the Crow That Flies and Lands Is Wise Art
THE GREAT REMEMBRANCE
AND OTHER POEMS
THE GREAT REMEMBRANCE
AND OTHER POEMS
PART I
THE Bully REMEMBRANCE
Read at the Annual Reunion of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, Faneuil Hall, Boston, June 27, 1893.
Comrades, the circumvolve narrows, heads grow white,
As once more by the camp-fire's flaring calorie-free
We gather and clasp hands, every bit we accept washed
These many, many years. And then long agone
A part we were of all that glorious show,—
Stood, side by side, 'neath the red battle-dominicus,—
And so long ago we breathed war's thunderous breath,
Knew the white fury of that life-in-death,
And so long ago that troubled joy, it seems
The valorous pageant might resolve to first-class dreams.
But no! Too deep 't is burned into the brain!
As well were lightning-scar past summertime pelting
Done clean away, when stroke on blinding stroke
Hath torn the rock, and riven the blackened oak.
How oft as down these peaceful streets nosotros pass
All vanishes relieve, lo! the rutted grass,
Wreckt caissons, frightened beasts, and, merciful God!
The piteous burden of the ensanguined sod!
Yet not all terror doth the memory save
From war's emblazonry and open up grave:
In glimpses, flashing like a shooting star'southward light,
A silent army marches through the night;
The guidons palpitate in a golden valley
Where, at the noonday halt, the horsemen dally;
Or, look! a m tents gleam through the black;
Or, at present, where quick-built camp-fires flame and crack,
From bonfire to shade men stretch o'erwearied limbs,
Dirge songs, or wake the hills with chorused hymns;
Or, ere the dawn makes pale the starry night,
The peppery signals, spark on trailing spark,
Write on the silent heaven their still command,
While the bang-up army moves, fatigued by a unmarried hand.
So long ago information technology seems, so long ago,
Behold, our sons, grown men since those great days,—
Born since the last clear bugle ceased to blow
Its summons down the valley; since the bays
Shook with the roar of fort and answering fleet,—
Our very children look into our optics
And find strange records, with a mute surprise;
As they some curious traveler might greet
Who kept far countries in his musing mind,
Beyond the weltering seas, the mount-walls behind.
And yet it was this land and not another,
Where blazed war'due south flame and rolled the boxing-deject.
In all this land at that place was no domicile where brother,
Father, or son hurried not forth; where bowed
No broken-hearted woman when pale Death
Laid his cold finger on the loved one's breath.
Like to a drama did the scene unroll—
Some dark, majestic drama of the soul,
Wherein all strove every bit actors, 60 minutes by 60 minutes,
Yet incoherent watched the whole swift, tragic play.
Faithful did each his lilliputian part essay,
Urged to an end unknown by one all-knowing Power;
While if the drama pauses, at present so,
On the huge stage, 't is for a moment just—
Here at the heart or in some vista alone,
A unmarried hero or a million men,
And with the tragic theme the world resounds again.
First, in the atrocious waiting came the shock,
The shame unbearable, the sacred flag assailed—
Assailed in liberty's name past those who freedom mock!
Ah, then the oath, to stand every bit stands the rock
'Gainst alluvion and storm, lest that flag exist trailed
And torn, or any star therefrom exist lost—
The oath, murmured solitary, or where the oversupply,
As by a wind of heaven swept and tost,
Passioned its soul to God, and strong men wept aloud.
And then sugariness farewell; O bitter-sweet farewell;
O brave farewell! Who were the bravest and then,
Or they who went, or waited—women or men?
They who the thanks heard, or the funeral knell?
They who stept proudly to the rattling drum,
Inflamed by war'southward divine delirium,
Or they who knew no mad joy of the fight,
And all the same breathed on through waiting day and weeping nighttime?
Adieu and forward! O, to alive information technology over,
The first wild middle-vanquish of heroic hours!
Forward, like mount-torrents subsequently showers!
Forward to death, as to his bride the lover!
Forwards, till quick recoils the impetuous flood,
And ends the offset dread scene in terror and in blood!
Onward once more than, through sunday and shivering storm,—
A monstrous length with wavering majority enorm,—
Wounded or striking, bringing blood or haemorrhage,
Onward, even so on, the agony unheeding!
Onward with failing heart, or backbone loftier!
Onward through heat, and hunger, and dismay,
Turning the starry night to murderous day!
Onward, with promise appalled, once more to strike, and die!
So marched, so fought, then aching, the hosts;
Battling through forests; rotting where dull crawls
The deathly swamp-stream; and like pallid ghosts
Haunting the hospitals, and loathèd prison-walls.
They knew what freedom was, and right to exhale
Clean air who burrowed from the filth and seethe
Of foulest pens, simply that dogs might rails,
And to the death-pit drag their living corpses back.
O, would to Heaven some sights could fade from out
Articulate memory'due south all besides melancholy page—
Fade and be gone forever! Let the shout
Of victory only linger, and the rage
And glory of battle over country and sea,
And all that noblest is in war's fierce pageantry.
Echoes of deeds immortal, O, awake!
Tremble to language, into music break,
Till lyric memory takes the sometime emotion,
And leaps from middle to heart the aboriginal thrill!
Tell of not bad deeds that yet the wide earth fill:
How first upon the amazèd waves of ocean
The black, infernal, mortiferous armored-ships
Together rushed, and all the world stood still,
While a new word of war outburst from those atomic number 26 lips;
How up the rivers thundered the strong fleets;
How the great captains 'gainst each other dashed
Gigantic armies. What wild welcome meets
Some well-loved chief who, ere those armies clashed,
Rides like a whirlwind the embattled line,
Kindling the stricken ranks to bravery divine!
And, hark, at set of lord's day, the cheer that greets
Victorious news from furthermost armies, flashed
From camp to camp, with roar on answering roar,
Like bellowing waves that rails the tempest downward the shore.
Just importantly tell of that one 60 minutes of all
When threatening war rolled highest its full tide,
Fifty-fifty to the perilous northern mount-side
Where Sky should bid our good cause rise or fall.
