The Vision of Sir Launfal And Other Poems by James Russell Lowell; Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Julian W. Abernethy, Ph.D.

THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate, He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same, Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate; 150 And a loathing over Sir Launfal came; The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl, And midway its leap his heart stood still Like a frozen waterfall; 155 For this man, so foul and bent of stature, Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, And seemed the one blot on the summer morn,— So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. VI. The leper raised not the gold from the dust: "Better to me the poor man's crust, 160 Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives only the worthless gold 165 Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight. That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through, ail and doth all unite,— 170 The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, The heart outstretches its eager palms, For a god goes with it and makes it store To the soul that was starving in darkness before." Prelude to Part Second Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, 175 From the snow five thousand summers old; On open, wold and hill-top bleak It had gathered all the cold, And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek: It carried a shiver everywhere 180 From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; The little brook heard it and built a roof 'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof; All night by the white stars' frosty gleams He groined his arches and matched his beams: 185 Slender and clear were his crystal spars As the lashes of light that trim the stars; He sculptured every summer delight In his halls and chambers out of sight; Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 190 Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a breeze; Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that downward grew; 195 Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 200 And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, And made a star of every one: No mortal builder's most rare device Could match this winter-palace of ice; 205 'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay In his depths serene through the summer day, Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, Lest the happy model should be lost, Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 210 By the elfin builders of the frost. Within the hall are song and laughter. The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, And sprouting is every corbel and rafter With lightsome green of ivy and holly: 215 Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; The broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 220 Hunted to death in its galleries blind; And swift little troops of silent sparks, Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer. 225 But the wind without was eager and sharp, Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings The icy strings, Singing, in dreary monotone, 230 A Christmas carol of its own, Whose burden still, as he might guess, Was—"Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!" The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, 235 And he sat in the gateway and saw all night The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, Through the window-slits of the castle old, Build out its piers of ruddy light Against the drift of the cold. Part Second I. 240 There was never a leaf on bush or tree, The bare boughs rattled shudderingly; The river was dumb and could not speak, For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun; A single crow on the tree-top bleak 245 From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun; Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, As if her veins were sapless and old, And she rose up decrepitly For a last dim look at earth and sea. II. 250 Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, For another heir in his earldom sate; An old, bent man, worn out and frail, He came back from seeking the Holy Grail: Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 255 No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross. But deep in his soul the sign he wore, The badge of the suffering and the poor. III. Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, 260 For it was just at the Christmas time; So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, And sought for a shelter from cold and snow In the light and warmth of long ago; He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 265 O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, He can count the camels in the sun, As over the red-hot sands they pass To where, in its slender necklace of grass, 270 The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, And with its own self like an infant played, And waved its signal of palms. IV. "For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms;" The happy camels may reach the spring, 275 But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, That cowers beside him, a thing as lone And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas In the desolate horror of his disease. V. 280 And Sir Launfal said,—"I behold in thee An image of Him who died on the tree; Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns,— And to thy life were not denied 285 The wounds in the hands and feet and side; Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me; Behold, through him, I give to thee!" VI. Then the soul of the leper stood, up in his eyes And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 290 Remembered in what a haughtier guise He had flung an alms to leprosie, When he girt his young life up in gilded mail And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. The heart within him was ashes and dust; 295 He parted in twain his single crust. He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink. And gave the leper to eat and drink; 'T was a moldy crust of coarse brown bread, 'T was water out of a wooden bowl,— 300 Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. VII. As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, A light shone round about the place; The leper no longer crouched at his side, 305 But stood before him glorified, Shining and tall and fair and straight As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,— Himself the Gate whereby men can Enter the temple of God in Man. VIII. 310 His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, That mingle their softness and quiet in one With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; And the voice that was softer than silence said, 315 "Lo, it is I, be not afraid! In many climes, without avail, Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; Behold, it is here,—this cup which thou Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; 320 This crust is my body broken for thee, This water his blood that died on the tree; The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatso we share with another's need,— Not what we give, but what we share,— 325 For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,— Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." IX. Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound:— "The Grail in my castle here is found! 330 Hang my idle armor up on the wall, Let it be the spider's banquet-hall; He must be fenced with stronger mail Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." X. The castle gate stands open now, 335 And the wanderer is welcome to the hall As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; No longer scowl the turrets tall, The Summer's long siege at last is o'er; When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 340 She entered with him in disguise, And mastered the fortress by surprise; There is no spot she loves so well on ground, She lingers and smiles there the whole year round; The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land 345 Has hall and bower at his command; And there's no poor man in the North Countree But is lord of the earldom as much as he. THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS There came a youth upon the earth, Some thousand years ago, Whose slender hands were nothing worth, Whether to plow, or reap, or sow. 5 He made a lyre, and drew therefrom Music so strange and rich, That all men loved to hear,—and some Muttered of fagots for a witch. But King Admetus, one who had 10 Pure taste by right divine, Decreed his singing not too bad To hear between the cups of wine. And so, well pleased with being soothed Into a sweet half-sleep, 15 Three times his kingly beard he smoothed. And made him viceroy o'er his sheep. His words were simple words enough, And yet he used them so, That what in other mouths were rough 20 In his seemed musical and low. Men called him but a shiftless youth, In whom no good they saw; And yet, unwittingly, in truth, They made his careless words their law. 25 They knew not how he learned at all, For, long hour after hour, He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, Or mused upon a common flower. It seemed the loveliness of things 30 Did teach him all their use, For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, He found a healing power profuse. Men granted that his speech was wise, But, when a glance they caught 35 Of his slim grace and woman's eyes, They laughed, and called him good-for-naught. Yet after he was dead and gone, And e'en his memory dim, Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, 40 More full of love, because of him. And day by day more holy grew Each spot where he had trod, Till after-poets only knew Their first-born brother as a god. AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough Pressed round to hear the praise of one Whose heart was made of manly, simple, stuff, As homespun as their own. 5 And, when he read, they forward leaned, Drinking, with eager hearts and ears, His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned From humble smiles and tears. Slowly there grew a tender awe, 10 Sunlike, o'er faces brown and hard. As if in him who read they felt and saw Some presence of the bard. It was a sight for sin and wrong And slavish tyranny to see, 15 A sight to make our faith more pure and strong In high humanity. I thought, these men will carry hence Promptings their former life above. And something of a finer reverence 20 For beauty, truth, and love, God scatters love on every side, Freely among his children all, And always hearts are lying open wide, Wherein some grains may fall. 25 There is no wind but soweth seeds Of a more true and open life, Which burst unlocked for, into high-souled deeds, With wayside beauty rife. We find within these souls of ours 30 Some wild germs of a higher birth, Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers Whose fragrance fills the earth. Within the hearts of all men lie These promises of wider bliss, 35 Which blossom into hopes that cannot die, In sunny hours like this. All that hath been majestical In life or death, since time began, Is native in the simple heart of all, 40 The angel heart of man. And thus, among the untaught poor, Great deeds and feelings find a home, That cast in shadow all the golden lore Of classic Greece and Rome. 45 O, mighty brother-soul of man. Where'er thou art, in low or high, Thy skyey arches with, exulting span O'er-roof infinity! All thoughts that mould the age begin 50 Deep down within the primitive soul, And from the many slowly upward win To one who grasps the whole. In his wide brain the feeling deep That struggled on the many's tongue 55 Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leap O'er the weak thrones of wrong. All thought begins in feeling,—wide In the great mass its base is hid, And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified, 60 A moveless pyramid. Nor is he far astray, who deems That every hope, which rises and grows broad In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams From the great heart of God. 65 God wills, man hopes; in common souls Hope is but vague and undefined, Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls A blessing to his kind. Never did Poesy appear 70 So full of heaven to me, as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear, To the lives of coarsest men. It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three 75 High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century;— But better far it is to speak One simple word, which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak 80 And friendless sons of men; To write some earnest verse or line Which, seeking not the praise of art. Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine In the untutored heart. 85 He who doth this, in verse or prose, May be forgotten in his day, But surely shall be crowned at last with those Who live and speak for aye. HEBE I saw the twinkle of white feet. I saw the flash of robes descending; Before her ran an influence fleet, That bowed my heart like barley bending. 5 As, in bare fields, the searching bees Pilot to blooms beyond our finding, It led me on, by sweet degrees Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding. Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates; 10 With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me; The long-sought Secret's golden gates On musical hinges swung before me. I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp Thrilling with godhood; like a lover 15 I sprang the proffered life to clasp;— The beaker fell; the luck was over. The Earth has drunk the vintage up; What boots it patch the goblet's splinters? Can Summer fill the icy cup, 20 Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's? O spendthrift Haste! await the gods; Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience; Haste scatters on unthankful sods The immortal gift in vain libations. 