Poems of James Russell Lowell Part 28

A REQUIEM.

Ay, pale and silent maiden, Cold as thou liest there, Thine was the sunniest nature That ever drew the air, The wildest and most wayward, And yet so gently kind, Thou seemedst but to body A breath of summer wind.

Into the eternal shadow That girds our life around, Into the infinite silence Wherewith Death's sh.o.r.e is bound, Thou hast gone forth, beloved!

And I were mean to weep, That thou hast left Life's shallows, And dost possess the Deep.

Thou liest low and silent, Thy heart is cold and still, Thine eyes are shut forever, And Death hath had his will; He loved and would have taken, I loved and would have kept, We strove,--and he was stronger, And I have never wept.

Let him possess thy body, Thy soul is still with me, More sunny and more gladsome Than it was wont to be: Thy body was a fetter That bound me to the flesh, Thank G.o.d that it is broken, And now I live afresh!

Now I can see thee clearly; The dusky cloud of clay, That hid thy starry spirit, Is rent and blown away: To earth I give thy body, Thy spirit to the sky, I saw its bright wings growing, And knew that thou must fly.

Now I can love thee truly, For nothing comes between The senses and the spirit, The seen and the unseen; Lifts the eternal shadow, The silence bursts apart, And the soul's boundless future Is present in my heart.

A PARABLE.

Worn and footsore was the Prophet, When he gained the holy hill; "G.o.d has left the earth," he murmured, "Here his presence lingers still.

"G.o.d of all the olden prophets, Wilt thou speak with men no more?

Have I not as truly served thee, As thy chosen ones of yore?

"Hear me, guider of my fathers, Lo! a humble heart is mine; By thy mercy I beseech thee, Grant thy servant but a sign!"

Bowing then his head, he listened For an answer to his prayer; No loud burst of thunder followed, Not a murmur stirred the air:--

But the tuft of moss before him Opened while he waited yet, And, from out the rock's hard bosom, Sprang a tender violet.

"G.o.d! I thank thee," said the Prophet "Hard of heart and blind was I, Looking to the holy mountain For the gift of prophecy.

"Still thou speakest with thy children Freely as in eld sublime; Humbleness, and love, and patience, Still give empire over time.

"Had I trusted in my nature, And had faith in lowly things, Thou thyself wouldst then have sought me, And set free my spirit's wings.

"But I looked for signs and wonders, That o'er men should give me sway, Thirsting to be more than mortal, I was even less than clay.

"Ere I entered on my journey, As I girt my loins to start, Ran to me my little daughter, The beloved of my heart;--

"In her hand she held a flower, Like to this as like may be, Which, beside my very threshold, She had plucked and brought to me."

1842.

A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

We see but half the causes of our deeds, Seeking them wholly in the outer life, And heedless of the encircling spirit-world, Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us All germs of pure and world-wide purposes.

From one stage of our being to the next We pa.s.s unconscious o'er a slender bridge, The momentary work of unseen hands, Which crumbles down behind us; looking back, We see the other sh.o.r.e, the gulf between, And, marvelling how we won to where we stand, Content ourselves to call the builder Chance, We trace the wisdom to the apple's fall, Not to the birth-throes of a mighty Truth Which, for long ages in blank Chaos dumb, Yet yearned to be incarnate, and had found At last a spirit meet to be the womb From which it might be born to bless mankind,-- Not to the soul of Newton, ripe with all The h.o.a.rded thoughtfulness of earnest years, And waiting but one ray of sunlight more To blossom fully.

But whence came that ray?

We call our sorrows Destiny, but ought Rather to name our high successes so.

Only the instincts of great souls are Fate, And have predestined sway: all other things, Except by leave of us, could never be.

For Destiny is but the breath of G.o.d Still moving in us, the last fragment left Of our unfallen nature, waking oft Within our thought, to beckon us beyond The narrow circle of the seen and known, And always tending to a n.o.ble end, As all things must that overrule the soul, And for a s.p.a.ce unseat the helmsman, Will.

The fate of England and of freedom once Seemed wavering in the heart of one plain man, One step of his and the great dial-hand, That marks the destined progress of the world In the eternal round from wisdom on To higher wisdom, had been made to pause A hundred years. That step he did not take,-- He knew not why, nor we, but only G.o.d,-- And lived to make his simple oaken chair More terrible and grandly beautiful, More full of majesty than any throne Before or after, of a British king.

Upon the pier stood two stern-visaged men, Looking to where a little craft lay moored, Swayed by the lazy current of the Thames, Which weltered by in muddy listlessness.

Grave men they were, and battlings of fierce thought Had trampled out all softness from their brows, And ploughed rough furrows there before their time, For another crop than such as homebred Peace Sows broadcast in the willing soil of Youth.

Care, not of self, but of the commonweal, Had robbed their eyes of youth, and left instead A look of patient power and iron will, And something fiercer, too, that gave broad hint Of the plain weapons girded at their sides.

The younger had an aspect of command,-- Not such as trickles down, a slender stream, In the shrunk channel of a great descent,-- But such as lies entowered in heart and head, And an arm prompt to do the 'hests of both.

His was a brow where gold were out of place, And yet it seemed right worthy of a crown, (Though he despised such,) were it only made Of iron, or some serviceable stuff That would have matched his sinewy, brown face.

The elder, although he hardly seemed, (Care makes so little of some five short years,) Had a clear, honest face, whose rough-hewn strength Was mildened by the scholar's wiser heart To sober courage, such as best befits The unsullied temper of a well-taught mind, Yet so remained that one could plainly guess The hushed volcano smouldering underneath.

