Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

River, lying whitely in a frozen sleep,
Know you how your pulses used to throb and leap?
How you danced and sparkled on your happy way,
In the summer mornings when the world was gay?

Dear Earth, dumbly waiting God’s appointed time,
Are you faint with longing for the voice sublime?
Wrapped in stony silence, does your great heart beat,
Listening in the darkness for the coming of His feet?

FIVE

“But a week is so long!” he said,
With a toss of his curly head.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven!—
Seven whole days! Why, in six you know
(You said it yourself—you told me so)
The great GOD up in heaven
Made all the earth and the seas and skies,
The trees and the birds and the butterflies!
How can I wait for my seeds to grow!”

“But a month is so long!” he said,
With a droop of his boyish head.
“Hear me count—one, two, three, four—
Four whole weeks, and three days more;
Thirty-one days, and each will creep
As the shadows crawl over yonder steep.
Thirty-one nights, and I shall lie
Watching the stars climb up the sky!
How can I wait till a month is o’er?”

“But a year is so long!” he said,
Uplifting his bright young head.
“All the seasons must come and go
Over the hills with footsteps slow—
Autumn and winter, summer and spring;
Oh, for a bridge of gold to fling
Over the chasm deep and wide,
That I might cross to the other side,
Where she is waiting—my love, my bride!”

“Ten years may be long,” he said,
Slow raising his stately head,
“But there’s much to win, there is much to lose;
A man must labor, a man must choose,
And he must be strong to wait!
The years may be long, but who would wear
The crown of honor, must do and dare!
No time has he to toy with fate
Who would climb to manhood’s high estate!”

“Ah! life is not long!” he said,
Bowing his grand white head.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven!
Seven times ten are seventy.
Seventy years! as swift their flight
As swallows cleaving the morning light,
Or golden gleams at even.
Life is short as a summer night—
How long, O GOD! is eternity?”

UNSOLVED

’Tis the old unanswered question! Since the stars together sung,
In the glory of the morning, when the earth was fair and young,

Man hath asked it o’er and over, of the heavens so far and high,
And from out the mystic silence never voice hath made reply!

Yet again to-night I ask it, though I know, O friend of mine,
There will come, to all my asking, never answering voice of thine.

Ah! how many times the grasses have grown green above thy grave,
And how many times above it have we heard the cold winds rave!

Thou hast solved the eternal problem that the ages hold in fee;
Thou dost know what we but dream of; where we marvel, thou dost see.

What is truth, and what is fable; what the prophets saw who trod
In their rapt, ecstatic visions up the holy mount of God!

Not of these high themes I question—but, O friend, I fain would know
How beyond the silent river all the long years come and go!

Where they are, our well-belovèd, who have vanished from our sight,
As the stars fade out of heaven at the dawning of the light;

How they live and how they love there, in the “somewhere” of our
dreams;
In the “city lying four-square” by the everlasting streams!

Oh, the mystery of being! Which is better, life or death?
Thou hast tried them both, O comrade, yet thy voice ne’er answereth!

Hast thou grown as grow the angels? Doth thy spirit still aspire
As the flame that soareth upward, mounting higher still, and higher?

In the flush of early manhood all thy earthly days were done;
Short thy struggle and endeavor ere the peace of heaven was won.

But for us who stayed behind thee—oh! our hands are worn with toil,
And upon our souls, it may be, are the stains of earthly moil.

Hast thou kept the lofty beauty and the glory of thy youth?
Dost thou see our temples whitening, smiling softly in thy ruth?

But for us who bear the burdens that you dropped so long ago,
All the cares you have forgotten, and the pains you missed, we know.

Yet—the question still remaineth! Which is better, death or life?
The not doing, or the doing? Joy of calm, or joy of strife?

Which is better—to be saved from temptation and from sin,
Or to wrestle with the dragon and the glorious fight to win?

Ah! we know not, but God knoweth! All resolves itself to this—
That He gave to us the warfare, and to thee the heavenly bliss.

It was best for thee to go hence in the morning of the day;
Till the evening shadows lengthen it is best for us to stay!

QUIETNESS

I would be quiet, Lord,
Nor tease, nor fret;
Not one small need of mine
Wilt Thou forget.

I am not wise to know
What most I need;
I dare not cry too loud
Lest Thou shouldst heed:

Lest Thou at length shouldst say,
“Child, have thy will;
As thou hast chosen, lo!
Thy cup I fill!”

What I most crave, perchance
Thou wilt withhold,
As we from hands unmeet
Keep pearls, or gold;

As we, when childish hands
Would play with fire,
Withhold the burning goal
Of their desire.

Yet choose Thou for me—Thou
Who knowest best;
This one short prayer of mine
Holds all the rest!

