Edmund Clarence Stedman

“ Something, I know not what: perhaps the spirit of eager youth,
That named her a queen of queens at once, and loved her in very truth;
That threw its pearl of pearls at her feet, and offered her, in a breath,
The costliest gift a man can give from his cradle to his death.
The third time that I saw her—this woman called Estelle—
She passed her milk-white arm through mine and dazzled me with her spell;
A blissful fever thrilled my veins, and there, in the moonbeams white,
I yielded my soul to the fierce control of that maddening delight! ”

“ The dullest eye will catch glimpses to make one less forlorn; the ear will be suddenly unsealed, and hear the bells of heaven ring; the mouth will be touched with fire, and utter imaginative speech. Were there not something divine in each of us, a poet would find no listeners. Thus the crises of passion, joy and pain, which are inevitable for all, often raise the most plodding to a comprehension of the rapture of the poet, the devotion of the martyr, the assurance of the leader of his kind. ”

“ Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face!
“Ah!” the wise old lips reply,
“Youth may pass and strength may die;
But of Love I can’t foretoken:
Ask some older sage than I!” LAURA, MY DARLING.
Laura, my darling, the roses have blushed
At the kiss of the dew, and our chamber is hushed;
Our murmuring babe to your bosom has clung,
And hears in his slumber the song that you sung;
I watch you asleep with your arms round him thrown,
Your links of dark tresses wound in with his own,
And the wife is as dear as the gentle young bride
Of the hour when you first, darling, came to my side. ”

“ Form, color, sound, unite and in some mysterious way become lambent with delicate or impassioned meaning. Here beauty is most intense. Charm is the expression of its expression, the measureless under-vibration, the thrill within the thrill. We catch from its suggestion the very impulse of the lyrist; we are given the human tone, the light of the eye, the play of feature,—all, in fine, which shows the poet in the poem and makes it his and not another's. ”

“ Anon the coming of the Queen was told,
⁠And mounted guards, with sable plumes at helm,
Made through the middle, like a reaper's swath,
A straight, wide roadway for the sovereign's path,
Then rose the murmurous sound of her advance,
⁠And, with the crown-prince, and her other brood
Led close behind, she came. Her countenance
⁠Moved not to right nor left, until she stood
Before the tomb; yet those, who took the breath
That clothed her progress, felt a waft of death.
O noble martyr! queenliest intent!
⁠Strong human soul, that holds to pride through all! ”

“ The one apt word? For well the painter knew
Art's alchemy and law; her nobleness
Was in his soul, her wisdom in his speech,
And loyalty was housed in that true heart,
Gentle yet strong, and yielding not one whit
Of right or purpose. Now, not more afar
The light of last year's Yule fire than the smile
Of Gifford, nor more irreclaimable
Its vapor mingled with the wintry air. ”

“ We assured him that he was right—he had a genius for printing, and had not the art been in existence, his life would have been as imperfect as that of many a ne'er-do-well before the Civil War revealed that he was born to be a fighter and hero. Here we again reach the primal attribute of what the world, in its simplicity, denominates genius: it is inborn, not alone with respect to bodily dexterity and the fabric of the brain, but as appertaining to the power and bent of the soul itself. ”

“ Gives youth to all who taste it, we will drink
Deep draughts, until the furrows leave thy brow,
And I shall walk in beauty, as when first
I saw thee from afar in Sparta's groves.
But if Charybdis seize our keel, or swift
Black currents bear us down the noisome wave
That leads to Hades, till the vessel sink
In Stygian waters, none the less our souls
Shall gain the farther shore, and, hand in hand,
Walk from the strand across Elysian fields,
'Mong happy thronging shades, that point and say:
"There go the great Ulysses, loved of gods,
And she, his wife, most faithful unto death!" ”

“ It is The voice of human brotherhood.the voice of human brotherhood, the blended voice of rich and poor, old and young, the wise and the simple, the statesman and the clown; the brotherhood of an age which, knowing little, comprehending little, could have no refuge save trust in the oracles through which a just and merciful Protector, a pervading Spirit, a living Mediator and Consoler, had been revealed. This being its nature, and as the crowning masterpiece of faith, you find that in various and constructive beauty—as a work of poetic art—it is unparalleled. ”

“ And ah! from yonder trellised home,
Less sweet the faces are that peer
Than those of old, and voices come
Less musically to my ear.
Sigh not, ye breezy elms, but give
The murmur of my sweetheart’s vows,
When Life was something worth to live,
And Love was young beneath your boughs!
Fade beauty, smiling everywhere,
That can from year to year outlast
Those charms a thousand times more fair,
And, O, our joys so quickly past!
Or smile to gladden fresher hearts
Henceforth: but they shall yet be led,
Revisiting these ancient parts,
Like me to mourn their glory fled. THE FEAST OF HARVEST. ”

“ Take heed, while I pronounce the fate
⁠Of her who thus ensnares men's hearts:
In time you shall a wizard meet
⁠With spells more potent than your own,
And you shall know your master, Sweet,
⁠And for these witcheries atone.
For you at his behest shall wear
⁠A veil, and seek with him the church,
And at the altar rail forswear
⁠The craft that left you in the lurch;
But oft thereafter, musing long,
⁠With smile, and sigh, and conscience-twitch,
You shall too late confess the wrong—
⁠A captive and repentant witch. ”

