Kitabı oku: «Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant», sayfa 21

THE ORDER OF NATURE

FROM BOETHIUS DE CONSOLATIONE

 
Thou who wouldst read, with an undarkened eye,
The laws by which the Thunderer bears sway,
Look at the stars that keep, in yonder sky,
Unbroken peace from Nature's earliest day.
 
 
The great sun, as he guides his fiery car,
Strikes not the cold moon in his rapid sweep;
The Bear, that sees star setting after star
In the blue brine, descends not to the deep.
 
 
The star of eve still leads the hour of dews;
Duly the day-star ushers in the light;
With kindly alternations Love renews
The eternal courses bringing day and night.
 
 
Love drives away the brawler War, and keeps
The realm and host of stars beyond his reach;
In one long calm the general concord steeps
The elements, and tempers each to each.
 
 
The moist gives place benignly to the dry;
Heat ratifies a faithful league with cold;
The nimble flame springs upward to the sky;
Down sinks by its own weight the sluggish mould.
 
 
Still sweet with blossoms is the year's fresh prime;
Her harvests still the ripening Summer yields;
Fruit-laden Autumn follows in his time,
And rainy Winter waters still the fields.
 
 
The elemental harmony brings forth
And rears all life, and, when life's term is o'er,
It sweeps the breathing myriads from the earth,
And whelms and hides them to be seen no more:
 
 
While the Great Founder, he who gave these laws,
Holds the firm reins and sits amid his skies
Monarch and Master, Origin and Cause,
And Arbiter supremely just and wise.
 
 
He guides the force he gave; his hand restrains
And curbs it to the circle it must trace:
Else the fair fabric which his power sustains
Would fall to fragments in the void of space.
 
 
Love binds the parts together, gladly still
They court the kind restraint nor would be free;
Unless Love held them subject to the Will
That gave them being, they would cease to be.
 

TREE-BURIAL

 
Near our southwestern border, when a child
Dies in the cabin of an Indian wife,
She makes its funeral-couch of delicate furs,
Blankets and bark, and binds it to the bough
Of some broad branching tree with leathern thongs
And sinews of the deer. A mother once
Wrought at this tender task, and murmured thus:
"Child of my love, I do not lay thee down
Among the chilly clods where never comes
The pleasant sunshine. There the greedy wolf
Might break into thy grave and tear thee thence,
And I should sorrow all my life. I make
Thy burial-place here, where the light of day
Shines round thee, and the airs that play among
The boughs shall rock thee. Here the morning sun,
Which woke thee once from sleep to smile on me,
Shall beam upon thy bed, and sweetly here
Shall lie the red light of the evening clouds
Which called thee once to slumber. Here the stars
Shall look upon thee – the bright stars of heaven
Which thou didst wonder at. Here too the birds,
Whose music thou didst love, shall sing to thee,
And near thee build their nests and rear their young
With none to scare them. Here the woodland flowers,
Whose opening in the spring-time thou didst greet
With shouts of joy, and which so well became
Thy pretty hands when thou didst gather them,
Shall spot the ground below thy little bed.
"Yet haply thou hast fairer flowers than these,
Which, in the land of souls, thy spirit plucks
In fields that wither not, amid the throng
Of joyous children, like thyself, who went
Before thee to that brighter world and sport
Eternally beneath its cloudless skies.
Sport with them, dear, dear child, until I come
To dwell with thee, and thou, beholding me,
From far, shalt run and leap into my arms,
And I shall clasp thee as I clasped thee here
While living, oh most beautiful and sweet
Of children, now more passing beautiful,
If that can be, with eyes like summer stars —
A light that death can never quench again.
"And now, oh wind, that here among the leaves
Dost softly rustle, breathe thou ever thus
Gently, and put not forth thy strength to tear
The branches and let fall their precious load,
A prey to foxes. Thou, too, ancient sun,
Beneath whose eye the seasons come and go,
And generations rise and pass away,
While thou dost never change – oh, call not up,
With thy strong heats, the dark, grim thunder-cloud,
To smite this tree with bolts of fire, and rend
Its trunk and strew the earth with splintered boughs.
Ye rains, fall softly on the couch that holds
My darling. There the panther's spotted hide
Shall turn aside the shower; and be it long,
Long after thou and I have met again,
Ere summer wind or winter rain shall waste
This couch and all that now remains of thee,
To me thy mother. Meantime, while I live,
With each returning sunrise I shall seem
To see thy waking smile, and I shall weep;
And when the sun is setting I shall think
How, as I watched thee, o'er thy sleepy eyes
Drooped the smooth lids, and laid on the round cheek
Their lashes, and my tears will flow again;
And often, at those moments, I shall seem
To hear again the sweetly prattled name
Which thou didst call me by, and it will haunt
My home till I depart to be with thee."
 

