How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps The disembodied spirits of the dead,When all of thee that time could wither sleeps And perishes among the dust we tread?
For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain If there I meet thy gentle presence not;Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.
Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given?My name on earth was ever in thy prayer, Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven?
In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind, In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,And larger movements of the unfettered mind, Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?
The love that lived through all the stormy past, And meekly with my harsher nature bore,And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last, Shall it expire with life, and be no more?
A happier lot than mine, and larger light, Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy willIn cheerful homage to the rule of right, And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.
For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell, Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll;And wrath has left its scar—that fire of hell Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.
Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky, Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye, Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?
Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home, The wisdom that I learned so ill in this--The wisdom which is love—till I become Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?
THE DEATH OF SCHILLER.°
'Tis said, when Schiller's death drew nigh,The wish possessed his mighty mind,To wander forth wherever lieThe homes and haunts of human-kind.
Then strayed the poet, in his dreams,By Rome and Egypt's ancient graves;Went up the New World's forest streams,Stood in the Hindoo's temple-caves;
Walked with the Pawnee, fierce and stark,The sallow Tartar, midst his herds,The peering Chinese, and the darkFalse Malay uttering gentle words.
How could he rest? even then he trodThe threshold of the world unknown;Already, from the seat of God,A ray upon his garments shone;--
Shone and awoke the strong desireFor love and knowledge reached not here,Till, freed by death, his soul of fireSprang to a fairer, ampler sphere.
Then—who shall tell how deep, how brightThe abyss of glory opened round?How thought and feeling flowed like light,Through ranks of being without bound?
THE FOUNTAIN.°
Fountain, that springest on this grassy slope,Thy quick cool murmur mingles pleasantly,With the cool sound of breezes in the beach,Above me in the noontide. Thou dost wearNo stain of thy dark birthplace; gushing upFrom the red mould and slimy roots of earth,Thou flashest in the sun. The mountain air,In winter, is not clearer, nor the dewThat shines on mountain blossom. Thus doth GodBring, from the dark and foul, the pure and bright.
This tangled thicket on the bank aboveThy basin, how thy waters keep it green!For thou dost feed the roots of the wild vineThat trails all over it, and to the twigsTies fast her clusters. There the spice-bush liftsHer leafy lances; the viburnum there,Paler of foliage, to the sun holds upHer circlet of green berries. In and outThe chipping sparrow, in her coat of brown,Steals silently, lest I should mark her nest.
Not such thou wert of yore, ere yet the axeHad smitten the old woods. Then hoary trunksOf oak, and plane, and hickory, o'er thee heldA mighty canopy. When April windsGrew soft, the maple burst into a flushOf scarlet flowers. The tulip-tree, high up,Opened, in airs of June, her multitudeOf golden chalices to humming-birdsAnd silken-winged insects of the sky.
Frail wood-plants clustered round thy edge in Spring.The liverleaf put forth her sister bloomsOf faintest blue. Here the quick-footed wolf,Passing to lap thy waters, crushed the flowerOf sanguinaria, from whose brittle stemThe red drops fell like blood. The deer, too, leftHer delicate foot-print in the soft moist mould,And on the fallen leaves. The slow-paced bear,In such a sultry summer noon as this,Stopped at thy stream, and drank, and leaped across.
But thou hast histories that stir the heartWith deeper feeling; while I look on theeThey rise before me. I behold the sceneHoary again with forests; I beholdThe Indian warrior, whom a hand unseenHas smitten with his death-wound in the woods,Creep slowly to thy well-known rivulet,And slake his death-thirst. Hark, that quick fierce cryThat rends the utter silence; 'tis the whoopOf battle, and a throng of savage menWith naked arms and faces stained like blood,Fill the green wilderness; the long bare armsAre heaved aloft, bows twang and arrows stream;Each makes a tree his shield, and every treeSends forth its arrow. Fierce the fight and short,As is the whirlwind. Soon the conquerorsAnd conquered vanish, and the dead remainMangled by tomahawks. The mighty woodsAre still again, the frighted bird comes backAnd plumes her wings; but thy sweet waters runCrimson with blood. Then, as the sun goes down,Amid the deepening twilight I descryFigures of men that crouch and creep unheard,And bear away the dead. The next day's showerShall wash the tokens of the fight away.
I look again—a hunter's lodge is built,With poles and boughs, beside thy crystal well,While the meek autumn stains the woods with gold,And sheds his golden sunshine. To the doorThe red man slowly drags the enormous bearSlain in the chestnut thicket, or flings downThe deer from his strong shoulders. Shaggy fellsOf wolf and cougar hang upon the walls,And loud the black-eyed Indian maidens laugh,That gather, from the rustling heaps of leaves,The hickory's white nuts, and the dark fruitThat falls from the gray butternut's long boughs.
So centuries passed by, and still the woodsBlossomed in spring, and reddened when the yearGrew chill, and glistened in the frozen rainsOf winter, till the white man swung the axeBeside thee—signal of a mighty change.Then all around was heard the crash of trees,Trembling awhile and rushing to the ground,The low of ox, and shouts of men who firedThe brushwood, or who tore the earth with ploughs.The grain sprang thick and tall, and hid in greenThe blackened hill-side; ranks of spiky maizeRose like a host embattled; the buckwheatWhitened broad acres, sweetening with its flowersThe August wind. White cottages were seenWith rose-trees at the windows; barns from whichCame loud and shrill the crowing of the cock;Pastures where rolled and neighed the lordly horse,And white flocks browsed and bleated. A rich turfOf grasses brought from far o'ercrept thy bank,Spotted with the white clover. Blue-eyed girlsBrought pails, and dipped them in thy crystal pool;And children, ruddy-cheeked and flaxen-haired,Gathered the glistening cowslip from thy edge.
Since then, what steps have trod thy border! HereOn thy green bank, the woodmann of the swampHas laid his axe, the reaper of the hillHis sickle, as they stooped to taste thy stream.The sportsman, tired with wandering in the stillSeptember noon, has bathed his heated browIn thy cool current. Shouting boys, let looseFor a wild holiday, have quaintly shapedInto a cup the folded linden leaf,And dipped thy sliding crystal. From the warsReturning, the plumed soldier by thy sideHas sat, and mused how pleasant 'twere to dwellIn such a spot, and be as free as thou,And move for no man's bidding more. At eve,When thou wert crimson with the crimson sky,Lovers have gazed upon thee, and have thoughtTheir mingled lives should flow as peacefullyAnd brightly as thy waters. Here the sage,Gazing into thy self-replenished depth,Has seen eternal order circumscribeAnd bind the motions of eternal change,And from the gushing of thy simple fountHas reasoned to the mighty universe.
Is there no other change for thee, that lurksAmong the future ages? Will not manSeek out strange arts to wither and deformThe pleasant landscape which thou makest green?Or shall the veins that feed thy constant streamBe choked in middle earth, and flow no moreFor ever, that the water-plants alongThy channel perish, and the bird in vainAlight to drink? Haply shall these green hillsSink, with the lapse of years, into the gulfOf ocean waters, and thy source be lostAmidst the bitter brine? Or shall they rise,Upheaved in broken cliffs and airy peaks,Haunts of the eagle and the snake, and thouGush midway from the bare and barren steep?