Richard Watson Gilder

“ What vision was it, then, that I beheld; what art was it that made my heart tremble and filled me with joy that was like pain?
Was it the art of the poet; was it of a truth poetry made visible in human attitudes and motions?
Was it the art of the painter—which Raphael knew so well when he created those most gracious shapes that yet live on the walls of the Vatican?
Or was it the severe and marvelous art of the sculptor, in which antique Phidias excelled, and which Michael Angelo indued with new and mighty power? ”

“ Then is no hiding passion of the heart,
No sigh of evening winds, no breath of dawn,
No hope or hate of man that is not told.
⁠But when a human voice leaps from that surge,
'T is as a flower that bursts from th' trembling earth;
Something more wonderful assails the soul,
As, with exultant cries, up-curving, swift,
The shrill Walküre clamor against the sky,
Or pale Brünhilde moans her bitter fate.
WAGNER
This is the eternal mystery of art:
He told the secretest secret of his heart—
How many mortals, with quick-flaming brow,
Whispered, "Lo, this am I—and that art thou!" ”

“ A WEEK'S CALENDAR
I—NEW YEAR
Each New Year is a leaf of our love's rose;
It falls, but quick another rose-leaf grows.
So is the flower from year to year the same,
But richer, for the dead leaves feed its flame.
II—A NEW SOUL
To see the rose of morning slow unfold
Each wondrous petal to that heart of gold;
To see from out the dark, unknowing night
A new soul dawn with such undreamed-of light,
And slowly all its loveliness and splendor
Pour forth as stately music pours, magnificently tender!
III—"KEEP PURE THY SOUL"
Keep pure thy soul! ”

“ Into that world whereon, so oft, he mused;
Where he forgets not this, nor shall we him—
That magic smile, that most pathetic voice,
That starry glance, that rare and faithful soul.
⁠From dream to dream he past on Shakespeare's day—
So dedicate his mind to pleasant thought,
So deep his fealty to that supreme shade;
He being, like him of Avon, a fairy child,
High-born of miracle and mystery,
Of wonder, and of wisdom, and of mirth.
"SHALL WE NOT PRAISE THE LIVING?"
I
⁠Ungenerous!
Shall we not praise the living as the dead? ”

“ He knows not the path of duty
⁠Who says that the way is sweet;
But he who is blind to the beauty,
⁠And finds but thorns for his feet.
He alone is the perfect giver
⁠Who swears that his gift is naught;
And he is the sure receiver
⁠Who gains what he never sought.
Heaven from the hopeless doubter
⁠The true believer makes;
Against the darkness outer
⁠The light God's likeness takes.
Like the pale, cold moon above her
⁠With its heart of the heart of fire,
My Love is the one true lover,
⁠And hers is the soul of desire.
AFTER-SONG
Through love to light! ”

“ Doth that smile illume, that voice bring joy as of old?
This quaint and closeted chamber, ah, here was unfolded
The love of a child for a child, through years and through sorrows
Remembered and cherished by each,—the love of the old
For the old, now,—the love of the old for lost youth
And comrades long gone, and loved and remembered together.
⁠And she with the heart of a queen, and the soul of a martyr;
In young days serene, and blithe and undaunted in age,
Who loved the old house, even as I,—her birthplace, her refuge,—
She in a vision comes near ”

“ IV
⁠There in the twilight I see him stand:
⁠He listens to the sounds of the field and the forest,
⁠On his brow strikes the cool mountain air;
⁠Hard is the old man's life and full indeed of sorrow—
⁠But now, for a moment, respite from labor, in the pause 'twixt day and night!
⁠Perhaps to his heart comes a sense of the beauty that fills all this exquisite valley—
⁠A sense of peace and of rest; a thought of the long and toilless night that comes to all,
⁠As he leans on the bars and listens, and hears the deep-breathed cows, and the scattered sound of the bells
⁠In the night pasture. ”

“ Knows not the strength that comes when vibrant thought
Beats 'gainst the bounds of fixèd time and space;
For law unto the master is pure freedom,
The prison-house a garden of delight.
So doth the blown breath from the bugle's walls
Issue in most triumphant melody;
So doth the impassioned poet's perfect verse,
Confined in law eternal, mate the stars.
TO THE POET
Let not thy listening spirit be abashed
By the majestic ranks of ancient bards
Or all the clarion singers of thy day:
For in thy true and individual song
Thou art a voice of nature ”

