The Poems of Sidney Lanier Part 17

Presenting a portrait-bust of the author.

Since you, rare friend! have tied my living tongue With thanks more large than man e'er said or sung, So let the dumbness of this image be My eloquence, and still interpret me.

____ Baltimore, 1880.

Martha Washington.

Written for the "Martha Washington Court Journal".

Down cold snow-stretches of our bitter time, When windy shams and the rain-mocking sleet Of Trade have cased us in such icy rime That hearts are scarcely hot enough to beat, Thy fame, O Lady of the lofty eyes, Doth fall along the age, like as a lane Of Spring, in whose most generous boundaries Full many a frozen virtue warms again.

To-day I saw the pale much-burdened form Of Charity come limping o'er the line, And straighten from the bending of the storm And flush with stirrings of new strength divine, Such influence and sweet gracious impulse came Out of the beams of thine immortal name!

____ Baltimore, February 22d, 1875.

Psalm of the West.

Land of the willful gospel, thou worst and thou best; Tall Adam of lands, new-made of the dust of the West; Thou wroughtest alone in the Garden of G.o.d, unblest Till He fashioned lithe Freedom to lie for thine Eve on thy breast -- Till out of thy heart's dear neighborhood, out of thy side, He fashioned an intimate Sweet one and brought thee a Bride.

Cry hail! nor bewail that the wound of her coming was wide.

Lo, Freedom reached forth where the world as an apple hung red; 'Let us taste the whole radiant round of it,' gayly she said: 'If we die, at the worst we shall lie as the first of the dead.'

Knowledge of Good and of Ill, O Land! she hath given thee; Perilous G.o.dhoods of choosing have rent thee and riven thee; Will's high adoring to Ill's low exploring hath driven thee -- Freedom, thy Wife, hath uplifted thy life and clean shriven thee!

Her shalt thou clasp for a balm to the scars of thy breast, Her shalt thou kiss for a calm to thy wars of unrest, Her shalt extol in the psalm of the soul of the West.

For Weakness, in freedom, grows stronger than Strength with a chain; And Error, in freedom, will come to lamenting his stain, Till freely repenting he whiten his spirit again; And Friendship, in freedom, will blot out the bounding of race; And straight Law, in freedom, will curve to the rounding of grace; And Fashion, in freedom, will die of the lie in her face; And Desire flame white on the sense as a fire on a height, And s.e.x flame white in the soul as a star in the night, And Marriage plight sense unto soul as the two-colored light Of the fire and the star shines one with a duplicate might; And Science be known as the sense making love to the All, And Art be known as the soul making love to the All, And Love be known as the marriage of man with the All -- Till Science to knowing the Highest shall lovingly turn, Till Art to loving the Highest shall consciously burn, Till Science to Art as a man to a woman shall yearn, -- Then morn!

When Faith from the wedding of Knowing and Loving shall purely be born, And the Child shall smile in the West, and the West to the East give morn, And the Time in that ultimate Prime shall forget old regretting and scorn, Yea, the stream of the light shall give off in a shimmer the dream of the night forlorn.

Once on a time a soul Too full of his dole In a querulous dream went crying from pole to pole -- Went sobbing and crying For ever a sorrowful song of living and dying, How 'life was the dropping and death the drying Of a Tear that fell in a day when G.o.d was sighing.'

And ever Time tossed him bitterly to and fro As a shuttle inlaying a perilous warp of woe In the woof of things from terminal snow to snow, Till, lo!

Rest.

And he sank on the gra.s.s of the earth as a lark on its nest, And he lay in the midst of the way from the east to the west.

Then the East came out from the east and the West from the west, And, behold! in the gravid deeps of the lower dark, While, above, the wind was fanning the dawn as a spark, The East and the West took form as the wings of a lark.

One wing was feathered with facts of the uttermost Past, And one with the dreams of a prophet; and both sailed fast And met where the sorrowful Soul on the earth was cast.

Then a Voice said: 'Thine, if thou lovest enough to use;'

But another: 'To fly and to sing is pain: refuse!'

Then the Soul said: 'Come, O my wings! I cannot but choose.'

And the Soul was a-tremble like as a new-born thing, Till the spark of the dawn wrought a conscience in heart as in wing, Saying, 'Thou art the lark of the dawn; it is time to sing.'

Then that artist began in a lark's low circling to pa.s.s; And first he sang at the height of the top of the gra.s.s A song of the herds that are born and die in the ma.s.s.

And next he sang a celestial-pa.s.sionate round At the height of the lips of a woman above the ground, How 'Love was a fair true Lady, and Death a wild hound, And she called, and he licked her hand and with girdle was bound.'

And then with a universe-love he was hot in the wings, And the sun stretched beams to the worlds as the shining strings Of the large hid harp that sounds when an all-lover sings; And the sky's blue traction prevailed o'er the earth's in might, And the pa.s.sion of flight grew mad with the glory of height And the uttering of song was like to the giving of light; And he learned that hearing and seeing wrought nothing alone, And that music on earth much light upon Heaven had thrown, And he melted-in silvery sunshine with silvery tone; And the spirals of music e'er higher and higher he wound Till the luminous cinctures of melody up from the ground Arose as the shaft of a tapering tower of sound -- Arose for an unstricken full-finished Babel of sound.

But G.o.d was not angry, nor ever confused his tongue, For not out of selfish nor impudent travail was wrung The song of all men and all things that the all-lover sung.

Then he paused at the top of his tower of song on high, And the voice of the G.o.d of the artist from far in the sky Said, 'Son, look down: I will cause that a Time gone by Shall pa.s.s, and reveal his heart to thy loving eye.'

