Poems of James Russell Lowell Part 37

TO THE DANDELION.

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they An Eldorado in the gra.s.s have found, Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth,--thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; 'Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, Though most hearts never understand To take it at G.o.d's value, but pa.s.s by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; The eyes thou givest me Are in the heart, and heed not s.p.a.ce or time: Not in mid June the golden-cuira.s.sed bee Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment In the white lily's breezy tent, His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.

Then think I of deep shadows on the gra.s.s,-- Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, Where, as the breezes pa.s.s, The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,-- Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy ma.s.s, Or whiten in the wind,--of waters blue That from the distance sparkle through Some woodland gap,--and of a sky above, Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, Who, from the dark old tree Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, And I, secure in childish piety, Listened as if I heard an angel sing With news from heaven, which he could bring Fresh every day to my untainted ears, When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!

Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show Did we but pay the love we owe, And with a child's undoubting wisdom look On all these living pages of G.o.d's book.

THE GHOST-SEER.

Ye who, pa.s.sing graves by night, Glance not to the left or right, Lest a spirit should arise, Cold and white, to freeze your eyes, Some weak phantom, which your doubt Shapes upon the dark without From the dark within, a guess At the spirit's deathlessness, Which ye entertain with fear In your self-built dungeon here, Where ye sell your G.o.d-given lives Just for gold to buy you gyves,-- Ye without a shudder meet In the city's noonday street, Spirits sadder and more dread Than from out the clay have fled, Buried, beyond hope of light, In the body's haunted night!

See ye not that woman pale?

There are bloodhounds on her trail!

Bloodhounds two, all gaunt and lean,-- For the soul their scent is keen,-- Want and Sin, and Sin is last,-- They have followed far and fast, Want gave tongue, and, at her howl, Sin awakened with a growl.

Ah, poor girl! she had a right To a blessing from the light, t.i.tle-deeds to sky and earth G.o.d gave to her at her birth, But, before they were enjoyed, Poverty had made them void, And had drunk the suns.h.i.+ne up From all nature's ample cup, Leaving her a first-born's share In the dregs of darkness there.

Often, on the sidewalk bleak, Hungry, all alone, and weak, She has seen, in night and storm, Rooms o'erflow with firelight warm, Which, outside the window-gla.s.s, Doubled all the cold, alas!

Till each ray that on her fell Stabbed her like an icicle, And she almost loved the wail Of the bloodhounds on her trail.

Till the floor becomes her bier, She shall feel their pantings near, Close upon her very heels, Spite of all the din of wheels; s.h.i.+vering on her pallet poor, She shall hear them at the door Whine and scratch to be let in, Sister bloodhounds, Want and Sin!

Hark! that rustle of a dress, Stiff with lavish costliness!

Here comes one whose cheek would flush But to have her garment brush 'Gainst the girl whose fingers thin Wove the weary broidery in, Bending backward from her toil, Lest her tears the silk might soil, And, in midnight's chill and murk, St.i.tched her life into the work, Shaping from her bitter thought Heart's-ease and forget-me-not, Satirizing her despair With the emblems woven there.

Little doth the wearer heed Of the heart-break in the brede; A hyena by her side Skulks, down-looking,--it is Pride.

He digs for her in the earth, Where lie all her claims of birth, With his foul paws rooting o'er Some long-buried ancestor, Who, perhaps, a statue won By the ill deeds he had done, By the innocent blood he shed, By the desolation spread Over happy villages, Blotting out the smile of peace.

There walks Judas, he who sold Yesterday his Lord for gold, Sold G.o.d's presence in his heart For a proud step in the mart; He hath dealt in flesh and blood,-- At the bank his name is good, At the bank, and only there, 'Tis a marketable ware.

In his eyes that stealthy gleam Was not learned of sky or stream, But it has the cold, hard glint Of new dollars from the mint.

Open now your spirit's eyes, Look through that poor clay disguise Which has thickened, day by day, Till it keeps all light at bay, And his soul in pitchy gloom Gropes about its narrow tomb, From whose dank and slimy walls Drop by drop the horror falls.

Look! a serpent lank and cold Hugs his spirit fold on fold; From his heart, all day and night, It doth suck G.o.d's blessed light.

Drink it will, and drink it must, Till the cup holds naught but dust; All day long he hears it hiss, Writhing in its fiendish bliss; All night long he sees its eyes Flicker with foul ecstasies, As the spirit ebbs away Into the absorbing clay.

Who is he that skulks, afraid Of the trust he has betrayed, Shuddering if perchance a gleam Of old n.o.bleness should stream Through the pent, unwholesome room, Where his shrunk soul cowers in gloom,-- Spirit sad beyond the rest By more instinct for the best?

'Tis a poet who was sent For a bad world's punishment, By compelling it to see Golden glimpses of To Be, By compelling it to hear Songs that prove the angels near; Who was sent to be the tongue Of the weak and spirit-wrung, Whence the fiery-winged Despair In men's shrinking eyes might flare.

'Tis our hope doth fas.h.i.+on us To base use or glorious: He who might have been a lark Of Truth's morning, from the dark Raining down melodious hope Of a freer, broader scope, Aspirations, prophecies, Of the spirit's full sunrise, Chose to be a bird of night, Which with eyes refusing light, Hooted from some hollow tree Of the world's idolatry.

