The Vision of Sir Launfal Part 9

To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back 15 Her wisest Scholars, those who understood The deeper teaching of her mystic tome, And offered their fresh lives to make it good: No lore of Greece or Rome, No science peddling with the names of things, 20 Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, Can lift our life with wings Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits, And lengthen out our dates With that clear fame whose memory sings 25 In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates: Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all!

Not such the trumpet-call Of thy diviner mood, That could thy sons entice 30 From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest Of those half-virtues which the world calls best, Into War's tumult rude: But rather far that stern device The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood 35 In the dim; unventured wood, The VERITAS that lurks beneath The letter's unprolific sheath, Life of whate'er makes life worth living, Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food, 40 One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving.

III

Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil Amid the dust of books to find her, Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. 45 Many in sad faith sought for her, Many with crossed hands sighed for her; But these, our brothers, fought for her, At life's dear peril wrought for her, So loved her that they died for her, 50 Tasting the raptured fleetness Of her divine completeness: Their higher instinct knew Those love her best who to themselves are true, And what they dare to dream of, dare to do; 55 They followed her and found her Where all may hope to find, Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her.

Where faith made whole with deed 60 Breathes its awakening breath Into the lifeless creed, They saw her plumed and mailed, With sweet, stern face unveiled, And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death. 65

IV

Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides Into the silent hollow of the past; What Is there that abides To make the next age better for the last?

Is earth too poor to give us 70 Something to live for here that shall outlive us,-- Some more substantial boon Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune's fickle moon?

The little that we see From doubt is never free; 75 The little that we do Is but half-n.o.bly true; With our laborious hiving What men call treasure, and the G.o.ds call dross, Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving, 80 Only secure in every one's conniving, A long account of nothings paid with loss, Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, After our little hour of strut and rave, With all our pasteboard pa.s.sions and desires, 85 Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave.

Ah, there is something here Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer, Something that gives our feeble light 90 A high immunity from Night, Something that leaps life's narrow bars To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven; A seed of sunshine that doth leaven Our earthly dulness with the beams of stars, 95 And glorify our clay With light from fountains elder than the Day; A conscience more divine than we, A gladness fed with secret tears, A vexing, forward-reaching sense 100 Of some more n.o.ble permanence; A light across the sea, Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, Still glimmering from the heights of undegenerate years.

V

Whither leads the path 105 To ampler fates that leads?

Not down through flowery meads, To reap an aftermath Of youth's vainglorious weeds, But up the steep, amid the wrath 110 And shock of deadly hostile creeds, Where the world's best hope and stay By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds.

Peace hath her not ign.o.ble wreath, 115 Ere yet the sharp, decisive word Lights the black lips of cannon, and the sword Dreams in its easeful sheath: But some day the live coal behind the thought.

Whether from Baal's stone obscene, 120 Or from the shrine serene Of G.o.d's pure altar brought, Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught, And, helpless in the fiery pa.s.sion caught, 125 Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men: Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, And cries reproachful: "Was it, then, my praise, And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth; 130 I claim of thee the promise of thy youth; Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, The victim of thy genius, not its mate!"

Life may be given in many ways, And loyalty to Truth be sealed 135 As bravely in the closet as the field, So generous is Fate; But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her, To front a lie in arms and not to yield,-- 140 This shows, methinks, G.o.d's plan And measure of a stalwart man, Limbed like the old heroic breeds, Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, 145 Fed from within with all the strength he needs.

VI

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, Whom late the Nation he had led, With ashes on her head, Wept with the pa.s.sion of an angry grief: 150 Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn.

Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man 155 Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote: For him her Old-World mould aside she threw, And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, 160 With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of G.o.d, and true.

How beautiful to see Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; 165 One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, Not lured by any cheat of birth, But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity!

They knew that outward grace is dust; 170 They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust.

Nothing of Europe here, 175 Or, then, of Europe fronting morn-ward still, Ere any names of Serf and Peer Could Nature's equal scheme deface; Here was a type of the true elder race, And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 180 I praise him not; it were too late; And some innative weakness there must be In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, Safe in himself as in a fate. 185 So always firmly he: He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, Still patient in his simple faith sublime, Till the wise years decide. 190 Great captains, with their guns and drums, Disturb our judgment for the hour, But at last silence comes; These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame, 195 The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American.

