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Kitabı oku: «Mother's Dream and Other Poems», sayfa 8

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MUSIC OF THE CRICKETS

 
I cannot to the city go,
Where all in sound and sight,
Declares that nature does not know,
Or do a thing aright.
To granite wall, and tower, and dome
My heart could never cling;
Its simple strings are tied to home —
To where the crickets sing.
 
 
I ’m certain I was never made
To run a city race,
Along a human palisade,
That ’s ever shifting place.
The bustle, fashion, art and show
Were each a weary thing;
Amid them, I should sigh to go
And hear the crickets sing.
 
 
If there, I might no longer be
Myself, as now I seem,
But lose my own identity,
And walk, as in a dream;
Or else, with din and crowd oppressed,
I ’d wish for sparrow’s wing.
To fly away, and be at rest,
Where free the crickets sing.
 
 
The fire-fly, rising from the grass
A winged and living light,
I would not give for all the gas,
That spoils their city sight.
Not all the pomp and etiquette
Of citizen or king,
Shall make my rustic heart forget
The song, the crickets sing.
 
 
I find in hall and gallery,
Their figures tame and faint,
To my wild bird, and brook, and tree,
Without a touch of paint.
And from the sweetest instrument
Of pipe, or key, or string,
I ’d turn away, and feel content
To hear the crickets sing.
 
 
O! who could paint the placid moon,
That ’s beaming through the bough
Of yon high elm, or play the tune,
That sounds beneath it now?
Not all the silver of the mine,
Nor human power could bring
Another moon like her to shine,
Or make a cricket sing.
 
 
I know that, when the crickets trill
Their plaintive strains by night,
They tell us that, from vale and hill,
The summer takes her flight.
And were there no renewing Power,
’T would be a mournful thing,
To think of fading leaf and flower;
And hear the crickets sing.
 
 
But, why should change with sadness dim
Our eye, when thought can range
Through time and space, and fly to him,
Who is without a change?
For he, who meted out the year,
Will give another spring:
He rolls at once the shining sphere,
And makes the cricket sing.
 
 
And when another autumn strips
The summer leaves away,
If cold and silent be the lips
That breathed and moved to-day,
The time I ’ve passed with nature’s God
Will cause no spirit sting,
Though I ’ve adored him from the sod
Whereon the crickets sing.
 

CHILDHOOD’S DREAM

 
Give me back, give me back but my one infant dream,
As it passed on the turf by my dear native stream,
Where I slept from my play, while the wind tossed my hair,
Till its ringlets, unbound, clasped the violets there.
 
 
O return, fleeting time, the soft moments that flew
By the calm sinking sun, and the fall of the dew,
When, refreshing as light, and as dew to the flower
O’er my young spirit came the blest dream of that hour!
 
 
I remember the song of the bird, and the breeze
With the perfumes it swept from the bloom of the trees,
As my eyes gently closed; but the visions that stole
Through my fancy’s green bowers, come no more to my soul!
 
 
They were sweet but to pass, as the odors that fled
From the young flowers I crushed, while they pillowed my head;
And like them, when they flew on the wings of the air,
They are gone, and have left not a trace to tell where!
 
 
They were clear as the sun in his mild, setting rays;
They were pure as the stars, soon to kindle and blaze;
But they ’re gone! I have lost the dear dream of that sleep,
As a bright planet drowned in the vast ether deep.
 
 
Yet the face of my mother, through tears as she smiled,
When she found, gently raised, and led home her lost child —
I shall see that loved face by time’s stream evermore,
Till I follow her home, where life’s dreamings are o’er.
 

THE FRUIT-TREE BLOSSOM

 
My flower, thou art as sweet to me.
Thy form as full and fair —
As rich a fruit shall follow thee,
As if thou hadst denied the bee
The pure and precious gift, that he
Wafts joyous through the air.
 
 
The spices from thy bosom flow
As freely round thee now,
As if withheld an hour ago.
Bestowing, thou canst still bestow;
Though, whence thy gifts thou may’st not know,
Or giving, tell me how.
 
 
And future good, we yet shall find,
Was hidden in thy heart;
Its witness shall be left behind,
When thou like all thy tender kind,
Thy minutes summed, shalt be resigned
Forever to depart.
 
 
Thy ruin I would not forestall;
Yet soon, I know, to thee
Must come, what happens once to all: —
Thy life will fail, and thou must fall —
Must fade and perish, past recall,
To vanish from the tree.
 
