtue it adores ! Nay, brightest and most beautiful, deem naught These frantic words, the reckless wind of thought: THE BLACK PREACHER 395 Still stoop, still grant, I live but in thy will; Be what thou wilt, but be a woman still ! Vainly I cried, nor could myself believe That what I prayed for I would fain re ceive. My moon is set; my vision set with her; No more can worship vain my pulses stir. Goddess Triform, I own thy triple spell, My heaven s queen, queen, too, of my earth and hell ! THE BLACK PREACHER A BRETON LEGEND AT Carnac in Brittany, close on the bay, They show you a church, or rather the gray Ribs of a dead one, left there to bleach With the wreck lying near on the crest of the beach, Roofless and splintered with thunder-stone, Mid lichen-blurred gravestones all alone; T is the kind of ruin strange sights to see That may have their teaching for you and Something like this, then, my guide had to tell, Perched on a saint cracked across when lie fell; But since I might chance give his meaning a wrench, He talking his patois and I English-French, I 11 put what he told me, preserving the tone, In a rhymed prose that makes it half his, half my own. An abbey-church stood here, once on a time, Built as a death-bed atonement for crime: T was for somebody s sins, I know not whose ; But sinners are plenty, and you can choose. Though a cloister now of the dusk-winged bat, T was rich enough once, and the brothers grew fat, Looser in girdle and purpler in jowl, Singing good rest to the founder s lost soul. But one day came Northmen, and lithe tongues of fire Lapped up the chapter-house, licked off the spire, And left all a rubbish-heap, black and dreary, Where only the wind sings miserere. No priest has kneeled since at the altar s foot, Whose crannies are searched by the night shade s root, Nor sound of service is ever heard, Except from throat of the unclean bird, Hooting to unassoiled shapes as they pass in midnights unholy his witches mass, Or shouting " Ho ! ho ! " from the belfry high As the Devil s sabbath-train whirls by. But once a year, on the eve of All-Souls, Through these arches dishallowed the organ rolls, Fingers long fleshless the bell-ropes work, The chimes peal muffled with sea-mists mirk, The skeleton windows are traced anew On the baleful flicker of corpse-lights blue, And the ghosts must come, so the legend saith, To a preaching of Reverend Doctor Death. Abbots, monks, barons, and ladies fair Hear the dull summons and gather there: No rustle of silk now, no clink of mail, Nor ever a one greets his church-mate pale; No knight whispers love in the chatelaine s ear, His next-door neighbor this five-hundred year; No monk has a sleek benedicite For the great lord shadowy now as he; Nor needeth any to hold his breath, Lest he lose the least word of Doctor Death. He chooses his text in the Book Divine, Tenth verse of the Preacher in chapter nine : " < Whatsoever thy hand shall find thee to do, That do with thy whole might, or thoii shalt rue; For no man is wealthy, or wise, or brave, 39 6 HEARTSEASE AND RUE In that quencher of might-be s and would- be s, the grave. Bid by the Bridegroom, To-morrow, ye said, And To-morrow was digging a trench for your bed; Ye said, God can wait; let us finish our wine ; Ye had wearied Him, fools, and that last knock was mine ! " But I can t pretend to give you the ser mon, Or say if the tongue were French, Latin, or German; Whatever he preached in, I give you my word The meaning was easy to all that heard ; Famous preachers there have been and be, But never was one so convincing as he; So blunt was never a begging friar, No Jesuit s tongue so barbed with fire, Cameronian never, nor Methodist, Wrung gall out of Scripture with such a twist. And would you know who his hearers must be? I tell you just what my guide told me: Excellent teaching men have, day and night, From two earnest friars, a black and a white, The Dominican Death and the Carmelite Life; And between these two there is never strife, For each has his separate office and station, And each his own work in the congrega tion; Whoso to the white brother deafens his ears, And cannot be wrought on by blessings or tears, Awake in his coffin must wait and wait, In that blackness of darkness that means too late, And come once a year, when the ghost-bell tolls, As till Doomsday it shall on the eve of All-Souls, To hear Doctor Death, whose words smart with the brine Of the Preacher, the tenth verse of chap ter nine. ARCADIA REDIVIVA I, WALKING the familiar street, While a crammed horse -car jingled through it, Was lifted from my prosy feet And in Arcadia ere I knew it. Fresh sward for gravel soothed my tread, And shepherd s pipes my ear delighted; The riddle may be lightly read: I met two lovers newly plighted. They murmured by in happy care, New plans for paradise devising, Just as the moon, with pensive stare, O er Mistress Craigie s pines was rising. Astarte, known nigh threescore years, Me to no speechless rapture urges; Them in Elysium she enspheres, Queen, from of old, of thaumaturges. The railings put forth bud and bloom, The house-fronts all with myrtles twine them, And light-winged Loves in every room Make nests, and then with kisses line them. O sweetness of untasted life ! O dream, its own supreme fulfilment ! O hours with all illusion rife, As ere the heart divined what ill meant I " Et ego" sighed I to myself, And strove some vain regrets to bridle, " Though now laid dusty on the shelf, Was hero once of such an idyl ! " An idyl ever newly sweet, Although since Adam s day recited, Whose measures time them to Love s feet, Whose sense is every ill requited." Maiden, if I may counsel, drain Each drop of this enchanted season, For even our honeymoons must wane, Convicted of green cheese by Reason. And none will seem so safe from change, Nor in such skies benignant hover, As this, beneath whose witchery strange You tread on rose-leaves with your lover THE NEST 397 The glass unfilled all tastes can fit, As round its brim Conjecture dances; For not Mephisto s self hath wit To draw such vintages as Fancy s. When our pulse beats its minor key, When play-time halves and school-time doubles, Age fills the cup with serious tea, Which once Dame Clicquot starred with bubbles. " Fie, Mr. Gray beard ! Is this wise ? Is this the moral of a poet, Who, when the plant of Eden dies, Is privileged once more to sow it ? " That herb of clay-disdaining root, From stars secreting what it feeds on, Is burnt-out passion s slag and soot Fit soil to strew its dainty seeds on ? " Pray, why, if in Arcadia once, Need one so soon forget the way there ? Or why, once there, be such a dunce As not contentedly to stay there ? " Dear child, t was but a sorry jest, And from my heart I hate the cynic Who makes the Book of Life a nest For comments staler than rabbinic. If Love his simple spell but keep, Life with ideal eyes to flatter, The Grail itself were crockery cheap To Every-day s communion-platter. One Darby is to me well known, Who, as the hearth between them blazes, Sees the old moonlight shine on Joan, And float her youthward in its hazes. He rubs his spectacles, he stares, T is the same face that witched him early ! He gropes for his remaining hairs, Is this a fleece that feels so curly ? "Good heavens ! but now t was winter gray, And I of years had more than plenty; The almanac s a fool ! T is May ! Hang family Bibles ! I am twenty ! " Come, Joan, your arm ; we 11 walk the room The lane, I mean do you remember ? How confident the roses bloom, As if it ne er could be December I " Nor more it shall, while in your eyes My heart its summer heat recovers, And you, howe er your mirror lies, Find your old beauty in your lover s." THE NEST MAY WHEN oaken woods with buds are pink, And new-come birds each morning sing. When fickle May on Summer s brink Pauses, and knows not which to fling, Whether fresh bud and bloom again, Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain, Then from the honeysuckle gray The oriole with experienced quest Twitches the fibrous bark away, The cordage of his hammock-nest, Cheering his labor with a note Rich as the orange of his throat. High o er the loud and dusty road The soft gray cup in safety swings, To brim ere August with its load Of downy breasts and throbbing wings, O er which the friendly elm-tree heaves An emerald roof with sculptured eaves. Below, the noisy World drags by In the old way, because it must, The bride with heartbreak in her eye, The mourner following hated dust: Thy duty, winged flame of Spring, Is but to love, and fly, and sing. Oh, happy life, to soar and sway Above the life by mortals led, Singing the merry months away, Master, not slave of daily bread, And, when the Autumn comes, to flee Wherever sunshine beckons thee ! PALINODE DECEMBER Like some lorn abbey now, the wood Stands roofless in the bitter air; HEARTSEASE AND RUE In ruins on its floor is strewed The carven foliage quaint and rare, And homeless winds complain along The columned choir once thrilled with song. And thou, dear nest, whence joy and praise The thankful oriole used to pour, Swing st empty while the north winds chase Their snowy swarms from Labrador: But, loyal to the happy past, I love thee still for what thou wast. Ah, when the Summer graces flee From other nests more dear than thou, And, where June crowded once, I see Only bare trunk and disleaved bough; When springs of life that gleamed and gushed Run chilled, and slower, and are hushed ; When our own branches, naked long, The vacant nests of Spring betray, Nurseries of passion, love, and song That vanished as our year grew gray; When Life drones o er a tale twice told O er embers pleading with the cold, I 11 trust, that, like the birds of Spring, Our good goes not without repair, But only flies to soar and sing Far off in some diviner air, Where we shall find it in the calms Of that fair garden neath the palms. A YOUTHFUL EXPERIMENT IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS IMPRESSIONS OF HOMER SOMETIMES come pauses of calm, when the rapt bard, holding his heart back, Over his deep mind muses, as when o er awe-stricken ocean Poises a heapt cloud luridly, ripening the gale and the thunder; Slow rolls onward the verse with a long swell heaving and swinging, Seeming to wait till, gradually wid ning from far-off horizons, Piling the deeps up, heaping the glad- hearted surges before it, Gathers the thought as a strong wind darkening and cresting the tumult. Then every pause, every heave, each trough in the waves, has its meaning; Full-sailed, forth like a tall ship steadies the theme, and around it, Leaping beside it in glad strength, running in wild glee beyond it, Harmonies billow exulting and floating the soul where it lists them, Swaying the listener s fantasy hither and thither like driftweed. BIRTHDAY VERSES WRITTEN IN A CHILD S ALBUM T WAS sung of old in hut and hall How once a king in evil hour Hung musing o er his castle wall, And, lost in idle dreams, let fall Into the sea his ring of power. Then, let him sorrow as he might, And pledge his daughter and his throne To who restored the jewel bright, The broken spell would ne er unite; The grim old ocean held its own. Those awful powers on man that wait, Oil man, the beggar or the king, To hovel bare or hall of state A magic ring that masters fate With each succeeding birthday bring. Therein are set four jewels rare: Pearl winter, summer s ruby blaze, Spring s emerald, and, than all more fair, Fall s pensive opal, doomed to bear A heart of fire bedreamed with haze. To him the simple spell who knows The spirits of the ring to sway, Fresh power with every sunrise flows, And royal pursuivants are those That fly his mandates to obey. But he that with a slackened will Dreams of things past or things to be, From him the charm is slipping still, And drops, ere he suspect the ill, Into the inexorable sea. ESTRANGEMENT THE path from me to you that led, Untrodden long, with grass is grown, Mute carpet that his lieges spread DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE 399 Before the Prince Oblivion When he goes visiting the dead. And who are they but who forget ? You, who my corning could surmise Ere any hint of me as yet Warned other ears and other eyes, See the path blurred without regret. But when I trace its windings sweet With saddened steps, at every spot That feels the memory in my feet, Each grass-blade turns forge t-me-not, Where murmuring bees your name repeat. PHCEBE This poem was sent from London September 4, 1881, to Mr. Gilder for The Century. Its first form was in the main the same as this, but before the poem was published several changes and omissions were made. The inter esting evolution of the final form may be seen in detail in the Notes and Illustrations. ERE pales in Heaven the morning star, A bird, the loneliest of its kind, Hears Dawn s faint footfall from afar While all its mates are dumb and blind. It is a wee sad-colored thing, As shy and secret as a maid, That, ere in choir the robins sing, Pipes its own name like one afraid. It seems pain-prompted to repeat The story of some ancient ill, But Phoebe ! Phoebe ! sadly sweet Is all it says, and then is still. It calls and listens. Earth and sky, Hushed by the pathos of its fate, Listen : no whisper of reply Comes from its doom-dissevered mate. Phoebe ! it calls and calls again, And Ovid, could he but have heard, Had hung a legendary pain About the memory of the bird ; A pain articulate so long, In penance of some mouldered crime Whose ghost still flies the Furies thong Down the waste solitudes of time. Waif of the young World s wonder-hour, When gods found mortal maidens fair, And will malign was joined with power Love s kindly laws to overbear, Like Progne, did it feel the stress And coil of the prevailing words Close round its being, and compress Man s ampler nature to a bird s ? One only memory left of all The motley crowd of vanished scenes, Hers, and vain impulse to recall By repetition what it means. Phcebe I is all it has to say In plaintive cadence o er and o er, Like children that have lost their way, And know their names, but nothing more Is it a type, since Nature s Lyre Vibrates to every note in man, Of that insatiable desire, Meant to be so since life began ? I, in strange lands at gray of dawn, Wakeful, have heard that fruitless plaint Through Memory s chambers deep with drawn Renew its iterations faint. So nigh ! yet from remotest years It summons back its magic, rife With longings unappeased, and tears Drawn from the very source of life. DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE How was I worthy so divine a loss, Deepening my midnights, kindling all my morns ? Why waste such precious wood to make my cross, Such far-sought roses for my crown of thorns ? And when she came, how earned I such a gift? Why spend on me, a poor earth-delving mole, The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward lift, The hourly mercy, of a woman s soul ? 400 HEARTSEASE AND RUE Ah, did we know to give her all her right, What wonders even in our poor clay were done ! It is not Woman leaves us to our night, But our brute earth that grovels from her sun. Our nobler cultured fields and gracious domes We whirl too oft from her who still shines on To light in vain our caves and clefts, the homes Of night-bird instincts pained till she be gone. Still must this body starve our souls with shade ; But when Death makes us what we were before, Then shall her sunshine all our depths invade, And not a shadow stain heaven s crystal floor. THE RECALL COME back before the birds are flown, Before the leaves desert the tree, And, through the lonely alleys blown, Whisper their vain regrets to me Who drive before a blast more rude, The plaything of my gusty mood, In vain pursuing and pursued ! Nay, come although the boughs be bare, Though snowflakes fledge the summer s nest, And in some far Ausonian air The thrush, your minstrel, warm his breast. Come, sunshine s treasurer, and bring To doubting flowers their faith in spring, To birds and me the need to sing ! ABSENCE SLEEP is Death s image, poets tell us so ; But Absence is the bitter self of Death, And, you away, Life s lips their red forego, Parched in an air unfreshened by your breath. Light of those eyes that made the light of mine, Where shine you ? On what happier fields and flowers ? Heaven s lamps renew their lustre less divine, But only serve to count my darkened hours. If with your presence went your image too, That brain-born ghost my path would never cross Which meets me now where er I once met you, Then vanishes, to multiply my loss. MONNA LISA SHE gave me all that woman can, Nor her soul s nunnery forego, A confidence that man to man Without remorse can never show. Rare art, that can the sense refine Till not a pulse rebellious stirs, And, since she never can be mine, Makes it seem sweeter to be hers ! THE OPTIMIST TURBID from London s noise and smoke, Here I find air and quiet too: Air filtered through the beech and oak, Quiet by nothing harsher broke Than wood-dove s meditative coo. The Truce of God is here ; the breeze Sighs as men sigh relieved from care, Or tilts as lightly in the trees As might a robin: all is ease, With pledge of ampler ease to spare. Time, leaning on his scythe, forgets To turn the hour-glass in his hand, And all life s petty cares and frets, Its teasing hopes and weak regrets, Are still as that oblivious sand. Repose fills all the generous space Of undulant plain; the rook and crow Hush ; t is as if a silent grace, By Nature murmured, calmed the face Of Heaven above and Earth below. From past and future toils I rest, One Sabbath pacifies my year; THE PROTEST 401 I am the halcyon, this my nest; And all is safely for the best While the World s there and I am here. So I turn tory for the nonce, And think the radical a bore, Who cannot see, thick-witted dunce, That what was good for people once Must be as good forevermore. Sun, sink no deeper down the sky; Earth, never change this summer mood; Breeze, loiter thus forever by, Stir the dead leaf or let it lie; Since I am happy, all is good. ON BURNING SOME OLD LETTERS WITH what odorous woods and spices Spared for royal sacrifices, With what costly gums seld-seen, Hoarded to embalm a queen, With what frankincense and myrrh, Burn these precious parts of her, Full of life and light and sweetness As a summer day s completeness, Joy of sun and song of bird Running wild in every word, Full of all the superhuman Grace and winsomeness of woman? O er these leaves her wrist has slid, Thrilled with veins where fire is hid Neath the skin s pellucid veil, Like the opal s passion pale; This her breath has sweetened ; this Still seems trembling with the kiss She half-ventured on my name, Brow and cheek and throat aflame; Over all caressing lies Sunshine left there by her eyes; From them all an effluence rare With her nearness fills the air, Till the murmur I half -hear Of her light feet drawing near. Rarest woods were coarse and rough, Sweetest spice not sweet enough, Too impure all earthly fire For this sacred funeral-pyre; These rich relics must suffice For their own dear sacrifice. Seek we first an altar fit For such victims laid on it: It shall be this slab brought home In old happy days from Rome, Lazuli, once blest to line Dian s inmost cell and shrine. Gently now I lay them there, Pure as Dian s forehead bare, Yet suffused with warmer hue, Such as only Latmos knew. Fire I gather from the sun In a virgin lens : t is done ! Mount the flames, red, yellow, blue, As her moods were shining through, Of the moment s impulse born, Moods of sweetness, playful scorn, Half defiance, half surrender, More than cruel, more than tender, Flouts, caresses, sunshine, shade, Gracious doublings of a maid Infinite in guileless art, Playing hide-seek with her heart. On the altar now, alas, There they lie a crinkling mass, Writhing still, as if with grief Went the life from every leaf; Then (heart-breaking palimpsest !) Vanishing ere wholly guessed, Suddenly some lines flash back, Traced in lightning on the black, And confess, till now denied, All the fire they strove to hide. What they told me, sacred trust, Stays to glorify my dust, There to burn through dust and damp Like a mage s deathless lamp, While an atom of this frame Lasts to feed the dainty flame. All is ashes now, but they In my soul are laid away, And their radiance round me hovers Soft as moonlight over lovers, Shutting her and me alone In dream-Edens of our own; First of lovers to invent Love, and teach men what it meant. THE PROTEST I COULD not bear to see those eyes On all with wasteful largess shine, 402 HEARTSEASE AND RUE And that delight of welcome rise Like sunshine strained through amber wine, But that a glow from deeper skies, From conscious fountains more divine, Is (is it ?) mine. Be beautiful to all mankind, As Nature fashioned thee to be; T would anger me did all not find The sweet perfection that s in thee: Yet keep one charm of charms behind, Nay, thou rt so rich, keep two or three For (is it ?) me ! THE PETITION OH, tell me less or tell me more, Soft eyes with mystery at the core, That always seem to meet my own Frankly as pansies fully grown, Yet waver still tween no and yes ! So swift to cavil and deny, Then parley with concessions shy, Dear eyes, that make their youth be mine And through my inmost shadows shine, Oh, tell me more or tell me less ! FACT OR FANCY? IN town I hear, scarce wakened yet, My neighbor s clock behind the wall Record the day s increasing debt, And Cuckoo I Cuckoo ! faintly call. Our senses run in deepening grooves, Thrown out of which they lose their tact, And consciousness with effort moves From habit past to present fact. So, in the country waked to-day, I hear, unwitting of the change, A cuckoo s throb from far away Begin to strike, nor think it strange. The sound creates its wonted frame: My bed at home, the songster hid Behind the wainscoting, all came As long association bid. Then, half aroused, ere yet Sleep s mist From the mind s uplands furl away, To the familiar sound I list, Disputed for by Night and Day. 1 count to learn how late it is, Until, arrived at thirty-four, I question, " What strange world is this Whose lavish hours would make me poor ? " Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! Still on it went, With hints of mockery in its tone; How could such hoards of time be spent By one poor mortal s wit alone ? I have it ! Grant, ye kindly Powers, I from this spot may never stir, If only these uncounted hours May pass, and seem too short, with Her ! But who She is, her form and face, These to the world of dream belong; She moves through fancy s visioned space, Unbodied, like the cuckoo s song. AGRO-DOLCE ONE kiss from all others prevents me, And sets all my pulses astir, And burns on my lips and torments me: T is the kiss that I fain would give her. One kiss for all others requites me, Although it is never to be, And sweetens my dreams and invites me: T is the kiss that she dare not give me. Ah, could it be mine, it were sweeter Than honey bees garner in dream, Though its bliss on my lips were fleeter Than a swallow s dip to the stream. And yet, thus denied, it can never In the prose of life vanish away; O er my lips it must hover forever, The sunshine and shade of my day. THE BROKEN TRYST WALKING alone where we walked together, When June was breezy and blue, I watch in the gray autumnal weather The leaves fall inconstant as you. If a dead leaf startle behind me, I think t is your garment s hem, And, oh, where no memory could find me, Might I whirl away with them ! PAOLO TO FRANCESCA 403 CASA SIN ALMA RECUERDO DE MADRID SILENCIOSO por la puerta Voy de su casa desierta Do siempre feliz entrd, Y la encuentro en vano abierta Cual la boca de una muerta Despues que el alma se fue. A CHRISTMAS CAROL FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES The Church of the Disciples in Boston was under the ministration of the Reverend James Freeman Clarke. " WHAT means this glory round our feet," The Magi mused, " more bright than morn ? " And voices chanted clear and sweet, " To-day the Prince of Peace is born ! " " What means that star," the Shepherds said, " That brightens through the rocky glen?" And angels, answering overhead, Sang, "Peace on earth, good -will to men ! " T is eighteen hundred years and more Since those sweet oracles were dumb; We wait for Him, like them of yore ; Alas, He seems so slow to come ! But it was said, in words of gold No time or sorrow e er shall dim, That little children might be bold In perfect trust to come to Him. All round about our feet shall shine A light like that the wise men saw, If we our loving wills incline To that sweet Life which is the Law. So shall we learn to understand The simple faith of shepherds then, And, clasping kindly hand in hand, Sing, "Peace on earth, good -will to men ! " And they who do their souls no wrong, But keep at eve the faith of morn, Shall daily hear the angel-song, " To-day the Prince of Peace is born ! " MY PORTRAIT GALLERY OFT round my hall of portraiture I gaze, By Memory reared, the artist wise and holy, From stainless quarries of deep -buried days. There, as I muse in soothing melancholy, Your faces glow in more than mortal youth, Companions of my prime, now vanished wholly, The loud, impetuous boy, the low-voiced maiden, Now for the first time seen in flawless truth. Ah, never master that drew mortal breath Can match thy portraits, just and generous Death, Whose brush with sweet regretful tints is laden ! Thou paintest that which struggled here below Half understood, or understood for woe, And with a sweet forewarning Mak st round the sacred front an aureole glow Woven of that light that rose on Easter morning. PAOLO TO FRANCESCA I WAS with thee in Heaven: I cannot tell If years or moments, so the sudden bliss, When first we found, then lost, us in a kiss, Abolished Time, abolished Earth and Hell, Left only Heaven. Then from our blue there fell The dagger s flash, and did not fall amiss, For nothing now can rob my life of this, That once with thee in Heaven, all else is well. Us, undivided when man s vengeance came, God s half - forgives that doth not here divide; And, were this bitter whirl-blast fanged with flame, To me t were summer, we being side by side: This granted, I God s mercy will not blame, For, given thy nearness, nothing is denied. 404 HEARTSEASE AND RUE SONNET SCOTTISH BORDER The following 1 letter to Mr. Howells, then editor of The Atlantic Monthly, in which this sonnet was printed, is a little out of proportion as a head-note to a poem of fourteen lines, but it is too characteristic and too indicative of Lowell s extreme solicitude over his verse to be omitted. u There was one verse in the Border sonnet which, when I came to copy it, worried me with its lack of just what I wanted. Only one ? you will say. Yes, all ; but never mind this one most. Instead of Where the shy ballad could its leaves unfold read dared its blooms. I had liefer cup, but cup is already metaphoric when applied to flowers, and Bottom the Weaver would be sure to ask in one of the many journals he edits How unfold a cup ? Does he mean one of those pocket drinking-cups leathern inconveniences that always stick when you try to unfold em ? Damn Bottom ! We ought not to think of him, but then the Public is made up of him, and I wish him to know that I was thinking of a flower. Besides, the son net is, more than any other kind of verse, a deliberate composition, and susceptible of a high polish," as the dendrologists say of the woods of certain trees. Or shall we say grew in secret bold ? I write both on the opposite ^eaf, that you may choose one to paste over and not get the credit of tinkering my rhymes. dared its blooms grew in secret bold. Perhaps, after all, it is the buzzing of that b in blooms and bold, answering his brother b in ballads that fc-witched me, and merely chang ing could to dared is all that is wanted. The sentiment of this sonnet pleases me." As sinks the sun behind yon alien hills Whose heather-purpled slopes, in glory rolled, Flush all my thought with momentary gold, What pang of vague regret my fancy thrills ? Here t is enchanted ground the peasant tills, Where the shy ballad dared its blooms un fold, And memory s glamour makes new sights seem old, As when our life some vanished dream fulfils. Yet not to thee belong these painless tears, Land loved ere seen: before my darkened eyes, From far beyond the waters and the years, Horizons mute that wait their poet rise; The stream before me fades and disappears, And in the Charles the western splendor dies. SONNET ON BEING ASKED FOR AN AUTOGRAPH IN VENICE AMID these fragments of heroic days When thought met deed with mutual pas sion s leap, There sits a Fame whose silent trump makes cheap What short-lived rumor of ourselves we raise. They had far other estimate of praise Who stamped the signet of their souls so deep In art and action, and whose memories keep Their height like stars above our misty ways: In this grave presence to record my name Something within me hangs the head and shrinks. Dull were the soul without some joy in fame; Yet here to claim remembrance were, me- thinks, Like him who, in the desert s awful frame, Notches his cockney initials on the Sphinx. THE DANCING BEAR FAR over Elf-land poets stretch their sway, And win their dearest crowns beyond the goal Of their own conscious purpose ; they con trol With gossamer threads wide-flown our fancy s play, And so our action. On my walk to-day, A wallowing bear begged clumsily his toll, When straight a vision rose of Atta Troll, And scenes ideal witched mine eyes away. " Merci, Mossieu I " the astonished bear- ward cried, Grateful for thrice his hope to me, the PRISON OF CERVANTES 405 Of partial memory, seeing at his side A bear immortal. The glad dole I gave Was none of mine; poor Heine o er the wide Atlantic welter stretched it from his grave. THE MAPLE THE Maple puts her corals on in May, While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling, To be in tune with what the robins sing, Plastering new log-huts mid her branches gray; But when the Autumn southward turns away, Then in her veins burns most the blood of Spring, And every leaf, intensely blossoming, Makes the year s sunset pale the set of day. O Youth unprescient, were it only so With trees you plant, and in whose shade reclined, Thinking their drifting blooms Fate s cold est snow, You carve dear names upon the faithful rind, Nor in that vernal stem the cross fore know That Age shall bear, silent, yet uiire- signed ! NIGHTWATCHES WHILE the slow clock, as they were miser s gold, Counts and recounts the mornward steps of Time, The darkness thrills with conscience of each crime By Death committed, daily grown more bold. Once more the list of all my wrongs is told, And ghostly hands stretch to me from my prime Helpless farewells, as from an alien clime ; For each new loss redoubles all the old. This morn t was May; the blossoms were astir With southern wind; but now the boughs are bent With snow instead of birds, and all things freeze. How much of all my past is dumb with her, And of my future, too, for with her went Half of that world I ever cared to please ! DEATH OF QUEEN MERCEDES In a letter* to his daughter from Madrid, July 26, 1878, Lowell wrote of Queen Mer cedes: " Anything more tragic than the cir cumstances of her death it would be hard to imagine. She was actually receiving 1 extreme unction while the guns were firing 1 in honor of her eighteenth birthday, and four days later we saw her dragged to her dreary tomb at the Escorial, followed by the coach and its eight white horses in which she had driven in tri umph from the church to the palace on the day of her wedding 1 . The poor brutes tossed their snowy plumes as haughtily now as then. Her death is really a great public loss. She was amiable, intelligent, and simple not beautiful but <7oorf-looking and was already becoming popular." HERS all that Earth could promise or be stow, Youth, Beauty, Love, a crown, the beckon ing years, Lids never wet, unless with joyous tears, A life remote from every sordid woe, And by a nation s swelled to lordlier flow. What lurking-place, thought we, for doubts or fears, When, the day s swan, she swam along the cheers Of the Alcald, five happy months ago ? The guns were shouting lo Hymen then That, on her birthday, now denounce her doom; The same white steeds that tossed their scorn of men To-day as proudly drag her to the tomb. Grim jest of fate ! Yet who dare call it blind, Knowing what life is, what our human kind ? PRISON OF CERVANTES SEAT of all woes ? Though Nature s firm decree The narrowing soul with narrowing dun geon bind, 406 HEARTSEASE AND RUE Yet was his free of motion as the wind, And held both worlds, of spirit and sense, in fee. In charmed communion with his dual mind He wandered Spain, himself both knight and hind, Redressing wrongs he knew must ever be. His humor wise could see life s long de ceit, Man s baffled aims, nor therefore both de spise ; His knightly nature could ill fortune greet Like an old friend. Whose ever such kind That pierced so deep, such scope, save his whose feet By Avon ceased neath the same April s skies ? TO A LADY PLAYING ON THE CITHERN So dreamy-soft the notes, so far away They seem to fall, the horns of Oberon Blow their faint Hunt s-up from the good- time gone; Or, on a morning of long-withered May, Larks tinkle unseen o er Claudian arches That Rome ward crawl from Dreamland; and anon My fancy flings her cloak of Darkness on, To vanish from the dungeon of To-day. In happier times and scenes I seem to be, And, as her fingers flutter o er the strings, The days return when I was young as she, And my fledged thoughts began to feel their wings With all Heaven s blue before them: Memory Or Music is it such enchantment sings ? THE EYE S TREASURY GOLD of the reddening sunset, backward thrown In largess on my tall paternal trees, Thou with false hope or fear didst never tease His heart that hoards thee; nor is child hood flown From him whose life no fairer boon hath known Than that what pleased him earliest still should please: And who hath incomes safe from chance as these, Gone in a moment, yet for life his own ? All other gold is slave of earthward laws; This to the deeps of ether takes its flight, And on the topmost leaves makes glorious pause Of parting pathos ere it yield to night: So linger, as from me earth s light with draws, Dear touch of Nature, tremulously bright ! PESSIMOPTIMISM YE little think what toil it was to build A world of men imperfect even as this, Where we conceive of Good by what we miss, Of 111 by that wherewith best days are filled; A world whose every atom is self-willed, Whose corner-stone is propt on artifice, Whose joy is shorter-lived than woman s kiss, Whose wisdom hoarded is but to be spilled. Yet this is better than a life of caves, Whose highest art was scratching on a bone, Or chipping toilsome arrowheads of flint ; Better, though doomed to hear while Cleon raves, To see wit s want eterned in paint or stone, And wade the drain-drenched shoals of daily print. THE BRAKES WHAT countless years and wealth of brain were spent To bring us hither from our caves and huts, And trace through pathless wilds the deep- worn ruts Of faith and habit, by whose deep in dent Prudence may guide if genius be not lent, Genius, not always happy when it shuts Its ears against the plodder s ifs and buts, LOVE S CLOCK 407 Hoping in one rash leap to snatch the event. The coursers of the sun, whose hoofs of flame Consume morn s misty threshold, are exact As bankers clerks, and all this star-poised frame, One swerve allowed, were with convulsion rackt ; This world were doomed, should Dulness fail, to tame Wit s feathered heels in the stern stocks of fact. A FOREBODING WHAT were the whole void world, if thou wert dead, Whose briefest absence can eclipse my day, And make the hours that danced with Time away Drag their funereal steps with muffled head? Through thee, meseems, the very rose is red, From thee the violet steals its breath in May, From thee draw life all things that grow not gray, And by thy force the happy stars are sped. Thou near, the hope of thee to overflow Fills all my earth and heaven, as when in Spring, Ere April come, the birds and blossoms know, And grasses brighten round her feet to cling; Nay, and this hope delights all nature so That the dumb turf I tread on seems to sing. III. FANCY UNDER THE OCTOBER MAPLES WHAT mean these banners spread, These paths with royal red So gaily carpeted ? Comes there a prince to-day ? Such footing were too fine For feet less argentine Than Dian s own or thine, Queen whom my tides obey. Surely for thee are meant These hues so orient That with a sultan s tent Each tree invites the sun ; Our Earth such homage pays, So decks her dusty ways, And keeps such holidays, For one and only one. My brain shapes form and face, Throbs with the rhythmic grace And cadence of her pace To all fine instincts true ; Her footsteps, as they pass, Than moonbeams over grass Fall lighter, but, alas, More insubstantial too ! LOVE S CLOCK A PASTORAL DAPHNIS waiting " O DRYAD feet, Be doubly fleet, Timed to my heart s expectant beat While I await her ! * At four, vowed she ; T is scarcely three, Yet by my time it seems to be A good hour later ! " CHLOE " Bid me not stay ! Hear reason, pray ! T is striking six ! Sure never day Was short as this is ! " DAPHNIS " Reason nor rhyme Is in the chime ! It can t be five ; I ve scarce had time To beg two kisses ! " BOTH " Early or late, When lovers wait, And Love s watch gains, if Time a gait So snail-like chooses, Why should his feet Become more fleet Than cowards are, when lovers meet And Love s watch loses ? " 408 HEARTSEASE AND RUE ELEANOR MAKES MACAROONS LIGHT of triumph in her eyes, Eleanor her apron ties; As she pushes back her sleeves, High resolve her bosom heaves. Hasten, cook ! impel the fire To the pace of her desire; As you hope to save your soul, Bring a virgin casserole, Brightest bring of silver spoons, Eleanor makes macaroons ! Almond-blossoms, now adance In the smile of Southern France, Leave your sport with sun and breeze, Think of duty, not of ease ; Fashion, neath their jerkins brown, Kernels white as thistle-down, Tiny cheeses made with cream From the Galaxy s mid-stream, Blanched in light of honeymoons, Eleanor makes macaroons ! Now for sugar, nay, our plan Tolerates no work of man. Hurry, then, ye golden bees; Fetch your clearest honey, please, Garnered on a Yorkshire moor, While the last larks sing and soar, From the heather-blossoms sweet Where sea-breeze and sunshine meet, And the Augusts mask as Junes, Eleanor makes macaroons ! Next the pestle and mortar find, Pure rock-crystal, these to grind Into paste more smooth than silk, Whiter than the milkweed s milk: Spread it on a rose-leaf, thus, Gate to please Theocritus; Then the fire with spices swell, While, for her cornpleter spell, Mystic canticles she croons, Eleanor makes macaroons ! Perfect ! and all this to waste On a graybeard s palsied taste ! Poets so their verses write, Heap them full of life and light, And then fling them to the rude Mumbling of the multitude. Not so dire her fate as theirs, Since her friend this gift declares Choicest of his birthday boons, Eleanor s dear macaroons ! February 22, 1884. TELEPATHY " AND how could you dream of meet ing ? " Nay, how can you ask me, sweet ? All day my pulse had been beating The tune of your coming feet. And as nearer and ever nearer I felt the throb of your tread, To be in the world grew dearer, And my blood ran rosier red. Love called, and I could not linger, But sought the forbidden tryst, As music follows the finger Of the dreaming lutanist. And though you had said it and said it, " We must not be happy to-day," Was I not wiser to credit The fire in my feet than your Nay ? SCHERZO WHEN the down is on the chin And the gold-gleam in the hair, When the birds their sweethearts win And champagne is in the air, Love is here, and Love is there, Love is welcome everywhere. Summer s cheek too soon turns thin, Days grow briefer, sunshine rare; Autumn from his cannekin Blows the froth to chase Despair: Love is met with frosty stare, Cannot house neath branches bare. When new life is in the leaf And new red is in the rose, Though Love s Maytime be as brief As a dragon-fly s repose, Never moments come like those, Be they Heaven or Hell : who knows ? THE PREGNANT COMMENT 409 All too soon comes Winter s grief, Spendthrift Love s false friends turn foes; Softly comes Old Age, the thief, Steals the rapture, leaves the throes: Love his mantle round him throws, u Time to say Good-by; it snows." "FRANCISCUS DE VERULAMIO SIC COGITAVIT" THAT S a rather bold speech, my Lord Bacon, For, indeed, is t so easy to know Just how much we from others have taken, And how much our own natural flow ? Since your mind bubbled up at its foun tain, How many streams made it elate, While it calmed to the plain from the mountain, As every mind must that grows great ? While you thought t was You thinking as newly As Adam still wet with God s dew, You forgot in your self-pride that truly The whole Past was thinking through you. Greece, Rome, nay, your namesake, old Roger, With Truth s nameless delvers who wrought In the dark mines of Truth, helped to prod your Fine brain with the goad of their thought. As mummy was prized for a rich hue The painter no elsewhere could find, So t was buried men s thinking with which you Gave the ripe mellow tone to your mind. I heard the proud strawberry saying, " Only look what a ruby I ve made ! " It forgot how the bees in their maying Had brought it the stuff for its trade. And yet there s the half of a truth in it, And my Lord might his copyright sue; For a thought s his who kindles new youth in it, Or so puts it as makes it more true. The birds but repeat without ending The same old traditional notes, Which some, by more happily blending, Seem to make over new in their throats; And we men through our old bit of song run, Until one just improves on the rest, And we call a thing his, in the long run, Who utters it clearest and best. AUSPEX MY heart, I cannot still it, Nest that had song-birds in it; And when the last shall go, The dreary days, to fill it, Instead of lark or linnet, Shall whirl dead leaves and snow. Had they been swallows only, Without the passion stronger That skyward longs and sings, Woe s me, I shall be lonely When I can feel no longer The impatience of their wings 1 A moment, sweet delusion, Like birds the brown leaves hover; But it will not be long Before their wild confusion Fall wavering down to cover The poet and his song. THE PREGNANT COMMENT OPENING one day a book of mine, I absent, Hester found a line Praised with a pencil-mark, and this She left transfigured with a kiss. When next upon the page I chance, Like Poussin s nymphs my pulses dance, And whirl my fancy where it sees Pan piping neath Arcadian trees, Whose leaves no winter-scenes rehearse, Still young and glad as Homer s verse. " What mean," I ask, " these sudden joys ? This feeling fresher than a boy s ? What makes this line, familiar long, New as the first bird s April song ? I could, with sense illumined thus, Clear doubtful texts in ^Eschylus ! " 410 HEARTSEASE AND RUE Laughing, one day she gave the key, My riddle s open-sesame; Then added, with a smile demure, Whose downcast lids veiled triumph sure, " If what I left there give you pain, You you can take it off again ; T was for my poet, not for him, Your Doctor Donne there ! " Earth grew dim And wavered in a golden mist, As rose, not paper, leaves I kissed. Donne, you forgive ? I let you keep Her precious comment, poet deep. THE LESSON I SAT and watched the walls of night With cracks of sudden lightning glow, And listened while with clumsy might The thunder wallowed to and fro. The rain fell softly now; the squall, That to a torrent drove the trees, Had whirled beyond us to let fall Its tumult on the whitening seas. But still the lightning crinkled keen, Or fluttered fitful from behind The leaden drifts, then only seen, That rumbled eastward on the wind. Still as gloom followed after glare, While bated breath the pine-trees drew, Tiny Salmoneus of the air, His mimic bolts the firefly threw. He thought, no doubt, "Those flashes grand, That light for leagues the shuddering sky, Are made, a fool could understand, By some superior kind of fly. " He s of our race s elder branch, His family-arms the same as ours, Both born the twy-forked flame to launch, Of kindred, if unequal, powers." And is man wiser ? Man who takes His consciousness the law to be Of all beyond his ken, and makes God but a bigger kind of Me ? SCIENCE AND POETRY HE who first stretched his nerves of sub tile wire Over the laud and through the sea-depths still, Thought only of the flame-winged messen ger As a dull drudge that should encircle earth With sordid messages of Trade, and tame Blithe Ariel to a bagman. But the Muse Not long will be defrauded. From her foe Her misused wand she snatches; at a touch, The Age of Wonder is renewed again, And to our disenchanted day restores The Shoes of Swiftness that give odds to Thought, The Cloak that makes invisible; and with these I glide, an airy fire, from shore to shore, Or from my Cambridge whisper to Cathay. A NEW YEAR S GREETING THE century numbers fourscore years; You, fortressed in your teens, To Time s alarums close your ears, And, while he devastates your peers, Conceive not what he means. If e er life s winter fleck with snow Your hair s deep shadowed bowers, That winsome head an art would know To make it charm, and wear it so As t were a wreath of flowers. If to such fairies years must come, May yours fall soft and slow As, shaken by a bee s low hum, The rose-leaves waver, sweetly dumb, Down to their mates below ! THE DISCOVERY I WATCHED a moorland torrent run Down through the rift itself had made { Golden as honey in the sun, Of darkest amber in the shade. In this wild glen at last, methought, The magic s secret I surprise; Here Celia s guardian fairy caught The changeful splendors of her eyes FITZ ADAM S STORY 411 All else grows tame, the sky s one blue, The one long languish of the rose, But these, beyond prevision new, Shall charm and startle to the close. WITH A SEASHELL SHELL, whose lips, than mine more cold, Might with Dian s ear make bold, Seek my Lady s; if thou win To that portal, shut from sin, Where commissioned angels swords Startle back unholy words, Thou a miracle shalt see Wrought by it and wrought in thee ; Thou, the dumb one, shalt recover Speech of poet, speech of lover. If she deign to lift you there, Murmur what I may not dare; In that archway, pearly-pink As the Dawn s untrodden brink, Murmur, " Excellent and good, Beauty s best in every mood, Never common, never tame, Changeful fair as windwaved flame " Nay, I maunder; this she hears Every day with mocking ears, With a brow not sudden-stained With the flush of bliss restrained, With no tremor of the pulse More than feels the dreaming dulse In the midmost ocean s caves, When a tempest heaps the waves. Thou must woo her in a phrase Mystic as the opal s blaze, Which pure maids alone can see When their lovers constant be. I with thee a secret share, Half a hope, and half a prayer, Though no reach of mortal skill Ever told it all. or will; Say, " He bids me nothing more Tell you what you guessed before ! " THE SECRET I HAVE a fancy: how shall I bring it Home to all mortals wherever they be ? Say it or sing it ? Shoe it or wing it, So it may outrun or outfly ME, Merest cocoon-web whence it broke free ? Only one secret can save from disaster, Only one magic is that of the Master : Set it to music; give it a tune, Tune the brook sings you, tune the breeze brings you, Tune the wild columbines nod to in June ! This is the secret: so simple, you see ! Easy as loving, easy as kissing, Easy as well, let me ponder as miss ing* Known, since the world was, by scarce two or three. IV. HUMOR AND SATIRE FITZ ADAM S STORY [The greater part of this poem was written many years ago as part of a larger one, to be called The Nooning, made up of tales in verse, some of them grave, some comic. It gives me a sad pleasure to