The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 62

I love to enter pleasure by a postern, Not the broad popular gate that gulps the mob; To find my theatres in roadside nooks, Where men are actors, and suspect it not; Where Nature all unconscious works her will, And every pa.s.sion moves with easy gait, 290 Unhampered by the buskin or the train.

Hating the crowd, where we gregarious men Lead lonely lives, I love society, Nor seldom find the best with simple souls Unswerved by culture from their native bent, The ground we meet on being primal man, And nearer the deep bases of our lives.

But oh, half heavenly, earthly half, my soul, Canst thou from those late ecstasies descend, Thy lips still wet with the miraculous wine 300 That transubstantiates all thy baser stuff To such divinity that soul and sense, Once more commingled in their source, are lost,-- Canst thou descend to quench a vulgar thirst With the mere dregs and rinsings of the world?

Well, if my nature find her pleasure so, I am content, nor need to blush; I take My little gift of being clean from G.o.d, Not haggling for a better, holding it Good as was ever any in the world, 310 My days as good and full of miracle.

I pluck my nutriment from any bush, Finding out poison as the first men did By tasting and then suffering, if I must.

Sometimes my bush burns, and sometimes it is A leafless wilding shivering by the wall; But I have known when winter barberries p.r.i.c.ked the effeminate palate with surprise Of savor whose mere harshness seemed divine.

Oh, benediction of the higher mood 320 And human-kindness of the lower! for both I will be grateful while I live, nor question The wisdom that hath made us what we are, With such large range as from the ale-house bench Can reach the stars and be with both at home.

They tell us we have fallen on prosy days, Condemned to glean the leavings of earth's feast Where G.o.ds and heroes took delight of old; But though our lives, moving in one dull round Of repet.i.tion infinite, become 330 Stale as a newspaper once read, and though History herself, seen in her workshop, seem To have lost the art that dyed those glorious panes, Rich with memorial shapes of saint and sage, That pave with splendor the Past's dusky aisles,-- Panes that enchant the light of common day With colors costly as the blood of kings, Till with ideal hues it edge our thought,-- Yet while the world is left, while nature lasts, And man the best of nature, there shall be 340 Somewhere contentment for these human hearts, Some freshness, some unused material For wonder and for song. I lose myself In other ways where solemn guide-posts say, _This way to Knowledge, This way to Repose_, But here, here only, I am ne'er betrayed, For every by-path leads me to my love.

G.o.d's pa.s.sionless reformers, influences, That purify and heal and are not seen, Shall man say whence your virtue is, or how 350 Ye make medicinal the wayside weed?

I know that sunshine, through whatever rift, How shaped it matters not, upon my walls Paints discs as perfect-rounded as its source, And, like its ant.i.type, the ray divine, However finding entrance, perfect still, Repeats the image unimpaired of G.o.d.

We, who by shipwreck only find the sh.o.r.es Of divine wisdom, can but kneel at first; Can but exult to feel beneath our feet, 360 That long stretched vainly down the yielding deeps, The shock and sustenance of solid earth; Inland afar we see what temples gleam Through immemorial stems of sacred groves, And we conjecture shining shapes therein; Yet for a s.p.a.ce we love to wander here Among the sh.e.l.ls and seaweed of the beach.

So mused I once within my willow-tent One brave June morning, when the bluff northwest, Thrusting aside a dank and snuffling day 370 That made us bitter at our neighbors' sins, Brimmed the great cup of heaven with sparkling cheer And roared a l.u.s.ty stave; the sliding Charles, Blue toward the west, and bluer and more blue, Living and l.u.s.trous as a woman's eyes Look once and look no more, with southward curve Ran crinkling sunniness, like Helen's hair Glimpsed in Elysium, insubstantial gold; From blossom-clouded orchards, far away The bobolink tinkled; the deep meadows flowed 380 With mult.i.tudinous pulse of light and shade Against the bases of the southern hills, While here and there a drowsy island rick Slept and its shadow slept; the wooden bridge Thundered, and then was silent; on the roofs The sun-warped shingles rippled with the heat; Summer on field and hill, in heart and brain, All life washed clean in this high tide of June.

DARA

When Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand Wilted with harem-heats, and all the land Was hovered over by those vulture ills That snuff decaying empire from afar, Then, with a nature balanced as a star, Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills.