“ Forever and forever—can it be?
"SPARE ME MY DREAMS"
I
Relentless Time, that gives both harsh and kind,
⁠Brave let me be
To take thy various gifts with equal mind,
⁠And proud humility;
But, even by day, while the full sunlight streams,
Give me my dreams!
II
Whatever, Time, thou takest from my heart,
⁠What from my life,
From what dear thing thou yet may'st make me part—
⁠Plunge not too deep the knife;
As dies the day, and the long twilight gleams,
Spare me my dreams!
HYMN
(THANKSGIVING FOR SAINTS AND PROPHETS)
To Thee, Eternal Soul, be praise! ”

“ See not the blood of Israel that crawls,
Warm yet, into the noon and night; that cries
Even as of old, till all the world stands still
At rapine that even to Israel's agonies
Seems strange and monstrous, a mad dream of ill.
Thou sleepest! Yea, but as in grief we said:
There is a spiritual life unconquerable;
So, bard of the ancient people, tho' being dead
Thou speakest, and thy voice we love full well.
Never thy holy memory forsakes us;
Thy spirit is the trumpet that awakes us!
CARL SCHURZ
In youth he braved a monarch's ire
⁠To set the people's poet free ”

“ III
Who are these that follow across the hills of night
A star that westward hurries along the fields of light?
⁠Three wise men from the east who myrrh and treasure bring
⁠To lay them at the feet of him their Lord and Christ and King.
IV
What babe new-born is this that in a manger cries?
Near on her bed of pain his happy mother lies.
⁠O, see! the air is shaken with white and heavenly wings—
⁠This is the Lord of all the earth, this is the King of Kings.
V
Tell me, how may I join in this holy feast
With all the kneeling world, and I of all the least? ”

“ VII—LOVE'S CRUELTY
"And this, then, is thy love," I hear thee say,
⁠"And dost thou love, and canst thou torture so?
⁠Ah, spare me, if thou lov'st me, this last woe!"
⁠But I am not my own; I must obey
My master; I am slave to Love; his sway
⁠Is cruel as the grave. When he says Go!
⁠I go; when he says Come! I come. I know
⁠No law but his. When he says Slay! I slay.
As cruel as the grave? Yes—crueler:
⁠Cruel as light that pours its stinging flood
⁠Across the dark, and makes an anguished stir
Of life; cruel as life that sends through blood
⁠Of mortal the immortal pang and spur ”

“ The soaring plain is filled
With the wide-scattered letters of one word
⁠Of loveliness that nevermore was spoken;
Nor ever shall its like again be heard:
⁠Not dead is art—but that high charm is broken.
III
Now moonlight builds with swift and mystic art
⁠And makes the ruin whole—and yet not whole;
But exquisite, tho' crusht and torn apart.
⁠Back to the temple steals its living soul
In the star-silent night; it comes all pale—
⁠A spirit breathing beauty and delight,
And yet how stricken! Hark! I hear it wail
⁠Self-sorrowful, while every wound bleeds white. ”

“ Bring stars? O, how do love and light
Leap at the sound and sight
Of her who makes this dark world seem less wrong—
Life of his life, and soul of all his song!
"LIKE THE BRIGHT PICTURE"
Like the bright picture ere the lamp is lit,
Or silent page whereon keen notes are writ;
So was my love, all vacant, all unsaid,
Ere she the lamp did light, ere she the music read.
REMEMBRANCE OF BEAUTY
Love's look finds loveliness in all the world:
⁠Ah, who shall say—This, this is loveliest!
⁠Forgetting that pure beauty is impearled
⁠A thousand perfect ways, and none is best. ”

“ Let others for my love give love to me;
⁠From other souls, O, gladly will I take,
⁠This burning, heart-dry thirst of love to slake,
⁠What seas of human pity there may be!
Nay, nay, I care no more how love may grow,
⁠So that I hear thee answer to my call;
⁠Love me because my piteous tears do flow,
Or that my love for thee did first befall.
⁠Love me or late or early, fast or slow—
⁠But love me, Love, for love is all in all!
VII—BODY AND SOUL
I
O, thou my Love, love first my lonely soul! ”

“ Where was shaken of old the seed of the freedom of men,
Thou didst love as a strong man loveth the maiden he woos,—
Not the woman he toys with, and sings to, and, passing, forgets,—
Whom he woos, whom he wins, whom he weds; his passion, his pride;
Who no shadow of wrong shall suffer, who shall stand in his sight
Pure as the sky of the evil her foeman may threat,
Save by word or by thought of her own in her whiteness untouched
And wounded alone of the lightning her spirit engenders.
III
Take of thy grief new strength, new life, O Land! ”

