# May-day and other pieces/Nature and Life

NATURE AND LIFE.
NATURE.
I.
WINTERS know Easily to shed the snow, And the untaught Spring is wise In cowslips and anemonies. Nature, hating art and pains, Baulks and baffles plotting brains; Casualty and Surprise Are the apples of her eyes; But she dearly loves the poor, And, by marvel of her own, Strikes the loud pretender down. For Nature listens in the rose, And hearkens in the berry's bell, To help her friends, to plague her foes, ​And like wise God she judges well. Yet doth much her love excel To the souls that never fell, To swains that live in happiness, And do well because they please, Who walk in ways that are unfamed, And feats achieve before they 're named.
NATURE.
II.
SHE is gamesome and good, But of mutable mood,— No dreary repeater now and again, She will be all things to all men. She who is old, but nowise feeble, Pours her power into the people, Merry and manifold without bar, Makes and moulds them what they are, And what they call their city way Is not their way, but hers, And what they say they made to-day, They learned of the oaks and firs. She spawneth men as mallows fresh, ​Hero and maiden, flesh of her flesh; She drugs her water and her wheat With the flavors she finds meet, And gives them what to drink and eat; And having thus their bread and growth, They do her bidding, nothing loath. What 's most theirs is not their own, But borrowed in atoms from iron and stone, And in their vaunted works of Art The master-stroke is still her part.
THE ROMANY GIRL.
THE sun goes down, and with him takes The coarseness of my poor attire; The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher.
Pale Northern girls! you scorn our race; You captives of your air-tight halls, Wear out in-doors your sickly days, But leave us the horizon walls.
And if I take you, dames, to task, And say it frankly without guile, Then you are Gypsies in a mask, And I the lady all the while.
​If, on the heath, below the moon, I court and play with paler blood, Me false to mine dare whisper none,— One sallow horseman knows me good.
Go, keep your cheek's rose from the rain, For teeth and hair with shopmen deal; My swarthy tint is in the grain, The rocks and forest know it real.
The wild air bloweth in our lungs, The keen stars twinkle in our eyes, The birds gave us our wily tongues, The panther in our dances flies.
You doubt we read the stars on high, Nathless we read your fortunes true; The stars may hide in the upper sky. But without glass we fathom you.
DAYS.
DAMSELS of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, hastily Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day Turned and departed silent. I, too late, Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
THE CHARTIST'S COMPLAINT.
DAY! hast thou two faces, Making one place two places? One, by humble farmer seen, Chill and wet, unlighted, mean, Useful only, triste and damp, Serving for a laborer's lamp? Have the same mists another side, To be the appanage of pride, Gracing the rich man's wood and lake, His park where amber mornings break, And treacherously bright to show His planted isle where roses glow? O Day! and is your mightiness ​A sycophant to smug success? Will the sweet sky and ocean broad Be fine accomplices to fraud? O Sun! I curse thy cruel ray: Back, back to chaos, harlot Day!
MY GARDEN.
IF I could put my woods in song, And tell what 's there enjoyed, All men would to my gardens throng, And leave the cities void.
In my plot no tulips blow,— Snow-loving pines and oaks instead; And rank the savage maples grow From spring's faint flush to autumn red.
My garden is a forest ledge Which older forests bound; The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge, Then plunge to depths profound.
​Here once the Deluge ploughed, Laid the terraces, one by one; Ebbing later whence it flowed, They bleach and dry in the sun.
The sowers made haste to depart,— The wind and the birds which sowed it; Not for fame, nor by rules of art, Planted these, and tempests flowed it.
Waters that wash my garden side Play not in Nature's lawful web, They heed not moon or solar tide,— Five years elapse from flood to ebb.
Hither hasted, in old time, Jove, And every god,—none did refuse; And be sure at last came Love, And after Love, the Muse.
​Keen ears can catch a syllable, As if one spake to another, In the hemlocks tall, untamable, And what the whispering grasses smother.
