A phantom in the night thy confidant for once,) OF THAT BLITHE THROAT OF THINE More than eighty-three degrees north about a good day's steaming distance to the Pole by one of our fast oceaners in clear water Greely the explorer heard the song of a single snow-bird merrily sounding over the desolation. Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank, I'll mind the lesson, solitary bird - let me too welcome chilling drifts, E'en the profoundest chill, as nowa torpid pulse, a brain unnerv'd, Old age land-lock'd within its winter bay (cold, cold, O cold!) These snowy hairs, my feeble arm, my frozen feet, For them thy faith, thy rule I take, and grave it to the last; Not summer's zones alone. not chants of youth, or south's warm tides alone, But held by sluggish floes, pack'd in the northern ice, the cumulus of years, These with gay heart I also sing. THE UNITED STATES TO OLD WORLD CRITICS Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the concrete, Wealth, order, travel, shelter, products, plenty; As of the building of some varied, vast, perpetual edifice, Whence to arise inevitable in time, the towering roofs, the lamps, The solid-planted spires tall shooting to the stars. THE VOICE OF THE RAIN And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower, Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated: I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain, less sea, Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form'd, altogether changed, and yet the same, I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe, And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn; And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin, and make pure and beautify it : (For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering, Reck'd or unreck'd, duly with love returns.) SOON SHALL THE WINTER'S FOIL BE HERE Soon shall the winter's foil be here; Soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt — A little while, And air, soil, wave, suffused shall be in softness, bloom and growth a thousand forms shall rise From these dead clods and chills as from low burial graves. Thine eyes, ears — all thy best attributes — all that takes cognizance of natural beauty, Shall wake and fill. Thou shalt perceive the simple shows, the delicate miracles of earth, Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and flowers, The arbutus under foot, the willow's yellow-green, the blossoming plum and cherry; With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs -the flitting bluebird; For such the scenes the annual play brings on. A PRAIRIE SUNSET Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn, The earth's whole amplitude and Nature's multiform power consign'd for once to colors; The light, the general air possess'd by them now unknown, colors till No limit, confine-not the Western sky alone - the high meridian North, South, all, Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last. TWILIGHT The soft voluptuous opiate shades, The sun just gone, the eager light dispell'd (I too will soon be gone, dispell'd) A haze nirwana rest and night oblivion. THE DISMANTLED SHIP In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay, On sluggish, lonesome waters, anchor'd near the shore, Lies rusting, mouldering. AFTER THE SUPPER AND TALK After the supper and talk — after the day is done, As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging, Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating, (So hard for his hand to release those hands will they meet, no more No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young, A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,) Shunning, postponing severance-seeking to ward off the last word ever so little, E'en at the exit-door turning-charges superfluous calling back-e'en as he descends the steps, Something to eke out a minute additional-shadows of nightfall deepening, Farewells, message lessening-dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form, Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness-loth, O so loth to depart! Garrulous to the very last. GOOD-BYE MY FANCY TO THE SUN-SET BREEZE Ah, whispering, something again, unseen, Where late this heated day thou enterest at my window, door, Thou, laving, tempering all, cool-freshing, gently vitalizing Me, old, alone, sick, weak-down, melted-worn with sweat; Thou, nestling, folding close and firm yet soft, companion better than talk, book, art, (Thou hast, O Nature! elements! utterance to my heart beyond the rest-and this is of them,) So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within thy soothing fingers on my face and hands, Thou, messenger-magical strange bringer to body and spirit of me, (Distances balk'd-occult medicines penetrating me from head to foot,) I feel the sky, the prairies vast I feel the mighty northern lakes, I feel the ocean and the forest itself swift-swimming in space; somehow I feel the globe Thou blown from lips so loved, now gone - haply from endless store, God-sent, (For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my sense,) Minister to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told, and cannot tell, Art thou not universal concrete's distillation? Law's, all Astronomy's last refinement? Hast thou no soul? Can I not know, identify thee? WHEN THE FULL-GROWN POET CAME When the full-grown poet came, Out spake pleased Nature (the round impassive globe, with all its shows of day and night,) saying, He is mine; But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unreconciled, Nay, he is mine alone; Then the full-grown poet stood between the two, and took each by the hand; And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly holding hands, Which he will never release until he reconciles the two, And wholly and joyously blends them. A PERSIAN LESSON For his o'erarching and last lesson the greybeard sufi, Under an ancient chestnut-tree wide spreading its branches, "Finally my children, to envelop each word, each part of the rest, Allah is all, all, all—is immanent in every life and object, "Has the estray wander'd far? Is the reason-why strangely hidden ? Would you sound below the restless ocean of the entire world? Would you know the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur of every life; The something never still'd never entirely gone? the invisible need of every seed? "It is the central urge in every atom, (Often unconscious, often evil, downfallen,) To return to its divine source and origin, however distant, Latent the same in subject and in object, without one exception." |