Tell of that hour, for never in all the earth
Was braver army 'gainst a braver hurled.
To both the victory, all unawares,
Beyond all dreams of losing or of winning;
For the new land which now is ours and theirs,
Had on that topmost twenty-four hour period its glorious beginning.
They who charged upwardly that drenched and desperate slope
Were heroes all—and looked in heroes' eyes!
Ah! heroes never heroes did despise!
That day had Strife its bloodiest bourn and telescopic;
Above the shaken hills and sulphurous skies
Peace lifted up her mournful head and smiled on Hope.
Rushed the bully drama on its tragic way
Swift to the happy terminate from that tremendous twenty-four hours.
Happy, indeed, could retentiveness lose her ability
And yield to joy solitary the glad, triumphant hour;
Happy if every agonized centre could shun
Remembrance of the unreturning i;
If at the 1000 Review, when mile on mile
And twenty-four hours on twenty-four hours the marching columns by,
Darkened not o'er the globe the shadow vast
Of his foul murder—he the free from guile,
Sad-hearted, loving, and beloved, and wise,
Who ruled with sinewy hands and dreaming eyes.
What soul that lived then who remembers not
The hour, the landscape, ah! the very spot,—
Hateful for aye,—where news that he was slain
Struck similar a hammer on the dazèd encephalon!
So long ago it was, so long ago,
All, all accept past; the terror and the splendor
Have turned like yester-evening's stormy glow
Into a sunset memory strange and tender.
How beautiful information technology seems, what lordly sights,
What deeds sublime, what wondrous days and nights,
What honey of comrades, ay, what quickened jiff,
When showtime we knew that, startled, quailing, nevertheless
Nosotros too, even nosotros, along the blazing hill,
We, with the best, could face and conquer decease!
Glorious all these, only these all less than goose egg
To the i passion of those days divine,
Beloved of the land our own hearts' blood had bought—
Our country, our own country, yours and mine,
And then known, then sternly loved, first in our lives.
Ah! loved nosotros not our children, sisters, wives?
Only our own state, this was more than they,—
Our wives, our children, this,—our hope, our dear
For all almost beloved, but more—the dawning day
Of freedom for the globe, the hope above
All hope for the lamentable race of homo. For where,
In what more than lovely world, 'neath skies more fair,
If freedom hither should fail, could it observe soil and air?
In this ane thought, one passion,—whate'er fate
Still may befall,—one moment we were slap-up!
1 moment in life's cursory, perplexèd hour
We climbed the hight of being, and the ability
That falls alone on those who dear their kind
A moment made u.s.a. one with the Eternal Mind.
One moment, ah! not so, dear Country! Thou
Art still our passion; still to thee we bow
In dear supreme! Fairer than eastward'er before
Fine art thousand to-day, from gold shore to shore
The home of freemen. Not i stain doth cling
Now to thy banner. Argosies of war
On thy regal rivers bravely fling
Flags of the nations, just no message bring
Salve of peace only; while, behold, from far
The Sometime World comes to greet thy natal star
That with the circumvoluted century returns,
And in the Western heavens with fourfold beauty burns.
State that we love! Thousand Time to come of the World!
Thou refuge of the noble middle opprest!
O, never be thy shining paradigm hurled
From its high place in the doting chest
Of him who worships thee with jealous beloved!
Proceed thou thy starry brow equally the dove
All white, and to the eternal Dawn inclined!
Thou fine art not for thyself but for mankind,
And to despair of thee were to despair
Of man, of human's high destiny, of God!
Of thee should man despair, the journey trod
Upwards, through unknown eons, stair on stair,
By this our race, with bleeding feet and tedious,
Were but the pathway to a darker woe
Than yet was visioned by the heavy heart
Of prophet. To despair of thee! Ah, no!
For yard thyself art Hope, Promise of the World chiliad art!
Comrades belovèd, meet, the fire burns low,
And darkness thickens. Soon shall our brief office
On globe forever cease, and nosotros shall go
To join the unseen ranks; nor will we swerve
Or fear, when to the silent, slap-up reserve
At concluding nosotros ordered—are equally 1 by one
Our Captains have been called, their labors done,
To rest and wait in the Celestial Field.
Ay, twelvemonth past year, nosotros to the dead did yield
Our bravest. Them we followed to the tomb
Sorrowing; for they were worthy of our dearest—
Loftier-souled and generous, loving peace to a higher place
War and its glories: therefore lives no gloom
In this our sorrow; rather pride, and praise,
And gratitude, and memory of old days.
A petty while and these tired hands will cease
To lift obedient or in war or peace—
Faithful we trust in peace as once in war;
And on the scroll of peace some triumphs are
Noble as battles won; tho' less resounds
The fame, equally deep and bitter are the wounds.
But now the burn down burns low, and nosotros must sleep
Erelong, while other eyes than ours the vigil keep.
And after we are gone, to other optics
That watch below shall come, in starry skies,
A fairer dawn, whereon in fiery light
The Eternal Helm shall his signals write;
And shaken from residual, and gazing at that sign,
On shall the mighty Nation move, led by a hand divine.
Role Ii
"THE WHITE CITY"
(THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION)
I
Greece was; Greece is no more.
Temple and boondocks
Take crumbled down;
Fourth dimension is the fire that hath consumed them all.
Statue and wall
In ruin strew the universal floor.
Two
Greece lives, only Greece no more!
Its ashes breed
The undying seed
Blown westward till, in Rome's purple towers,
Athens reflowers;
All the same westward—lo, a veiled and virgin shore!
Iii
Say not, "Greece is no more."
Through the clear morn
On light winds borne
Her white-winged soul sinks on the New Globe's breast.
Ah! happy West—
Hellenic republic flowers anew, and all her temples soar!
Iv
One brilliant hour, and then no more
Shall to the skies
These columns rising.
But tho' art'south bloom shall fade, again the seed
Onward shall speed,
Quickening the land from lake to ocean's roar.
