The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 82

Beneath our consecrated elm A century ago he stood, Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood Whose red surge sought, but could not overwhelm The life foredoomed to wield our rough-hewn helm:-- From colleges, where now the gown To arms had yielded, from the town, Our rude self-summoned levies flocked to see The new-come chiefs and wonder which was he.

No need to question long; close-lipped and tall, 80 Long trained in murder-brooding forests lone To bridle others' clamors and his own, Firmly erect, he towered above them all, The incarnate discipline that was to free With iron curb that armed democracy.

2.

A motley rout was that which came to stare, In raiment tanned by years of sun and storm, Of every shape that was not uniform, Dotted with regimentals here and there; An array all of captains, used to pray 90 And stiff in fight, but serious drill's despair, Skilled to debate their orders, not obey; Deacons were there, selectmen, men of note In half-tamed hamlets ambushed round with woods, Ready to settle Freewill by a vote, But largely liberal to its private moods; Prompt to a.s.sert by manners, voice, or pen, Or ruder arms, their rights as Englishmen, Nor much fastidious as to how and when: Yet seasoned stuff and fittest to create 100 A thought-staid army or a lasting state: Haughty they said he was, at first; severe; But owned, as all men own, the steady hand Upon the bridle, patient to command, Prized, as all prize, the justice pure from fear, And learned to honor first, then love him, then revere.

Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint And purpose clean as light from every selfish taint.

3.

Musing beneath the legendary tree, The years between furl off: I seem to see 110 The sun-flecks, shaken the stirred foliage through, Dapple with gold his sober buff and blue And weave prophetic aureoles round the head That shines our beacon now nor darkens with the dead.

O man of silent mood, A stranger among strangers then, How art thou since renowned the Great, the Good, Familiar as the day in an the homes of men!

The winged years, that winnow praise and blame, Blow many names out: they but fan to flame 120 The self-renewing splendors of thy fame.

IV

1.

How many subtlest influences unite, With spiritual touch of Joy or pain, Invisible as air and soft as light, To body forth that image of the brain We call our Country, visionary shape, Loved more than woman, fuller of fire than wine, Whose charm can none define, Nor any, though he flee it, can escape!

All party-colored threads the weaver Time 130 Sets in his web, now trivial, now sublime, All memories, all forebodings, hopes and fears, Mountain and river, forest, prairie, sea, A hill, a rock, a homestead, field, or tree, The casual gleanings of unreckoned years, Take G.o.ddess-shape at last and there is She, Old at our birth, new as the springing hours, Shrine of our weakness, fortress of our powers, Consoler, kindler, peerless 'mid her peers, A force that 'neath our conscious being stirs, 140 A life to give ours permanence, when we Are borne to mingle our poor earth with hers, And all this glowing world goes with us on our biers.

2.

Nations are long results, by ruder ways Gathering the might that warrants length of days; They may be pieced of half-reluctant shares Welded by hammer-strokes of broad-brained kings, Or from a doughty people grow, the heirs Of wise traditions widening cautious rings; At best they are computable things, 150 A strength behind us making us feel bold In right, or, as may chance, in wrong; Whose force by figures may be summed and told, So many soldiers, ships, and dollars strong, And we but drops that bear compulsory part In the dumb throb of a mechanic heart; But Country is a shape of each man's mind Sacred from definition, unconfined By the cramped walls where daily drudgeries grind; An inward vision, yet an outward birth 160 Of sweet familiar heaven and earth; A brooding Presence that stirs motions blind Of wings within our embryo being's sh.e.l.l That wait but her completer spell To make us eagle-natured, fit to dare Life's n.o.bler s.p.a.ces and untarnished air.

3.

You, who hold dear this self-conceived ideal, Whose faith and works alone can make it real, Bring all your fairest gifts to deck her shrine Who lifts our lives away from Thine and Mine 170 And feeds the lamp of manhood more divine With fragrant oils of quenchless constancy.

When all have done their utmost, surely he Hath given the best who gives a character Erect and constant, which nor any shock Of loosened elements, nor the forceful sea Of flowing or of ebbing fates, can stir From its deep bases in the living rock Of ancient manhood's sweet security: And this he gave, serenely far from pride 180 As baseness, boon with prosperous stars allied, Part of what n.o.bler seed shall in our loins abide.

4.

No bond of men as common pride so strong, In names time-filtered for the lips of song, Still operant, with the primal Forces bound Whose currents, on their spiritual round, Transfuse our mortal will nor are gainsaid: These are their a.r.s.enals, these the exhaustless mines That give a constant heart in great designs; These are the stuff whereof such dreams are made 190 As make heroic men: thus surely he Still holds in place the ma.s.sy blocks he laid 'Neath our new frame, enforcing soberly The self-control that makes and keeps a people free.

V

1.

Oh, for a drop of that Cornelian ink Which gave Agricola dateless length of days, To celebrate him fitly, neither swerve To phrase unkempt, nor pa.s.s discretion's brink, With him so statue-like in sad reserve, So diffident to claim, so forward to deserve! 200 Nor need I shun due influence of his fame Who, mortal among mortals, seemed as now The equestrian shape with unimpa.s.sioned brow, That paces silent on through vistas of acclaim.

2.

What figure more immovably august Than that grave strength so patient and so pure, Calm in good fortune, when it wavered, sure, That mind serene, impenetrably just, Modelled on cla.s.sic lines so simple they endure?

That soul so softly radiant and so white 210 The track it left seems less of fire than light, Cold but to such as love distemperature?

