Great Poems by American Women (6 page)

My beautiful trembler! how wildly she shrinks!

And how wistful she looks while she lingers!

Papa is extremely uncivil, she thinks,—

She but pleaded for one of his fingers!

 

What eloquent pleading! the hand reaching out,

As if doubting so strange a refusal;

While her blue eyes say plainly, “What is he about

That he does not assist me as usual?”

 

Come on, my pet Ellen! we won't let you slip,—

Unclasp those soft arms from his knee, love;

I see a faint smile round that exquisite lip,

A smile half reproach and half glee, love.

 

So! that's my brave baby! one foot falters forward,

Half doubtful the other steals by it!

What, shrinking again! why, you shy little coward!

'Twon't kill you to walk a bit!—try it!

 

There! steady, my darling! huzza! I have caught her!

I clasp her, caress'd and caressing!

And she hides her bright face, as if what we had taught her

Were something to blush for—the blessing!

 

Now back again! Bravo! that shout of delight,

How it thrills to the hearts that adore her!

Joy, joy for her mother! and blest be the night

When her little light feet first upbore her!

She comes—the spirit of the dance!

And but for those large, eloquent eyes,

Where passion speaks in every glance,

She'd seem a wanderer from the skies.

 

So light that, gazing breathless there,

Lest the celestial dream should go,

You'd think the music in the air

Waved the fair vision to and fro!

 

Or that the melody's sweet flow

Within the radiant creature played,

And those soft wreathing arms of snow

And white sylph feet the music made.

 

Now gliding slow with dreamy grace,

Her eyes beneath their lashes lost,

Now motionless, with lifted face,

And small hands on her bosom crossed.

 

And now with flashing eyes she springs,—

Her whole bright figure raised in air,

As if her soul had spread its wings

And poised her one wild instant there!

 

She spoke not; but, so richly fraught

With language are her glance and smile,

That, when the curtain fell, I thought

She had been talking all the while.

Ah! woman still

Must veil the shrine,

Where feeling feeds the fire divine,

Nor sing at will,

Untaught by art,

The music prison'd in her heart!

Still gay the note,

And light the lay,

The woodbird warbles on the spray,

Afar to float;

But homeward flown,

Within his nest, how changed the tone!

 

Oh! none can know,

Who have not heard

The music-soul that thrills the bird,

The carol low

As coo of dove

He warbles to his woodland-love!

The world would say

'Twas vain and wild,

The impassion'd lay of Nature's child;

And Feeling so

Should veil the shrine

Where softly glow her fires divine!

It lies around us like a cloud,

The world we do not see;

Yet the sweet closing of an eye

May bring us there to be.

 

Its gentle breezes fan our cheeks

Amid our worldly cares;

Its gentle voices whisper love,

And mingle with our prayers.

 

Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,

Sweet helping hands are stirred,

And palpitates the veil between,

With breathings almost heard.

 

The silence, awful, sweet, and calm,

They have no power to break;

For mortal words are not for them

To utter or partake.

 

So thin, so soft, so sweet they glide,

So near to press they seem,

They lull us gently to our rest,

They melt into our dream.

 

And, in the hush of rest they bring,

'T is easy now to see

How lovely and how sweet a pass

The hour of death may be;—

 

To close the eye and close the ear,

Wrapped in a trance of bliss,

And, gently drawn in loving arms,

To swoon from that to this:—

 

Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep,

Scarce asking where we are,

To feel all evil sink away,

All sorrow and all care!

 

Sweet souls around us! watch us still,

Press nearer to our side;

Into our thoughts, into our prayers,

With gentle helping glide.

 

Let death between us be as naught,

A dried and vanished stream;

Your joy be the reality,

Our suffering life the dream.

If to repeat thy name when none may hear me,

To find thy thought with all my thoughts inwove;

To languish where thou'rt not—to sigh when near thee:

Oh, if this be to love thee, I do love!

 

If when thou utterest low words of greeting,

To feel through every vein the torrent pour;

Then back again the hot tide swift retreating,

Leave me all powerless, silent as before:

 

If to list breathless to thine accents falling,

Almost to pain, upon my eager ear—

And fondly when alone to be recalling

The words that I would die again to hear:

 

If 'neath thy glance my heart all strength forsaking,

Pant in my breast as pants the frighted dove;

If to think on thee ever, sleeping—waking—

Oh! if this be to love thee, I do love!