 
Then, on the bough where thou wast sent
To pass thy fleeting days,
At work for which thine hours were lent,
In silent, balmy, mild content,
A rich and shining monument
To thee will nature raise.
 
 
Now, not in pride – in purpose high,
Awhile in beauty shine;
And speak, through man’s admiring eye,
Forbidding every passer by
To wish to live, or dare to die
With object less than thine.
 

THE PLYMOUTH APPLE DECLINED

Visiting at the house of a friend in Boston, I was shown an apple which he told me had been sent to him from Plymouth, and was the fruit of a tree that was planted by Peregrine White, the first child born of Pilgrim parents in New England. I praised the apple for its beauty, and the venerable associations connected with it. He wished me to keep it; but, as he had no other of the tree, I declined the gift.

 
I wanted the apple, when offered to me
By its generous owner, but thought it not right
To take it, because it had grown on a tree,
That sprang from a seed sown by Peregrine White.
And he, who thus proffered it, had none beside it;
While diffidence checked the words, – “Let us divide it.”
 
 
Now Peregrine White was the first white, you know,
Who drew his first breath in New England – the child,
Whose parents were making to bud and to blow,
With its earliest blossoms, America’s wild:
But he with the fruit never questioned me, whether
We might partake of the apple together.
 
 
Though a fabled divinity once had let fall
An apple of gold, where his favorites thronged,
Inscribed, “Of the fair, to the fairest of all!”
It was not to me this whole apple belonged:
My friend was no god – and then I, but a woman;
I thought that to halve it were just about human.
 
 
The whole I declined; still I did not deny
A wish that, unuttered, was strong in my heart;
And from it entire, while averting my eye,
I own I was secretly coveting part;
And had he divided the offering presented,
Preserving one half, I had come off contented.
 
 
Had Solomon been there to put in a word,
His wisdom had brought the debate to an end,
Deciding at once, by the edge of his sword,
This contest of kindness between friend and friend:
Yet he with the apple was quite too short-sighted
To see how I might in a half have delighted.
 
 
I hope that next autumn he ’ll go where it grew,
And, if not forbidden the fruit, that he ’ll reach
And pluck a fair apple, then cut it in two,
And tell me at once that a half is for each.
Of friendship’s best gift how the worth may be lightened
By having it whole, when, if shared, how ’t were heightened!
 

THE HALF APPLE

A year after the foregoing poem was written, a nice little casket was sent me, at the distance of thirty-five miles, which, on opening, I found to contain the half of an apple like the one I had seen the previous autumn.

 
The half of an apple, well-flavored and fair,
Which shows by division such soundness of heart,
I gratefully hold; and acknowledge the care
And kindness of him, who retains t ’other part.
 
 
The fruit, that would perish, I taste with delight,
The seed taking out to lay cautiously by,
Because it encloses, concealed from my sight,
An emblem of that, which in us cannot die.
 
 
Its elements, when ’t is laid low in the earth,
If good, will arise in fresh verdure and bloom;
As man’s deathless soul seeks the world of its birth,
When what it once dwelt in lies dark in the tomb.
 
 
The little memento I ’ll hide in the ground,
For Nature, its mother, to tenderly rear;
And bright be its blossoms – its fruit fair and sound,
When I and the giver no more shall be here!
 
 
For, when I depart, and some good, living deed
Would fain leave behind, in remembrance of me,
At least, be it said that I planted a seed,
That others might gather the fruit from the tree!
 

THE HORTICULTURIST’S TABLE-HYMN

 
From him, who was lord of the fruits and the flowers,
That in Paradise grew, ere he lost its possession —
Who breathed in the balm, and reposed in the bowers
Of our garden ancestral, we claim our profession.
And fruits rich and bright
Bless our taste and our sight
As e’er gave our father in Eden delight:
Our fount clear as that, which he drank from, here flows;
Where green grows the myrtle, and blushing the rose.
 
 
While some sit in clouds but to murmur, or grieve
That earth has her wormwood, her pitfalls, and brambles;
We smile, and go forth her rich gifts to receive,
Where the boughs drop their purple and gold on our rambles.
Untiring and free,
As we work, like the bee,
We bear off a sweet from each plant, shrub, and tree:
Where some gather thorns but to torture the flesh,
Ripe clusters we pluck, and our spirits refresh.
 