A LEGEND OF THE DELAWARES

 
The air is dark with cloud on cloud,
And, through the leaden-colored mass,
With thunder-crashes quick and loud,
A thousand shafts of lightning pass.
 
 
And to and fro they glance and go,
Or, darting downward, smite the ground.
What phantom arms are those that throw
The shower of fiery arrows round?
 
 
A louder crash! a mighty oak
Is smitten from that stormy sky.
Its stem is shattered by the stroke;
Around its root the branches lie.
 
 
Fresh breathes the wind; the storm is o'er;
The piles of mist are swept away;
And from the open sky, once more,
Streams gloriously the golden day.
 
 
A dusky hunter of the wild
Is passing near, and stops to see
The wreck of splintered branches piled
About the roots of that huge tree.
 
 
Lo, quaintly shaped and fairly strung,
Wrought by what hand he cannot know,
On that drenched pile of boughs, among
The splinters, lies a polished bow.
 
 
He lifts it up; the drops that hang
On the smooth surface glide away:
He tries the string, no sharper twang
Was ever heard on battle-day.
 
 
Homeward Onetho bears the prize:
Who meets him as he turns to go?
An aged chief, with quick, keen eyes,
And bending frame, and locks of snow.
 
 
"See, what I bring, my father, see
This goodly bow which I have found
Beneath a thunder-riven tree,
Dropped with the lightning to the ground."
 
 
"Beware, my son; it is not well" —
The white-haired chieftain makes reply —
"That we who in the forest dwell
Should wield the weapons of the sky.
 
 
"Lay back that weapon in its place;
Let those who bore it bear it still,
Lest thou displease the ghostly race
That float in mist from hill to hill."
 
 
"My father, I will only try
How well it sends a shaft, and then,
Be sure, this goodly bow shall lie
Among the splintered boughs again."
 
 
So to the hunting-ground he hies,
To chase till eve the forest-game,
And not a single arrow flies,
From that good bow, with erring aim.
 
 
And then he deems that they, who swim
In trains of cloud the middle air,
Perchance had kindly thoughts of him
And dropped the bow for him to bear.
 
 
He bears it from that day, and soon
Becomes the mark of every eye,
And wins renown with every moon
That fills its circle in the sky.
 
 
None strike so surely in the chase;
None bring such trophies from the fight;
And, at the council-fire, his place
Is with the wise and men of might.
 
 
And far across the land is spread,
Among the hunter tribes, his fame;
Men name the bowyer-chief with dread
Whose arrows never miss their aim.
 
 
See next his broad-roofed cabin rise
On a smooth river's pleasant side,
And she who has the brightest eyes
Of all the tribe becomes his bride.
 
 
A year has passed; the forest sleeps
In early autumn's sultry glow;
Onetho, on the mountain-steeps,
Is hunting with that trusty bow.
 
 
But they, who by the river dwell,
See the dim vapors thickening o'er
Long mountain-range and severing dell,
And hear the thunder's sullen roar.
 
 
Still darker grows the spreading cloud
From which the booming thunders sound,
And stoops and hangs a shadowy shroud
Above Onetho's hunting-ground.
 
 
Then they who, from the river-vale,
Are gazing on the distant storm,
See in the mists that ride the gale
Dim shadows of the human form —
 
 
Tall warriors, plumed, with streaming hair
And lifted arms that bear the bow,
And send athwart the murky air
The arrowy lightnings to and fro.
 