V
Art lives, tho' Hellenic republic may never
From the ancient mold
As once of old
Exhale to sky the inimitable bloom;
Yet from that tomb
Dazzler walks forth to calorie-free the world forever!
THE VANISHING Metropolis
I
Enraptured memory, and all ye powers of being,
To new life waken! Postage the vision clear
On the soul's inmost substance. O, permit seeing
Be more than seeing; permit the entrancèd ear
Take deep these surging sounds, inweaved with lite
Of unimagined radiance; let the intense
Illumined loveliness that thrills the dark
Strike in the human centre some deeper sense!
And then shall these domes that meet heaven's curvèd blue,
And yon long, white, purple pillar,
And many-columned peristyle, endue
The heed with beauty that shall never fade;
Tho' all as well soon to night oblivion wending—
Reared in one happy hour to know as swift an ending.
Two
Thou shalt of all the cities of the world
Famed for their grandeur, evermore endure
Imperishably and all lonely impearled
In the world'due south living thought, the ane virtually sure
Of love undying and of endless praise
For beauty only—chief of all thy kind;
Immortal, even because of thy brief days;
Thou cloud-congenital, fairy city of the mind!
Hither man doth pluck from the full tree of life
The latest, lordliest flower of earthly art;
This doth he breathe, while resting from his strife,
This presses he against his weary centre;
Then, wakening from his dream within a dream,
He flings the faded blossom on Time's downwardly-rushing stream.
Three
O, never equally here in the eternal years
Hath burst to bloom human's free and soaring spirit,
Joyous, untrammeled, all untouched by tears
And the dark weight of woe information technology doth inherit.
Never so swift the heed's imaginings
Caught sculptured class, and colour. Never before,—
Save where the soul beats unembodied wings
'Gainst viewless skies,—was such enchanted shore
Jeweled with ivory palaces like these:
By day a miracle, a dream by night;
However real every bit beauty is, and as the seas
Whose waves glance back keen lines of glittering low-cal
When million lamps, and coronets of fire,
And fountains as of flame, to the brilliant stars aspire.
Iv
Glide, magic boat, from out the green lagoon,
'Neath the nighttime span, into this smiting glow
And unthought glory. Even the glistening moon
Hangs in the nearer splendor. Let not go
The scene, my soul, till ever 't is thine own!
This is Art'southward citadel and crown. How still
The innumerous multitudes from every zone,
That lookout man and heed; while each middle doth make full
With joyous tears unwept. Now solemn strains
Of brazen music requite the waiting soul
Voice and a sigh—it other oral communication disdains,
Here where the visual sense faints to its goal!
Ah, silent multitudes, ye are a part
Of the wise architect's supreme and glorious fine art!
V
O joy almost too loftier for saddened mortal!
O ecstasy envisioned! Thou shouldst be
Lasting as thou art lovely; as immortal
As through all time the matchless thought of thee!
Notwithstanding would nosotros miss, then, the sugariness, piercing pain
Of thy inconstancy! Could we simply blackball
This haunting pang, ah, then thou wouldst not reign
Ane with the golden sunset that doth vanish
Through myriad lingering tints downwards melting skies;
Nor the stake mystery of the New World flower
That blooms one time just, then forever dies—
Pouring a century's wealth on one beloved hour.
Then vanish, City of Dream, and exist no more than;
Shortly shall this fair World'south cocky be lost on the unknown shore.
THE TOWER OF FLAME
(THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, JULY 10, 1893)
Here for the world to run into men brought their fairest,
Whatever of beauty is in all the earth;
The priceless flower of art, the loveliest, rarest,
Here by our inland ocean came to glorious nascency.
Nonetheless on this mean solar day of doom a foreign new splendor
Shed its celestial lite on all men'south eyes:
Flower of the hero-soul,—consummate, tender,—
That from the belfry of flame sprang to the eternal skies.
LOWELL
I
From the shade of the elms that murmured to a higher place thy birth
And the pines that sheltered thy life and shadowed the end,
'Neath the white-blue skies thee to thy remainder nosotros diameter,—
'Neath the summer skies m didst dear, 'mid the songs of thy birds,
By thy babyhood'southward stream, 'neath the grass and the flowers thou knewest,
Near the grave of the singer whose proper noun with thine own is enlaureled,
Past the side of the brave who alive in thy deathless song,—
Here all that was mortal of thee we left, with our tears,
With our love, and our grief that could not be quenched or abated;
For even the part that was mortal, sweet friend and companion!
That face, and that figure of beauty, and flashing eye
Which in youth shone forth similar a god'southward 'mid bottom men,
And in grey-haired, strenuous age notwithstanding glowed and lustered,—
These, too, were dearest to us,—arraign us not, soaring spirit!
These, too, were dear, and at present we shall never behold them,
Nor e'er shall feel the quick clasp of thy welcoming mitt.
II
But not for ourselves solitary are nosotros spent in grieving,
For the stricken Land nosotros mourn whose light is darkened,
Whose soul in sorrow went forth in the nighttime-time with thine.
Lover and laureate thou of the wide New World,
Whose pines, and prairies, and people, and teeming soil,
Where was shaken of old the seed of the freedom of men,
M didst dearest as a strong human being loveth the maiden he woos,—
Not the woman he toys with, and sings to, and, passing, forgets,—
Whom he woos, whom he wins, whom he weds; his passion, his pride;
Who no shadow of wrong shall suffer, who shall stand up in his sight
Pure as the sky of the evil her foeman may threat,
Relieve past word or by thought of her own in her whiteness untouched
And wounded alone of the lightning her spirit engenders.
Iii
Take of thy grief new force, new life, O Country!
Weep no more he is lost, but rejoice and be glad forever
That thy lover who died was built-in, for thy pleasance, thy glory—
While his love and his fame light always thy climbing path.
August 14, 1891.