I mid the hills was born,

Where the skilled bowmen

Send with unerring shaft

Death to the foemen.

But I love to steer my bark—

To fear a stranger—

Over the Maelstrom's edge,

Daring the danger;

And where the mariner

Paleth affrighted,

Over the sunken rocks

I dash on delighted.

The far waters know my keel,

No tide restrains me;

But ah! a Russian maid

Coldly disdains me.

 

Once round Sicilia's isle

Sailed I, unfearing:

Conflict was on my prow,

Glory was steering.

Where fled the stranger ship

Wildly before me,

Down, like the hungry hawk,

My vessel bore me;

We carved on the craven's deck

The red runes of slaughter:

When my bird whets her beak

I give no quarter.

The far waters know my keel,

No tide restrains me;

But ah! a Russian maid

Coldly disdains me.

 

Countless as spears of grain

Stood the warriors of Drontheim,

When like the hurricane

I swept down upon them!

Like chaff beneath the flail

They fell in their numbers:—

Their king with the golden hair

I sent to his slumbers.

I love the combat fierce,

No fear restrains me;

But ah! a Russian maid

Coldly disdains me.

 

Once o'er the Baltic Sea

Swift we were dashing;

 

Bright on our twenty spears

Sunlight was flashing;

When through the Skager Rack

The storm-wind was driven,

And from our bending mast

The broad sail was riven:

Then, while the angry brine

Foamed like a flagon,

Brimful the yesty rime

Filled our brown dragon;

But I, with sinewy hand

Strengthened in slaughter,

Forth from the straining ship

Bailed the dun water.

The wild waters know my keel,

No storm restrains me;

But ah! a Russian maid

Coldly disdains me.

 

Firmly I curb my steed,

As e'er Thracian horseman;

My hand throws the javelin true,

Pride of the Norseman;

And the bold skater marks,

While his lips quiver,

Where o'er the bending ice

I skim the river:

Forth to my rapid oar

The boat swiftly springeth—

Springs like the mettled steed

When the spur stingeth.

Valiant I am in fight,

No fear restrains me;

But ah! a Russian maid

Coldly disdains me.

 

Saith she, the maiden fair,

The Norsemen are cravens?

I in the Southland gave

A feast to the ravens!

Green lay the sward outspread,

The bright sun was o'er us

 

When the strong fighting men

Rushed down before us.

Midway to meet the shock

My courser bore me,

And like Thor's hammer crashed

My strong hand before me;

Left we their maids in tears,

Their city in embers:

The sound of the Viking's spears

The Southland remembers!

I love the combat fierce,

No fear restrains me;

But ah! a Russian maid

Coldly disdains me.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.

His day is marching on.

 

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”

 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat:
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

The shell of objects inwardly consumed
Will stand till some convulsive wind awakes;
Such sense hath Fire to waste the heart of things,
Nature such love to hold the form she makes.

 

Thus wasted joys will show their early bloom,
Yet crumble at the breath of a caress;
The golden fruitage hides the scathèd bough;
Snatch it, thou scatterest wide its emptiness.

 

For pleasure bidden, I went forth last night
To where, thick hung, the festal torches gleamed;
Here were the flowers, the music, as of old;
Almost the very olden time it seemed.

 

For one with cheek unfaded (though he brings
My buried brothers to me in his look)
Said, ‘Will you dance?' At the accustomed words
I gave my hand, the old position took.

 

Sound, gladsome measure! at whose bidding once
I felt the flush of pleasure to my brow,
While my soul shook the burthen of the flesh,
And in its young pride said, ‘Lie lightly, thou!'

 

Then, like a gallant swimmer, flinging high
My breast against the golden waves of sound,
I rode the madd'ning tumult of the dance,
Mocking fatigue, that never could be found.

 

Chide not—it was not vanity, nor sense,
(The brutish scorn such vaporous delight,)
But Nature, cadencing her joy of strength
To the harmonious limits of her right.

 

She gave her impulse to the dancing Hours,
To winds that weep, to stars that noiseless turn;
She marked the measure rapid hearts must keep,
Devised each pace that glancing feet should learn.