 
Yet, not to self only, we draw from the soil
The treasures that Heaven in its vitals hath hidden;
For thus to lock up the fair fruits of our toil
Were bliss half possessed, and a sin all forbidden.
Like morning’s first ray,
When it spreads into day,
Our hearts must flow out, until self melts away!
Our joys, in the bosoms around us when sown,
Spring up and bloom out, throwing sweets to our own.
 
 
And this makes the world all a garden to us,
Where He, who has walled it, his glory is shedding:
His smile is its sun; and beholding it thus,
We gratefully feast, while his bounty is spreading.
Our spirits grow bright
As they bathe in his light,
That beams on the board where in joy we unite:
And the sparks, which we take to enkindle our mirth,
Are blessings from heaven showering down on the earth.
 
 
And now that we meet, and the chain is of flowers,
Which binds us together, may sadness ne’er blight them,
Till those, who must break from a compact like ours,
Ascend where the ties of the blest reunite them!
May each, who is here,
At the banquet appear,
Where Life fills the wine-cup, and Love makes it clear;
And Gilead’s balm in its freshness shall flow
On the wounds, which the pruning-knife gave us below!
 

THE WHIP-POOR-WILL

 
Thou mournful bird, when shadows fell
At yester-eve on hill and dell,
I heard thee of thy sorrows tell;
And, as the dews distil,
Again, amid this twilight gray,
I hear thee pour thy solemn lay,
With only one sad thing to say,
Still crying, “Whip-poor-will.”
 
 
O who has grieved thee, gentle bird,
That now thy vesper note is heard
And with thy melting, triple word
Thus dropping from thy bill?
How could they rudely whip at thee,
To scare thee from thy native tree,
And send thee moaning back to me
Repeating, “Whip-poor-will?”
 
 
And wherefore did they whip thee so,
To give thy voice this sound of wo,
Which comes so plaintively to show
That they have used thee ill?
Didst thou go through the woods alone,
Where brambly snares had thickly grown
When thou wast taught thy piteous tone
And story, “Whip-poor-will?”
 
 
There have they made thee all the day
In silence hide thyself away,
To lose the light, the flash, the play
Of sun, and fount, and rill?
And didst thou now steal out, afraid
Of midnight in the coppice shade,
That here thy tender plaint is made
Again, sad Whip-poor-will?
 
 
The trembling stars and lunar gleam,
That fitful in the thicket beam,
Perhaps would make poor Willie dream
His foes were round him still.
And in the copse-wood, dark and deep,
A waving flower, or leaflet’s sweep
Might startle thee, in troubled sleep
To murmur, “Whip-poor-will!”
 
 
My bird, there ’s mystery in thy strain —
A power I might resist in vain,
With mournful joy – with pleasing pain
My inmost soul to thrill.
’T is memory stirs to wet my eye
By waking shades of days gone by,
When first, a child, I heard the cry
So solemn, “Whip-poor-will.”
 
 
I call thee bird, yet thou may’st be
A spirit! for I cannot see —
I ne’er could catch a glimpse of thee;
And undiscovered still
The vision form, that might appear,
Wert thou to sight revealed as clear,
As is thy presence to mine ear,
Mysterious Whip-poor-will.
 

THE AUTUMN ROSE-BUD

 
Come out, pretty Rose-Bud, my lone, timid one!
Come forth from thy green leaves, and peep at the sun;
For little he does, in these dull autumn hours,
At height’ning of beauty, or laughing with flowers.
 
 
His beams, on thy tender young cheek as he plays,
Will give it a blush that no other can raise;
Thy fine silken petals they ’ll softly unfold,
And fill their pure centre with spices and gold.
 
 
I would not instruct thee in coveting wealth;
But beauty, we know, is the offspring of health;
And health, the fair daughter of freedom, is bright
With feasting on breezes, and drinking the light.
 
 
Then come, pretty bud; from thy covert look out,
And see what the glad, golden sun is about:
His shafts, should they strike thee, will only impart
A grace to thy form, and a sweet to thy heart.
 

TO L. A. E. ON HER WEDDING-DAY

 
That I will “be near” on thy “bridal day” —
Be with thee before we are ten hours older,
This hasty messenger comes to say,
And bringing its witness, – a pearly folder.
 
