Initial Studies in American Letters Part 18

[From _Leaves of Gra.s.s_.]

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every inch of s.p.a.ce is a miracle, Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle, The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the s.h.i.+ps with men in them, What stranger miracles are there?

I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day exhibited; I was thinking this globe enough, till there tumbled upon me myriads of other globes; O, how plainly I see now that this life cannot exhibit all to me--as the day cannot; O, I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.

O Death!

O, the beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for reasons.

The earth never tires, The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first-- Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first; Be not discouraged--keep on--there are divine things, well enveloped; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

O captain! my captain! our fearful trip is done; The s.h.i.+p has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart!

Leave you not the little spot Where on the deck my captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

O captain! my captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths--for you the sh.o.r.es a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying ma.s.s, their eager faces turning; O captain! dear father!

This arm I push beneath you; It is some dream that on the deck You've fallen cold and dead.

My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; But the s.h.i.+p, the s.h.i.+p is anch.o.r.ed safe, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip the victor s.h.i.+p comes in with object won; Exult, O sh.o.r.es, and ring, O bells!

But I, with silent tread, Walk the spot my captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

THE COURTIN'.

Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown, An' peeked in thru the winder, An' there sot Huldy all alone, 'ith no one nigh to hender.

Agin the chimbly crooknecks hung, An' in amongst 'em rusted The ole queen's arm thet Gran'ther Young Fetched back from Concord busted.

The wannut logs shot sparkles out Toward the pootiest, bless her!

An' leetle fires danced all about The chiny on the dresser.

The very room, coz she wuz in, Looked warm from floor to ceilin', An' she looked full ez rosy agin Ez th' apples she wuz peelin'.

She heerd a foot an' knowed it, tu, A-raspin' on the sc.r.a.per; All ways to once her feelin's new Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

He kin' o' l'itered on the mat, Some doubtfle o' the seekle; His heart kep' goin' pitypat, But hern went pity Zekle.

THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED.

[From _Biglow Papers_.]

I du believe in Freedom's cause, Ez fur away as Paris is; I love to see her stick her claws In them infarnal Pharisees; It's wal enough agin a king To dror resolves an' triggers-- But libbaty's a kind o' thing Thet don't agree with n.i.g.g.e.rs.

I du believe the people want A tax on teas an' coffees, Thet nothin' aint extravygunt, Pervidin' I'm in office; Fer I hev loved my country sence My eye-teeth filled their sockets, An' Uncle Sam I reverence-- Partic'larly his pockets.

I du believe in any plan O' levyin' the taxes, Ez long ez, like a lumberman, I git jest wut I axes; I go free-trade thru thick an' thin, Because it kind o' rouses The folks to vote--an' keeps us in Our quiet custom-houses.

I du believe with all my soul In the gret Press's freedom, To pint the people to the goal An' in the traces lead 'em; Palsied the arm thet forges jokes At my fat contracts squintin', An' withered be the nose that pokes Inter the gov'ment printin'!

I du believe thet I should give Wut's his'n unto Caesar, Fer it's by him I move an' live, Frum him my bread and cheese air; I du believe thet all o' me Doth bear his souperscription,-- Will, conscience, honor, honesty, An' things o' thet description.

I du believe in prayer an' praise To him thet hez the grantin'

O' jobs,--in every thin' that pays, But most of all in CANTIN'; This doth my cup with marcies fill, This lays all thought o' sin to rest,-- I _don't_ believe in princerple, But, O, I _du_ in interest.

I du believe in bein' this Or thet, ez it may happen One way or t'other hendiest is To ketch the people nappin'; It aint by princerples nor men My preudent course is steadied,-- I scent wich pays the best; an' then Go into it baldheaded.

I du believe thet holdin' slaves Comes nat'ral tu a Presidunt, Let 'lone the rowdedow it saves To hev a wal-broke precedunt; Fer any office, small or gret, I couldn't ax with no face, Without I'd ben, thru dry an' wet, Th' unrizzost kind o' doughface.

I du believe wutever trash 'll keep the people in blindness,-- Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash Right inter brotherly kindness; Thet bombsh.e.l.ls, grape, an' powder 'n' ball Air good-will's strongest magnets; Thet peace, to make it stick at all, Must be druv in with bagnets.