And if pure light, as some deem, be the force That drives rejoicing planets on their course, Why for his power benign seek an impurer source?

His was the true enthusiasm that burns long, Domestically bright, Fed from itself and shy of human sight, The hidden force that makes a lifetime strong, And not the short-lived fuel of a song. 220 Pa.s.sionless, say you? What is pa.s.sion for But to sublime our natures and control, To front heroic toils with late return, Or none, or such as shames the conqueror?

That fire was fed with substance of the soul And not with holiday stubble, that could burn, Unpraised of men who after bonfires run, Through seven slow years of unadvancing war, Equal when fields were lost or fields were won, With breath of popular applause or blame, 230 Nor fanned nor damped, unquenchably the same, Too inward to be reached by flaws of idle fame.

3.

Soldier and statesman, rarest unison; High-poised example of great duties done Simply as breathing, a world's honors worn As life's indifferent gifts to all men born; Dumb for himself, unless it were to G.o.d, But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent, Tramping the snow to coral where they trod, Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content; 240 Modest, yet firm as Nature's self; unblamed Save by the men his n.o.bler temper shamed; Never seduced through show of present good By other than unsetting lights to steer New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his steadfast mood More steadfast, far from rashness as from fear; Rigid, but with himself first, grasping still In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will; Not honored then or now because he wooed The popular voice, but that he still withstood; 250 Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is but one Who was all this and ours, and all men's,--WASHINGTON.

4.

Minds strong by fits, irregularly great, That flash and darken like revolving lights, Catch more the vulgar eye unschooled to wait On the long curve of patient days and nights Bounding a whole life to the circle fair Of orbed fulfilment; and this balanced soul, So simple in its grandeur, coldly bare Of draperies theatric, standing there 260 In perfect symmetry of self-control, Seems not so great at first, but greater grows Still as we look, and by experience learn How grand this quiet is, how n.o.bly stern The discipline that wrought through life-long throes That energetic pa.s.sion of repose.

5.

A nature too decorous and severe, Too self-respectful in its griefs and joys, For ardent girls and boys Who find no genius in a mind so clear 270 That its grave depths seem obvious and near, Nor a soul great that made so little noise.

They feel no force in that calm-cadenced phrase, The habitual full-dress of his well-bred mind, That seems to pace the minuet's courtly maze And tell of ampler leisures, roomier length of days, His firm-based brain, to self so little kind That no tumultuary blood could blind, Formed to control men, not amaze, Looms not like those that borrow height of haze: 280 It was a world of statelier movement then Than this we fret in, he a denizen Of that ideal Rome that made a man for men.

VI

1.

The longer on this earth we live And weigh the various Qualities of men, Seeing how most are fugitive, Or fitful gifts, at best, of now and then, Wind-wavered corpse-lights, daughters of the fen, The more we feel the high stern-featured beauty Of plain devotedness to duty, 290 Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal praise, But finding amplest recompense For life's ungarlanded expense In work done squarely and unwasted days.

For this we honor him, that he could know How sweet the service and how free Of her, G.o.d's eldest daughter here below, And choose in meanest raiment which was she.

2.

Placid completeness, life without a fall From faith or highest aims, truth's breachless wall, 300 Surely if any fame can bear the touch, His will say 'Here!' at the last trumpet's call, The unexpressive man whose life expressed so much.

VII

1.

Never to see a nation born Hath been given to mortal man, Unless to those who, on that summer morn, Gazed silent when the great Virginian Unsheathed the sword whose fatal flash Shot union through the incoherent clash Of our loose atoms, crystallizing them 310 Around a single will's unpliant stem, And making purpose of emotion rash.

Out of that scabbard sprang, as from its womb, Nebulous at first but hardening to a star.

Through mutual share of sunburst and of gloom, The common faith that made us what we are.

2.

That lifted blade transformed our jangling clans, Till then provincial, to Americans, And made a unity of wildering plans; Here was the doom fixed: here is marked the date 320 When this New World awoke to man's estate, Burnt its last ship and ceased to look behind: Nor thoughtless was the choice; no love or hate Could from its poise move that deliberate mind, Weighing between too early and too late, Those pitfalls of the man refused by Fate: His was the impartial vision of the great Who see not as they wish, but as they find.

He saw the dangers of defeat, nor less The incomputable perils of success; 330 The sacred past thrown by, an empty rind; The future, cloud-land, snare of prophets blind; The waste of war, the ignominy of peace; On either hand a sullen rear of woes, Whose garnered lightnings none could guess, Piling its thunder-heads and muttering 'Cease!'

Yet drew not back his hand, but gravely chose The seeming-desperate task whence our new nation rose.

3.

A n.o.ble choice and of immortal seed!

Nor deem that acts heroic wait on chance 340 Or easy were as in a boy's romance; The man's whole life preludes the single deed That shall decide if his inheritance Be with the sifted few of matchless breed, Our race's sap and sustenance, Or with the unmotived herd that only sleep and feed.

Choice seems a thing indifferent: thus or so, What matters it? The Fates with mocking face Look on inexorable, nor seem to know Where the lot lurks that gives life's foremost place. 350 Yet Duty's leaden casket holds it still, And but two ways are offered to our will, Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace, The problem still for us and all of human race.

He chose, as men choose, where most danger showed, Nor ever faltered 'neath the load Of petty cares, that gall great hearts the most, But kept right on the strenuous up-hill road, Strong to the end, above complaint or boast: The popular tempest on his rock-mailed coast 360 Wasted its wind-borne spray, The noisy marvel of a day; His soul sate still in its unstormed abode.

VIII