THE DIFFERENCE

Only a week ago and thou wert here!
I touched thy hand, I saw thy dear, dark eyes,
I kissed thy tender lips, I felt thee near,
I spake, and listened to thy low replies.

To-day what leagues between us! Hill and vale,
The rolling prairies and the mighty seas;
Gray forest reaches where the wild winds wail,
And mountain crests uplifted to the breeze!

So far thou art, who wert of late so near!
The stars we watched have changed not in the skies;
Still do thy hyacinth bells their beauty wear,
Yet half a continent between us lies!

But swift as thought along the “singing wires”
There flies a message like a bright-winged bird—
“All’s well! All’s well!” and ne’er from woodland choirs
By gladder music hath the air been stirred!

* * * * *

But thou, O thou, who but a week ago
Passed calmly out beyond our yearning gaze,
As some grand ship, all solemnly and slow,
Sails out of sight beyond the gathering haze—

Oh, where art _thou_? In what far distant realm,
What star in yon resplendent fields of light,
On what fair isle that no rude seas may whelm,
Dost thou, O brother, find thy home to-night?

Or art thou near us? There are those who say
That but a breath divides our world from thine;
A little cloud that may be blown away—
A gossamer veil than spider’s web more fine.

Dost thou, a shadowy presence, linger near
The happy paths that thou wert wont to tread,
Where woods were still, and shining brooks ran clear,
And waving boughs arched greenly overhead?

Oh! be thou far or near, it is the same!
From thee there floats no message thro’ the air;
No glad “All’s well” comes to us in thy name
That we the joy of thy new life may share!

MY BIRTHDAY

My birthday!—“How many years ago?
Twenty or thirty?” Don’t ask me!
“Forty or fifty?”—How can I tell?
I do not remember my birth, you see!

It is hearsay evidence—nothing more!
Once on a time, the legends say,
A girl was born—and that girl was I.
How can I vouch for the truth, I pray?

I know I am here, but when I came
Let some one wiser than I am tell!
Did this sweet flower you plucked for me
Know when its bud began to swell?

How old am I? You ought to know
Without any telling of mine, my dear!
For when I came to this happy earth
Were you not waiting for me here?

A dark-eyed boy on the northern hills,
Chasing the hours with flying feet,
Did you not know your wife was born,
By a subtile prescience, faint yet sweet?

Did never a breath from the south-land come,
With sunshine laden and rare perfume,
To lift your hair with a soft caress,
And waken your heart to richer bloom?

Not one? O mystery strange as life!
To think that we who are now so dear
Were once in our dreams so far apart,
Nor cared if the other were far or near!

But—how old am I? You must tell.
Just as old as I seem to you!
Nor shall I a day older be
While life remaineth and love is true!

A RED ROSE

O Rose, my red, red Rose,
Where has thy beauty fled?
Low in the west is a sea of fire,
But the great white moon soars high and higher,
As my garden walks I tread.

Thy white rose-sisters gleam
Like stars in the darkening sky;
They bend their brows with a sudden thrill
To the kiss of the night-dews soft and still,
When the warm south wind floats by.

And the stately lilies stand
Fair in the silvery light,
Like saintly vestals, pale in prayer;
Their pure breath sanctifies the air,
As its fragrance fills the night.

But O, my red, red Rose!
My Rose with the crimson lips!
So bright thou wert in the sunny morn,
Yet now thou art hiding all forlorn,
And thy soul is in drear eclipse!

Dost thou mourn thy lover dead—
Thy lover, the lordly Sun?
Didst thou see him sink in the glowing west
With pomp of banners above his rest?
He shall rise again, sweet one!

He shall rise with his eye of fire—
And thy passionate heart shall beat,
And thy radiant blushes burn again,
With the joy of rapture after pain
At the coming of his feet!

TWENTY-ONE

Grown to man’s stature! O my little child!
My bird that sought the skies so long ago!
My fair, sweet blossom, pure and undefiled,
How have the years flown since we laid thee low!

What have they been to thee? If thou wert here
Standing beside thy brothers, tall and fair,
With bearded lip, and dark eyes shining clear,
And glints of summer sunshine in thy hair,

I should look up into thy face and say,
Wavering, perhaps, between a tear and smile,
“O my sweet son, thou art a man to-day!”—
And thou wouldst stoop to kiss my lips the while.

But—up in heaven—how is it with thee, dear?
Art thou a man—to man’s full stature grown?
Dost thou count time as we do, year by year?
And what of all earth’s changes hast thou known?

Thou hadst not learned to love me. Didst thou take
Any small germ of love to heaven with thee,
That thou hast watched and nurtured for my sake,
Waiting till I its perfect flower may see?