In short, I firmly du believe In Humbug generally, Fer it's a thing that I perceive To hev a solid vally; This heth my faithful shepherd ben, In pasturs sweet heth led me, An' this 'll keep the people green To feed ez they hev fed me.

EDWARD EVERETT HALE.

[From _The Man Without a Country_.[1]]

The rule adopted on board the s.h.i.+ps on which I have met "the man without a country" was, I think, transmitted from the beginning. No mess liked to have him permanently, because his presence cut off all talk of home or of the prospect of return, of politics or letters, of peace or of war--cut off more than half the talk men liked to have at sea. But it was always thought too hard that he should never meet the rest of us except to touch hats, and we finally sank into one system.

He was not permitted to talk with the men unless an officer was by.

With officers he had unrestrained intercourse, as far as he and they chose. But he grew shy, though he had favorites; I was one. Then the captain always asked him to dinner on Monday. Every mess in succession took up the invitation in its turn. According to the size of the s.h.i.+p, you had him at your mess more or less often at dinner. His breakfast he ate in his own state-room--he always had a state-room--which was where a sentinel or somebody on the watch could see the door. And whatever else he ate or drank, he ate or drank alone. Sometimes, when the marines or sailors had any special jollification, they were permitted to invite "Plain-b.u.t.tons," as they called him. Then Nolan was sent with some officer, and the men were forbidden to speak of home while he was there. I believe the theory was that the sight of his punishment did them good. They called him "Plain-b.u.t.tons" because, while he always chose to wear a regulation army uniform, he was not permitted to wear the army b.u.t.ton, for the reason that it bore either the initials or the insignia of the country he had disowned.

I remember soon after I joined the navy I was on sh.o.r.e with some of the older officers from our s.h.i.+p and from the _Brandywine_, which we had met at Alexandria. We had leave to make a party and go up to Cairo and the Pyramids. As we jogged along (you went on donkeys then), some of the gentlemen (we boys called them "Dons," but the phrase was long since changed) fell to talking about Nolan, and some one told the system which was adopted from the first about his books and other reading. As he was almost never permitted to go on sh.o.r.e, even though the vessel lay in port for months, his time at the best hung heavy; and every body was permitted to lend him books, if they were not published in America, and made no allusion to it. These were common enough in the old days, when people in the other hemisphere talked of the United States as little as we do of Paraguay. He had almost all the foreign papers that came into the s.h.i.+p, sooner or later; only somebody must go over them first, and cut out any advertis.e.m.e.nt or stray paragraph that alluded to America. This was a little cruel sometimes, when the back of what was cut might be as innocent as Hesiod. Right in the midst of one of Napoleon's battles, or one of Canning's speeches, poor Nolan would find a great hole, because on the back of the page of that paper there had been an advertis.e.m.e.nt of a packet for New York, or a sc.r.a.p from the President's message. I say this was the first time I ever heard of this plan, which afterward I had enough and more than enough to do with. I remember it, because poor Phillips, who was of the party, as soon as the allusion to reading was made, told a story of something which happened at the Cape of Good Hope on Nolan's first voyage; and it is the only thing I ever knew of that voyage. They had touched at the Cape, and had done the civil thing with the English admiral and the fleet, and then, leaving for a long cruise up the Indian Ocean, Phillips had borrowed a lot of English books from an officer, which, in those days, as indeed in these, was quite a windfall. Among them, as the devil would order, was the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, which they had all of them heard of, but which most of them had never seen. I think it could not have been published long.

Well, n.o.body thought there could be any risk of any thing national in that, though Phillips swore old Shaw had cut out the "Tempest" from Shakespeare before he let Nolan have it, because he said "the Bermudas ought to be ours, and, by Jove, should be one day." So Nolan was permitted to join the circle one afternoon when a lot of them sat on deck smoking and reading aloud. People do not do such things so often now; but when I was young we got rid of a great deal of time so. Well, so it happened that in his turn Nolan took the book and read to the others; and he read very well, as I know. n.o.body in the circle knew a line of the poem, only it was all magic and border chivalry, and was ten thousand years ago. Poor Nolan read steadily through the fifth canto, stopped a minute and drank something, and then began without a thought of what was coming:

"Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said"--