Æolian harps in the pine Ring with the song of the Fates; Infant Bacchus in the vine,— Far distant yet his chorus waits.
Canst thou copy in verse one chime Of the wood-bell's peal and cry, Write in a book the morning's prime, Or match with words that tender sky?
Wonderful verse of the gods, Of one import, of varied tone; They chant the bliss of their abodes To man imprisoned in his own.
​Ever the words of the gods resound; But the porches of man's ear Seldom in this low life's round Are unsealed, that he may hear.
Wandering voices in the air, And murmurs in the wold, Speak what I cannot declare, Yet cannot all withhold.
When the shadow fell on the lake, The whirlwind in ripples wrote Air-bells of fortune that shine and break, And omens above thought.
But the meanings cleave to the lake, Cannot be carried in book or urn; Go thy ways now, come later back, On waves and hedges still they burn.
​These the fates of men forecast, Of better men than live to-day; If who can read them comes at last, He will spell in the sculpture, 'Stay!'
THE TITMOUSE.
YOU shall not be overbold When you deal with arctic cold, As late I found my lukewarm blood Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood. How should I fight? my foeman fine Has million arms to one of mine: East, west, for aid I looked in vain, East, west, north, south, are his domain. Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home; Must borrow his winds who there would come. Up and away for life! be fleet!— The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, Curdles the blood to the marble bones, ​Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, And hems in life with narrowing fence. Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep, The punctual stars will vigil keep, Embalmed by purifying cold, The winds shall sing their dead-march old, The snow is no ignoble shroud, The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.
Softly,—but this way fate was pointing, 'T was coming fast to such anointing, When piped a tiny voice hard by, Gay and polite, a cheerful cry, Chic-chicadeedee! saucy note Out of sound heart and merry throat, As if it said, 'Good day, good sir! Fine afternoon, old passenger! Happy to meet you in these places, Where January brings few faces.'
​This poet, though he live apart, Moved by his hospitable heart, Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort, To do the honors of his court, As fits a feathered lord of land; Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand, Hopped on the bough, then, darting low, Prints his small impress on the snow, Shows feats of his gymnastic play, Head downward, clinging to the spray.
Here was this atom in full breath, Hurling defiance at vast death; This scrap of valor just for play Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray, As if to shame my weak behavior; I greeted loud my little saviour, 'You pet! what dost here? and what for? In these woods, thy small Labrador, ​At this pinch, wee San Salvador! What fire burns in that little chest So frolic, stout, and self-possest? Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine; Ashes and jet all hues outshine. Why are not diamonds black and gray, To ape thy dare-devil array? And I affirm, the spacious North Exists to draw thy virtue forth. I think no virtue goes with size; The reason of all cowardice Is, that men are overgrown, And, to be valiant, must come down To the titmouse dimension.'
'Tis good-will makes intelligence, And I began to catch the sense Of my bird's song: 'Live out of doors In the great woods, on prairie floors. ​I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea, I too have a hole in a hollow tree; And I like less when Summer beats With stifling beams on these retreats, Than noontide twilights which snow makes With tempest of the blinding flakes. For well the soul, if stout within, Can arm impregnably the skin; And polar frost my frame defied, Made of the air that blows outside.'
With glad remembrance of my debt, I homeward turn; farewell, my pet! When here again thy pilgrim comes, He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs. Doubt not, so long as earth has bread, Thou first and foremost shalt be fed; The Providence that is most large Takes hearts like thine in special charge, ​Helps who for their own need are strong, And the sky doats on cheerful song. Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant O'er all that mass and minster vaunt; For men mis-hear thy call in spring, As t' would accost some frivolous wing, Crying out of the hazel copse, Phe-be! And, in winter, Chic-a-dee-dee! I think old Cæsar must have heard In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, And, echoed in some frosty wold, Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. And I will write our annals new, And thank thee for a better clew, I, who dreamed not when I came here To find the antidote of fear, Now hear thee say in Roman key, Pæan! Veni, vidi, vici.
