The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 28

Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, The compact nucleus, round which systems grow; Ma.s.s after ma.s.s becomes inspired therewith, And whirls impregnate with the central glow.

O Truth! O Freedom! how are ye still born In the rude stable, in the manger nurst!

What humble hands unbar those gates of morn Through which the splendors of the New Day burst!

What! shall one monk, scarce known beyond his cell, Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and scorn her frown?

Brave Luther answered YES; that thunder's swell Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown.

Whatever can be known of earth we know, Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-sh.e.l.ls curled; No! said one man in Genoa, and that No Out of the darkness summoned this New World.

Who is it will not dare himself to trust?

Who is it hath not strength to stand alone?

Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward MUST?

He and his works, like sand, from earth are blown.

Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here!

See one straightforward conscience put in p.a.w.n To win a world; see the obedient sphere By bravery's simple gravitation drawn!

Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, And by the Present's lips repeated still, In our own single manhood to be bold, Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will?

We stride the river daily at its spring, Nor, in our childless thoughtlessness, foresee What myriad va.s.sal streams shall tribute bring, How like an equal it shall greet the sea.

O small beginnings, ye are great and strong, Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain!

Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong, Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain.

ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES TURNER TORREY

Woe worth the hour when it is crime To plead the poor dumb bondman's cause, When all that makes the heart sublime, The glorious throbs that conquer time, Are traitors to our cruel laws!

He strove among G.o.d's suffering poor One gleam of brotherhood to send; The dungeon oped its hungry door To give the truth one martyr more, Then shut,--and here behold the end!

O Mother State! when this was done, No pitying throe thy bosom gave; Silent thou saw'st the death-shroud spun, And now thou givest to thy son The stranger's charity,--a grave.

Must it be thus forever? No!

The hand of G.o.d sows not in vain, Long sleeps the darkling seed below, The seasons come, and change, and go, And all the fields are deep with grain.

Although our brother lie asleep, Man's heart still struggles, still aspires; His grave shall quiver yet, while deep Through the brave Bay State's pulses leap Her ancient energies and fires.

When hours like this the senses' gush Have stilled, and left the spirit room, It hears amid the eternal hush The swooping pinions' dreadful rush, That bring the vengeance and the doom;--

Not man's brute vengeance, such as rends What rivets man to man apart,-- G.o.d doth not so bring round his ends, But waits the ripened time, and sends His mercy to the oppressor's heart.

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF DR. CHANNING

I do not come to weep above thy pall, And mourn the dying-out of n.o.ble powers, The poet's clearer eye should see, in all Earth's seeming woe, seed of immortal flowers.

Truth needs no champions: in the infinite deep Of everlasting Soul her strength abides, From Nature's heart her mighty pulses leap, Through Nature's veins her strength, undying, tides.

Peace is more strong than war, and gentleness, Where force were vain, makes conquest o'er the wave; 10 And love lives on and hath a power to bless, When they who loved are hidden in the grave.

The sculptured marble brags of deathstrewn fields, And Glory's epitaph is writ in blood; But Alexander now to Plato yields, Clarkson will stand where Wellington hath stood.

I watch the circle of the eternal years, And read forever in the storied page One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, and tears, One onward step of Truth from age to age. 20

The poor are crushed: the tyrants link their chain; The poet sings through narrow dungeon-grates; Man's hope lies quenched; and, lo! with steadfast gain Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates.

Men slay the prophets; f.a.got, rack, and cross Make up the groaning record of the past; But Evil's triumphs are her endless loss, And sovereign Beauty wins the soul at last.

No power can die that ever wrought for Truth; Thereby a law of Nature it became, 30 And lives unwithered in its blithesome youth, When he who called it forth is but a name.

Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone; The better part of thee is with us still; Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown, And only freer wrestles with the ill.

Thou livest in the life of all good things; What words thou spak'st for Freedom shall not die; Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath wings To soar where hence thy Hope could hardly fly. 40

And often, from that other world, on this Some gleams from great souls gone before may shine, To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss, And clothe the Right with l.u.s.tre more divine.

Thou art not idle: in thy higher sphere Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks, And strength to perfect what it dreamed of here Is all the crown and glory that it asks.

For sure, in Heaven's wide chambers, there is room For love and pity, and for helpful deeds; 50 Else were our summons thither but a doom To life more vain than this in clayey weeds.

From off the starry mountain-peak of song, Thy spirit shows me, in the coming time, An earth unwithered by the foot of wrong, A race revering its own soul sublime.

What wars, what martyrdoms, what crimes, may come, Thou knowest not, nor I; but G.o.d will lead The prodigal soul from want and sorrow home, And Eden ope her gates to Adam's seed. 60

Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning too; Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand, Then leap to thread the free, unfathomed blue:

When that day comes, oh, may this hand grow cold, Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the Right; Oh, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold To face dark Slavery's encroaching blight!

This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier; Let worthier hands than these thy wreath intwine; 70 Upon thy hea.r.s.e I shed no useless tear,-- For us weep rather thou in calm divine!

TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD

Another star 'neath Time's horizon dropped, To gleam o'er unknown lands and seas; Another heart that beat for freedom stopped,-- What mournful words are these!

O Love Divine, that claspest our tired earth, And lullest it upon thy heart, Thou knowest how much a gentle soul is worth To teach men what thou art!

His was a spirit that to all thy poor Was kind as slumber after pain: Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet's door And call him home again?

Freedom needs all her poets: it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings.

Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou unkind, O Love Divine, for 'tis thy will That gracious natures leave their love behind To work for Mercy still.

Let laurelled marbles weigh on other tombs, Let anthems peal for other dead, Rustling the bannered depth of minster-glooms With their exulting spread.