He spoke: the other, hearing, kept his gaze Still fixed, as on some problem in the sky.

"O, Cromwell, we are fallen on evil times!

There was a day when England had wide room For honest men as well as foolish kings; But now the uneasy stomach of the time Turns squeamish at them both. Therefore let us Seek out that savage clime, where men as yet Are free: there sleeps the vessel on the tide, Her languid canvas drooping for the wind; Give us but that, and what need we to fear This Order of the Council? The free waves Will not say, No, to please a wayward king, Nor will the winds turn traitors at his beck: All things are fitly cared for, and the Lord Will watch as kindly o'er the exodus Of us his servants now, as in old time.

We have no cloud or fire, and haply we May not pa.s.s dry-shod through the ocean-stream; But, saved or lost, all things are in His hand."

So spake he, and meantime the other stood With wide gray eyes still reading the blank air, As if upon the sky's blue wall he saw Some mystic sentence, written by a hand Such as of old made pale the a.s.syrian king, Girt with his satraps in the blazing feast.

"Hampden! a moment since, my purpose was To fly with thee,--for I will call it flight, Nor flatter it with any smoother name,-- But something in me bids me not to go; And I am one, thou knowest, who, unmoved By what the weak deem omens, yet give heed And reverence due to whatsoe'er my soul Whispers of warning to the inner ear.

Moreover, as I know that G.o.d brings round His purposes in ways undreamed by us, And makes the wicked but his instruments To hasten on their swift and sudden fall, I see the beauty of his providence In the King's order: blind, he will not let His doom part from him, but must bid it stay As 't were a cricket, whose enlivening chirp He loved to hear beneath his very hearth.

Why should we fly? Nay, why not rather stay And rear again our Zion's crumbled walls, Not, as of old the walls of Thebes were built, By minstrel tw.a.n.ging, but, if need should be, With the more potent music of our swords?

Think'st thou that score of men beyond the sea Claim more G.o.d's care than all of England here?

No: when he moves His arm, it is to aid Whole peoples, heedless if a few be crushed, As some are ever, when the destiny Of man takes one stride onward nearer home.

Believe it, 'tis the ma.s.s of men He loves; And, where there is most sorrow and most want, Where the high heart of man is trodden down The most, 'tis not because He hides his face From them in wrath, as purblind teachers prate.

Not so: there most is He, for there is He Most needed. Men who seek for Fate abroad Are not so near his heart as they who dare Frankly to face her where she faces them, On their own threshold, where their souls are strong To grapple with and throw her; as I once, Being yet a boy, did cast this puny king, Who now has grown so dotard as to deem That he can wrestle with an angry realm, And throw the brawned Antaeus of men's rights.

No, Hampden! they have half-way conquered Fate Who go half-way to meet her,--as will I.

Freedom hath yet a work for me to do; So speaks that inward voice which never yet Spake falsely, when it urged the spirit on To n.o.ble deeds for country and mankind.

And, for success, I ask no more than this,-- To bear unflinching witness to the truth.

All true, whole men succeed: for what is worth Success's name, unless it be the thought, The inward surety, to have carried out A n.o.ble purpose to a n.o.ble end, Although it be the gallows or the block?

'Tis only Falsehood that doth ever need These outward shows of gain to bolster her.

Be it we prove the weaker with our swords; Truth only needs to be for once spoke out, And there's such music in her, such strange rhythm, As makes men's memories her joyous slaves, And clings around the soul, as the sky clings Round the mute earth, forever beautiful, And, if o'erclouded, only to burst forth More all-embracingly divine and clear: Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like A star new-born, that drops into its place, And which, once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake.

"What should we do in that small colony Of pinched fanatics, who would rather choose Freedom to clip an inch more from their hair, Than the great chance of setting England free?

Not there, amid the stormy wilderness, Should we learn wisdom; or if learned, what room To put it into act,--else worse than naught?

We learn our souls more, tossing for an hour Upon this huge and ever-vexed sea Of human thought, where kingdoms go to wreck Like fragile bubbles yonder in the stream, Than in a cycle of New England sloth, Broke only by some petty Indian war, Or quarrel for a letter more or less, In some hard word, which, spelt in either way Not their most learned clerks can understand.

New times demand new measures and new men; The world advances, and in time outgrows The laws that in our fathers' day were best; And, doubtless, after us, some purer scheme Will be shaped out by wiser men than we, Made wiser by the steady growth of truth.

We cannot bring Utopia by force; But better, almost, be at work in sin; Than in a brute inaction browse and sleep.

No man is born into the world, whose work Is not born with him; there is always work, And tools to work withal, for those who will; And blessed are the h.o.r.n.y hands of toil!

The busy world shoves angrily aside The man who stands with arms akimbo set, Until occasion tells him what to do; And he who waits to have his task marked out Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.

Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds: Reason and Government, like two broad seas, Yearn for each other with outstretched arms Across this narrow isthmus of the throne, And roll their white surf higher every day.

One age moves onward, and the next builds up Cities and gorgeous palaces, where stood The rude log huts of those who tamed the wild, Rearing from out the forests they had felled The goodly framework of a fairer state; The builder's trowel and the settler's axe Are seldom wielded by the selfsame hand; Ours is the harder task, yet not the less Shall we receive the blessing for our toil From the choice spirits of the aftertime.

My soul is not a palace of the past, Where outworn creeds, like Rome's gray senate quake, Hearing afar the Vandal's trumpet hoa.r.s.e, That shakes old systems with a thunder-fit.

The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change; Then let it come: I have no dread of what Is called for by the instinct of mankind; Nor think I that G.o.d's world will fall apart, Because we tear a parchment more or less.