SEA-SHORE.
I HEARD or seemed to hear the chiding Sea Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come? Am I not always here, thy summer home? Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve? My breath thy healthful climate in the heats, My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath? Was ever building like my terraces? Was ever couch magnificent as mine? Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn A little hut suffices like a town. I make your sculptured architecture vain, Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home, And carve the coastwise mountain into caves. Lo! here is Rome, and Nineveh, and Thebes, Karnak, and Pyramid, and Giant's Stairs, ​Half piled or prostrate: and my newest slab Older than all thy race. Behold the Sea, The opaline, the plentiful and strong, Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July; Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds, Purger of earth, and medicine of men; Creating a sweet climate by my breath, Washing out harms and griefs from memory, And, in my mathematic ebb and flow, Giving a hint of that which changes not. Rich are the sea-gods:—who gives gifts but they? They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls: They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise. For every wave is wealth to Dædalus, Wealth to the cunning artist who can work This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves! A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?
​I with my hammer pounding evermore The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust, Strewing my bed, and, in another age, Rebuild a continent of better men. Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out The exodus of nations: I disperse Men to all shores that front the hoary main.
I too have arts and sorceries; Illusion dwells forever with the wave. I know what spells are laid. Leave me to deal With credulous and imaginative man; For, though he scoop my water in his palm, A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds. Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore, I make some coast alluring, some lone isle, To distant men, who must go there, or die.
SONG OF NATURE.
MINE are the night and morning, The pits of air, the gulf of space, The sportive sun, the gibbous moon, The innumerable days.
I hide in the solar glory, I am dumb in the pealing song, I rest on the pitch of the torrent, In slumber I am strong.
No numbers have counted my tallies, No tribes my house can fill, I sit by the shining Fount of Life, And pour the deluge still;
​And ever by delicate powers Gathering along the centuries From race on race the rarest flowers, My wreath shall nothing miss.
And many a thousand summers My apples ripened well, And light from meliorating stars With firmer glory fell.
I wrote the past in characters Of rock and fire the scroll, The building in the coral sea, The planting of the coal.
And thefts from satellites and rings And broken stars I drew, And out of spent and aged things I formed the world anew;
​What time the gods kept carnival, Tricked out in star and flower, And in cramp elf and saurian forms They swathed their too much power.
Time and Thought were my surveyors, They laid their courses well, They boiled the sea, and baked the layers Of granite, marl, and shell.
But he, the man-child glorious,— Where tarries he the while? The rainbow shines his harbinger, The sunset gleams his smile.
My boreal lights leap upward, Forthright my planets roll, And still the man-child is not born, The summit of the whole.
​Must time and tide forever run? Will never my winds go sleep in the west? Will never my wheels which whirl the sun And satellites have rest?
Too much of donning and doffing, Too slow the rainbow fades, I weary of my robe of snow, My leaves and my cascades;
I tire of globes and races, Too long the game is played; What without him is summer's pomp, Or winter's frozen shade?
I travail in pain for him, My creatures travail and wait; His couriers come by squadrons, He comes not to the gate.
​Twice I have moulded an image, And thrice outstretched my hand, Made one of day, and one of night, And one of the salt sea-sand.
One in a Judæan manger, And one by Avon stream, One over against the mouths of Nile, And one in the Academe.
I moulded kings and saviours, And bards o'er kings to rule;— But fell the starry influence short, The cup was never full.
Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more, And mix the bowl again; Seethe, Fate! the ancient elements, Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.
​Let war and trade and creeds and song Blend, ripen race on race, The sunburnt world a man shall breed Of all the zones, and countless days.
No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, My oldest force is good as new, And the fresh rose on yonder thorn Gives back the bending heavens in dew.
TWO RIVERS.
THY summer voice, Musketaquit, Repeats the music of the rain; But sweeter rivers pulsing flit Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.
Thou in thy narrow banks art pent: The stream I love unbounded goes Through flood and sea and firmament; Through light, through life, it forward flows.