remember that I was en couraged in this project by my friend the late Arthur Hugh Clough.] Thus Lowell in the note which he prefixed to this poem when printing it in Heartsease and Rue. In his Letters are some more detailed references to the design of The Nooning. As far back as 1849, when issuing a new edition of his Poems, he wrote to Mr. Briggs : " My next volume, I think, will show an advance. It is to be called The Nooning. Now guesa what it will be. The name suggests pleas ant thoughts, does it not ? But I shall not tell you anything about it yet, and you must not mention it." A little later he wrote to the same correspondent : " Maria invented the title for me, and is it not a pleasant one ? My plan is this. I am going to bring together a party of half a dozen old friends at Elmwood. They go down to the river and bathe, and then one proposes that they shall go up into a great willow-tree (which stands at the end of the causey near our house, and has seats in it) to take their nooning. There they agree that each shall tell a story or recite a poem of some sort. In the tree they find a countryman already resting himself, who enters into the plan and tells a humorous tale, with touches of Yankee character and habits in it. / am to read my poem of the Voyage of Leif to Vinland, in which I mean to bring my hero straight into Boston Bay, as befits a Bay-state poet. Two of my poems are already written one The Fountain of Youth (no connection with any other firm), and the other an Address to the Muse, by the Transcendentalist of the party. ... In The Nooning I shall have not 412 HEARTSEASE AND RUE even a glance towards Reform." Apparently Lowell regarded the book as imminent, but the death of his daughter Kose early in 1850 and the subsequent journey to Europe seem to have deferred the execution of his plans, and the book, as we know, never had a whole, though there were several fragments of it pub lished. He held tenaciously, however, to his plan. In June, 1853, he wrote again to Mr. Briggs : " I have The Nooning to finish which shall turn out well ; " and thirteen years later he wrote to Mr. Norton : " I have been work ing hard, and if my liver will let me alone, as it does now, am likely to go on all winter. And on what, do you suppose ? I have taken up one of the unfinished tales of The Nooning, and it grew to a poem of near seven hundred lines ! [plainly this poem of Fitz Adam s Story]. It is mainly descriptive. First, a sketch of the narrator, then his prelude, then his tale. I describe an old inn and its landlord, bar-room, etc. It is very homely, but right from nature. I have lent it to Child and hope he will like it, for if he does n t I shall feel discouraged. It was very interest ing to take up a thread dropt so long ago, and curious as a phenomenon of memory to find how continuous it had remained in my mind, and how I could go on as if I had let it fall only yesterday." A scheme so long persisted in and returned to so often could scarcely be wholly unknown, and in a letter to Professor James B. Thayer written in December, 1868, we find Lowell answering a query he had put : " And The Nooning. Sure enough, where is it ? The June Idyl [renamed Under the Willows] (writ ten in 51 or 52) is a part of what I had writ ten as the induction to it. The description of spring in one of the Biglow Papers is another fragment of the same, tagged with rhyme for the nonce. So is a passage in Mason and Slidell beginning Oh, strange new world. The Voyage to Vinland, the Pictures from Appledore, and Fitz Adam s Story were written for The Nooning, as originally planned. So, you see, I had made some progress. Perhaps it will come by and by not in the shape I meant at first, for something broke my life in two, and I cannot piece it together again. Be sides, the Muse asks all of a man, and for many years I have been unable to give myself up as I would." Fragments of an Unfinished Poem, p. 158, is another bit of flotsam from The Nooning. THE next whose fortune t was a tale to tell Was one whom men, before they thought, loved well, And after thinking wondered why they did, For half he seemed to let them, half for bid, And wrapped him so in humors, sheath on sheath, T was hard to guess the mellow soul be neath; But, once divined, you took him to your heart, While he appeared to bear with you as part Of life s impertinence, and once a year Betrayed his true self by a smile or tear, Or rather something sweetly-shy and loath, Withdrawn ere fully shown, and mixed of both. A cynic ? Not precisely : one who thrust Against a heart too prone to love and trust, Who so despised false sentiment he knew Scarce in himself to part the false and true, And strove to hide, by roughening-o er the skin, Those cobweb nerves he could not dull within. Gentle by birth, but of a stem decayed, He shunned life s rivalries and hated trade; On a small patrimony and larger pride, He lived uneaseful on the Other Side (So he called Europe), only coming West To give his Old- World appetite new zest; Yet still the New World spooked it in his veins, A ghost he could not lay with all his pains; For never Pilgrims offshoot scapes control Of those old instincts that have shaped his soul. A radical in thought, he puffed away With shrewd contempt the dust of usage gray, Yet loathed democracy as one who saw, In what he longed to love, some vulgar flaw, And, shocked through all his delicate re serves, Remained a Tory by his taste and nerves. His fancy s thrall, he drew all ergoes thence, And thought himself the type of common sense ; Misliking women, not from cross or whim, But that his mother shared too much in him, And he half felt that what in them was grace FITZ ADAM S STORY 413 Made the unlucky weakness of his race. What powers he had he hardly cared to know, But sauntered through the world as through a show; A critic fine in his haphazard way, A sort of mild La Bruyere on half-pay. For comic weaknesses he had an eye Keen as an acid for an alkali, Yet you could feel, through his sardonic tone, He loved them all, unless they were his own. You might have called him, with his hu morous twist, A kind of human entomologist: As these bring home, from every walk they take, Their hat-crowns stuck with bugs of curi ous make, So he filled all the lining of his head With characters impaled and ticketed, And had a cabinet behind his eyes For all they caught of mortal oddities. He might have been a poet many worse But that he had, or feigned, contempt of verse ; Called it tattooing language, and held rhymes The young world s lullaby of ruder times. Bitter in words, too indolent for gall, He satirized himself the first of all, In men and their affairs could find no law, And was the ill logic that he thought he saw. Scratching a match to light his pipe anew, With eyes half shut some musing whiffs he drew And thus began: " I give you all my word, I think this mock-Decameron absurd; Boccaccio s garden! how bring that to pass In our bleak clime save under double glass ? The moral east-wind of New England life Would snip its gay luxuriance like a knife; Mile-deep the glaciers brooded here, they say, Through aeons numb; we feel their chill to-day. These foreign plants are but half-hardy still, Die on a south, and on a north wall chill. Had we stayed Puritans ! They had some heat, (Though whence derived I have my own conceit,) But you have long ago raked up their fires ; Where they had faith, you ve ten sham- Gothic spires. Why more exotics ? Try your native vines, And in some thousand years you may have wines; Your present grapes are harsh, all pulps and skins, And want traditions of ancestral bins That saved for evenings round the polished board Old lava-fires, the sun-steeped hillside s hoard. Without a Past, you lack that southern wall O er which the vines of Poesy should crawl ; Still they re your only hope; no midnight oil Makes up for virtue wanting in the soil; Manure them well and prune them; t won t be France, Nor Spain, nor Italy, but there s your chance. You have one story-teller worth a score Of dead Boccaccios, nay, add twenty more, A hawthorn asking spring s most dainty breath, And him you re freezing pretty well to death. However, since you say so, I will tease My memory to a story by degrees, Though you will cry, * Enough ! I m well- nigh sure, Ere I have dreamed through half my over ture. Stories were good for men who had no books, (Fortunate race !) and built their nests like rooks In lonely towers, to which the Jongleur brought His pedler s-box of cheap and tawdry thought, With here and there a fancy fit to see Wrought in quaint grace in golden fili gree, Some ring that with the Muse s finger yet Is warm, like Aucassin and Nicolete; 414 HEARTSEASE AND RUE The morning newspaper has spoilt his trade, (For better or for worse, I leave unsaid,) And stories now, to suit a public nice, Must be half epigram, half pleasant vice. " All tourists know Shebagog County: there The summer idlers take their yearly stare, Dress to see Nature in a well-bred way, As t were Italian opera, or play, Encore the sunrise (if they re out of bed), And pat the Mighty Mother on the head: These have I seen, all things are good to see, And wondered much at their complacency. This world s great show, that took in get- ting-up Millions of years, they finish ere they sup; Sights that God gleams through with soul- tingling force They glance approvingly as things of course, Say, That s a grand rock, This a pretty fall, Not thinking, < Are we worthy ? What if all The scornful landscape should turn round and say, * This is a fool, and that a popinjay ? I often wonder what the Mountain thinks Of French boots creaking o er his breath less brinks, Or how the Sun would scare the chattering crowd, If some fine day he chanced to think aloud. I, who love Nature much as sinners can, Love her where she most grandeur shows, in man : Here find I mountain, forest, cloud, and sun, River and sea, and glows when day is done; Nay, where she makes grotesques, and moulds in jest The clown s cheap clay, I find unfading zest. The natural instincts year by year retire, As deer shrink northward from the settler s fire, And he who loves the wild game-flavor more Than city-feasts, where every man s a bore To every other man, must seek it where The steamer s throb and railway s iron blare Have not yet startled with their punctual stir The shy, wood-wandering brood of Charac ter. "There is a village, once the county town, Through which the weekly mail rolled dustily down, Where the courts sat, it may be, twice a year, And the one tavern reeked with rustic cheer; Cheeshogquesumscot erst, now Jethro bight, Red-man and pale-face bore it equal spite. The railway ruined it, the natives say, That passed unwisely fifteen miles away, And made a drain to which, with steady ooze, Filtered away law, stage-coach, trade, and news. The railway saved it; so at least think those Who love old ways, old houses, old repose. Of course the Tavern stayed: its genial host Thought not of flitting more than did the post On which high-hung the fading signboard creaks, Inscribed, The Eagle Inn, by Ezra Weeks. "If in life s journey you should ever find An inn medicinal for body and mind, T is sure to be some drowsy-looking house Whose easy landlord has a bustling spouse: He, if he like you, will not long forego Some bottle deep in cobwebbed dust laid low, That, since the War we used to call the Last, Has dozed and held its lang-syne memories fast: From him exhales that Indian-summer air Of hazy, lazy welcome everywhere, While with her toil the napery is white, The china dustless, the keen knife-blades bright, Salt dry as sand, and bread that seems as though T were rather sea-foam baked than vulgar dough. FITZ ADAM S STORY " In our swift country, houses trim and white Are pitched like tents, the lodging of a night; Each on its bank of baked turf mounted high Perches impatient o er the roadside dry, While the wronged landscape coldly stands aloof, Refusing friendship with the upstart roof. Not so the Eagle ; on a grass-green swell That toward the south with sweet conces sions fell It dwelt retired, and half had grown to be As aboriginal as rock or tree. It nestled close to earth, and seemed to brood O er homely thoughts in a half-conscious mood, As by the peat that rather fades than burns The smouldering grandam nods and knits by turns, Happy, although her newest news were old Ere the first hostile drum at Concord rolled. If paint it e er had known, it knew no more Than yellow lichens spattered thickly o er That soft lead-gray, less dark beneath the eaves Which the slow brush of wind and weather leaves. The ample roof sloped backward to the ground, And vassal lean-tos gathered thickly round, Patched on, as sire or son had felt the need, Like chance growths sprouting from the old roof s seed, Just as about a yellow-pine-tree spring Its rough-barked darlings in a filial ring. But the great chimney was the central thought Whose gravitation through the cluster wrought; For t is not styles far-fetched from Greece or Rome, But just the Fireside, that can make a home; None of your spindling things of modern style, Like pins stuck through to stay the card- built pile, It rose broad shouldered, kindly, debo nair, Its warm breath whitening in the October While on its front a heart in outline showed The place it filled in that serene abode. " When first I chanced the Eagle to ex plore, Ezra sat listless by the open door; One chair careened him at an angle meet, Another nursed his hugely-slippered feet; Upon a third reposed a shirt-sleeved arm, And the whole man diffused tobacco s charm. Are you the landlord ? * Wahl, I guess I be, Watching the smoke, he answered leis urely. He was a stoutish man, and through the breast Of his loose shirt there showed a brambly chest; Streaked redly as a wind-foreboding morn, His tanned cheeks curved to temples closely shorn ; Clean-shaved he was, save where a hedge of gray Upon his brawny throat leaned every way About an Adam s-apple, that beneath Bulged like a boulder from a brambly heath. The Western World s true child and nurs ling he, Equipt with aptitudes enough for three: No eye like his to value horse or cow, Or gauge the contents of a stack or mow; He could foretell the weather at a word, He knew the haunt of every beast and bird, Or where a two-pound trout was sure to lie, Waiting the flutter of his home-made fly; Nay, once in autumns five, he had the luck To drop at fair-play range a ten-tined buck; Of sportsmen true he favored every whim, But never cockney found a guide in him; A natural man, with all his instincts fresh, Not buzzing helpless in Reflection s mesh, Firm on its feet stood his broad-shouldered mind, As bluffly honest as a northwest wind; Hard-headed and soft-hearted, you d scarce meet A kindlier mixture of the shrewd and sweet; Generous by birth, and ill at saying No, Yet in a bargain he was all men s foe, Would yield no inch of vantage in a trade, And give away ere nightfall all he made. 4 i6 HEARTSEASE AND RUE " Can I have lodging here ? once more I said. He blew a whiff, and, leaning back his head, You come a piece through Bailey s woods, I s pose, Acrost a bridge where a big swamp-oak grows ? It don t grow, neither ; it s ben dead ten year, Nor th ain t a livin creetur, fur nor near, Can tell wut killed it; but I some misdoubt T was borers, there s sech heaps on em about. You did n chance to run ag inst my son, A long, slab-sided youngster with a gun ? He d oughto ben back more n an hour ago, An brought some birds to dress for supper sho ! There he comes now. Say, Obed, wut ye got? (He 11 hev some upland plover like as not.) Wai, them s real nice uns, an 11 eat A 1, Ef I can stop their bein over-done; Nothin riles me (I pledge my fastin word) Like cookin out the natur of a bird; (Obed, you pick em out o sight an sound, Your ma am don t love no feathers cluttrin round;) Jes scare em with the coals, thet s my idee. Then, turning suddenly about on me, * Wai, Square, I guess so. Callilate to stay? I 11 ask Mis Weeks; bout thet it s hern to say. "Well, there I lingered all October through, In that sweet atmosphere of hazy blue, So leisurely, so soothing, so forgiving, That sometimes makes New England fit for living. I watched the landscape, erst so granite glum, Bloom like the south side of a ripening plum, And each rock-maple on the hillside make His ten days sunset doubled in the lake ; The very stone walls draggling up the hills Seemed touched, and wavered in their roundhead wills. Ah ! there s a deal of sugar in the sun ! Tap me in Indian summer, I should run A juice to make rock-candy of, but then We get such weather scarce one year in ten. " There was a parlor in the house, a room To make you shudder with its prudish gloom. The furniture stood round with such an air, There seemed an old maid s ghost in every chair, Which looked as it had scuttled to its place And pulled extempore a Sunday face, Too smugly proper for a world of sin, Like boys on whom the minister comes in. The table, fronting you with icy stare, Strove to look witless that its legs were bare, While the black sofa with its horse-hair pall Gloomed like a bier for Comfort s funeral. Each piece appeared to do its chilly best To seem an utter stranger to the rest, As if acquaintanceship were deadly sin, Like Britons meeting in a foreign inn.. Two portraits graced the wall in grimmest truth, Mister and Mistress W. in their youth, New England youth, that seems a sort of pill, Half wish-I-dared, half Edwards on the Will, Bitter to swallow, and which leaves a trace Of Calvinistic colic on the face. Between them, o er the mantel, hung in state Solomon s temple, done in copperplate; Invention pure, but meant, we may pre sume, To give some Scripture sanction to the room. Facing this last, two samplers you might see, Each, with its urn and stiffly-weeping tree, Devoted to some memory long ago More faded than their lines of worsted woe ; Cut paper decked their frames against the flies, Though none e er dared an entrance who were wise, And bushed asparagus in fading green Added its shiver to the franklin clean. "When first arrived, I chilled a half- hour there, FITZ ADAM S STORY Nor dared deflower with use a single chair; I caught no cold, yet flying pains could find For weeks in me, a rheumatism of mind. One thing alone imprisoned there had power To hold me in the place that long half- hour: A scutcheon this, a helm-surmounted shield, Three griffins argent on a sable field; A relic of the shipwrecked past was here, And Ezra held some Old- World lumber dear. Nay, do not smile ; I love this kind of thing, These cooped traditions with a broken wing, This freehold nook in Fancy s pipe-blown ball, This less than nothing that is more than all! Have I not seen sweet natures kept alive Amid the humdrum of your business hive, Undowered spinsters shielded from all harms, By airy incomes from a coat of arms ? " He paused a moment, and his features took The flitting sweetness of that inward look I hinted at before; but, scarcely seen, It shrank for shelter neath his harder mien, And, rapping his black pipe of ashes clear, He went on with a self-derisive sneer: " No doubt we make a part of God s de sign, And break the forest-path for feet divine; To furnish foothold for this grand prevision Is good, and yet to be the mere transi tion, That, you will say, is also good, though I Scarce like to feed the ogre By-and-by. Raw edges rasp my nerves; my taste is wooed By things that are, not going to be, good, Though were I what I dreamed two lustres gone, I d stay to help the Consummation on, Whether a new Rome than the old more fair, Or a deadflat of rascal-ruled despair; But my skull somehow never closed the suture That seems to knit yours firmly with the future, So you 11 excuse me if I m sometimes fain To tie the Past s warm nightcap o er my brain; I m quite aware t is not in fashion here, But then your northeast winds are so severe ! "But to my story: though tis truly naught But a few hints in Memory s sketchbook caught, And which may claim a value on the score Of calling back some scenery now no more. Shall I confess ? The tavern s only Lar Seemed (be not shocked !) its homely-fea tured bar. Here dozed a fire of beechen logs, that bred Strange fancies in its embers golden-red, And nursed the loggerhead whose hissing dip, Timed by nice instinct, creamed the mug of flip That made from mouth to mouth its genial round, Nor left one nature wholly winter-bound; Hence dropt the tinkling coal all mellow- ripe For Uncle Reuben stalk-extinguished pipe; Hence rayed the heat, as from an indoor sun, That wooed forth many a shoot of rustic fun. Here Ezra ruled as king by right divine; No other face had such a wholesome shine, No laugh like his so full of honest cheer; Above the rest it crowed like Chanticleer. "In this one room his dame you never saw, Where reigned by custom old a Salic law; Here coatless lolled he on his throne of oak, And every tongue paused midway if he spoke. Due mirth he loved, yet was his sway severe ; No blear-eyed driveller got his stagger here; Measure was happiness; who wanted more, Must buy his ruin at the Deacon s store ; None but his lodgers after ten could stay, Nor after nine on eves of Sabbath-day. He had his favorites and his pensioners, The same that gypsy Nature owns for hers: Loose-ended souls, whose skills bring scanty gold, And whom the poor-house catches when they re old ; Rude country-minstrels, men who doctor kine, HEARTSEASE AND RUE Or graft, and, out of scions ten, save nine; Creatures of genius they, but never meant To keep step with the civic regiment. These Ezra welcomed, feeling in his mind Perhaps some motions of the vagrant kind; These paid no money, yet for them he drew Special Jamaica from a tap they knew, And, for their feelings, chalked behind the door With solemn face a visionary score. This thawed to life in Uncle Reuben s throat A torpid shoal of jest and anecdote, Like those queer fish that doze the droughts away, And wait for moisture, wrapped in sun baked clay; This warmed the one-eyed fiddler to his task, Perched in the corner on an empty cask, By whose shrill art rapt suddenly, some boor Rattled a double-shuffle on the floor; * Hull s Victory was, indeed, the favorite air, Though Yankee Doodle claimed its proper share. " T was there I caught from Uncle Reuben s lips, In dribbling monologue twixt whiffs and sips, The story I so long have tried to tell; The humor coarse, the persons common, well, From Nature only do I love to paint, Whether she send a satyr or a saint; To me Sincerity s the one thing good, Soiled though she be and lost to maiden hood. Quompegan is a town some ten miles south From Jethro, at Nagumscot river-mouth, A seaport town, and makes its title good With lumber and dried fish and eastern wood. Here Deacon Bitters dwelt and kept the Store, The richest man for many a mile of shore; In little less than everything dealt he, From meeting-houses to a chest of tea; So dextrous therewithal a flint to skin, He could make profit on a single pin; In business strict, to bring the balance true He had been known to bite a fig in two, And change a board-nail for a shingle-nail. All that he had he ready held for sale, His house, his tomb, whate er the law allows, And he had gladly parted with his spouse. His one ambition still to get and get, He would arrest your very ghost for debt. His store looked righteous, should the Par son come, But in a dark back-room he peddled rum, And eased Ma am Conscience, if she e er would scold, By christening it with water ere he sold. A small, dry man he was, who wore a queue, And one white neckcloth all the week-days through, On Monday white, by Saturday as dun As that worn homeward by the prodigal son. His frosted earlocks, striped with foxy brown, Were braided up to hide a desert crown; His coat was brownish, black perhaps of yore; In summer-time a banyan loose he wore; His trousers short, through many a season true, Made no pretence to hide his stockings blue ; A waistcoat buff his chief adornment was, Its porcelain buttons rimmed with dusky brass. A deacon he, you saw it in each limb, And well he knew to deacon-off a hymn, Or lead the choir through all its wandering woes With voice that gathered unction in his nose, Wherein a constant snuffle you might hear, As if with him t were winter all the year. At pew-head sat he with decorous pains, In sermon-time could foot his weekly gains, Or, with closed eyes and heaven-abstracted air, Could plan a new investment in long- prayer. A pious man, and thrifty too, he made The psalms and prophets partners in his trade, And in his orthodoxy straitened more As it enlarged the business at his store; He honored Moses, but, when gain he planned, Had his own notion of the Promised Land. " Soon as the winter made the sledding good, From far around the farmers hauled him wood, FITZ ADAM S STORY 419 For all the trade had gathered neath his thumb. He paid in groceries and New England rum, Making two profits with a conscience clear, Cheap all he bought, and all he paid with dear. With his own mete-wand measuring every load, Each somehow had diminished on the road; An honest cord in Jethro still would fail By a good foot upon the Deacon s scale, And, more to abate the price, his gimlet eye Would pierce to cat-sticks that none else could spy; Yet none dared grumble, for no farmer yet But New Year found him in the Deacon s debt. " While the first snow was mealy under feet, A team drawled creaking down Quompe- gan street. Two cords of oak weighed down the grind ing sled, And cornstalk fodder rustled overhead; The oxen s muzzles, as they shouldered through, Were silver-fringed; the driver s own was blue As the coarse frock that swung below his knee. Behind his load for shelter waded he; His mitteued hands now on his chest he beat, Now stamped the stiffened cowhides of his feet, Hushed as a ghost s; his armpit scarce could hold The walnut whipstock slippery-bright with cold. What wonder if, the tavern as he past, He looked and longed, and stayed his beasts at last, Who patient stood and veiled themselves in steam While he explored the bar-room s ruddy gleam ? " Before the fire, in want of thought profound, There sat a brother - townsman weather- . bound: A sturdy churl, crisp-headed, bristly-eared, Red as a pepper; twixt coarse brows and beard His eyes lay ambushed, on the watch for fools, Clear, gray, and glittering like two bay- edged pools; A shifty creature, with a turn for fun, Could swap a poor horse for a better one, He d a high-stepper always in his stall; Liked far and near, and dreaded there withal. To him the in-comer, Perez, how d ye do? * Jest as I in mind to, Obed ; how do you? Then, his eyes twinkling such swift gleams as run Along the levelled barrel of a gun Brought to his shoulder by a man you know Will bring his game down, he continued, <So, I s pose you re haulin wood ? But you re too late; The Deacon s off; Old Splitfoot could n t wait; He made a bee-line las night in the storm To where he won t need wood to keep him warm. Fore this he s treasurer of a fund to train Young imps as missionaries; hopes to gain That way a contract that he has in view For fireproof pitchforks of a pattern new. It must have tickled him, all drawbacks weighed, To think he stuck the Old One in a trade; His soul, to start with, was n t worth a carrot, And all he d left ould hardly serve to swear at. " By this time Obed had his wits thawed out, And, looking at the other half in doubt, Took off his fox-skin cap to scratch his head, Donned it again, and drawled forth, Mean he s dead ? Jesso; he s dead and t other d that f oi lers 420 HEARTSEASE AND RUE With folks that never love a thing but dollars. He pulled up stakes last evening, fair and square, And ever since there s been a row Down There. The minute the old chap arrived, you see, Comes the Boss-devil to him, and says he, " What are you good at ? Little enough, I fear; We callilate to make folks useful here." " Well," says old Bitters, " I expect I can Scale a fair load of wood with e er a man." "Wood we don t deal in; but perhaps you 11 suit, Because we buy our brimstone by the foot: Here, take this measurin -rod, as smooth as sin, And keep a reckonin of what loads comes in. You 11 not want business, for we need a lot To keep the Yankees that you send us hot; At firin up they re barely half as spry As Spaniards or Italians, though they re dry; At first we have to let the draught on stronger, But, heat em through, they seem to hold it longer." " Bitters he took the rod, and pretty soon A teamster comes, whistling an ex-psalm tune. A likelier chap you would n t ask to see, No different, but his limp, from you or me No different, Perez ! Don t your mem ory fail ? Why, where in thunder was his horns and tail? They re only worn by some old-fashioned pokes; They mostly aim at looking just like folks. Sech things are scarce as queues and top- boots here; T would spoil their usefulness to look too queer. Ef you could always know em when they come, They M get no purchase on you : now be mum. On come the teamster, smart as Davy Crockett, Jinglin the red-hot coppers in his pocket, And clost behind, ( t was gold-dust, you d ha sworn,) A load of sulphur yallower n seed-corn; To see it wasted as it is Down There Would make a Friction-Match Co. tear its hair! "Hold on!" says Bitters, "stop right where you be; You can t go in athout a pass from me." "All right," says t other, "only step round smart; I must be home by noon-time with the cart." Bitters goes round it sharp-eyed as a rat, Then with a scrap of paper on his hat Pretends to cipher. " By the public staff, That load scarce rises twelve foot and a half." " There s fourteen foot and over," says the driver, "Worth twenty dollars, ef it s worth a stiver; Good fourth-proof brimstone, that 11 make em squirm, I leave it to the Headman of the Firm; After we masure it, we always lay Some on to allow for settlin by the way. Imp and full-grown, I ve carted sulphur here, And gi n fair satisfaction, thirty year." With that they fell to quarrellin so loud That in five minutes they had drawed a crowd, And afore long the Boss, who heard the row, Comes elbowin in with " What s to pay here now ? " Both parties heard, the measurin -rod he takes, And of the load a careful survey makes. " Sence I have bossed the business here," says he, " No fairer load was ever seen by me." Then, turnin to the Deacon, "You mean cus, None of your old Quompegan tricks with us ! They won t do here: we re plain old- fashioned folks, And don t quite understand that kind o jokes. I know this teamster, and his pa afore him, THE ORIGIN OF DIDACTIC POETRY 421 And the hard-working Mrs. D. that bore him; He would n t soil his conscience with a lie, Though he might get the custom-house thereby. Here, constable, take Bitters by the queue, And clap him into furnace ninety-two, And try this brimstone on him; if he s bright, He 11 find the masure honest afore night. He is n t worth his fuel, and I 11 bet The parish oven has to take him yet ! " " This is my tale, heard twenty years ago From Uncle Reuben, as the logs burned low, Touching the walls and ceiling with that bloom That makes a rose s calyx of a room. I could not give his language, where through ran The gamy flavor of the bookless man Who shapes a word before the fancy cools, As lonely Crusoe improvised his tools. I liked the tale, t was like so many told By Rutebeuf and his brother Trouveres bold; Nor were the hearers much unlike to theirs, Men unsophisticate, rude-nerved as bears. Ezra is gone and his large-hearted kind, The landlords of the hospitable mind; Good Warriner of Springfield was the last; An inn is now a vision of the past; One yet-surviving host my mind recalls, You 11 find him if you go to Trenton Falls." THE ORIGIN OF DIDACTIC POETRY WHEN wise Minerva still was young And just the least romantic, Soon after from Jove s head she flung That preternatural antic, T is said, to keep from idleness Or flirting, those twin curses, She spent her leisure, more or less, In writing po , no, verses. How nice they were ! to rhyme wither A kind star did not tarry; The metre, too, was regular As schoolboy s dot and carry; And full they were of pious plums, So extra-super-moral, For sucking Virtue s tender gums Most tooth-enticing coral. A clean, fair copy she prepares, Makes sure of moods and tenses, With her own hand, for prudence spares A man-(or woman-)-uensis; Complete, and tied with ribbons proud, She hinted soon how cosy a Treat it would be to read them loud After next day s Ambrosia. The Gods thought not it would amuse So much as Homer s Odyssees, But could not very well refuse The properest of Goddesses; So all sat round in attitudes Of various dejection, As with a hem I the queen of prudes Began her grave prelection. At the first pause Zeus said, "Well sung ! I mean ask Phcebus, lie knows." Says Phoebus, "Zounds ! a wolf s among Admetus s merinos ! Fine ! very fine ! but I must go; They stand in need of me there; Excuse me ! " snatched his stick, and so Plunged down the gladdened ether. With the next gap, Mars said, " For me Don t wait, naught could be finer, But I m engaged at half past three, A fight in Asia Minor ! " Then Venus lisped, " I m sorely tried, These duty-calls are vip rous; But I must go; I have a bride To see about in Cyprus." Then Bacchus, "I must say good-by, Although my peace it jeopards; I meet a man at four, to try A well-broke pair of leopards." His words woke Hermes. " Ah ! " he said, " I so love moral theses ! " Then winked at Hebe, who turned red, And smoothed her apron s creases. Just then Zeus snored, the Eagle drew His head the wing from under; Zeus snored, o er startled Greece there 422 HEARTSEASE AND RUE The many-volumed thunder. Some augurs counted nine, some, ten; Some said t was war, some, famine, And all, that other-minded men Would get a precious . Proud Pallas sighed, " It will not do; Against the Muse I ve sinned, oh 1 " And her torn rhymes sent flying through Olympus s back window. Then, packing up a peplus clean, She took the shortest path thence, And opened, with a mind serene, A Sunday-school in Athens. The verses ? Some in ocean swilled, Killed every fish that bit to em; Some Galen caught, and, when distilled, Found morphine the residuum ; But some that rotted on the earth Sprang up again in copies, And gave two strong narcotics birth, Didactic verse and poppies. Years after, when a poet asked The Goddess s opinion, As one whose soul its wings had tasked In Art s clear-aired dominion, " Discriminate," she said, " betimes; The Muse is unforgiving; Put all your beauty in your rhymes, Your morals in your living." THE FLYING DUTCHMAN This poem appeared in The Atlantic for January, 1868, and Lowell s own criticism on it is frank. He wrote to Mr. Thayer : " You will find some verses of mine in the next At lantic, the conception of which tickles me but half spoiled (and in verse half is more than whole) in the writing ; " and in a similar vein he wrote to Mr. Fields, the editor : " The trouble with The Flying Dutchman is not in what I left out, but in what I could n t get in. Let us be honest with each other, my dear Lorenzo de Medici, if we can t be with any body else. The conception of the verses is good ; the verses are bad." DON T believe in the Flying Dutchman ? I ve known the fellow for years; My button I ve wrenched from his clutch, man: I shudder whenever he nears ! He s a Rip van Winkle skipper, A Wandering Jew of the sea, Who sails his bedevilled old clipper In the wind s eye, straight as a bee. Back topsails ! you can t escape him; The man-ropes stretch with his weight, And the queerest old toggeries drape him, The Lord knows how long out of date 1 Like a long-disembodied idea, (A kind of ghost plentiful now,) He stands there ; you fancy you see a Coeval of Teniers or Douw. He greets you ; would have you take let ters: You scan the addresses with dread, While he mutters his donners and welters, They re all from the dead to the dead ! You seem taking time for reflection, But the heart fills your throat with a jam, As you spell in each faded direction An ominous ending in dam. Am I tagging my rhymes to a legend ? That were changing green turtle to mock: No, thank you ! I ve found out which wedge-end Is meant for the head of a block. The fellow I have in my mind s eye Plays the old Skipper s part here on shore, And sticks like a burr, till he finds I Have got just the gauge of his bore. This postman twixt one ghost and t other, With last dates that smell of the mould, I have met him (O man and brother, Forgive me !) in azure and gold. In the pulpit I ve known of his preaching, Out of hearing behind the time, Some statement of Balaam s impeaching, Giving Eve a due sense of her crime. I have seen him some poor ancient thrash ing Into something (God save us !) more dry, With the Water of Life itself washing The life out of earth, sea, and sky. CREDIDIMUS JOVEM REGNARE 423 O dread fellow-mortal, get newer Despatches to carry, or none ! We re as quick as the Greek and the Jew were At knowing a loaf from a stone. Till the couriers of God fail in duty, We sha n t ask a mummy for news, Nor sate the soul s hunger for beauty With your drawings from casts of a Muse. CREDIDIMUS JOVEM REGNARE O DAYS endeared to every Muse, When nobody had any Views, Nor, while the cloudscape of his mind By every breeze was new designed, Insisted all the world should see Camels or whales where none there be ! happy days, when men received From sire to son what all believed, And left the other world in bliss, Too busy with bedevilling this 1 Beset by doubts of every breed In the last bastion of my creed, With shot and shell for Sabbath-chime, 1 watch the storming-party climb, Panting (their prey in easy reach), To pour triumphant through the breach In walls that shed like snowflakes tons Of missiles from old-fashioned guns, But crumble neath the storm that pours All day and night from bigger bores. There, as I hopeless watch and wait The last life-crushing coil of Fate, Despair finds solace in the praise Of those serene dawn-rosy days Ere microscopes had made us heirs To large estates of doubts and snares, By proving that the title-deeds, Once all-sufficient for men s needs, Are palimpsests that scarce disguise The tracings of still earlier lies, Themselves as surely written o er An older fib erased before. So from these days I fly to those That in the landlocked Past repose, Where no rude wind of doctrine shakes From bloom -flushed boughs untimely flakes; Where morning s eyes see nothing strange, No crude perplexity of change, And morrows trip along their ways Secure as happy yesterdays. Then there were rulers who could trace Through heroes up to gods their race, Pledged to fair fame and noble use By veins from Odin filled or Zeus, And under bonds to keep divine The praise of a celestial line. Then priests could pile the altar s sods, With whom gods spake as they with gods, And everywhere from haunted earth Broke springs of wonder, that had birth In depths divine beyond the ken And fatal scrutiny of men; Then hills and groves and streams and Thrilled with immortal presences, Not too ethereal for the scope Of human passion s dream or hope. Now Pan at last is surely dead, And King No-Credit reigns instead, Whose officers, morosely strict, Poor Fancy s tenantry evict, Chase the last Genius from the door, And nothing dances any more. Nothing ? Ah, yes, our tables do, Drumming the Old One s own tattoo, And, if the oracles are dumb, Have we not mediums ? Why be glum ? Fly thither ? Why, the very air Is full of hindrance and despair ! Fly thither ? But I cannot fly; My doubts enmesh me if I try, Each Liliputian, but, combined, Potent a giant s limbs to bind. This world and that are growing dark; A huge interrogation mark, The Devil s crook episcopal, Still borne before him since the Fall, Blackens with its ill-omened sign The old blue heaven of faith benign. Whence ? Whither ? Wherefore ? How ? Which ? Why ? All ask at once, all wait reply. Men feel old systems cracking under em; Life saddens to a mere conundrum Which once Religion solved, but she Has lost has Science found ? the key. What was snow-bearded Odin, trow, The mighty hunter long ago, Whose horn and hounds the peasant hears 424 HEARTSEASE AND RUE Still when the Northlights shake their spears ? Science hath answers twain, I ve heard; Choose which you will, nor hope a third; Whichever box the truth be stowed in, There s not a sliver left of Odin. Either he was a pinchbrowed thing, With scarcely wit a stone to fling, A creature both in size and shape Nearer than we are to the ape, Who hung sublime with brat and spouse By tail prehensile from the boughs, And, happier than his maimed descendants, The culture-curtailed independents, Could pluck his cherries with both paws, And stuff with both his big-boned jaws; Or else the core his name enveloped Was from a solar myth developed, Which, hunted to its primal shoot, Takes refuge in a Sanskrit root, Thereby to instant death explaining The little poetry remaining. Try it with Zeus, t is just the same; The thing evades, we hug a name; Nay, scarcely that, perhaps a vapor Born of some atmospheric caper. All Lempriere s fables blur together In cloudy symbols of the weather, And Aphrodite rose from frothy seas But to illustrate such hypotheses. With years enough behind his back, Lincoln will take the selfsame track, And prove, hulled fairly to the cob, A mere vagary of Old Prob. Give the right man a solar myth, And he 11 confute the sun therewith. They make things admirably plain, But one hard question will remain: If one hypothesis you lose, Another in its place you choose, But, your faith gone, O man and brother, Whose shop shall furnish you another ? One that will wash, I mean, and wear, And wrap us warmly from despair ? While they are clearing up our puzzles, And clapping prophylactic muzzles On the Actseon s hounds that sniff Our devious track through But and If, Would they d explain away the Devil And other facts that won t keep level, But rise beneath our feet or fail, A reeling ship s deck in a gale ! God vanished long ago, iwis, A mere subjective synthesis; A doll, stuffed out with hopes and fears, Too homely for us pretty dears, Who want one that conviction carries, Last make of London or of Paris. He gone, I felt a moment s spasm, But calmed myself with Protoplasm, A finer name, and, what is more, As enigmatic as before; Greek, too, and sure to fill with ease Minds caught in the Symplegades Of soul and sense, life s two conditions, Each baffled with its own omniscience. The men who labor to revise Our Bibles will, I hope, be wise, And print it without foolish qualms Instead of God in David s psalms: Noll had been more effective far Could he have shouted at Dunbar, Rise, Protoplasm ! " No dourest Scot Had waited for another shot. And yet I frankly must confess A secret unforgivingness, And shudder at the saving chrism Whose best New Birth is Pessimism; My soul I mean the bit of phosphorus That fills the place of what that was for us Can t bid its inward bores defiance With the new nursery-tales of science. What profits me, though doubt by doubt, As nail by nail, be driven out, When every new one, like the last, Still holds my coffin-lid as fast ? Would I find thought a moment s truce, Give me the young world s Mother Goose With life and joy in every limb, The chimney-corner tales of Grimm ! Our dear and admirable Huxley Cannot explain to me why ducks lay, Or, rather, how into their eggs Blunder potential wings and legs With will to move them and decide Whether in air or lymph to glide. Who gets a hair s-breadth on by showing That Something Else set all agoing ? Farther and farther back we push From Moses and his burning bush; Cry, "Art Thou there?" Above, be low, All Nature mutters yes and no ! T is the old answer: we re agreed Being from Being must proceed, TEMPORA MUTANTUR 425 Life be Life s source. I might as well Obey the meeting-house s bell, And listen while Old Hundred pours Forth through the summer-opened doors, From old and young. I hear it yet, Swelled by bass-viol and clarinet, While the gray minister, with face Radiant, let loose his noble bass. If Heaven it reached not, yet its roll Waked all the echoes of the soul, And in it many a life found wings To soar away from sordid things. Church gone and singers too, the song Sings to me voiceless all night long, Till my soul beckons me afar, Glowing and trembling like a star. Will any scientific touch With my worn strings achieve as much ? I don t object, not I, to know My sires were monkeys, if t was so ; I touch my ear s collusive tip And own the poor-relationship. That apes of various shapes and sizes Contained their germs that all the prizes Of senate, pulpit, camp, and bar win May give us hopes that sweeten Darwin. Who knows but from our loins may spring (Long hence) some winged sweet-throated thing As much superior to us As we to Cynocephalus ? This is consoling, but, alas, It wipes no dimness from the glass Where I am flattening my poor nose, In hope to see beyond my toes. Though I accept my pedigree, Yet where, pray tell me, is the key That should unlock a private door To the Great Mystery, such no more ? Each offers his, but one nor all Are much persuasive with the wall That rises now, as long ago, Between I wonder and I know, Nor will vouchsafe a pin-hole peep At the veiled Isis in its keep. Where is no door, I but produce My key to find it of no use. Yet better keep it, after all, Since Nature s economical, And who can tell but some fine day (If it occur to her) she may, In her good-will to you and me, Make door and lock to match the key ? TEMPORA MUTANTUR This poem, written not long after Lowell s return from a journey in Europe and printed in The Nation, called out many angry retorts. The reader will find a vigorous letter by Lowell to Mr. Joel Benton, restating 1 his position, in The Century for November, 1891, and reprinted in Letters II. 155-160. THE world turns mild; democracy, they say, Rounds the sharp knobs of character away, And no great harm, unless at grave ex pense Of what needs edge of proof, the moral sense ; For man or race is on the downward path Whose fibre grows too soft for honest wrath, And there s a subtle influence that springs From words to modify our sense of things. A plain distinction grows obscure of late: Man, if he will, may pardon; but the State Forgets its function if not fixed as Fate. So thought our sires : a hundred years ago, If men were knaves, why, people called them so, And crime could see the prison-portal bend Its brow severe at no long vista s end. In those days for plain things plain words would serve; Men had not learned to admire the graceful swerve Wherewith the ^Esthetic Nature s genial mood Makes public duty slope to private good; No muddled conscience raised the saving doubt; A soldier proved unworthy was drummed out, An officer cashiered, a civil servant (No matter though his piety were fervent) Disgracefully dismissed, and through the land Each bore for life a stigma from the brand Whose far-heard hiss made others more averse To take the facile step from bad to worse. The Ten Commandments had a meaning then, Felt in their bones by least considerate men, 426 HEARTSEASE AND RUE Because behind them Public Conscience stood, And without wincing made their mandates good. But now that "Statesmanship" is just a way To dodge the primal curse and make it P a 7> Since office means a kind of patent drill To force an entrance to the Nation s till, And peculation something rather less Risky than if you spelt it with an s Now that to steal by law is grown an art, Whom rogues the sires, their milder sons call smart, And " slightly irregular " dilutes the shame Of what had once a somewhat blunter name. With generous curve we draw the moral line: Our swindlers are permitted to resign; Their guilt is wrapped in deferential names, And twenty sympathize for one that blames. Add national disgrace to private crime, Confront mankind with brazen front sub lime, Steal but enough, the world is uusevere, Tweed is a statesman, Fisk a financier; Invent a mine, and be the Lord knows what; Secure, at any rate, with what you ve The public servant who has stolen or lied, If called on, may resign with honest pride: As unjust favor put him in, why doubt Disfavor as unjust has turned him out ? Even if indicted, what is that but fudge To him who counted-in the elective judge ? Whitewashed, he quits the politician s strife At ease in mind, with pockets filled for life: His " lady " glares with gems whose vul gar blaze The poor man through his heightened taxes pays, Himself content if one huge Kohinoor Bulge from a shirt-front ampler than be fore, But not too candid, lest it haply tend To rouse suspicion of the People s Friend. A public meeting, treated at his cost, Resolves him back more virtue than he lost; With character regilt he counts his gains; What s gone was air, the solid good re mains; For what is good, except what friend and foe Seem quite unanimous in thinking so, The stocks and bonds which, in our age of loans, Replace the stupid pagan s stocks and stones ? With choker white, wherein no cynic eye Dares see idealized a hempen tie, At parish-meetings he conducts in prayer, And pays for missions to be sent else where; On Change respected, to his friends en deared, Add but a Sunday-school-class, he s re vered, And his too early tomb will not be dumb To point a moral for our youth to come. IN THE HALF-WAY HOUSE AT twenty we fancied the blest Middle Ages A spirited cross of romantic and grand, All templars and minstrels and ladies and pages, And love and adventure in Outre-Mer land; But ah, where the youth dreamed of build ing a minster, The man takes a pew and sits reckoning his pelf, And the Graces wear fronts, the Muse thins to a spinster, When Middle-Age stares from one s glass at oneself ! Do you twit me with days when I had an Ideal, And saw the sear future through spec tacles green ? Then find me some charm, while I look round and see all These fat friends of forty, shall keep me nineteen; Should we go on pining for chaplets of laurel Who Ve paid a perruquier for mending our thatch, AT THE BURNS CENTENNIAL 427 Or, our feet swathed in baize, with our Fate pick a quarrel, If, instead of cheap bay-leaves, she sent a dear scratch ? in We called it our Eden, that small patent- baker, When life was half moonshine and half Mary Jane ; But the butcher, the baker, the candlestick- maker ! Did Adam have duns and slip down a back-lane ? Nay, after the Fall did the modiste keep coming With last styles of fig-leaf to Madam Eve s bower ? Did Jubal, or whoever taught the girls thrumming, Make the patriarchs deaf at a dollar the hour? IV As I think what I was, I sigh Desunt non- nulla ! Years are creditors Sheridan s self could not bilk; But then, as my boy says, " What right has a fullah To ask for the cream, when himself spilt the milk ? " Perhaps when you re older, my lad, you 11 discover The secret with which Auld Lang Syne there is gilt, Superstition of old man, maid, poet, and lover, That cream rises thickest on milk that was spilt ! We sailed for the moon, but, in sad disil lusion, Snug under Point Comfort are glad to make fast, And strive (sans our glasses) to make a confusion Twixt our rind of green cheese and the moon of the past. Ah, Might-have-been, Could -have-been, Would-have-been ! rascals, He s a genius or fool whom ye cheat at two-score, And the man whose boy-promise was lik ened to Pascal s Is thankful at forty they don t call him bore ! VI With what fumes of fame was each con fident pate full ! How rates of insurance should rise on the Charles ! And which of us now would not feel wisely grateful, If his rhymes sold as fast as the Em blems of Quarles ? E en if won, what s the good of Life s medals and prizes ? The rapture s in what never was or is gone; That we missed them makes Helens of plain Ann Elicys, For the goose of To-day still is Mem ory s swan. VII And yet who would change the old dream for new treasure ? Make not youth s sourest grapes the best wine of our life ? Need he reckon his date by the Almanac s measure Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife ? Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian, Let me still take Hope s frail I. O. U. s upon trust, Still talk of a trip to the Islands Macarian, And still climb the dream-tree for ashes and dust ! AT THE BURNS CENTENNIAL JANUARY, 1859 I A HUNDRED years ! they re quickly fled, With all their joy and sorrow; Their dead leaves shed upon the dead, Their fresh ones sprung by morrow ! And still the patient seasons bring Their change of sun and shadow; New birds still sing with every spring, New violets spot the meadow. 428 HEARTSEASE AND RUE ii A hundred years ! and Nature s powers No greater grown nor lessened ! They saw no flowers more sweet than ours, No fairer new moon s crescent. Would she but treat us poets so, So from our winter free us, And set our slow old sap aflow To sprout in fresh ideas ! ill Alas, think I, what worth or parts Have brought me here competing, To speak what starts in myriad hearts With Burns s memory beating ! Himself had loved a theme like this; Must I be its entomber ? No pen save his but s sure to miss Its pathos or its humor. IV As I sat musing what to say, And how my verse to number, Some elf in play passed by that way, And sank my lids in slumber; And on my sleep a vision stole, Which I will put in metre, Of Burns s soul at the wicket-hole Where sits the good Saint Peter. The saint, methought, had left his post That day to Holy Willie, Who swore, " Each ghost that comes shall toast In brunstane, will he, nill he ; There s nane need hope with phrases fine Their score to wipe a sin frae; I 11 chalk a sign, to save their tryin , A hand (gp and Vide infra ! " VI Alas ! no soil s too cold or dry For spiritual small potatoes, Scrimped natures, spry the trade to ply Of diaboli advocatus; Who lay bent pins in the penance-stool Where Mercy plumps a cushion, Who Ve just one rule for knave and fool, It saves so much confusion ! VII So when Burns knocked, Will knit his brows, His window gap made scanter, And said, " Go rouse the other house; We lodge no Tarn O Shanter ! " " We lodge ! " laughed Burns. Now well I see Death cannot kill old nature ; No human flea but thinks that he May speak for his Creator ! VIII " But, Willie, friend, don t turn me forth, Auld Clootie needs no ganger; And if on earth I had small worth, You Ve let in worse I se wager ! " " Na, nane has knockit at the yett But found me hard as whunstane; There s chances yet your bread to get Wi Auld Nick, gaugin brunstane." IX Meanwhile, the Unco Guid had ta en Their place to watch the process, Flattening in vain on many a pane Their disembodied noses. Remember, please, t is all a dream; One can t control the fancies Through sleep that stream with wayward gleam, Like midnight s boreal dances. Old Willie s tone grew sharp s a knife: " In primis, I indite ye, For makin strife wi the water o life, And preferrin aqua vitce ! " Then roared a voice with lusty din, Like a skipper s when t is blowy, " If that s a sin, / d ne er got in, As sure as my name s Noah ! " XI Baulked, Willie turned another leaf, " There s many here have heard ye, To the pain and grief o true belief, Say hard things o the clergy ! " Then rang a clear tone over all, " One plea for him allow me : I once heard call from o er me, Saul, Why persecutest thou me ? " AT THE BURNS CENTENNIAL 429 XII To the next charge vexed Willie turned, And, sighing, wiped his glasses: " I m much concerned to find ye yearned O er-warmly tow rd the lasses ! " Here David sighed ; poor Willie s face Lost all its self-possession: " I leave this case to God s own grace; It baffles my discretion ! " XIII Then sudden glory round me hroke, And low melodious surges Of wings whose stroke to splendor woke Creation s farthest verges; A cross stretched, ladder-like, secure From earth to heaven s own portal, Whereby God s poor, with footing sure, Climbed up to peace immortal. XIV I heard a voice serene and low (With my heart I seemed to hear it,) Fall soft and slow as snow on snow, Like grace of the heavenly spirit; As sweet as over new-born son The croon of new-made mother, The voice begun, " Sore tempted one ! " Then, pausing, sighed, " Our brother ! xv " If not a sparrow fall, unless The Father sees and knows it, Think ! recks He less his form express, The soul his own deposit ? If only dear to Him the strong, That never trip nor wander, Where were the throng whose morning song Thrills his blue arches yonder ? XVI " Do souls alone clear-eyed, strong-kneed, To Him true service render, And they who need his hand to lead, Find they his heart untender ? Through all your various ranks and fates He opens doors to duty, And he that waits there at your gates Was servant of his Beauty. XVII M The Earth must richer sap secrete, (Could ye in time but know it !) Must juice concrete with fiercer heat, Ere she can make her poet; Long generations go and come, At last she bears a singer, For ages dumb of senses numb The compensation-bringer ! XVIII " Her cheaper broods in palaces She raises under glasses, But souls like these, heav n s hostages, Spring shelterless as grasses: They share Earth s blessing and her bane, The common sun and shower; What makes your pain to them is gain, Your weakness is their power. XIX " These larger hearts must feel the rolls Of stormier-waved temptation; These star-wide souls between their poles Bear zones of tropic passion. He loved much ! that is gospel good, Howe er the text you handle ; From common wood the cross was hewed, By love turned priceless sandal. xx " If scant his service at the kirk, He paters heard and aves From choirs that lurk in hedge and birk, From blackbird and from mavis; The cowering mouse, poor unroofed thing, In him found Mercy s angel; The daisy s ring brought every spring To him Love s fresh evangel ! XXI " Not he the threatening texts who deals Is highest mong the preachers, But he who feels the woes and weals Of all God s wandering creatures. He doth good work whose heart can find The spirit neath the letter; Who makes his kind of happier mind, Leaves wiser men and better. XXII " They make Religion be abhorred Who round with darkness gulf her, And think no word can please the Lord Unless it smell of sulphur. Dear Poet-heart, that childlike guessed The Father s loving kindness, 43 HEARTSEASE AND RUE Come now to rest ! Thou didst his hest, If haply t was in blindness ! " XXIII Then leapt heaven s portals wide apart, And at their golden thunder With sudden start I woke, my heart Still throbbing-full of wonder. " Father," I said, " t is known to Thee How Thou thy Saints preparest; But this I see, Saint Charity Is still the first and fairest ! " XXIV Dear Bard and Brother ! let who may Against thy faults be railing, (Though far, I pray, from us be they That never had a failing !) One toast I 11 give, and that not long, Which thou wouldst pledge if present, To him whose song, in nature strong, Makes man of prince and peasant ! IN AN ALBUM THE misspelt scrawl, upon the wall By some Pompeian idler traced, In ashes packed (ironic fact !) Lies eighteen centuries uneffaced, While many a page of bard and sage, Deemed once mankind s immortal gain, Lost from Time s ark, leaves no more mark Than a keel s furrow through the main. O Chance and Change ! our buzz s range Is scarcely wider than a fly s; Then let us play at fame to-day, To-morrow be unknown and wise; And while the fair beg locks of hair, And autographs, and Lord knows what, Quick ! let us scratch our moment s match, Make our brief blaze, and be forgot ! Too pressed to wait, upon her slate Fame writes a name or two in doubt; Scarce written, these no longer please, And her own finger rubs them out: It may ensue, fair girl, that you Years hence this yellowing leaf may see, And put to task, your memory ask In vain, " This Lowell, who was he ? " AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER, 1866 IN ACKNOWLEDGING A TOAST TO THE SMITH PROFESSOR I RISE, Mr. Chairman, as both of us know, With the impromptu I promised you three weeks ago, Dragged up to my doom by your might and my mane, To do what I vowed I d do never again; And I feel like your good honest dough when possest By a stirring, impertinent devil of yeast. " You must rise," says the leaven. " I can t," says the dough; " Just examine my bumps, and you 11 see it s no go." "But you must," the tormentor insists, " t is all right; You must rise when I bid you, and, what s more, be light." T is a dreadful oppression, this making men speak What they re sure to be sorry for all the next week; Some poor stick requesting, like Aaron s, to bud Into eloquence, pathos, or wit in cold blood, As if the dull brain that you vented your spite on Could be got, like an ox, by mere poking, to Brighton. They say it is wholesome to rise with the sun, And I dare say it may be if not over done; (I think it was Thomson who made the remark T was an excellent thing in its way for a lark;) But to rise after dinner and look down the meeting On a distant (as Gray calls it) prospect of Eating, With a stomach half full and a cerebrum hollow As the tortoise-shell ere it was strung for Apollo, Under contract to raise anerithmon gelasma AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER, 1866 With rhymes so hard hunted they gasp with the asthma, And jokes not much younger than Jethro s phylacteries, Is something I leave you yourselves to characterize. I ve a notion, I think, of a good dinner speech, Tripping light as a sandpiper over the beach, Swerving this way and that as the wave of the moment Washes out its slight trace with a dash of whim s foam on t, And leaving on memory s rim just a sense Something graceful had gone by, a live present tense; Not poetry, no, not quite that, but as good, A kind of winged prose that could fly if it would. T is a time for gay fancies as fleeting and vain As the whisper of foam-beads on fresh- poured champagne, Since dinners were not perhaps strictly designed For mano3uvring the heavy dragoons of the mind. When I hear your set speeches that start with a pop, Then wander and maunder, too feeble to stop, With a vague apprehension from popular rumor There used to be something by mortals called humor, Beginning again when you thought they were done, Respectable, sensible, weighing a ton, And as near to the present occasions of men As a Fast Day discourse of the year eighteen ten, I well, I sit still, and my sentiments smother, For am I not also a bore and a brother ? And a toast, what should that be ? Light, airy, and free, The foam-Aphrodite of Bacchus s sea, A fancy-tinged bubble, an orbed rainbow- stain, That floats for an instant twirt goblet and brain; A breath-born perfection, half something, half naught, And breaks if it strike the hard edge of a thought. Do you ask me to make such? Ah no, not so simple; Ask Apelles to paint you the ravishing dimple Whose shifting enchantment lights Venus s cheek, And the artist will tell you his skill is to seek; Once fix it, t is naught, for the charm of it rises From the sudden bopeeps of its smiling surprises. I ve tried to define it, but what mother s son Could ever yet do what he knows should be done ? My rocket has burst, and I watch in the air Its fast-fading heart s-blood drop back in despair; Yet one chance is left me, and, if I am quick, I can palm off, before you suspect me, the stick. Now since I ve succeeded I pray do not frown To Ticknor s and Longfellow s classical gown, And profess four strange languages, which, luckless elf, I speak like a native (of Cambridge) my self, Let me beg, Mr. President, leave to propose A sentiment treading on nobody s toes, And give, in such ale as with pump-handles we brew, Their memory who saved us from all talk ing Hebrew, A toast that to deluge with water is good, For in Scripture they come in just after the flood: I give you the men but for whom, as I guess, sir, Modern languages ne er could have had a professor, The builders of Babel, to whose zeal the lungs 432 HEARTSEASE AND RUE Of the children of men owe confusion of tongues; And a name all-embracing I couple there with, Which is that of my founder the late Mr. Smith. A PARABLE AN ass munched thistles, while a nightin gale From passion s fountain flooded all the vale. " Hee-haw ! " cried he, " I hearken," as who knew For such ear-largess humble thanks were due. " Friend," said the winged pain, " in vain you bray, Who tunnels bring, not cisterns, for my lay; None but his peers the poet rightly hear, Nor mete we listeners by their length of ear." V. EPIGRAMS SAYINGS IN life s small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained: know st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she 11 say to thee, " I find thee worthy ; do this deed for me " ? A camel-driver, angry with his drudge, Beating him, called him hunchback; to the hind Thus spake a dervish: " Friend, the Eternal Judge Dooms not his work, but ours, the crooked mind." 3- Swiftly the politic goes: is it dark? he borrows a lantern; Slowly the statesman and sure, guiding his steps by the stars. " Where lies the capital, pilgrim, seat of who governs the Faithful ? " " Thither my footsteps are bent: it is where Saadi is lodged." INSCRIPTIONS FOR A BELL AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY I CALL as fly the irrevocable hours, Futile as air or strong as fate to make Your lives of sand or granite; awful powers, Even as men choose, they either give or take. FOR A MEMORIAL WINDOW TO SIR WAL TER RALEIGH, SET UP IN ST. MARGA RET S, WESTMINSTER, BY AMERICAN CONTRIBUTORS THE New World s sons, from England s breasts we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came; Proud of her Past, wherefrom our Present grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh s name. PROPOSED FOR A SOLDIERS* AND SAIL ORS 5 MONUMENT IN BOSTON To those who died for her on land and sea, That she might have a country great and free, Boston builds this: build ye her monument In lives like theirs, at duty s summons spent. A MISCONCEPTION B, TAUGHT by Pope to do his good by stealth, Twixt participle and noun no difference feeling, In office placed to serve the Commonwealth, Does himself all the good he can by steal ing. THE ORACLE OF THE GOLDFISHES 433 THE BOSS SKILLED to pull wires, he baffles Nature s hope, Who sure intended him to stretch a rope. SUN-WORSHIP IF I were the rose at your window, Happiest rose of its crew, Every blossom I bore would bend in ward, They d know where the sunshine grew. CHANGED PERSPECTIVE FULL oft the pathway to her door I ve measured by the selfsame track, Yet doubt the distance more and more, T is so much longer coming back ! WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES LOST IN A WAGER WE wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain, And I should hint sharp practice if I dared; For was not she beforehand sure to gain Who made the sunshine we together shared ? SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY As life runs on, the road grows strange With faces new, and near the end The milestones into headstones change, Neath every one a friend. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT IN vain we call old notions fudge, And bend our conscience to our dealing : The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing. LAST POEMS THE following note was prefixed to this group when published in 1895: "This little volume contains those of the poems which Mr. Lowell wrote in his last years which, I believe, HOW I CONSULTED THE ORACLE OF THE GOLDFISHES WHAT know we of the world immense Beyond the narrow ring of sense ? What should we know, who lounge about The house we dwell in, nor find out, Masked by a wall, the secret cell Where the soul s priests in hiding dwell ? The winding stair that steals aloof To chapel-mysteries neath the roof ? It lies about us, yet as far From sense sequestered as a star New launched its wake of fire to trace In secrecies of unprobed space, Whose beacon s lightning-pinioned spears Might earthward haste a thousand years Nor reach it. So remote seems this World undiscovered, yet it is A neighbor near and dumb as death, So near, we seem to feel the breath he might have wished to preserve. Three of them were published before his death. Of the rest, two appear here for the first time. C. E. N." Of its hushed habitants as they Pass us unchallenged, night and day. Never could mortal ear nor eye By sound or sign suspect them nigh, Yet why may not some subtler sense Than those poor two give evidence ? Transfuse the ferment of their being Into our own, past hearing, seeing, As men, if once attempered so, Far off each other s thought can know ? As horses with an instant thrill Measure their rider s strength of will ? Comes not to all some glimpse that brings Strange sense of sense-escaping things ? Wraiths some transfigured nerve divines ? Approaches, premonitions, signs, Voices of Ariel that die out In the dim No Man s Land of Doubt ? Are these Night s dusky birds ? Are these Phantasmas of the silences 434 LAST POEMS Outer or inner ? rude heirlooms From grovellers in the cavern-glooms, Who in unhuman Nature saw Misshapen foes with tusk and claw, And with those night-fears brute and blind Peopled the chaos of their mind, Which, in ungovernable hours, Still make their bestial lair in ours ? Were they, or were they not ? Yes; no; Uncalled they come, unhid they go, And leave us fumbling in a doubt Whether within us or without The spell of this illusion be That witches us to hear and see As in a twi-life what it will, And hath such wonder-working skill That what we deemed most solid-wrought Turns a mere figment of our thought, Which when we grasp at in despair Our fingers find vain semblance there, For Psyche seeks a corner-stone Firmer than aught to matter known. Is it illusion ? Dream-stuff ? Show Made of the wish to have it so ? T were something, even though this were all: So the poor prisoner, on his wall Long gazing, from the chance designs Of crack, mould, weather-stain, refines New and new pictures without cease, Landscape, or saint, or altar-piece : But these are Fancy s common brood Hatched in the nest of solitude; This is Dame Wish s hourly trade, By our rude sires a goddess made. Could longing, though its heart broke, give Trances in which we chiefly live ? Moments that darken all beside, Tearfully radiant as a bride ? Beckonings of bright escape, of wings Purchased with loss of baser things ? Blithe truancies from all control Of Hyle, outings of the soul ? The worm, by trustful instinct led, Draws from its womb a slender thread, And drops, confiding that the breeze Will waft it to unpastured trees: So the brain spins itself, and so Swings boldly off in hope to blow Across some tree of knowledge, fair With fruitage new, none else shall share: Sated with wavering in the Void, It backward climbs, so best employed, And, where no proof is nor can be, Seeks refuge with Analogy; Truth s soft half-sister, she may tell Where lurks, seld-sought, the other s welt With metaphysic midges sore, My Thought seeks comfort at her door, And, at her feet a suppliant cast, Evokes a spectre of the past. Not such as shook the knees of Saul, But winsome, golden-gay withal, Two fishes in a globe of glass, That pass, and waver, and re-pass, And lighten that way, and then this, Silent as meditation is. With a half-humorous smile I see In this their aimless industry, These errands nowhere and returns Grave as a pair of funeral urns, This ever-seek and never-find, A mocking image of my mind. But not for this I bade you climb Up from the darkening deeps of time: Help me to tame these wild day-marea That sudden on me unawares. Fish, do your duty, as did they Of the Black Island far away In life s safe places, far as you From all that now I see or do. You come, embodied flames, as when I knew you first, nor yet knew men; Your gold renews my golden days, Your splendor all my loss repays. T is more than sixty years ago Since first I watched your to-and-froj Two generations come and gone From silence to oblivion, With all their noisy strife and stress Lulled in the grave s forgivingness, While you unquenchably survive Immortal, almost more alive. I watched you then a curious boy, Who in your beauty found full joy, And, by no problem-debts distrest, Sate at life s board a welcome guest. You were my sister s pets, not mine; But Property s dividing line No hint of dispossession drew On any map my simplesse knew; O golden age, not yet dethroned! What made me happy, that I owned; THE ORACLE OF THE GOLDFISHES 435 You were my wonders, you my Lars, In darkling days my sun and stars, And over you entranced I hung, Too young to know that I was young. Gazing with still unsated bliss, My fancies took some shape like this: " I have my world, and so have you, A tiny universe for two, A bubble by the artist blown, Scarcely more fragile than our own, Where you have all a whale could wish, Happy as Eden s primal fish. Manna is dropt you thrice a day From some kind heaven not far away, And still you snatch its softening crumbs, Nor, more than we, think whence it comes. No toil seems yours but to explore Your cloistered realm from shore to shore; Sometimes you trace its limits round, Sometimes its limpid depths you sound, Or hover motionless midway, Like gold-red clouds at set of day; Erelong you whirl with sudden whim Off to your globe s most distant rim, Where, greatened by the watery lens, Methinks no dragon of the fens Flashed huger scales against the sky, Roused by Sir Bevis or Sir Guy, And the one eye that meets my view, Lidless and strangely largening, too, Like that of conscience in the dark, Seems to make me its single mark. What a benignant lot is yours That have an own All-out-of-doors, No words to spell, no sums to do, No Nepos and no parlyvoo ! How happy you without a thought Of such cross things as Must and Ought, I too the happiest of boys To see and share your golden joys ! " So thought the child, in simpler words, Of you his finny flocks and herds; Now, an old man, I bid you rise To the fine sight behind the eyes, And, lo, you float and flash again In the dark cistern of my brain. But o er your visioned flames I brood With other mien, in other mood; You are no longer there to please, But to stir argument, and tease My thought with all the ghostly shapes From, which no moody man escapes. Diminished creature, I no more Find Fairyland beside my door, But for each moment s pleasure pay With the quart d heure of Rabelais ! I watch you in your crystal sphere, And wonder if you see and hear Those shapes and sounds that stir the wide Conjecture of the world outside; In your pent lives, as we in ours, Have you surmises dim of powers, Of presences obscurely shown, Of lives a riddle to your own, Just on the senses outer verge, Where sense-nerves into soul-nerves merge, Where we conspire our own deceit Confederate in deft Fancy s feat, And the fooled brain befools the eyes With pageants woven of its own lies ? But are they lies ? Why more than those Phantoms that startle your repose, Half seen, half heard, then flit away, And leave you your prose-bounded day ? The things ye see as shadows I Know to be substance; tell me why My visions, like those haunting you, May not be as substantial too. Alas, who ever answer heard From fish, and dream-fish too ? Absurd ! Your consciousness I half divine, But you are wholly deaf to mine. Go, I dismiss you; ye have done All that ye could; our silk is spun: Dive back into the deep of dreams, Where what is real is what seems ! Yet I shall fancy till my grave Your lives to mine a lesson gave; If lesson none, an image, then, Impeaching self-conceit in men Who put their confidence alone In what they call the Seen and Known. How seen ? How known ? As through your glass Our wavering apparitions pass Perplexingly, then subtly wrought To some quite other thing by thought. Here shall my resolution be: The shadow of the mystery Is haply wholesomer for eyes That cheat us to be overwise, And I am happy in my right To love God s darkness as His light. 43 6 LAST POEMS TURNER S OLD UNDER A FIGURE SYMBOLIZING THE CHURCH THOU wast the fairest of all man-made things; The breath of heaven bore up thy cloudy wings, And, patient in their triple rank, The thunders crouched about thy flank, Their black lips silent with the doom of kings. The storm-wind loved to rock him in thy pines, And swell thy vans with breath of great designs ; Long-wildered pilgrims of the main By thee relaid their course again, Whose prow was guided by celestial signs. How didst thou trample on tumultuous seas, Or, like some basking sea-beast stretched at ease, Let the bull-fronted surges glide Caressingly along thy side, Like glad hounds leaping by the hunts man s knees ! Heroic feet, with fire of genius shod, In battle s ecstasy thy deck have trod, While from their touch a f ulgor ran Through plank and spar, from man to man, Welding thee to a thunderbolt of God. Now a black demon, belching fire and steam, Drags thee away, a pale, dismantled dream, And all thy desecrated bulk Must landlocked lie, a helpless hulk, To gather weeds in the regardless stream. Woe s me, from Ocean s sky-horizoned air To this ! Better, the flame-cross still aflare, Shot-shattered to have met thy doom Where thy last lightnings cheered the gloom, Than here be safe in dangerless despair. Thy drooping symbol to the flagstaff clings, Thy rudder soothes the tide to lazy rings, Thy thunders now but birthdays greet, Thy planks forget the martyrs feet, Thy masts what challenges the sea-wind brings. Thou a mere hospital, where human wrecks, Like winter-flies, crawl those renowned decks, Ne er trodden save by captive foes, And wonted sternly to impose God s will and thine on bowed imperial necks ! Shall nevermore, engendered of thy fame, A new sea-eagle heir thy conqueror name, And with commissioned talons wrench From thy supplanter s grimy clench His sheath of steel, his wings of smoke and flame ? This shall the pleased eyes of our children see; For this the stars of God long even as we; Earth listens for his wings; the Fates Expectant lean; Faith cross-propt waits, And the tired waves of Thought s insur gent sea. ST. MICHAEL THE WEIGHER STOOD the tall Archangel weighing All man s dreaming, doing, saying, All the failure and the pain, All the triumph and the gain, In the unimagined years, Full of hopes, more full of tears, Since old Adam s hopeless eyes Backward searched for Paradise, And, instead, the flame-blade saw Of inexorable Law. Waking, I beheld him there, With his fire-gold, flickering hair, In his blinding armor stand, And the scales were in his hand: Mighty were they, and full well They could poise both heaven and hell " Angel," asked I humbly then, " Weighest thou the souls of men ? AN APRIL BIRTHDAY AT SEA 437 That thine office is, I know." " Nay," he answered me, " not so; But I weigh the hope of Man Since the power of choice began, In the world, of good or ill." Then I waited and was still. In one scale I saw him place All the glories of our race, Cups that lit Belshazzar s feast, Gems, the lightning of the East, Kublai s sceptre, Caesar s sword, Many a poet s golden word, Many a skill of science, vain To make men as gods again. In the other scale he threw Things regardless, outcast, few, Martyr-ash, arena sand, Of St. Francis cord a strand, Beechen cups of men whose need Fasted that the poor might feed, Disillusions and despairs Of young saints with grief-grayed hairs, Broken hearts that brake for Man. Marvel through my pulses ran Seeing then the beam divine Swiftly on this hand decline, While Earth s splendor and renown Mounted light as thistle-down. A VALENTINE LET others wonder what fair face Upon their path shall shine, And, fancying half, half hoping, trace Some maiden shape of tenderest grace To be their Valentine. Let other hearts with tremor sweet One secret wish enshrine That Fate may lead their happy feet Fair Julia in the lane to meet To be their Valentine. But I, far happier, am secure; I know the eyes benign, The face more beautiful and pure Than Fancy s fairest portraiture That mark my Valentine. More than when first I singled thee, This only prayer is mine, That, in the years I yet shall see, As, darling, in the past, thou It be My happy Valentine. AN APRIL BIRTHDAY AT SEA ON this wild waste, where never blossom came, Save the white wind-flower in the billow s cap, Or those pale disks of momentary flame, Loose petals dropped from Dian s care less lap, What far fetched influence all my fancy fills, With singing birds and dancing daffo dils ? Why, t is her day whom jocund April brought, And who brings April with her in her eyes; It is her vision lights my lonely thought, Even as a rose that opes its hushed sur prise In sick men s chambers, with its glow ing breath Plants Summer at the glacier edge of Death. Gray sky, sea gray as mossy stones on graves; Anon comes April in her jollity; And dancing down the bleak vales tween the waves, Makes them green glades for all her flowers and me. The gulls turn thrushes, charmed are sea and sky By magic of my thought, and know not why. Ah, but I know, for never April s shine, Nor passion gust of rain, nor all her flowers Scattered in haste, were seen so sudden fine As she in various mood, on whom the powers Of happiest stars in fair conjunction smiled To bless the birth of April s darling child. 43* LAST POEMS LOVE AND THOUGHT WHAT hath Love with Thought to do ? Still at variance are the two. Love is sudden, Love is rash, Love is like the levin flash, Comes as swift, as swiftly goes, And his mark as surely knows. Thought is lumpish, Thought is slow, Weighing long tween yes and no; When dear Love is dead and gone, Thought comes creeping in anon, And, in his deserted nest, Sits to hold the crowner s quest. Since we love, what need to think ? Happiness stands on a brink Whence too easy t is to fall Whither s no return at all; Have a care, half-hearted lover, Thought would only push her over ! THE NOBLER LOVER IF he be a nobler lover, take him ! You in you I seek, and not myself; Love with men s what women choose to make him, Seraph strong to soar, or fawn-eyed elf: All I am or can, your beauty gave it, Lifting me a moment nigh to you, And my bit of heaven, I fain would save it Mine I thought it was, I never knew. What you take of me is yours to serve you, All I give, you gave to me before ; Let him win you ! If I but deserve you, I keep all you grant to him and more: You shall make me dare what others dare not, You shall keep my nature pure as snow, And a light from you that others share not Shall transfigure me where er I go. Let me be your thrall ! However lowly Be the bondsman s service I can do, Loyalty shall make it high and holy; Naught can be unworthy, done for you. Men shall say, " A lover of this fashion Such an icy mistress well beseems." Women say, " Could we deserve such pas sion, We might be the marvel that he dreams." ON HEARING A SONATA OF BEETHOVEN S PLAYED IN THE NEXT ROOM UNSEEN Musician, thou art sure to please, For those same notes in happier days I heard Poured by dear hands that long have never stirred Yet now again for me delight the keys: Ah me, to strong illusions such as these What are Life s solid things? The walls that gird Our senses, lo, a casual scent or word Levels, and t is the soul that hears and sees ! Play on, dear girl, and many be the years Ere some grayhaired survivor sit like me And, for thy largess pay a meed of tears Unto another who, beyond the sea Of Time and Change, perhaps not sadly hears A music in this verse undreamed by thee ! VERSES INTENDED TO GO WITH A POSSET DISH TO MY DEAR LITTLE GODDAUGHTER, 1882 It is of interest to know that the goddaugh ter was a child of Leslie Stephen. IN good old times, which means, you know, The time men wasted long ago, And we must blame our brains or mood If that we squander seems less good, In those blest days when wish was act And fancy dreamed itself to fact, Godfathers used to fill with guineas The cups they gave their pickaninnies, Performing functions at the chrism Not mentioned in the Catechism. No millioner, poor I fill up With wishes my more modest cup, Though had I Amalthea s horn ON A BUST OF GENERAL GRANT 439 It should be hers the newly born. Nay, shudder not ! I should bestow it So brimming full she could n t blow it. Wishes are n t horses: true, but still There are worse roadsters than goodwill. And so I wish my darling health, And just to round my couplet, wealth, With faith enough to bridge the chasm Twixt Genesis and Protoplasm, And bear her o er life s current vext From this world to a better next, Where the full glow of God puts out Poor reason s farthing candle, Doubt. I ve wished her healthy, wealthy, wise, What more can godfather devise ? But since there s room for countless wishes In these old-fashioned posset dishes, I 11 wish her from my plenteous store Of those commodities two more, Her father s wit, veined through and through With tenderness that Watts (but whew ! Celia s aflame, I mean no stricture On his Sir Josh-surpassing picture) I wish her next, and t is the soul Of all I ve dropt into the bowl, Her mother s beauty nay, but two So fair at once would never do. Then let her but the half possess, Troy was besieged ten years for less. Now if there s any truth in Darwin, And we from what was, all we are win, I simply wish the child to be A sample of Heredity, Enjoying to the full extent Life s best, the Unearned Increment Which Fate her Godfather to flout Gave him in legacies of gout. Thus, then, the cup is duly filled; Walk steady, dear, lest all be spilled. ON A BUST OF GENERAL GRANT " This poem is the last, so far as is known, written by Mr. Lowell. He laid it aside for revision, leaving two of the verses incomplete. In a pencilled fragment of the poem the first verse appears as follows : Strong, simple, silent, such are Nature s Laws. In the final copy, from which the poem is now printed, the verse originally stood : Strong, steadfast, silent are the laws. but steadfast ia crossed out, and simple written above. "A similar change is made in the ninth verse of the stanza, where simpleness is sub stituted for steadfastness. The change from steadfast to simple was not made, prob ably through oversight, in the first verse of the second stanza. There is nothing to indicate what epithet Mr. Lowell would have chosen to complete the first verse of the third stanza. C. E. N." STRONG, simple, silent are the [steadfast] laws That sway this universe, of none withstood, Unconscious of man s outcries or applause, Or what man deems his evil or his good; And when the Fates ally them with a cause That wallows in the sea-trough and seems lost, Drifting in danger of the reefs and sands Of shallow counsels, this way, that way, tost, Strength, silence, simpleness, of these three strands They twist the cable shall the world hold fast To where its anchors clutch the bed-rock of the Past. Strong, simple, silent, therefore such was he Who helped us in our need; the eternal law That who can saddle Opportunity Is God s elect, though many a mortal flaw May minish him in eyes that closely see, Was verified in him: what need we say Of one who made success where others failed, Who, with no light save that of common day, Struck hard, and still struck on till For tune quailed, But that (so sift the Norns) a desperate van Ne er fell at last to one who was not wholly man. A face all prose where Time s [benignant] haze Softens no raw edge yet, nor makes all fair With the beguiling light of vanished days; This is relentless granite, bleak and bare, Roughhewn, and scornful of aesthetic phrase ; Nothing is here for fancy, naught for dreams, The Present s hard uncompromising light 440 LAST POEMS Accents all vulgar outlines, flaws, and seams, Yet vindicates some pristine natural right O ertopping that hereditary grace Which marks the gain or loss of some time- fondled race. So Marius looked, methinks, and Crom well so, Not in the purple born, to those they led Nearer for that and costlier to the foe, New moulders of old forms, by nature bred The exhaustless life of manhood s seeds to show, Let but the ploughshare of portentous times Strike deep enough to reach them where they lie: Despair and danger are their fostering climes, And their best sun bursts from a stormy sky: He was our man of men, nor would abate The utmost due manhood could claim of fate. Nothing ideal, a plain-people s man At the first glance, a more deliberate ken Finds type primeval, theirs in whose veins ran Such blood as quelled the dragon in his den, Made harmless fields, and better worlds began: He came grim-silent, saw and did the deed That was to do; in his master-grip Our sword flashed joy; no skill of words could breed Such sure conviction as that close-clamped lip; Ke slew our dragon, nor, so seemed it, knew He had done more than any simplest man might do. Yet did this man, war-tempered, stern as steel Where steel opposed, prove soft in civil sway; The hand hilt-hardened had lost tact to feel The world s base coin, and glozing knaves made prey Of him and of the entrusted Commonweal; So Truth insists and will not be denied. We turn our eyes away, and so will Fame, As if in his last battle he had died Victor for us and spotless of all blame, Doer of hopeless tasks which praters shirk, One of those still plain men that do the world s rough work. APPENDIX I. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND SERIES OF BIGLOW PAPERS [Lowell took occasion, when collecting in a book the several numbers of the second series of "Biglow Papers," which had appeared in the "AtlanticMonthly," to prefix an essay which not only gave a personal narrative of the origin of the whole scheme, but particularly dwelt upon the use in literature of the homely dialect in which the poems were couched. In this Cam bridge Edition it has seemed expedient to print the Introduction here rather than in immediate connection with the poems themselves.] THOUGH prefaces seem of late to have fallen under some reproach, they have at least this advantage, that they set us again on the feet of our personal consciousness and rescue us from the gregarious mock-modesty or cowardice of that we which shrills feebly throughput modern literature like the shrieking of mice in the walls of a house that has passed its prime. Having a few words to say to the many friends whom the " Biglow Papers " have won me, I shall ac cordingly take the freedom of the first person singular of the personal pronoun. Let each of the good-natured unknown who have cheered me by the written communication of their sym pathy look upon this Introduction as a private letter to himself. When, more than twenty years ago, I wrote the first of the series, I had no definite plan and no intention of ever writing another. Thinking the Mexican war, as I think it still, a national crime committed in behoof of Slavery, our com mon sin, and wishing to put the feeling of those who thought as I did in a way that would tell, I imagined to myself such an upcountry man as I had often seen at antislavery gatherings, capable of district-school English, but always instinctively falling back into the natural stronghold of his homely dialect when heated to the point of self-forgetfulness. When I be gan to carry out my conception and to write in my assumed character, I found myself in a strait between two perils. On the one hand, I was in danger of being carried beyond the limit of my own opinions, or at least of that temper with which every man should speak his mind in print, and on the other I feared the risk of seeming to vulgarize a deep and sacred con viction. I needed on occasion to rise above the level of mere patois, and for this purpose con ceived the Rev. Mr. Wilbur, who should ex press the more cautious element of the New England character and its pedantry, as Mr. Biglow should serve for its homely common* sense vivified and heated by conscience. The parson was to be the complement rather than the antithesis of his parishioner, and I felt or fancied a certain humorous element in the real identity of the two under a seeming incongruity. Mr. Wilbur s fondness for scraps of Latin, though drawn from the life, I adopted de liberately to heighten the contrast. Finding soon after that I needed some one as a mouth piece of the mere drollery, for I conceive that true humor is never divorced from moral con viction, I invented Mr. Sawin for the clown of my little puppet-show. I meant to embody in him that half -conscious unmorality which I had noticed as the recoil in gross natures from a puritanism that still strove to keep in its creed the intense savor which had long gone out of its faith and life. In the three I thought I should find room enough to express, as it was my plan to do, the popular feeling and opinion of the time. For the names of two of my characters, since I have received some remonstrances from very worthy persons who happen to bear them, I would say that they were purely fortuitous, probably mere unconscious memories of sign boards or directories. Mr. Sawin s sprang from the accident of a rhyme at the end of his first epistle, and I purposely christened him by the impossible surname of Birdofredum not more to stigmatize him as the incarnation of "Mani fest Destiny," in other words, of national reck lessness as to right and wrong, than to avoid the chance of wounding any private sensitiveness. The success of my experiment soon began not only to astonish me, but to make me feel the responsibility of knowing that I held in my hand a weapon instead of the mere fencing- stick I had supposed. Very far from being a popular author under my own name, so far, indeed, as to be almost unread, I found the verses of my pseudonym copied everywhere ; I saw them pinned up in workshops ; I heard them quoted and their authorship debated ; I once even, when rumor had at length caught up my name in one of its eddies, had the satis faction of overhearing it demonstrated, in the pauses of a concert, that / was utterly incpm- ftent to have written anything of the kind, had read too much not to know the utter worthlessness of contemporary reputation, es pecially as regards satire, but I knew also that by giving a certain amount of influence it also had its worth, if that influence were used on the right side. I had learned, too, that the first requisite of good writing is to have an earnest and definite purpose, whether aesthetic 442 APPENDIX or moral, and that even good writing, to please long, must have more than an average amount either of imagination or common-sense. The first of these falls to the lot of scarcely one in several generations ; the last is within the reach of many in every one that passes ; and of this an author may fairly hope to become in part the mouthpiece. If I put on the cap and bells and made myself one of the court-fools of King Demos, it was less to make his majesty laugh than to win a passage to his royal ears for cer tain serious things which I had deeply at heart. I say this because there is no imputation that could be more galling to any man s self-respect than that of being a mere jester. I endeavored, by generalizing my satire, to give it what value I could beyond the passing moment and the im mediate application. How far I have succeeded I cannot tell, but I have had better luck than I ever looked for in seeing my verses survive to pass beyond their nonage. In choosing the Yankee dialect, I did not act without forethought. It had long seemed to me that the great vice of American writing and speaking was a studied want of simplicity, that we were in danger of coming to look on our mother-tongue as a dead language, to be sought in the grammar and dictionary rather than in the heart, and that our only chance of escape was by seeking it at its living sources among those who were, as Scottowe says of Major- General Gibbons, " divinely illiterate." Presi dent Lincoln, the only really great public man whom these latter days have seen, was great also in this, that he was master witness his speech at Gettysburg of a truly masculine English, classic, because it was of no special period, and level at once to the highest and lowest of his countrymen. I learn from the highest authority that his favorite reading was in Shakespeare and Milton, to which, of course, the Bible should be added. But whoever should read the debates in Congress might fancy himself present at a meeting of the city council of some city of Southern Gaul in the decline of the Empire, where barbarians with a Latin varnish emulated each other in being more than Ciceronian. Whether it be want of culture, for the highest outcome of that is simplicity, or for whatever reason, it is certain that very few American writers or speakers wield their native language with the directness, precision, and force that are common as the day in the mother country. We use it like Scotsmen, not as if it belonged to us, but as if we wished to prove that we belonged to it, by showing our inti macy with its written rather than with its spoken dialect. And yet all the while our popular idiom is racy with life and vigor and originality, bucksome (as Milton used the word) to our new occasions, and proves itself no mere graft by sending up new suckers from the old root in spite of us. It is only from its roots in the living generations of men that a language can be reinforced with fresh vigor for its needs ; what may be called a literate dialect grows ever more and more pedantic and foreign, till it be comes at last as unfitting a vehicle for living thought as monkish Lathi. That we should all be made to talk like books is the danger with which we are threatened by the Universal Schoolmaster, who does his best to enslave the minds and memories of his victims to what he esteems the best models of English composi tion, that is to say, to the writers whose style is faultily correct and has no blood-warmth in it. No language after it has faded into diction, none that cannot suck up the feeding juices secreted for it in the rich mother-earth of com mon folk, can bring forth a sound and lusty book. True vigor and heartiness of phrase do not pass from page to page, but from man to man, where the brain is kindled and the lips suppled by downright living interests and by passion in its very throe. Language is the soil of thought, and our own especially is a rich leaf-mould, the slow deposit of ages, the shed foliage of feeling, fancy, and imagination, which has suffered an earth-change, that the vocal for est, as Howell called it, may clothe itself anew with living green. There is death in the diction ary ; and, where language is too strictly limited by convention, the ground for expression to grow in is limited also ; and we get a potted literature* Chinese dwarfs instead of healthy trees. But while the schoolmaster has been busy starching our language and smoothing it flat with the mangle of a supposed classical author ity, the newspaper reporter has been doing even more harm by stretching and swelling it to suit his occasions. A dozen years ago I began a list, which I have added to from time to time, of some of the changes which may be fairly laid at his door. I give a few of them as showing their tendency, all the more dangerous that their effect, like that of some poisons, is insen sibly cumulative, and that they are sure at last of effect among a people whose chief reading is the daily paper. I give in two columns the old style and its modern equivalent. Old Style. Was hanged. When the halter was put round his neck. A great crowd came to see. Great fire. The fire spread. House burned. The fire was got under. Man fell. A horse and wagon ran against. The frightened horse. Sent for the doctor. The mayor of the city in a short speech welcomed. New Style. Was launched into eternity. When the fatal noose was adjusted about the neck of the unfortunate victim of his own unbridled pas sions. A vast concourse was assem bled to witness. Disastrous conflagration. The conflagration extended its devastating career. Edifice consumed. The progress of the devour ing element was arrested. Individual was precipitated. A valuable horse attached to a vehicle driven by J. S., in the employment of J. B., collided with. The infuriated animal. Called into requisition the services of the family physician. The chief magistrate of the metropolis, in well-chosen INTRODUCTION TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 443 and eloquent language, frequently interrupted by the plaudits of the surg ing multitude, officially tendered the hospitalities. I shall say a few words. I shall, with your permis sion, beg leave to offer some brief observations. Began his answer. Commenced his rejoinder. Asked him to dine. Tendered him a banquet. A bystander advised. One of those omnipresent characters who, as if in pursuance of some pre vious arrangement, are certain to be encountered in the vicinity when an accident occurs, ventured the suggestion. He died. He deceased, he passed out of existence, his spirit quitted its earthly habita tion, winged its way to eternity, shook off its burden, etc. In one sense this is nothing new. The school of Pope in verse ended by wire-drawing its phrase to such thinness that it could bear no weight of meaning whatever. Nor is fine writ ing by any means confined to America. All writers without imagination fall into it of ne cessity whenever they attempt the figurative. I take two examples from Mr. Merivale s " History of the Romans under the Empire," which, indeed, is full of such. " The last years of the age familiarly styled the Augustan were singularly barren of the literary glories from which its celebrity was chiefly derived. One by one the stars in its firmament had been lost to the world ; Virgil and Horace, etc., had long since died ; the charm which the imagination of Livy had thrown over the earlier annals of Rome had ceased to shine on the details of al most contemporary history ; and if the flood of his eloquence still continued flowing, we can hardly suppose that the stream was r,s rapid, as fresh, and as clear as ever." I will not waste time in criticising the bad English or the mix ture of metaphor in these sentences, but will simply cite another from the same author which is even worse. " The shadowy phantom of the Republic continued to flit before the eyes of the Caesar. There was still, he apprehended, a germ of sentiment existing, on which a scion of his own house, or even a stranger, might boldly throw himself and raise the standard of patri cian independence." Now a ghost may haunt a murderer, but hardly, I should think, to scare him with the threat of taking a new lease of its old tenement. And fancy the scion of a house in the act of throwing itself upon a germ of senti ment to raise a standard I I am glad, since we have so much in the same kind to answer for, that this bit of horticultural rhetoric is from beyond sea. I would not be supposed to con demn truly imaginative prose. There is a simplicity of splendor, no less than of plain ness, and prose would be poor indeed if it could not find a tongue for that meaning of the mind which is behind the meaning of the words. It has sometimes seemed to me that in England there was a growing tendency to curtail lan guage into a mere convenience, and to defecate it of all emotion as thoroughly as algebraic signs. This has arisen, no doubt, in part from that healthy national contempt of humbug which is characteristic of Englishmen, in part from that sensitiveness to the ludicrous which makes them so shy of expressing feeling, but in part also, it is to be feared, from a growing distrust, one might almost say hatred, of what ever is super-material. There is something sad in the scorn with which their journalists treat the notion of there being such a thing as a national ideal, seeming utterly to have forgot ten that even in the affairs of this world the imagination is as much matter-of-fact as the un derstanding. If we were to trust the impres sion made on us by some of the cleverest and most characteristic of their periodical literature, we should think England hopelessly stranded on the good-humored cynicism of well-to-do middle- age, and should fancy it an enchanted nation, doomed to sit forever with its feet under the mahogany in that after-dinner mood which fol lows conscientious repletion, and which it is ill-manners to disturb with any topics more exciting than the quality of the wines. But there are already symptoms that a large class of Englishmen are getting weary of the domin ion of consols and divine common-sense, and to believe that eternal three per cent is not the chief end of man, nor the highest and only kind of interest to which the powers and oppor tunities of England are entitled. The quality of exaggeration has often been remarked on as typical of American charac ter, and especially of American humor. In Dr. Petri s Gedrlngtes Handbuch der Fremd- worter, we are told that the word humbug is commonly used for the exaggerations of the North-Americans. To be sure, one would be tempted to think the dream of Columbus half fulfilled, and that Europe had found in the West a nearer way to Orientalism, at least in diction. But it seems to me that a great deal of what is set down as mere extravagance is more fitly to be called intensity and pictur- esqueness, symptoms of the imaginative faculty in full health and strength, though producing, as yet, only the raw and formless material in which poetry is to work. By and by, perhaps, the world will see it fashioned into poem and picture, and Europe, which will be hard pushed for originality erelong, may have to thank us for a new sensation. The French continue to find Shakespeare exaggerated because he treated English just as our country-folk do when they speak of a "steep price," or say that they ^freeze to" a thing. The first postulate of an original literature is that a people should use their language instinctively and unconsciously, as if it were a lively part of their growth and personality, not as the mere torpid boon of education or inheritance. Even Burns contrived to write very poor verse and prose in English. Vulgarisms are often only 444 APPENDIX poetry in the egg. The late Mr. Horace Mann, in one of his public addresses, commented at some length on the beauty and moral signi ficance of the French phrase s orienter, and called on his young friends to practise upon it in life. There was not a Yankee in his audi ence whose problem had not always been to find out what was about east, and to shape his course accordingly. This charm which a fa miliar expression gains by being commented, as it were, and set in a new light by a foreign language, is curious and instructive. I cannot help thinking that Mr. Matthew Arnold forgets this a little too much sometimes when he writes of the beauties of French style. It would not be hard to find in the works of French Academicians phrases as coarse as those he cites from Burke, only they are veiled by the unfamiliarity of the language. But, however this may be, it is certain that poets and peas ants please us in the same way by translating words back again to their primal freshness, and infusing them with a delightful strange ness which is anything but alienation. What, for example, is Milton s "edge of battle" but a doing into English of the Latin acies ? Was die Gans gedacht das der Schwan vollbracht, what the goose but thought, that the swan full brought (or, to de-Saxonize it a little, what the goose conceived, that the swan achieved), and it may well be that the life, invention, and vigor shown by our popular speech, and the freedom with which it is shaped to the instant want of those who use it, are of the best omen for our having a swan at last. The part I have taken on myself is that of the humbler bird. But it is affirmed that there is something innately vulgar in the Yankee dialect. M. Sainte-Beuve says, with his usual neatness : " Je dejinis un patois une ancienne langue qui a eu des malheurs, ou encore une langue toute jeune et qui n a pas fait fortune." The first part of his definition applies to a dialect like the Pro- vengal, the last to the Tuscan before Dante had lifted it into a classic, and neither, it seems to me, will quite fit a patois, which is not properly a dialect, but rather certain archaisms, proverbial phrases, and modes of pronuncia tion, which maintain themselves among the uneducated side by side with the finished and universally accepted language. Norman French, for example, or Scotch down to the time of James VI., could hardly be called patois, while I should be half inclined to name the Yankee a lingo rather than a dialect. It has retained a few words now fallen into disuse in the mother country, like to tarry, to progress, fleshy, fall, and some others , it has changed the meaning of some, as in freshet ; and it has clung to what I suspect to have been the broad Norman pronunciation of e (which Moliere puts into the mouth of his rustics) in such words as sarvant, parfect, vartoo, and the like. It main tains something of the French sound of a also in words like chamber, danger (though the lat ter had certainly begun to take its present sound so early as 1636, when I find it sometimes spelt dainger). But in general it may be said that nothing can be found in it which does not still survive in some one or other of the English provincial dialects. There is, perhaps, a single exception in the verb to sleeve. To sleeve silk means to divide or ravel out a thread of silk with the point of a needle till it becomes/?oss. (A.-S. sUfan, to cleave divide.) This, I think, explains the sleeveless errand" in "Troilus and Cressida" so inadequately, sometimes so ludicrously darkened by the commentators. Is not a "sleeveless errand" one that cannot be unravelled, incomprehensible, and therefore bootless ? I am not speaking now of Americanisms properly so called, that is, of words or phrases which have grown into use here either through necessity, invention, or accident, such as a carry, a one-horse affair, a prairie, to vamose. Even these are fewer than is sometimes taken for granted. But I think some fair defence may be made against the charge of vulgarity. Properly speaking, vulgarity is in the thought, and not in the word or the way of pronouncing it. Modern French, the most polite of lan guages, is barbarously vulgar if compared with the Latin put of which it has been corrupted, or even with Italian. There is a wider gap, and one implying greater boorishness, between ministerium and mttier, or sapiens and sachant, than between druv and drove or agin and against, which last is plainly an arrant superla tive. Our rustic coverlid is nearer its French original than the diminutive coverlet, into which it has been ignorantly corrupted in po liter speech. I obtained from three cultivated Englishmen at different times three diverse pro nunciations of a single word, cowcumber, coo- cumber, and cucumber. Of these the first, which is Yankee also, comes nearest to the nasality of concombre. Lord Osspry assures us that Voltaire saw the best society in England, and Voltaire tells his countrymen that handkerchief was pronounced hankercher. I find it so spelt in Hakluyt and elsewhere. This enormity the Yankee still persists in, and as there is always a reason for such deviations from the sound as represented by the spelling, may we not suspect two sources of derivation, and find an ancestor for kercher in couverture rather than in cou- vrechef? And what greater phonetic vagary (which Dry den, by the way, called fegary) in our lingua, rustica than this ker for couvre ? I copy from the fly-leaves of my books, where I have noted them from time to time, a few ex amples of pronunciation and phrase which will show that the Yankee often has antiquity and very respectable literary authority on his side. My list might be largely increased by referring to glossaries, but to them every one can go for himself, and I have gathered enough for my purpose. I will take first those cases in which some thing like the French sound has been preserved in certain single letters and diphthongs. And this opens a curious question as to how long this Gallicism maintained itself in England. INTRODUCTION TO THE B1GLOW PAPERS 445 Sometimes a divergence in pronunciation has given us two words with different meanings, as in genteel and jaunty, which I find coming in toward the close of the seventeenth century, and wavering between genteel and jantee. It is usual in America to drop the u in words end ing in our a very proper change recommended by Ho well two centuries ago, and carried out by him so far as his printers would allow. This and the corresponding changes in musique, mu- sick, and the like, which he also advocated, show that in his time the French accent indi cated by the superfluous letters (for French had once nearly as strong an accent as Italian) had gone out of use. There is plenty of French accent down to the end of Elizabeth s reign. In Daniel we have riches and counsel , in Bishop Hall comet , chapelain, in Donne pictures , vir tue , presence , mortal , merit , hainous , giant , with many more, and Marston s satires are full of them. The two latter, however, are not to be relied on, as they may be suspected of Chaucerizing. Herrick writes baptime. The tendency to throw the accent backward began early. But the incongruities are perplexing, and perhaps mark the period of transition. In Warner s " Albion s England " we have creator and creature side by side with the modern creator and creature. E nvy and envying occur in Campion (1602), and yet envy survived Mil ton. In some cases we have gone back again nearer to the French, as in rev enue iorreven ue. I had been so used to hearing imbecile pro nounced with the accent on the first syllable, which is in accordance with the general ten dency in such matters, that I was surprised to find imbecile in a verse of Wordsworth. The dictionaries all give it so. I asked a highly cultivated Englishman, and he declared for im- beceel . In general it may be assumed that accent will finally settle on the syllable dictated by greater ease and therefore quickness of ut terance. Blas phemous, for example, is more rapidly pronounced than blasphem ous, to which our Yankee clings, following in this the usage of many of the older poets. American is easier than American, and therefore the false quan tity has carried the day, though the true one may be found in George Herbert, and even so late as Cowley. To come back to the matter in hand. Our uplandish man retains the soft or thin sound of the u in some words, such as rule, truth (sometimes also pronounced truth, not trooth), while he says noo for new, and gives to view and few so indescribable a mixture of the two sounds with a slight nasal tincture that it may be called the Yankee shibboleth. Voltaire says that the English pronounce true as if it rhymed with view, and this is the sound our rustics give to it. Spenser writes deow (dew) which can only be pronounced with the Yankee nasality. In rule the least sound of a precedes the u. I find reule in Pecock s " Represser." He probably pronounced it rayoole, as the old French word from which it is derived was very likely to be sounded at first, with a reminiscence of its original regula. Tindal has rueler, and the Coventry Plays have preudent. In the " Parlyament of Byrdes " I find reule. As for noo, may it not claim some sanction in its de rivation, whether from nouveau or neuf, the ancient sound of which may very well have been noof, as nearer novus ? Beef would seem more like to have come from buffe than from bctuf, unless the two were mere varieties of spelling. The Saxon few may have caught enough from its French cousin peu to claim the benefit of the same doubt as to sound ; and our slang phrase a few (as "I licked him a few ") may well appeal to un peu for sense and author ity. Nay, might not lick itself turn out to be the good old word lam in an English disguise, if the latter should claim descent as, perhaps, he fairly might, from the Latin lambere ? The New England ferce for fierce, and perce for pierce (sometimes heard as fairce and pairce), are also Norman. For its antiquity I cite the rhyme of verse and pierce in Chapman and Donne, and in some commendatory verses by a Mr. Berkenhead before the poems of Francis Beaumont. Our pairlous for perilous is of the same kind, and is nearer Shakespeare s parlous than the modern pronunciation. One other Gallicism survives in our pronunciation. Per haps I should rather call it a semi-Gallicism, for it is the result of a futile effort to repro duce a French sound with English lips. Thus for joint, employ, royal, we have jynt, emply, ryle, the last differing only from rile (roil) in a prolongation of the y sound. I find royal so pronounced in the " Mirror for Magistrates." In Walter de Biblesworth I find solives Eng lished by gistes. This, it is true, may have been pronounced jeests, but the pronunciation jystes must have preceded the present spelling, which was no doubt adopted after the radical meaning was forgotten, as analogical with other words in oi. In the same way after Norman- French influence had softened the I out of would (we already find woud for veut in N. F. poems), should followed the example, and then an / was foisted into could, where it does not belong, to satisfy the logic of the eye, which has affected the pronunciation and even the spelling 1 of English more than is commonly supposed. I meet with eyster for oyster as early as the four teenth century. I find viage in Bishop Hall and Midclleton the dramatist, bile for boil in Donne and Chrononhotonthologos, line for loin in Hall, ryall and chyse (for choice), dystrye for destroy, in the Coventry Plays. In Chapman s "All Fools ^ is the misprint of employ for imply, fairly inferring an identity of sound in the last syllable. Indeed, this pronunciation was habitual till after Pope, and Rogers tells us that the elegant Gray said naisefor noise just as our rustics still do. Our cornish (which I find also in Herrick) remembers the French better than cornice does. While clinging more closely to the Anglo-Saxon in dropping the g from the end of the present participle, the Yankee now and then pleases himself with an experiment in French nasality in words ending in n. It is not. 446 APPENDIX so far as my experience goes, very common, though it may formerly have been more so. Capting, for instance, I never heard save in jest, the habitual form being kepp n. But at any rate it is no invention of ours. In that de lightful old volume, " Aiie Compendious Buke of Godly and Spirituall Songs," in which I know not whether the piety itself or the sim plicity of its expression be more charming, I find burding, garding, and causing, and in the State Trials uncerting used by a gentleman. I confess that I like the n better than the ng. Of Yankee preterites I find risse and rize for rose in Beaumont and Fletcher, Middleton and Dryden, dim in Spenser, chees (chose) in Sir John Mandevil, give (gave) in the Coventry Plays, shet (shut) in Golding s Ovid, het in Chapman and inWeever s Epitaphs, thriv and smit in Dray ton, quit in Ben Jonson and Henry More, and pled in the Paston Letters, nay, even in the fastidious Landor. Hid for rode was anciently common. So likewise was see for saw, but I find it in no writer of authority (ex cept Golding), unless Chaucer s seie and Gow- er s sigh were, as I am inclined to think, so sounded. Shew is used by Hector Boece, Giles Fletcher, Drummond of Hawthornden, and in the Paston Letters. Similar strong preterites, like snew, thew, and even mew, are not with out example. I find sew for sewed in " Piers Ploughman. " Indeed, the anomalies in English preterites are perplexing. We have probably transf erred flew from flow (as the preterite of which I have heard it) to fly because we had another preterite in fled. Of weak preterites the Yankee retains growed, blowed, for which he has good authority, and less often knowed. His sot is merely a broad sounding of sat, no more inelegant than the common got for gat, which he further degrades into gut. When he says darst, he uses a form as old as Chaucer. The Yankee has retained something of the long sound of the a in such words as axe, wax, pronouncing them exe, wex (shortened from aix, waix). He also says hev and hed (have, had) for have and had. In most cases he follows an An glo-Saxon usage. In aix for axle he certainly does. I find wex and aisches (ashes) in Pecock, and exe in the Paston Letters. Golding rhymes wax with wexe and spells challenge chelenge. Chaucer wrote hendy. Dryden rhymes can with men, as Mr. Biglow would. Alexander Gill, Milton s teacher, in his " Lpgonomia " cites hez iov hath as peculiar to Lincolnshire. I find hayth in Collier s " Bibliographical Ac count of Early English Literature" under the date 1584, and Lord Cromwell so wrote it. Sir Christopher Wren wrote belcony. Our feet is only the O. F. faict. Thaim for them was com mon in the sixteenth century. We have an example of the same thing in the double form of the verb thrash, thresh. While the New- Englander cannot be brought to say instead for instid (commonly stid where not the last word in a sentence), he changes the i into e in red for rid, tell for till, hender for hinder, rense for rinse. I find red in the old interlude of " Ther- sytes," tell in a letter of Daborne to Henslowe, and also, I shudder to mention it, in a letter of the great Duchess of Marlborough, Atossa her self ! It occurs twice in a single verse of the Chester Plays, " Tell the day of dome, tell the beames blow." From the word blow (in another sense) is formed blowth, which I heard again this summer after a long interval. Mr. Wright 1 explains it as meaning "a blossom." With us a single blos som is a blow, while blowth means the blossom ing in general. A farmer would say that there was a good blowth on his fruit-trees. The word retreats farther inland and away from the railways, year by year. Wither rhymes hinder with slender, and Shakespeare and Love lace have renched for rinsed. In " Gammer Gurton " and " Mirror for Magistrates " is sence for since ; Marlborough s Duchess so writes it, and Donne rhymes since with Amiens and patience, Bishop Hall and Otway with pretence, Chapman with citizens, Dryden with providence. Indeed, why should not sithence take that form ? Dry den s wife (an earl s daughter) has tell for till, Margaret, mother of Henry VII., writes seche for such, and our ef finds authority in the old form ytffe. E sometimes takes the place of u, as jedge, tredge, bresh. I find tredge in the interlude of "Jack Jugler," bresh in a citation by Collier from "London Cries" of the middle of the seventeenth century, and resche for rush (fif teenth century) in the very valuable " Volume of Vocabularies " edited by Mr. Wright. Hesce is one of the Anglo-Saxon forms of the word in Bosworth s A.-S. Dictionary. Golding has shet. The Yankee always shortens the u in the ending ture, making ventur, natur, pictur, and so on. This was common, also, among the educated of the last generation. I am inclined to think it may have been once universal, and I certainly think it more elegant than the vile vencher, naycher, pickcher, that have taken its place, sounding like the invention of a lexicographer to mitigate a sneeze. Nash in his " Pierce Penniless" has ventur, and so spells it, and I meet it also in Spenser, Drayton, Ben Jonson, Herrick, and Prior. Spenser has torCrest, which can be contracted only from tortur and not from torcher. Quarles rhymes nature with creator, and Dryden with satire, which he doubtless pronounced according to its older form of satyr. Quarles has also torture and mortar. Mary Boleyn writes kreatur. I find pikter in Izaak Walton s autograph will. I shall now give some examples which cannot so easily be ranked under any special head. Gill charges the Eastern counties with kiver for cover, and ta for to. The Yankee pronounces both too and to like ta (like the tou in touch) where they are not emphatic. When they are, both become tu. In old spelling, to is the com mon (and indeed correct) form of too, which is only to with the sense of in addition. I suspect that the sound of our too has caught something 1 Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English. INTRODUCTION TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 447 from the French tout , and it is possible that the old too too is not a reduplication, but a reminis cence of the feminine form of the same word (toute) as anciently pronounced, with the e not yet silenced. Gill gives a Northern origin to geaun for gown and waund for wound (vulnus). Lovelace has waund,, but there is something too dreadful in suspecting Spenser (who borealized in his pastorals) of having ever been guilty of geaun ! And yet some delicate mouths even now are careful to observe the Hibernicism of ge-ard for guard, and qe-url for girl. Sir Philip Sidney (credite posteri !) wrote furr for far. I would hardly have believed it had I not seen it in fac-simile. As some consolation, I find furder in Lord Bacon and Donne, and Wither rhymes far with cur. The Yankee, who omits the final d in many words, as do the Scotch, makes up for it by adding one in geound. The purist does not feel the loss of the d sensibly in lawn and yon, from the former of which it has dropped again after a wrongful adoption (re tained in laundry), while it properly belongs to the latter. But what shall we make of git, yit, and yis ? I find yis and git in Warner s " Albi on s England," yet rhyming with wit, admit, and./z in Donne, with wit in the " Revenger s Tragedy," Beaumont, and Suckling, with writ in Dry den, and latest of all with wit in Sir Hanbury Williams. Prior rhymes fitting and begetting. Worse is to come. Among others, Donne rhymes again with sin, and Quarles repeatedly with in. Ben for been, of which our dear Whittier is so fond, has the authority of Sackville, "Gammer Gurton" (the work of a bishop), Chapman, Dryden, and many more, though bin seems to have been the common form. Whittier s accenting the first syllable of rom ance finds an accomplice in Drayton among others, and, though manifestly wrong, is anal ogous with Rom ans. Of other Yankeeisms, whether of form or pronunciation, which I liaye met with I add a few at random. Pecock writes sowdiers (sogers, soudoyers), and Chap man and Gill sodder. This absorption of the / is common in various dialects, especially in the Scottish. Pecock writes also biyende, and the authors of " Jack Jugler " and * Gammer Gur ton " yender. The Yankee includes "yon" in the same category, and says "hither an yen," for " to and fro." (Cf. German jenseits.) Pecock and plenty more have wrastle. Tindal has agynste, gretter, shett, ondone, debyte, and scace. " Jack Jugler " has scacely (which I have often heard, though skurce is the common form), and Donne and Dryden make great rhyme with set. In the inscription on Caxton s tomb I find ynd for end, which the Yankee more often makes eend, still vising familiarly the old phrase "right anend" for "continu ously." His " stret (straight) along" in the same sense, which I thought peculiar to him, I find in Pecock. Tindal s debyte for deputy is so perfectly Yankee that I could almost fancy the brave martyr to have been deacon of the First Parish at Jaalam Centre. " Jack Jugler " further gives us playsent and sartayne. Dry den rhymes certain with parting, and Chapman and Ben Jonson use certain, as the Yankee always does, for certainly. The " Coventry Mysteries" have occupied, massage, nateralle^ mater -al (material), and meracles, all excellent Yankeeisms. In the " Quatre fils, Aymon " (1504), 1 is vertus for virtuous. Thomas Fuller called volume vollum, I suspect, for he spells it volumne. However, per contra, Yankees habit ually say colume for column. Indeed, to prove that our ancestors brought their pronunciation with them from the Old Country, and have not wantonly debased their mother tongue, I need only to cite the words scriptur, Israll, athists, and cherfulness from Governor Bradford s " His tory." So the good man wrote them, awl so the good descendants of his fellow-exiles still pronounce them. Brampton Gurdon writes shet in a letter to Winthrop. Purtend (pretend) has crept like a serpent into the " Paradise of Dainty Devices ; " purvide, which is not so bad, is in Chaucer. These, of course, are universal vulgarisms, and not peculiar to the Yankee. Butler has a Yankee phrase, and pronunciation too, in "To which these carryings-on did tend." Langham or Laneham, who wrote an account of the festivities at Kenilworth in honor of Queen Bess, and who evidently tried to spell phonetically, makes sorrows into sororz. Her- rick writes hollow for halloo, and perhaps pro nounced it (horresco suggerens !) hollti, as Yankees do. Why not, when it comes from hola ? I find ffelaschyppe (fellowship) in the Coventry Plays. Spenser and his queen neither of them scrupled to write afore, and the former feels no inelegance even in chaw and idee. Fore was common till after Herrick. Dryden has do s for does, and his wife spells worse wosce. Afeared was once universal. Warner has ery for ever a ; nay, he also has illy, with which we were once ignorantly reproached by persons more familiar with Murray s Grammar than with English literature. And why not illy? Mr. Bartlett says it is "a word used by writ ers of an inferior class, who do not seem to perceive that ill is itself an adverb, without the termination /?/," and quotes Dr. Messer, President of Brown University, as asking tri umphantly, "Why don t you say welly?" I should like to have had Dr. Messer answer his own question. It would be truer to say that it was used by people who still remembered that ill was an adjective, the shortened form of evil, out of which Shakespeare and the translators of the Bible ventured to make evilly. This slurred evil is "the dram of eale" in "Ham let." I find illy in Warner. The objection to illy is not an etymological one, but simply that it is contrary to good usage, a very sufficient reason. /// as an adverb was at first a vulgar ism, precisely like the rustic s when he says, " I was treated bad." May not the reason of this exceptional form be looked for in that tendency to dodge what is hard to pronounce, to which I have already alluded ? If the 1 Cited in Collier. (I pive my authority where I do not quote from the original book. 1 * APPENDIX letters were distinctly uttered, as they should be, it would take too much time to say ill-ly, well-ly, and it is to be observed that we have avoided smally 1 and tally in the same way, though we add ish to them without hesitation in smallish and tallish. We have, to be sure, dully and fully, but for the one we prefer stu pidly, and tlie other (though this may have come from eliding the y before as) is giving way to full. The uneducated, whose utterance is slower, still make adverbs when they will by adding like to all manner of adjectives. We have had big charged upon us, because we use it where an Englishman would now use great. I fully admit that it were better to distinguish between them, allowing to big a certain con temptuous quality ; but as for authority, I want none better than that of Jeremy Taylor, who, in his noble sermon "On the Return of Prayer," speaks of "Jesus, whose spirit was meek and gentle up to the greatness of the biggest example." As for our double negative, I shall waste no time in quoting instances of it, because it was once as universal in English as it still is in the neo-Latin languages, where it does not strike us as vulgar. I am not sure that the loss of it is not to be regretted. But surely I shall admit the vulgarity of slurring or altogether eliding certain terminal consonants ? I admit that a clear and sharp-cut enunciation is one of the crowning charms and elegancies of speech. Words so uttered are like coins fresh from the mint, compared with the worn and dingy drudges of long service, I do not mean American coins, for those look less badly the more they lose of their original ugliness. No one is more painfully conscious than I of the contrast between the rifle-crack of an English man s yes and no, and the wet-fuse drawl of the same monosyllables in the mouths of my countrymen. But I do not find the dropping of final consonants disagreeable in Allan Ram say or Burns, nor do I believe that our literary ancestors were sensible of that inelegance in the fusing them together of which we are con scious. How many educated men pronounce the t in chestnut ? how many say pentise for penthouse, as they should. When a Yankee skipper says that he is " boun for Glpster" (not Gloucester, with the leave of the Universal Schoolmaster), 2 he but speaks like Chaucer or an old ballad-singer, though they would have pronounced it boon. This is one of the cases where the d is surreptitious, and has been added in compliment to the verb bind, with which it has nothing to do. If we consider the root of the word (though of course I grant that every race has a right to do what it will with what is so peculiarly its own as its speech), the d has no more right there than at the end of gone, where it is often put by children, who are our best guides to the sources of linguistic cor ruption, and the best teachers of its processes. Cromwell, minister of Henry VIII., writes worle 1 The word occurs in a letter of Mary Boleyn, in Golding, and Warner. Milton also was fond of the word. for world. Chapman has wan for wand, and lawn has rightfully displaced laund, though with no thought, I suspect, of etymology. Rogers tells us that Lady Bathurst sent him some letters written to William III. by Queen Mary, in which she addresses him as "Dear Husban" The old form expoun\ which our farmers use, is more correct than the form with a barbarous d tacked on which has taken its place. Of the kind opposite to this, like our gownd for gown, and the London cockney s wind for wine, I find drownd for drown in the " Misfortunes of Arthur " (1584), and in Swift. And, by the way, whence came the long sound of wind which pur poets still retain, and which survives in " winding " a horn, a totally differ ent word from " winding " a kite-string ? We say behind and hinder (comparative) and yet to hinder. Shakespeare pronounced kind kind, or what becomes of his play on that word and kin in " Hamlet " ? Nay, did he not even (shall I dare to hint it ?) drop the final d as the Yankee still does ? John Lilly plays in the same way on kindred and kindness. But to come to some other ancient instances. Warner rhymes bounds with crowns, grounds with towns, text with sex, worst with crust, inter rupts with cups; Drayton, defects with sex; Chapman, amends with cleanse; Webster, de fects with checks ; Ben Jonson, minds with com bines; Marston, trust and obsequious, clothes and shows ; Dryden gives the same sound to clothes, and has also .rinds with designs. Of course, I do not affirm that their ears may not have told them that these were imperfect rhymes (though I am by no means sure even of that), but they surely would never have tolerated any such had they suspected the least vulgarity in them. Prior has the rhyme first and trust, but puts it into the mouth of a landladj r . Swift has stunted and burnt it, an intentionally imperfect rhyme, no doubt, but which I cite as giving precisely the Yankee pronunciation of burned. Donne couples in unhallowed wedlock after and matter, thus seeming to give to both the true Yankee sound ; and it is not uncommon to find after and daughter. Worse than all, in one of Dodsley s Old Plays we have onions rhyming with min ions, I have tears in my eyes while I record it. And yet what is viler than the univeral Misses (Mrs.) for Mistress ? This was once a vulgar ism, and in "The Miseries of Inforced Mar riage " the rhyme (printed as prose in Dodsley s Old Plays by Collier), " To make my young mistress Delighting in kisses," is put into the mouth of the clown. Our people say Injun for Indian. The tendency to make this change where i follows d is common. The Italian giorno and French jour from diurnus are familiar examples. And yet Injun is one of those depravations which the taste challenges peremptorily, though it have the authority 2 Though I find Worcester in the Mirror for Magis trates. INTRODUCTION TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 449 of Charles Cotton who rhymes "Indies" with " cringes " and four English lexicogra phers, beginning with Dr. Sheridan, bid us say invidgeous. Yet after all it is no worse than the debasement which all our terminations in tion and tience have undergone, which yet we hear with resignashun and payshunce, though it might have aroused both impat-i-ence and indig- na-ti-on in Shakespeare s time. When George Herbert tells us that if the sermon be dull, " God takes a text and preacheth pati-ence," the prolongation of the word seems to convey some hint at the longanimity of the virtue. Consider what a poor curtal we have made of Ocean. There was something of his heave and expanse in o-ce-an, and Fletcher knew how to use it when he wrote so fine a verse as the sec ond of these, the best deep-sea verse I know, " In desperate storms stem with a little rudder The tumbling ruins of the ocean." Oceanus was not then wholly shorn of his di vine proportions, and our modern oshun sounds like the gush of small -beer in comparison. Some other contractions of ours have a vulgar air about them. More n for more than, as one of the worst, may stand for a type of such. Yet our old dramatists are full of such obscura tions (elisions they can hardly be called) of the th, making whe r of whether, where of whither, here of hither, bro r of brother, swio r of smother, /wo r of mother, and so on. And dear Brer Rab bit, can I forget him ? Indeed, it is this that explains the word rare (which has Dryden s support), and which we say of meat where an Englishman would use underdone. I do not believe, with the dictionaries, that it had ever anything to do with the Icelandic hrar (raw), as it plainly has not in rareripe, which means earlier ripe, President Lincoln said of a precocious boy that " he was a rareripe. 1 And I do not believe it, for this reason, that the earliest form of the word with us was, and the common er now in the inland parts still is, so far as I can discover, raredone. Goldinghas " egs reere- rosted," which, whatever else it mean, cannot mean raw-roasted. I find rather as a monosyl lable in Donne, and still better, as giving the sound, rhyming with fair in Warner. There is an epigram of Sir Thomas Browne in which the words rather than make a monosyllable : " What furie is t to take Death s part And rather than by Nature, die by Art ! " The contraction more n I find in the old play " Fuimus Troes," in a verse where the measure is so strongly accented as to leave it beyond doubt, " A golden crown whose heirs More than half the world subdue." It may be, however, that the contraction is in " th orld." It is unmistakable in the "Second Maiden s Tragedy : " " It were but folly, Dear soul, to boast of more than I can perform." Is our gin for given more violent than mar" 1 ! for marvel, which was once common, and which I find as late as Herrick ? Nay, Herrick has gin (spelling it gen), top, as do the Scotch, who agree with us likewise in preferring chimly to chimney. I will now leave pronunciation and turn to words or phrases which have been supposed peculiar to us, only pausing to pick up a sin gle dropped stitch, in the pronunciation of the word supreme, which I had thought native till I found it in the well-languaged Daniel. I will begin with a word of which I have never met with any example in any English writer of au thority. We express the first stage of wither ing in a green plant suddenly cut down by the verb to wilt. It is, of course, own cousin of the German welken, but I have never come upon it in literary use, and my own books of reference give me faint help. Graff gives welhen, marces- cere, and refers to weih (weak), and conjecturally to A.-S. hvelan. The A.-S. wealwian (to wither) is nearer, but not so near as two words in the Icelandic, which perhaps put us on the track of its ancestry, velgi, tepefacere (and velki, with the derivative), meaning contaminare. Wilt, at any rate, is a good word, filling, as it does, a sen sible gap between drooping and withering, and the imaginative phrase " he wilted right down," like " he caved right in," is a true American ism. Wilt occurs in English provincial glos saries, but is explained by wither, which with us it does not mean. We have a few words such as cache, cohog, carry (portage), shoot (chute), timber (forest), bushwhack (to pull a boat along by the bushes on the edge of a stream), buckeye (a pic turesque word for the horse-chestnut) ; but how many can we be said to have fairly brought into the language, as Alexander Gill, who first men tions Americanisms, meant it when he said, " Sed et ab Americanis nonnulla mutuamur ut MAIZ et CANOA " ? Very few, I suspect, and those mostly by borrowing from the French, German, Spanish, or Indian. 1 " The Dipper " for the " Great Bear " strikes me as having a native air. Bogus, in the sense of worthless, is undoubtedly ours, but is, I more than suspect, a corruption of the French bagasse (from low Latin bagasea), which travelled up the Missis sippi from New Orleans, where it was used for the refuse of the sugar-cane. It is true, we have modified the meaning of some words. We use freshet in the sense of flood, for which I have not chanced upon any authority. Our New England cross between Ancient Pistol and Du- gald Dalgetty, Captain Underbill, uses the word (1638) to mean a current, and I do not recollect it elsewhere in that sense. I therefore leave it with a ? for future explorers. Crick for creek I find in Captain John Smith and in the dedication of Fuller s " Holy Warre," and run, meaning a small stream, in Waymouth s u Voy age " (1605). Humans for men, which Mr. Bartlett includes in his " Dictionary of Ameri canisms, is Chapman s habitual phrase in his 1 This was written twenty years ago, and now (1890) I cannot open an English journal without coming upon an Americanism. 