 

And sure, that prodigal o'erflow of life,
Unvowed as yet to family or state,
Sweet sounds, white garments, flowery coronals
Make holy in the pageant of our fate.

 

Sound, measure! but to stir my heart no more—
For, as I moved to join the dizzy race,
My youth fell from me; all its blooms were gone,
And others showed them, smiling, in my face.

 

Faintly I met the shock of circling forms
Linked each to other, Fashion's galley-slaves,
Dream-wondering, like an unaccustomed ghost
That starts, surprised, to stumble over graves.

 

For graves were ‘neath my feet, whose placid masks
Smiled out upon my folly mournfully,
While all the host of the departed said,
‘Tread lightly—thou art ashes, even as we.'

A vestal priestess, proudly pure,

But of a meek and quiet spirit;

With soul all dauntless to endure,

And mood so calm that naught can stir it,

Save when a thought most deeply thrilling

Her eyes with gentlest tears is filling,

Which seem with her true words to start

From the deep fountain at her heart.

 

A mien that neither seeks nor shuns

The homage scattered in her way;

A love that hath few favored ones,

And yet for all can work and pray;

A smile wherein each mortal reads

The very sympathy he needs;

An eye like to a mystic book

Of lays that bard or prophet sings,

Which keepeth for the holiest look

Of holiest love its deepest things.

 

A form to which a king had bent,
The fireside's dearest ornament-
Known in the dwellings of the poor
Better than at the rich man's door;
A life that ever onward goes,
Yet in itself has deep repose.
A vestal priestess, maid, or wife—

Vestal, and vowed to offer up

The innocence of a holy life

To Him who gives the mingled cup;

With man its bitter sweets to share,
To live and love, to do and dare;
His prayer to breathe, his tears to shed,
Breaking to him the heavenly bread
Of hopes which, all too high for earth,
Have yet in her a mortal birth.

 

This is the woman I have dreamed,
And to my childish thought she seemed
The woman I myself should be:
Alas! I would that I were she.

Sad music breathes upon the air,
And steps come mournfully and slow;
Heavy is the load we bear,
Fellow-men our burthen share,
Death has laid our brother low.
Ye have heard our joyous strain,
Listen to our notes of wo!

 

Do ye not remember him
Whose finger, from the thrilling wire,
Now drew forth tears, now tones of fire?
Ah! that hand is cold for ever:
Gone is now life's fitful fever—
We sing his requiem.

 

We are singing him to rest—
He will rise a spirit blest.
Sing it softly, sing it slowly—
Let each note our sorrow tell,
For it is our last farewell,
And his grave is lone and lowly.

 

We sorrow for thee, brother!
We grieve that thou must lie
Far from the spot where thy fathers sleep;
Thou earnest o'er the briny deep
In a stranger land to die.

 

We bear thee gently, brother,
To thy last resting-place;
Soon shall the earth above thee close,
And the dark veil of night repose
For ever on thy face.

 

We placed the last flowers, brother,
Upon thy senseless brow;
We kissed that brow before 't was hid,
We wept upon thy coffin-lid,
But all unmoved wert thou.

 

We've smoothed the green turf, brother,
Above thy lowly head;
Earth in her breast receive thee:
Oh, it is sad to leave thee,
Alone in thy narrow bed!

 

Thou art not with us, brother—
Yet, in yon blissful land,
Perhaps, thou still canst hear us—
Perhaps thou hoverest near us
And smilest as the choral band,
Which once obeyed thy master hand,
Now linger with their tears to leave
The sod that seals thy grave.

 

The sun is sinking, brother,
And with it our melody.
The dying cadence of our rite
Is mingled with the dying light.
Oh, brother! by that fading ray,
And by this mournful parting lay,
We will remember thee.

 

The sculptor, in his chiselled stone,
The painter, in his colors blent,
The bard, in numbers all his own,
Raises himself his monument:
But he, whose every touch could wake

 

A passion, and a thought control,
He who, to bless the ear, did make
Music of his very soul;
Who bound for us, in golden chains,
The golden links of harmony-
Naught is left us of his strains,
Naught but their fleeting memory:
Then, while a trace of him remains,
Shall we not cherish it tenderly?