I see the inundation sweet, I hear the spending of the stream Through years, through men, through nature fleet, Through passion, thought, through power and dream.
​Musketaquit, a goblin strong, Of shard and flint makes jewels gay; They lose their grief who hear his song, And where he winds is the day of day.
So forth and brighter fares my stream,— Who drink it shall not thirst again; No darkness stains its equal gleam, And ages drop in it like rain.
WALDEINSAMKEIT.
I DO not count the hours I spend In wandering by the sea; The forest is my loyal friend, Like God it useth me.
In plains that room for shadows make Of skirting hills to lie, Bound in by streams which give and take Their colors from the sky;
Or on the mountain-crest sublime, Or down the oaken glade, O what have I to do with time? For this the day was made.
​Cities of mortals woe-begone Fantastic care derides, But in the serious landscape lone Stern benefit abides.
Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy, And merry is only a mask of sad, But, sober on a fund of joy, The woods at heart are glad.
There the great Planter plants Of fruitful worlds the grain, And with a million spells enchants The souls that walk in pain.
Still on the seeds of all he made The rose of beauty burns; Through times that wear, and forms that fade, Immortal youth returns.
​The black ducks mounting from the lake, The pigeon in the pines, The bittern's boom, a desert make Which no false art refines.
Down in yon watery nook, Where bearded mists divide, The gray old gods whom Chaos knew, The sires of Nature, hide.
Aloft, in secret veins of air, Blows the sweet breath of song, O, few to scale those uplands dare, Though they to all belong!
See thou bring not to field or stone The fancies found in books; Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, To brave the landscape's looks.
​And if, amid this dear delight, My thoughts did home rebound, I well might reckon it a slight To the high cheer I found.
Oblivion here thy wisdom is, Thy thrift, the sleep of cares; For a proud idleness like this Crowns all thy mean affairs.
TERMINUS.
IT is time to be old, To take in sail:— The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore, Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said: 'No more! No farther spread Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. Fancy departs: no more invent, Contract thy firmament To compass of a tent. There 's not enough for this and that, Make thy option which of two; ​Economize the failing river, Not the less revere the Giver, Leave the many and hold the few. Timely wise accept the terms, Soften the fall with wary foot; A little while Still plan and smile, And, fault of novel germs, Mature the unfallen fruit. Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires, Bad husbands of their fires, Who, when they gave thee breath, Failed to bequeath The needful sinew stark as once, The Baresark marrow to thy bones, But left a legacy of ebbing veins, Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,— Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb, Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.' ​As the bird trims her to the gale, I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail, Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: 'Lowly faithful, banish fear, Right onward drive unharmed; The port, well worth the cruise, is near, And every wave is charmed.'
THE PAST.
THE debt is paid, The verdict said, The Furies laid, The plague is stayed, All fortunes made; Turn the key and bolt the door, Sweet is death forevermore. Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin, Nor murdering hate, can enter in. All is now secure and fast; Not the gods can shake the Past; Flies-to the adamantine door Bolted down forevermore. ​None can re-enter there,— No thief so politic, No Satan with a royal trick Steal in by window, chink, or hole, To bind or unbind, add what lacked, Insert a leaf, or forge a name, New-face or finish what is packed, Alter or mend eternal Fact.
THE LAST FAREWELL.
LINES WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR'S BROTHER, EDWARD BLISS EMERSON, WHILST SAILING OUT OF BOSTON HARBOR, BOUND FOR THE ISLAND OF PORTO RICO, IN 1832.
FAREWELL, ye lofty spires That cheered the holy light! Farewell, domestic fires That broke the gloom of night! Too soon those spires are lost, Too fast we leave the bay, Too soon by ocean tost From hearth and home away, Far away, far away.
Farewell the busy town, The wealthy and the wise, ​Kind smile and honest frown From bright, familiar eyes. All these are fading now; Our brig hastes on her way, Her unremembering prow Is leaping o'er the sea, Far away, far away.
