Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader Part 50

From "Thanatopsis."

=_340._= COMMUNION WITH NATURE, SOOTHING.

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language: for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile, An eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house.

Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;-- Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around-- Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,-- Comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground.

Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix for ever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men, The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man,-- Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those, who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, that moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

=_341._= THE LIVING LOST.

Matron! the children of whose love, Each to his grave, in youth had pa.s.sed, and now the mould is heaped above The dearest and the last!

Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil Before the wedding flowers are pale!

Ye deem the human heart endures No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener wo, Of which the sufferers never speak, Nor to the world's cold pity show The tears that scald the cheek, Wrung from their eyelids by the shame And guilt of those they shrink to name, Whom once they loved with cheerful will, And love, though fallen and branded, still.

Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead; Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve; And reverenced are the tears ye shed.

And honored ye who grieve.

The praise of those who sleep in earth, The pleasant memory of their worth, The hope to meet when life is past, Shall heal the tortured mind at last.

But ye, who for the living lost That agony in secret bear, Who shall with soothing words accost The strength of your despair?

Grief for your sake is scorn for them Whom ye lament, and all condemn; And o'er the world of spirits lies A gloom from which ye turn your eyes.

=_342._= THE SONG OF THE SOWER.

Brethren, the sower's task is done.

The seed is in its Winter bed.

Now let the dark-brown mould be spread, To hide it from the sun, And leave it to the kindly care Of the still earth and brooding air.

As when the mother, from her breast, Lays the hushed babe apart to rest, And shades its eyes, and waits to see How sweet its waking smile will be.

The tempest now may smite, the sleet All night on the drowned furrow beat, And winds that from the cloudy hold Of winter, breathe the bitter cold, Stiffen to stone the yellow-mould, Yet safe shall lie the wheat; Till, out of heaven's unmeasured blue, Shall walk again the genial year, To wake with warmth, and nurse with dew, The germs we lay to slumber here.

O blessed harvest yet to be!

Abide thou with the love that keeps, In its warm bosom tenderly, The life which wakes, and that which sleeps.

The love that leads the willing spheres Along the unending track of years, And watches o'er the sparrow's nest, Shall brood above thy winter rest, And raise thee from the dust, to hold Light whisperings with the winds of May; And fill thy spikes with living gold, From Summer's yellow ray.

Then, as thy garners give thee forth, On what glad errands shalt thou go, Wherever, o'er the waiting earth, Roads wind, and rivers flow!

The ancient East shall welcome thee To mighty marts beyond the sea; And they who dwell where palm-groves sound To summer winds the whole year round, Shall watch, in gladness, from the sh.o.r.e, The sails that bring thy glistening store.

=_343._= THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE-TREE.

Come, let us plant the apple-tree!

Cleave the tough greensward with the spade; Wide let its hollow bed be made; There gently lay the roots, and there Sift the dark mould with kindly care, And press it o'er them tenderly, As, round the sleeping infant's feet, We softly fold the cradle-sheet: So plant we the apple-tree.

What plant we in the apple-tree?

Buds, which the breath of summer days Shall lengthen into leafy sprays; Boughs, where the thrush with crimson breast Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest.

We plant upon the sunny lea A shadow for the noontide hour, A shelter from the summer shower, When we plant the apple-tree.

What plant we in the apple-tree?

Sweets for a hundred flowery springs, To load the May-wind's restless wings, When, from the orchard-row, he pours Its fragrance through our open doors; A world of blossoms for the bee; Flowers for the sick girl's silent room; For the glad infant, sprigs of bloom, We plant with the apple-tree.

What plant we in the apple-tree?

Fruits that shall swell in sunny June, And redden in the August noon, And drop as gentle airs come by That fan the blue September sky; While children, wild with noisy glee, Shall scent their fragrance as they pa.s.s, And search for them the tufted gra.s.s At the foot of the apple-tree.

And when above this apple-tree The winter stars are quivering bright, And winds go howling through the night, Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth, Shall peel its fruit by cottage-hearth, And guests in prouder homes shall see, Heaped with the orange and the grape, As fair as they in tint and shape, The fruit of the apple-tree.

The fruitage of this apple-tree, Winds, and our flag of stripe and star, Shall bear to coasts that lie afar, Where men shall wonder at the view, And ask in what fair groves they grew; And they who roam beyond the sea, Shall look, and think of childhood's day, And long hours pa.s.sed in summer play In the shade of the apple-tree.

Each year shall give this apple-tree A broader flush of roseate bloom, A deeper maze of verdurous gloom, And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower, The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower; The years shall come and pa.s.s, but we Shall hear no longer, where we lie, The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh, In the boughs of the apple-tree.

And time shall waste this apple tree.

Oh, when its aged branches throw Thin shadows on the sward below, Shall fraud and force and iron-will Oppress the weak and helpless still?

What shall the tasks of mercy be, Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears Of those who live when length of years Is wasting this apple-tree?

"Who planted this old apple-tree?"

The children of that distant day Thus to some aged man shall say; And gazing on its mossy stem, The gray-haired man shall answer them: "A poet of the land was he.

Born in the rude, but good, old times; 'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes On planting the apple-tree."

=_Maria Brooks, 1795-1845._= (Manual, p. 523.)

=_344._= MARRIAGE.

The bard has sung, G.o.d never formed a soul Without its own peculiar mate, to meet Its wandering half, when ripe to crown the whole Bright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete!

But thousand evil things there are that hate To look on happiness: these hurt, impede, And, leagued with time, s.p.a.ce, circ.u.mstance, and fate, Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine, and pant, and bleed.

And as the dove to far Palmyra flying, From where her native founts of Antioch beam, Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing, Lights sadly at the desert's bitter stream;

So, many a soul, o'er life's drear desert faring, Love's pure, congenial spring unfound, unquaffed, Suffers, recoils, then thirsty and despairing Of what it would, descends, and sips the nearest draught.

=_Joseph Rodman Drake, 1795-1820._= (Manual, p. 517.)

From "The Culprit Fay."