25 Coy Hebe flies from those that woo, And shuns the hands would seize upon her; Follow thy life, and she will sue To pour for thee the cup of honor. TO THE DANDELION Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, 5 High-hearted buccaneers, o'er joyed that they An Eldorado in the grass have found, Which not the rich earth's ample round. May match in wealth—thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. 10 Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; 'T is the Spring's largess, which she scatters now 15 To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, Though most hearts never understand To take it at God's value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; 20 To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; The eyes thou givest me Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment 25 In the white lily's breezy tent, His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,— Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 30 Where, as the breezes pass, The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,— Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue That from the distance sparkle through 35 Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, Who, from the dark old tree 40 Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, And I, secure in childish piety, Listened as if I heard an angel sing With news from Heaven, which he could bring Fresh every day to my untainted ears, 45 When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. Thou art the type of those meek charities Which make up half the nobleness of life, Those cheap delights the wise Pluck from the dusty wayside of earth's strife: 50 Words of frank cheer, glances of friendly eyes, Love's smallest coin, which yet to some may give The morsel that may keep alive A starving heart, and teach it to behold Some glimpse of God where all before was cold. 55 Thy wingèd seeds, whereof the winds take care, Are like the words of poet and of sage Which through the free heaven fare, And, now unheeded, in another age Take root, and to the gladdened future bear 60 That witness which the present would not heed, Bringing forth many a thought and deed, And, planted safely in the eternal sky, Bloom into stars which earth is guided by. Full of deep love thou art, yet not more full 65 Than all thy common brethren of the ground, Wherein, were we not dull, Some words of highest wisdom might be found; Yet earnest faith from day to day may cull Some syllables, which, rightly joined, can make 70 A spell to soothe life's bitterest ache, And ope Heaven's portals, which are near us still, Yea, nearer ever than the gates of Ill. How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! 75 Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam Of Heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, Did we but pay the love we owe, 80 And with a child's undoubting wisdom look On all these living pages of God's book. But let me read thy lesson right or no, Of one good gift from thee my heart is sure: Old I shall never grow 85 While thou each, year dost come to keep me pure With legends of my childhood; ah, we owe Well more than half life's holiness to these Nature's first lowly influences, At thought of which the heart's glad doors burst ope, 90 In dreariest days, to welcome peace and hope. MY LOVE Not as all other women are Is she that to my soul is dear; Her glorious fancies come from far, Beneath the silver evening-star, 5 And yet her heart is ever near. Great feelings hath she of her own, Which lesser souls may never know; God giveth them to her alone, And sweet they are as any tone 10 Wherewith the wind may choose to blow. Yet in herself she dwelleth not, Although no home were half so fair; No simplest duty is forgot, Life hath no dim and lowly spot 15 That doth not in her sunshine share. She doeth little kindnesses, Which most leave undone, or despise; For naught that sets one heart at ease, And giveth happiness or peace, 20 Is low-esteemèd in her eyes. She hath no scorn of common things, And, though she seem of other birth, Round us her heart entwines and clings, And patiently she folds her wings 25 To tread the humble paths of earth. Blessing she is: God made her so, And deeds of week-day holiness Fall from her noiseless as the snow, Nor hath she ever chanced to know 30 That aught were easier than to bless. She is most fair, and thereunto Her life doth rightly harmonize; Feeling or thought that was not true Ne'er made less beautiful the blue 35 Unclouded heaven of her eyes. She is a woman: one in whom The spring-time of her childish years Hath never lost its fresh perfume, Though knowing well that life hath room 40 For many blights and many tears. I love her with a love as still As a broad river's peaceful might, Which, by high tower and lowly mill, Goes wandering at its own will, 45 And yet doth ever flow aright. And, on its full, deep breast serene, Like quiet isles my duties lie; It flows around them and between, And makes them fresh and fair and green, 50 Sweet homes wherein to live and die. THE CHANGELING I had a little daughter, And she was given to me To lead me gently backward To the Heavenly Father's knee, 5 That I, by the force of nature, Might in some dim wise divine The depth of his infinite patience To this wayward soul of mine. I know not how others saw her, 10 But to me she was wholly fair, And the light of the heaven she came from Still lingered and gleamed in her hair; For it was as wavy and golden, And as many changes took, 15 As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples On the yellow bed of a brook. To what can I liken her smiling Upon me, her kneeling lover? How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids, 20 And dimpled her wholly over, Till her outstretched hands smiled also, And I almost seemed to see The very heart of her mother Sending sun through her veins to me! 25 She had been with us scarce a twelve-month, And it hardly seemed a day, When a troop of wandering angels Stole my little daughter away; Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari 30 But loosed the hampering strings, And when they had opened her cage-door, My little bird used her wings. But they left in her stead a changeling, A little angel child, 35 That seems like her bud in full blossom, And smiles as she never smiled: When I wake in the morning, I see it Where she always used to lie, And I feel as weak as a violet 40 Alone 'neath the awful sky. As weak, yet as trustful also; For the whole year long I see All the wonders of faithful Nature Still worked for the love of me; 45 Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, Rain falls, suns rise and set, Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet. This child is not mine as the first was, 50 I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast; Yet it lies in my little one's cradle And sits in my little one's chair, 55 And the light of the heaven she's gone to Transfigures its golden hair. AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE What visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, 5 As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills The bowl between me and those distant-hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair! No more the landscape holds its wealth apart, Making me poorer in my poverty, 10 But mingles with my senses and my heart; My own projected spirit seems to me In her own reverie the world to steep; 'T is she that waves to sympathetic sleep, Moving, as she is moved, each field and hill and tree. 15 How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees, Clasped by the faint horizon's languid arms, Each into each, the hazy distances! The softened season all the landscape charms; Those hills, my native village that embay, 20 In waves of dreamier purple roll away, And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms. Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee Close at my side; far distant sound the leaves; The fields seem fields of dream, where Memory 25 Wanders like gleaning Ruth; and as the sheaves Of wheat and barley wavered in the eye Of Boaz as the maiden's glow went by, So tremble and seem remote all things the sense receives. The cock's shrill trump that tells of scattered corn, 30 Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates, Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne, Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits; Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails; Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails, 35 With watchful, measuring eye, and for his quarry waits. The sobered robin, hunger-silent now, Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer; The chipmunk, on the shingly shagbark's bough, Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear, 40 Then drops his nut, and, cheeping, with a bound Whisks to his winding fastness underground; The clouds like swans drift down the streaming atmosphere. O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar shadows Drowse on the crisp, gray moss; the ploughman's call 45 Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh-furrowed meadows; The single crow a single caw lets fall; And all around me every bush and tree Says Autumn's here, and Winter soon will be, Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all. 50 The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees, Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, And hints at her foregone gentilities With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves; The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, 55 Glares red as blood across the sinking sun, As one who proudlier to a falling fortune cleaves. He looks a sachem, in red blanket wrapt, Who, 'mid some council of the sad-garbed whites, Erect and stern, in his own memories lapt, 60 With distant eye broods over other sights, Sees the hushed wood the city's flare replace, The wounded turf heal o'er the railway's trace, And roams the savage Past of his undwindled rights. The red-oak, softer-grained, yields all for lost, 65 And, with his crumpled foliage stiff and dry, After the first betrayal of the frost, Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky: The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid gold, To the faint Summer, beggared now and old, 70 Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath her favoring eye. The ash her purple drops forgivingly And sadly, breaking not the general hush: The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea, Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush; 75 All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting blaze Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy days, Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns his brush. O'er yon low wall, which guards one unkempt zone, Where vines and weeds and scrub-oaks intertwine 80 Safe from the plough, whose rough, discordant stone Is massed to one soft gray by lichens fine, The tangled blackberry, crossed and re-crossed, weaves A prickly network of ensanguined leaves; Hard by, with coral beads, the prim black-alders shine. 85 Pillaring with flame this crumbling boundary, Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the plough-boy's foot, Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye, Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot, The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires, 90 Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires; In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak stands mute. Below, the Charles, a stripe of nether sky, Now hid by rounded apple-trees between, Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying by, 95 Now flickering golden through a woodland screen, Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond, A silver circle like an inland pond— Slips seaward silently through marshes purple and green. Dear marshes! vain to him the gift of sight 100 Who cannot in their various incomes share, From every season drawn, of shade and light, Who sees in them but levels brown and bare; Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free On them its largess of variety, 105 For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders rare. In spring they lie one broad expanse of green, O'er which the light winds run with glimmering feet: Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen, There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet; 110 And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd, As if the silent shadow of a cloud Hung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet. All round, upon the river's slippery edge, Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide, 115 Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling sedge; Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide, Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the sun, And the stiff banks in eddies melt and run Of dimpling light, and with the current seem to glide. 120 In summer 't is a blithesome sight to see, As, step by step, with measured swing, they pass, The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee, Their sharp scythes panting through the wiry grass; Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in a ring, 125 Their nooning take, while one begins to sing A stave that droops and dies 'neath the close sky of brass. Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink. Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, 130 And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, A decorous bird of business, who provides For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, And looks from right to left, a farmer 'mid his crops. Another change subdues them in the fall, 135 But saddens not; they still show merrier tints, Though sober russet seems to cover all; When the first sunshine through their dew-drops glints, Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across, Redeems with rarer hues the season's loss, 140 As Dawn's feet there had touched and left their rosy prints. Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest, Lean o 'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill, While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west, Glow opposite;—the marshes drink their fill 145 And swoon with purple veins, then, slowly fade Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade, Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's darkening hill. Later, and yet ere winter wholly shuts, Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates, 150 And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire, And until bedtime plays with his desire, Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;— 155 Then, every morn, the river's banks shine bright With smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail, By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night, 'Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail, Giving a pretty emblem of the day 160 When guiltier arms in light shall melt away, And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war's cramping mail. And now those waterfalls the ebbing river Twice every day creates on either side Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they shiver 165 In grass-arched channels to the sun denied; High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow, The silvered flats gleam frostily below, Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide. But crowned in turn by vying seasons three, 170 Their winter halo hath a fuller ring; This glory seems to rest immovably,— The others were too fleet and vanishing; When the hid tide is at its highest flow, O'er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow 175 With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything. The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind, As pale as formal candles lit by day; Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind; The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play, 180 Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee, White crests as of some just enchanted sea, Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised midway. But when the eastern blow, with rain aslant. From mid-sea's prairies green and rolling plains 185 Drives in his wallowing herds of billows gaunt, And the roused Charles remembers in his veins Old Ocean's blood and snaps his gyves of frost, That tyrannous silence on the shores is tost In dreary wreck, and crumbling desolation reigns. 190 Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like device, With leaden pools between or gullies bare, The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stonehenge of ice; No life, no sound, to break the grim despair, Save sullen plunge, as through the sedges stiff 195 Down crackles riverward some thaw-sapped cliff, Or when the close-wedged fields of ice crunch here and there. But let me turn from fancy-pictured scenes To that whose pastoral calm before me lies: Here nothing harsh or rugged intervenes; 200 The early evening with her misty dyes Smooths off the ravelled edges of the nigh, Relieves the distant with her cooler sky, And tones the landscape down, and soothes the wearied eyes. There gleams my native village, dear to me, 205 Though higher change's waves each day are seen, Whelming fields famed in boyhood's history, Sanding with houses the diminished green; There, in red brick, which softening time defies, Stand square and stiff the Muses' factories;— 210 How with my life knit up is every well-known scene! Flow on, dear river! not alone you flow To outward sight, and through your marshes wind; Fed from the mystic springs of long-ago, Your twin flows silent through my world of mind: 215 Grow dim, dear marshes, in the evening's gray! Before my inner sight ye stretch away, And will forever, though these fleshly eyes grow blind. Beyond the hillock's house-bespotted swell, Where Gothic chapels house the horse and chaise, 220 Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell, Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer and praise, Where dust and mud the equal year divide, There gentle Allston lived, and wrought, and died, Transfiguring street and shop with his illumined gaze. 225 Virgilium vidi tantum ,—I have seen But as a boy, who looks alike on all, That misty hair, that fine Undine-like mien. Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest call;— Ah, dear old homestead! count it to thy fame 230 That thither many times the Painter came;— One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree and tall. Swiftly the present fades in memory's glow,— Our only sure possession is the past; The village blacksmith died a month ago, 235 And dim to me the forge's roaring blast; Soon fire-new medievals we shall see Oust the black smithy from its chestnut-tree, And that hewn down, perhaps, the bee-hive green and vast. How many times, prouder than king on throne, 240 Loosed from the village school-dame's A's and B's, Panting have I the creaky bellows blown, And watched the pent volcano's red increase, Then paused to see the ponderous sledge, brought down By that hard arm voluminous and brown, 245 From the white iron swarm its golden vanishing bees. Dear native town! whose choking elms each year With eddying dust before their time turn gray, Pining for rain,—to me thy dust is dear; It glorifies the eve of summer day, 250 And when the westering sun half sunken burns, The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns, The westward horseman rides through clouds of gold away. So palpable, I've seen those unshorn few, The six old willows at the causey's end 255 (Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew), Through this dry mist their checkering shadows send, Striped, here and there, with many a long-drawn thread, Where streamed through leafy chinks the trembling red, Past which, in one bright trail, the hang-bird's flashes blend. 260 Yes, dearer far thy dust than all that e'er, Beneath the awarded crown of victory, Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer; Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments three, Yet collegisse juvat , I am glad 265 That here what colleging was mine I had,— It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee! Nearer art thou than simply native earth, My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie; A closer claim thy soil may well put forth, 270 Something of kindred more than sympathy; For in thy bounds I reverently laid away That blinding anguish of forsaken clay, That title I seemed to have in earth and sea and sky. That portion of my life more choice to me 275 (Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole) Than all the imperfect residue can be;— The Artist saw his statue of the soul Was perfect; so, with one regretful stroke, The earthen model into fragments broke, 280 And without her the impoverished seasons roll.

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