Glorious fountain! Fresh, changeful, constant, ODE. I In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder, The outward shell and skin of daily life. Than the world's seeming loss could take away. To know the heart of all things was his duty, All things did sing to him to make him wise, And, with a sorrowful and conquering beauty, The soul of all looked grandly from his eyes. He gazed on all within him and without him, He watched the flowing of Time's steady tide, And shapes of glory floated all about him And whispered to him, and he prophesied. Than all men he more fearless was and freer, And all his brethren cried with one accord,Behold the holy man! Behold the Seer! Him who hath spoken with the unseen Lord!' He to his heart with large embrace had taken The universal sorrow of mankind, And, from that root, a shelter never shaken, The tree of wisdom grew with sturdy rind. He could interpret well the wondrous voices Which to the calm and silent spirit come; He knew that the One Soul no more rejoices In the star's anthem than the insect's hum. He in his heart was ever meek and humble, And yet with kingly pomp his numbers ran, As he foresaw how all things false should crumble Before the free, uplifted soul of man: And, when he was made full to overflowing With all the loveliness of heaven and earth, Out rushed his song, like molten iron glowing, To show God sitting by the humblest hearth. With calmest courage he was ever ready To teach that action was the truth of thought, And, with strong arm and purpose firm and steady, An anchor for the drifting world he wrought. So did he make the meanest man partaker Of all his brother-gods unto him gave; All souls did reverence him and name him Maker, II But now the Poet is an empty rhymer For he unmakes who doth not all put forth To show the body's dross, the spirit's worth. Awake! great spirit of the ages olden ! Disperse the mists that hide thy starry lyre, And let man's soul be yet again beholden To thee for wings to soar to her desire. O, prophesy no more to-morrow's splendour, Be no more shame-faced to speak out for Truth, Lay on her altar all the gushings tender, The hope, the fire, the loving faith of youth! O, prophesy no more the Maker's coming, Say not his onward footsteps thou canst hear In the dim void, like to the awful humming Of the great wings of some new-lighted sphere! O, prophesy no more, but be the Poet! This longing was but granted unto thee That, when all beauty thou couldst feel and know it, That beauty in its highest thou couldst be. O, thou who moanest tost with sealike longings, The old free nature is not chained or dead, What made thy great forerunners free and wise: Sit thou enthroned where the Poet's mountain Above the thunder lifts its silent peak, And roll thy songs down like a gathering fountain, III Among the toil-worn poor my soul is seeking He who would be the tongue of this wide land Who not with body's waste his soul hath pampered, Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy summit, Who doth not sound God's sea with earthly plummet, And find a bottom still of worthless clay; Who heeds not how the lower gusts are working, One God-built shrine of reverence and love; Where the encircling soul serene o'erarches The moving globe of being like a sky; Who feels that God and Heaven's great deeps are nearer Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh, Who doth not hold his soul's own freedom dearer Than that of all his brethren, low or high; Who to the Right can feel himself the truer For being gently patient with the Wrong, Who sees a brother in the evildoer, And finds in Love the heart's blood of his song;- His verse shall have a great, commanding motion, And all the pure, majestic things that be. We are of far too infinite an essence To rest contented with the lies of Time. Speak out! and, lo! a hush of deepest wonder Shall sink o'er all this many-voiced scene, As when a sudden burst of rattling thunder Shatters the blueness of a sky serene. THE FATHERLAND. WHERE is the true man's fatherland? 1841. Is it alone where freedom is, Where God is God and man is man? Doth he not claim a broader span For the soul's love of home than this? O, yes! his fatherland must be As the blue heaven wide and free! Where'er a human heart doth wear There is the true man's birthplace grand, Where'er a single slave doth pine, Where'er one man may help another,- That spot of earth is thine and mine! THE FORLORN. THE night is dark, the stinging sleet, Her tattered cloak more tightly draws. Though faint with hunger and disease. The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare, And, piercing through her garments thin, Beats on her shrunken breast, and there Makes colder the cold heart within. She lingers where a ruddy glow Streams outward through an open shutter, |