'Tis his punishment to hear Flutterings of pinions near, And his own vain wings to feel Drooping downward to his heel, All their grace and import lost, Burdening his weary ghost: Ever walking by his side He must see his angel guide, Who at intervals doth turn Looks on him so sadly stern, With such ever-new surprise Of hushed anguish in her eyes, That it seems the light of day From around him shrinks away, Or drops blunted from the wall Built around him by his fall.

Then the mountains, whose white peaks Catch the morning's earliest streaks, He must see, where prophets sit, Turning east their faces lit, Whence, with footsteps beautiful, To the earth, yet dim and dull, They the gladsome tidings bring, Of the sunlight's hastening: Never can those hills of bliss Be o'erclimbed by feet like his!

But enough! O, do not dare From the next the veil to tear, Woven of station, trade, or dress, More obscene than nakedness, Wherewith plausible culture drapes Fallen Nature's myriad shapes!

Let us rather love to mark How the unextinguished spark Will s.h.i.+ne through the thin disguise Of our customs, pomps, and lies, And, not seldom blown to flame, Vindicate its ancient claim.

1844.

STUDIES FOR TWO HEADS.

I.

Some sort of heart I know is hers,-- I chanced to feel her pulse one night; A brain she has that never errs, And yet is never n.o.bly right; It does not leap to great results, But in some corner out of sight, Suspects a spot of latent blight, And, o'er the impatient infinite, She bargains, haggles, and consults.

Her eye,--it seems a chemic test And drops upon you like an acid; It bites you with unconscious zest, So clear and bright, so coldly placid; It holds you quietly aloof, It holds,--and yet it does not win you; It merely puts you to the proof And sorts what qualities are in you; It smiles, but never brings you nearer, It lights,--her nature draws not nigh; 'Tis but that yours is growing clearer To her a.s.says;--yes, try and try, You'll get no deeper than her eye.

There, you are cla.s.sified: she's gone Far, far away into herself; Each with its Latin label on, Your poor components, one by one, Are laid upon their proper shelf In her compact and ordered mind, And what of you is left behind Is no more to her than the wind; In that clear brain, which, day and night, No movement of the heart e'er jostles, Her friends are ranged on left and right,-- Here, silex, hornblende, sienite; There, animal remains and fossils.

And yet, O subtile a.n.a.lyst, That canst each property detect Of mood or grain, that canst untwist Each tangled skein of intellect, And with thy scalpel eyes lay bare Each mental nerve more fine than air,-- O brain exact, that in thy scales Canst weigh the sun and never err, For once thy patient science fails, One problem still defies thy art;-- Thou never canst compute for her The distance and diameter Of any simple human heart.

II.

Hear him but speak, and you will feel The shadows of the Portico Over your tranquil spirit steal, To modulate all joy and woe To one subdued, subduing glow; Above our squabbling business-hours, Like Phidian Jove's, his beauty lowers, His nature satirizes ours; A form and front of Attic grace, He shames the higgling market-place, And dwarfs our more mechanic powers.

What throbbing verse can fitly render That face,--so pure, so trembling-tender?

Sensation glimmers through its rest, It speaks unmanacled by words, As full of motion as a nest That palpitates with unfledged birds; 'Tis likest to Bethesda's stream, Forewarned through all its thrilling springs, White with the angel's coming gleam, And rippled with his fanning wings.

Hear him unfold his plots and plans, And larger destinies seem man's; You conjure from his glowing face The omen of a fairer race; With one grand trope he boldly spans The gulf wherein so many fall, 'Twixt possible and actual; His first swift word, talaria-shod, Exuberant with conscious G.o.d, Out of the choir of planets blots The present earth with all its spots.

Himself unshaken as the sky, His words, like whirlwinds, spin on high Systems and creeds pellmell together; 'Tis strange as to a deaf man's eye, While trees uprooted splinter by, The dumb turmoil of stormy weather; Less of iconoclast than shaper, His spirit, safe behind the reach Of the tornado of his speech, Burns calmly as a glowworm's taper.

So great in speech, but, ah! in act So overrun with vermin troubles, The coa.r.s.e, sharp-cornered, ugly fact Of life collapses all his bubbles: Had he but lived in Plato's day, He might, unless my fancy errs, Have shared that golden voice's sway O'er barefooted philosophers.

Our nipping climate hardly suits The ripening of ideal fruits: His theories vanquish us all summer, But winter makes him dumb and dumber To see him mid life's needful things Is something painfully bewildering; He seems an angel with clipt wings Tied to a mortal wife and children, And by a brother seraph taken In the act of eating eggs and bacon.

Like a clear fountain, his desire Exults and leaps toward the light, In every drop it says "Aspire!"

Striving for more ideal height; And as the fountain, falling thence, Crawls baffled through the common gutter So, from his speech's eminence, He shrinks into the present tense, Unkinged by foolish bread and b.u.t.ter.

Yet smile not, worldling, for in deeds Not all of life that's brave and wise is; He strews an ampler future's seeds, 'Tis your fault if no harvest rises; Smooth back the sneer; for is it naught That all he is and has is Beauty's?

By soul the soul's gains must be wrought, The Actual claims our coa.r.s.er thought, The Ideal hath its higher duties.

ON A PORTRAIT OF DANTE BY GIOTTO.