THE SILENCE OF TENNYSON
When that slap-up shade into the silence vast
Through thinking silence past;
When he, our century's soul and voice, was husht,
Nosotros who,—appalled, bowed, crusht,—
Within the holy moonlight of his death
Waited the departing breath;
Ah, not in vocal
Might nosotros our grief prolong.
Silence solitary, O gilt spirit fled!
Silence lone could mourn that silence dread.
ON THE DEATH OF A Bang-up MAN
PHILLIPS BROOKS
When from this mortal scene
A great soul passes to the vast unknown,
Let not in hopeless grief the spirit groan.
Expiry comes to all, the mighty and the mean.
If by that expiry the whole world suffer loss,
This be the proof (and lighter thus our cantankerous),
That he for whom the globe doth sorely grieve
Greatly hath blessed flesh in that he once did live.
Then, at the parting jiff
Let men praise Life, nor idly blame dark Death.
A HERO OF PEACE
IN MEMORY OF ROBERT ROSS: SHOT MARCH half dozen, 1894
" No bugle on the blast
Calls warriors face to face;
Grim battle beingness forever past,
Gone is the hero-race."
Ah, no! there is no peace!
If freedom shall live,
Never may freemen dare to cease
Their dear, their life to give.
Unto the patriot'south eye
The silent summons comes;
Not braver he who does his part
To the audio of beating drums.
And thou who gavest youth,
And life, and all well-nigh honey;
Sweet soul, impassionate of truth,
White on thy murdered bier!—
Thy deed, thy date, thy proper noun
Are wreathed with deathless flowers.
Thy fate shall exist the guiding flame
That lights to nobler hours.
WASHINGTON AT TRENTON
THE BATTLE MONUMENT, OCTOBER xix, 1893
Since ancient Time began,
Ever on some peachy soul God laid an infinite burden—
The weight of all this globe, the hopes of man.
Conflict and pain, and fame immortal are his guerdon!
And this the unfaltering token
Of him, the Deliverer—what tho' tempests beat,
Tho' all else fail, tho' bravest ranks exist cleaved,
He stands unscared, alone, nor ever knows defeat.
Such was that man of men;
And if are praised all virtues, every fame
Most noble, highest, purest—and then, ah! then,
Upleaps in every center the name none needs to name.
Ye who defeated, 'whelmed,
Betray the sacred cause, allow go the trust;
Sleep, weary, while the vessel drifts unhelmed;
Here come across in triumph rise the hero from the dust!
All ye who fight forlorn
'Gainst fate and failure; ye who proudly cope
With evil high enthroned; all ye who contemptuousness
Life from Dishonor'south hand, hither take new heart of hope.
Here know how Victory borrows
For the brave soul a front end equally of disaster,
And from the bannered East what glorious morrows
For all the black of the night speed surer, faster.
Know by this pillared sign
For what brief while the powers of earth and hell
Can war against the spirit of truth divine,
Or tin can against the heroic heart of man prevail.
FAME
Fame is an honest matter,
It is deceivèd not;
It passes past the palace gates
Where the crowned usurper waits,
Enters the peasant-poet's cot
And cries: "G fine art the king!"
A MONUMENT BY SAINT-GAUDENS
This is not Decease, nor Sorrow, nor deplorable Promise;
Nor Remainder that follows strife. But, O, more than dread!
'T is Life, for all its agony serene;
Immortal, and unmournful, and content.
A Retentiveness OF RUBINSTEIN
He of the ocean is, its thunderous waves
Echo his music; while far down the shore
Mad laughter hurries—a white, blowing spume.
I hear again in retentiveness that wild storm;
The winds of heaven go rushing circular the world,
And broods in a higher place the rage i sphinx-like face.
PADEREWSKI
I
If songs were perfume, color, wild desire;
If poet's words were burn
That burned to blood in purple-pulsing veins;
If with a bird-similar thrill the moments throbbed to hours;
If summertime'due south rains
Turned drop past drop to shy, sweet, maiden flowers;
If God made flowers with light and music in them,
And saddened hearts could win them;
If loosened petals touched the ground
With a caressing sound;
If dearest's eyes uttered give-and-take
No listening lover e'er before had heard;
If silent thoughts spake with a bugle'southward phonation;
If flame passed into vocal and cried, "Rejoice! Rejoice!"
If words could picture life'south, promise's, heaven's eclipse
When the last kiss has fallen on dying eyes and lips;
If all of mortal woe
Struck on one middle with incoherent accident on blow;
If melody were tears, and tears were starry gleams
That shone in evening's amethystine dreams;
Ah, yes, if notes were stars, each star a different hue,
Trembling to world in dew;
Or if the boreal pulsings, rose and white,
Made a majestic music in the night;
If all the orbs lost in the light of solar day
In the deep, silent blue began their harps to play;
And when in frightening skies the lightnings flashed
And storm-clouds crashed,
If every stroke of light and audio were but backlog of dazzler;
If human syllables could always refashion
That fierce electric passion;
If other art could lucifer (as were the poet'south duty)
The grieving, and the rapture, and the thunder
Of that bully 60 minutes of wonder,—
That light every bit if of heaven, that blackness as of hell,—
How the not bad chief plays and then might I dare to tell.
Two
How the great master plays! And was it he
Or some disbodied spirit which had rushed
From silence into singing; and had crushed
Into one startled hour a life'southward felicity,
And highest bliss of cognition—that all pain, grief, wrong,
Plough at the final to beauty and to song!
HANDEL'S LARGO
When the dandy organs, answering each to each,
Joined with the violin's celestial oral communication,
So did it seem that all the heavenly host
Gave praise to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:
We saw the archangels through the ether winging;
Nosotros heard their souls go forth in solemn singing;
"Praise, praise to God," they sang, "through endless days,
Praise to the Eternal 1, and cipher but praise";
And equally they sang the spirits of the dying
Were upward borne from lips that ceased their sighing;
And dying was not death, simply deeper living—
Living, and prayer, and praising and thanksgiving!
