The Poems of Sidney Lanier Part 16

I.

Trillets of humor, -- shrewdest whistle-wit, -- Contralto cadences of grave desire Such as from off the pa.s.sionate Indian pyre Drift down through sandal-odored flames that split About the slim young widow who doth sit And sing above, -- midnights of tone entire, -- Tissues of moonlight shot with songs of fire; -- Bright drops of tune, from oceans infinite Of melody, sipped off the thin-edged wave And trickling down the beak, -- discourses brave Of serious matter that no man may guess, -- Good-fellow greetings, cries of light distress -- All these but now within the house we heard: O Death, wast thou too deaf to hear the bird?

II.

Ah me, though never an ear for song, thou hast A tireless tooth for songsters: thus of late Thou camest, Death, thou Cat! and leap'st my gate, And, long ere Love could follow, thou hadst pa.s.sed Within and s.n.a.t.c.hed away, how fast, how fast, My bird -- wit, songs, and all -- thy richest freight Since that fell time when in some wink of fate Thy yellow claws unsheathed and stretched, and cast Sharp hold on Keats, and dragged him slow away, And harried him with hope and horrid play -- Ay, him, the world's best wood-bird, wise with song -- Till thou hadst wrought thine own last mortal wrong.

'Twas wrong! 'twas wrong! I care not, WRONG's the word -- To munch our Keats and crunch our mocking-bird.

III.

Nay, Bird; my grief gainsays the Lord's best right.

The Lord was fain, at some late festal time, That Keats should set all Heaven's woods in rhyme, And thou in bird-notes. Lo, this tearful night, Methinks I see thee, fresh from death's despite, Perched in a palm-grove, wild with pantomime, O'er blissful companies couched in shady thyme, -- Methinks I hear thy silver whistlings bright Mix with the mighty discourse of the wise, Till broad Beethoven, deaf no more, and Keats, 'Midst of much talk, uplift their smiling eyes, And mark the music of thy wood-conceits, And halfway pause on some large, courteous word, And call thee "Brother", O thou heavenly Bird!

____ Baltimore, 1878.

The Dove.

If haply thou, O Desdemona Morn, Shouldst call along the curving sphere, "Remain, Dear Night, sweet Moor; nay, leave me not in scorn!"

With soft halloos of heavenly love and pain; --

Shouldst thou, O Spring! a-cower in coverts dark, 'Gainst proud supplanting Summer sing thy plea, And move the mighty woods through mailed bark Till mortal heart-break throbbed in every tree; --

Or (grievous 'if' that may be 'yea' o'er-soon!), If thou, my Heart, long holden from thy Sweet, Shouldst knock Death's door with mellow shocks of tune, Sad inquiry to make -- 'When may we meet?'

Nay, if ye three, O Morn! O Spring! O Heart!

Should chant grave unisons of grief and love; Ye could not mourn with more melodious art Than daily doth yon dim sequestered dove.

____ Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, 1877.

To ----, with a Rose.

I asked my heart to say Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay Upon my Lady's natal day.

Then said my heart to me: 'Learn from the rhyme that now shall come to thee What fits thy Love most lovingly.'

This gift that learning shows; For, as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes, I send a rose unto a Rose.

____ Philadelphia, 1876.

On Huntingdon's "Miranda".

The storm hath blown thee a lover, sweet, And laid him kneeling at thy feet.

But, -- guerdon rich for favor rare!

The wind hath all thy holy hair To kiss and to sing through and to flare Like torch-flames in the pa.s.sionate air, About thee, O Miranda.

Eyes in a blaze, eyes in a daze, Bold with love, cold with amaze, Chaste-thrilling eyes, fast-filling eyes With daintiest tears of love's surprise, Ye draw my soul unto your blue As warm skies draw the exhaling dew, Divine eyes of Miranda.

And if I were yon stolid stone, Thy tender arm doth lean upon, Thy touch would turn me to a heart, And I would palpitate and start, -- Content, when thou wert gone, to be A dumb rock by the lonesome sea Forever, O Miranda.