“ A summer rest and haven?
By all most noble in us, by the light that streams
Into our waking dreams,
Ah, we who know what Life is, let us live!
Clearer and freer, who shall doubt?
Something of dust and darkness cast forever out;
But Life, still Life, that leads to higher Life,
Even tho' the highest be not free from the immortal strife.
⁠The highest! Soul of man, O, be thou bold,
And to the brink of thought draw near, behold!
Where, on the earth's green sod,
Where, where in all the universe of God,
Hath strife forever ceased? ”

“ THE POET'S FAME
⁠Many the songs of power the poet wrought
To shake the hearts of men. Yea, he had caught
The inarticulate and murmuring sound
That comes at midnight from the darkened ground
When the earth sleeps; for this he framed a word
Of human speech, and hearts were strangely stirred
That listened. And for him the evening dew
Fell with a sound of music, and the blue
Of the deep, starry sky he had the art
To put in language that did seem a part
Of the great scope and progeny of nature. ”

“ And sudden my soul is innocent of fear.
⁠O ye beloved! I come! I cry
With the old passion ye shall not deny!
I know you, as I knew
When life was in its dew;
Ah, naught of me has suffered inward change,
Nor can be change essential even in you,
However far the freer spirit's range.
Soul shall find soul; there is no distance
That bars love's brave insistence,
And nothing truly dies
In all the infinite realm of woe and weal;
Throughout creation's bound thrill answers thrill
And love to love replies.
THE DOUBTER'S SOLILOQUY
A white lie, even as the black, I learned to hate ”

“ For thee, for thee, for thee, not for us; only that they might look upon thy face!
⁠All these they endured for thee; the thought of us whom yet they loved, this also they endured for thee.
⁠For thou art beautiful, beyond the beauty of woman. In thy hair are the stars of night. Thou wrappest about thee garments of fire that burn not, and are never quenched;
⁠When thou movest they are moved; when thou breathest they tremble.
⁠Yea, awful art thou in thy beauty; with white fingers beckoning in mists and shadows of the frozen sea; drawing to thee the hearts of heroes. ”

“ An atom in the unending whirl of stars,
Circles, all helpless, to a nameless doom;
The swift, indifferent marshaling of fate
Whereby the world moves on, rewarding vice
And punishing angelic innocence
As 't were the crime of crimes; the brute, dull, slow
Persistence in the stifled mind of man
Of forces that drive all his being back
Into the slime; the silent cruelty
Of nature, that doth crush the unseen soul
Hidden within its sensitive shell of flesh;
The anguish and the sorrow of all time,—
These are forever with me,—but grow dim
When I remember my sweet mother's face. ”

“ Whose voice was as the voice of cherubim:
Musician most authentic and sublime
Of all the sons of time.
Bring their deep joys, the breath of solitudes,
Dear dreams and longings, and high, hero moods;
Ay, bring me their melodious despairs
To die in twilight airs.
For, given a rhythmic voice, re-uttered so,
Sorrow itself is lost in the large flow
Of nature; and of life is made such part
As doth enrich the heart;
And on the tide of music, to my soul
Shall enter beauty's solace—life be whole,
Not broken by chords discordant, but most sweet,
In sequent tones complete. ”

“ Forget thy sorrow, heart of mine!
⁠Tho' shadows fall and fades the leaf,
Somewhere is joy, tho' 't is not thine;
⁠The power that sent can heal thy grief;
⁠And light lies on the farther hills.
Thou wouldst not with the world be one
⁠If ne'er thou knewest hurt and wrong;
Take comfort, tho' the darkened sun
⁠Never again bring gleam or song,
⁠The light lies on the farther hills.
"AH, NEAR, DEAR FRIEND"
Ah, near, dear friend of many and many years!
I have known thy lovelinesses—known thy tears,
Thy smiles, like sunlight crossing shade,
Thy spirit unafraid. ”

“ Glory and honor and fame and everlasting laudation
For our captains who loved not war, but fought for the life of the nation;
Who knew that, in all the land, one slave meant strife, not peace;
Who fought for freedom, not glory; made war that war might cease.
II
Glory and honor and fame; the beating of muffled drums;
The wailing funeral dirge, as the flag-wrapt coffin comes.
Fame and honor and glory, and joy for a noble soul;
For a full and splendid life, and laureled rest at the goal.
III
Glory and honor and fame; the pomp that a soldier prizes ”