45 APPENDIX translation of Homer. I find it also in the old play of kk The Hog hath lost his Pearl." Dogs for andirons is still current in New England, and in Walter de Biblesworth I find chiens glossed in the margin by andirons. Gunning for shoot ing is in Drayton. We once got credit for the poetical word fall for autumn, but Mr. Bartlett and the last edition of Webster s Dictionary re fer us to Dryden. It is even older, for I find it in Drayton, and Bishop Hall has autumn fall. Middleton plays upon the word : " May st thou have a reasonable good spring, for thou art like to have many dangerous foul falls." Daniel does the same, and Coleridge uses it as we do. Gray uses the archaism picked for peaked, and the word smudge (as our backwoodsmen do) for a smothered fire. Lord Herbert of Cher- bury (more properly perhaps than even Sidney, the last preux chevalier) has "the Emperor s folks just as a Yankee would say it. Loan for lend, with which v/e have hitherto been black ened, I must retort upon the mother island, for it appears so long ago as in " Albion s England." Fleshy, in the sense of stout, may claim Ben Jonson s warrant, and I find it also so lately as in Francklin s " Lucian." Chore is also Jonson s word, and I am inclined to prefer it to chare and char, because I think that I see a more natural origin for it in the French jour whence it might come to mean a day s work, and thence a job than anywhere else. 1 At onst for at once I thought a corruption of our own, till I found it in the Chester Plays. I am now inclined to suspect it no corruption at all, but only an erratic and obsolete superlative at onest. To progress was flung in our teetli till Mr. Pick ering retorted with Shakespeare s " doth pro - gress down thy cheeks." I confess that I was never satisfied with this answer, because the accent was different, and because the word might here be reckoned a substantive quite as well as a verb. Mr. Bartlett (in his dictionary above cited) adds a surrebutter in a verse from Ford s " Broken Heart." Here the word is clearly a verb, but with the accent unhappily still on the first syllable. Mr. Bartlett says that he " cannot say whether the word was used in Bacon s time or not." It certainly was, and with the accent we give to it. Ben Jonson, in the " Alchemist," has this verse, " Progress so from extreme unto extreme," and Sir Philip Sidney, " Progressing then from fair Turias golden place." Surely we may now sleep in peace, and our English cousins will forgive us, since we have cleared ourselves from any suspicion of origi nality in the matter! Even after I had con vinced myself that the chances were desperately against our having invented any of the Ameri- cam.sros_with which we are faulted and which we are in the habit of voicing, there were one or two which had so prevailingly indigenous an accent as to stagger me a little. One of these 1 The Rev. A. L. Mayhew of Wadham College, Ox ford, has convinced me that I was astray in this. was u the biggest thing out." Alas, even this slender comfort is denied me. Old Gower has and " So harde an herte was none oute," " That such merveile was none oute." He also, by the way, says " a sighte of flowres" as naturally as our up-country folk would say it. Poor for lean, thirds for dower, and dry for thirsty I find in Middleton s plays. Dry is also in Skelton and in the "World" (1754). In a note on Middleton, Mr. Dyce thinks it needful to explain the phrase I can t tell (universal in America) by the gloss I could not say. Middle- ton also uses snecked, which I had believed an Americanism till I saw it there. It is, of course, only another form of snatch, analogous to theek and thatch (cf . the proper names Dek~ ker and Thacher), break (brack) and breach, make (still common with us) and match. Long on for occasioned by (" who is this long on ? ") occurs constantly in Gower and like wise in Middleton. Cause why is in Chaucer. Raising (an English version of the French leaven^ for yeast is employed by Gayton in his " Festivous Notes on Don Quixote." I have never seen an instance of our New England word emptins in the same sense, nor can I divine its original. Gayton has limekill ; also shuts for shutters, and the latter is used by Mrs. Hutchinson in her "Life of Colonel Hutchin- son." Bishop Hall, and Purchas in his "Pil grims," have chist for chest, and it is certainly nearer cista, as well as to its form in the Teu tonic languages, whence probably we got it. We retain the old sound from cist, but chest is as old as Chaucer. Lovelace says wropt for wrapt. " Musicianer " I had always associated with the militia-musters of my boyhood, and too hastily concluded it an abomination of our own, but Mr. Wright calls it a Norfolk word, and I find it to be as old as 1642 by an extract in Collier. " Not worth the time of day, had passed with me for native till I saw it in Shakespeare s " Pericles." For slick (which is only a shorter sound of sleek, like crick and the now universal britches for breeches) I will only call Chapman and Jonson. "That s a sure card!" and "That s a stinger!" both sound like modern slang, but you will find the one in the old interlude of "Thersytes" (1537), and the other in Middleton. "Right here," a fa vorite phrase with our orators and with a cer tain class of our editors, turns up passim in the Chester and Coventry plays. Mr. Dickens found something very ludicrous in what he con sidered our neologism right away. But I find a phrase very like it, and which 1 would gladly suspect to be a misprint for it, in " Gammer Gurton : " " Lyght it and bring it tite away." But tite is the true word in this case. After all, what is it but another form of straightway ? Cussedness, meaning wickedness, malignity, and cuss, a sneaking, ill-natured fellow, in such phrases as " He done it out o pure cussedness," INTRODUCTION TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 45 1 and "He is a nateral cuss," have been com monly thought Yankeeisms. To vent certain contemptuously indignant moods they are ad mirable in their rough-and-ready way. But neither is our own. Cursydnesse, in the same sense of malignant wickedness, occurs in the Coventry Plays, and cuss may perhaps claim to have come in with the Conqueror. At least the term is also French. Saint Simon uses it and confesses its usefulness. Speaking of the Abbe" Dubois, he says, " Qui e"toit en pleiu ce qu un mauvais frangois appelle un sacre, mais qui ne se peut guere exprimer autrement." "Not worth a cuss," though supported by "not worth a damn," may be a mere corrup tion, since " not worth a cress " is in " Piers Ploughman." "I don t see it," was the pop ular slang a year or two ago, and seemed to spring from the soil ; but no, it is in Gibber s 4 f Careless Husband." Green sauce for vege tables I meet in Beaumont and Fletcher, Gay- ton, and elsewhere. Our rustic pronunciation sahce (for either the diphthong au was anciently pronounced ah, or else we have followed abun dant analogy in changing it to the latter sound, as we have in chance, dance, and so many more) may be the older one, and at least gives some hint at its ancestor salsa. Warn, in the sense of notify, is, I believe, now peculiar to us, but Pecock so employs it. I find primmer ( primer, as we pronounce it) in Beaumont and Fletcher, and a " square eater " too (compare our " square meal "), heft for weight, and " muchness " in the "Mirror for Magistrates," bankbill in Swift and Fielding, and as for that I might say pas sim. To cotton to is, I rather think, an Ameri canism. The nearest approach to it I have found is cotton together, in Congreve s "Love for Love." To cotton or cotten, in another sense, is old and common. Our word means to cling, and its origin, possibly, is to be sought in another direction, perhaps in A.-S. cvead, which means mud, clay (both proverbially clinging), or better yet, in the Icelandic qvoda (otherwise kdd), meaning resin and glue, which are xar efox ii , sticky substances. To spit cotton is, I think, American, and also, perhaps, to flax for to beat. To the halves still survives among us, though apparently obsolete in England. It means either to let or to hire a piece of land, receiving half the profit in money or in kind (partibus locare). I mention it because in a note by some English editor, to which I have lost my reference, I have seen it wrongly ex plained. The editors of Nares cite Burton. To put, in the sense of to go, as Put ! for Be gone ! would seem our own, and yet it is strictly analogous to the French se mettre a la vote, and the Italian mettersi in via. Indeed, Dante has a verse, " To sarei [for mi sarei~\ gih messo per lo sentiero," which, but for the indignity, might be trans lated, " I should, ere this, have put along the way." I deprecate in advance any share in General Banks s notions of international law, but we may all take a just pride in his exuberant eloquence as something distinctively American. When he spoke a few years ago of " letting the Union slide," even those who, for political pur poses, reproached him with the sentiment, ad mired the indigenous virtue of his phrase. Yet I find " let the world slide " in Hey wood s "Edward IV. ; " and in Beaumont and Fletch er s " Wit without Money," Valentine says, " Will you go drink, And let the world slide ? " So also in Sidney s " Arcadia," " Let his dominion slide." In the one case it is put into the mouth of a clown, in the other, of a gentleman, and was evidently proverbial. It has even higher sanc tion, for Chaucer writes, " Well nigh all other cures let he slide." Mr. Bartlett gives "above one s bend" as an Americanism ; but compare Hamlet s " to the top of my bent." In his tracks for immediately has acquired an American accent, and passes where he can for a native, but is an importation nevertheless ; for what is he but the Latin e vestigio, or at best the Norman French enes- lespas, both which have the same meaning? Hotfoot (provincial also in England), I find in the old romance of " Tristan," " Si s^en parti CHAUT PAS." Like for as is never used in New England, but is universal in the South and West. It has on its side the authority of two kings (ego sum rex Romanorum et supra grammaticam), Henry VIII. and Charles I. This were ample, with out throwing into the scale the scholar and poet Daniel. Them was used as a nominative by the majesty of Edward VI., by Sir P. Hoby, and by Lord Paget (in Froude s "History"). I have never seen any passage adduced where guess was used as the Yankee uses it. The word was familiar in the mouths of our ances tors, but with a different shade of meaning from that we have given it, which is something like rather think, though the Yankee implies a confident certainty by it when he says, " I guess I du ! There are two examples in Ot- way, one of which (" So in the struggle, I guess the note was lost") perhaps might serve our purpose, and Coleridge s " I guess t was fearful there to see " certainly comes very near. But I have a higher authority than either in Selden, who, in one of his notes to the " Polyolbion," writes, " The first inventor of them (I guess you dislike not the addition) was one Berthold Swartz." Here he must mean by it, "I take it for granted." Robert Greene, in his "Quip for an Upstart Courtier," makes Cloth-breeches say, "but I gesse your maistership never tried what true honor meant." In this case the word seems to be used with a meaning precisely like that 45 2 APPENDIX which we give it. Another peculiarity almost as prominent is the beginning sentences, espe cially in answer to questions, with "well." Put before such a phrase as " How d e do? " it is commonly short, and has the sound of wul, but in reply it is deliberative, and the various shades of meaning which can be conveyed by difference of intonation, and by prolonging or abbreviating, I should vainly attempt to de scribe. I have heard ooa-ahl, wahl, ahl, wal, and something nearly approaching the sound of the le in able. Sometimes before " I " it dwin dles to a mere /, as " 1 1 clunno." A friend of mine (why should I not please myself, though I displease him, by brightening my page with the initials of the most exquisite of humor ists, J. H. ?) told me that he once heard five "wells," like pioneers, precede the answer to :>ut the price of land. The first was the ordinary wul, in deference to custom ; the second, the long, perpending ooahl, with a falling inflection of the voice ; the third, the same, but with the voice rising, as if in despair of a conclusion, into a plaintively nasal whine ; the fourth, wulh, ending in the aspirate of a sigh ; and then, fifth, came a short, sharp wal, showing that a conclusion had been reached. I have used this latter form in the "Biglow Papers," because, if enough nasality be added, it represents most nearly the average sound of what I may call the interjection. A locution prevails in the Southern and Mid dle States which is so curious that, though never heard in New England, I will give a few lines to its discussion, the more readily because it is extinct elsewhere. I mean the use of allow in the sense of affirm, as " 1 allow that s a good horse." I find the word so used in 1558 by Anthony Jenkinson in Hakluyt: " Corne they sowe not, neither doe eate any bread, mocking the Christians for the same, and disabling our strengthe, saying we live by eating the toppe of a weede, and drinke a drinke made of the same, allowing theyr great devouring of flesh and drinking of milke to be the increase of theyr strength." That is, they undervalued our strength, and affirmed their own to be the re sult of a certain diet. In another passage of the same narrative the word has its more com mon meaning of approving or praising : " The said king, much allowing this declaration, said." Ducange quotes Bracton sub voce ADLOCARE for the meaning "to admit as proved," and the transition from this to " affirm " is by no means violent. Izaak Walton has " Lebault allows waterfrogs to be good meat," and here the word is equivalent to affirms. At the same time, when we consider some of the meanings of allow in old English, and of allouer in old French, and also remember that the verbs prize and praise are from one root, I think we must admit allaudare to a share in the paternity of allow. The sentence from Hakluyt would read equally well, " contemning our strengthe, . . . and praising (or valuing) their great eating of flesh as the cause of their increase in strength." After all, if we confine ourselves to allocare, it may turn out that the word was somewhere and somewhen used for to bet, analogously to put up, put down, post (cf. Spanish apostar), and the like. I hear boys in the street contin ually saying, "I bet that s a good horse," or what not, meaning by no means to risk any thing beyond their opinion in the matter. The word improve, in the sense of to "oc cupy, make use of, employ," as Dr. Pickering defines it, he long ago proved to be no neolo gism. He would have done better, I think, had he substituted profit by for employ. He cites Dr. Franklin as saying that the word had never, so far as he knew, been used in New England before he left it in 1723, except in Dr. Mather s "Remarkable Providences," which he oddly calls a "very old book." Franklin, as Dr. Pickering goes on to show, was mis taken. Mr. Bartlett in his "Dictionary" merely abridges Pickering. Both of them should have confined the application of the word to material things, its extension to which is all that is peculiar in the supposed Ameri can use of it. For surely " Complete Letter- Writers " have been " improving this oppor tunity " time out of mind. I will illustrate the word a little further, because Pickering cites no English authorities. Skelton has a passage in his " Phyllyp Sparowe," which I quote the rather as it contains also the word allowed, and as it distinguishes improve from employ : "His [Chaucer s] Englysh well alowed, So as it is emprowed, For as it is employd, There is no English voyd." Here the meaning is to profit by. In Fuller s " Holy Warre " (1647), we have " The Egyptians standing on the firm ground, were thereby en abled to improve and enforce their darts to the utmost." Here the word might certainly mean to make use of. Mrs. Hutchinson (Life of Colo nel H.) uses the word in the same way : " And therefore did not emproove his interest to en gage the country in the quarrell." Swift in one of his letters says : " There is not an acre of land in Ireland turned to half its advantage ; yet it is better improved than the people." I find it also in "Strength out of Weakness" (1052), and Plutarch s " Morals ^ (1714),_but I know of only one example of its use in the purely American sense, and that is "a very good improvement for a mill " in the " State Trials " (Speech of the Attorney-General in the Lady Ivy s case, 1684). In the sense of employ, I could cite a dozen old English authorities. In running over the fly-leaves of those de lightful folios for this reference, I find a note which reminds me of another word, for pur abuse of which we have been deservedly ridi culed. I mean lady. It is true I might cite the example of the Italian donna l (domino), which has been treated in the same way by a whole nation, and not, as lady among us, by the uncultivated only. It perhaps grew into use in 1 Dame, in English, is a decayed gentlewoman of the same family. INTRODUCTION TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 453 the half-democratic republics of Italy in the same way and for the same reasons as with us. But I admit that our abuse of the word is vil- lanous. I know of an orator who once said in a public meeting where bonnets preponder ated, that " the ladies were last at the cross and first at the tomb"! But similar sins were committed before our day and in the mother country. In the " Harleian Miscellany" (vol. v. p. 455) I find " this lady is my servant ; the hedger s daughter loan." In the "State Trials" 1 learn of " a gentlewoman that lives cook with " such a one, and I hear the Lord High Steward speaking of the wife of a waiter at a bagnio as a gentlewoman ! From the same authority, by the way, I can state that our vile habit of chewing tobacco had the somewhat un savory example of Titus Gates, and I know by tradition from an eye-witness that the elegant General Burgoyne partook of the same vice. Howell, in one of his letters (dated 26 August, 1623), speaks thus of another " institution " which many have thought American : " They speak much of that boisterous Bishop of Halver- stadt (for so they term him here), that, having taken a place wher ther were two Monasteries of Nuns and Friers, he caus d divers feather-, beds to be rip d, and all the feathers to be thrown in a great Hall, whither the Nuns and Friers were thrust naked with their bodies oil d and pitch d, and to tumble among the feathers." Howell speaks as if the thing were new to him, and I know not if the " boister ous " Bishop was the inventer of it, but I find it practised in England before our Revolution. Before leaving the subject, I will add a few comments made from time to time on the mar gin of Mr. Bartlett s excellent " Dictionary," to which I am glad thus publicly to acknow ledge my many obligations. " Avails " is good old English, and the vails of Sir Joshua Rey- nolds s porter are famous. Averse /row, averse to, and in connection with them the English vulgarism "different to:" the corrupt use of to in these cases, as well as in the Yankee " he lives to Salem," "to home," and others, must be a very old one, for in the one case it plainly arose from confounding the two French prepo sitions a (from Latin ad and ao), and in the other from translating the first of them. I once thought " different to " a modern vulgar ism, and Mr. Thackeray, on my pointing it out to him in " Henry Esmond," confessed it to be an anachronism. Mr. Bartlett refers to " the old writers quoted in Richardson s Dictionary " for "different to," though in my edition of that work all the examples are with from. But I find to used invariably by Sir R. Hawkins in Hakluyt. Banjo is a negro corruption of O. E. bandore. Bind-weed can hardly be modern, for wood-bind is old and radically right, inter twining itself through bindan and windan with classic stems. Bobolink : is this a contraction for Bob o Lincoln ? I find bobolynes, in one of the poems attributed to Skelton, where it may be rendered giddy-pate, a term very fit for the bird in his ecstasies. Cruel for great is in Hak luyt. Bowling-alley is in Nash s " Pierce Pen- nilesse." Curious, meaning nice, occurs con tinually in old writers, and is as old as Pecock s " Represser." Droger is 0. E. drugger. Edu cational is in Burke. Feeze is only a form of fizz. To fix, in the American sense, I find used by the Commissioners of the United Colo nies so early as 1675, " their arms well fixed and fit for service." To take the foot in the hand is German ; so is to go under. Gundalow is old ; I find gundelo in Hakluyt, and gundello in Booth s reprint of the folio Shakespeare of 1623. Gonoff is 0. E. gnojfe. Heap is in " Piers Ploughman " (" and other names an heep"), and in Hakluyt ("seeing such a heap of their enemies ready to devour them "). To liquor is in the "Puritan" ("call em in, and liquor em a little "). To loaf: this, I think, is unquestionably German. Laufen is pro nounced lofen in some parts of Germany, and I once heard one German student say to another, Ich lauf (lofe) hier bis du wiederkehrest, and he began accordingly to saunter up and down, in. short, to loaf. To mull, Mr. Bartlett says, means " to soften, to dispirit," and quotes from " Margaret," " There has been a pretty con siderable mullin going on among the doctors," where it surely cannot mean what he says it does. We have always heard mulling used for stirring, bustling, sometimes in an underhand way. It is a metaphor derived probably from mulling wine, and the word itself must be a cor ruption of mell, from O. F. mesler. Pair of stairs is in Hakluyt. To pull up stakes is in Curwen s Journal, and therefore pre-Revolu- tionary. I think I have met with it earlier. Raise: under this word Mr. Bartlett omits "to raise a house," that is, the frame of a wooden one, and also the substantive formed from it, a ramV. Retire for go to bed is in Fielding s "Amelia." Setting-poles cannot be new, for I find" some set [the boats] with longpo/es" in Hakluyt. Shoulder-hitters : I find that shoulder- striker is old, though I have lost the reference to my authority. Snag is no new word, though perhaps the Western application of it is so ; but I find in Gill the proverb, " A bird in the bag is worth two on the snag." Dryden has swop and to rights. Trail^: Hakluyt has "many waves traled by the wilde beastes." I subjoin a few phrases not in Mr. Bartlett s book which I have heard. Bald-headed: "to go it bald-headed ; " in great haste, as where one rushes out without his hat. Bogue: "I don t git much done thout I bogue right in along th my men." Carry: a portage. Cat nap: a short doze. Cat-stick: a small stick. Chowder-head : a muddle-brain. Cling-john : a soft cake of rye. Cocoa-nut : the head. Cohees : applied to the people of certain settlements in Western Pennsylvania, from their use of the archaic form Quo he. Dunnow z I know : the nearest your true Yankee ever comes to acknowledging ignorance. Essence-pedler : a skunk. First-rate and a half. Fish-flakes, for drying fish: O. E. fleck (cratis). Gander-party: a social gathering of men only. Gawmcus : a 454 APPENDIX dolt. Hawkins s whetstone : rum ; in derision of one Hawkins, a well-known temperance-lec turer. Hyper: to bustle: " I mus hyper about an git tea." Keelcr-tub: one in which dishes are washed. (" And Greasy Joan doth keel the pot.") Lap-tea : where the guests are too many to sit at table. Last of pea-time : to be hard-up. Lose-laid (loose-laidj : a weaver s term, and probably English ; weak-willed. Malahack : to cut up hastily or awkwardly. ~M.oongla.de : a beautiful word : for the track of moonlight on the water. Off-ox: an unmanageable, cross- grauied fellow. Old Driver, Old Splitfoot : the Devil. Onhitch : to pull trigger (cf . Spanish disparar). Popular: conceited. Rote: sound of surf before a storm. Bot-gut : cheap whis key ; the word occurs in Hey wood s " English Traveller " and Addison s " Drummer," for a poor kind of drink. Seem : it is habitual with the New-Englander to put this verb to strange uses, as " I can t seem to be suited." "I could n t seem to know him." Sidehill, for hillside. State-house : this seems an American ism, whether invented or derived from the Dutch Stadhuys, I know not. Strike and stri ng : from the game of ninepins ; to make a strike is to knock down all the pins with one ball, hence it has come to mean fortunate, successful. Swampers: men who break out loads for lum berers. Tormented: euphemism for damned, as, "not a tormented cent." Virginia fence, to make a : to walk like a drunken man. It is always worth while to note down the erratic words or phrases which one meets with in any dialect. They may throw light on the meaning of other words, on the relationship of languages, or even on history itself. In so composite a language as ours they often supply a different form to express a different shade of meaning, as in viol and. fiddle, thrid and thread, smother and smoulder, where the / has crept in by a false analogy vith would. We have given back to England the excellent adjective lengthy, formed honestly I ke earthy, drouthy, and others, thus enabling their journalists to characterize our President s messages by a word civilly compromising between long and tedious, so as not to endanger the peace of the two countries by wounding our national sensitiveness to Brit ish criticism. Let me give two curious ex amples of the antiseptic property of dialects at which I have already glanced. Dante has dindi as a childish or low word for danari (money), and in Shropshire small Roman coins are still dug up which the peasants call dinders. This can hardly be a chance coincidence, but seems rather to carry the word back to the Roman soldiery. So our farmers say chuk, chuk, to their pigs, and ciacco is one of the Italian words for hog. When a countryman tells us that he "fell all of a heap," I cannot help thinking that he unconsciously points to an affinity between our word tumble, and the Latin tumulus, that is older than most others. 1 Which, whether in that form, or under its aliases witch-grass and coocA-grass, points us back to its origi nal Saxon quick. I believe that words, or even the mere into nation of them, have an astonishing vitality and power of propagation by the root, like the gardener s pest, quitch-grass, 1 while tne appli cation or combination of them may be new. It is in these last that my countrymen seem to me full of humor, invention, quickness of wit, and that sense of subtle analogy which needs only refining to become fancy and imagination. Prosaic as American life seems in many of its aspects to a European, bleak and bare as it is on the side of tradition, and utterly orphaned of the solemn inspiration of antiquity, I cannot help thinking that the ordinary talk of unlet tered men among us is fuller of metaphor and of phrases that suggest lively images than that of any other people I have seen. Very many such will be found in Mr. Bartlett s book, though his short list of proverbs at the end seem to me, with one or two exceptions, as un- American as possible. Most of them have no character at all but coarseness, and are quite too long-skirted for working proverbs, in which language always "takes off its coat to it," as a Yankee would say. There are plenty that have a more native and puckery flavor, seed lings from the old stock often, and yet new varieties. One hears such not seldom among us Easterners, and the West would yield many more. " Mean enough to steal acorns from a blind hog;" "Cold as the north side of a Jenooary gravestone by starlight;" "Hungry as a graven image ; " " Pop lar as a hen with one chicken;" " A hen s time ain t much;" " Quicker n greased lightnin ; " Ther s sech a thing ez bein tu " (our Yankee paraphrase of /u.^Se* ayav) ; hence the phrase tooin 1 round, meaning a supererogatory ac tivity like that of flies; "Stingy enough to skim his milk at both eends" ; "Hot as the Devil s kitchen ; " " Handy as a pocket in a shirt ; " " He s a whole team and the dog un der the wagon ; " " All deacons are good, but there s odds in deacons " (to deacon berries is to put the largest atop); "So thievish they hev to take in their stone walls nights ; " 2 may serve as specimens. " I take my tea barfoot" said a backwoodsman when asked if he would have cream and sugar. (I find barfoot, by the way, in the Coventry Plays.) A man speak ing to me once of a very rocky clearing said, " Stone s got a pretty heavy mortgage on that land," and I overheard a guide in the woods, say to his companions who were urging him to sing, " Wai, I did sing once, but toons gut invented, an thet spilt my trade." Whoever has driven over a stream by a bridge made of slabs will feel the picturesque force of the epi thet slab-bridged applied to a fellow of shaky character. Almost every county has some good die-sinker in phrase, whose mintage passes into the currency of the whole neighborhood. Such a one described the county jail (the one stone building where all the dwellings are of wood) 2 And, by the way, the Yankee never says " o nights," but uses the older adverbial form, analogous to the German uachts. INTRODUCTION TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 455 as " the house whose underpinnin come up to the eaves," and called hell " the place where they did n t rake up their fires nights." I once asked a stage-driver if the other side of a hill were as steep as the one we were climbing: " Steep ? chain lightnin could n go down it thout puttin the shoe on ! " And this brings me back to the exaggeration of which I spoke before. To me there is something very taking in the negro "so black that charcoal made a chalk-mark on him," and the wooden shingle "painted so like marble that it sank in wa ter," as if its very consciousness or its vanity had been overpersuaded by the cunning of the painter. I heard a man, in order to give a notion of some very cold weather, say to an other that a certain Joe, who had been taking mercury, found a lump of quicksilver in each boot, when he went home to dinner. This power of rapidly dramatizing a dry fact into flesh and blood and the vivid conception of Joe as a human thermometer strike me as showing a poetic sense that may be refined into fac ulty. At any rate there is humor here, and not mere quickness of wit, the deeper and not the shallower quality. The tendency of humor is always towards overplus of expression, while the very essence of wit is its logical precision. Captain Basil Hall denied that our people had any humor, deceived, perhaps, by their gravity of manner. But this very seriousness is often the outward sign of that humorous quality of the mind which delights in finding an element of identity in things seemingly the most incon gruous, and then again in forcing an incongruity upon things idantical. Perhaps Captain Hall had no humor himself, and if so he would never find it. Did he always feel the point of what was said to himself ? I doubt it, be cause I happen to know a chance he once had given him in vain. The Captain was walking up and down the veranda of a country tavern in Massachusetts while the coach changed horses. A thundar-storm was going on, and, with that pleasant European air of indirect self-compli ment in condescending to be surprised by American merit, which we find so conciliating, he said to a countryman lounging against the door, " Pratty heavy thunder you have here." The other, who had divined at a glance his feeling of generous concession to a new country, drawled gravely, " Waal, we e?u, considerin the number of inhabitants." This, the more I analyze it, the more humorous does it seem. The same man was capable of wit also, when he would. He was a cabinet-maker, and was once employed to make some commandment- tables for the parish meeting-house. The par son, a very old man, annoyed him by looking into his workshop every morning, and caution ing him to be very sure to pick out clear mahogany without any knots in it." At last, wearied out, he retorted one day : " Wai, Dr. B., I guess ef I was to leave the nots out o some o the c man ments, t ould soot you full ez wal ! " If I had taken the pains to write down the froverbial or pithy phrases I have heard, or if had sooner thought of noting the Yankeeisms I met with in my reading, I might have been able to do more justice to my theme. But I have done all I wished in respect to pronuncia tion, if I have proved that where we are vulgar, we have the countenance of very good company. For, as to the jus et norma loquendi, I agree with Horace and those who have paraphrased or commented him, from Boileau to Gray. I think that a good rule for style is Galiani s defi nition of sublime oratory, " 1 art de tout dire sans etre mis k la Bastille dans un pays ou il est cle^fendu de rien dire." I profess myself a fanatical purist, but with a hearty contempt for the speech-gilders who affect purism with out any thorough, or even pedagogic, know ledge of the engendure, growth, and affinities of the noble language about whose mesalliances they profess (like Dean Alf ord) to be so solici tous. If they had their way ! " Doch es sey, says Lessing, " dass jene gothische Hoflichkeit eine unentbehrliche Tugend des heutigen Um- ganges ist. Soil sie darum unsere Schriften eben so schaal und falsch machen als unsern Umgang ? " And Dray ton was not far wrong in affirming that " T is possible to climb, To kindle, or to slake, Although in Skelton s rhyme." Cumberland in his Memoirs tells us that when, in the midst of Admiral Rodney s great sea-fight, Sir Charles Douglas said to him, " Be hold, Sir George, the Greeks and Trojans con tending for the body of Patroclus ! " the Ad miral answered, peevishly, "Damn the Greeks and damn the Trojans ! I have other things to think of." After the battle was won, Rodney thus to Sir Charles, " Now, my dear friend, I am at the service of your Greeks and Trojans, and the whole of Homer s Iliad, or as much of it as you please ! " I had some such feeling of the impertinence of our pseudo-classicality when I chose our homely dialect to work in. Should we be nothing, because somebody had contrived to be something (and that perhaps in a provincial dialect) ages ago ? and to be no thing by our very attempt to be that something, which they had already been, and which there fore nobody could be again without being a bore ? Is there no way left, then, I thought, of being natural, of being naif, which means nothing more than native, of belonging to the age and country in which you are born ? The Yankee, at least, is a new phenomenon ; let us try to be that. It is perhaps a pis alter, but is not No Thoroughfare written up everywhere else ? In the literary world, things seemed to me very much as they were in the latter half of the last century. Pope, skimming the cream of good sense and expression wherever he could find it, had made, not exactly poetry, but an honest, salable butter of worldly wisdom which pleasantly lubricated some of the drier morsels of life s daily bread, and, seeing this, scores of harmlessly insane people went on for the next 456 APPENDIX fifty years coaxing his buttermilk with the reg ular up and down of the pentameter churn. And in our day do we not scent everywhere, and even carry away in our clothes against our will, that faint perfume of musk which Mr. Tennyson has left behind him, or worse, of Heine s patchouli f And might it not be pos sible to escape them by turning into one of our narrow New England lanes, shut in though it were by bleak stone walls on either hand, and where no better flowers were to be gathered than goldenrod and hardhack ? Beside the advantage of getting out of the beaten track, our dialect offered others hardly inferior. As I was about to make an endeavor to state them, I remembered something that the clear-sighted Goethe had said about Hebel s " Allemannische Gedichte," which, making proper deduction for special reference to the book under review, expresses what I would have said far better than I could hope to do : "Allen diesen innern guten Eigenschaften kommt die behagliche naive Sprache sehr zu statten. Man findet mehrere sinnlich bedeutende und wohl- klingende Worte . . . von einem, zwei Buch- staben, Abbreviationen, Contractionen, viele kurze, leichte Sylben, neue Reime, welches, mehr als man glaubt, ein Vortheil fur den Dichter ist. Diese Elemente werden durch gliickliche Constructionen und lebhafte Formen zu einem Styl zusammengedrangt der zu diesem Zwecke vor unserer Biichersprache grosse Vor- ziige hat." Of course I do not mean to imply that I have come near achieving any such suc cess as the great critic here indicates, but I think the success is there, and to be plucked by some more fortunate hand. Nevertheless, I was encouraged by the ap proval of many whose opinions I valued. With a feeling too tender and grateful to be mixed with any vanity, I mention as one of these the late A. H. Clough, who more than any one of those I have known (no longer living), except Hawthorne, impressed me with the constant presence of that indefinable thing we call genius. He often suggested that 1 should try my hand at some Yankee Pastorals, which would admit of more sentiment and a higher tone without foregoing the advantage offered by the dialect. I have never completed any thing of the kind, but, in this Second Series, both my remembrance of his counsel and the deeper feeling called up by the great interests at stake, led me to venture some passages nearer to what is called poetical than could have been admitted without incongruity into the former series. The time seemed calling to me, with the old poet, " Leave, then, your wonted prattle, The oaten reed forbear ; For I hear a sound of battle, And trumpets rend the air !" The only attempt I had ever made at any thing like a pastoral (if that may be called an attempt which was the result almost of pure accident) was in "The Courtin ." While the introduction to the First Series was going through the press, I received word from the printer that there was a blank page left which must be filled. I sat down at once and impro vised another fictitious " notice of the press," in which, because verse would fill up space more cheaply than prose, I inserted an extract from a supposed ballad of Mr. Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the printer, as directed, cut it off when the gap was filled. Presently I began to receive letters asking for the rest of it, sometimes for the balance of it. I had none, but to answer such demands, I patched a con clusion upon it in a later edition. Those who had only the first continued to importune me. Afterward, being asked to write it out as an autograph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commis sion Fair, I added other verses, into some of which I infused a little more sentiment in a homely way, and after a fashion completed it by sketching iu the characters and making a connected story. Most likely I have spoiled it, but I shall put it at the end of this Intro duction, to answer once for all those kindly importunings. As I have seen extracts from what purported to be writings of Mr. Biglow, which were not genuine, I may properly take this opportunity to say. that the two volumes now published contain every line I ever printed under that pseudonyme, and that I have never, so far as I can remember, written an anonymous arti cle (elsewhere than in the " North American Review" and the "Atlantic Monthly," dur ing my editorship of it) except a review of Mrs. Stowe s "Minister s Wooing," and, some twenty years ago, a sketch of the antislavery movement in America for an English journal. A word more on pronunciation. I have en deavored to express this so far as I could by the types, taking such pains as, I fear, may sometimes make the reading harder than need be. At the same time, by studying uniform ity I have sometimes been obliged to sacrifice minute exactness. The emphasis often modi fies the habitual sound. For example, for is commonly fer (a shorter sound than fur for far\ but when emphatic it always becomes for, as " wut for ! " So too is pronounced like to (as it was anciently spelt), and to like ta (the sound as in the ton of touch), but too, when emphatic, changes into tue, and to, sometimes, in similar cases, into toe, as, " I did n hardly know wut toe du ! " Where vowels come together, or one precedes another following an aspirate, the two melt together, as was common with the older poets who formed their versification on French or Italian models. Dray ton is thoroughly Yan kee when he says " I xpect," and Pope when he says, " t inspire." With becomes sometimes ith, wfA, or th, or even disappears wholly where it comes before the, as, "I went along th Square" (along with the Squire), the are sound being an archaism which I have noticed also in choir, like the old Scottish quhairJ- 1 Greene in his Quip for an Upstart Courtier says, "to square it up and downe the streetes before his mistresse." INTRODUCTION TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 457 (Herrick has, " Of flowers ne er sucked by th theeving bee.") Without becomes athout and thout. Afterwards always retains its locative s, and is pronounced always ahterwurds , with a strong accent on the last syllable. This oddity has some support in the erratic towards instead of towards, which we find in the poets and sometimes hear. The sound given to the first syllable of tc/ wards, I may remark, sustains the Yankee lengthening of the o in to. At the be ginning of a sentence, ahterwurds has the accent on the first syllable ; at the end of one, on the last; as, " ah terwurds he tol me," "he tol me ahterwurds ." The Yankee never makes a mistake in his aspirates. U changes in many words to e, always in such, brush, tush, hush, rush, blush, seldom in much, oftencr in trust and crust, never in musk, gust, bust, tumble, or (?) */?us/i, in the latter case probably to avoid con fusion with .flesh. I have heard;7/7usA with the & sound, however. For the same reason, I suspect, never in gush (at least, I never heard it), because we have already one gesh for gash. A. and i short frequently become e short. U always becomes o in the prefix un (except unto), and o in return changes to u short in uv for of, and in some words beginning with om. T and d, b and p, v and w, remain intact. So much occurs to me in addition to what I said on this head in the preface to the former volume. Of course in what I have said I wish to be understood as keeping in mind the difference between provincialisms properly so called and slang. Slang is always vulgar, because it is not a natural but an affected way of talking, and all mere tricks of speech or writing are offensive. I do not think that Mr. Biglow can be fairly charged with vulgarity, and I should have entirely failed in my design, if I had not made it appear that high and even refined sentiment may coexist with the shrewder and more comic elements of the Yankee character. I believe that what is essentially vulgar and mean-spirited in politics seldom has its source in the body of the people, but much rather among those who are made timid by their wealth or selfish by their love of power. A democracy can afford much better than an aristocracy to follow out its convictions, and is perhaps better qualified to build those convic tions on plain principles of right and wrong, rather than on the shifting sands of expediency. I had always thought "Sam Slick" a libel on the Yankee character, and a complete falsifica tion of Yankee modes of speech, though, for aught I know, it may be true in both respects so far as the British provinces are concerned. To me the dialect was native, was spoken all about me when a boy, at a time when an Irish day-laborer was as rare as an American one now. Since then I have made a study of it so far as opportunity allowed. But when I write in it, it is as in a mother tongue, and I am carried back far beyond any studies of it to long-ago noonings in my father s hay-fields, and to the talk of Sam and Job over their jug f blackstrap under the shadow of the ash-tree which still dapples the grass whence they have been gone so long. But life is short, and prefaces should be. And so, my good friends, to whom this intro ductory epistle is addressed, farewell. Though some of you have remonstrated with me, I shall never write any more " Biglow Papers," how ever great the temptation, great especially at the present time, unless it be to complete the original plan of this Series by bringing out Mr. Sawin as an "original Union man." The very favor with which they have been received is a hindrance to me, by forcing on me a self- consciousness from which I was entirely free when I wrote the First Series. Moreover, I am no longer the same careless youth, with nothing to do but live to myself, my books, and my friends, that I was then. I always hated poli tics, in the ordinary sense of the word, and I am not likely to grow fonder of them, now that I have learned how rare it is to find a man who can keep principle clear from party and per sonal prejiidice, or can conceive the possibility of another s doing so. I feel as if I could in some sort claim to be an emeritus, and I am sure that political satire will have full justice done it by that genuine and delightful humorist, the Rev. Petroleum V. Nasby. I regret that I killed off Mr. Wilbur so soon, for he would have enabled roe to bring into this preface a number of learned quotations, which must now go a-begging, and also enabled me to disperson- alize myself into a vicarious egotism. He would have helped me likewise in clearing myself from a charge which I shall briefly touch on, because my friend Mr. Hughes has found it needful to defend me in his preface to one of the English editions of the " Biglow Papers." I thank Mr. Hughes heartily for his friendly care of my good name, and were his Preface accessible to my readers here (as I am glad it is not, for its partiality makes me blush), I should leave the matter where he left it. The charge is of profanity, brought in by persons who pro claimed African slavery of Divine institution, and is based (so far as I have heard) on two passages in the First Series and, " An you ve gut to git up airly, Ef you want to take in God," " God 11 send the bill to you," and on some Scriptural illustrations by Mr. Sawin. Now, in the first place, I was writing under an assumed character, and must talk as the person would whose mouthpiece I made myself. Will any one familiar with the New England countryman venture to tell me that he does not speak of sacred things familiarly ? that Biblical allusions (allusions, that is, to the single book with whose language, from his church-going habits, he is intimate) are not frequent on his lips ? If so, he cannot have pursued his studies of the character on so many long-ago muster- fields and at so many cattle-shows as I. But I scorn any such line of defence, and will confess 158 APPENDIX at once that one of the things I am proud of in my countrymen is (I am not speaking now of such persons as I have assumed Mr. Sawin to be) that they do not put their Maker away far from them, or interpret the fear of God into being afraid of Him. The Talmudists had conceived a deep truth when they said, that " all things were in the power of God, save the fear of God ; " and when people stand in great dread of an invisible power, I suspect they mistake quite another personage for the Deity. I might justify myself for the passages criti cised by many parallel ones from Scripture, but I need not. The Reverend Homer Wil bur s note-books supply me with three apposite quotations. The first is from a Father of the Roman Church, the second from a Father of the Anglican, and the third from a Father of Modern English poetry. The Puritan divines would furnish me with many more such. St. Bernard says, Sapiens nummularius est Deus : minimum Return non recipiet ; "A cunning money-changer is God : he will take in no base coin." Latimer says, " You shall perceive that God, by this example, shaketh us by the noses and taketh iis by the ears." Familiar enough, both of them, one would say ! But I should think Mr. Biglow had verily stolen the last of the two maligned passages from Dryden s " Don Sebastian," where I find " And beg of Heaven to charge the bill on me ! " And there I leave the matter, being willing to believe that the Saint, the Martyr, and even the Poet, were as careful of God s honor as my critics are ever likely to be. II. GLOSSARY TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS Act lly, actually. Air, are. Airth, earth. Airy, area. Aree, area. Arter, after. Ax, ask. Beller, bellow. Bellowses, lungs. Ben, been. Bile, boil. Bimeby, by and by. Blurt out, to speak bluntly. Bust, burst. Buster, a roistering blade ; used also as a gen eral superlative. Caird, carried. Cairn, carrying. Caleb, a turncoat. Cal late, calculate. Cass, a person with two lives. Close, clothes. Cockerel, a young cock. Cocktail, a kind of drink ; also, an ornament peculiar to soldiers. Convention, a place where people are imposed on ; a jugglers show. Coons, a cant term for a now defunct party ; de rived, perhaps, from the fact of their being commonly up a tree. Cornwallis, a sort of muster^ in masquerade ; supposed to have had its origin soon after the Revolution, and to commemorate the surren der of Lord Cornwallis. It took the place of the old Guy Fawkes procession. Crooked stick, a perverse, froward person. Cunnle, a colonel. Cus, a curse; also, a pitiful fellow. Darsn t, used indiscriminately, either in singu lar or plural number, for dare not, dares not, and dared not. Deacon off, to give the cue to; derived from a custom, once universal, but now extinct, in our New England Congregational churches. An important part of the office of deacon was to read aloud the hymns given out by the minister, one line at a time, the congregation singing each line as soon as read. Demmercrat, leadin , one in favor of extending slavery; a free-trade lecturer maintained in the custom-house. Desput, desperate. Do , don t. Doos, does. Doughface, a contented lick-spittle; a common variety of Northern politician. Dror, draw. Du, do. Dunno, dno, do not or does not know. Dut, dirt. Eend, end. Ef , if. Emptins, yeast. Env y, envoy. Everlasting, an intensive, without reference to duration. Ev y, every. Ez, as. Fence, on the ; said of one who halts between two opinions ; a trimmer. Fer,/or. Ferfle, f erf ul, fearful ; also an intensive. Fiu , find. Fish -skin, used in New England to clarify coffee. Fix, a difficulty, a nonplus. Foller, folly, to follow. Forrerd, forward. Frum, from. Fur, far. Fnrder, farther. Furrer, furrow. Metaphorically, to draw a straight furrow is to live uprightly or deco rously. Fust, first. Gin, gave. Git, get. Gret, great. GLOSSARY TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 459 Grit, spirit, energy, pluck. Grout, to sulk. Grouty, crabbed, surly. Gum, to impose on. Gump, a foolish fellow, a dullard. Gut, got. Hed, had. Heern, heard. Helium, helm. Bendy, handy. Het, heated. Hev, have. Hez, has. Holl, whole. Holt, hold. Huf, hoof. Hull, whole. Hum, home. Humbug-, General Taylor s antislavery. Hut, hurt. Idno, I do not know. In my, enemy. Insines, ensigns ; used to designate both the of ficer who carries the standard, and the stand ard itself. Inter, intu, into. Jedge, judge. Jest, just. Jine, join. Jint, joint. Junk, a fragment of any solid substance. Keer, care. Kep , kept. Killock, a small anchor.