The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-02-27


Most constant and continual and clear.
Is there no loneliness or lack in heaven
When souls like this come woodward from above
AS once to earth the brightest star of seven
Most needed here to move
And lift our spirits with holier leaven.
And yet again his ears heard not for nought
The song of waters and of winds set free;
With godlike gifts his cradle-side they sought
For who shall set a limit to the sea
Or bar the way before the wind thereof,
And bind the strength of its unweary wings,
Or dry the fountains of the salt bright springs
And set them boundaries wherein they shall be?
Yea even as these the voice of faith and love,
The sense and spirit of the poets thought,
Are for the whole worlds hearing, to flow forth
From southern sunlands to the crystal north,
And touch with song the ultimate zone and zone
AS great sea-winds are blown.
Yea as the strong sea flows
In mighty tides or in far-reaching streams,
So runs the power of the poets dreams,
Making the earth clean as with water-springs,
Bearing about the world,
With fortunate sail unfurled
To take the wind Of song that lightly blows,
Full-freighted argosies of precious things.
The whole earth Is the poets heritage;
And even the years of time,
These hath he goilike for his empery
That no king hath-and utter liberty;
Yet one place is to each man best of earth.
The place that gave him birth
And saw his young life climb,
Glad as the sun to seek its prosperous prime,
Toward mans meridian might and golden age.
Sea and the lakewood and again the sea,
rrYsI a -
And streets with shade of many a vigorous tree
These were the places he knew earliest;
And of them one for favorite he found,
Seeking it gladly ever and again,
Where in narrow lane,
Turning his wheel around,
The potter labored in his low-roofed shed;
Where through the dusty shadow sometimes sped
A thin bright CLEAN of sun and made its way
To light legend written on the wall
OF old strange wisdom that clay learns of clay:
No handicraftsman can, With our art compare,
We potters make our pots, Of achat poters are.
So read the curious scrawl.
And what fine fancies.fed the singers sight,
What fragile moulded forms of porcelain,
What color and shaps-while the wheel turned
again,
Arose in visions for his full delight
Are these not given of him for US to know,
And heard of us that hearken while he sings
Keramos, as delicate Ariel found
Under the blossom of the hawthorn bough
A spirit set free to weave with fairy wings
A grdle for the girth
Of the incessant earth
Which like potter's wheel turns round and round.
Or from the quay, he saw the merchant vessel
Swing heavily upon the harbor tide,
Far from the fierce waves that would crouch and
wrestle
Andhleap like leopards tapping at her side
And tear at her and fawn again and follow,
Darkness above her and the shouts of thunder,
And darkness and the sound of waters under,
When rain and wind were in the stormy hollow
or heaven, and ightnings lashed the maddened sea.
Again. the strange tales of sea-faring folk
The wind-like will and long, long thoughts awohe
OF the boy, seeing not yet about his head
The living light Of laurel leaves to be.
Or he would watch how strength of hands and steel
Built the great body of the ship, how staunch
The timbers were how glad were prov and keel
To meet the water, as it calmly sped
Forth to the sea, sent down its ways a;launch.
Where the land ends at the promontory,
Blomidon, the spirit of the Cape,
Fog that folds about his ghostly shape,
Stands witness OF the .Acadians' story,
Dispossessed and doomed without escape,
Here with flags to sun and sea-wind Haunted
Ships accursed sailed into AIinas Bay
Here the pious piteous prayers were chanted
While the exiled folk went on their way
From the marsh-lan mute and memory-haunted,
Stands apart the new town of Grand Pre-.
Here the strength Of tyranny's decision
Child from father, bride from bridegroom tore;
Love from love apart with sad division,
Searching, following ever, met no more
But in dreams or waking dreamless vision
Until Death set wide his welcome door.
Here the water whispers on the beaches,
Here the land lies silent in the sun,
Here the blacksmith's blasted willow bleaches
Like longforgotten skeleton,
Here the stiffness sadder than all speech is
OF the cruel wrong received and done.
Here the bronze-grt bee in summer follows
Scent of buckwheat bloom in fields where fire
Ravaged caves and lintels whence the swallows
Fled-and such may nevermore desire
Shelter of these desolate homestead hollows
Where the sea-wind shakes the wild rose blier.
Here if now a lonely swallow passes
Roof nor rafter ever shall he find;
Here are salt and sun -embrowned marsh-grasses,
Wrinkled ridges of sea-sand aligned,
Lit or darkened as the drifting masses
Of the c loud are wnnowed by the wind.
Exile, and not death, made termination
Here of life; and neither life nor death
Lngers in this land of desolation;
Even no moss-grown craven head-stone saith
Any word of grief or lamentation
For the people vanished like breath.
Here. if any SON of exiled father
Comes in peace to find the old lost place
Houselsss, yea, and graveless-no ghosts gather
Risen again to meet him face to face.
Greeting him as guest, the rose-boughs rather
Bend to give him welcome of their grace
Never was the Earth of woe lover
Nor of memories made more sad than tears
So it comes that she is glad to cover
Buried sorrow of the long-dead years,
Laying rose and rose-leaf lightly oyerA
Till garden all the grave appears.
Till the ancient sorrow sweet and strangei,
With times comfort more than half consoled,
And the sea-Wind round the coast that ranges
Sings by rote the sighs it heard of old
Thus the poets tender magic changes
All the leaden load of grief to gold!
The region OF the pine forest he saw
Where Hiawaths gave his gentle law;
Where weeps the stream that laughed the once-
glad water
Mourns Minnehaha lost, its dusky daughter;
And where above Mondamin's golden head
The Indian women woye
A mystic dance to songs of sorrowing love,
Not less than they that walled Adonis dead.
Here angels are, and evil powers of air;
The deadly mocking of the fiend and prayer
OF maid stainless for the sacrifice
Upward to hearing of the heavens arise
And here ride prince and maiden where the snow
Is fallen white of cherry-nowers drifted
strewng the roadway fair for him and her:
Here on the painted bridge before Lucerne
Death dances, playing dulcimer,
Taking the hand of every man in tur1
To lead him down the way all men must 60
When life's last burden is fallen from them o.
lifted.
A clearer m ,onlight and sharper shaae,
Note of bird wakened by mandolins-
And, perfect flower of the southern night,
Preciosa. pure and passionate as if made
Of air and fire, her rapturous dance begins
with flying feet to clicking castanet,
When of grave elders met
The Judgment was forgotten for delight