____ Baltimore, 1874.

Ode to the Johns Hopkins University.

Read on the Fourth Commemoration Day, February, 1880.

How tall among her sisters, and how fair, -- How grave beyond her youth, yet debonair As dawn, 'mid wrinkled Matres of old lands Our youngest Alma Mater modest stands!

In four brief cycles round the punctual sun Has she, old Learning's latest daughter, won This grace, this stature, and this fruitful fame.

Howbeit she was born Unnoised as any stealing summer morn.

From far the sages saw, from far they came And ministered to her, Led by the soaring-genius'd Sylvester That, earlier, loosed the knot great Newton tied, And flung the door of Fame's locked temple wide.

As favorable fairies thronged of old and blessed The cradled princess with their several best, So, gifts and dowers meet To lay at Wisdom's feet, These liberal masters largely brought -- Dear diamonds of their long-compressed thought, Rich stones from out the labyrinthine cave Of research, pearls from Time's profoundest wave And many a jewel brave, of brilliant ray, Dug in the far obscure Cathay Of meditation deep -- With flowers, of such as keep Their fragrant tissues and their heavenly hues Fresh-bathed forever in eternal dews -- The violet with her low-drooped eye, For learned modesty, -- The student snow-drop, that doth hang and pore Upon the earth, like Science, evermore, And underneath the clod doth grope and grope, -- The astronomer heliotrope, That watches heaven with a constant eye, -- The daring crocus, unafraid to try (When Nature calls) the February snows, -- And patience' perfect rose.

Thus sped with helps of love and toil and thought, Thus forwarded of faith, with hope thus fraught, In four brief cycles round the stringent sun This youngest sister hath her stature won.

Nay, why regard The pa.s.sing of the years? Nor made, nor marr'd, By help or hindrance of slow Time was she: O'er this fair growth Time had no mastery: So quick she bloomed, she seemed to bloom at birth, As Eve from Adam, or as he from earth.

Superb o'er slow increase of day on day, Complete as Pallas she began her way; Yet not from Jove's unwrinkled forehead sprung, But long-time dreamed, and out of trouble wrung, Fore-seen, wise-plann'd, pure child of thought and pain, Leapt our Minerva from a mortal brain.

And here, O finer Pallas, long remain, -- Sit on these Maryland hills, and fix thy reign, And frame a fairer Athens than of yore In these blest bounds of Baltimore, -- Here, where the climates meet That each may make the other's lack complete, -- Where Florida's soft Favonian airs beguile The nipping North, -- where nature's powers smile, -- Where Chesapeake holds frankly forth her hands Spread wide with invitation to all lands, -- Where now the eager people yearn to find The organizing hand that fast may bind Loose straws of aimless aspiration fain In sheaves of serviceable grain, -- Here, old and new in one, Through n.o.bler cycles round a richer sun O'er-rule our modern ways, O blest Minerva of these larger days!

Call here thy congress of the great, the wise, The hearing ears, the seeing eyes, -- Enrich us out of every farthest clime, -- Yea, make all ages native to our time, Till thou the freedom of the city grant To each most antique habitant Of Fame, -- Bring Shakespeare back, a man and not a name, -- Let every player that shall mimic us In audience see old G.o.dlike Aeschylus, -- Bring Homer, Dante, Plato, Socrates, -- Bring Virgil from the visionary seas Of old romance, -- bring Milton, no more blind, -- Bring large Lucretius, with unmaniac mind, -- Bring all gold hearts and high resolved wills To be with us about these happy hills, -- Bring old Renown To walk familiar citizen of the town, -- Bring Tolerance, that can kiss and disagree, -- Bring Virtue, Honor, Truth, and Loyalty, -- Bring Faith that sees with undissembling eyes, -- Bring all large Loves and heavenly Charities, -- Till man seem less a riddle unto man And fair Utopia less Utopian, And many peoples call from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, 'The world has bloomed again, at Baltimore!'

____ Baltimore, 1880.

To Dr. Thomas Shearer.