^ Kin , kin o , kinder, kind, kind of. Lawth, loath. Less, let s, let us. Let daylight into, to shoot. Let on, to hint, to confess, to own. Lick, to beat, to overcome. Lights, the bowels. Lily-pads, leaves of the water-lily. Long-sweetening, molasses. Mash, marsh. Mean, stingy, ill-natured. Min , mind. Nimepunce, ninepence, twelve and a half cents. Nowers, nowhere. Offen, often. Ole, old. Oilers, olluz, always. On, of; used before it or them, or at the end of a sentence, as on f, on em, nut ez ever I heerd on. On y, only. Ossifer, officer (seldom heard). Peaked, pointed. Peek, to peep. Pickerel, the pike, a fish. Pint, point. Pocket full of rocks, plenty of money. Pooty, pretty. Pop ler, conceited, popular. Pus, purse. Put out, troubled, vexed. Quarter, a quarter-dollar. Queen s-arm, a musket. Resh, rush. Revelee, the reveille. Rile, to trouble. Riled, angry ; disturbed, as the sediment in any liquid. Riz, risen. Row, a long row to hoe, a difficult task. Rugged, robust. Sarse, abuse, impertinence. Sartin, certain. Saxon, sacristan, sexton. Scaliest, worst. Scringe, cringe. Scrouge, to crowd. Sech, such. Set by, valued. Shakes, great, of considerable consequence. Shappoes, chapeaux, cocked-hats. Sheer, share. Shet, shut. Shut, shirt. Skeered, scared. Skeeter, mosquito. Skooting, running, or moving swiftly. Slarterin , slaughtering. Slim, contemptible. Snake, crawled like a snake ; but to snake any one out is to track him to his hiding-place ; to snake a thing out is to snatch it out. O fV> * homes, sofas. Sogerin , soldiering; a barbarous amusement common among men in the savage state. Som ers, somewhere. So st, so as that. Sot, set, obstinate, resolute. Spiles, spoil* ; objects of political ambition. Spry, active. Steddles, stout stakes driven into the salt marshes, on which the hay-ricks are set, and thus raised out of the reach of high tides. Streaked, uncomfortable, discomfited. Suckle, circle. Sutthin , something. Suttin, certain. Take on, to sorrow. Talents, talons. Taters, potatoes. Tell, till. Tetch, touch. Tetch tu, to be able ; used always after a nega tive in this sense. Tollable, tolerable. Toot, used derisively for playing on any wind instrument. 460 APPENDIX Thru, through. Thundering, a euphemism common in New England for the profane English expression devilish. Perhaps derived from the belief, common formerly, that thunder was caused by the Prince of the Air, for some of whose accomplishments consult Cotton Mather. Tu, to, too ; commonly has this sound when used emphatically, or at the end of a sentence. At other times it has the sound of t in tough, as, Ware ye gain* tu ? Goiri 1 ta Boston. Ugly, ill-tempered, intractable. Uncle Sam, United States ; the largest boaster of liberty and owner of slaves. Unrizzest, applied to dough or bread ; heavy, most unrisen, or most incapable of rising. V-spot, a five-dollar bill. Vally, value. Wake snakes, to get into trouble. Wai, well ; spoken with great deliberation, and sometimes with the a very much flattened, sometimes (but more seldom) very much broadened. Wannut, walnut (hickory). Ware, where. Ware, were. Whopper, an uncommonly large lie; as, that General Taylor is in favor of the Wilmot Proviso. Wig, Whig ; a party now dissolved. Wunt, wilt not. Wus, worse. Wut, what. Wuth, worth ; as, Antislavery perfessions fore, lection aint ivuth a Bungtown copper. Wuz, was, sometimes were. Yaller, yellow. Yeller, yellow. Yellers, a disease of peach-trees. Zack, Ole, a second Washington, an antislavery slaveholder ; a humane buyer and seller of men and women, a Christian hero generally. III. INDEX TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS A. wants his axe ground, 247. A. B., information wanted concerning, 203. Abraham (Lincoln), his constitutional scruples, 247. Abuse, an, its usefulness, 259. Adam, eldest son of, respected, 183 his fall, 264 how if he had bitten a sweet apple? 267. Adam, Grandfather, forged will of, 236. ^Eneas goes to hell, 211. ^Eolus, a seller of money, as is supposed by some, 211. ^Eschylns, a saying of, 196, note. Alligator, a decent one conjectured to be, in some sort, humane, 216. AUsmash, the eternal, 251. Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal, tyrannical act of, 217. Ambrose, Saint, excellent (but rationalistic) sentiment of, 190. " American Citizen," new compost so called, 211. American Eagle, a source of inspiration, 193 hitherto wrongly classed, 196 long bill of, ib. Americans bebrothered, 231. Amos cited, 190. Anakim, that they formerly existed, shown, 217. Angels providentially speak French, 186, conjectured to be skilled in all tongues, ib. Anglo-Saxondom, its idea, what, 186. Anglo-Saxon mask, 186. Anglo-Saxon race, 185. Anglo-Saxon verse, by whom carried to perfec tion, 183. Anthony of Padua, Saint, happy in his hearers, 240. Antiquaries, Royal Society of Northern, 254. Antonius, a speech of, 192 by whom best re ported, ib. Apocalypse, Beast in, magnetic to theologians, 205. Apollo, confessed mortal by his own oracle, 205. Apollyon, his tragedies popular, 202. Appian, an Alexandrian, not equal to Shake speare as an orator, 192. Applause, popular, the summum bonum, 255. Ararat, ignorance of foreign tongues is an, 196. Arcadian background, 212. Ar c houskezik, an evil spirit, 240. Ardennes, Wild Boar of, an ancestor of Rev. Mr. Wilbur, 221. Aristocracy, British, their natural sympathies, 245. Aristophanes, 190. Arms, profession of, once esteemed especially that of gentlemen, 183. Arnold, 192. Ashland, 212. Astor, Jacob, a rich man, 208. Astrsea, nineteenth century forsaken by, 211. Athenians, ancient, an institution of, 192. Atherton, Senator, envies the loon, 199. u Atlantic," editors of. See Neptune. Atropos, a lady skilful with the scissors, 266. Austin, Saint, prayer of, 221. Austrian eagle split, 259. Aye-aye, the, an African animal, America sup posed to be settled by, 187. B., a Congressman, vide A. Babel, probably the first Congress, 196 a gabble-mill, ib. Baby, a low-priced one, 210. Bacon, his rebellion, 241. Bacon, Lord, quoted, 240, 241. Bagowind, Hon. Mr., whether to be damned, 200. Balcom, Elder Joash Q., 2d, founds a Baptist society in Jaalam, A. D. 1830, 273. Baldwin apples, 217. INDEX TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 461 Baratarias, real or imaginary, which most pleasant, 211. Barnum, a great natural curiosity recommended to, 195. Barrels, an inference from seeing, 217. Bartlett, Mr., mistaken, 229. Baton Rouge, 212 strange peculiarities of la borers at, ib. Baxter, R., a saying of, 190. Bay, Mattysqumscot, 216. Bay State, singular effect produced on military officers by leaving it, 186. Beast, in Apocalypse, a loadstone for whom, 205 tenth horn of, applied to recent events, 265. Beaufort, 252. Beauregard (real name Toutant), 233, 246. Beaver brook, 276. Beelzebub, his rigadoon, 199. Behmen, his letters not letters, 203. Behn, Mrs. Aplira, quoted, 241. Bellers, a saloon-keeper, 214 inhumanly re fuses credit to a presidential candidate, ib. Belmont. See Woods. Bentley, his heroic method with Milton, 254. Bible, not composed for use of colored persons, 243. Biglow, Ezekiel, his letter to Hon. J. T. Buck ingham, 181 never heard of any one named Mundishes, ib. nearly fourscore years old, ib. his aunt Keziah, a notable saying of, ib. Biglow, Hosea, Esquire, excited by composition, 181 a poem by, ib., 201 his opinion of war, 181 wanted at home by Nancy, 182 rec ommends a forcible enlistment of warlike ed itors, ib. would not wonder, if generally agreed with, 183 versifies letter of Mr. Sawin, ib. a letter from, 184, 194 his opin ion of Mr. Sawin, 184 does not deny fun at Cornwallis, 184, note his idea of militia glory, 185, note a pun of, ib. is uncertain in regard to people of Boston, ib. had never heard of Mr. John P. Robinson, 188 aliquid sufflaminandus, ib. his poems attributed to a Mr. Lowell, 189 is unskilled in Latin, 190 his poetry maligned by some, ib. his dis- interestednsss, ib. his deep share in common weal, ib. his claim to the presidency, ib. his mowing, ib. resents being called Whig, ib. opposed to tariff, ib. obstinate, ib. infected with peculiar notions, ib. reports a speech, 191 emulates historians of antiquity, 192 his character sketched from a hostile point of view, 196 a request of his complied with, 200 appointed at a public meeting in Jaalam, 204 confesses ignorance, in one minute particular, of propriety, ib. his opinion of cocked hats, ib. letter to, ib. called u Dear Sir," by a general, ib. prob ably receives same compliment from two hun dred and nine, ib. picks his apples, 217 his crop of Baldwins conjecturally large, ib. his labors in writing autographs, 221 vis its the Judge and has a pleasant time, 229 born in Middlesex County, 232 his favorite walks, ib. his gifted pen, 249 born and bred in the country, 261 feels his sap start in spring, 262 is at times unsocial, ib. the school-house where he learned his a b c, ib. falls asleep, 263 his ancestor a Cromwelliau colonel, ib. finds it harder to make up his. mind as he grows older, 264 wishes he could write a song or two, 267 liable to moods, 275 loves nature and is loved in return, ib. describes some favorite haunts of his, 276 his slain kindred, ib. his speech in March meeting, 277 does not reckon on being sent to Congress, 278 has no eloquence, ib. his own reporter, 279 never abused the South, 280 advises Uncle Sam, ib. is not Boston- mad, ib. bids farewell, 284. Billings, Dea. Cephas, 184. Billy, Extra, demagogus, 271. Birch, virtue of, in instilling certain of the dead languages, 210. Bird of our country sings hosanna, 185. Bjarna Grimolfsson invents smoking, 254. Blind, to go it, 209. Blitz pulls ribbons from his mouth, 185. Bluenose potatoes, smell of, eagerly desired,, 185. Bobolink, the, 262. Bobtail obtains a cardinal s bat, 187. Boggs, a Norman name, 244. Bogus Four-Corners Weekly Meridian, 255. Bolles, Mr. Secondary, author of prize peace essay, 184 presents sword to Lieutenant- Colonel, ib. a fluent orator, 185 found to be in error, ib. Bonaparte, N., a usurper, 205. Bonds, Confederate, their specie basis cutlery, 226 when payable (attention, British stock holders !), 251. Boot-trees, productive, where, 210. Boston, people of, supposed educated, 185, note has a good opinion of itself, 234. Bowers, Mr. Arphaxad, an ingenious photo graphic artist, 254. Brahmins, navel-contemplating, 203. Brains, poor substitute for, 234. Bread-trees, 210. Bream, their only business, 229. Brigadier-Generals in militia, devotion of, 191. Brigadiers, nursing ones, tendency in, to liter ary composition, 223. Brigitta, viridis, 270. Britannia, her trident, 238. Brotherhood, subsides after election, 258. Brown, Mr., engages in an unequal contest, 200. Browne, Sir T., a pious and wise sentiment of, cited and commended, 183. Brutus Four-Corners, 221. Buchanan, a wise and honest man, 245. Buckingham, Hon. J. T., editor of the Boston Courier, letters to, 181, 183, 189, 198 not afraid, 184. Buffalo, apian hatched there, 215 plaster, a prophecy in regard to, ib. Buffaloes, herd of, probable influence of tracts upon, 267. Bull, John, prophetic allusion to, by Horace, 231 his " Run," 233 his mortgage, 236 unfortunate dip of, 251 wool pulled over his eyes, 252. 462 APPENDIX Buncombe, in the other world supposed, 192 mutual privilege in, 246. Bung, the eternal, thought to be loose, 182. Bungtown Feiicibles, dinner of, 187. Burke, Mr., his age of chivalry surpassed, 244. Burleigh, Lord, quoted for something said in Latin long before, 241. Burns, Robert, a Scottish poet, 229. Bushy Brook, 242. Butler, Bishop, 249. Butter in Irish bogs, 210. C., General, commended for parts, 188 for ubiquity, ib. for consistency, ib. for fidel ity, ib. - is in favor of war, ib. his curious valuation of principle, ib. Cabbage-heads, the, always in majority, 279. Cabinet, English, makes a blunder, 232. Caesar, tribute to, 201 his veni, vidi, wet, cen sured for undue prolixity, 20G. Cainites, sect of, supposed still extant, 183. Caleb, a monopoly of his denied, 184 curious notions of, as to meaning of " shelter," 186 his definition of Anglo-Saxon, ib. charges Mexicans (not with bayonets but) with im proprieties, ib. Calhoun, Hon. J. C., his cow-bell curfew, light of the nineteenth century to be extinguished at sound of, 197 cannot let go apron-string of the Past, ib. his unsuccessful tilt at Spirit of the Age, ib. the Sir Kay of mod ern chivalry, ib. his anchor made of a crooked pin, 198 mentioned, 198, 199. Calyboosus, career, 272. Cambridge Platform, use discovered for, 187. Canaan in quarterly instalments, 255. Canary Islands, 210. Candidate, presidential, letter from, 204 smells a rat, ib. against a bank, ib. takes a revolving position, ib. opinion of pledges, ib. is a periwig, 205 fronts south by north, ib. qualifications of, lessening, 206 wooden leg (and head) useful to, 209. Cape Cod clergyman, what, 187 Sabbath- breakers, perhaps, reproved by, ib. Captains, choice of, important, 279. Carolina, foolish act of, 280. Caroline, case of, 231. Carpini, Father John de Piano, among the Tar tars, 217. Cartier, Jacques, commendable zeal of, 217. Cass, General, 198 clearness of his merit, 199 limited popularity at "Bellers s," 214. Castles, Spanish, comfortable accommodations in, 211. Cato, letters of, so called, suspended naso adunco, 203. C. D., friends of, can hear of him, 203. Century, nineteenth, 245. Chalk egg, we are proud of incubation of, 203. Chamberlayne, Doctor, consolatory citation from, 241. Chance, an apothegm concerning, 223 is im patient, 265. Chaplain, a one-horse, stern-wheeled variety of, Chappelow on Job, a copy of, lost, 200. Charles I., accident to his neck, 265. Charles II., his restoration, how brought about. 264. Cherubusco, news of, its effects on English roy alty, 196. Chesterfield no letter-writer, 203. Chief Magistrate, dancing esteemed sinful by, 187. Children naturally speak Hebrew, 183. China-tree, 210. Chinese, whether they invented gunpowder be fore the Christian era not considered, 187. Choate hired, 214. Christ shuffled into Apocrypha, 187 conjec tured to disapprove of slaughter and pillage, 188 condemns a certain piece of barbarism, 200. Christianity, profession of, plebeian, whether, 183. Christian soldiers, perhaps inconsistent, wheth er, 191. Cicero, 279 an opinion of, disputed, 206. Cilley, Ensign, author of nefarious sentiment, 187. Cimex lectularius, 185. Cincinnati, old, law and order party of, 259. Cincinnatus, a stock character in modern com edy, 212. Civilization, progress of, an alias, 200 rides upon a powder-cart, 204. Clergymen, their ill husbandry, 200 their place in processions, 212 some, cruelly ban ished for the soundness of their lungs, 217. Clotho, a Grecian lady, 266. Cocked-hat, advantages of being knocked into, 204. College of Cardinals, a strange one, 187. Colman, Dr. Benjamin, anecdote of,. 191. Colored folks, curious national diversion of kicking, 185. Colquitt, a remark of, 199 acquainted with some principles of aerostation, ib. Columbia, District of, its peculiar climatic effects, 193 not certain that Martin is for abolishing it, 215. Columbiads, the true fifteen-inch ones, 258. Columbus, a Paul Pry of genius, 203 will per haps be remembered, 253 thought by some to have discovered America, 281. Columby, 213. Complete Letter- Writer, fatal gift of, 205. Compostella, Saint James of , seen, 186. Compromise system, the, illustrated, 257. Conciliation, its meaning, 267. Congress, singular consequence of getting into, 193 a stumbling-block, 246. Congressional debates found instructive, 196. Constituents, useful for what, 194. Constitution trampled on, 198 to stand upon, what, 204. Convention, what, 193. Convention, Springfield, 193. Coon, old, pleasure in skinning, 198. Co-operation defined, 244, 245. Coppers, caste in picking up of, 208. Copres, a monk, his excellent method of argu ing, 197. INDEX TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 463 Corduroy-road, a novel one, 223. Corner-stone, patent safety, 246. Coriiwallis, a, 184 acknowledged entertaining, ib. note. Cotton loan, its imaginary nature, 226. Cotton Mather, summoned as witness, 186. Country, our, its boundaries more exactly de fined, 189 right or wrong, nonsense about, exposed, ib. lawyers, sent providentially, ib. TCarth s biggest, gets a soul, 269. Courier, The Boston, an unsafe print, 196. Court, General, farmers sometimes attain seats in, 212. Court, Supreme, 247. Courts of law, English, their orthodoxy, 255. Cousins, British, our ci-devant, 232. Cowper, W., his letters commended, 203. Credit defined, 251. Creditors all on Lincoln s side, 246. Creed, a safe kind of, 209. Crockett, a good rule of, 226. Cruden, Alexander, his Concordance, 222. Crusade, first American, 187. Cuneiform script recommended, 206. Curiosity distinguishes man from brutes, 203. Currency, Ethiopian, inconveniences of, 226. Cynthia, her hide as a means of conversion, 228. Daedalus first taught men to sit on fences, 242. Daniel in the lion s den, 225. Darkies dread freedom, 246. Davis, Captain Isaac, finds out something to his advantage, 233. Davis, Jefferson (a new species of martyr) has the latest ideas on all subjects, 226 supe rior in financiering to patriarch Jacob, ib. is some, 245 carries Constitution in his hat, 246 knows how to deal with his Con gress, ib. astonished at his own piety, 250 packed up for Nashville, 252 tempted to believe his own lies, ib. his snake egg, 257 blood on his hands, 277. Davis, Mr., of Mississippi, a remark of his, 198. Day and Martin, proverbially " on hand," 181. Death, rings down curtain, 202. De Bow (a famous political economist), 244. Delphi, oracle of, surpassed, 196, note alluded to, 205. Democracy, false notion of, 247 its privileges, 268. Demosthenes, 279. Destiny, her account, 195. Devil, the, unskilled in certain Indian tongues, 186 letters to and from, 204. Dey of Tripoli, 197. Didymus, a somewhat voluminous grammarian, 205. Dighton rock character might be usefully em ployed in some emergencies, 206. Dimitry Bruisgins, fresh supply of, 202. Diogenes, his zeal for propagating certain va riety of olive, 210. Dioscuri, imps of the pit, 187. District- Attorney, contemptible conduct of one, Ditchwater on bvain, a too common ailing, 197. Dixie, the land of, 246. Doctor, the, a proverbial saying of, 186. Doe, Hon. Preserved, speech of, 253-260. Donatus, profane wish of, 193, note. Doughface, yeast-proof, 202. Downing Street, 231. Drayton, a martyr, 197 north star, culpable for aiding, whether, 199. Dreams, something about, 263. Dwight, President, a hymn unjustly attributed to, 265. D. Y., letter of, 203. Eagle, national, the late, his estate administered upon, 227. Earth, Dame, a peep at her housekeeping, 197. Eating words, habit of, convenient in time of famine, 195. Eavesdroppers, 203. Echetlaeus, 187. Editor, his position, 200 commanding pulpit of, ib. large congregation of, ib. name de rived from what, 201 fondness for mutton, ib. a pious one, his creed, ib. a showman, 202 in danger of sudden arrest, without bail, ib. Editors, certain ones who crow like cockerels, 182. Edwards, Jonathan, 274. Eggs, bad, the worst sort of, 259. Egyptian darkness, phial of, use for, 206. Eldorado, Mr. Sawin sets sail for, 210. Elizabeth, Queen, mistake of her ambassador, 192. Emerson, 229. Emilius, Paulus, 232. Empedocles, 203. Employment, regular, a good thing, 208. Enfield s Speaker, abuse of, 259. England, late Mother - Country, her want of tact, 230 merits as a lecturer, ib. her real greatness not to be forgotten, 232 not con tented (unwisely) with her own stock of fools, 234 natural maker of international law, ib. her theory thereof, 235 makes a par ticularly disagreeable kind of sarse, ib. somewhat given to bullying, ib. has re spectable relations, ib. ought to be Colum bia s friend, 236 anxious to buy an ele phant, 246. Epaulets, perhaps no badge of saintship, 188. Epimenides, the Cretan Rip Van Winkle, 240. Episcopius, his marvellous oratory, 217. Eric, king of Sweden, his cap, 211. Ericsson, his caloric engine, 228. Eriksson, Thorwald, slain by natives, 255. Essence-peddlers, 247. Ethiopian, the, his first need, 249. Evangelists, iron ones, 187. Eyelids, a divine shield against authors, 197. Ezekiel, text taken from, 200. Ezekiel would make a poor figure at a caucus, 260. Faber, Johannes, 274. Factory-girls, expected rebellion of, 199. Facts, their unamiability, 252 compared to an old-fashioned stage-coach, 256. 464 APPENDIX Falstaffii, legio, 270. Family-trees, fruit of jejune, 210 a primitive forest of, 256. Faneuil Hall, a place where persons tap them selves for a species of hydrocephalus, 197 a bill of fare mendaciously advertised in, 210. Father of country, his shoes, 213. Female Papists, cut off in the midst of idol atry, 211. Fenianorum, rixce, 270. Fergusson, his "Mutual Complaint," etc., 229. F. F., singular power of their looks, 246. Fire, we all like to play with it, 197. Fish, emblematic, but disregarded, where, 197. Fitz, Miss Parthenia Almira, a sheresiarch, 273. Flam, President, untrustworthy, 194. Flirt, Mrs., 241. Flirtilla, elegy on death of, 274. Floyd, a taking character, 251. Floydus,furcifer, 270. Fly-leaves, providential increase of, 197. Fool, a cursed, his inalienable rights, 268. Foote, Mr., his taste for field-sports, 198. Fourier, a squinting toward, 196. Fourth of July ought to know its place, 258. Fourth of Julys, boiling, 192. France, a strange dance begun in, 199 about to put her foot in it, 246. Friar John, 232. Fuller, Dr. Thomas, a wise saying of, 188. Funnel, old, hurraing in, 184. Gabriel, his last trump, its pressing nature, 256. Gardiner, Lieutenant Lion, 233. Gawain, Sir, his amusements, 198. Gay, S. H., Esquire, editor of National Anti- slavery Standard, letter to, 203. Geese, how infallibly to make swans of, 234. Gentleman, high-toned Southern, scientifically classed, 241, 242. Getting up early, 181, 186. Ghosts, some, presumed fidgety, (but see Still- ing s Pneumatology,) 203. Giants formerly stupid, 198. Gideon, his sword needed, 237. Gift of tongues, distressing case of, 196. Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 255. Globe Theatre, cheap season-ticket to, 202. Glory, a perquisite of officers, 208 her account with B. Sawin, Esq., 210. Goatsnose, the celebrated interview with, 206. God, the only honest dealer, 239. Goings, Mehetable, unfounded claim of, dis proved, 230. Gomara has a vision, 186 his relationship to the Scarlet Woman, ib. Governor, our excellent, 221. Grandfather, Mr. Biglow s, safe advice of, 233. Grandfathers, the, knew something, 237. Grand jurors, Southern, their way of finding a true bill, 225. Grantus, Dux, 271. Gravestones, the evidence of Dissenting ones held doubtful, 255. Gray s letters are letters, 203. Great horn spoon, sworn by, 198. Greeks, ancient, whether they questioned can didates, 206. Green Man, sign of, 190. Habeas corpus, new mode of suspending it, 250. Hail Columbia, raised, 225. Ham, sandwich, an orthodox (but peculiar) one, 199 his seed, 243 their privilege in the Bible, ib. immoral justification of, ib. Hamlets, machine for making, 207. Hammon, 196, note, 205. Hampton Roads, disaster in, 249. Hannegan, Mr., something said by, 199. Harrison, General, how preserved, 205. Hat, a leaky one, 225. Hat-trees in full bearing, 210. Hawkins, his whetstone, 228. Hawkins, Sir John, stout, something he saw. 210. Hawthorne, 229. Hay-rick, electrical experiments with, 268. Headlong, General, 232. Hell, the opinion of some concerning, 263 breaks loose, 267. Henry the Fourth of England, a Parliament of. how named, 192. Hens, self-respect attributed to, 223. Herb, the Circean, 255. Herbert, George, next to David, 240. Hercules, his second labor probably what, 217. Hermon, fourth-proof dew of, 243. Herodotus, story from, 183. Hesperides, an inference from, 211. Hessians, native American soldiers, 247. Hickory, Old, his method, 268. Higgses, their natural aristocracy of feeling-, 244. Hitchcock, Doctor, 254. Hitchcock, the Rev. Jeduthun, colleague of Mr. Wilbur, 221 letter from, containing notices of Mr. Wilbur, 265 ditto, enclos ing macaronic verses, 269 teacher of high- school, 274. Hogs, their dreams, 223. Holden, Mr. Shearjashub, Preceptor of Jaalam Academy, 205 his knowledge of Greek limited, ib. a heresy of his, ib. leaves a fund to propagate it, ib. Holiday, blind man s, 284. Hollis, Ezra, goes to Cornwallis, 184. Hollow, why men providentially so constructed, 192. Holmes, Dr., author of " Annals of America," 221. Homer, a phrase of, cited, 200. Homer, eldest son of Mr. Wilbur, 274. Homers, democratic ones, plums left for, 194. Hotels, big ones, humbugs, 237. House, a strange one described, 223. Howell, James, Esq., story told by, 192 let ters of, commended, 203. Huldah, her bonnet, 264. Human rights out of order on the floor of Con gress, 198. Humbug, ascription of praise to, 202 gen erally believed in, ib. Husbandry, instance of bad, 188. INDEX TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 465 Icarius, Penelope s father, 189. Icelander, a certain uncertain, 255. Idea, the Southern, its natural foes, 251 the true American, 280. Ideas, friction ones unsafe, 258. Idyl defined, 229. Indecision, mole-blind, 280. Infants, prattlings of, curious observation con cerning, 183. Information wanted (universally, but especially at page), 203. Ishmael, young, 238. Jaalam, unjustly neglected by great events, 255. Jaalam Centre, Anglo-Saxons unjustly sus pected by the young ladies there, 186 " In dependent Blunderbuss," strange conduct of editor of, 200 public meeting at, 204 meeting-house ornamented with imaginary clock, 211. Jaalam, East Parish of, 222. Jaalam Point, lighthouse on, charge of, pro- spectively offered to Mr. H. Biglow, 205. Jacobus, rex, 270. Jakes, Captain 216 reproved for avarice, ib. Jamaica, 280. James the Fourth, of Scots, experiment by, 183. Jarnagin, Mr., his opinion of the completeness of Northern education, 199. Jefferson, Thomas, well-meaning, but injudi cious, 258. Jeremiah, hardly the best guide in modern politics, 260. Jerome, Saint, his list of sacred writers, 203. Jerusha, ex-Mrs. Sawin, 227. Job, Book of, 183, 222 Chappelow on, 200. Johnson, Andrew, as he used to be, 258 as he is : see Arnold, Benedict,, Johnson, Mr., communicates some intelligence, 199. Jonah, the inevitable destiny of, 199 proba bly studied internal economy of the cetacea, 203 his gourd, 243 his unanimity in the whale, 245. Jonathan to John, 238. Jortin, Dr., cited, 191, 196, note. Journals, British, their brutal tone, 231. Juanito, 253. Judea, everything not known there, 189 not identical with A. D., 264. Judge, the, his garden, 229 his hat covers many things, ib. Juvenal, a saying of, 195, note. Kay, Sir, the, of modern chivalry, 197. Key, brazen one, 197. Keziah, Aimt, profound observation of, 181. Kinderhook, 212. Kingdom Come, march to, easy, 207. Konigsmark, Count, 183. Lablache surpassed, 248. Lacedasmonians banish a great talker, 197. Lamb, Charles, his epistolary excellence, 203. Latimer, Bishop, episcopizes Satan, 183. Latin tongue, curious information concerning, 190. Launcelot, Sir, a trusser of giants formerly, perhaps would find less sport therein now, 198. Laura, exploited, 274. Learning, three-story, 262. Letcher, de la vieille roche, 244. Letcherus, nebulo, 270. Letters classed, 203 their shape, 204 of candidates, 205 often fatal, ib. Lettres Cabalistiques, quoted, 231. Lewis, Dixpn H., gives his view of slavery, 199. Lewis Philip, a scourger of young native Amer icans, 196 commiserated (though not de serving it), 196, note. Lexington, 233. Liberator, a newspaper, condemned by implica tion, 190. Liberty, unwholesome for men of certain com plexions, 201. Licking, when constitutional, 247. Lignum vitaa, a gift of this valuable wood pro posed, 186. Lincoln, too shrewd to hang Mason and Slidell, 252. Literature, Southern, its abundance, 244. Little Big Boosy River, 227. Longinus recommends swearing, 184, note (Fu- seli did same thing). Long-sweetening recommended, 207. Lord, inexpensive way of lending to, 226. Lords, Southern, prove pur sang by ablution, 244. Lost arts, one sorrowfully added to list of, 217. Louis the Eleventh of France, some odd trees of his, 210. Lowell, Mr. J. R., unaccountable silence of, 189, 190. Luther, Martin, his first appearance as Europa, 186. Lyseus, 272. Lyttelton, Lord, his letters an imposition, 203. Macrobii, their diplomacy, 206. Magoffin, a name naturally noble, 244. Mahomet, got nearer Sinai than some, 200. Mahound, his filthy gobbets, 186. Mandeville, Sir John, quoted, 231. Mangum, Mr., speaks to the point, 198. Manichffian, excellently confuted, 197. Man-trees, grow where, 210. Maori chieftains, 230. Mapes, Walter, quoted, 232 paraphrased, ib. Mares -nests, finders of, benevolent, 203. Marius, quoted, 241. Marshfield, 212. ^ Martin, Mr. Sawin used to vote for him, 215. Mason and Dixon s line, slaves north of, 198. Mason an P. F. V., 252. Mason and Slidell, how they might have been made at once useful and ornamental, 252. Mass, the, its duty defined, 198. Massachusetts on her knees, 182 ; something mentioned in connection with, worthy the attention of tailors, 193; citizen of, baked f boiled, and roasted (nefandum /), 209. 4 66 APPENDIX Masses, the, used as butter by some, 194. Maury, an intellectual giant, twin birth with Simms (which see), 244. Mayday a humbug, 261. M. C., an invertebrate animal, 195. Me, Mister, a queer creature, 262. Mechanics Fair, reflections suggested at, 206. Medium, ardentispirituale, 270. Mediums, spiritual, dreadful liars, 264. Memminger, old, 226. Mentor, letters of, dreary, 203. Mephistopheles at a nonplus, 199. Mexican blood, its effect in raising price of cloth, 211. Mexican polka, 187. Mexicans charged with various breaches of etiquette, 186 kind feelings beaten into them, 202. Mexico, no glory in overcoming, 193. Middleton, Thomas, quoted, 241. Military glory spoken disrespectfully of, 185, note militia treated still worse, ib. Milk-trees, growing still, 210. Mill, Stuart, his low ideas, 251. Millenniums apt to miscarry, 264. Millspring, 252. Mills for manufacturing gabble, how driven, 1%. Mills, Josiah s, 262^ Milton, an unconscious plagiary, 192, note a Latin verse of, cited, 201 an English poet, 254 his " Hymn of the Nativity," 266. Missionaries, useful to alligators, 224 culi nary liabilities of, 243. Missions, a profitable kind of, 201. Monarch, a pagan, probably not favored in philosophical experiments, 183. Money-trees, desirable, 210 that they once existed shown to be variously probable, ib. Montaigne, 274. Montaigne, a communicative old Gascon, 203. Monterey, battle of, its singular chromatic effect on a species of two-headed eagle, 195. Montezuma, licked, 224. Moody, Seth, his remarkable gun, 227 his brother Asaph, ib. Moquis Indians, praiseworthy custom of, 255. Moses, held up vainly as an example, 200 construed by Joe Smith, ib. (not, A. J. Moses) prudent way of following, 255. Muse invoked, 270. Myths, how to interpret readily, 206. Naboths, Popish ones, how distinguished, 187. Nana Sahib, 230. Nancy, presumably Mrs. Biglow, 233. Napoleon III., his new chairs, 250. Nation, rights of, proportionate to size, 186 young, its first needs, 250. National pudding, its effect on the organs of speech, a curious physiological fact, 187. Negroes, their double usefulness, 226 getting too current, 251. Nephelim, not yet extinct, 217. New England overpoweringly honored, 195 wants no more speakers, to. done brown by whom, ib. her experience in beans beyond Cicero s, 206. Newspaper, the, wonderful, 202 a strolling theatre, ib. thoughts suggested by tearing wrapper of, ib. a vacant sheet, ib. a sheet in which a vision was let down, 203 wrapper to a bar of soap, ib. a cheap impromptu platter, ib. New World, apostrophe to, 238. New York, letters from, commended, 203. Next life, what, 200. Nicotiana Tabacum, a weed, 254. Niggers, 182 area of abusing, extended, 193 Mr. Sawin s opinions of, 215. Ninepence a day low for murder, 184. No, a monosyllable, 187 hard to utter, ib. Noah enclosed letter in bottle, probably, 203. Noblemen, Nature s, 245. Nornas, Lapland, what, 211. North, the, has no business, 198 bristling, crowded off roost, 205 its mind naturally unprincipled, 258. North Bend, geese inhumanly treated at, 205 mentioned, 212. North star, a proposition to indict, 199. Northern Dagon, 227. Northmen, gens indytissima, 253. Notre Dame de la fiaine, 242. Now, its merits, 262. Nowhere, march to, 263. O Brien, Smith, 230. Off ox, 204. Officers, miraculous transformation in character of, 186 Anglo-Saxon, come very near being anathematized, ib. Old age, an advantage of, 229. Old One, invoked, 248. Onesimus made to serve the cause of impiety, 243. O Phace, Increase D., Esq., speech of, 191. Opinion, British, its worth to us, 232. Opinions, certain ones compared to winter flies, 240. Oracle of Fools, still respectfully consulted, 192. Orion becomes commonplace, 202. Orrery, Lord, his letters (lord !), 203. Ostracism, curious species of, 192. Ovidii Nasonis, carmen supposititium, 270. Palestine, 186. Paley, his Evidences, 283. Palfrey, Hon. J. G., 192, 195, (a worthy repre sentative of Massachusetts). Pantagruel, recommends a popular oracle, 192. Panurge, 232 his interview with Goatsnose, 206. Paper, plausible-looking, wanted, 250. Papists, female, slain by zealous Protestant bomb-shell, 211. Paralipomenon, a man suspected of being, 205. Paris, liberal principles safe as far away as, 201. Parliamentum Indoctorum sitting in perma nence, 192. Past, the, a good nurse, 197. INDEX TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 467 Patience, sister, quoted, 185. Patriarchs, the, illiterate, 228. PotrtetUff, brogipotens, 270. Paynims, their throats propagandistically cut, 186. Penelope, her wise choice, 189. People, soft enough, 201 want correct ideas, 209 the, decline to be Mexicanized, 256. Pepin, King, 203. Pepperell, General, quoted, 233. Pequash Junction, 274. Periwig, 205. Perley, Mr. Asaph, has charge of bass-viol, 240. Perseus, King, his avarice, 232. Persius, a pithy saying of, 194, note. Pescara, Marquis, saying of, 183. Peter, Saint, a letter of (post-mortem), 203. Petrarch, exploited Laura, 274. Petrpnius, 232. Pettibone, Jabez, bursts up, 245. Pettus came over with Wilhelmus Conquistor, 244. Phaon, 274. Pharaoh, his lean kine, 237. Pharisees, opprobriously referred to, 201. Philippe, Louis, in pea-jacket, 202. Phillips, Wendell, catches a Tartar, 259. Phlegyas quoted, 200. Phrygian language, whether Adam spoke it, 183. Pickens, a Norman name, 244. Pilcoxes, genealogy of, 221. Pilgrim Father, apparition of, 263. Pilgrims, the, 193. Pillows, constitutional, 195. Pine-trees, their sympathy, 262. Pinto, Mr., some letters of his commended, 203. Pisgah, an impromptu one, 211. Platform, party, a convenient one, 209. Plato, supped with, 203 his man, 205. Pleiades, the, not enough esteemed, 202. Pliny, his letters not admired, 203. Plotinus, a story of, 197. Plymouth Rock, Old, a Convention wrecked on, 193. Poets apt to become sophisticated, 260. Point Tribulation, Mr. Sawin wrecked on, 210. Poles, exile, whether crop of beans depends on, 185, note. Polk, nomen gentile, 244. Polk, President, synonymous with our country, 189 censured, 193 in danger of being crushed, 194. Polka, Mexican, 187. Pomp, a runaway slave, his nest, 215 hypo critically groans like white man, ib. blind to Christian privileges, 216 his society val- ned at fifty dollars, ib. his treachery, ib. takes Mr. Sawin prisoner, ib. cruelly makes him work, ib. puts himself illegally under his tuition, ib. dismisses him with contu melious epithets, 217 a negro, 223. Pontifical bull, a tamed one, 186. Pope, his verse excellent, 183. Pork, refractory in boiling, 186. Portico, the, 273. Portugal, Alphonso the Sixth of, a monster, 217. Post, Boston, 189 shaken visibly, 190 bad guide-post, ib. too swift, ib. edited by a colonel, ib. who is presumed officially in Mexico, ib. referred to, 196. Pot-hooks, death in, 206. Power, a first-class, elements of, 250. Preacher, an ornamental symbol, 200 a breeder of dogmas, ib. earnestness of, im portant, 217. Present, considered as an annalist, 200 not long wonderful, 202. President, slaveholding natural to, 201 must be a Southern resident, 210 must own a nigger, ib. the, his policy, 281 his resem blance to Jackson, ib. Princes mix cocktails, 250. Principle, exposure spoils it, 192. Principles, bad, when less harmful, 188 when useless, 258. Professor, Latin, in College, 269 Scaliger, 270. Prophecies, fulfilment of, 252. Prophecy, a notable one, 196, note. Prospect Hill, 233. Providence has a natural life-preserver, 237. Proviso, bitterly spoken of, 204. Prudence, sister, her idiosyncratic teapot, 208. Psammeticus, an experiment of, 183. Psyche, poor, 275. Public opinion, a blind and drunken guide, 187 nudges Mr. Wilbur s elbow, ib. ticklers of, 194. Punkin Falls "Weekly Parallel," 265. Putnam, General Israel, his lines, 233. Pythagoras a bean-hater, why, 205. Pythagoreans, fish reverenced by, why, 197. Quid, ingens nicotianum, 271. Quixote, Don, 198. Rafn, Professor, 254. Rag, one of sacred college, 187. Rantoul, Mr., talks loudly, 185 pious reason for not enlisting, ib. Recruiting sergeant, Devil supposed the first, 183. Religion, Southern, its commercial advantages, 242. Representatives Chamber, 197. Rhinothism, society for promoting, 203. Rhyme, whether natural not considered, 183. Rib, an infrangible one, 207. Richard the First of England, his Christian fervor, 186. Riches conjectured to have legs as well as wings, 199. Ricos Hombres, 241. Ringtail Rangers, 228. Roanoke Island, 252. Robinson, Mr. John P., his opinions fully stated. 188, 189. Rocks, pocket full of, 208. Roosters in rainy weather, their misery, 223. 468 APPENDIX Rotation insures mediocrity and inexperience, 247. Rough and ready, 213 a Wig, 214 a kind of scratch, ib. Royal Society, American fellows of, 265. Rum and water combine kindly, 256. Runes resemble bird-tracks, 254. Runic inscriptions, their different grades of un- intelligibility and consequent value, 254. Russell, Earl, is good enough to expound our Constitution for us, 230. Russian eagle turns Prussian blue, 195. Ryeus, Bacchi epithcton, 272. Sabbath, breach of, 176. Sabellianism, one accused of, 205. Sailors, their rights how won, 236. Saltillo, unfavorable view of, 185. Salt-river, in Mexican, what, 185. Samuel, avunculus, 271. Samuel, Uncle, 224 riotous, 195 yet has qualities demanding reverence, 201 a good provider for his family, ib. an exorbitant bill of, 211 makes some shrewd guesses, 238, 239 expects his boots, 245. Sansculottes, draw their wine before drinking, 199. Santa Anna, his expensive leg, 209. Sappho, some human nature in, 271. Sassycus, an impudent Indian, 233. Satan, never wants attorneys, 186 an expert talker by signs, ib. a successful fisherman with little or no bait, 187 cunning fetch of, 188 dislikes ridicule, 190 ought not to have credit of ancient oracles, 196, not e his worst pitfall, 243. Satirist, incident to certain dangers, 188. Savages, Canadian, chance of redemption of fered to, 217. Sawin, B., Esquire, his letter not written in verse, 183 a native of Jaalam, ib. not regular attendant on Rev. Mr. Wilbur s preaching 1 , ib. a fool, 184 his statements trustworthy, ib. his ornithological tastes, 16. letters from, 183, 206, 212 his curious discovery in regard to bayonets, 184 dis plays proper family pride, ib. modestly con fesses himself less wise than the Queen of Sheba, 186 the old Adam in, peeps out, ib. a miles emeritus, 206 is made text fora sermon, ib. loses a leg, 207 an eye, ib. left hand, ib. four fingers of right hand, ib. has six or more ribs broken, ib. a rib of his infrangible, ib. allows a certain amount of preterite greenness in himself, ib. his share of spoil limited, 208 his opinion of Mexican climate, ib. acquires property of a certain sort, ib. his experience of glory, ib. stands sentry, and puns thereupon, 209 undergoes martyrdom in some of its most painful forms, ib. enters the candidating business, ib. modestly states the (avail) abilities which qualify him for high politi cal station, ib. has no principles, ib. a peace-man, ib. unpledged, ib. has no ob jections to owning peculiar property, but would not like to monopolize the truth, 210 his account with glory, ib. a selfish mo tive hinted in, ib. sails for Eldorado, ib. shipwrecked on a metaphorical promontory, ib. parallel between, and Rev. Mr. Wilbur (not Plutarchian), 211 conjectured to have bathed in river Selemnus, 212 loves plough wisely, but not too well, ib. a foreign mis sion probably expected by, ib. unanimously nominated for presidency, ib. his country s father-in-law, 213 nobly emulates Cinein- natus, ib.- is not a crooked stick, ib. ad vises his adherents, ib. views of, on present state of politics, 213-215 popular enthusi asm for, at Bellers s, and its disagreeable consequences, 214 inhuman treatment of, by Bellers, ib. his opinion of the two par ties, ib, agrees with Mr. Webster, ib. his antislavery zeal, 215 his proper self- respect, ib. his unaffected piety, ib. his not intemperate temperance, ib. a thrilling adventure of, 215-217 his prudence and economy, 215 bound to Captain Jakes, but regains his freedom, 216 is taken prisoner, ib. ignominiously treated, ib. his conse quent resolution, 217. Sawin, Honorable B. O F., a vein of humor sus pected in, 222 gets into an enchanted castle, 223 finds a wooden leg better in some re spects than a living one, 224 takes some thing hot, ib. his experience of Southern hospitality, ib. waterproof internally, ib. sentenced to ten years imprisonment, 225 his liberal-handedness, 226 gets his arrears of pension, ib. marries the widow Shannon, 227 confiscated, ib. finds in himself a nat ural necessity of income, 228 his missionary zeal, ib. never a stated attendant on Mr. Wilbur s preaching, 239 sang bass in choir, 240 prudently avoided contribution toward bell, ib. abhors a covenant of works, 242 if saved at all, must be saved genteelly, ib. reports a sermon, 243 experiences religion, ib. would consent to a dukedom, 244 con verted to unanimity, 245 sound views of, 247 makes himself an extempore marquis, 248 extract of letter from, 283, 284 his opinion of Paddies, 284 of Johnson, ib. Sayres, a martyr, 197. Scaliger, saying of, 188. Scarabceus pilularius, 185. Scott, General, his claims to the presidency, 190, 191. Scrimgour, Rev. Shearjashub, 273. Scythians, their diplomacy commended, 206. Sea, the wormy, 255. Seamen, colored, sold, 182. Secesftia, licta, 271. Secession, its legal nature defined, 227. Secret, a great military, 260. Selemnus, a sort of Lethean river, 212. Senate, debate in, made readable, 197. Seneca, saying of, 188 another, 196, note overrated by a saint (but see Lord Boling- broke s opinion of, in a letter to Dean Swift), 203 his letters not commended, ib. a son of Rev. Mr. Wilbur, 211 quoted, 266, 267, Serbonian bog of literature, 197. INDEX TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS 469 Sermons, some pitched too high, 240. Seward, Mister, the late, his gift of prophecy, 233, needs stiffening, 281 misunderstands parable of fatted calf, ib. Sextons, demand for, 185 heroic official devo tion of one, 217. Seymour, Governor, 267. Shakespeare, 274 a good reporter, 192. Shaking fever, considered as an employment, 208. Sham, President, honest, 194. Shannon, Mrs., a widow, 225 her family and accomplishments, 227 has tantrums, ib. her religious views, 242 her notions of a moral and intellectual being, 243 her maiden name, 244 her blue blood, ib. Sheba, Queen of, 186. Sheep, none of Rev. Mr. Wilbur s turned wolves, 183. Shem, Scriptural curse of, 217. Shiraz Centre, lead-mine at, 245. Shirley, Governor, 233. Shoddy, poor covering for outer or inner man, 264. Shot at sight, privilege of being, 245. Show, natural to love it, 185, note. Silver spoon born in Democracy s mouth, what, 194. Simms, an intellectual giant, twin-birth with Maury (which see), 244. Sin, wilderness of, modern, what, 200. Sinai suffers outrages, 200. Skim-milk has its own opinions, 264. Skin, hole in, strange taste of some for, 208. Skippers, Yankee, busy in the slave-trade, 243. Slaughter, whether God strengthen us for, 187. Slaughterers and soldiers compared, 212. Slaughtering nowadays is slaughtering, 212. Slavery, of no color, 182 corner-stone of lib erty, 196 also keystone, 198 last crumb of Eden, 199 a Jonah, ib. an institution, 204 a private State concern, 215. Slidell, New York trash, 252. Sloanshure, Habakkuk, Esquire, President of Jaalam Bank, 248. Smith, Joe, used as a translation, 200. Smith, John, an interesting character, 203. Smith, Mr., fears entertained for, 200 dined with, 203. Smith, N. B., his magnanimity, 202. Smithius, dux, 270. Soandso, Mr., the great, defines his position, 202. Soft-heartedness, misplaced, is soft-headedness, 268. Sol, the fisherman, 185 soundness of respira tory organs hypothetically attributed to, ib. Soldiers, British, ghosts of, insubordinate, 234. Solomon, Song of, portions of it done into Latin verse by Mr. Wilbur, 269. Solon, a saying of, 187. Soul, injurious properties of, 247. South, its natural eloquence, 259 facts have a mean spite against, 252, 253. South Carolina, futile attempt to anchor, 198 her pedigrees, 241. Southern men, their imperfect notions of labor, 225 of subscriptions, 225, 226 too high- pressure, 228 prima facie noble, 244. Spanish, to walk, what, 186. Speech-making, an abuse of gift of speech, 196. Spirit-rapping does not repay the spirits engaged in it, 264. Split-Foot, Old, made to squirm, 228. Spring, described, 261, 262. Star, north, subject to indictment, whether, 199. Statesman, a genuine, defined, 258. Stearns, Othniel, fable by, 282. Stone Spike, the, 234. Store, cheap cash, a wicked fraud, 211. Strong, Governor Caleb, a patriot, 189. Style, the catalogue, 262. Sumter, shame of, 237. Sunday should mind its own business, 258. Swearing commended as a figure of speech, 184, note. Swett, Jethro C., his fall, 277. Swift, Dean, threadbare saying of, 190. Tag, elevated to the Cardinalate, 187. Taney, C. J., 247, 256. Tarandfeather, Rev. Mr., 245. Tarbox, Shearjashub, first white child born in Jaalam, 230. Tartars, Mongrel, 224. Taxes, direct, advantages of, 211. Taylor, General, greased by Mr. Choate, 214. Taylor zeal, its origin, 214. Teapots, how made dangerous, 267. Ten, the upper, 245. Tesephone, banished for long-windedness, 197. Thacker, Rev. Preserved, D. D., 265. Thanks get lodged, 208. Thanksgiving, Feejee, 224. Thaumaturgus, Saint Gregory, letter of, to the Devil, 203. Theleme, Abbey of, 248. Theocritus, the inventor of idyllic poetry, 229. Theory, defined, 256. ThermopylaBS, too many, 252. " They 11 say ] a notable bully, 236. Thirty-nine articles might be made serviceable. 