THE STAIRWAY
Past this stairway narrow, steep,
Thou shalt climb from song to sleep;
From sleep to dream and song once again;—
Slumber well, sugariness friend, sleep well, dream deep!
THE ACTOR
Glorious that aboriginal art!—
In thine own form to show the fire and way
Of every age and clime, of every passion
That dwells in man'southward deep centre!
Player, play well, not meanly,
Thy part in life, equally on the mimic stage!
From highest thought is born art's noblest rage:
Live, human action, end all, serenely!
THE STRICKEN Thespian
When at life'due south last the stricken role player lies,
When throng earlier his darkened, dreaming eyes
His soul's companions, which more real then—
The human comrades, the live women and men
Of the large world he knew, or the ideal
Imagined creatures his own art made real;
Wherein he poured his spirit'south very existence,
His soul and body? Are those dim eyes seeing
Himself as one of Shakespeare'due south men? Are maids
And queens he wooed, the kings he was, or knew
Upon the tragic stage, are these the shades
That at present his visionary hours pursue,
Attendant on his passing? Listen near!
What breathed murmurs 'scape those pallid lips
To which the nations hearkened, ere the eclipse
Of all that effulgence? Now lean shut and hear;
Ah, see that look, sweeter than when he smiled
Upon the applauding world, while she draws well-nigh
And hears a dear voice whisper: "Child, my Child!"
AN Autumn Dirge
(E. F. H.)
I
O ease my middle, distressing song, O ease my middle!
In all this autumn pageantry no office
Hath sorrow! Wood, and fields, and meadows glow
With jeweled colors. All solitary I go
Amongst the poignant beauty of the twelvemonth,
As well heavy-hearted for one easeful tear.
For she who loved this autumn splendor,
These flaming marsh-flowers, oak-leaves rich and tender,—
And who in loving all, made all to me more dear,—
No more is here;
No more, no more is hither!
Distressing song, O, bring some thought
With music from some happy memory caught!
No calorie-free for me in all the lovely solar day
Those optics being shut that first did atomic number 82 the way
'Neath these corking pines whose green vault hides the sky,
And down the rock-strewn shore where the white sea-birds cry!
Two
All fades only those young, happy hours,
And in my soul once more the old joy flowers.
Information technology flowers once more than only to bring new pain;
For all in vain,
O song! k singest in my grieving heart!
1000 hast no fine art
To bring once more the smile I loved and then well,
The voice that like a bell
Sounded all moods of sorrow and of laughter,
And the beloved presence that in childhood's earliest idea,
And all the vivid or darkened days thereafter,
Into my life a saddened sweetness brought—
Something of mother and of sister love,
A friendship far above
The ties that bind and loosen as we tread
The throngèd pleasures of life'southward subsequently days.
Sweet maiden soul, I cannot praise
But mourn thee, mourn thee, to the shadows fled.
II
Shadows, O nevermore!
For when past forth thy spirit it did seem
As if against the blackness a golden door
Were opened and a gleam
From the eternal Light roughshod on thy face up
And made a visible celebrity in the identify.
Ah, well I know
Whatsoever be the source from whence we flow,
Whate'er the ability begot these hearts of ours,—
As the smashing earth brings forth the summer flowers,—
That ability is skilful, is God, and in her dying room
Humaned itself to sense and lightened all the gloom.
ELEONORA DUSE
If always flashed upon this mortal scene
A soul unsheathèd, a stake, trembling flame,
That suffered every gust, and yet did cling
With fire unquenchable—information technology is thine own,
Thousand artist of the real! Unto thee
No mirth of life is underground; but, sweet soul,
With what sure art grand picturest human being woe!
How natural tears to those Italian eyes—
Shadowing in untold depths whatever grief Familiar is to mortals!
Stone's the song-soil, truly
(And so sang one bard of ability);
Therefore our poet duly
Built on this rock his tower;
And therefore in his singing
Nosotros breathe the salty morning;
We hear the storm-bell ringing,
The "siren'southward" piercing warning,
The body of water-winds roaring, sighing,
The long waves rising, falling;
We hear the herons calling,
The clashing waves replying.
AT NIAGARA
I
There at the chasm'due south border behold her lean
Trembling as, 'neath the charm,
A wild bird lifts no fly to 'scape from harm;
Her very soul drawn to the glittering, light-green,
Smooth, lustrous, atrocious, lovely curve of peril;
While far below the bending sea of beryl
Thunder and tumult—whence a billowy spray
Enclouds the day.
II
What dream is hers? No dream hath wrought that spell!
The long waves rise and sink;
Pity that virgin soul on passion'southward brink,
Against Fate,—swift, unescapable,—
Fate, which of nature is the intent and core,
And dark and strong as the steep river's cascade,
Brutal as honey, and wild every bit love's first kiss!
Ah, God! the abyss!
THE CHILD-GARDEN
In the kid-garden buds and blows
A bloom lovelier than the rose.
If all the flowers of all the earth
In one garden bankrupt to nascence,
Non the fairest of the fair
Could with this sweetness bloom compare;
Nor would all their shining be
Peer to its lonely bravery.
Fairer than the rose, I say?
Fairer than the sun-vivid solar day
In whose rays all glories prove,
All beauty is, all blossoms blow;
While beside it deeply shine
Blooms that take its light divine:
The perilous sweet flower of Hope
Here its hiding eyes doth ope,
And Gentleness doth near uphold
Its healing leaves and heart of gold;
Hither tender fingers push the seed
Of Knowledge; pluck the poisonous weed;
Here blossoms Joy one singing hr,
And here of Love the immortal blossom.
What this bloom, fragrant, tender,
That outbeams the rose's splendor—
Purer is, more tinct with light
Than the lily's flame of white?
Of dazzler hath this blossom the whole,
And its name—the Human Soul!
THE CHRIST-CHILD
A Moving picture BY FRANK VINCENT DU MOND
Washed is the day of intendance.
Into the shadowy room
Flows the pure evening low-cal,
To stem the gathering gloom,
The lily's flame illume,
And the bowed heads make brilliant
The heads bowed low in prayer.
