Poems of James Russell Lowell Part 17

She is a woman: one in whom The spring-time of her childish years Hath never lost its fresh perfume, Though knowing well that life hath room For many blights and many tears.

IX.

I love her with a love as still As a broad river's peaceful might, Which, by high tower and lowly mill, Goes wandering at its own will, And yet doth ever flow aright.

X.

And, on its full, deep breast serene, Like quiet isles my duties lie; It flows around them and between, And makes them fresh and fair and green, Sweet homes wherein to live and die.

1840.

SUMMER STORM.

Untremulous in the river clear, Toward the sky's image, hangs the imaged bridge So still the air that I can hear The slender clarion of the unseen midge; Out of the stillness, with a gathering creep, Like rising wind in leaves, which now decreases, Now lulls, now swells, and all the while increases, The huddling trample of a drove of sheep Tilts the loose planks, and then as gradually ceases In dust on the other side; life's emblem deep, A confused noise between two silences, Finding at last in dust precarious peace.

On the wide marsh the purple-blossomed gra.s.ses Soak up the suns.h.i.+ne; sleeps the br.i.m.m.i.n.g tide Save when the wedge-shaped wake in silence pa.s.ses Of some slow water-rat, whose sinuous glide Wavers the long green sedge's shade from side to side; But up the west, like a rock-s.h.i.+vered surge, Climbs a great cloud edged with sun-whitened spray; Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o'er its verge, And falling still it seems, and yet it climbs alway.

Suddenly all the sky is hid As with the shutting of a lid, One by one great drops are falling Doubtful and slow, Down the pane they are crookedly crawling, And the wind breathes low; Slowly the circles widen on the river, Widen and mingle, one and all; Here and there the slenderer flowers s.h.i.+ver, Struck by an icy rain-drop's fall.

Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter, The wind is gathering in the west; The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter, Then droop to a fitful rest; Up from the stream with sluggish flap Struggles the gull and floats away; Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap,-- We shall not see the sun go down to-day: Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh, And tramples the gra.s.s with terrified feet, The startled river turns leaden and harsh.

You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat.

Look! look! that livid flas.h.!.+

And instantly follows the rattling thunder, As if some cloud-crag, split asunder, Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash, On the Earth, which crouches in silence under; And now a solid gray wall of rain Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile; For a breath's s.p.a.ce I see the blue wood again, And, ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof, Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof; Against the windows the storm comes das.h.i.+ng, Through tattered foliage the hail tears cras.h.i.+ng, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes, The white waves are tumbling, And, in one baffled roar, Like the toothless sea mumbling A rock-bristled sh.o.r.e, The thunder is rumbling And cras.h.i.+ng and crumbling,-- Will silence return never more?

Hus.h.!.+ Still as death, The tempest holds his breath As from a sudden will; The rain stops short, but from the eaves You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves, All is so bodingly still; Again, now, now, again Plashes the rain in heavy gouts, The crinkled lightning Seems ever brightening, And loud and long Again the thunder shouts His battle-song,-- One quivering flash, One wildering crash, Followed by silence dead and dull, As if the cloud, let go, Leapt bodily below To whelm the earth in one mad overthrow, And then a total lull.

Gone, gone, so soon!

No more my half-crazed fancy there Can shape a giant in the air, No more I see his streaming hair, The writhing portent of his form;-- The pale and quiet moon Makes her calm forehead bare, And the last fragments of the storm, Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, Silent and few, are drifting over me.

1839.

LOVE.

True Love is but a humble, low-born thing, And hath its food served up in earthen ware; It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, Through the everydayness of this work-day world, Baring its tender feet to every roughness, Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray From Beauty's law of plainness and content.

A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home; Which, when our autumn cometh, as it must, And life in the chill wind s.h.i.+vers bare and leafless, Shall still be blest with Indian-summer youth In bleak November, and, with thankful heart, Smile on its ample stores of garnered fruit, As full of suns.h.i.+ne to our aged eyes As when it nursed the blossoms of our spring.

Such is true Love, which steals into the heart With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark, And hath its will through blissful gentleness,-- Not like a rocket, which, with savage glare, Whirrs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes; A love that gives and takes, that seeth faults, Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle points, But loving-kindly ever looks them down With the o'ercoming faith of meek forgiveness; A love that shall be new and fresh each hour, As is the golden mystery of sunset, Or the sweet coming of the evening star, Alike, and yet most unlike, every day, And seeming ever best and fairest _now_; A love that doth not kneel for what it seeks, But faces Truth and Beauty as their peer, Showing its worthiness of n.o.ble thoughts By a clear sense of inward n.o.bleness; A love that in its object findeth not All grace and beauty, and enough to sate Its thirst of blessing, but, in all of good Found there, it sees but Heaven-granted types Of good and beauty in the soul of man, And traces, in the simplest heart that beats, A family-likeness to its chosen one, That claims of it the rights of brotherhood.

