George Lansing Raymond

“ Let them the duties hold.’
“Already bound for Boston,
May tea be on the waves,
A bait flung out to tempt us
To touch, and then be slaves. [41]
And if our strong men falter,
Nor thrust this bait away,
How can the weak be kept from all
That makes us England’s prey?
“And yet, if we in Boston
To thwart the throne conspire,
Our town may prove an altar,
Our fortunes melt in fire.
The sacrifice is ready;
Yet first we wait reply, [11]
To know we own a country
To save, before we die.” [12]
We met, and swore together,
If fighting must be done,
In Boston we would do it,
We boys of Lebanon. ”

“ The world steals round,
Intent to seize and own each heir of heaven.
Not long are souls allow’d ideal life,
Not long unfetter’d sense or hearts unbound:
Our smiles grow stiffer, till, some fatal day,
The last is clutch’d and held, a hideous grin.
Then, when the body stirs not with the soul,
The last nerve wrested from the Spirit’s rule,
Naught in us left of love, the world unwinds:
Our capturer dissolves in mist or dust:—
And we, for its embrace, have lost our God!” LI.
His mood alarm’d me, yet could I protest:
“Nay, Haydn, nay! I do not love the world:
I long to leave it ”

“ Whate’er old age may need, needs it the most
The young who old have grown before their time?—
Need sick men nurses pale?—or poor men, those
Whose moods have never stored the rich results
Mined from a world the world’s heir should explore?—
Nay, nay, these all would be more ably served
By spirits free to live their own love’s life.
Who gains aught where the spirit is not free?
Think you the veil, too hastily assumed,
May never change the hues and views of life,
Perverting them?—or cause beclouded love
That might have bloom’d in light, to fade in gloom? ”

“ What marks the whole, walks in the light of heaven.
Find then a life where every child becomes
Earth’s animated toy of manliness,
Each man the mass from which to mould a god,
And earth the pit whence all heaven’s wealth is mined,
You find for thought a life worth living for,
A life the artist gives us: it is he
Discerns a spirit always veil’d in shape,
A soul in man, and reason everywhere.’” XXXII.
Ah, Edith, so I mused, an artist thou,
Thou art indeed! ”

“ Then Elbert laugh’d. “Ah, were you but a bow,
Your bending most would shoot most.—Not a priest?
A man alone?—You yet a brother are
To many a soul that sails the sea of life,
Where oft the horizon trembles with the change
Of wind and wave; and hope, too hale, oft mourns
Fair promises, like skies that fade in fog.
A man alone?—And yet the moods of man
May make men love us for our manliness,
Who draw them, Christ-like through our sympathy,
Toward self,—God’s image here, and thus toward Him.” [127]
“But draw them how?” ”

“ We war with Providence, who war with life.
We seek to mould our own existence out;
But life, best made, is mainly for us made.
Each passing circumstance, a tool of heaven,
Grates by to smooth some edge of character,
And model manhood into better shape.
Has nought been wrought with you? Ah, idol mine,
You living image of all hope, would God,
Love’s niche were fill’d, love’s altar stood complete! ”

“ The land’s alarm-bell—only now
They peal’d to hail the new-born vow
Of men that would be free.
New York went wild to hear them. [32]
Men flooded every way:
They left their shops; they stopt their mills;
And farmers flock’d from all the hills,
And sailors from the bay.
Now who would buy a stamp here?
Was ask’d in all the ways.
But not a shop was not shut to;
For all had wiser work to do
On this, our day of days. [14]
“We would not, and we will not
Submit,” said Isaac Sears. [33]
The governor said: “You fill the street,
But here a fort and there a fleet
May yet awake your fears.” ”

“ Her moods unfolded to my sympathy; [90]
And, brightly imaged in her nature’s depths,
I seem’d, at every turn, to face my own.
So new to me such views were, that I felt
As thrill’d as feels the savage maid, when first
She finds her own face in a stranger’s glass,
Then spell-bound lingers, learning of herself.
So wrapt, my wonder hung, all wistfully,
About that spirit bright. What meant it all?
I could not then believe,—I scout it yet,—
That mortals can afford to slight the souls
Reflecting theirs, who make them mind themselves
And prize the good they own, and dread the ill. ”

