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 moon-beams white,
I yielded my soul to the fierce control of that maddening delight! ”

“ Gentle in speech and thought,—while thus he shone,
A rising star, though chosen of a queen,
Why seek the skies less tranquil than his own?
Why should he climb beside her perilous height,
And in that noonday blaze eclipse his light? [193]
Ah, why?—one’s own life may be bravely led,
But not another’s. Yet, as to and fro
The buzzing private embassies were sped,
And when the Queen’s own pages, bowing low,
Told in his ear a sweet and secret story,
The Prince, long trained to seek his house’s glory,
Let every gracious sentence seem a plume
Of love and beckoning beauty for his helm. ”

“ Have felt the chillness of his breath
Whiten my cheek and numb my heart,
And wondered why he stayed his dart,—
Yet quailed not, but could meet him so,
As any lesser friend or foe.
But sleeping, in the dreams of night,
His phantom stifles me with fright!
O God! what frozen horrors fall
Upon me with his visioned pall:
The movelessness, the unknown dread,
Fair life to pulseless silence wed!
And is the grave so darkly deep,
So hopeless, as it seems in sleep?
Can our sweet selves the coffin hold
So dumb within its crumbling mould? ”

“ I hold the perfect mating of two souls,
Through wedded love, to be the sum of bliss.
When Earth, this fruit that ripens as it rolls
In sunlight, grows more prime, lives will not miss
Their counterparts, and each shall find its own;
But now with what blind chance the lots are thrown!
And because Love sets with a rising tide
Along the drift where much has gone before
One holds of worth,—we lavish first, beside,
Heart, honors, regal gifts, and love the more
When yielding most,—for this the Queen’s love knew
No slack, but still its current deeper grew. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The last of the ancient ichor shall pass away from his veins,
And a new-born light shall fill the eyes whose earlier lustre wanes.
In seven years, it is written, a man shall shift his mood;
Good shall seem what was evil, and evil the thing that was good:
Ye that welcome the coming and speed the parting guest,
Tell me, O winds of summer! am I not half-confest?
For along the tide of this mellow month new fancies guide my helm,
Another form has entered my heart as rightful queen of the realm ”

“ 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. ”

“ Till her heart is dust, till her strength is water?
Must ye see them trample her, and be calm
As priests when a virgin is led to slaughter?
Shall they smite the marvel of all lands,—
The nation’s longing, the Earth’s completeness,—
On her red mouth dropping myrrh, her hands
Filled with fruitage and spice and sweetness?
Must ye wait?
In the day, in the night,
In the burning day, in the dolorous night,
Her sun-browned cheeks are stained with weeping.
Her watch-fires beacon the misty height:—
Why are her friends and lovers sleeping? ”

“ Together, gathered from the breathing-time
They give the fellows while the dog-days last,
He found the harness chafe; then grew morose,
And kicked above the traces, going home
Hardly a Junior, but a sounder man,
In mind and body, than a host who win
Your baccalaureate honors. There he stayed,
Half tired of bookmen, on his father’s farm,
And gladly felt the plough-helve. In a year
The old man gave his blessing to the son,
And left his life, as ’twere his harvest-field,
When work was over. ”

“ The strife once more, and with his battle-shout
Woke victory; again his forces whirled
The hostile troops, and drove them on in rout.
The strength of ten battalions seemed to yield
Before his arm; and so he won that field,
And slew with his own hand the vengeful king,
And with that death-stroke brought the war to end,
Conquering the common foe, and conquering
The hate, from which he would not else defend
His clear renown than with such manful deeds
As fall to faith and valor at their needs. ”

“ They two, the boy and the grandsire, lived at the manor-house, and grew,
The one to all manly arts apace, the other a youth anew—
Pleased with the boy’s free spirit, and teaching him, step by step, to wield
The mastery over living things, and the craft of flood and field.
Apt, indeed, was the scholar; and born with a subtle art to gain
The love of all dumb creatures at will; now lifting himself, by the mane,
Over the neck of the three-year colt, for a random bareback ride,
Now chasing the waves on the rifted beach at the turn of the evening tide. ”

“ Happy themselves, the Queen still happiest found,
And plighted maids still wished their lovers’ lives
Conformed to his. Such manhood wrapt him round,
So winsome were his grace and knightly look,
The dames at court their lesser spoil forsook,
And wove a net to snare him, and their mood
Grew warmer for his coldness; and the hearts
Of those most heartless beat with quicker blood,
Foiled of his love; yet, heedless of their arts,
Courteous to all, he went his way content,
Nor ever from his princely station bent.
“What is this charm,” they asked, “that makes him chaste
Beyond all men?” ”

“ In the present rancor measured even the scorn of days to come;
Known that never should the whiteness of their virtue shine revealed,
Never should the truer Future rub the tarnish from the shield.
That diviner abnegation hath not yet been asked of thee:
Art thou able to attain it, if perchance it were to be?
O, our feeble tests of greatness! Look for one so calm of soul
As to take the even chalice of his life and drink the whole.
Noble deeds are held in honor, but the wide world sorely needs
Hearts of patience to unravel this,—the worth of common deeds. ”

“ I pass unseen:
There rest the valiant chieftains wreathed with bay;
Here maidens to their lovers cling,
And happy minstrels sing,
Praising their queen. [260]
For where yon pillars are,
And birds with tuneful voices call,
There shines a star,—
The crown she wears, the Fairy Queen of all!
Led to that inmost, wooded haunt
By maidens ministrant,
I halt afar.
O joy! she sees me stand
Doubting, and calls me near her throne,
And waves her wand,
As in my dreams, and smiles on me alone.
O royal beauty, proud and sweet!
I bow me at her feet
To kiss that hand:
Ah woe! ”

