Complete Prose Works Part 52

W.W. CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY, _February 24th, 1890_.

SPLINTERS

While I stand in reverence before the fact of Humanity, the People, I will confess, in writing my L. of G., the least consideration out of all that has had to do with it has been the consideration of "the public"--at any rate as it now exists. Strange as it may sound for a democrat to say so, I am clear that no free and original and lofty-soaring poem, or one ambitious of those achievements, can possibly be fulfill'd by any writer who has largely in his thought _the public_--or the question, What will establish'd literature--What will the current authorities say about it?

As far as I have sought any, not the best laid out garden or parterre has been my model--but Nature has been. I know that in a sense the garden is nature too, but I had to choose--I could not give both.

Besides the gardens are well represented in poetry; while Nature (in letter and in spirit, in the divine essence,) little if at all.

Certainly, (while I have not hit it by a long shot,) I have aim'd at the most ambitious, the best--and sometimes feel to advance that aim (even with all its arrogance) as the most redeeming part of my books. I have never so much cared to feed the esthetic or intellectual palates--but if I could arouse from its slumbers that eligibility in every soul for its own true exercise! if I could only wield that lever!

Out from the well-tended concrete and the physical--and in them and from them only--radiate the spiritual and heroic.

Undoubtedly many points belonging to this essay--perhaps of the greatest necessity, fitness and importance to it--have been left out or forgotten. But the amount of the whole matter--poems, preface and everything--is merely to make one of those little punctures or eyelets the actors possess in the theatre-curtains to look out upon "the house"--one brief, honest, living glance.

HEALTH, (OLD STYLE)

In that condition the whole body is elevated to a state by others unknown--inwardly and outwardly illuminated, purified, made solid, strong, yet buoyant. A singular charm, more than beauty, flickers out of, and over, the face--a curious transparency beams in the eyes, both in the iris and the white--the temper partakes also. Nothing that happens--no event, rencontre, weather, &c--but it is confronted--nothing but is subdued into sustenance--such is the marvellous transformation from the old timorousness and the old process of causes and effects.

Sorrows and disappointments cease--there is no more borrowing trouble in advance. A man realizes the venerable myth--he is a G.o.d walking the earth, he sees new eligibilities, powers and beauties everywhere; he himself has a new eyesight and hearing. The play of the body in motion takes a previously unknown grace. Merely _to move_ is then a happiness, a pleasure--to breathe, to see, is also. All the beforehand gratifications, drink, spirits, coffee, grease, stimulants, mixtures, late hours, luxuries, deeds of the night, seem as vexatious dreams, and now the awakening;--many fall into their natural places, whole-some, conveying diviner joys.

What I append--Health, old style--I have long treasur'd--found originally in some sc.r.a.p-book fifty years ago--a favorite of mine (but quite a glaring contrast to my present bodily state:)

On a high rock above the vast abyss, Whose solid base tumultuous waters lave; Whose airy high-top balmy breezes kiss, Fresh from the white foam of the circling wave--

There ruddy HEALTH, in rude majestic state, His cl.u.s.t'ring forelock combatting the winds-- Bares to each season's change his breast elate, And still fresh vigor from th' encounter finds;

With mighty mind to every fortune braced, To every climate each corporeal power, And high-proof heart, impenetrably cased, He mocks the quick transitions of the hour.

Now could he hug bleak Zembla's bolted snow, Now to Arabia's heated deserts turn, Yet bids the biting blast more fiercely blow, The scorching sun without abatement burn.

There this bold Outlaw, rising with the morn, His sinewy functions fitted for the toil, Pursues, with tireless steps, the rapturous horn, And bears in triumph back the s.h.a.ggy spoil.

Or, on his rugged range of towering hills, Turns the stiff glebe behind his hardy team; His wide-spread heaths to blithest measures tills, And boasts the joys of life are not a dream!

Then to his airy hut, at eve, retires, Clasps to his open breast his buxom spouse, Basks in his f.a.ggot's blaze, his pa.s.sions fires, And strait supine to rest unbroken bows.

On his smooth forehead, Time's old annual score, Tho' left to furrow, yet disdains to lie; He bids weak sorrow tantalize no more, And puts the cup of care contemptuous by.

If, from some inland height, that, skirting, bears Its rude encroachments far into the vale, He views where poor dishonor'd nature wears On her soft cheek alone the lily pale;

How will he scorn alliance with the race, Those aspen shoots that shiver at a breath; Children of sloth, that danger dare not face, And find in life but an extended death:

Then from the silken reptiles will he fly, To the bold cliff in bounding transports run, And stretch'd o'er many a wave his ardent eye, Embrace the enduring Sea-Boy as his son!

Yes! thine alone--from pain, from sorrow free, The lengthen'd life with peerless joys replete; Then let me, Lord of Mountains, share with thee The hard, the early toil--the relaxation sweet.

GAY-HEARTEDNESS

Walking on the old Navy Yard bridge, Washington, D. C., once with a companion, Mr. Marshall, from England, a great traveler and observer, as a squad of laughing young black girls pa.s.s'd us--then two copper-color'd boys, one good-looking lad 15 or 16, barefoot, running after--"What _gay creatures_ they all appear to be," said Mr. M. Then we fell to talking about the general lack of buoyant animal spirits. "I think," said Mr.

M., "that in all my travels, and all my intercourse with people of every and any cla.s.s, especially the cultivated ones, (the literary and fashionable folks,) I have never yet come across what I should call a really GAY-HEARTED MAN."

It was a terrible criticism--cut into me like a surgeon's lance. Made me silent the whole walk home.

AS IN A SWOON.

As in a swoon, one instant, Another sun, ineffable, full-dazzles me, And all the orbs I knew--and brighter, unknown orbs; One instant of the future land, Heaven's land.

L. OF G.

Thoughts, suggestions, aspirations, pictures, Cities and farms--by day and night--book of peace and war, Of plat.i.tudes and of the commonplace.

For out-door health, the land and sea--for good will, For America--for all the earth, all nations, the common people, (Not of one nation only--not America only.)

In it each claim, ideal, line, by all lines, claims, ideals, temper'd; Each right and wish by other wishes, rights.

AFTER THE ARGUMENT.

A group of little children with their ways and chatter flow in, Like welcome rippling water o'er my heated nerves and flesh.

FOR US TWO, READER DEAR.

Simple, spontaneous, curious, two souls interchanging, With the original testimony for us continued to the last.

MEMORANDA

[Let me indeed turn upon myself a little of the light I have been so fond of casting on others.

Of course these few exceptional later mems are far, far short of one's concluding history or thoughts or life-giving--only a hap-hazard pinch of all. But the old Greek proverb put it, "Anybody who really has a good quality" (or bad one either, I guess) "has _all_." There's something in the proverb; but you mustn't carry it too far.

I will not reject any theme or subject because the treatment is too personal.

As my stuff settles into shape, I am told (and sometimes myself discover, uneasily, but feel all right about it in calmer moments) it is mainly autobiographic, and even egotistic after all--which I finally accept, and am contented so.

If this little volume betrays, as it doubtless does, a weakening hand, and decrepitude, remember it is knit together out of acc.u.mulated sickness, inertia, physical disablement, acute pain, and listlessness.

My fear will be that at last my pieces show indooredness, and being chain'd to a chair--as never before. Only the resolve to keep up, and on, and to add a remnant, and even perhaps obstinately see what failing powers and decay may contribute too, have produced it.

And now as from some fisherman's net hauling all sorts, and disbursing the same.]