Run into how the level rays
Through the white garments cascade
Of the holy child, who stands,
With angle brow, to implore
Grace on the toilers' store;
O, see those sinless hands!
Behold, the Christ-kid prays!
Wait, wait, ye lingering rays,
Stand still, O Earth and Sun,
Draw near, yard Soul of God—
This is the suffering one!
Already the way is begun
The piercèd Savior trod;
And now the Christ-kid prays,
The holy Christ-child prays.
A Kid
Her voice was similar the song of birds;
Her eyes were like the stars;
Her footling waving easily were like
Bird's wings that beat the bars.
And when those waving easily were still,—
Her soul had fled away,—
The music faded from the air,
The color from the twenty-four hour period.
TWO VALLEYS
Yes, 't is a glorious sight,
This valley, that mountain hight.
The river plunges and roars
Similar the loud sea on its shores
What time in waves enorm
Breaks the gigantic storm.
The wooded mountain doth climb
To a thought intense, sublime.
The glory of all I feel;
But my heart, my heart, volition steal
Downwards the journey of years,
Through the lands of laughter and tears,
Far back to the least of valleys
Where a tedious beck curves and dallies,
Where a boy, in the twilight gleam,
Walks solitary with his dream.
ON THE BAY
This watery vague how vast! This misty globe,
Seen from this middle where the ferry plies,—
It plies, but seems to poise in middle air,—
Soft gray beneath gray heavens, and in the due west
A rose-grayness memory of the sunken sun;
And, where grayness h2o touches grayer sky,
A band of darker gray prickt out with lights—
A diamond-twinkling circlet bounding all;
And where the statue looms, a quenchless star;
And where the lighthouse, a red, pulsing flame;
While the great bridge its starry diadem
Lifts through the gray, itself in greyness lost!
WASHINGTON SQUARE
This is the finish of the town that I love the best.
O, lovely the hr of light from the called-for due west—
Of light that lingers and fades in the shadowy square
Where the solemn fountain lifts a shaft in the air
To catch the skyey colors, and fling them downwards
In a wild-forest torrent that drowns the racket of the town.
And lovely the hour of the still and dreamy night
When, lifted confronting the blue, stands the arch of white
With one articulate planet to a higher place; and the sickle moon,
In curve reversed from the arch's marble round,
Silvers the sapphire sky. At present soon, ah, soon,
Shall the metropolis square be turned to holy footing,
Through the light of the moon and the stars and the glowing flower,—
The Cross of Calorie-free,—that looms from the sacred tower.
THE City
O, dear is the song of the pino
When the wind of the nighttime-fourth dimension blows,
And dear is the murmuring river
That distant through my childhood flows;
And soft is the raindrop'south vanquish
And the fountain'southward lyric play,
Only to me no music is half so sweet
As the thunder of Broadway!
Stream of the living world
Where dash the billows of strife!—
One plunge in the mighty torrent
Is a year of tamer life!
City of glorious days,
Of promise, and labor, and mirth,
With room, and to spare, on thy fantabulous trophy
For the ships of all the earth!
A RHYME OF TYRINGHAM
Down in the meadow and up on the hight
The breezes are blowing the willows white.
In the elms and maples the robins telephone call,
And the cracking blackness crow sails over all
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.
The river winds through the trees and the brake
And the meadow-grass like a shining serpent;
And low in the summertime and loud in the spring
The rapids and reaches murmur and sing
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.
In the shadowy pools the trout are shy,
Then pitter-patter to the banking concern and cast the fly!
What thrills and tremors the tense cords stir
When the trout information technology strikes with a tug and a whir
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley!
At dark of the 24-hour interval the mist spreads white,
Like a magic lake in the glimmering light;
Or the winds from the meadow the white mists blow,
And the fireflies glitter,—a heaven below,—
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.
And O, in the windy days of the autumn
The maples and elms are scarlet all,
And the world that was greenish is gold and ruby-red,
And with huskings and cider they 're late to bed
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.
Now squirrel and partridge and hawk and hare
And mutiny and woodchuck and fox beware!
The three days' chase is waxing warm
For the Count Up Dinner at Riverside Subcontract
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.
The meadow-water ice will be freezing soon,
And then for a skate by the light of the moon.
So pile the wood on the hearth, my boy!
Winter is coming! I wish you lot joy
By the light of the hearth and the moon, my male child,
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.
ELSIE
" Do y'all honey me?" Elsie asked,
And her rose-leafage dimples masked
'Neath a pleading look, the while
On her pouting lips a smile
Hovered, all the same was out of sight
Similar a star that's hid at dark
By a filmy, flying deject.
"Exercise you lot love me?" scarce aloud
Lovely Cousin Elsie said.
"Why no answer, Cousin Ed?
Practice you hate me, then, or why
From Your Highness no answer?"
So the chiding witch ran on:
"In a moment I'll exist gone;
Then too late, Sir No Gallant!
Quick! I'll tell my precious aunt
That y'all love me not," she cries,
"That you hate me and despise."
Flash the great, gray, long-lashed eyes;
One-half in earnest now the girl;
Down the pretty corners curl
Of the tiny oral cavity, and lo!
From those eyes two tearlets flow;—
Simply ii kisses, and they go!
Like a sunburst after showers,
Like white low-cal upon the flowers,
Now again the dimples show.
Simply she could not understand
Why and then long the respond waited
For the loved and not the hated,
While he held that little hand,
And like a bird she sang and said,—
Half in earnest, half in fun,—
"Do you dearest me, Solemn One?
Do you honey me, Cousin Ed?
Do y'all dear me? Do you dear me?
Love me, love me, Cousin Ed?"
INDIRECTION
I saw not the leaf
But its shadow trembling, trembling down.
I faced to northward, to my grief,
When from the southern sky a crimson meteor lit the star-night town.
I saw not naked Love
Lean from his porphyry throne higher up
And touch her heart to flame,
Yet on her brow I saw the swift, sweet, virgin shame.