“ A painter has to look through the Old World for his masterpieces, and to sit long at the feet of his elders for the secrets of color and form; but the versifier's greatest models are at hand in every village library, and the contagion which the press brings to our doors constantly leads hundreds to mistake inclination for power, or an imitative knowledge of the technique of poetry for a true inspiration. They catch the knack of making such verses as only genius could have invented fifty years ago, and which then might justly have won them laurels. ”

“ Feeling is the excitant of genuine poetry. The Miltonic canon, requiring the sensuous beauty which taste alone insures, demands, last of all, as if laying stress upon its indispensability, that poetry should be passionate. It is the impassioned spirit that awakes the imagination, whose taste becomes alert, that hears whisperings which others do not hear,—which it does not itself hear in calmer periods,—that breaks into lyric fervor and melody, and that arouses kindred spirits with recital of its brave imaginings. ”

“ The Prince, a bright near morning, mounted horse
⁠Garbed for the hunt, and left the town, and through
The deep-pathed wood rode on a wayward course,
⁠With a set purpose in him,—though he knew
It not, and let his steed go where it might;
For this sole thought pursued him since that night:—
"What recompense for me who have not sown
⁠The seed and reaped the harvest of my days?
Youth passes like a bird; but love alone
⁠Makes wealth of riches, power of rank, men's praise
A goodly sound. Of such things have I aught?
There is a foil to make their substance naught. ”

“ And birds and babbling brooks, they know not why.
You have your moral virtues, but you err:
To err is fatal. O, my heart is faint
Lest that sweet prize I win should not be yours!”
In some such wise I read your half-dropped thoughts;
Yet wondrous compensation falls to all,
And every soul has strongholds of its own,
Invisible, yet answering to its needs.
And even I may have a secret tower
Up storm-cleft Pisgah, whence I see beyond
Jordan, and far across the happy plains,
Where gleams the Holy City, like a queen,
The crown of all our hopes and perfect faith. ”

“ O what a sore campaign,
⁠Of which men long shall tell,
Ended when he was slain—
⁠When this our greatest fell!
For him no mould had cast
⁠A bullet surely sped;
No falchion, welded fast,
⁠His iron blood had shed.
Death on the hundredth field
⁠Had failed to bring him low;
He was not born to yield
⁠To might of mortal foe.
Even to himself unknown,
⁠He bore the fated sword,
Forged somewhere near His throne
⁠Of battles still the Lord.
That weapon when he drew,
⁠Back rolled the wrath of men,—
Their onset feebler grew,
⁠The Nation rose again. ”

“ Its vibrations excite the reflex action that creates in the mind of the receiver a vision corresponding to the imagination of the poet. Here is its specific eminence: it enables common mortals to think as the poet thinks, to use his wings, move through space and time, and out of space and time, untrammelled as the soul itself; it can feel, moan, weep, laugh, be eloquent, love, hate, aspire, for all and with its maker; can reflect, and know, and ever seek for knowledge; can portray all times and seasons, and describe, express, interpret, the hiddenmost nature of man. ”

“ Worldlings, who say the eagle should mate with eagle, after his kind,
Nor have learned from what far and diverse cliffs the twain each other find,
Yours is the old, old story, of age forgetting its wiser youth;
Of eyes which are keen for others' good and blind to an inward truth.
But the pride which closed the father's doors swelled in the young man's veins,
And he led his bride, in the sight of all, through the pleasant Monmouth lanes,
To the little farm his grandsire gave, years since, for a birthday gift:
Unto such havens unforeseen the barks of our fortune drift! ”

“ What wavy tresses! what sweet perfume!
Under her mantle she hides her wings;
Her flower of a bonnet is just in bloom!”
I roamed with you, pressing your dainty arm,
And the passers thought that Love, in play,
Had mated, in unison so sweet,
The gallant April with gentle May.
We lived so coseyly, all by ourselves,
On love,—that choice forbidden fruit,—
And never a word my lips could speak
But your heart already had followed suit.
The Sarbonne was that bucolic place
Where night till day my passion throve:
’Tis thus that an ardent youngster makes
The Student’s Quarter a Realm of Love. ”

“ Among priceless lyrics from the Greek anthology to our own, those of joy and happy love and hope are fair indeed, but those which haunt the memory turn upon the escape—not the retention—of that which is "rich and strange." Their charm is poignant, yet ineffable. The consecration of such enduring melody to regret for the beloved, whose swift, inexplicable transits leave us dreaming of all they might have been, is the voice of our desire that their work, even though perfecting in some unknown region, may not wholly fail upon earth,—that their death may not be quite untimely. ”

“ Sweet Nature throbbed for us alone—her mother-soul divining
⁠No fonder pair that fleeting hour her zephyrs sighed above.
Amid the nodding rushes the heron drank his tipple,
⁠The night-hawk's cry and whir anigh a deeper stillness made,
A thousand little starlights danced upon the river's ripple,
⁠And the silver poplar rustled as we kissed within its shade.
⁠1884.
A VIGIL
⁠I walk the lane's dim hollow,—
⁠Past is the twilight hour,
⁠But stealthy shadows follow
⁠And Night withholds her power,
For somewhere in the eastern sky
⁠The shrouded moon is high. ”