 
And this, perhaps, as a pointed sign,
By the light upon Hymen’s altar burning,
May signify, to a heart like thine,
“What a leaf to-day in thy life is turning!”
 
 
May the lines for thy future reading there,
With no sad characters dark or frowning,
In every letter be bright and fair,
To thee and to him thou to-day art crowning.
 
 
Accept the token, and let it prove,
As long as thou hence shalt remain its owner,
When thou must be at a far remove
From her, memorial of the donor.
 
 
Thou ’lt see engraved on its handle-part,
The form of a pen, with its top of feather —
A type of the wings that heart and heart
May find, when absent, to fly together.
 
 
I send thee an opening, thornless rose,
Harmless and soft as the peaceful turtle;
With an emerald sprig from a branch that grows
On the single stalk of my true green myrtle.
 
 
I bound them about with a silver thread;
But, ere thy hand is the cord untwining,
The rose will have drooped, or its leaves be shed,
While the myrtle still is freshly shining.
 
 
But I will “be near” in thy bridal hour,
This, “Wednesday, evening, at half past seven,”
And give at the nuptials my holier dower, —
A prayer for a smile on them from Heaven.
 

TO MRS. H. F. L

 
To think of thee, my Hannah —
To sit and think of thee,
Is to my heart like manna,
Or balsam from the tree.
 
 
For, first, its tendrils feeding,
It gives them strength to cling;
And then, if pained or bleeding,
It soothes the wound or sting.
 
 
To thine, a fount of feeling
The warmest and the best,
’T is sweet to seem revealing
The secrets of my breast.
 
 
Of half its care and trouble,
My bosom, thus beguiled,
Feels every joy is double,
When on it thou hast smiled.
 
 
’T is dark and stormy weather —
Our first October day;
But we are here together,
Though thou art far away.
 
 
For still I feel thee near me —
I see thy soft black eye —
I fancy thou canst hear me,
And I thy sweet reply.
 
 
And yet, my friend, my dearest,
This moment, where art thou?
What envied eye is nearest,
To look upon thee now?
 
 
Is thine own Hannah present,
In spirit, still with thee?
And dost thou find it pleasant
To feel alone with me?
 
 
Then we are never parted!
Nor distance, place, nor scene,
The whole and faithful-hearted
Shall ever come between.
 
 
And when earth’s changeful weather,
Its joys and sorrows cease,
O may we dwell together
In deathless love and peace!
 