187. Thor, a foolish attempt of, 198. Thoreau, 229. Thoughts, live ones characterized, 275. Thumb, General Thomas, a valuable member of society, 195. Thunder, supposed in easy circumstances, 207. Thynne, Mr., murdered, 183. Tibullus, 266. Time, an innocent personage to swear by, 184, note a scene-shifter, 202. Tinkham, Deacon Pelatiah, story concerning, not told, 225 alluded to, 229 does a very sensible thing, 242. Toms, Peeping, 203. Toombs, a doleful sound from, 253. Trees, various kinds of extraordinary ones, 210. Trowbridge, William, mariner, adventure of, 187. Truth and falsehood start from same point, 188 truth invulnerable to satire, ib. compared 470 APPENDIX to a river, 192 of fiction sometimes truer than fact, ib. told plainly, passim. Tuileries, exciting scene at, 196 front parlor of, 250. Tully, a saying of, 192, note. Tunnel, Northwest-Passage, a poor investment, 248. Turkey-Buzzard Roost, 227. Tuscaloosa, 227. Tutchel, Rev. Jonas, a Sadducee, 255. Tweedledee, gospel according to, 201. Tweedledum, great principles of, 201. Tylerus, juvenis insignis, 270 porphyrogenitus, 271 lohanides, flito celeris, ib. bene titus, 272. Tyrants, European, how made to tremble, 225. Ulysses, husband of Penelope, 189 borrows money, 211 (for full particulars of, see Homer and Dante) rex, 270. Unanimity, new ways of producing, 245. Union, its hoops off, 245 its good old mean ing, 256. Universe, its breeching, 246. University, triennial catalogue of, 191. Us, nobody to be compared with, 225 and see World, passim. Van Buren, fails of gaining Mr. Sawin s confi dence, 215 his son John reproved, ib. Van, Old, plan to set up, 215. Vattel, as likely to fall on your toes as on mine, 238. Venetians invented something once, 211. Vices, cardinal, sacred conclave of, 187. Victoria, Queen, her natural terror, 195 her best carpets, 250. Vinland, 255. Virgin, the, letter of, to Magistrates of Messina, Virginia, descripta, 270. Virginians, their false heraldry, 240. Voltaire, esprit de, 270. Vratz, Captain, a Pomeranian, singular views of, 183. Wachuset Mountain, 236. Wait, General, 232. Wales, Prince of, calls Brother Jonathan con- sanguineus noster, 231 but had not, appar ently, consulted the Garter King at Arms, ib. Walpple, Horace, classed, 203 his letters praised, ib. Waltham Plain, Cornwallis at, 184. Walton, punctilious in his intercourse with fishes, 187. War, abstract, horrid, 204 its hoppers, grist of, what, 208. Warren, Fort, 267. Warton, Thomas, a story of, 191. Washington, charge brought against, 213. Washington, city of, climatic influence of, on coats, 193 mentioned, 197 grand jury of, Washingtons, two hatched at a time by im proved machine, 213. Watchmanus, noctivagus, 272. Water, Taunton, proverbially weak, 215. Water-trees, 210. Weakwash, a name fatally typical, 233. Webster, his unabridged quarto, its deleterious- ness, 269. Webster, some sentiments of, commended by Mr. Sawin, 214. Westcott, Mr., his horror, 199. Whig party has a large throat, 190 but query as to swallowing spurs, 214. White-house, 205. Wickliffe, Robert, consequences of his burst ing, 267. Wife-trees, 210. Wilbur, Mrs. Dorcas (Pilcox), an invariable rule of, 191 her profile, ib. tribute to, 265. Wilbur, Rev. Homer, A. M., consulted, 181 his instructions to his flock, 183 a propo sition of his for Protestant bomb-shells, 187 his elbow nudged, ib. his notions of satire, 188 some opinions of his quoted with ap parent approval by Mr. Biglow, 189 geo graphical speculations of, ib. a justice of the peace, ib. a letter of, ib. a Latin pun of, 190 runs against a post without injury, ib. does not seek notoriety (whatever some malignants may affirm), ib. fits youths for college, 191 a chaplain during late war with England, ib. a shrewd observation of, 192 some curious speculations of, 196, 197 his Martello-tower, 196 forgets he is not in pulpit, 200, 206 extracts from sermon of, 200, 201, 202 interested in John Smith, 203 his views concerning present state of let ters, ib. a stratagem of, 205 ventures two hundred and fourth interpretation of Beast in Apocalypse, ib. christens Hon. B. Sawin, then an infant, 206 an addition to our sylva proposed by, 210 curious and instructive adventure of, 211 his account with an un natural uncle, ib. his uncomfortable imagi nation, ib. speculations concerning Cincin- natus, 212 confesses digressive tendency of mind, 217 goes to work on sermon (not without fear that his readers will dub him with a reproachful epithet like that with which Isaac Allerton, a Mayflower man, re venges himself on a delinquent debtor of his, calling him in his will, and thus holding him up to posterity, as " John Peterson, THE BORE"), ib. his modesty, 220 disclaims sole authorship of Mr. Biglow s writings, 221 his low opinion of prepensive autographs, ib. a chaplain in 1812, 222 cites a hea then comedian, ib. his fondness for the Book of Job, ib. preaches a Fast-Day dis course, 223 is prevented from narrating a singular occurrence, ib. is presented with a pair of new spectacles, 228 his church ser vices indecorously sketched by Mr. Sawin, 243 hopes to decipher a Runic inscription, 248 a fable by, ib. deciphers Runic in scription, 253-255 his method therein, 254 is ready to reconsider his opinion of to bacco, 255 his opinion of the Puritans, 260 his death, 265 born in Pigsgusset, ib. let- NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS ter of Rev. Mr. Hitchcock concerning, 265, 266 fond of Milton s Christmas hymn, 266 his monument (proposed), ib, his epitaph, 16. his last letter, 266, 267 his supposed disembodied spirit, 269 table belonging to, {,. sometimes wrote Latin verses, ib. his table-talk, 272-275 his prejudices, 273 against Baptists, ib. his sweet nature, 277 his views of style, 278 a story of his, ib. Wildbore, a vernacular one, how to escape, 197. Wilkes, Captain, borrows rashly, 234. Wind, the, a good Samaritan, 206. Wingfield, his "Memorial," 241. Wooden leg, remarkable for sobriety, 207 never eats pudding, ib. Woods, the. See Belmont. Works, covenants of, condemned, 242. World, this, its unhappy temper, 223. Wright, Colonel, providentially rescued, 185. Writing, dangerous to reputation, 222. Wrong, abstract, safe to oppose, 194. Yankees, their worst wooden nutmegs, 253. Zack, Old, 213. IV. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS Page 111. On any pot that ever drew tea. When Mr. Garrison visited Edinburgh in 1846, a handsome silver tea-set was presented to him by his friends in that city. On the ar rival of this gift at the Boston custom-house, it was charged with an enormous entrance duty, which would have been remitted if the articles had ever been used. It was supposed that if the owner had not been the leader of the unpop ular abolitionists, this heavy impost would not have been laid on a friendly British tribute to an eminent American. Page 111. There jokes our Edmund. Edmund Quincy. [See page 383.] Page 112. Let Austin s total shipwreck say. On the occasion of the murder of Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, editor of an anti-slavery newspaper at Alton, Illinois, an indignation meeting was held in Boston, at which Mr. Austin, Attorney- General of Massachusetts, made a violent pro- slavery speech, which called forth a crushing reply from Wendell Phillips, who thenceforth became a main pillar of abolitionism. Page 112. Smiles the reviled and pelted Stephen. Stephen S. Foster. Page 112. Sits Abby in her modest dress. Abby Kelley. Page 131. There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, and as dignified. [I am quite sensible now that I did not do Mr. Bryant justice in the " Fable. " But there was no personal feeling in what I said though I have regretted what I did say because it might seem personal. I am now asked to write a review of his poems for the North American. If I do, I shall try to do him justice. Letters I. 221.] Page 137. But there comes Miranda, Zeus ! where shall I flee to ? [If it be not too late, strike out these four verses in 4k Miranda : " There is one thing she owns in her own private right, It is native and genuine namely, her spite ; When she acts as a censor, she privately blows A censer of vanity, neath her own nose. Lowell to C. F. Briggs, October 4, 1848.] THE BIGLO W PAPERS I am indebted to Mr. Frank Beverly Wil liams for these illustrative notes. FIRST SERIES This series of the Biglow Papers relates to the Mexican War. It expresses the sentiment of New England, and particularly of Massachu setts, on that conflict, which in its aim and conduct had little of honor for the American Republic. The war was begun and prosecuted in the interest of Southern slaveholders. It was essential to the vitality of slavery that fresh fields should constantly be opened to it. Agriculture was almost the sole industry in which slaves could be profitably employed. That their labor should be wasteful and care less to preserve the productive powers of the soil was inevitable. New land was ever in demand, and the history of slavery in the United States is one long series of struggles for more territory. It was with this end in view that a colony of roving, adventurous Americans, settled in the thinly populated and poorly gov erned region now known as Texas, revolted from the Mexican government and secured admission to the Union, thus bringing on the war with Mexico. The Northern Whigs had protested against annexation, but after the war began their resistance grew more and more feeble. In the vain effort to retain their large Southern constituent, they sacrificed justice to expediency and avoided an issue that would not be put down. The story of the Mexican War is the story of the gradual decline of the great Whig party, and of the growth of that organi zation, successively known as the Liberty, Free- Soil, and Republican party, whose policy was the exclusion of slavery from all new territory. One more victory was granted to the Whigs in 1848. After that their strength failed rapidly. Northern sentiment was being roused to a sense of righteous indignation by Southern aggres sions and the fervid exhortations of Garrison and his co-workers in the anti-slavery cause. Few, however, followed Garrison into disloyalty to the Constitution. The greater number pre ferred to stay in the Union and use such lawful political means as were available for the re striction of slavery. Their wisdom was de monstrated by the election of Abraham Lincoln twelve years after the Mexican War closed. Page 181. A cruetin Sarjunt. The act of May 13, 1846, authorized President Polk to employ the militia, and call out 50,000 volunteers, if necessary. He immediately called 472 APPENDIX for the full number of volunteers, asking Massa chusetts for 777 men. On May 26 Governor Briggs issued a proclamation for the enrol ment of the regiment. As the President s call was merely a request and not an order, many Whigs and the Abolitionists were for refusing it. The Liberator for June 5 severely censured the governor for complying, and accused him of not carrying out the resolutions of the last Whig Convention, which had pledged the party " to present as firm a front of opposition to the institution as was consistent with their alle giance to the Constitution." Page 182. Massachusetts . . . she s akneelin 1 with the rest. An allusion to the governor s call for troops (cf. note to p. 181) as well as to the vote on the War Bill. On May 11, 1846, the President sent to the House of Representatives his well-known message declaring the existence of war brought on "by the act of Mexico," and asking for a supply of $10,000,000. Of the seven members from Massachusetts, all Whigs, two, Robert C. Winthrop, of Boston, and Amos Abbott, of Andover, voted for the bill. The Whigs throughout the country, remembering the fate of the party which had opposed the last war with England, sanctioned the measure as neces sary for the preservation of the army, then in peril by the unauthorized acts of the President,, Page 182. Hadn t they sold your colored seamen ? Ha? n t they made your env ys w iz ? South Carolina, Louisiana, and several other Southern States at an early date passed acts to prevent free persons of color from entering their jurisdictions. These acts bore with par ticular severity upon colored seamen, who were imprisoned, fined, or whipped, and often sold into slavery. On the petition of the Massa chusetts Legislature, Governor Briggs, in 1844, appointed Mr. Samuel Hoar agent to Charles ton, and Mr. George Hubbard to New Orleans, to act on behalf of oppressed colored citizens of the Bay State. Mr. Hoar was expelled from South Carolina by order of the Legislature of that State, and Mr. Hubbard was forced by threats of violence to leave Louisiana. The obnoxious acts remained in force until after the Civil War. Page 183. Go to work an 1 part. Propositions to secede were not uncommon in New England at this time. The rights of the States had been strongly asserted on the acqui sition of Louisiana in 1803, and on the admis sion of the State of that name in 1812. Among the resolutions of the Massachusetts Legislature adopted in 1845, relative to the proposed annex ation of Texas, was one declaring that " such an act of admission would have no binding force whatever on the people of Massachusetts." John Quincy Adams, in a discourse before the New York Historical Society, in 1839, claimed a right for the States "to part in friendship with each other . . . when the fra ternal spirit shall give way," etc. The Garri- Bonian wing of the Abolitionists notoriously advocated secession. There were several other instances of an expression of this sentiment, but for the most part they were not evoked by opposition to slavery. Page 184. Hoorawin? in ole Funnel. The Massachusetts regiment, though called for May 13, 1846, was not mustered into the United States service till late in January of the next year. The officers, elected January 5, 1847, were as follows : Caleb Gushing, of New- buryport, Colonel ; Isaac H. Wright, of Rox- bury, Lieutenant-Colonel ; Edward W. Abbott, of Andover, Major,, Shortly before the troops embarked for the South, on the evening of Saturday v January 23, 1847, a public meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, where an elegant sword was presented to Mr. Wright by John A. Bolles, on behalf of the subscribers. Mr. Bolles speech on this occasion is the one re ferred to. Page 184. Mister Bolles. Mr. John Augustus Bolles was the author of a prize essay on a Congress of Nations, pub lished by the American Peace Society, an essay on Usury and Usury Laws, and of various articles in the North . American Review and other periodicals. He was also the first editor of the Boston Journal. In 1843 he was Secre tary of State for Massachusetts. Page 185. Rantoul. Mr. Robert Rantoul (1805-1852), a prominent lawyer and a most accomplished gentleman, was at this time United States District Attor ney for Massachusetts. In 1851 he succeeded Webster in the Senate, but remained there a short time only. He was a Representative in Congress from 1851 till his death. Although a Democrat, Mr. Rantoul was strongly opposed to slavery. Page 185. Achokin on em. Mr. Rantoul was an earnest advocate of the abolition of capital punishment. Public atten tion had recently been called to his views by some letters to Governor Briggs on the subject, written in February, 1846. Page 186. Caleb. Caleb Gushing, of Newburyport, Colonel of the Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteers. Page 188. Guvener B. George Nixon Briggs was the Whig Governor of Massachusetts from 1844 to 1851. The cam paign referred to here is that of 1847. Gover nor Briggs was renominated by acclamation and supported by his party with great enthu siasm. His opponent was Caleb Gushing, then in Mexico, and raised by President Polk to the rank of Brigadier-General. Gushing was de feated by a majority of 14,060. Page 188. John P. Robinson. John Paul Robinson (1799-1864) was a resi dent of Lowell, a lawyer of considerable ability, and a thorough classical scholar. He repre sented Lowell in the State Legislature in 1829, 1830, 1831, 1833, and 1842, and was Senator from Middlesex in 1836. Late in the guber natorial contest of 1847 it was rumored that Robinson, heretofore a zealous Whig, and a NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 473 delegate to the recent Springfield Convention, had gone over to the Democratic or, as it was then styled, the " Loco " camp. The editor of the Boston Palladium wrote to him to learn the truth, and Robinson replied in an open letter avowing his intention to vote for Gushing. Page 188. Gineral C. General Caleb Gushing. Page 189. " Our country, however bounded." Mr. R. C. Winthrop, M. C., in a speech at Faneuil Hall, July 4, 1845, said in deprecation of secession : "Our country bounded by the St. John s and the Sabine, or however otherwise bounded or described, and be the measure ments more or less still our country to be cherished in all our hearts, to be defended by all our hands." The sentiment was at once taken up and used effectively by the " Cotton " Whigs, those who inclined to favor the Mexican War. Page 190. The Liberator. The Liberator was William Lloyd Garrison s anti-slavery paper, published from 1831 to 1865. The "heresies" of which Mr. Wilbur speaks were Garrison s advocacy of secession, his well- known and eccentric views on "no govern ment," woman suffrage, etc. Page 191. Scott. General W. Scott was mentioned as a possible Whig candidate for the Presidency in the sum mer of 1847, but was soon overshadowed by General Taylor. Page 192. Palfrey. December 6, 1847, Mr. R. C. Winthrop, of Boston, the Whig candidate for Speaker of the House in the Thirtieth Congress, was elected after three ballots. Mr. John Gorham Palfrey, elected a Whig member from Boston, and Mr. Joshua Giddings, of Ohio, refused to vote for Winthrop, and remained firm to the last in spite of the intensity of public opinion in their party. The election of a Whig Speaker in a manner depended on their votes. Had they supported Winthrop, he could have been elected on the second ballot. At the third he could not have been elected without them had not Mr. Levin, a Native American member, changed his vote, and Mr. Holmes, a Democrat from South Carolina, left the hall. Mr. Palfrey refused to vote for Mr. Winthrop because he was assured the latter would not, though his power over the committees, exert his influence to arrest the war and obstruct the extension of slavery into new territory. So bold and decided a stand at so critical a time excited great in dignation for a time among the "Cotton" Whigs of Boston. Page 193. Springfield Convention. This convention was held September 29, 1847. The substance of the resolutions is given by Mr. Biglow. Page 195. Monteery. Monterey, the capital of Nueva Leon, capit ulated September 24, 1846, thus giving the United States troops control over about two thirds of the territory and one tenth of the population of Mexico. Page 196. Cherry Buster. August 20, 1847, General Scott stormed the heights of Cherubusco, and completely routed the 30,000 Mexicans stationed there under Santa Anna. Scott could have entered the capital at once in triumph had he not preferred to delay for peace negotiations. Page 196. The Tooleries. The French Revolution of 1848, which re sulted in the deposition of Louis Philippe, was at this time impending. Page 196. The Post. The Boston Post, a Democratic, or Loco newspaper. Page 196. The Courier^. The Boston Courier, in which the Biglow Papers first appeared, was a "Conscience" Whig paper. Page 197. Drayton and Sayres. In April, 1848, an attempt was made to abduct seventy-seven slaves from Washington in the schooner Pearl, under the conduct of Captain Drayton and Sayres, or Sayers, his mate. The slaves were speedily recaptured and sold South, while their brave defenders barely escaped with their lives from an in furiated mob. The Abolitionists in Congress determined to evoke from that body some ex pression of sentiment on the subject. On the 20th of April Senator Hale introduced a reso lution implying but not expressing sympathy with the oppressed. It stirred the slavehold ers to unusual intemperance of language. Cal- houn was " amazed that even the Senator from New Hampshire had so little regard for the Constitution," and, forgetting his usual dig nity, declared he " would as soon argue with a maniac from Bedlam" as with Mr. Hale. Mr. Foote, of Mississippi, was, perhaps, the most violent of all. He denounced any attempt of Congress to legislate on the subject of slavery as "a nefarious attempt to commit grand lar ceny." He charged Mr. Hale with being "as guilty as if he had committed highway rob bery," and went on to say, "I invite him to visit Mississippi, and will tell him beforehand, in all honesty, that he could not go ten miles into the interior before he would grace one of the tallest trees of the forest with a rope around his neck, with the approbation of all honest and patriotic citizens ; and that, if necessary, I should myself assist in the opera tion." Mr. Hale stood almost alone with his reso lution, which was soon arrested by an adjourn ment. A similar resolution failed in the House. Drayton and Sayres were convicted by the District Court and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. In 1852 Senator Sumner secured for them an unconditional pardon from Presi dent Fillmore. Page 198. Mr. Foote. Cf. note above. Mr. Henry S. Foote was Senator from Mississippi from 1847 to 1852. He was a member of the Confederate Congress, and the author of The War of the Rebellion, and Personal Recollections of Public Men. Page 198. Mangum. 474 APPENDIX W. P. Mangum (1792-1861) was Senator from North Carolina from 1831 to 1837, and from 1841 to 1847. He was President pro tern, of the Senate during Tyler s administration, 1842- 1845. Page 198. Cass. Lewis Cass (1782-1866) was Jackson s Secre tary of War from 1831 to 1836, Minister to France from 1836 to 1842, Senator from Michi gan from 1845 to 1848, and candidate for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket in 1848. After his defeat by Taylor he was in 1849 re turned to the Senate to fill out his unexpired term. He was Buchanan s Secretary of State until the famous message of December, 1860, when he resigned. Page 198. Davis. Jefferson Davis, the President of the so- called Confederate States, was a Senator from Mississippi from 1847 to 1850. Page 199. Hannegan. Edward A. Hannegan was Senator from In diana from 1843 to 1849. He was afterwards Minister to Prussia and died in 1859. Page 199. Jarnagin. Spencer Jarnagin represented the State of Tennessee in the Senate from 1841 to 1847. He died in 1851. Page 199. Atherton. Charles G. Atherton (1804-1853) was Senator from New Hampshire from 1843 to 1849. Page 199. Colquitt. W. T. Colquitt (1799-1855) was Senator from Georgia, from 1843 to 1849. Page 199. Johnson. Reverdy Johnson was Senator from Mary land, 1845-1849. Page 199. Westcott. James D. Westcott, Senator from Florida, 1845-1849. Page 199. Lewis. Dixon H. Lewis represented Alabama in the House of Representatives from 1829 to 1843, and in the Senate from 1844 till his death in 1848. Page 201. "Payris." The revolution in France was hailed with de light in the United States as a triumph of free dom and popular government. In Congress the event gave opportunity for much sounding declamation, in which the Southern members participated with as much enthusiasm as those from the North. At the same time when the Abolitionists sought to turn all this philosophy to some more practical application nearer home, the attempt was bitterly denounced at Wash ington and by the Democratic press generally. A striking instance of this inconsistency is af forded by a speech of Senator Foote. " The age of tyrants and slavery," said he, in allusion to France, " is drawing to a close. The happy period to be signalized by the universal emanci pation of man from the fetters of civil oppres sion, and the recognition in all countries of the great principles of popular sovereignty, equal ity, and brotherhood, is at this moment visibly commencing." A few days later, when Mr. Mann, the attorney for Drayton and Sayres, quoted these very words in palliation of his clients offence, he was peremptorily checked by the judge for uttering " inflammatory " words that might " endanger our institutions." Page 203. Candidate for the Presidency. In the campaign of 1848 the Whigs deter mined to have substantially no platform or pro gramme at all, in order to retain the Southern element in their party. Accordingly a colorless candidate was selected in the person of General Zachary Taylor, who, it was said, had never voted or made any political confession of faith. He was nominated as the " people s candidate," and men of all parties were invited to support him. He refused to pledge himself to any policy or enter into any details, unless on some such obsolete issue as that of a National Bank. After it became apparent that his followers were chiefly Whigs, he declared himself a Whig also, " although not an ultra one." He par ticularly avoided compromising himself on the slavery question. When, in the beginning of 1847, Mr. J. W. Taylor, of the Cincinnati Sig nal, questioned him on the Wilmot Proviso, he answered in such vague phrases that the con fused editor interpreted them first as favoring and finally as opposing the measure. This declaration, together with the candidate s an nouncement that he was a Whig, was taken in the North to mean that he was opposed to the extension of slavery. The fact that he was a Southerner and a slaveholder was sufficient to reassure the South. Page 203. Pinto. Pseudonym of Mr. Charles F. Briggs (1810- 1877),the same who was afterwards associated with Edgar A. Poe on the Broadway Review. Page 204. Thet darned Proviso. August 8, 1846, the President addressed a message to both Houses asking for $2,000,000 to conclude a peace with Mexico and recom pense her for her proposed cession of territory. On the same day McKay, of North Carolina? introduced a bill into the lower House for this purpose. David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, a Democrat and a zealous friend of annexation, moved as a proviso that slavery should forever be excluded from the new territory. The mo tion was suddenly and unexpectedly carried by a vote of 83 to 54. It did not come to a vote in the Senate, for John Davis, of Massachu setts, talked it to death by a long speech in its favor. Nevertheless it became at once a burn ing question in both North and South. The more pronounced antislavery men of the former section tried to make it the political test in the coming campaign. The refusal of the Whig party to take up the question caused large ac cessions to the old Liberty party, now known as the Free-Soil, and later to become the Re publican party. Page 212. Ashland, etc. It hardly need be said that Ashland was the home of Henry Clay: North Bend, of Harri son; Marshfield, of Webster; Kinderhook, of Van Buren ; and Baton Rouge, of General Taylor. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 475 Page 213. Pheladelphy nomernee. The Philadelphia nominee was General Zach- ary Taylor. Page 214. McuhfieT speech. The speech here referred to is the one deliv ered by Webster at Marshfield, September 1, 1848. While he affirmed that the nomination of Taylor was " not fit to be made," he never theless declared that he would vote for^ him, and advised his friends to do the same. " The sagacious, wise, and far-seeing doctrine of avail ability," said he, "lay at the root of the whole matter." Page 214. Choate. Into none of his political addresses did Ruf us Choate throw so much of his heart and soul as into those which upheld the failing policy of the Whig party from 1848 to 1852. Page 215. Bvrffalo. On August 9, 1848, the convention containing the consolidated elements of constitutional op position to the extension of slavery met at Buf falo. The party, calling itself the Free-Soil party now, declared its platform to be "no more slave States and no more slave territory." Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams were the candidates selected. Van Buren was chosen because it was thought he might attract Democratic votes. His opposition to the ex tension of slavery was not very energetic. In his letter accepting the nomination he com mended the convention for having taken no decisive stand against slavery in the District of Columbia. Page 216. To act agin the law. The slaveholding States early legislated to forbid education and free religious meetings to slaves and free people of color. Stroud s Sketch of the Slave Laws (Philadelphia, 1827) shows that the principal acts of this character date from the period between 1740 and 1770. This was long before the oldest anti-slavery societies were organized. Thus these laws cannot be represented as having been the result of imper tinent and intemperate agitation on the part of Northern Abolitionists. They were frequently defended on this ground in the heat of the anti- slavery conflict. SECOND SERIES Page 226. The Cotton Loan. In 1861 a magnificent scheme was devised for bolstering up the Confederate government s credit. The planters signed agreements sub scribing a certain portion of the next cotton and tobacco crop to the government. Using this as a basis for credit, the government issued bonds and placed about $15,000,000 in Europe, chiefly in England. A much greater loan might have been negotiated had it not suddenly appeared that the agreements made by the planters were almost worthless. By the end of the year the plan was quietly and completely abandoned. The English bondholders had the audacity to apply for aid to the United States after the war. Page 226. Mem nger. Charles Gustavus Memminger, although he had opposed nullification, was one of the lead ers in the secession movement which began in his own State, South Carolina. On the form ation of the Confederate government he was made Secretary of the Treasury. Although not without experience in the management of his State s finances he showed little skill in his new position. Page 226. Cornfiscatin\ all debts. After the failure of the Produce Loan and one or two other measures on a similarly grand scale, the Confederate government resorted to simpler means. Chief among these were the acts confiscating the property of and all debts due to alien enemies. No great number of rep utable persons in the South could resolve to compound or wipe out debts involving their personal honor, so the results of the scheme were meagre. Page 228. MASON AND SLIDELL. In the latter part of 1861 President Davis undertook to send agents or commissioners to England and France to represent the Southern cause. The men chosen were James M. Mason, of Virginia, and John Slidell, of Louisiana. On the 12th of October they left Charleston, eluded the blockading squadron, and landed at Havana. Thence they embarked for St. Thomas on the British mail-steamer Trent. On the way the Trent was stopped by Captain Wilkes, of the American man-of-war San Jacinto, and the Confederate agents were transferred as prisoners to the latter vessel. The British Government at once proclaimed the act "a great outrage," and sent a peremptory demand for the release of the prisoners and reparation. At the same time, without waiting for any explanation, it made extensive preparations for hostilities. It seemed and undoubtedly was expedient for the United States to receive Lord Russell s demand as an admission that impressment of British seamen found on board neutral vessels was unwarrantable. Acting on the demand as an admission of the principle so long contended for by the United States, Mr. Seward disavowed the act of Wilkes and released the commis sioners. But it was held then and has since been stoutly maintained by many jurists that the true principles of international law will not justify a neutral vessel in transporting the agents of a belligerent on a hostile mission. On the analogy of despatches they should be con traband. The difficulty of amicable settlement at that time, however, lay not so much in the point of law as in the intensity of popular feel ing on both sides of the Atlantic. Page 231. Belligerent rights. One month after Sumter was attacked, on May 13, 1861, the Queen issued a proclamation of neutrality, according belligerent rights to the Confederacy. This was done even before Mr. Adams, the new minister from the Lincoln administration, could reach England. Com mercial interest cannot excuse so precipitate a recognition. It cannot be regarded as anything 476 APPENDIX but a deliberate expression of unfriendliness towards the United States. It coldly contem plated the dissolution of the Union, favored the establishment of an independent slave-em pire, and by its moral support strengthened the hands of the Rebellion and prolonged the war. Page 231. Confederate privateers. It is notorious that Confederate cruisers were built, equipped, and even partially manned in England in open disregard of the inter national law respecting neutrals. Mr. Adams protested constantly and emphatically against this, but in vain for the time. No notice was taken officially of the matter until it was forced on the British government in 1864. The sub sequent negotiations concerning the Alabama claims, the Treaty of Washington in 1871, and the Geneva award to the United States of some fifteen million dollars, are too well known to require any mention. Page 231. The Caroline. In 1837 an insurrection broke out in Canada, and armed bodies of men styling themselves 44 patriots " were in open rebellion against the government. In spite of the President s mes sage exhorting citizens of the United States not to interfere, and in defiance of the troops sent to Buffalo to carry out his orders, numbers of sympathizers from New York crossed the Ni agara River and gave assistance to the insur gents. The British authorities would have been warranted in seizing the American vessel Caro line, which was used to transport citizens to the Canadian shore, had the seizure been made in flagrante delicto, or out of our territorial waters. But in crossing to the American side of the river and taking the offending vessel from her moorings these authorities commit ted a grave breach of neutrality. After five years of negotiation the Englisti government finally apologized and made reparation for the injury. Page 233. Seward sticks a three-months * pin. Mr. W. H. Seward, Lincoln s Secretary of State, was at the outbreak of the Rebellion an earnest advocate of conciliation. He seemed to think that if war could be averted for a time, until the people of the seceding States perceived the true intention of the administration to be the preservation of the Union, not the promot ing of Abolitionism, the Southern movement would fail. In this belief he frequently de clared that the trouble would all be over in sixty days. Page 237. Bull Run. On the 21st of July, 1861, the Union troops tinder General McDowell were completely routed by Beauregard at Bull Run in Virginia. The North was finally convinced that the South was equipped for and determined on a desper ate struggle, while the victory gave immense encouragement to the insurgents. Page 243. Ones mus. The "Scriptural" view, according to the mind of Mr. Sawin, would have been that of Jeremiah S. Black, who saw in the case of Ouesimus St. Paul s express approval of the Fit gitive Slave Law of 1850. Page 244. Debow. De Bow s Commercial Review, published in New Orleans, Louisiana, was for some years before the war very bitter against the North, its institutions, and its society in general. Page 244. Simms an* Maury. William Gilmore Simms, the South Carolina novelist and poet, is here referred to. Matthew Fontaine Maury, of Virginia, naval officer and hydrographer, was a man of some scientific at tainments. He was the author of several works on the physical geography of the sea, naviga tion, and astronomy. Both men were born in the same year, 1806. Page 245. Arms an cannon. John B. Floyd, while Secretary of War in Mr. Buchanan s Cabinet, was detected in the act of stripping Northern arsenals of arms and ammunition to supply the South. He began this work as early as December, 1859, and it is not known to what extent he carried it. Pol lard, a Southern historian, says the South en tered the war with 150,000 small-arms of the most approved modern pattern, all of which it owed to the government at Washington. Floyd resigned because some forts and posts in the South were not given up to the rebels. Page 245. Admittin 1 we wuz naClly right. President Buchanan s message of the first Monday of December, 1860, declared " the long - continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States" had at last produced its natural effect ; disunion was im pending, and if those States could not obtain redress by constitutional means, secession was justifiable and the general government had no power to prevent it. The effect these utter ances had in spreading and intensifying the spirit of secession is incalculable. Page 246. On the jump to interfere. During the larger part of the war great ap prehension of attempts on the part of foreign powers to interfere prevailed in the Northern States. With the exception of Russia and Den mark, all Europe inclined toward the South. Our form of government was not favored by them, and they were not unwilling to see its failure demonstrated by a complete disruption. For a long time it was very generally believed that the South would be victorious in the end. Had the Confederacy at any time had a bright prospect of success, it is likely that England or France might have offered to interfere. In deed, the success of the French scheme to set up a military empire in Mexico in defiance of the Monroe doctrine entirely depended on the contingency of a victory for secession. Napo leon therefore was urgent for mediation. The subject was suggested several times by the French foreign minister in his correspondence with Mr. Seward, and was pressed on the British Government by France. Page 249. The Border States. The Border States, by contiguity to the North NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 477 and natural unfitness for a very profitable system of slave-labor, were slow to take a defi nite stand. President Lincoln s policy was to proceed cautiously at first, keep the slavery question in the background, and enlist the sym pathies of these States by appeals to their at tachment to the Union. Although the people of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were pretty evenly divided, the State govern ments were kept from seceding. Without the support of the Republican Congressmen from this section, Lincoln could not have carried out his abolition policy. Page 249. Hampton Eoads. The battle of Hampton Roads, at the en trance of Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, is re markable for the revolution in naval warfare which it began. The utter worthlessness of wooden against armored vessels was suddenly and convincingly demonstrated. On the 8th of March, 1862, the Confederate armored ram Virginia, formerly Merrimac, made terrible havoc among the old wooden men-of-war sta tioned about Fortress Monroe. But at nine o clock that night the little Monitor steamed into the Roads to the assistance of the shat tered Federal navy. The next day s battle is one of the romances of war. Had Mr. Wil bur waited for the next Southern mail before writing this letter, the Devil might have had less credit given him. .Page 251. From the banks o my own Massis- sippi. Tn the period from 1830 to 1840, the sud den and healthy increase of immigration and the flattering industrial prospect induced many Western and Southern States to make lavish expenditures for internal improvements. Their credit was good and they borrowed too largely. After the financial crisis of 1837, insolvency stared them in the face. A number repudiated, among whom Mississippi in particular was heavily indebted. Her securities were largely held in England. It added nothing to the credit of the Confederacy that Jefferson Da vis had been an earnest advocate of repudia tion. Page 252. Roanoke, Bufort, Millspring. The loss of Roanoke Island, on the coast of North Carolina, February 8, 1862, was a severe one to the South. The finest harbor on the Southern coast was that of Port Royal, South Carolina, in the centre of the sea-island cotton district. This point the North fixed on as the best for a base of operations, and on October 29, 1861, a fleet of fifty vessels, including thirty- three transports, was sent against it. A fierce attack was begun on November 7, and on the next day the two forts, Walker and Beauregard, capitulated. Without encountering further op position the Federal troops took possession of the town of Beaufort, on an island in the har bor. January 19, 1862, the Confederates under Crittenden were defeated with considerable loss at Millspring, Kentucky, by General G. H. Thomas. Page 252. Beecognition. Recognition of independence by the Euro pean powers, particularly France and England, would of course have been of the greatest value to the South. It is said that Mr. Roebuck s motion in the House of Commons to recognize the Confederate States would have passed but for the timely news of Gettysburg. Certainly if it had, France would not have been slow to follow. It is difficult to overestimate the dis astrous effect such events would have had on the Northern cause. Page 253. Your Belmonts, Vallandighams, Woodses. Mr. August Belmont, of New York, Chair man of the Democratic National Committee from 1860 to 1872, although opposed to seces sion, still attributed the cause and the responsi bility for the continuance of the war to the Republican Administration. He led his party in clamoring for peace and conciliation, espe cially in 1864, and bitterly opposed reconstruc tion. Clement L. Vallandigham, of Dayton, Ohio, was the most conspicuous and noisy one of the Peace Democrats during the war. His treasonable and seditious utterances finally led to his banishment to the South in May, 1863. Thence he repaired to Canada, where he re mained while his party made him their candi date in the next gubernatorial campaign, in which he was ignominiously defeated. The Woodses were the brothers Benjamin and Fer nando Wood, prominent Democrats of New York city. The former was editor of the Daily News and a Representative in Congress. The latter was several times Mayor of New York, and for twelve years a Representative in Congress. Page 253. C lumbus. After the fall of Fort Donelson, Columbus, Kentucky, was no longer tenable, and Beau- regard ordered General Polk to evacuate it. March 3, 1862, a scouting party of Illinois troops, finding the post deserted, occupied it, and when Sherman approached the next day he found the Union flag flying over the town. Page 253. Donelson. The capture of Fort Donelson, in Tennessee, February 16, 1862, by General Grant, was one of several Union successes in the West, whose value was almost entirely neutralized by Mc- Clellan s dilatory conduct of the Army of the Potomac. General John B. Floyd s precipitate retreat from the fort as the Union forces ap proached was afterwards represented in one of his official reports as an heroic exploit. Page 256. Taney. Roger B. Taney, of Maryland, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1836 to 1864. He is chiefly notable for the Dred Scott decision, in 1857, in which he held that a negro was not a "person" in the contemplation of the Constitution, and henc^ " had no rights a white man was bound to respect ; " that the Constitution recognized property in slaves, and that this ownership was as much entitled to protection in the Territories as any other species of property. According to this, all legislation by Congress 478 APPENDIX on slavery, except in its aid, was unconstitu tional. Page 257. Compromise System. Henry Clay was the "great compromiser." The aim of his life was the preservation of the Union even at the cost of extending slave terri tory. The three compromises for which he is famous were the Missouri in 1820, the Tariff in 1833, and the California or "Omnibus" Com promise in 1850, the most conspicuous feature of which was the Fugitive Slave Law. Page 257. S. J. Court. At the beginning of Lincoln s administration, five of the Supreme Court Justices, an absolute majority, were from the South, and had always been State-rights Democrats. Page 259. The Law- rf- Order Party of ole Cincinnater. In Cincinnati, on March 24, 1862, Wendell Phillips, while attempting to deliver one of his lectures on slavery and the war, was attacked by a mob and very roughly handled. Page 267. Gov nor Seymour. Horatio Seymour (1810-1886), of Utica, New York, was one of the most prominent and re spected men in the Democratic party, and a bitter opponent of Lincoln. He had at this time been recently elected Governor of New York on a platform that denounced almost every measure the government had found it necessary to adopt for the suppression of the Rebellion. His influence contributed not a lit tle to the encouragement of that spirit which inspired the Draft Riot in the city of New York in July, 1863. Page 268. Pres dunfs proclamation. In the autumn of 1862 Mr. Lincoln saw that he must either retreat or advance boldly against slavery. He had already proceeded far enough against it to rouse a dangerous hostility among Northern Democrats, and yet not far enough to injure the institution or enlist the sympathy of pronounced anti-slavery men. He determined on decisive action. On September 22, 1862, he issued a monitory proclamation giving notice that on the first day of the next year he would, in the exercise of his war-power, emancipate all slaves of those States or parts of States in re bellion, unless certain conditions were complied with. This proclamation was at once violently assailed by the Democrats, led by such men as Seymour, and for a time the opposition threat ened disaster to the administration. The elec tions in the five leading free States New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois went against the Republicans. But with the aid of New England, the West, and, not least of all, the Border Slave States, the President was assured a majority of about twenty in the new House to carry out his abolition policy. Page 269. KETTELOPOTOMACHIA. .The incident furnishing the occasion for this poem was a Virginia duel, or rather a free fight. f Mr. H. R. Pollard, of the Richmond Examiner, had some difficulty with Messrs. Coleman and N. P. Tyler, of the Enquirer, concerning the public printing. On Friday, January 5, 1866, all three gentlemen met in the rotunda of the Virginia Capitol, and proceeded to settle their dispute by an appeal to revolvers. Six shots were fired, but no damage resulted, except to a marble statue of Washington. Page 270. Letcheris et Floydis magnisque Extra ordine Billis. John Letcher (1813-1884), a Virginia lawyer and politician, was several times in Congress, and was Governor of his State from 1860 to 1864. John B. Floyd (1805-1863) was Governor of Virginia from 1849 to 1852, Secretary of War in Buchanan s Cabinet, and a brigadier in the Confederate service. William Smith, of King George County, Virginia, was the proprietor of an old line of coaches running through Virginia and the Carolinas. He was called " Extra Billy " because he charged extra for every package, large or small, which his passengers carried. Mr. Smith himself, however, attrib uted his nickname to his extra service to the State. He was several times a Congressman, twice Governor of Virginia, and a Confederate Brigadier-General. Page 281. Seward. Under the influence of Mr. Seward, Presi dent Andrew Johnson developed a policy of reconstruction directly opposed to the views of Congress and the mass of the Republican party. He believed in punishing individuals, if necessary, but that all the States ought to be re-installed at once in the position they had occupied in 1860. The guarantees against dis loyalty he proposed to exact from the South were few and feeble. Congress, on the other hand, determined to keep the subdued States in a position somewhat resembling that of ter ritories and under military surveillance until it could be satisfied that four years war would not be without good results. Its chief aim was to secure the safety of the negro, who had been freed by the thirteenth Amendment in Decem ber, 1865. These differences of plan led to a protracted and bitter contest between the executive and legislative departments, culmi nating in the unsuccessful attempt to impeach Johnson in March, 1868. The Congressional policy was carried out over the President s vetoes. Among other conditions the Southern States were required to ratify the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments, giving citizenship and suffrage to the blacks, before being quali fied for readmission to the Union. Page 283. Mac. General George B. McClellan was one of the leaders of the Northern Democracy during the war, and the presidential nominee against Lin coln in 1864. Page 284. Johnson s speech an veto message. The Civil Rights Act of March, 1866, had just been the occasion of an open rupture be tween Congress and the President. The bill, conferring extensive rights on freedmen, passed both Houses, but was vetoed by Johnson. It was quickly passed again over his veto. Page 284. A temp ry party can be based on /. Johnson s plan of reconstruction did, indeed, NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 479 furnish the material for the next Democratic platform in the presidential campaign of 1868. Page 284. Tyler. John Tyler, who had been chosen Vice-Presi dent in 1840, succeeded to the Presidency on the death of Harrison one month after the inauguration. He abandoned the policy of the party that elected him, and provoked just such a contest with it as Johnson did. Page 300. AN INVITATION. [Lowell entered this poem in his several edi tions as addressed to J. F. H., initials which meant nothing to the general public, but re called to the contemporaries of his college days a Virginian gentleman, a graduate of Harvard of the class of 1840, greatly endeared by his temper and gifts to his early associates and especially to Lowell. Not long after his gradu ation he went to Germany to study ; he disap peared from sight, turning up at odd times in odd places. He did much various study and had much varied experience. After many years he returned home. When the war broke out he joined the Confederate army as a surgeon, and died worn out with hard service in 1862.] Page 308. AFTER THE BURIAL. ["To show you that I am not unable to go along with you in the feeling expressed in your letter, I will copy a few verses out of my com mon-place book. Yes, faith is a goodly anchor When the skies are blue and clear ; At the bows it hangs right stalwart With a sturdy iron cheer. But when the ship goes to pieces, And the tempests are all let loose, It rushes plumb down to the sea-depths, Mid slimy sea-weed and ooze. Better then one spar of memory, One broken plank of the past, For our human hearts to cling to, Adrift in the whirling vast. To the spirit the cross of the spirit, To the flesh its blind despair, Clutching fast the thin-worn locket With its threads of gossamer hair. O friend ! thou reasonest bravely, Thy preaching is wise and true ; But the earth that stops my darling s ears Makes mine insensate, too. That little shoe in the corner, So worn and wrinkled and brown, With its emptiness confutes you, And argues your wisdom down. " But enough, dear Sydney, of death and sor row. They are not subjects which I think it profitable or wise to talk about, think about, or write about often. Death is a private tutor. We have no fellow-scholars, and must lay our lessons to heart alone." Lowell to Sydney Howard Gay, March 17, 1850.] Page 350. THE CATHEDRAL. [" Now for Ruskin s criticisms. As to words, I am something of a purist, though I like best the word that best says the thing. (You know I have studied lingo a little.) I am fifty-one years old, however, and have in one sense won my spurs. I claim the right now and then to knight a plebeian word for good service in the field. But it will almost always turn out that it has after all good blood in its veins, and can prove its claim to be put in the saddle. Rote is a familiar word all along our seaboard to ex press that dull and continuous burden of the sea heard inland before or after a great storm. The root of the word may be in rumpere, but it is more likely in rotare, from the identity of this sea-music with that of the rote a kind of hurdy-gurdy with which the jongleurs ac companied their song. It is one of those Eliz abethan words which we New-Englanders have preserved along with so many others. It oc curs in the Mirror for Magistrates, the sea s rote, which Nares, not understanding, would change to rore ! It is not to be found in any grovincial glossary, but I caught it alive at everly and the Isles of Shoals. Like mob- bled tis good. W hiff Ruskin calls an American elevation of English lower word. Not a bit of it. I have always thought the whiff and wind of his fell sword in Hamlet rather fine than otherwise. Ben also has the word. Down- shod means shod with down. I doubted about this word myself but I wanted it. As to misgave, the older poets used it as an ac tive verb, and I have done with it as all poets do with language. My meaning is clear, and that is the main point. His objection to spume- sliding down the baffled decuman I do not understand. I think if he will read over his ridiculous Germanism (p. 13 seq.) with the context he will see that he has misunderstood me. (By the way, in our life alone doth Nature live is Coleridge s, not Wordsworth s.) I never hesitate to say anything I have hon estly felt because some one may have said it before, for it will always get a new color from the new mind, but here I was not saying the same thing by a great deal. Nihil in intellects, quod non prius in sensu would be nearer though not what I meant. Nature (inanimate), which is the image of the mind, sympathizes with all our moods. I would have numbered the lines as Ruskin suggests, only it looks as if one valued them too much. That sort of thing should be posthumous. You may do it for me, my dear Charles, if my poems survive me. Two dropt stitches I must take up which I notice on looking over what I have written. Ruskin surely remembers Carlyle s whiff of grape-shot.