From the bottom keeps jetting, And mermaid ne'er sounded Through the wreaths of a shell, Down amid crimson dulses In some dell of the ocean, A melody sweeter Than the delicate pulses, The soft, noiseless metre, The pause and the swell' Of that musical motion: I recall it, not see it; Could vision be clearer? Half I'm fain to draw nearer Half tempted to flee it; The sleeping Past wake not, Beware!
One forward step take not, Ah! break not That quietude rare! By my step naf!righted A thrush hops before it, And o'er it
A birch hangs delighted,
It shapes as it pleases, Unharmed by the breezes, Its fine hanging gardens? Hast those in thy keeping, And canst not uncover, Enchantedly sleeping, The old shade of thy lover? It is there! I have found it! He wakes, the long sleeper! The pool is grown deeper, The sand dance is ending, The white floor sinks, blending With skies that below me Are deepening and bending, And a child's face alone That seems not to know me, With hair that fades golden In the heaven-glow round it, Looks up at my own; Ah, glipse through the portal That leads to the throne, That opes the child's olden Regions Elysian !
Dipping, dipping, dipping its tremu- Ah, too holy vision
For thy skirts to be holden By soiled hand of mortal! It wavers, it scatters, 'T is gone past recalling! A tear's sudden falling The magic cup shatters, Breaks the spell of the waters,
And the sand cone once more,
With a ceaseless renewing,
Its dance is pursuing
On the silvery floor,
O'er and o'er,
With a noiseless and ceaseless renewing.
'T is a woodland enchanted! If you ask me, Where is it?
I only can answer, 'Tis past my disclosing; Not to choice is it granted By sure paths to visit The still pool enclosing Its blithe little dancer; But in some day, the rarest Of many Septembers, When the pulses of air rest, And all things lie dreaming In drowsy haze steaming From the wood's glowing embers, Then, sometimes, unheeding, And asking not whither, By a sweet inward leading
My feet are drawn thither,
And, looking with awe in the magical mirror,
I see through my tears, Half doubtful of seeing, The face unperverted, The warm golden being Of a child of five years;
And spite of the mists and the error, And the days overcast,
Can feel that I walk undeserted, But forever attended
By the glad heavens that bended O'er the innocent past; Toward fancy or truth
Doth the sweet vision win me? Dare I think that I cast In the fountain of youth The fleeting reflection Of some bygone perfection That still lingers in me?
THE DARKENED MIND.
THE fire is burning clear and blithely, Pleasantly whistles the winter wind; We are about thee, thy friends and kindred,
On us all flickers the firelight kind; There thou sitt'st in thy wonted corner Lone and awful in thy darkened mind.
There thou sitt'st; now and then thou moanest;
Thou dost talk with what we cannot see, Lookest at us with an eye so doubtful, It doth put us very far from thee; There thou sittest; we would fain be nigh thee,
But we know that it can never be.
We can touch thee, still we are no nearer;
Gather round thee, still thou art alone; The wide chasm of reason is between us; Thou confutest kindness with a moan; We can speak to thee, and thou canst
Like two prisoners through a wall of
WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID. A WINTER-EVENING HYMN. 363
Where those are who love thee all so well;
Not so much of thee is left among us As the hum outliving the hushed bell.
RABBI JEHOSHA used to say That God made angels every day, Perfect as Michael and the rest First brooded in creation's nest, Whose only office was to cry Hosanna! once, and then to die; Or rather, with Life's essence blent, To be led home from banishment.
Rabbi Jehosha had the skill To know that Heaven is in God's will; And doing that, though for a space One heart-beat long, may win a grace As full of grandeur and of glow As Princes of the Chariot know.
'T were glorious, no doubt, to be One of the strong-winged Hierarchy, To burn with Seraphs, or to shine With Cherubs, deathlessly divine; Yet I, perhaps, poor earthly clod, Could I forget myself in God, Could I but find my nature's clew Simply as birds and blossoms do, And but for one rapt moment know 'Tis Heaven must come, not we must go, Should win my place as near the throne As the pearl-angel of its zone, And God would listen mid the throng For my one breath of perfect song,
That, in its simple human way,
Said all the Host of Heaven could say.
A WINTER-EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE.
To serve in Vulcan's clangorous smithy Prometheus (primal Yankee) found, And, when he had tampered with thee, (Too confiding little maid !) In a reed's precarious hollow To our frozen earth conveyed: For he swore I know not what; Endless ease should be thy lot, Pleasure that should never falter, Lifelong play, and not a duty Save to hover o'er the altar, Vision of celestial beauty,
Fed with precious woods and spices; Then, perfidious! having got Thee in the net of his devices, Sold thee into endless slavery, Made thee a drudge to boil the pot, Thee, Helios' daughter, who dost bear His likeness in thy golden hair; Thee, by nature wild and wavery, Palpitating, evanescent
As the shade of Dian's crescent, Life, motion, gladness, everywhere!
Fathom deep men bury thee In the furnace dark and still, There, with dreariest mockery, Making thee eat, against thy will, Blackest Pennsylvanian stone; But thou dost avenge thy doom, For, from out thy catacomb, Day and night thy wrath is blown In a withering simoom, And, adown that cavern drear, Thy black pitfall in the floor, Staggers the lusty antique cheer, Despairing, and is seen no more!
Elfish I may rightly name thee; We enslave, but cannot tame thee; With fierce snatches, now and then, Thou pluckest at thy right again, And thy down-trod instincts savage To stealthy insurrection creep, While thy wittol masters sleep, And burst in undiscerning ravage: Then how thou shak'st thy bacchant locks!
While brazen pulses, far and near, Throb thick and thicker, wild with fear And dread conjecture, till the drear Disordered clangor every steeple rocks!
But when we make a friend of thee,
And admit thee to the hall On our nights of festival,
Then, Cinderella, who could see In thee the kitchen's stunted thrall? Once more a Princess lithe and tall, Thou dancest with a whispering tread, While the bright marvel of thy head In crinkling gold floats all abroad, And gloriously dost vindicate The legend of thy lineage great, Earth-exiled daughter of the Pythian god!
Now in the ample chimney-place, To honor thy acknowledged race, We crown thee high with laurel good, Thy shining father's sacred wood, Which, guessing thy ancestral right, Sparkles and his dumb delight, snaps And, at thy touch, poor outcast one, Feels through his gladdened fibres go The tingle and thrill and vassal glow Of instincts loyal to the sun.
O thou of home the guardian Lar, And, when our earth hath wandered far Into the cold, and deep snow covers The walks of our New England lovers, Their sweet secluded evening-star! 'T was with thy rays the English Muse Ripened her mild domestic hues ; 'T was by thy flicker that she conned The fireside wisdom that enrings With light from heaven familiar things; By thee she found the homely faith In whose mild eyes thy comfort stay’th, When Death, extinguishing his torch, Gropes for the latch-string in the porch; The love that wanders not beyond His earliest nest, but sits and sings While children smooth his patient wings;
Therefore with thee I love to read Our brave old poets: at thy touch how stirs
Life in the withered words! how swift recede
Time's shadows! and how glows again Through its dead mass the incandescent
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