“ THE POET'S SLEEP
In spite of it all I am going to sleep. Put out the lights.⁠
Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
Ever when slept the poet his dreams were music,
And in sweet song lived the dear dream once more.
So when from sleep and dreams again he wakes,—
Out from the world of symbols passing forth
Into that spirit-world where all is real,—
What memoried music, new and exquisite,
Shall strike on ears celestial—where he walks
Reverent among the immortal melodists!
WHERE SPRING BEGAN
The days were cold, and clouded. ”

“ What to thee are youth, and life, and hope, and love?
⁠For thou art Death, not Life; thou art Despair, not Hope.
⁠Naught to thee the rush of youthful blood; naught to thee the beauty and strength of our loved ones.
⁠The breath of their bodies was not sweet to thee; they loved thee, and thou lovedst not them.
⁠They followed thee, thou didst not look upon them; but still, O thou inviolate! still did they follow thee.
⁠Thee did they follow through storm, through perils of the ice, and of the unknown darkness. ”

“ This "I believe" that doth Thyself obscure;
This rod to smite; this barrier; this blot
On Thy most unimaginable face
And soul of majesty.
⁠'T is not man's faith
In Thee that he proclaims in echoed phrase,
But faith in man; faith not in Thine own Christ,
But in another man's dim thought of him.
Christ of Judea, look thou in my heart!
Do I not love thee, look to thee, in thee
Alone have faith of all the sons of men—
Faith deepening with the weight and woe of years. ”

“ We plant the seed of art,
With mystic power
To bring, or sudden or slow, the perfect flower,
That cheers and comforts the sad human heart;
That brings to man high thought
From starry regions caught,
And sweet, unconscious nobleness of deed;
So he may never lose his childhood's joyful creed,
While years and sorrows to sorrows and years succeed.
III
Tho' thick the cloud that hides the unseen life
Before we were and after we shall be,
Here in this fragment of eternity;
And heavy is the burden and the strife—
The universe, we know, in beauty had its birth ”

“ The Power that drew our lives forth from the wild
⁠Our Father is; we shall to Him be dear,
⁠Nor from His universe be blotted out!
"BEYOND THE BRANCHES OF THE PINE"
Beyond the branches of the pine
The golden sun no more doth shine,
⁠But still the solemn afterglow
Floods the deep heavens with light divine.
The night-wind stirs the corn-field near,
The gray moon turns to silver clear,
⁠And one by one the glimmering stars
In the blue dome of heaven appear.
Now do the mighty hosts of light
Across the darkness take their flight ”

“ Trembling as, 'neath the charm,
A wild bird lifts no wing to 'scape from harm;
Her very soul drawn to the glittering, green,
Smooth, lustrous, awful, lovely curve of peril;
While far below the bending sea of beryl
Thunder and tumult—whence a billowy spray
Enclouds the day.
II
What dream is hers? No dream hath wrought that spell!
The long waves rise and sink;
Pity that virgin soul on passion's brink,
Confronting Fate,—swift, unescapable,—
Fate, which of nature is the intent and core,
And dark and strong as the steep river's pour,
Cruel as love, and wild as love's first kiss! ”

“ By what might tempt or foil a lesser soul.
Not wealth, nor ease, nor praise unworthily won
Could touch his spirit;—"There the swift course to run!"
"There, there, O see! the bright, immortal goal!"
IV
Thou star of blood and battle! rich and sweet
Thy liquid gleam, where, in the twilight sky,
Thou shinest greatly! So did his art repeat
Thy strength, thy loveliness; thy ministry,—
In a dark, harmful world,—of Beauty's guerdon;—
Beauty that broods, enlightens, and makes endure
The heart of man beneath its heavy burden,
Lifting above the strife a deathless lure. ”

“ Leap to the Voice and onward fare well cheered.
VI
Cheered for a little season, but the morrow
⁠Brings the old heartbreak; gone is all the gain;
Tho' the bowed soul be schooled to its own sorrow,
⁠Ah, heaven! to feel earth's heritage of pain,—
The unescapable anguish of mankind,
⁠That blots out natural joy!—O human soul,
Learn Courage, tho' the lightning strike thee blind;
⁠Let Duty be thy worship; Love, thy goal:
Love, Duty, Courage—these make thou thy own,
Till from the unknown we pass into the unknown.
"ANGELO, THOU ART THE MASTER"
I
Angelo, thou art the master ”