For love is blind but with the fleshly eye, That so its inner sight may be more clear; And outward shows of beauty only so Are needful at the first, as is a hand To guide and to uphold an infant's steps: Great spirits need them not: their earnest look Pierces the body's mask of thin disguise, And beauty ever is to them revealed, Behind the unshapeliest, meanest lump of clay, With arms outstretched and eager face ablaze, Yearning to be but understood and loved.

1840.

TO PERDITA, SINGING.

Thy voice is like a fountain, Leaping up in clear moons.h.i.+ne; Silver, silver, ever mounting, Ever sinking, Without thinking, To that brimful heart of thine.

Every sad and happy feeling, Thou hast had in bygone years, Through thy lips come stealing, stealing, Clear and low; All thy smiles and all thy tears In thy voice awaken, And sweetness, wove of joy and woe, From their teaching it hath taken Feeling and music move together, Like a swan and shadow ever Heaving on a sky-blue river In a day of cloudless weather.

It hath caught a touch of sadness, Yet it is not sad; It hath tones of clearest gladness, Yet it is not glad; A dim, sweet, twilight voice it is Where to-day's accustomed blue Is over-grayed with memories, With starry feelings quivered through.

Thy voice is like a fountain Leaping up in suns.h.i.+ne bright, And I never weary counting Its clear droppings, lone and single, Or when in one full gush they mingle, Shooting in melodious light.

Thine is music such as yields Feelings of old brooks and fields, And, around this pent-up room, Sheds a woodland, free perfume; O, thus forever sing to me!

O, thus forever!

The green, bright gra.s.s of childhood bring to me, Flowing like an emerald river, And the bright blue skies above!

O, sing them back, as fresh as ever, Into the bosom of my love,-- The suns.h.i.+ne and the merriment, The unsought, evergreen content, Of that never cold time, The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went Through and through the old time!

Peace sits within thine eyes, With white hands crossed in joyful rest, While, through thy lips and face, arise The melodies from out thy breast; She sits and sings, With folded wings And white arms crost, "Weep not for pa.s.sed things, They are not lost: The beauty which the summer time O'er thine opening spirit shed, The forest oracles sublime That filled thy soul with joyous dread, The scent of every smallest flower That made thy heart sweet for an hour,-- Yea, every holy influence, Flowing to thee, thou knewest not whence, In thine eyes to-day is seen, Fresh as it hath ever been; Promptings of Nature, beckonings sweet, Whatever led thy childish feet, Still will linger unawares The guiders of thy silver hairs; Every look and every word Which thou givest forth to-day, Tell of the singing of the bird Whose music stilled thy boyish play."

Thy voice is like a fountain, Twinkling up in sharp starlight, When the moon behind the mountain Dims the low East with faintest white, Ever darkling, Ever sparkling, We know not if 'tis dark or bright; But, when the great moon hath rolled round, And, sudden-slow, its solemn power Grows from behind its black, clear-edged bound, No spot of dark the fountain keepeth, But, swift as opening eyelids, leapeth Into a waving silver flower.

1841.

THE MOON.

My soul was like the sea, Before the moon was made, Moaning in vague immensity, Of its own strength afraid, Unrestful and unstaid.

Through every rift it foamed in vain, About its earthly prison, Seeking some unknown thing in pain, And sinking restless back again, For yet no moon had risen: Its only voice a vast dumb moan, Of utterless anguish speaking, It lay unhopefully alone, And lived but in an aimless seeking.

So was my soul; but when'twas full Of unrest to o'erloading, A voice of something beautiful Whispered a dim foreboding, And yet so soft, so sweet, so low, It had not more of joy than woe; And, as the sea doth oft lie still, Making its waters meet, As if by an unconscious will, For the moon's silver feet, So lay my soul within mine eyes When thou, its guardian moon, didst rise.

And now, howe'er its waves above May toss and seem uneaseful, One strong, eternal law of Love, With guidance sure and peaceful, As calm and natural as breath, Moves its great deeps through life and death.

REMEMBERED MUSIC.

A FRAGMENT.

Thick-rus.h.i.+ng, like an ocean vast Of bisons the far prairie shaking, The notes crowd heavily and fast As surfs, one plunging while the last Draws seaward from its foamy breaking.