“ If wisdom awe me, offer my respect.
Good art I laud; with fancy, am a poet;
And with emotion, an enthusiast.
What then?—Am I a hypocrite?—How so?—
Must all our sympathy be personal?
Must one appropriate all that he would praise?
Is beauty such a flower, or is a man [105]
So much a beast, that, having taste for it,
He needs must go and gorge it down?—Go to!—
I watch the fair thing; of its fragrance quaff;
Then leave for others. Edith knows this well;
For that, trust her.” XXXIV.
But was it, as he claim’d? ”

“ And stain’d our cheeks with brick.
Anon, we half were ready,
With tomahawks in hand [40] ;
And half, with muskets only, [40]
And heard our last command.
A moment then we waited;
We knew the danger there;
We looked above for courage;
We bent below in prayer.
We swore by God in heaven,
To keep our names from all;
We swore to stand together,
Till all in death should fall;
We swore, by truth and honor,
Should half essay to flee,
To cast that half the harbor in
To perish with the tea. [40]
The twilight long had tarried ”

“ If set at ease, can thrill with drum-like throbs
That marshal on the spirit to success?—
You may be right. In life’s unending strife,
The wrestler the most fit to win the palm
May be the strong soul’s restlessness, while rest,
Like sweetmeats, all too sweet, when served ere meats,
But surfeits appetite before it acts.
“But look,” he added, starting suddenly;
“The sun has touch’d the earth. ”

“ Fill’d all my fingers doubly with the traits
Of perfect womanhood.
“She owns,” I heard,
“All these, and more. For once, my poet, dream;
And full Elysium waits you when you wake.
But mind you, Norman, maids of Edith’s kind,
In whose one person love so womanly
With intellect so manly has been join’d,
Need not to marry for a hand or head.
There, hearts alone can win. Bear this in mind ”

“ While only the light of a coming ideal
Lures those to the good who imagine it real,
No work can ever inspire the earth
That embodies no promise of unfulfill’d worth,
And naught that the world accounts worthy of fame,
In art as in act, but is rank’d by its aim. MUSICIAN AND MORALIZER. ”

“ Then Elbert, when we met, talk’d much of this:
How, all its chairs made vacant one by one,
Th’ applause rose thinner at his bachelor-club;
How, brief as birds’, are human mating-times;
How men, mere songs forgot, withdraw to nests—
To homes—their worlds, where all the sky is fill’d
With sunny smiles they love, and shadowy locks. ”

“ And so my moods, thus moving on, at last
Found special pleasure in a friendship form’d
Upon a day of tramping through the Alps.
Her name was Grace, and gracious was her mien;
And graces everywhere attended her
Through jars and joys of journeys afterward.
So splendid never as my Edith; never
So striking, so alluring, or so shunn’d;
Her brilliance would not dim a rival’s eyes,
Nor beauty shade another’s face with frowns.
One saw in her a modest, model maid,
A woman loved by women; and with men
A presence, mellow-lighting like the moon ”

“ The miser’s moods, establish’d now as traits,
Incorporated modes of all his life,
He with them holds what most unfits the soul
To use wealth, or enjoy it. So on earth
When avarice, aim’d for heaven, makes man a monk,
What can he gain thereby, save monkish moods,
Become establish’d in him now as traits. ”

“ You dare submit to this impiety?”
“But, Haydn,” said I, “you, too, heed advice.”
“Advice?” he answer’d. “What?—is this the ground
On which these base authority?—Nay, nay,
Base where they may, their ground is wilfulness,
Years back invested; not disrobed, because
Old forms are reverenced.—Yes, but are they right?
Think you God gives to strength of will the right
To say what is right? And if not, what then?
If one obey then, how can he be sure
That he obeys not sin?”
“They may have will,”
I said, “but you forget; the priests are wise.”
“About what life?” he cried. ”