 
Loud is the tumult of an hour —
Crash of torn boughs and howl of blast,
And thunder-peal and pelting shower,
And then the storm is overpast.
 
 
Where is Onetho? what delays
His coming? why should he remain
Among the plashy woodland ways,
Swoln brooks and boughs that drip with rain?
 
 
He comes not, and the younger men
Go forth to search the forest round.
They track him to a mountain-glen,
And find him lifeless on the ground.
 
 
The goodly bow that was his pride
Is gone, but there the arrows lie;
And now they know the death he died,
Slain by the lightnings of the sky.
 
 
They bear him thence in awe and fear
Back to the vale with stealthy tread;
There silently, from far and near,
The warriors gather round the dead.
 
 
But in their homes the women bide;
Unseen they sit and weep apart,
And, in her bower, Onetho's bride
Is sobbing with a broken heart.
 
 
They lay in earth their bowyer-chief,
And at his side their hands bestow
His dreaded battle-axe and sheaf
Of arrows, but without a bow.
 
 
"Too soon he died; it is not well" —
The old men murmured, standing nigh —
"That we, who in the forest dwell,
Should wield the weapons of the sky."
 

A LIFETIME

 
I sit in the early twilight,
And, through the gathering shade,
I look on the fields around me
Where yet a child I played.
 
 
And I peer into the shadows,
Till they seem to pass away,
And the fields and their tiny brooklet
Lie clear in the light of day.
 
 
A delicate child and slender,
With lock of light-brown hair,
From knoll to knoll is leaping
In the breezy summer air.
 
 
He stoops to gather blossoms
Where the running waters shine;
And I look on him with wonder,
His eyes are so like mine.
 
 
I look till the fields and brooklet
Swim like a vision by,
And a room in a lowly dwelling
Lies clear before my eye.
 
 
There stand, in the clean-swept fireplace,
Fresh boughs from the wood in bloom,
And the birch-tree's fragrant branches
Perfume the humble room.
 
 
And there the child is standing
By a stately lady's knee,
And reading of ancient peoples
And realms beyond the sea:
 
 
Of the cruel King of Egypt
Who made God's people slaves,
And perished, with all his army,
Drowned in the Red Sea waves;
 
 
Of Deborah who mustered
Her brethren long oppressed,
And routed the heathen army,
And gave her people rest;
 
 
And the sadder, gentler story
How Christ, the crucified,
With a prayer for those who slew him,
Forgave them as he died.
 
 
I look again, and there rises
A forest wide and wild,
And in it the boy is wandering,
No longer a little child.
 
 
He murmurs his own rude verses
As he roams the woods alone;
And again I gaze with wonder,
His eyes are so like my own.
 
 
I see him next in his chamber,
Where he sits him down to write
The rhymes he framed in his ramble,
And he cons them with delight.
 
 
A kindly figure enters,
A man of middle age,
And points to a line just written,
And 'tis blotted from the page.
 
 
And next, in a hall of justice,
Scarce grown to manly years,
Mid the hoary-headed wranglers
The slender youth appears.
 
 
With a beating heart he rises,
And with a burning cheek,
And the judges kindly listen
To hear the young man speak.
 
 
Another change, and I see him
Approach his dwelling-place,
Where a fair-haired woman meets him,
With a smile on her young face —
 
 
A smile that spreads a sunshine
On lip and cheek and brow;
So sweet a smile there is not
In all the wide earth now.
 
 
She leads by the hand their first-born,
A fair-haired little one,
And their eyes as they meet him sparkle
Like brooks in the morning sun.
 
 
Another change, and I see him
Where the city's ceaseless coil
Sends up a mighty murmur
From a thousand modes of toil.
 
 
And there, mid the clash of presses,
He plies the rapid pen
In the battles of opinion,
That divide the sons of men.
 
 
I look, and the clashing presses
And the town are seen no more,
But there is the poet wandering
A strange and foreign shore.
 
