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 shrunk 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 frothy gnashed tusks of some ship-crunching bay. So, pine-like, the legend grew, stronglimbed 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; 'Twas a natural growth, and stood fear lessly there, A true part of the landscape as sea, land, and air; For it grew in good times, ere the fashion it was To force up 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 moonlight of gold, You would hear the old voice of its mother, the pine, Murmur sealike and northern through every line, And the verses should hang, self-sustained and free, Round the vibrating stem of the melody, Like the lithe sun-steeped limbs of the parent tree. Yes, the pine is the mother of legends; what food For their grim roots is left when the thousand-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. 'Mid the hum and the stir of To-day's busy hive, There the legend takes root in the agegathered gloom, And its murmurous boughs for their tossing find room. Where Aroostook, far-heard, seems to sob as he goes Groping down to the sea 'neath his mountainous snows; Where the lake's frore Sahara of nevertracked white, When the crack shoots across it, com plains 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 which throw Their own threatening shadows far round o'er the snow, When the wolf howls aloof, and the wavering glare Flashes out from the blackness the eyes of the bear, When the wood's huge recesses, halflighted, supply A canvas where Fancy her mad brush may try, 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, On this bowed head the awful Past 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 ! 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"? 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 OAK. WHAT gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is his! There needs no crown to mark the forest's king; How in his leaves outshines full summer's bliss! 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 satisfied, By the drawing of all to the righteous side. The figure and features of his mind; 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 |