Far spread, below, The sea that fast hath locked in his loose flow All secrets of Atlantis' drowned woe Lay bound about with night on every hand, Save down the eastern brink a shining band Of day made out a little way from land.

Then from that sh.o.r.e the wind upbore a cry: 'Thou Sea, thou Sea of Darkness! why, oh why Dost waste thy West in unthrift mystery?'

But ever the idiot sea-mouths foam and fill, And never a wave doth good for man or ill, And Blank is king, and Nothing hath his will; And like as grim-beaked pelicans level file Across the sunset toward their nightly isle On solemn wings that wave but seldomwhile, So leanly sails the day behind the day To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray, And down its mortal fissures sinks away.

Master, Master, break this ban: The wave lacks Thee.

Oh, is it not to widen man Stretches the sea?

Oh, must the sea-bird's idle van Alone be free?

Into the Sea of the Dark doth creep Bjoerne's pallid sail, As the face of a walker in his sleep, Set rigid and most pale, About the night doth peer and peep In a dream of an ancient tale.

Lo, here is made a hasty cry: 'Land, land, upon the west! -- G.o.d save such land! Go by, go by: Here may no mortal rest, Where this waste h.e.l.l of slate doth lie And grind the glacier's breast.'

The sail goeth limp: hey, flap and strain!

Round eastward slanteth the mast; As the sleep-walker waked with pain, White-clothed in the midnight blast, Doth stare and quake, and stride again To houseward all aghast.

Yet as, 'A ghost!' his household cry: 'He hath followed a ghost in flight.

Let us see the ghost' -- his household fly With lamps to search the night -- So Nors.e.m.e.n's sails run out and try The Sea of the Dark with light.

Stout Are Marson, southward whirled From out the tempest's hand, Doth skip the sloping of the world To Huitramannaland, Where Georgia's oaks with moss-beards curled Wave by the shining strand,

And sway in sighs from Florida's Spring Or Carolina's Palm -- What time the mocking-bird doth bring The woods his artist's-balm, Singing the Song of Everything Consummate-sweet and calm --

Land of large merciful-hearted skies, Big bounties, rich increase, Green rests for Trade's blood-shotten eyes, For o'er-beat brains surcease, For Love the dear woods' sympathies, For Grief the wise woods' peace,

For Need rich givings of hid powers In hills and vales quick-won, For Greed large exemplary flowers That ne'er have toiled nor spun, For Heat fair-tempered winds and showers, For Cold the neighbor sun.

Land where the Spirits of June-Heat From out their forest-maze Stray forth at eve with loitering feet, And fervent hymns upraise In bland accord and pa.s.sion sweet Along the Southern ways: --

"O Darkness, tawny Twin whose Twin hath ceased, Thou Odor from the day-flower's crushing born, Thou visible Sigh out of the mournful East, That cannot see her lord again till morn: O Leaves, with hollow palms uplifted high To catch the stars' most sacred rain of light: O pallid Lily-petals fain to die Soul-stung by subtle pa.s.sion of the night: O short-breath'd Winds beneath the gracious moon Running mild errands for mild violets, Or carrying sighs from the red lips of June What wavering way the odor-current sets: O Stars wreathed vinewise round yon heavenly dells, Or thrust from out the sky in curving sprays, Or whorled, or looped with pendent flower-bells, Or bramble-tangled in a brilliant maze, Or lying like young lilies in a lake About the great white Lily of the moon, Or drifting white from where in heaven shake Star-portraitures of apple trees in June, Or lapp'd as leaves of a great rose of stars, Or shyly clambering up cloud-lattices, Or trampled pale in the red path of Mars, Or trim-set quaint in gardeners'-fantasies: O long June Night-sounds crooned among the leaves; O whispered confidence of Dark and Green; O murmurs in old moss about old eaves; O tinklings floating over water-sheen."

Then Leif, bold son of Eric the Red, To the South of the West doth flee -- Past slaty h.e.l.luland is sped, Past Markland's woody lea, Till round about fair Vinland's head, Where Taunton helps the sea,

The Norseman calls, the anchor falls, The mariners hurry a-strand: They wa.s.sail with fore-drunken skals Where prophet wild grapes stand; They lift the Leifsbooth's hasty walls They stride about the land --

New England, thee! whose ne'er-spent wine As blood doth stretch each vein, And urge thee, sinewed like thy vine, Through peril and all pain To grasp Endeavor's towering Pine, And, once ahold, remain --

Land where the strenuous-handed Wind With sarcasm of a friend Doth smite the man would lag behind To frontward of his end; Yea, where the taunting fall and grind Of Nature's Ill doth send

Such mortal challenge of a clown Rude-thrust upon the soul, That men but smile where mountains frown Or scowling waters roll, And Nature's front of battle down Do hurl from pole to pole.

Now long the Sea of Darkness glimmers low With sails from Northland flickering to and fro -- Thorwald, Karlsefne, and those twin heirs of woe, h.e.l.lboge and Finnge, in treasonable bed Slain by the ill-born child of Eric Red, Freydisa false. Till, as much time is fled, Once more the vacant airs with darkness fill, Once more the wave doth never good nor ill, And Blank is king, and Nothing works his will; And leanly sails the day behind the day To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray, And down its mortal fissures sinks away, As when the grim-beaked pelicans level file Across the sunset to their seaward isle On solemn wings that wave but seldomwhile.

Master, Master, poets sing; The Time calls Thee; Yon Sea binds hard on everything Man longs to be: Oh, shall the sea-bird's aimless wing Alone move free?

'Santa Maria', well thou tremblest down the wave, Thy 'Pinta' far abow, thy 'Nina' nigh astern: Columbus stands in the night alone, and, pa.s.sing grave, Yearns o'er the sea as tones o'er under-silence yearn.