 
He has crossed the mighty ocean
To realms that lie afar,
In the region of ancient story,
Beneath the morning star.
 
 
And now he stands in wonder
On an icy Alpine height;
Now pitches his tent in the desert
Where the jackal yells at night;
 
 
Now, far on the North Sea islands,
Sees day on the midnight sky,
Now gathers the fair strange fruitage
Where the isles of the Southland lie.
 
 
I see him again at his dwelling,
Where, over the little lake,
The rose-trees droop in their beauty
To meet the image they make.
 
 
Though years have whitened his temples,
His eyes have the first look still,
Save a shade of settled sadness,
A forecast of coming ill.
 
 
For in that pleasant dwelling,
On the rack of ceaseless pain,
Lies she who smiled so sweetly,
And prays for ease in vain.
 
 
And I know that his heart is breaking,
When, over those dear eyes,
The darkness slowly gathers,
And the loved and loving dies.
 
 
A grave is scooped on the hillside
Where often, at eve or morn,
He lays the blooms of the garden —
He, and his youngest born.
 
 
And well I know that a brightness
From his life has passed away,
And a smile from the green earth's beauty,
And a glory from the day.
 
 
But I behold, above him,
In the far blue deeps of air,
Dim battlements shining faintly,
And a throng of faces there;
 
 
See over crystal barrier
The airy figures bend,
Like those who are watching and waiting
The coming of a friend.
 
 
And one there is among them,
With a star upon her brow,
In her life a lovely woman,
A sinless seraph now.
 
 
I know the sweet calm features;
The peerless smile I know,
And I stretch my arms with transport
From where I stand below.
 
 
And the quick tears drown my eyelids,
But the airy figures fade,
And the shining battlements darken
And blend with the evening shade.
 
 
I am gazing into the twilight
Where the dim-seen meadows lie,
And the wind of night is swaying
The trees with a heavy sigh.
 

THE TWO TRAVELLERS

 
'Twas evening, and before my eyes
There lay a landscape gray and dim —
Fields faintly seen and twilight skies,
And clouds that hid the horizon's brim.
 
 
I saw – or was it that I dreamed?
A waking dream? – I cannot say,
For every shape as real seemed
As those which meet my eyes to-day.
 
 
Through leafless shrubs the cold wind hissed;
The air was thick with falling snow,
And onward, through the frozen mist,
I saw a weary traveller go.
 
 
Driven o'er the landscape, bare and bleak,
Before the whirling gusts of air,
The snow-flakes smote his withered cheek,
And gathered on his silver hair.
 
 
Yet on he fared through blinding snows,
And murmuring to himself he said:
"The night is near; the darkness grows,
And higher rise the drifts I tread.
 
 
"Deep, deep, each autumn flower they hide;
Each tuft of green they whelm from sight;
And they who journeyed by my side,
Are lost in the surrounding night.
 
 
"I loved them; oh, no words can tell
The love that to my friends I bore;
They left me with the sad farewell
Of those who part to meet no more.
 
 
"And I, who face this bitter wind
And o'er these snowy hillocks creep,
Must end my journey soon, and find
A frosty couch, a frozen sleep."
 
 
As thus he spoke, a thrill of pain
Shot to my heart – I closed my eyes;
But when I opened them again,
I started with a glad surprise.
 
 
'Twas evening still, and in the west
A flush of glowing crimson lay;
I saw the morrow there, and blest
That promise of a glorious day.
 
 
The waters, in their glassy sleep,
Shone with the hues that tinged the sky,
And rugged cliff and barren steep
Gleamed with the brightness from on high.
 
 
And one was there whose journey lay
Into the slowly-gathering night;
With steady step he held his way,
O'er shadowy vale and gleaming height.
 
 
I marked his firm though weary tread,
The lifted eye and brow serene;
And saw no shade of doubt or dread
Pass o'er that traveller's placid mien.
 
 
And others came, their journey o'er,
And bade good-night, with words of cheer:
"To-morrow we shall meet once more;
'Tis but the night that parts us here."
 
 
"And I," he said, "shall sleep ere long;
These fading gleams will soon be gone;
Shall sleep to rise refreshed and strong
In the bright day that yet will dawn."
 