“ Often the yacht, with all sail spread, was steered by the fearless twain
Around the beacon of Sandy Hook, and out in the open main;
Till the great sea-surges rolling in, as south-by-east they wore,
Lifted the bows of the dancing craft, and the buoyant hearts she bore.
But in dreamy hours, which young men know, Hugh loved with the tide to float
Far up the deep, dark-channeled creeks, alone in his two-oared boat;
While a fiery woven tapestry o’erhung the waters low,
The warp of the frosted chestnut, the woof with maple and birch aglow ”

“ Such joys are all about us spread,
We know the whisper was not truth.
The birds, that break from grass and grove,
Sing every carol that they sung
When first our veins were rich with love,
And May her mantle round us flung.
O fresh-lit dawn! immortal life!
O Earth’s betrothal, sweet and true,
With whose delights our souls are rife
And aye their vernal vows renew!
Then, darling, walk with me this morn:
Let your brown tresses drink its sheen;
These violets, within them worn,
Of floral fays shall make you queen.
What though there comes a time of pain
When autumn winds forbode decay ”

“ And the Pilgrim blood in the people’s veins
Is pure as the wealth of their mountain ores?
Spirits of sons who, side by side,
In a hundred battles fought and fell,
Whom now no East and West divide,
In the isles where the shades of heroes dwell;
Say, has it reached your glorious rest,
And ruffled the calm which crowns you there,—
The shame that recreants have confest,
The plot that floats in the troubled air?
Sons of New England, here and there,
Wherever men are still holding by
The honor our fathers left so fair! ”

“ Ever would I gaze to meet
Eyes of thine up-glancing, Sweet!
What enchanted dreams are ours!
While the murmur of the showers
Dropping on the tranquil ground,
Dropping on the leaves and flowers,
Wraps our yearning souls around
In the drapery of its sound.
Still the plenteous streamlets fall:
Here two hearts are all in all
To each other; and they beat
With no evanescent heat,
Put softly, steadily, hour by hour,
With the calm, melodious power
Of the gentle summer rain,
That in Heaven so long hath lain,
And from out that shoreless sea
Pours its blessings tenderly.
Freer yet its currents swell! ”

“ Which Jacob and Rachel felt,
When he served her father long years,
And the years were swift as days—
So great was the love he bore?
Race, advancing with time,
Growing in thought and deed,
Mastering land and sea,
Say, does the heart advance,
Are its passions more pure and strong?
They, like Nature, remain,
No more and no less than of yore.
Whoso conquers the earth, [108]
Winning its riches and fame,
Comes to the evening at last,
The sunset of threescore years,
Confessing that Love was real,
All the rest was a dream! ”

“ At thine old tasks thou’lt not be quite forlorn,
Remembering where is peace; and thou shalt say,
“I know where beauty has not felt the curse,—
Where, though I age, all round me is so young
That in its youth my soul’s youth mirrored seems;
Yes, in their rippling verse,
For all our toil, they have not falsely sung
Who said there still was rest beyond our dreams.” TO BAYARD TAYLOR.
WITH A COPY OF THE ILIAD.
Bayard, awaken not this music strong,
While round thy home the indolent sweet breeze
Floats lightly as the summer breath of seas
O’er which Ulysses heard the Sirens’ song. ”

“ I hear a murmur on the meads,—
Where as of old my children seek my face,—
The low of kine, the peaceful tramp of steeds,
Blithe shouts of men in many a pastoral place,
The noise of tilth through all my goodliest land,
And happy laughter of a dusky race
Whose brethren lift them from their ancient toil,
Saying: “The year of jubilee has come;
Gather the gifts of Earth with equal hand;
Henceforth ye too may share the birthright soil,
The corn, the wine, and all the harvest-home.” ”

“ Jarring the sweet idyllic rest, stilling the children’s throng,
Hushing the cricket on the hearth, and the lovers’ evening song?
VII. 1.
War! war! war!
Manning of forts on land and ships for sea;
Innumerous lips that speak the righteous wrath
Of days which have been and again may be;
Flashing of tender eyes disdaining tears;
A pause of men with indrawn breath,
Knowing it awful for the people’s will
Thus, thus to end the mellow years
Of harvest, growth, prosperity,
And bring the years of famine, fire, and death,
Though fear and a nation’s shame are more awful still. [111]
2.
War! war! war! ”

“ And felt a rapture in the sight.
And many a sufferer’s earthly life
Thanked for new strength the Colonel’s wife;
Many a soldier turned his head,
Watching her pass his narrow bed,
Or, haply, his feeble frame would raise,
As the dim lamp her form revealed;
And, like the children in the field,
(For soldiers like little ones become,—
As simple in heart, as frolicsome,)
One and another breathed her name,
Blessing her as she went and came. ”

“ 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.
“What were his gifts who made each lovely thing,
Yet lacked the gift of love? or what the fame
Of some dwarfed poet, whose numbers still we sing,
If no fair woman trembled where he came?
The beggar dying in ditch is not accurst
If love once crowned him! Fate may do her worst. ”

“ Paltry handfuls of the riches that his guardian-angel gave!
Shame upon all listless dreamers early hiding from the strife,
Sated with some little gleaning of the harvest-fields of life!
Shame upon God’s toiling thinkers, who make profit of their brains,
Getting store of scornful pittance for their slow-decaying pains!
Give me purpose, steadfast purpose, and the grandeur of a soul
Born to lead the van of armies or a people to control.
Let me float away and ever, from this shore of bog and mire, [32]
On the mounting waves of effort, buoyed by the soul’s desire! ”