“ Said Isaac Sears: [23] “No wonder
These human lords combine
The masses’ rivalling wealth to steal!
Let them be stript, my lord may feel
His decency divine.
“For years, to gild the peerage
Have England’s ports been made [24]
The marts by law for all we bought.—
Alas! in what that we have wrought
Have they not check’d our trade?
“The nobles, while their winnings
Like nuggets clog the sieve
That ours drop through, would not eschew
Their royal rule: ‘To others do
What makes them humbly live.’ [11]
“And shall we not live humbly
Who but our pride restrain? ”

“ The study of psychology has opened the mind to inspection as we open the back of a watch-case and see the wheels go round; and this study lays its crown of victorious explorations at the feet of ethics.... His view is that conscience is the sense of conflict between bodily and mental desires ... therefore not a guide; it is only a sense of lostness in the woods, that wants a guide. Good sense and good religion are the guides to be consulted. ”

“ Should wrest from me my Haydn, all that soil
Where spring all hopes that bless my lonely hours, [137]
And make it sweet for me to live my life,—
What could I think of her? Though you, Pauline,
You have not known and tired of many men. ”

“ Here loom’d an end worth reaching! which to reach
’Twere well to cross the sea.—His purse was mine.
And go you as a student,” Elbert said,
“Nor clad so like a priest, for whom all earth
Will don some Sabbath-day demean; go free
To find the man, hard by his work, at home.” ”

“ XLIII.
“O Haydn,” begg’d I, “say not this. Here speaks
The same rebellion that was once my own.
We must not judge for self, but reverence
The words of men ordain’d to teach the world;
The words of men so learnèd in the truth;
The words of councils fill’d with just such men.—
No reverence have you for authority?” ”

“ Of guns our fort had sent. [86]
And Allen?—Allen lived and thrived,
And conquer’d all that tract,
Where Britain could not hold a fort [24]
That once our boys attack’d.
But war has tricks; and life has turns;
Misfortunes find the true;
And Allen once, across the sea,
Was borne a prisoner too. [25]
Yet heroes’ homes are human hearts,
And England’s crowds would cling
About the form of him they felt
Was grander than their king.
He came back home, and church bells rang—
You might, in truth, have thought [25]
A second Christmas day had come,
And Saviour’s advent brought;—
And guns were fired ”

“ Simple songs of human every-day experience ... with a twinkle of homely humor and a wholesome reflection of domestic cheer. We like his optimistic sentiments, and unspoiled spirit of boyishness when he strikes the chord of love. ”

“ To seek in every ship of ours
A bounty for itself.
“Would we dispute the seizure,
Our loss can be discuss’d
And righted but in England’s courts, [20]
And by a judge whom it supports;—
And that, they say, is just.
“No fleet of mine [21] shall carry
A stamp, though all I lose.
I choose, ere it, to save my soul!”
The whole land heard, and soon the whole
Had sworn no stamps to use.
New York had lived by commerce.
Her merchants vow’d, they all, [22]
Ere stamps they bought, would sail no boats,
And sell no goods, and pass no notes—
They would not live in thrall. ”

“ He only sigh’d:
“This heart of mine that once loved you, Pauline,
How could it love again with love as true?
Yet what, if not? My soul was immature,
Romantic, young. It must be manly now.
A man has breadth. I take it manly love
Is love that yields most blessings to the most.
And mine shall bless yourself, your father, her.”—
And so he calm’d my doubt and cheer’d me much. LV.
And oft I spoke with him about the Church.
“Can I forget its holding you?” he ask’d.
“Ah, Haydn,” said I, “I remember once
When young you were, when music scarce had lured
Your soul, so thrill’d! ”

“ Like this, my moods moved on,—life’s usual way,
The mainspring sped by balanced contraries,
And every pulse, whose beating proves we live,
Anon with deathlike voids alternating.
One hour, my faith in her was like the sun,
The next, my doubt was lightless as the night.
All prefaced fitly that which you shall hear. XXV.
I, once, recurring to my youth, had said
Of Elbert, that he soon, fulfilling plans
Long form’d, would join me here in Germany.
“Why,” Alice cried, “to think you know so well
Our Elbert!”
“Yours?” I ask’d.
“Ours,” Edith said,
“Ay, ay; our families have been friends for years.” ”