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 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 auguries, Circle on circle, bright as seraphim, With golden trumpets, silent, that await The signal to blow news of good to men. 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 snowfiltered 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 I walked forth saddened; for all thought is sad, And leaves a bitterish savor in the 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 themselves) 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 lifeblood 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. Has been that future whereto prophets yearned For the fulfilment of Earth's cheated hope, 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 immured), Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth, Share in the tree-top's joyance, and conceive Of sunshine and wide air and winged things By sympathy of nature, so do I Thou beautiful Old Time, now hid away healed, Yet in and of me! Rather Thou the root Invisibly sustaining, hid in light, us. If sometimes I must hear good men debate Of other witness of Thyself than Thou, 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. If I let fall a word of bitter mirth When public shames more shameful pardon won, In no polluted course from sire to son; With growing knowledge and more chaste than snow. THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. ΤΟ E. L. GODKIN, IN CORDIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS EMINENT SERVICE OF OUR POLITICAL THOUGHT, This Volume IS DEDICATED. Readers, it is hoped, will remember that, by his Ode at the Harvard Commemoration, the author had precluded himself from many of the natural outlets of thought and feeling common to such occasions as are celebrated in this little volume. ODE READ AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIGHT AT CONCORD BRIDGE. 19TH APRIL, 1875. I. WHO Cometh over the hills, The daughters of Time and Thought! II. She cometh, cometh to-day: Tell me, young men, have ye seen, For true hearts to long and cry for, Tones more brave than trumpet's breath; Younger heart with wit full grown? |