 
I heard; I watched him as he went,
A lessening form, until the light
Of evening from the firmament
Had passed, and he was lost to sight.
 

CHRISTMAS IN 1875

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY A SPANIARD

 
No trumpet-blast profaned
The hour in which the Prince of Peace was born;
No bloody streamlet stained
Earth's silver rivers on that sacred morn;
But, o'er the peaceful plain,
The war-horse drew the peasant's loaded wain.
 
 
The soldier had laid by
The sword and stripped the corselet from his breast,
And hung his helm on high —
The sparrow's winter home and summer nest;
And, with the same strong hand
That flung the barbèd spear, he tilled the land.
 
 
Oh, time for which we yearn;
Oh, sabbath of the nations long foretold!
Season of peace, return,
Like a late summer when the year grows old,
When the sweet sunny days
Steeped mead and mountain-side in golden haze.
 
 
For now two rival kings
Flaunt, o'er our bleeding land, their hostile flags,
And every sunrise brings
The hovering vulture from his mountain-crags
To where the battle-plain
Is strewn with dead, the youth and flower of Spain.
 
 
Christ is not come, while yet
O'er half the earth the threat of battle lowers,
And our own fields are wet,
Beneath the battle-cloud, with crimson showers —
The life-blood of the slain,
Poured out where thousands die that one may reign.
 
 
Soon, over half the earth,
In every temple crowds shall kneel again
To celebrate His birth
Who brought the message of good-will to men,
And bursts of joyous song
Shall shake the roof above the prostrate throng.
 
 
Christ is not come, while there
The men of blood whose crimes affront the skies
Kneel down in act of prayer,
Amid the joyous strains, and when they rise
Go forth, with sword and flame,
To waste the land in His most holy name.
 
 
Oh, when the day shall break
O'er realms unlearned in warfare's cruel arts,
And all their millions wake
To peaceful tasks performed with loving hearts,
On such a blessed morn,
Well may the nations say that Christ is born.
 