VII

Long as man's hope insatiate can discern Or only guess some more inspiring goal 200 Outside of Self, enduring as the pole, Along whose course the flying axles burn Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's manlier brood; Long as below we cannot find The meed that stills the inexorable mind; 205 So long this faith to some ideal Good, Under whatever mortal names it masks, Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, Feeling its challenged pulses leap, 210 While others skulk in subterfuges cheap, And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks, Shall win man's praise and woman's love; Shall be a wisdom that we set above All other skills and gifts to culture dear, 215 A virtue round whose forehead we enwreathe Laurels that with a living pa.s.sion breathe When other crowns are cold and soon grow sere.

What brings us thronging these high rites to pay, And seal these hours the n.o.blest of our year, 220 Save that our brothers found this better way?

VIII

We sit here in the Promised Land That flows with Freedom's honey and milk; But 'twas they won it, sword in hand, Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk. 225 We welcome back our bravest and our best:-- Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest, Who went forth brave and bright as any here!

I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, But the sad strings complain, 230 And will not please the ear: I sweep them for a paean, but they wane Again and yet again Into a dirge, and die away in pain.

In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, 235 Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, Dark to the triumph which they died to gain: Fitlier may others greet the living, For me the past is unforgiving; I with uncovered head 240 Salute the sacred dead, Who went, and who return not,--Say not so!

'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay, But the high faith that failed not by the way; Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; 245 No ban of endless night exiles the brave: And to the saner mind We rather seem the dead that stayed behind.

Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow!

For never shall their aureoled presence lack: 250 I see them muster in a gleaming row, With ever-youthful brows that n.o.bler show; We find in our dull road their shining track; In every n.o.bler mood We feel the orient of their spirit glow, 255 Part of our life's unalterable good, Of all our saintlier aspiration; They come transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 260 Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!

IX

Who now shall sneer?

Who dare again to say we trace Our lines to a plebeian race?

Roundhead and Cavalier! 265 Dreams are those names erewhile in battle loud; Forceless as is the shadow of a cloud, They live but in the ear: That is best blood that hath most iron, in 't, To edge resolve with, pouring without stint 270 For what makes manhood dear.

Tell us not of Plantagenets, Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl Down from some victor in a border-brawl!

How poor their outworn coronets, 275 Matched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears 280 With vain resentments and more vain regrets!

X

Not in anger, not in pride, Pure from pa.s.sion's mixture rude, Ever to base earth allied, But with far-heard grat.i.tude, 285 Still with heart and voice renewed, To heroes living and dear martyrs dead, The strain should close that consecrates our brave.

Lift the heart and lift the head!

Lofty be its mood and grave, 290 Not without a martial ring, Not without a prouder tread And a peal of exultation: Little right has he to sing Through whose heart in such an hour 295 Beats no march of conscious power, Sweeps no tumult of elation!

'Tis no Man we celebrate, By his country's victories great, A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, 300 But the pith and marrow of a Nation Drawing force from all her men, Highest, humblest, weakest, all,-- Pulsing it again through them, Till the basest can no longer cower, 305 Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, Touched but in pa.s.sing by her mantle-hem.

Come back, then, n.o.ble pride, for 'tis her dower!

How could poet ever tower, If his pa.s.sions, hopes, and fears, 310 If his triumphs and his tears, Kept not measure with his people?

Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves!

Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple!

Banners, advance with triumph, bend your staves! 315 And from every mountain-peak Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he, And so leap on in light from sea to sea, Till the glad news be sent 320 Across a kindling continent, Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver: "Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her!

She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, She of the open soul and open door, 325 With room about her hearth for all mankind!

The helm from her bold front she doth unbind, Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, And bids her navies hold their thunders in. 330 No challenge sends she to the elder world, That looked askance and hated; a light scorn Plays on her mouth, as round her mighty knees She calls her children back, and waits the morn Of n.o.bler day, enthroned between her subject seas." 335

XI

Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release!

Thy G.o.d, in these distempered days, Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways, And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace!

Bow down in prayer and praise! 340 O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more!

Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, And letting thy set lips, Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, 345 The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, What words divine of lover or of poet Could tell our love and make thee know it, Among the Nations bright beyond compare?

What were our lives without thee? 350 What all our lives to save thee?

We reck not what we gave thee; We will not dare to doubt thee, But ask whatever else, and we will dare!

NOTES