MUSIC

 
Music? A blessed angel! She was born
Within the palace of the King of kings —
A favorite near his throne. In that glad child
Of Love and Joy, he made their spirits one;
And her, the heir to everlasting life!
When his bright hosts would give him highest praise,
They send her forward with her dulcet voice,
To pour their holy rapture in his ear.
When the young earth to being started forth,
Music lay sleeping in a bower of heaven.
A crystal fountain, close beside her, gushed
With living waters; and the sparkling cup
For her pure draught, stood on its emerald brink.
While o’er her brow a tender halo shone,
Kissed by the nodding buds, her head reclined
Upon a flowery pillow. At her ear,
The soft leaves whispered. On her half-closed lips
The gentle air strewed spices, wooing them.
Dropped o’er its radiant orb, the long-fringed lid
Veiled the deep inspiration of her eye;
But on her cheek the rose-tint came and went,
At the quick pulse that fluttered in her breast,
And spoke a wakeful spirit. In her sleep,
With one fair hand thrown o’er its silent strings,
Close to her heart she clasped her golden lyre,
To slumber with her, while she fondly dreamed
Of the sweet uses she might make of it
To numbers yet untried.
When, suddenly,
A shout of joy from all the sons of God,
Rang through his courts: and then the thrilling call,
“Wake! sister Music, wake, and hail with us,
A new-created sphere!”
She woke! She rose —
She moved among the morning stars, and gave
The birth-song of a world.
Our infant globe,
With life’s first pulse, rolled in its ether bed,
Robed with the sunlight, mantled by the moon,
Or tenderly embraced by stellar rays:
Death, with his pale, cold finger, had not touched
Its beauty then. No stain of guilt was here,
And so, no cloud of sorrow cast a shade,
Or rained its bitter drops on fruit or flower.
As earth, on every side, shone fair to heaven,
Not knowing yet whereto she was ordained,
Music, from her celestial walks looked down,
And thought, how sweetly she could wake the hills,
Sing through the silent forests – in the vales —
Beside the silver waters pour her sounds;
And multiply her numbers by the rocks!
She longed to give it voice to speak to God;
And, being told of her blest ministry,
Bathed in a flood of glory, till her wings
Dripped with effulgence, as they spread, and poised,
And passed the pearly gates in earthward flight.
Made viewless by the circumambient air,
And scattering voices to its feathered tribes,
As down she hastened to the shining sphere,
The happy angel reached the beauteous earth.
At her electric touch, young nature smiled,
And kindled into rapture; then broke forth
With thousand, thousand songs.
The green turf woke;
The sea-shells hummed along the vocal shore,
The busy bee, upon his honeyed flower.
Osier and reed became Eolian lyres.
Trees bore sweet minstrels; while rock, hill, and dell
Sang to each other in a joyous round.
Man, that mysterious instrument of God,
When the warm soul of new-descended power
Breathed on his heart-strings, lifted up his voice,
Chanting, “Jehovah!”
Since that blessed hour,
While still her home is heaven, Music has ne’er
This darkened world forsaken. She delights,
Though man may lose, or keep the paths of peace,
To soothe, to cheer, to light and warm his heart;
And lends her wings to waft it to the skies.
She throws a lustre o’er Devotion’s face —
Drinks off the tear from Sorrow’s languid eye —
Tames wild Despair – brings Hope a brighter bloom —
Lulls Hate to rest – Love’s ruffled bosom smooths;
Pours honey into many a bitter cup;
And often gives the black and heavy hour
A downy breast and pinions tipped with light.
She steals all balmy through the prisoner’s grates,
Making that sad one half forget their use.
With holy spell she binds the exile’s heart,
And pours her oil upon its hidden wounds.
Kings are her lovers – cottagers her loves:
The hero and the pilgrim walk with her.
Her voice is sweet by cradled infancy,
And from the pillow of the dying saint,
When a glad spirit borrows her light wings
To practise for the skies, ere it unfolds
Its own, and breaks its tenure to the clay.
True, by man’s wanderings for his tempter’s lure,
Music is often drawn to scenes unmeet
For purity like hers; and made to bear
Unhallowed burdens; or, to join in rites
To turpitude in fellest places held.
Yet, like the sun, whose beaming vesture, trailed
O’er all things staining, still defies a stain;
And is at night withdrawn, and girded up,
Warm and untarnished for the morning skies —
She comes unsullied from her baser walks,
Sighs at the darkness, guilt and wo of earth;
Breathes Zion’s air, and, warmed with heavenly fire,
Mounts to her glorious home!
’T was she, who bore
The first grand offering of the free, on high,
When to the shore, through Egypt’s solemn sea,
The franchised Hebrews passed with feet dry-shod,
And pæans gave to their Deliverer there.
She cheered the wanderers on; and when they crossed
Over old Jordan, to the strong-armed foe,
Still she was with them; and her single breath
Laid the proud Painim’s city-walls in dust!
In native light, she walked Judea’s hills,
And sipped the dew of Hermon from its flower
Before the Sun of righteousness arose.
The Prophet chose her to unseal his lips,
Ere God spake through them; and the Prophetess,
To lift the heart’s pure gift from her’s to Heaven.
When Israel’s king was troubled, her soft hand
Put close, but gently, to his gloomy breast,
Reached the dark spirit there, and laid it still,
Bound by the chords a shepherd minstrel swept.
And since, her countless thousands she has brought
To heaven’s mild kingdom, happy captives led,
By those sweet glowing strings of David’s lyre.
But oh! her richest, dearest notes to man,
In strains aerial over Bethlehem poured,
When He, whose brightness is the light of heaven,
To earth descending for a mortal’s form,
Laid by his glory, save one radiant mark,
That moved through space, and o’er the infant hung,
He summoned Music to attend him here,
Announcing peace below!
He called her, too,
To sweeten that sad supper, and to twine
Her mantle round him, and his few, grieved friends
To join their mournful spirits with the hymn,
Ere to the Mount of Olives he went out
So sorrowful.
And now, his blessed word,
A sacred pledge, is left to dying man,
Then at his second coming in his power,
Music shall still be with him; and her voice
Sound through the tombs and wake the dead to life!
 
Yaş sınırı:
12+
Litres'teki yayın tarihi:
28 eylül 2017
Hacim:
120 s. 1 illüstrasyon
Telif hakkı:
Public Domain
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