Farewell, my mother fond, Too kind, too good to me; Nor pearl nor diamond Would pay my debt to thee. But even thy kiss denies Upon my cheek to stay; The winged vessel flies, And billows round her play, Far away, far away.
Farewell, my brothers true, My betters, yet my peers; ​How desert without you My few and evil years! But though aye one in heart, Together sad or gay, Rude ocean doth us part; We separate to-day, Far away, far away.
Farewell I breathe again To dim New England's shore; My heart shall beat not when I pant for thee no more. In yon green palmy isle, Beneath the tropic ray, I murmur never while For thee and thine I pray; Far away, far away.
IN MEMORIAM.
E. B. E.
I MOURN upon this battle-field, But not for those who perished here. Behold the river-bank Whither the angry farmers came, In sloven dress and broken rank, Nor thought of fame. Their deed of blood All mankind praise; Even the serene Reason says, It was well done. The wise and simple have one glance To greet yon stern head-stone, ​Which more of pride than pity gave To mark the Briton's friendless grave. Yet it is a stately tomb; The grand return Of eve and morn, The year's fresh bloom, The silver cloud, Might grace the dust that is most proud.
Yet not of these I muse In this ancestral place, But of a kindred face That never joy or hope shall here diffuse.
Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star! What hast thou to do with these Haunting this bank's historic trees? Thou born for noblest life, For action's field, for victor's car, ​Thou living champion of the right? To these their penalty belonged: I grudge not these their bed of death, But thine to thee, who never wronged The poorest that drew breath.
All inborn power that could Consist with homage to the good Flamed from his martial eye; He who seemed a soldier born, He should have the helmet worn, All friends to fend, all foes defy, Fronting foes of God and man, Frowning down the evil-doer, Battling for the weak and poor. His from youth the leader's look Gave the law which others took, And never poor beseeching glance Shamed that sculptured countenance.
​There is no record left on earth, Save in tablets of the heart, Of the rich inherent worth, Of the grace that on him shone, Of eloquent lips, of joyful wit; He could not frame a word unfit, An act unworthy to be done; Honor prompted every glance, Honor came and sat beside him, In lowly cot or painful road, And evermore the cruel god Cried, "Onward!" and the palm-crown showed. Born for success he seemed, With grace to win, with heart to hold, With shining gifts that took all eyes, With budding power in college-halls, As pledged in coming days to forge Weapons to guard the State, or scourge Tyrants despite their guards or walls. ​On his young promise Beauty smiled, Drew his free homage unbeguiled, And prosperous Age held out his hand, And richly his large future planned, And troops of friends enjoyed the tide,— All, all was given, and only health denied.
I see him with superior smile Hunted by Sorrow's grisly train In lands remote, in toil and pain, With angel patience labor on, With the high port he wore erewhile, When, foremost of the youthful band, The prizes in all lists he won; Nor bate one jot of heart or hope, And, least of all, the loyal tie Which holds to home 'neath every sky, The joy and pride the pilgrim feels In hearts which round the hearth at home Keep pulse for pulse with those who roam.
​What generous beliefs console The brave whom Fate denies the goal! If others reach it, is content; To Heaven's high will his will is bent. Firm on his heart relied, What lot soe'er betide, Work of his hand He nor repents nor grieves, Pleads for itself the fact, As unrepenting Nature leaves Her every act.
Fell the bolt on the branching oak; The rainbow of his hope was broke; No craven cry, no secret tear,— He told no pang, he knew no fear; Its peace sublime his aspect kept, His purpose woke, his features slept; And yet between the spasms of pain His genius beamed with joy again.
​O'er thy rich dust the endless smile Of Nature in thy Spanish isle Hints never loss or cruel break And sacrifice for love's dear sake, Nor mourn the unalterable Days That Genius goes and Folly stays. What matters how, or from what ground, The freed soul its Creator found? Alike thy memory embalms That orange-grove, that isle of palms, And these loved banks, whose oak-boughs bold Root in the blood of heroes old.