He who had governed fleecy subjects well Made his own village by the selfsame spell Secure and quiet as a guarded fold; Then, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees 10 Under his sway, to neighbor villages Order returned, and faith and justice old.

Now when it fortuned that a king more wise Endued the realm with brain and hands and eyes, He sought on every side men brave and just; And having heard our mountain shepherd's praise, How he refilled the mould of elder days, To Dara gave a satrapy in trust.

So Dara shepherded a province wide, Nor in his viceroy's sceptre took more pride 20 Than in his crook before; but envy finds More food in cities than on mountains bare; And the frank sun of natures clear and rare Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish minds.

Soon it was hissed into the royal ear, That, though wise Dara's province, year by year, Like a great sponge, sucked wealth and plenty up, Yet, when he squeezed it at the king's behest, Some yellow drops, more rich than all the rest, Went to the filling of his private cup. 30

For proof, they said, that, wheresoe'er he went, A chest, beneath whose weight the camel bent, Went with him; and no mortal eye had seen What was therein, save only Dara's own; But, when 'twas opened, all his tent was known To glow and lighten with heaped jewels' sheen.

The King set forth for Dara's province straight; There, as was fit, outside the city's gate, The viceroy met him with a stately train, And there, with archers circled, close at hand, 40 A camel with the chest was seen to stand: The King's brow reddened, for the guilt was plain.

'Open me here,' he cried, 'this treasure-chest!'

'Twas done; and only a worn shepherd's vest Was found therein. Some blushed and hung the head; Not Dara; open as the sky's blue roof He stood, and 'O my lord, behold the proof That I was faithful to my trust,' he said.

'To govern men, lo all the spell I had!'

My soul in these rude vestments ever clad 50 Still to the unstained past kept true and leal, Still on these plains could breathe her mountain air, And fortune's heaviest gifts serenely bear, Which bend men from their truth and make them reel.

'For ruling wisely I should have small skill, Were I not lord of simple Dara still; That sceptre kept, I could not lose my way.'

Strange dew in royal eyes grew round and bright, And strained the throbbing lids; before 'twas night Two added provinces blest Dara's sway. 60

THE FIRST SNOW-FALL

The snow had begun in the gloaming, And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara Came Chanticleer's m.u.f.fled crow, The stiff rails softened to swan's-down, And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window The noiseless work of the sky, And the sudden flurries of s...o...b..rds, Like brown leaves whirling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn Where a little headstone stood; How the flakes were folding it gently, As did robins the babes in the wood.

Up spoke our own little Mabel, Saying, 'Father, who makes it snow?'

And I told of the good All-father Who cares for us here below.

Again I looked at the snow-fall, And thought of the leaden sky That arched o'er our first great sorrow, When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered the gradual patience That fell from that cloud like snow, Flake by flake, healing and hiding The scar that renewed our woe.

And again to the child I whispered, 'The snow that husheth all, Darling, the merciful Father Alone can make it fall!'

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her: And she, kissing back, could not know That _my_ kiss was given to her sister, Folded close under deepening snow.

THE SINGING LEAVES

A BALLAD

I

'What fairings will ye that I bring?'

Said the King to his daughters three; 'For I to Vanity Fair am bound, Now say what shall they be?'

Then up and spake the eldest daughter, That lady tall and grand: 'Oh, bring me pearls and diamonds great, And gold rings for my hand.'

Thereafter spake the second daughter, That was both white and red: 10 'For me bring silks that will stand alone, And a gold comb for my head.'

Then came the turn of the least daughter, That was whiter than thistle-down, And among the gold of her blithesome hair Dim shone the golden crown.

'There came a bird this morning, And sang 'neath my bower eaves, Till I dreamed, as his music made me, "Ask thou for the Singing Leaves."' 20

Then the brow of the King swelled crimson With a flush of angry scorn: 'Well have ye spoken, my two eldest, And chosen as ye were born;

'But she, like a thing of peasant race, That is happy binding the sheaves;'

Then he saw her dead mother in her face, And said, 'Thou shalt have thy leaves.'

II

He mounted and rode three days and nights Till he came to Vanity Fair, 30 And 'twas easy to buy the gems and the silk, But no Singing Leaves were there.