THE FLOOD OF YEARS

 
A mighty Hand, from an exhaustless Urn,
Pours forth the never-ending Flood of Years,
Among the nations. How the rushing waves
Bear all before them! On their foremost edge,
And there alone, is Life. The Present there
Tosses and foams, and fills the air with roar
Of mingled noises. There are they who toil,
And they who strive, and they who feast, and they
Who hurry to and fro. The sturdy swain —
Woodman and delver with the spade – is there,
And busy artisan beside his bench,
And pallid student with his written roll.
A moment on the mounting billow seen,
The flood sweeps over them and they are gone.
There groups of revellers whose brows are twined
With roses, ride the topmost swell awhile,
And as they raise their flowing cups and touch
The clinking brim to brim, are whirled beneath
The waves and disappear. I hear the jar
Of beaten drums, and thunders that break forth
From cannon, where the advancing billow sends
Up to the sight long files of armèd men,
That hurry to the charge through flame and smoke.
The torrent bears them under, whelmed and hid
Slayer and slain, in heaps of bloody foam.
Down go the steed and rider, the plumed chief
Sinks with his followers; the head that wears
The imperial diadem goes down beside
The felon's with cropped ear and branded cheek.
A funeral-train – the torrent sweeps away
Bearers and bier and mourners. By the bed
Of one who dies men gather sorrowing,
And women weep aloud; the flood rolls on;
The wail is stifled and the sobbing group
Borne under. Hark to that shrill, sudden shout,
The cry of an applauding multitude,
Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields
The living mass as if he were its soul!
The waters choke the shout and all is still.
Lo! next a kneeling crowd, and one who spreads
The hands in prayer – the engulfing wave o'ertakes
And swallows them and him. A sculptor wields
The chisel, and the stricken marble grows
To beauty; at his easel, eager-eyed,
A painter stands, and sunshine at his touch
Gathers upon his canvas, and life glows;
A poet, as he paces to and fro,
Murmurs his sounding lines. Awhile they ride
The advancing billow, till its tossing crest
Strikes them and flings them under, while their tasks
Are yet unfinished. See a mother smile
On her young babe that smiles to her again;
The torrent wrests it from her arms; she shrieks
And weeps, and midst her tears is carried down.
A beam like that of moonlight turns the spray
To glistening pearls; two lovers, hand in hand,
Rise on the billowy swell and fondly look
Into each other's eyes. The rushing flood
Flings them apart: the youth goes down; the maid
With hands outstretched in vain, and streaming eyes,
Waits for the next high wave to follow him.
An aged man succeeds; his bending form
Sinks slowly. Mingling with the sullen stream
Gleam the white locks, and then are seen no more.
Lo! wider grows the stream – a sea-like flood
Saps earth's walled cities; massive palaces
Crumble before it; fortresses and towers
Dissolve in the swift waters; populous realms
Swept by the torrent see their ancient tribes
Engulfed and lost; their very languages
Stifled, and never to be uttered more.
I pause and turn my eyes, and looking back
Where that tumultuous flood has been, I see
The silent ocean of the Past, a waste
Of waters weltering over graves, its shores
Strewn with the wreck of fleets where mast and hull
Drop away piecemeal; battlemented walls
Frown idly, green with moss, and temples stand
Unroofed, forsaken by the worshipper.
There lie memorial stones, whence time has gnawed
The graven legends, thrones of kings o'erturned,
The broken altars of forgotten gods,
Foundations of old cities and long streets
Where never fall of human foot is heard,
On all the desolate pavement. I behold
Dim glimmerings of lost jewels, far within
The sleeping waters, diamond, sardonyx,
Ruby and topaz, pearl and chrysolite,
Once glittering at the banquet on fair brows
That long ago were dust, and all around
Strewn on the surface of that silent sea
Are withering bridal wreaths, and glossy locks
Shorn from dear brows, by loving hands, and scrolls
O'er written, haply with fond words of love
And vows of friendship, and fair pages flung
Fresh from the printer's engine. There they lie
A moment, and then sink away from sight.
I look, and the quick tears are in my eyes,
For I behold in every one of these
A blighted hope, a separate history
Of human sorrows, telling of dear ties
Suddenly broken, dreams of happiness
Dissolved in air, and happy days too brief
That sorrowfully ended, and I think
How painfully must the poor heart have beat
In bosoms without number, as the blow
Was struck that slew their hope and broke their peace.
Sadly I turn and look before, where yet
The Flood must pass, and I behold a mist
Where swarm dissolving forms, the brood of Hope,
Divinely fair, that rest on banks of flowers,
Or wander among rainbows, fading soon
And reappearing, haply giving place
To forms of grisly aspect such as Fear
Shapes from the idle air – where serpents lift
The head to strike, and skeletons stretch forth
The bony arm in menace. Further on
A belt of darkness seems to bar the way
Long, low, and distant, where the Life to come
Touches the Life that is. The Flood of Years
Rolls toward it near and nearer. It must pass
That dismal barrier. What is there beyond?
Hear what the wise and good have said. Beyond
That belt of darkness, still the Years roll on
More gently, but with not less mighty sweep.
They gather up again and softly bear
All the sweet lives that late were overwhelmed
And lost to sight, all that in them was good,
Noble, and truly great, and worthy of love —
The lives of infants and ingenuous youths,
Sages and saintly women who have made
Their households happy; all are raised and borne
By that great current in its onward sweep,
Wandering and rippling with caressing waves
Around green islands with the breath
Of flowers that never wither. So they pass
From stage to stage along the shining course
Of that bright river, broadening like a sea.
As its smooth eddies curl along their way
They bring old friends together; hands are clasped
In joy unspeakable; the mother's arms
Again are folded round the child she loved
And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now,
Or but remembered to make sweet the hour
That overpays them; wounded hearts that bled
Or broke are healed forever. In the room
Of this grief-shadowed present, there shall be
A Present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw
The heart, and never shall a tender tie
Be broken; in whose reign the eternal Change
That waits on growth and action shall proceed
With everlasting Concord hand in hand.