"AH, Be Non FALSE"
Ah, exist non false, sweet Splendor!
Be true, exist good;
Be wise equally thou art tender;
Exist all that Beauty should.
Non lightly be thy citadel subdued;
Not ignobly, not untimely.
Take praise in solemn mood;
Accept love sublimely.
THE ANSWER
Through starry space ii angels dreamed their flight,
'Mid worlds and thoughts of worlds, through day and night.
And then one spake along whose voice was like the flower
That blossoms in the fragrant midnight hour.
This white-browed angel of the other asked:
"Of all the essences that ever basked
In the eternal presence; of all things,
All thoughts, all joys, all dreads, all sorrowings
Amidst the unimaginable vast—
Beingness, or shall be, or forever past—
Profound with night, or hid in endless light—
Which of all these most deep and infinite?"
And then did the elderberry speak, the while he turned
On him who asked clear optics that slowly burned
The spirit through, like to a living coal:
"No depth there is then deep as woman's soul."
HOW Expiry MAY Brand A Man
Death is a sorry plight,
It bringeth unto man
End of all please.
All the same many a woeful wight
Only dying can
Quit him like a man.
Dawdling, drawling, silly,
Maundering, scarce a homo;
Driven willy-nilly;
When he's dying will he
Run as once he ran,
Or quit him like a human?
Vile from out the wrack
Crawls he less than man;
Cowering in his track
Beaten, broken, black;
Curse him if you can—
Expiry may make him man.
In life the wretch did naught
Worthy of a human being;
Now past Death he'due south caught,
What a change is wrought!
Whom the world did ban
Quits life like a human.
Braced strong against the wall,
Behold, at last, a man.
Lost—life and accolade, all!
At Death's quick bear upon and telephone call
See, the craven can
Quit him like a man.
"CAME TO A MASTER OF SONG"
Came to a master of song
And the homo heart
One who had followed him long
And worshiped his art;
1 whom the poet'due south singing
Had lured from death,
Joy to the crusht soul bringing
And sky's jiff;
Came to him one time in an hour
Of terror and stress,
And cried, "G alone hast power
To salve me and bless;
Thou lonely, pure eye and free,
Canst pluck from disaster,
If to a wretch like me
Thou wilt stoop, O master!"
Answered the bard with shame,
And sorrow and trembling:
"Was I simulated, was my song to blame?
Was my art dissembling?
I of all mortals the saddest,
The quickest to fall,
And song of mine highest and gladdest
Repentance all!"
BARDS
Some from books resound their rhymes—
Set them ringing with a faint,
Sorrowful, and sweet, and quaint
Retentiveness of the olden times,
Like the sound of evening chimes.
Some go wandering on their way
Through the forest, past the herds,
Laughing maidens, singing birds;
On their sylvan lutes they play—
Danceth by the lyric Day!
Bards in that location be the deep sky under
Who in loftier, accurate poetry
Mysteries and moods rehearse
With a vocalisation like Sinai's thunder,
Chanting to a world of wonder.
And those have sung whose melody,
Drawn from out the living middle
With a quick, unfaltering art,
Hath ability to make the listener cry:
"God in sky! It is I."
Acme
Henceforth before these feet
Sinks the downward way;
A little while to greet
The low-cal and life of mean solar day,
So night's tiresome fall
Ends all.
Now forwards, heart elate,
Tho' steep the pathway slope.
Fourth dimension yet for love and detest,
Joy, and joy'south comrade, hope,
Ere night'southward slow fall
Ends all.
All the same the warm heaven is blue,
No flake the sunlight mars;
'Twixt hills the body of water gleams through;
With twilight come the stars;
And night'south deadening autumn
Ends all.
In the cool-animate night
The starry sky is deep.
Even so on through glimmering calorie-free
Till we lie down to slumber;
And then permit night's fall
End all.
EVENING IN TYRINGHAM VALLEY
What domes and pinnacles of mist and fire
Are builded in yon spacious realms of light
All silently, as did the walls aspire
Templing the ark of God past solar day and night!
Noiseless and swift, from darkening ridge to ridge,
Through majestic air that deepens downwards the solar day,
Over the valley springs a shadowy span.
The evening star's keen, solitary ray
Makes more intense the silence, and the glad,
Unmelancholy, restful, twilight gloom—
And so total of tenderness, that even the pitiful
Remembrances that haunt the soul accept bloom
Like that on yonder mountain.
Now the bars
Of sunset all burn down black; the day doth fail,
And the skies whiten with the eternal stars.
O, let thy spirit stay with me, sweet vale!
Role III
A Calendar week'S CALENDAR
I—New year's day
Each New year's day is a foliage of our dear's rose;
Information technology falls, but quick another rose-leaf grows.
And then is the flower from year to year the same,
But richer, for the dead leaves feed its flame.
II—A NEW SOUL
To encounter the rose of morning dull unfold
Each wondrous petal to that heart of gold;
To run across from out the dark, unknowing night
A new soul dawn with such undreamed-of calorie-free,
And slowly all its loveliness and splendor
Pour forth as stately music pours, magnificently tender!
III—"Go on PURE THY SOUL"
Go along pure thy soul!
And so shalt thou accept the whole
Of delight;
And then, without a pang,
Thine shall be all of beauty whereof the poet sang—
The perfume, and the pageant, the melody, the mirth
Of the golden day, and the starry night;
Of heaven, and of earth.
O, keep pure thy soul!
IV—"THY Mind IS Similar A CRYSTAL Beck
Thy heed is like a crystal brook
Wherein make clean creatures alive at ease,
In sun-bright waves or shady nook.
Birds sing in a higher place it,
The warm-breathed cattle love it,
It doth sweet childhood please.
Accurst be he by whom it were undone,
Or thing or idea whose presence
The birds and beasts would loathly shun,
Would make its crystal waters foully run,
And drive sugariness babyhood from its pleasure.