^ That is one. The other is that rote may quite as well be from the Icelandic at hriota = to snore ; but my studies more and more persuade me that where there is in Eng lish a Teutonic and a Romance root meaning the same thing, the two are apt to melt into each other so as to make it hard to say from which our word comes." . . . Letters II., pp. 65-67.] 480 APPENDIX Page 399. PHCEBE. [The correspondence concerning this poem with the original form of the verses is here given in detail. TO R. W. GILDER. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, LONDON, September 4, 1881. Dear Mr. Gilder, Your telegram scared me, for, coming at an unusual hour, I thought it brought ill news from Washington. My re lief on finding it innocent has perhaps made me too good-natured towards the verses I send you, but I have waited sixty-two years for them, and am willing to wait as many more (not here) before they are printed. Do what you like with them. They mean only my hearty good-will towards you and my hope for your success in your new undertaking. . . . Faithfully yours, J. R. LOWELL. If I could see the proofs, very likely I could better it they sober one and bring one to his bearings. Perhaps the metaphysical (or what ever they are) stanzas what I mean is moral izing were better away. Perhaps too many compound epithets but I had to give up * visionary" in order to save "legendary," which was essential. Perhaps a note, saying that so long as the author can remember, a pair of these birds (give ornithological name muscicapa ?) have built on jutting brick in an archway leading to the house at Elmwood or does everybody know what a phoabe is ? I am so old that I am accustomed to people s being ignorant of whatever you please. PH(EBE Ere pales in heaven the morning star, A bird, the loneliest of its kind, Hears Dawn s faint footfall from afar While all its mates are dumb and blind. It is a wee sad-colored thing, As shy and secret as a maid, That, ere in choir the robins ring, Pipes its own name like one afraid. It seems pain-prompted to repeat The story of some ancient ill, But Phoebe ! Phcebe ! sadly sweet Is all it says, and then is still. It calls and listens. Earth and sky, Hushed by the pathos of its fate, Listen, breath held, but no reply Comes from its doom-divided mate. Phcebe ! it calls and calls again, And Ovid, could he but have heard, Had hung a legendary pain About the memory of the bird ; A pain articulate so long In penance of some mouldered crime Whose ghost still flies the Furies thong Down the waste solitudes of Time ; Or waif from young Earth s wonder-hour When gods found mortal maidens fair, And will malign was joined with power Love s kindly laws to overbear. Phcebe ! is all it has to say In plaintive cadence o er and o er, Like children that have lost their way And know their names, but nothing more. Is it a type, since nature s lyre Vibrates to every note in man, Of that insatiable desire, Meant to be so, since life began ? Or a fledged satire, sent to rasp Their jaded sense, who, tired so soon With shifting life s doll-dresses, grasp, Gray-bearded babies, at the moon ? I, in strange lands at gray of dawn Wakeful, have heard that fruitless plaint Through Memory s chambers deep withdrawn Renew its iterations faint. So nigh ! yet from remotest years It seems to draw its magic, rife With longings unappeased and tears Drawn from the very source of life. TO THE SAME. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, LONDON, September 5, 1881. Dear Mr. Gilder, I sent off the verses yes terday, and now write in great haste to say that in my judgment the stanza beginning " Or waif from young Earth s," etc., were better away. Also for " doom-divided " print " doom-dis severed." I have not had time to mull over the poem as I should like. Faithfully yours, J. R. LOWELL. P. S. I may write in a day or two suppress ing more, after I have had time to think. TO THE SAME. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, LONDON, September 6, 1881. Dear Mr. Gilder, I bother you like a boy with his first essay in verse. I wrote yester day to ask the omission of a stanza but last night, being sleepless, as old fellows like me are too often apt to be, I contrived to make a stanza which had been tongue-tied say what I wished. Let it go thus, Waif of the young World s wonder-hour to overbear, (comma). Then go on Like Progne, did it feel the stress And coil of the prevailing words Close round its being and compress Man s ampler nature to a bird s ? This manages the transition, which was want ing. Perhaps this might follow : One only memory left of all The motley crowd of vanished scenes, Hers and vain impulse to recall By repetition what it means. Faithfully yours, J. R. LOWELL. A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MR. LOWELL S POEMS 481 TO THE SAME. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, LONDON, September 8, 1881. Dear Mr. Gilder, This is positively the last ! I wish to omit the stanza beginning " Or a winged satire," etc. I have been convinced by a friend whom I have consulted that it was a cuckoo s egg in my nest. Item. The verse that bothered me most of all was this : Listen, breath held, but no reply, etc. I wished to have a distinct pause after " lis ten," in accordance with the sense. Somehow I could not get the right, and "breath held" was clearly the wrong one, awkward, and with the same vowel sound in both halves. Print Listen : no whisper of reply Is heard of doom-dissevered mate. No; that won t do, either, with its assonance of " heard " and " dissevered " so, though I prefer "dissevered" for sense, I will go back to the original word "divided," which I sup pose was instinctive. This is positively my last dying speech and confession. You need fear nothing more from me. I fancy you ducking your head for fear of another rap every time the postman comes. I hope you will like my little poem, and tell me so if you don t. Kindest regards to Mrs. Gilder. Faithfully yours, J. R. LOWELL. TO THE SAME. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, LONDON, September 12, 1881. ... As I am writing, I add that if you think (as I am half inclined) No whisper of reply Comes from its doom-dissevered mate better than the other reading, print it so. Faithfully yours, J. R. LOWELL. P. S. We are sadly anxious to-day about the President. TO THE SAME. HOTEL DANIELI, VENICE, October 24, 1881. . . . Thank you for the printed copy. Of course I am disgusted with it. Print somehow is like a staring plaster-cast compared with the soft and flowing outlines, the modest nudity of the manuscript clay. But it is a real pleasure to me that you like it. "Robins ring" is right, and whenever you spend a June night at Elm wood (as I hope you will so soon as I am safe there once more) you will recognize its truth. There are hun dreds of em going at once, like the bells here last night (Sunday), with a perfect indecency of disregard for rhythm or each other. Mr. Bur roughs, I hear, has been criticising my know ledge of outdoors. God bless his soul I I had been living in the country thirty years (I fancy it must be) before he was born, and if anybody ever lived in the open air it was I. So be at peace. By the way, I took Progne merely because she was changed into a little bird. I should have preferred a male, and was think ing of a fellow (transformed, I think by Me dea), but can t remember his name. While I am about it I question " wee." Is it English ? I had no dictionary at hand. But there is one atrocity "moldered." Why do you give in to these absurdities ? Why abscond in to this petty creek from the great English main of orthography? T is not quite so bad as "I don t know as i " for " I don t know that," but grazes it and is of a piece with putting one s knife in one s mouth.] V. A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MR. LOWELL S POEMS IN arranging this list the editor has relied first on the dates supplied by the author, and then on the dates of periodicals and books in which the poems otherwise undated first ap peared. Whenever the first appearance of a poem has not been determined precisely, the title is printed in italic under the year when the volume first including it was published. 1839. Threnodia. The Beggar. Summer Storm. 1840. The Sirens. Love. Sonnet : To A. C. L. Sonnet (I would not have this perfect love of ours). Sonnet (For this true nobleness I seek in vain). Remembered Music. Irene*. Serenade. With a Pressed Flower. My Love. 1841. To Perdita, Singing. The Moon. Ode (In the old days of awe and keen- eyed wonder). A Prayer. Song (Violet ! sweet violet ! ). Rosaline. Sonnet (What were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee). Sonnet : To the Spirit of Keats. Sonnet (Great truths are portions of the soul of man). Sonnet (I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leap). Sonnet: To M. W., on her Birthday. Sonnet (My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die). Sonnet (I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away). Sonnet (There never yet was flower so fair in vain). Sonnet : Sub Pondere crescit. 482 APPENDIX Si descendero in Infernum, ades. 1842. The Forlorn. Midnight. The Rose : A Ballad. A Parable (Worn and footsore was the Prophet). Song (O moonlight deep and tender). Sonnet (Beloved, in the noisy city here). Sonnets : On Reading Wordsworth s Son nets in Defence of Capital Punishment. (Six sonnets.) Sonnet : To M. O. S. Sonnet (Our love is not a fading earthly flower). The Shepherd of King Admetus. An Incident in a Railroad Car. Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing. 1843. The Fountain. The Fatherland. Sonnet : In Absence. Sonnet: The Street. A Legend of Brittany. Prometheus. A Glance Behind the Curtain. Stanzas on Freedom. IS Envoi (Whether my heart hath wiser grown or not). Allegra. The Heritage. A Requiem. Sonnet : Wendell Phillips. Sonnet (I grieve not that ripe Knowledge takes away). Sonnet : To J. E. Giddings. The Token. Rhoecus. A Chippewa Legend. 1844. Columbus. On the Death of a Friend s Child. Hunger and Cold. The Present Crisis. 1845. An Incident of the Fire at Hamburg. To the Past. To the Future. A Contrast. On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington. To the Dandelion. The Ghost-Seer. Eurydice. An Interview with Miles Standish. 1846. The Falcon. The Oak. Letter from Boston. The Biglow Papers [Beginning of]. On the Death of Charles Turner Torrey. An Indian-Summer Reverie. 1847. The Landlord. Extreme Unction. Above and Below. The Growth of the Legend. Song : To M. L. To a Pine-Tree. The Search. The Captive. The Birch-Tree. Studies for Two Heads. On a Portrait of Dante by Giotto. The Changeling. The Pioneer. Longing. Hebe. 1848. The Sower. Ambrose. Ode to France. A Parable (Said Christ our Lord, "I will go and see). Freedom. Ode written for the Celebration of the Introduction of the Cochituate Water into the City of Boston. To Lamartine. To the Memory of Hood. The Vision of Sir Launfal. A Fable for Critics. The Biglow Papers. First Series. [Pub lished in book form.] 1849. Trial. Lines suggested by the Graves of Two English Soldiers on Concord Battle Ground. To Bibliolatres. Beaver Brook. Kossuth. An Oriental Apologue. The First Snow-Fall. The Parting of the Ways. The Lesson of the Pine (later, with two stanzas added, A Mood). A Day in June (later, revised and en larged, Al Fresco). Sonnet (I thought our love at full, but I did err). She came and went. To John Gorham Palfrey. To W. L. Garrison. 1850. The Fountain of Youth. Dara. New Year s Eve, 1850. An Invitation. Mahmood the Image-Breaker. The Unhappy Lot of Mr. Knott. 1851. Anti-Apis. 1852. A Parable (An ass munched thistles,. while a nightingale). 1854. The Singing Leaves. Without and Within. Pictures from Appledore. The Wind-Harp. Auf Wiedersehen. A Winter Evening Hymn to my Fire. Sonnet on an Autumn Sketch of H. G* Wild. 1855. Masaccio. 1857. My Portrait Gallery. Sonnet: The Maple. The Origin of Didactic Poetry. 1858. The Dead House. The Nest. Das Ewig-Weibliche (original title, Bea trice). 1859. Villa Franca. At the Burns Centennial. A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MR. LOWELL S POEMS 483 1860. L Envoi: To the Muse. 1861. Ode to Happiness. The Washers of the Shroud. 1862. The Biglow Papers. [Beginning of the] Second Series. 1863. Two Scenes from the Life of Blondel. In the Half-Way House. 1864. Memoriae Positum : R. G. Shaw. On Board the 76. The Black Preacher. 1865. Gold Egg: A Dream-Fantasy. Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemo ration. 1866. The Miner. To Mr. John Bartlett. At the Commencement Dinner, 1866. The Biglow Papers. Second Series. [Published in book form.] 1867. A Familiar Epistle to a Friend. An Ember Picture. To H. W. L. The Nightingale in the Study. Fitz Adam s Story. 1868. The Flying Dutchman. Under the Willows. After the Burial. In the Twilight. The Foot-Path. A Mood (earlier, The Lesson of the Pine). To Charles Eliot Norton. Seaweed. The Finding of the Lyre. For an Autograph. Al Fresco (earlier, A Day in June). Godminster Chimes. Aladdin. The Nomades. Self-Study. The Voyage to Vinland. Invita Minerva. Yussouf. The Darkened Mind. What Rabbi Jehosha said. All-Saints. Fancy s Casuistry. 1869. The Cathedral. 1872. Tempora Mutantur. 1873. Sonnet : To Fanny Alexander. 1874. Agassiz. An Epistle to George William Curtis. Sonnet : Jeffries Wyman. 1875. Ode read at the One Hundredth An niversary of the Fight at Concord Bridge. Under the Old Elm. Prison of Cervantes. Sonnet : Scottish Border (original title English Border). Sonnet: On being asked for an Auto graph in Venice. Sonnet : The Dancing Bear. Sonnet : Joseph Winlock. 1876. An Ode for the Fourth of July, 1876. A Misconception. The Boss (originally entitled, Defrauding Nature). 1877. Sonnets: Bankside. Birthday Verses. Sonnet: Nightwatches. Sonnet : Pessimoptimism. Sonnet : The Brakes. 1878. Sonnet: Death of Queen Mercedes. Sonnet : With a Copy of Aucassin and Nicolete. 1879. Sonnet : E. G. de R. The Protest. The Petition. Sonnet: To a Lady Playing on the Cithern. Auspex. 1880. On Planting a Tree at Inveraray. 1881. Phoebe. Sonnets : With an Armchair. Agro-Dolce. A New Year s Greeting. Sun- Worship. 1882. Verses intended to go with a Posset Dish to my Dear Little Goddaughter, 1882. Sonnet : To Whittier. The Secret. 1884. To Holmes. The Optimist. Eleanor makes Macaroons. Bon Voyage. The Recall. Changed Perspective. 1885. On Hearing a Sonata of Beethoven s played in the Next Room. Under the October Maples. International Copyright. 1886. Fact or Fancy ? Paolo to Francesca. With a Pair of Gloves lost in a Wager. 1887. Postscript to An Epistle to George Wil liam Curtis. Credidimus Jovem regnare. Sixty-Eighth Birthday. 1888. Endymion. Turner s Old Te*me*raire. St. Michael the Weigher. Absence. In a Copy of Omar Khayyam. On Receiving a Copy of Mr. Austin Dob- son s " Old World Idylls." To C. F. Bradford. Sonnet : To a Friend. Sonnet : To Miss D. T. Arcadia Rediviva. A Youthful Experiment in English Hexameters. Estrangement. Monna Lisa. On Burning some Old Letters. The Broken Tryst. Casa sin Alma. A Christmas Carol. Sonnet : The Eye s Treasury. Sonnet : A Foreboding. Love s Clock. Telepathy. Scherzo. " Franciscus de Verulamiosic Cogitavit." The Pregnant Comment. 484 APPENDIX The Lesson. Science and Poetry. The Discovery. With a Seashell. In an Album. Sayings. Inscriptions : For a Bell at Cornell University. For a Memorial Window to Sir Walter Raleigh, set up in St. Margaret s, Westminster, by American Contrib utors. 1889. 1890. 1891. 1895. Proposed for a Soldiers 1 and Sailors Monument in Boston. How I consulted the Oracle of the Gold- Fragments of an Unfinished Poem. On a Bust of General Grant. A Valentine. An April Birthday at Sea. Love and Thought. The Nobler Lover. INDEX OF FIRST LINES A beggar through the world am I, 5. A camel-driver, angry with his drudge, 432. A heap of bare and splintery crags, 302. A hundred years ! they re quickly fled, 427. A legend that grew in the forest s hush, 74. A lily thou wast when I saw thee first, 10. A poet cannot strive for despotism, 23. A presence both by night and day, 302. A race of nobles may die out, 100. A stranger came one night to Yussouf s tent, 318. About the oak that framed this chair, of old, 385. Alike I hate to be your debtor, 327. Along a river-side, I know not where, 334. Amid these fragments of heroic days, 404. An ass munched thistles, while a nightingale, " And how could you dream of meeting ? " 408. Another star neath Time s horizon dropped, 105. Are we, then, wholly fallen ? Can it be, 97. As a twig trembles, which a bird, 89. As, cleansed of Tiber s and Oblivion s slime, 387. As, flake by flake, the beetling avalanches, 91. As life runs on, the road grows strange, 433. As sinks the sun behind yon alien hills, 404. As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth, 22. At Carnac in Brittany, close on the bay, 395. At length arrived, your book I take, 382. At twenty we fancied the blest Middle Ages, 426. Ay, pale and silent maiden, 18. B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth, Beauty on my hearth-stone blazing ! 320. Beloved, in the noisy city here, 22. Beneath the trees, 338. Bowing thyself in dust before a Book, 99. Can this be thou who, lean and pale, 87. Come back before the birds are flown, 400. " Come forth ! " my catbird calls to me. 331. Curtis, whose Wit, with Fancy arm in arm, 388. Dear common flower, that grow st beside the way, 83. Dear M. By way of saving time, 111. Dear Sir, You wish to know my notions, 204. Dear Sir, Your letter come to han , 275. Dear Wendell, why need count the years, 381. Death never came so nigh to me before, 87. Don t believe in the Flying Dutchman ? 422. Down mid the tangled roots of things, 325. Ef I a song or two could make, 267. Entranced I saw a vision in the cloud, 370. Ere pales in Heaven the morning star, 399. Fair as a summer dream was Margaret, 28. Far over Elf -land poets stretch their sway, 404. Far through the memory shines a happy day, 350. Far up on Katahdin thou towerest, 62. Far yond this narrow parapet of Time, 23. Fit for an Abbot of Theleme, 322. For this true nobleness I seek in vain, 20. Frank-hearted hostess of the field and wood, 286. From the close-shut windows gleams no spark, Full oft the pathway to her door, 433. Giddings, far rougher names than thine have grown, 25. Go ! leave me, Priest ; my soul would be, 75. God ! do not let my loved one die, 15. God makes sech nights, all white an still, 219. God sends his teachers unto every age, 46. Godminster ? Is it Fancy s play ? 297. Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown, 406. Gone, gone from us ! and shall we see, 1. Great soul, thou sittest with me in my room, 20. Great truths are portions of the soul of man, 20. Guvener B. is a sensible man, 188. He came to Florence long ago, 296. He spoke of Burns : men rude and rough, 45. He stood upon the world s broad threshold; wide, 24. He who first stretched his nerves of subtile wire, 410. Heaven s cup held down to me I drain, 88. Here once my step was quickened, 309. Here we stan on the Constitution, by thunder! 198. Hers all that Earth could promise or bestow. 405. Hers is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear, 4. How strange are the freaks of memory ! 329. How struggles with the tempest s swells, 322. How was J worthy so divine a loss, 399. Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill, 99. I am a man of forty, sirs, a native of East Haddam, 158. I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leap, 21. I call as fly the irrevocable hours, 432. I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away, 21. I christened you in happier days, before, 383. 4 86 INDEX OF FIRST LINES I could not bear to see those eyes, 401. I did not praise thee when the crowd, 101. I do not come to weep above thy pall, 104. I don t much s pose, hows ever I should plen it, 278. I du believe in Freedom s cause, 201. I go to the ridge in the forest, 310. I grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away, 25. I had a little daughter, 89. I have a fancy: how shall I bring it, 411. I hed it on my min las time, when I to write ye started, 242. I know a falcon swift and peerless, 48. I love to start out arter night s begun, 233. I need not praise the sweetness of his song, 330. I rise, Mr. Chairman, as both of us know, 430. I sat and watched the walls of night, 410. I sat one evening in my room, 80. I saw a Sower walking slow, 60. I saw the twinkle of white feet, 65. I sent you a message, my friens, t other day, 249. I spose you recollect thet I explained my gennle views, 212. I spose you wonder ware I be ; I can t tell, fer the soul o me, 207. I swam with undulation soft, 326. I thank ye, my frien s, for the warmth o your greetin , 255. I thought our love at full, but I did err, 25. I treasure in secret some long, fine hair, 307. I, walking the familiar street, 396. I was with thee in Heaven : I cannot tell, 403. I watched a moorland torrent run, 410. I went to seek for Christ, 66. I would more natures were like thine, 10. I would not have this perfect love of ours, 20. If he be a nobler lover, take him ! 438. If I let fall a word of bitter mirth, 360. If I were the rose at your window, 433. In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, 103. In good old times, which means, you know, 438. In his tower sat the poet, 16. In life s small things be resolute and great, 432. In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder, In town I hear, scarce wakened yet, 402. In vain we call old notions fudge, 433. Into the sunshine, 11. It don t seem hardly right, John, 238. It is a mere wild rosebud, 44. It mounts athwart the windy hill, 333. It was past the hour of trysting, 78. It s some consid ble of a spell sence I hain t writ no letters, 223. Leaves fit to have been poor Juliet s cradle- rhyme, 387. Let others wonder what fair face, 437. Light of triumph in her eyes, 408. Look on who will in apathy, and stifle they who can, 82. Looms there the New Land, 313. Maiden, when such a soul as thine is born, 21. Mary, since first 1 knew thee, to this hour, 23. Men say the sullen instrument, 332. Men ! whose boast it is that ye, 55. My coachman, in the moonlight there, 297. My day began not till the twilight fell, 392. My heart, I cannot still it, 409. My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die, My name is Water : I have sped, 96. My soul was like the sea, 9. My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott, 149. Never, surely, was holier man, 77. New England s poet, rich in love as years, 386. Nine years have slipt like hour-glass sand, 300. No? Hez he? He haint, though? Wut? Voted agin him V 192. Nor deemed he lived unto himself alone, 384. Not always unimpeded can I pray, 294. Not as all other women are, 6. Now Biorn, the son of Heriulf, had ill days. 311. days endeared to every Muse, 423. " O Dryad feet," 407. O dwellers in the valley-land, 78. Land of Promise ! from what Pisgah s height, O moonlight deep and tender, 19. O wandering dim on the extremest edge, 63. Of all the myriad moods of mind, 91. Oft round my hall of portraiture I gaze, 403. Oh, tell me less or tell me more, 402. Old events have modern meanings ; only that survives, 315. Old Friend, farewell 1 Your kindly door again, 384. On this wild waste, where never blossom came, 437. Once git a smell o musk into a draw, 260. Once hardly in a cycle blossometh, 22. Once on a time there was a pool, 248. One after one the stars have risen and set, 39. One feast, of holy days the crest, 319. One kiss from all others prevents me, 402. Opening one day a book of mine, 409. Our love is not a fading, earthly flower, 24. Our ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, 339. Over his keys the musing organist, 106. Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree s shade, 117. Praisest Law, friend ? We, too, love it much as they that love it best, 94. Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see, 174. Punctorum garretos colens et cellafa Quinque, 270. Rabbi Jehosha used to say, 319. Reader ! Walk up at once (it will soon be too late), 114. Rippling through thy branches goes the sun shine, 79. Said Christ our Lord, I will go and see, 95. Seat of all woes ? Though Nature s firm decree, 405. INDEX OF FIRST LINES 487 She gave me all that woman can, 400. Shell, whose lips, than mine more cold, 411. Ship, blest to bear such freight across the blue, 386. Shy soul and stalwart, man of patient will, 384. Silencioso por la puerta, 403. Sisters two, all praise to you, 61. Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature s hope, 433. Sleep is Death s image, poets tell us so, 400. So dreamy-soft the notes, so far away, 406. Some sort of heart I know is hers, 85. Sometimes come pauses of calm, when the rapt bard, holding his heart back, 398. Somewhere in India, upon a time, 161. Spirit, that rarely comest now, 323. Still thirteen years : t is autumn now, 308. Stood the tall Archangel weighing, 436. Strong, simple, silent are the [steadfast] laws, 439. Swiftly the politic goes : is it dark? he bor rows a lantern, 432. Thank God, he saw you last in pomp of May, 384. Thanks to the artist, ever on my wall, 387. That s a rather bold speech, my Lord Bacon, 409. The Bardling came where by a river grew, 315. The century numbers fourscore years, 410. The cordage creaks and rattles in the wind, 55. The dandelions and buttercups, 295. The electric nerve, whose instantaneous thrill, 374. The fire is burning clear and blithely, 319. The hope of Truth grows stronger, day by day, 22. The little gate was reached at last, 308. The love of all things springs from love of one, 23. The Maple puts her corals on in May, 405. The misspelt scrawl, upon the wall, 430. The moon shines white and silent, 15. The New World s sons, from England s breasts we drew, 432. The next whose fortune t was a tale to tell, 412. The night is dark, the stinging sleet, 14. The old Chief, feeling now wellnigh his end, 53. The path from me to you that led, 398. The pipe came safe, and welcome too, 383. The rich man s son inherits lands, 15. The same good blood that now refills, 96. The sea is lonely, the sea is dreary, 2. The snow had begun in the gloaming, 292. The tower of old Saint Nicholas soared upward to the skies, 59. The wind is roistering out of doors, 285. The wisest man could ask no more of Fate, 385. The world turns mild ; democracy, they say, 425. There are who triumph in a losing cause, 102. There came a youth upon the earth, 44. There lay upon the ocean s shore, 294. There never yet was flower fair in vain, 21. Therefore think not the Past is wise alone, 23. These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, 382. These rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear, 24. They pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds, 24. Thick-rushing, like an ocean vast, 10. This is the midnight of the century, hark! 295. This kind p sogerin aint a mite like our Oc tober trainin , 184. This little blossom from afar, 5. Thou look dst on me all yesternight, 17. Thou wast the fairest of all man-made things. 436. Though old the thought and oft exprest, 295. Thrash away, you 11 hev to rattle, 181. Through suffering and sorrow thou hast passed. 19. Thy love thou sentest oft to me, 75. Thy voice is like a fountain, 8. T is a woodland enchanted ! 316. To those who died for her on land and sea, 432. True as the sun s own work, but more refined, 385. True Love is a humble, low-born thing, 8. Turbid from London s noise and smoke, 400. T was sung of old in hut and hall, 398. T were no hard task, perchance, to win, 336. Two brothers once, an ill-matched pair, 176. Two fellers, Isrel named and Joe, 176. Unconscious as the sunshine, simply sweet, 385. Unseen Musician, thou art sure to please, 438. Untremulous in the river clear, 7. Violet ! sweet violet ! 17. Wait a little : do we not wait ? 324. Walking alone where we walked together, 402. We see but half the causes of our deeds, 49. We, too, have autumns, when our leaves, 97. We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain, 433. Weak-winged is song, 342. What boot your houses and your lands ? 61. What countless years and wealth of brain were spent, 406. " What fairings will ye that I bring ? " 293. What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is his! 76. What hath Love with Thought to do ? 438. What know we of the world immense, 433. What man would live coffined with brick and stone, 90. What mean these banners spread, 407. " What means this glory round our feet," 403. What Nature makes in any mood, 301. What visionary tints the year puts on, 69. What were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee, 20. What were the whole void world, if thou wert dead, 407. When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth s aching breast, 67. When I was a beggarly boy, 300. When oaken woods with buds are pink, 397. When Persia s sceptre trembled in a hand, 291. When the down is on the chin, 408. 488 INDEX OF FIRST LINES When wise Minerva still was young, 421. Where is the true man s fatherland ? 14. " Where lies the capital, pilgrim, seat of who governs the Faithful? " 432. Whether my heart hath wiser grown or not, 25. Whether the idle prisoner through his grate, 48. While the slow clock, as they were miser s gold, 405. Whither ? Albeit I f ollow fast, 347. Who cometh over the hills, 361. Who does his duty is a question, 387. Who hath not been a poet ? Who hath not, 298. Why should I seek her spell to decompose, 386. With what odorous woods and spices, 401. Woe worth the hour when it is crime, 104. Wondrous and awful are thy silent halls, 63. Words pass as wind, but where great deeds were done, 364. Worn and footsore was the Prophet, 19. Ye little think what toil it was to build, 406. Ye who, passing graves by night, 83. Yes, faith is a goodly anchor, 308. Zekle crep up, quite unbeknown, 170. INDEX OF TITLES [TJie titles of major works and of general divisions are set in SMALL CAPITALS.] A. C. L., To, 19. Above and Below, 78. Absence, 400. After the Burial, 308. Agassiz, 374. Agro-Dolce, 402. Al Fresco, 295. Aladdin, 300. Alexander, Fanny, To, 385. All-Saints, 319. Allegra, 10. Ambrose, 77. Anti-Apis, 94. Appledore, Pictures from, 302. April Birthday, An at Sea, 437. Arcadia Rediviva, 396. At the Burns Centennial, 427. At the Commencement Dinner, 1866, 430. Auf Wiedersehen, 308. Auspex, 409. Bankside, 383. Bartlett, Mr. John, To, 322. Beaver Brook, 99. Beggar, The, 5. Bibliolatres, 99. Biglow, Mr. Hosea, to the Editor of the At lantic Monthly, 275. Biglow, Mr., Latest Views of, 265. BIGLOW PAPERS, THE, 165. Biglow s, Mr. Hosea, Speech in March Meet ing, 277. Birch-Tree, The, 79. Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Big- low, 220. Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Big- low, 239. Birthday Verses, 398. Black Preacher, The, 395. Blondel, Two Scenes from the Life of, 336. Bon Voyage, 386. Boss, The, 433. Boston, Letter from, 111. Bradford, C. F., To, 383. Brakes, The, 406. Brittany, A Legend of, 28. Broken Tryst, The, 402. Burns Centennial, At the, 427. Captive, The, 78. Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington, On the, 82. Casa sin Alma, 403. CATHEDRAL, THE, 349. Cervantes, Prison of, 405. Changed Perspective, 433. Changeling, The, 89. Channing, Dr., Elegy on the Death of, 104. Chippewa Legend, A, 53. Christmas Carol, A, 403. Cochituate Water, Ode written for the Cele bration of the Introduction of the, into the City of Boston, 96. Columbus, 55. Commemoration, Ode recited at the Harvard, 340. Concord Bridge, Ode read at the One Hun dredth Anniversary of the Fight at, 361. Contrast, A, 75. Courtin , The, 170, 219. Credidimus Jovem regnare, 423. Curtis, George William, An Epistle to, 388. Dancing Bear, The, 404. Dandelion, To the, 83. Dante, On a Portrait of, by Giotto, 87. Dara, 291. Darkened Mind, The, 319. Dead House, The, 309. Death of a Friend s Child, On the, 87. Death of Queen Mercedes, 405. Debate in the Sennit, The, 197. Discovery, The, 410. Dobson s, Mr. Austin, " Old World Idylls," On Receiving a Copy of, 382. E. G. de R., 386. EARLIER POEMS, 1. Eleanor makes Macaroons, 408. Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing, 104. Ember Picture, An, 329. Endymion, 392. Epistle to George William Curtis, An, 388. Estrangement, 398. Eurydice, 88. Ewig-Weibliche, Das, 399. Extreme Unction, 75. Eye s Treasury, The, 406. FABLE FOR CRITICS, A, 113. Fact or Fancy ? 402. Falcon, The, 48. Familiar Epistle to a Friend, A, 327. Fancy s Casuistry, 322. Fatherland, The, 14. Festina Lente, 248. Finding of the Lyre, The, 294. First Snow-Fail, The, 292. Fitz Adam s Story, 411. Flying Dutchman, The, 422. Foot-Path, The, 333. For an Autograph, 295. Foreboding, A, 407. Forlorn, The, 14. 490 INDEX OF TITLES Fountain, The, 11. Fountain of Youth, The, 316. Fourth of July, 1876, An Ode for the, 370. FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM, 158. France, Ode to, 91. " Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit," 409. Freedom, 97. Future, To the, 64. Garrison, W. L., To, 102. Ghost-Seer, The, 83. Giddings, J. R., To, 25. Glance behind the Curtain, A, 49. Godminster Chimes, 297. Gold Egg : A Dream-Fantasy, 326. Grant, General, On a Bust of, 439. Graves of Two English Soldiers on Concord Bat- tle-Ground, Lines suggested by the, 96. Growth of the Legend, The, 74. H. W. L., To, 330. Hamburg, An Incident of the Fire at, 59. Happiness, Ode to, 323. Harvard Commemoration, Ode recited at the, 340. HEARTSEASE AND RUE, 374. Hebe, 65. Heritage/The, 15. Holmes, To, 381. Hood, To the Memory of, 105. How I consulted the Oracle of the Goldfishes, 433. Hunger and Cold, 61. In a Copy of Omar Khayyam, 382. In Absence, 24. In an Album, 430. In the Half-Way House, 426. In the Twilight, 332. Incident in a Railroad Car, An, 45. Incident of the Fire at Hamburg, An, 59. Indian-Summer Reverie, An, 68. Inscriptions, 432. For a Bell at Cornell University. For a Memorial Window to Sir Walter Ra leigh, set up in St. Margaret s, Westmin ster, by American Contributors. Proposed for a Soldiers and Sailors Monu ment in Boston. International Copyright, 433. Interview with Miles Standish, An, 80. Inveraray, On Planting a Tree at, 387. Invita Minerva, 315. Invitation, An, 300. Iren^ 4. Jonathan to John, 238. Keats, To the Spirit of, 20. Kettelopotomachia, 269. Kossuth, 100. Lamartine, To, 101. Landlord, The, 61. LAST POEMS, 433. Latest Views of Mr. Biglow, 265. Leaving the Matter open, 176. Legend of Brittany, A, 28. L ENVOI (To the Muse), 347. L Envoi (Whether my heart hath wiser grown or not), 25. Lesson, The, 410. Letter, A, from a candidate for the presidency in answer to suttin questions proposed by Mr. Hosea Biglow, inclosed in a note from Mr. Biglow to S. H. Gay, Esq., editor of the Na tional Anti-Slavery Standard, 203. Letter, A, from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow of Jaalam to the Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham, editor of the Boston Courier, inclosing a poem of his son, Mr. Hosea Biglow, 181. Letter, A, from Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Hon. J. T. Buckingham, editor of the Boston Cou rier, covering a letter from Mr. B. Sawin, private in the Massachusetts Regiment, 183. Letter, A Second, from B. Sawin, Esq., 206. Letter, A Third, from B. Sawin, Esq., 212. LETTER FROM BOSTON, 111. Lines (suggested by the Graves of Two English Soldiers on Concord Battle-Ground), 96. Longing, 91. Love, 8. Love and Thought, 438. Love s Clock, 407. M. O. S., To, 23. Mahmood the Image-Breaker, 315. Maple, The, 405. Masaccio, 296. Mason and Slidell : a Yankee Idyll, 228. Memorise Positum, 337. MEMORIAL VERSES, 100. Message of Jeff Davis in Secret Session, A, 248. Midnight, 15. Miner, The, 325. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 28. Misconception, A, 432. Miss D. T., To, 387. Monna Lisa, 400. Mood, A, 310. Moon, The, 9. My Love, 6. My Portrait Gallery, 403. Nest, The, 397. New-Year s Eve, 1850, 295. New Year s Greeting, A, 410. Nightingale in the Study, The, 331. Nightwatches, 405. Nobler Lover, The, 438. Nomades, The, 301. Norton, Charles Eliot, To, 285. Oak, The, 76. Ode, An (for the Fourth of July, 1876), 370. Ode (In the old days of awe and keen-eyed won- Ode (read at the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Fight at Concord Bridge), 361. Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration, 340. Ode to France, 91. Ode to Happiness, 323. Ode (written for the Celebration of the Intro- INDEX OF TITLES 491 duction of the Cochituate Water into the City of Boston), 96. Omar Khayyam, In a Copy of, 382. On a Bust of General Grant, 439. On a Portrait of Dante by Giotto, 87. On an Autumn Sketch of H. G. Wild, 387. On being asked for an Autograph in Venice, 404. On Board the 76, 339. On burning some Old Letters, 401. On hearing a Sonata of Beethoven s played in the Next Room, 438. On planting a Tree at Inveraray, 387. On reading Wordsworth s Sonnets in Defence of Capital Punishment, 22. On receiving a Copy of Mr. Austin Dobson s "Old World Idylls," 382. On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Wash ington, 82. On the Death of a Friend s Child, 87. On the Death of Charles Turner Torrey, 104. Optimist, The, 400. Oracle of the Goldfishes, How I consulted the, 433. ORIENTAL APOLOGUE, AN, 161. Origin of Didactic Poetry, The, 421. Palfrey, John Gorham, To, 101. Palinode,308. Paolo to Francesca, 403. Parable, A (An ass munched thistles, while a nightingale), 432. Parable, A (Said Christ our Lord, I will go and see ), 95. Parable, A (Worn and footsore was the Prophet), 19. Parting of the Ways, The, 298. Past, To the, 63. Perdita, singing. To, 8. Pessimoptimism, 406. Petition, The, 402. Phillips, Wendell, 24. Phoebe, 399. Pictures from Appledore, 302. Pine-Tree, To a, 62. Pioneer, The, 90. Pious Editor s Creed, The, 200. POEMS OF THE WAR, 334. Portrait Gallery, My, 403. Portrait of Dante by Giotto, On a, 87. Prayer, A, 15. Pregnant Comment, The, 409. Present Crisis, The, 67. Prison of Cervantes, 405. Prometheus, 38. Protest, The, 401. Recall, The, 400. Remarks of Increase D. O Phace, Esquire, at an extrumpery caucus in State Street, re ported by Mr. H. Biglow, 191. Remembered Music, 10. Requiem, A, 18. Rhoecus, 46. Rosaline, 17. Rose, The : a Ballad, 16. St. Michael the Weigher, 436. Sayings, 432. Scherzo, 408. Science and Poetry, 410. Scottish Border, 404. Search, The, 66. Seaweed, 294. Secret, The, 411. Self-Study, 302. Serenade, 5. She came and went, 89. Shepherd of King Admetus, The, 44. Si descendero in Inf ernum, ades, 63. Singing Leaves, The, 293. Sirens, The, 2. Sixty-Eighth Birthday, 433. Song (O moonlight deep and tender), 19. Song (to M. L.), 10. Song (Violet ! sweet violet !), 17. SONNETS. Bankside, 383. " Beloved, in the noisy city here," 22. Bon Voyage ! 386. Brakes, The, 406. Dancing Bear, The, 404. Death of Queen Mercedes, 405. E. G. de R., 386. Eye s Treasury, The, 406. " For this true nobleness I seek in vain," 20. Foreboding, A, 407. 44 Great truths are portions of the soul of man," 20. "I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leap," 21. "I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away," 21. "I grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away," 25. "I thought our love at full, but I did err," 25. "I would not have this perfect love of ours," 20. In Absence, 24. Maple, The, 405. "My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die," 21. Nightwatches, 405. On an Autumn Sketch of H. G. Wild, 387. On being asked for an Autograph in Venice, 404. On reading Wordsworth s Sonnets in Defence of Capital Punishment, 22. " Our love is not a fading, earthly flower," 24. Paolo to Francesca, 403. Pessimoptimism, 406. Phillips, Wendell, 24. Prison of Cervantes, 405. Scottish Border, 404. Street, The, 24. Sub Pondere crescit, 22. " There never yet was flower fair in vain," 21. To A. C. L., 19. To a Friend, 385. To a Lady playing on the Cithera, 406. To Fanny Alexander, 385. To J. R. Giddings, 25. To M. O. S., 23. To M. W., on her Birthday, 21. 492 INDEX OF TITLES To Miss D. T., 387. To the Spirit of Keats, 20. To Whittier, 386. " What were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee," 20. Winlock, Joseph, 384. With a copy of Aucassin and Nicolete, 387. With an Armchair, 385. Wyman, Jeffries, 385. Sower, The, 60. Speech of Honourable Preserved Doe in Secret Caucus, 253. Standish, Miles, An Interview with, 80. Stanzas on Freedom, 55. Street, The,24. Studies for Two Heads, 85. Sub Pondere crescit, 22. Summer Storm, 7. Sun-Worship, 433. Sunthin in the Pastoral Line, 260. Telepathy, 408. Tempora Mutantur, 425. THREE MEMORIAL, POEMS, 360. Threnodia, 1. To , 97. To A. C. L., 19. To a Friend, 385. To a Lady playing on the Cithern, 406. To a Pine-Tree, 62. To C. F. Bradford, 383. To Charles Eliot Norton, 285. To H. W. L., 330. To Holmes, 381. To J. R. Giddings, 25. To John Gorham Palfrey, 101. To Lamartine, 101. To M. O. S., 23. To M. W., on her Birthday, 21. To Miss D. T., 387. To Mr. John Bartlett, 322. To Perdita, singing, 8. To the Dandelion, 83. To the Future, 64. To the Memory of Hood, 105. To the Past, 63. To the Spirit of Keats, 20. To W. L. Garrison, 102. To Whittier, 386. Token, The, 44. Torrey, Charles Turner, On the Death of, 104. Trial, 48. Turner s Old Te"me*raire, 436. Two Gunners, The, 176. Two Scenes from the Life of Blondel, 336. Under the October Maples, 407. Under the Old Elm, 364. UNDER THE WILLOWS, AND OTHER POEMS, 285. Under the Willows, 286. UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT, THE, 149. Valentine, A, 437. Verses, intended to go with a Posset Dish, 438. Villa Franca, 324. VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL, THE, 106. Voyage to Vinland, The, 311. Washers of the Shroud, The, 334. What Mr. Robinson thinks, 187. What Rabbi Jehosha said, 319. Whittier, To, 386. Wild, H. G., On an Autumn Sketch of, 387. Wind-Harp, The, 307. Winlock, Joseph, 384. Winter-Evening Hymn to my Fire, A, 320. With a Copy of Aucassin and Nicolete, 387. With a Pair of Gloves lost in a Wager, 433. With a Pressed Flower, 5. With a Seashell, 411. With an Armchair, 385. Without and Within, 297. Wordsworth s Sonnets in Defence of Capital Punishment, On reading, 22. Wyman, Jeffries, 385. Youthful Experiment in English Hexameters, A, 398. Yussouf , 318. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. 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