The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 27

The miller dreams not at what cost The quivering millstones hum and whirl, Nor how for every turn are tost Armfuls of diamond and of pearl.

But Summer cleared my happier eyes With drops of some celestial juice, To see how Beauty underlies Forevermore each form of use.

And more; methought I saw that flood, Which now so dull and darkling steals, Thick, here and there, with human blood, To turn the world's laborious wheels.

No more than doth the miller there, Shut in our several cells, do we Know with what waste of beauty rare Moves every day's machinery.

Surely the wiser time shall come When this fine overplus of might, No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, Shall leap to music and to light.

In that new childhood of the Earth Life of itself shall dance and play, Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth, And labor meet delight halfway.

MEMORIAL VERSES

KOSSUTH

A race of n.o.bles may die out, A royal line may leave no heir; Wise Nature sets no guards about Her pewter plate and wooden ware.

But they fail not, the kinglier breed, Who starry diadems attain; To dungeon, axe, and stake succeed Heirs of the old heroic strain.

The zeal of Nature never cools, Nor is she thwarted of her ends; When gapped and dulled her cheaper tools, Then she a saint and prophet spends.

Land of the Magyars! though it be The tyrant may relink his chain, Already thine the victory, As the just Future measures gain.

Thou hast succeeded, thou hast won The deathly travail's amplest worth; A nation's duty thou hast done, Giving a hero to our earth.

And he, let come what will of woe Hath saved the land he strove to save; No Cossack hordes, no traitor's blow, Can quench the voice shall haunt his grave.

'I Kossuth am: O Future, thou That clear'st the just and blott'st the vile, O'er this small dust in reverence bow, Remembering what I was erewhile.

'I was the chosen trump wherethrough Our G.o.d sent forth awakening breath; Came chains? Came death? The strain He blew Sounds on, outliving chains and death.'

TO LAMARTINE

1848

I did not praise thee when the crowd, 'Witched with the moment's inspiration, Vexed thy still ether with hosannas loud, And stamped their dusty adoration; I but looked upward with the rest, And, when they shouted Greatest, whispered Best.

They raised thee not, but rose to thee, Their fickle wreaths about thee flinging; So on some marble Phoebus the swol'n sea Might leave his worthless seaweed clinging, But pious hands, with reverent care, Make the pure limbs once more sublimely bare.

Now thou'rt thy plain, grand self again, Thou art secure from panegyric, Thou who gav'st politics an epic strain, And actedst Freedom's n.o.blest lyric; This side the Blessed Isles, no tree Grows green enough to make a wreath for thee.

Nor can blame cling to thee; the snow From swinish footprints takes no staining, But, leaving the gross soils of earth below, Its spirit mounts, the skies regaining, And unresentful falls again, To beautify the world with dews and rain.

The highest duty to mere man vouchsafed Was laid on thee,--out of wild chaos, When the roused popular ocean foamed and chafed And vulture War from his Imaus Snuffed blood, to summon homely Peace, And show that only order is release.

To carve thy fullest thought, what though Time was not granted? Aye in history, Like that Dawn's face which baffled Angelo Left shapeless, grander for its mystery, Thy great Design shall stand, and day Flood its blind front from Orients far away.

Who says thy day is o'er? Control, My heart, that bitter first emotion; While men shall reverence the steadfast soul, The heart in silent self-devotion Breaking, the mild, heroic mien, Thou'lt need no prop of marble, Lamartine.

If France reject thee, 'tis not thine, But her own, exile that she utters; Ideal France, the deathless, the divine, Will be where thy white pennon flutters, As once the n.o.bler Athens went With Aristides into banishment.

No fitting metewand hath To-day For measuring spirits of thy stature; Only the Future can reach up to lay The laurel on that lofty nature, Bard, who with some diviner art Hast touched the bard's true lyre, a nation's heart.

Swept by thy hand, the gladdened chords, Crashed now in discords fierce by others, Gave forth one note beyond all skill of words, And chimed together, We are brothers.

O poem unsurpa.s.sed! it ran All round the world, unlocking man to man.

France is too poor to pay alone The service of that ample spirit; Paltry seem low dictatorship and throne, Weighed with thy self-renouncing merit; They had to thee been rust and loss; Thy aim was higher,--thou hast climbed a Cross!

TO JOHN GORHAM PALFREY

There are who triumph in a losing cause, Who can put on defeat, as 'twere a wreath Unwithering in the adverse popular breath, Safe from the blasting demagogue's applause; 'Tis they who stand for Freedom and G.o.d's laws.

And so stands Palfrey now, as Marvell stood, Loyal to Truth dethroned, nor could be wooed To trust the playful tiger's velvet paws: And if the second Charles brought in decay Of ancient virtue, if it well might wring Souls that had broadened 'neath a n.o.bler day, To see a losel, marketable king Fearfully watering with his realm's best blood Cromwell's quenched bolts, that erst had cracked and flamed, Scaring, through all their depths of courtier mud, Europe's crowned bloodsuckers,--how more ashamed Ought we to be, who see Corruption's flood Still rise o'er last year's mark, to mine away Our brazen idol's feet of treacherous clay!

O utter degradation! Freedom turned Slavery's vile bawd, to cozen and betray To the old lecher's clutch a maiden prey, If so a loathsome pander's fee be earned!

And we are silent,--we who daily tread A soil sublime, at least, with heroes' graves!-- Beckon no more, shades of the n.o.ble dead!

Be dumb, ye heaven-touched lips of winds and waves!

Or hope to rouse some Coptic dullard, hid Ages ago, wrapt stiffly, fold on fold, With cerements close, to wither in the cold, Forever hushed, and sunless pyramid!

Beauty and Truth, and all that these contain, Drop not like ripened fruit about our feet; We climb to them through years of sweat and pain; Without long struggle, none did e'er attain The downward look from Quiet's blissful seat: Though present loss may be the hero's part, Yet none can rob him of the victor heart Whereby the broad-realmed future is subdued, And Wrong, which now insults from triumph's car, Sending her vulture hope to raven far, Is made unwilling tributary of Good.

O Mother State, how quenched thy Sinai fires!

Is there none left of thy stanch Mayflower breed?

No spark among the ashes of thy sires, Of Virtue's altar-flame the kindling seed?

Are these thy great men, these that cringe and creep, And writhe through slimy ways to place and power?-- How long, O Lord, before thy wrath shall reap Our frail-stemmed summer prosperings in their flower?

Oh for one hour of that undaunted stock That went with Vane and Sidney to the block!

Oh for a whiff of Naseby, that would sweep, With its stern Puritan besom, all this chaff From the Lord's threshing-floor! Yet more than half The victory is attained, when one or two, Through the fool's laughter and the traitor's scorn, Beside thy sepulchre can bide the morn, Crucified Truth, when thou shalt rise anew.

TO W.L. GARRISON

'Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the city officers that they had ferreted out the paper and its editor; that his office was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a few very insignificant persons of all colors.'--_Letter of H.G.

Otis_.

In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young man; The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean; Yet there the freedom of a race began.

Help came but slowly; surely no man yet Put lever to the heavy world with less: What need of help? He knew how types were set, He had a dauntless spirit, and a press.