V—"One DEED MAY MAR A LIFE"
I human action may mar a life,
And one can make it;
Concur business firm thy will for strife,
Lest a quick blow break it!
Even now from far on viewless wing
Hither speeds the nameless affair
Shall put thy spirit to the test.
Haply or ever yon sinking sun
Shall drib behind the purple Westward
All will be lost—or won!
6—THE UNKNOWN
How strange to wait upon the life beyond
Our human cognizance with so deep awe
And haunting dread; a sense as of remorse,
A looking-for of judgment, a great weight
Of things unknown to happen! We who live
Blindly from 60 minutes to hr in very midst
Of mysteries; of shapeless, irresolute glooms;
Of nameless terrors; issues vast and black;
Of airy whims, slight fantasies, and flights
That lead to unimaginable woe:
The unweighed word cloying the life of dearest;
One clod of earth outblotting all the stars;
Some secret, nighttime inheritance of will,
And the scared soul plunges to conscious doom!
Thou who hast wisdom, fright non Death, but Life!
VII—IRREVOCABLE
Would the gods might requite
Another field for man strife;
Man must live one life
Ere he learns to live.
—Ah, friend, in thy deep grave,
What now can change, what now can save?
"Considering THE ROSE MUST FADE"
Because the rose must fade,
Shall I not love the rose?
Because the summer shade
Passes when winter blows,
Shall I non residual me at that place
In the cool air?
Because the sunset sky
Makes music in my soul,
Simply to fail and dice,
Shall I not take the whole
Of dazzler that it gives
While withal information technology lives?
Considering the sweet of youth
Doth vanish all also soon,
Shall I forget, forsooth,
To learn its lingering melody;
My joy to memorize
In those immature optics?
If, similar the summer flower
That blooms—a fragrant decease,
Keen music hath no ability
To live beyond its breath,
And then of this flood of song
Let me drink long!
Ah, aye, considering the rose
Fades like the sunset skies;
Considering rude winter blows
All bare, and music dies—
Therefore, now is to me
Eternity!
"FADES THE ROSE"
Fades the rose; the twelvemonth grows sometime;
The tale is told;
Youth doth depart—
Only stays the heart.
Ah, no! if stays the heart,
Youth tin can ne'er depart,
Nor the sweet tale be told—
Never the rose fade, nor the yr grow old.
THE WINTRY HEART
On the distressing winter copse
The dead, red leaves remain,
Tho' to and fro the bleak winds blow,
And falls the freezing rain.
And so to the wintry heart
Clings color of the past,
While through expressionless leaves shudders and grieves
The melancholy blast.
HAST THOU HEARD THE NIGHTINGALE?
Aye, I have heard the nightingale.
As in dark woods I wandered,
And dreamed and pondered,
A voice past by all burn down
And passion and want;
I rather felt than heard
The song of that lone bird;
Yeah, I take heard the nightingale.
Yeah, I accept heard the nightingale.
I heard information technology, and I followed;
The warm dark swallowed
This soul and body of mine,
As burning thirst takes wine,
While on and on I prest
Shut to that singing breast;
Yes, I have heard the nightingale.
Yep, I accept heard the nightingale.
Well doth each throbbing ember
The flame remember;
And I, how quick that audio
Turned drops from a deep wound!
How this centre was the thorn
Which pierced that chest forlorn!
Yes, I take heard the nightingale.
"IN THAT DREAD, DREAMED-OF Hr"
In that dread, dreamed-of hour
When in her heart love's rose flames into flower,
'T is never, never yes,
Just no, no, no, whate'er the startled eyes confess.
Her fragile denial at last
Swept clean abroad like burnt leaves in the blast,
No longer no, no, no!
But yes, forever yep, while dear's blood-red rose doth blow.
"ROSE-Night THE SOLEMN SUNSET"
Rose-dark the solemn sunset
That holds my thought of thee;
With ane star in the heavens
And one star in the body of water.
On high no lamp is lighted,
Nor where the long waves flow,
Save the i star of evening
And the shadow star beneath.
Light of my Life! the darkness
Comes with the twilight dream;
Thou fine art the vivid star shining,
I only the shadowy gleam.
"WINDS TO THE SILENT MORN"
Winds to the silent morn;
Waves to the ocean;
Voice to the song unsung;
Song to emotion;
Light to the aureate flower;
Bird to the tree;
Love to the center of honey,
And I to thee!
Dawn to the darkened world;
Hope to the morrow;
Music to passion; and
Weeping to sorrow;
Love to the heart that longs;
Moon to the ocean;
Heaven to the earthborn soul,
And thou to me.
THE UNRETURNING
I
Silent, silent are the unreturning!
What tho' word may accomplish to them, and yearning,
Never through the stillness of the night,
Never in the daytime or the dark
Comes the long-lost vocalisation, or smile of light;
Lifts no hand from sea or sunken bark.
Silent, silent are the unreturning!
Ii
Silent, silent are the unreturning!
Silent they?—or are nosotros undiscerning?
Child, my child! is this thy answering vox
Murmuring far downwards the mountain lone?
Evening's grin, that whispers: "Heart, rejoice!"
Mother mine! is this thy very own?
Nay! nay! Silent are the unreturning;
Silent, silent are the unreturning!
Ii YEARS
O, that was the yr the last of those earlier thee;
All my earth till and so just nighttime before the dawn.
If and so I had died, O, never had I known thee,
Never had beheld thee; I who won, who own thee;
Who chose thee, who sing thee, crown thee, and adore thee;
O, death it were indeed to dice before that dawn!
This was the yr when offset I did behold thee,
Grand who on my darkness dawned with lyric light.
This the golden hr when commencement thy lover constitute thee,
Followed and beguiled thee, and with his singing bound thee;
When all the world with music rang to drown thee and enfold thee—
Yard who turned the darkness to song, and dearest, and calorie-free!
Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_poems_of_Richard_Watson_Gilder/The_Great_Remembrance
0 Response to "the Crow That Flies and Lands Is Wise Art"
Post a Comment