What is it to have lived in heaven always?
To have no memory of pain or sin?
Ne’er to have known in all the calm, bright days,
The jar and fret of earth’s discordant din?

Thy brothers—they are mortal—they must tread
Ofttimes in rough, hard ways, with bleeding feet;
Must fight with dragons, must bewail their dead,
And fierce Apollyon face to face must meet.

I, who would give my very life for theirs,
I cannot save them from earth’s pain or loss;
I cannot shield them from its griefs or cares;
Each human heart must bear alone its cross!

Was God, then, kinder unto thee than them,
O thou whose little life was but a span?—
Ah, think it not! In all his diadem
No star shines brighter than the kingly man,

Who nobly earns whatever crown he wears,
Who grandly conquers, or as grandly dies;
And the white banner of his manhood bears,
Through all the years uplifted to the skies!

What lofty pæans shall the victor greet!
What crown resplendent for his brow be fit!
O child, if earthly life be bitter-sweet,
Hast thou not something missed in missing it?

SINGING IN THE DARK

O ye little warblers, flying fast and far
From the balmy south-land, where the roses are,
Robins red and blue-birds, do ye faint to see
How the chill snow-blossoms whiten shrub and tree?

Through the snowy valley cold the north winds sweep;
Mother earth, half-wakened, turns again to sleep;
Silent lies the river in an icy trance,
And the frozen meadows wait the sun’s hot glance.

Dull and gray the skies are. Soft and blue were those
That so late above you bent at daylight’s close;
Do ye grieve, remembering all the balm and bloom,
All the warmth and sweetness of the starlit gloom?

Do ye sadly wonder what strange impulse drew
All your flashing pinions the far ether through?
Do ye count it madness that so wide ye strayed
From the starry jasmine and the orange shade?

Yet this morn I heard ye singing in the dark,
Songs of such rare sweetness that the world might hark!
O ye blessed minstrels, silent not for pain,
God is in the heavens, and your sun shall shine again!

THOMAS MOORE
MAY 28, 1779-1879

Hush! O be ye silent, all ye birds of May!
Cease the high, clear trilling of your roundelay!
Be the merry minstrels mute in vale, on hill,
And in every tree-top let the song be still!

O ye winds, breathe softly! Let your voices die
In a low, faint whisper, sweet as love’s first sigh;
O ye zephyrs, blowing over beds of flowers,
Be ye still as dews are in the starry hours!

O ye laughing waters, leaping here and there,
Filling with sweet clamor all the summer air,
Can ye not be quiet? Hush, ye mountain streams,
Dancing to glad music from the world of dreams!

And thou, mighty ocean, beating on the shore,
Bid thy angry billows stay their thunderous roar!
O ye waves, lapse softly, in such slumberous calm
As ye know when circling isles of crested palm!

Bells in tower and steeple, be ye mute to-day
As the bell-flowers rocking in the winds of May!
Cease awhile, ye minstrels, though your notes be clear
As the strains that soar in heaven’s high atmosphere!

Earth, bid all thy children hearken—for a voice,
Sweeter than a seraph’s, bids their hearts rejoice;
Floating down the silence of a hundred years,
Lo! its deathless music thrills our listening ears!

’Tis the voice our fathers loved so long ago,
Songs to which they listened warbling clear and low;
Hark, “Ye Disconsolate!” while the minstrel pure
Sings—“Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure!”

Sings of love’s wild rapture triumphing o’er pain,
Glorying in giving, counting loss but gain;
Sings the warrior’s passion and the patriot’s pride,
And the brave, unshrinking, who for glory died—

Sings of Erin smiling through a mist of tears;
Of her patient waiting all the weary years;
Sings the pain of parting, and the joy divine
When the bliss of meeting stirs the heart like wine;

Sings of memories waking in “the stilly night;”
Of the “young dreams” fading in the morning light;
Of the “rose of summer” perishing too soon;
Of the early splendors waning ere the noon!

O thou tender singer! All the air to-day
Trembles with the burden of thy “farewell” lay;
Crowns and thrones may crumble, into darkness hurled,
Yet is song immortal; song shall rule the world!

A LAST WORD

Where will it go to reach thine ears
My father, thou dost wear
Somewhere beyond the stars to-night
Thy crown of silver hair.

Somewhere thou _art_. No wandering ghost
In vast, vague realms of space—
But thine own self, majestic, fair,
In thine appointed place.

By one long look thy soul replied
When last I cried to thee,
As thou wert drifting out of sight
Upon the unknown sea;

And well I know that thou wouldst turn
Even from joys divine,
If but thy listening ears could hear
One faltering word of mine.

Yet, knowing this, I cannot lay
My book upon thy knee,
Saying, “O father, once again
I bring my sheaves to thee!”

SONNETS

THE SONNET