George Parsons Lathrop

“ Blown from the heart of thy rare beauty's flower,
And deftly guided by some breezy power
To fall and rest, where I should never heed,
In deepest caves of memory. There, indeed,
With virtue rife of many a sunny hoar,—
Ev'n making cold neglect and darkness dower
Its roots with life,—swiftly it 'gan to breed,
Till now wide-branching tendrils it outspreads
Like circling arms, to prison its own prison,
Fretting the walls with blooms by myriads,
And blazoning in my brain full summer-season:
Thy face, whose dearness presence had not taught.
In absence multiplies, and fills all thought. ”

“ Am moved, because I am a man.
Oh glorious gift of brotherhood!
Oh sweet elixir in the blood,
That makes us live with those long dead,
Or hope for those that shall be bred
Hereafter! No regret can rob
My heart of this delicious throb;
No thought of fortunes haply wrecked,
Nor pang for nature's wild neglect.
And, though the hearth be cracked and cold,
Though ruin all the place enfold,
These ashes that have lost their name
Shall warm my life with lasting flame!
CHANT FOR AUTUMN. Veiled in visionary haze,
Behold, the ethereal autumn days
Draw near again! ”

“ And flame-curled leaves fly fast; and Jerry sank
Softly toward death. Then, on a boisterous morn
That beat the wrecked woods with incessant gusts
To wrest some last leaf from them, he arose
And passed away. But those who loved him watched
His fading, half in doubt, and half afraid,
As if he must return again; for now
Entering the past he seemed, and not a life
Beyond; and some who thought of that old grave
In the orchard, dreamed a breath's space that the man
Long buried had come back, and could not die. ”

“ BEFORE THE SNOW. Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
Shatters the windy rain. A thousand leaves,
Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air,
Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.
Autumn is gone: as yonder silent rill,
Slow eddying o'er thick leaf-heaps lately shed,
My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still,
By thronging fancies wild and wistful led.
Autumn is gone: alas, how long ago
The grapes were plucked, and garnered was the grain!
How soon death settles on us, and the snow
Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain!
Yea, autumn's gone! ”

“ Sweet Jessamine we called her; for she shone
Like blossoms that in sun and shade have grown,
Gathering from each alike a perfect white,
Whose rich bloom breaks opaque through darkest night.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.
And for this sweetness Walt, her lover, sought
To win her; wooed her here, his heart full-fraught
With fragrance of her being, and gained his plea. ”

“ He who was boy and man with them. A boy!
What, he? How strange it seems! who now is stiff
And warped with life's fierce heat and cold: his brows
Are hoary white, and on his head the hairs
Stand sparse as wheat-stalks on the bare field's edge!
Reuben and Jerry they were named; but two
Of common blood and nurture scarce were found
More sharply different. For the first was bold,
Breeze-like and bold to come or go; not rash,
But shrewdly generous, popular, and boon:
And Jerry, dark and sad-faced. ”

“ Thou couldst not strike a higher star
From out our heaven, and yet its light
In falling glorifies the night!
Leader in life, his lips, though dumb,
Still rule us by their restfulness, their smile
Of far-off meanings; and the people come
In tributary hosts for many a mile,
Drawn by an eloquence
More solemn and intense
Than that wherewith he shook
The Senate, while his look
Of sober lightning cleft the knotty growth
Of error, that within the riven root
Uplifted, lit with peace, truth's buds might shoot,
And blow sweet breath o'er all, however loth! ”

“ In autumn, night or day, large apples fell
Without rebound to earth, upon the sod
There mounded greenly by the large slate slab
In the old orchard-lot near Reuben's door.
But there were changes: after some long years
Reuben and Grace beheld a brave young boy
Bearing their double life abroad in one—
Beginning new the world, and bringing hopes
That in their path fell flower-like. ”

“ That Grace and Reuben unhappy were, nor that
One son alone was theirs. Therefore aside
He thrust that hidden, sharp foreboding: still
He trusted, still sustained a calm suspense,
And ranged among his memories. "Tell me, son,"
He said, "about this Deacon Snow—Rob Snow
It must be, I suppose."
THE BOY. Oh, do you know him?
JERRY. A deacon now! Ay, once I knew Rob Snow—
A jolly blade, if ever any was,
And merry as the full moon.
THE BOY. He has failed
A good deal now, though, since his wife died.
JERRY. What!
(Of course; of course; all's changed.) He married! ”

“ Dew-drenched with tears;—all in one wild gush spent!
MUSIC OF GROWTH. Music is in all growing things;
And underneath the silky wings
Of smallest insects there is stirred
A pulse of air that must be heard.
Earth's silence lives, and throbs, and sings.
If poet from the vibrant strings
Of his poor heart a measure flings,
Laugh not, that he no trumpet blows:
It may be that Heaven hears and knows
His language of low listenings. ”

“ But all that in the heart doth lurk
Must toward the mystic shaping work:
Sweet fruit and bitter both must fall
When the boughs bend, at each year's autumn-call.
Ah, dear defect! that aye shall lift
Us higher, not through craven shift
Of fault on common frailty;—nay,
But twofold hope to help with generous stay!
I shall be nearer, understood:
More prized art thou than perfect good. ”

“ Mastering the eye, has wrapped the brain in sleep.
Ah, when I die, and planets take their flight
Above my grave, still let my spirit keep
Sometimes its vigil of divine remorse,
'Midst pity, praise, or blame heaped o'er my corse!
BURIAL-SONG FOR SUMNER. Now the last wreath of snow
That melts, in mist exhales
White aspiration, and our deep-voiced gales
In chorus chant the measured march of spring,
Whom griefs of life and death
Are burdening!
Slow, slow—
With half-held breath—
Tread slow, O mourners, that all men may know
What hero here lies low! ”

“ And there, in autumn, windfalls, showering thick
Upon the grave, score the slow, voiceless hours
With unrebounding stroke. All round about
Green milkweed rankly thrives, and golden-rod
Sprouts from his prostrate heart in fine-poised grace
Of haughty curve, with every crest in flower. ”

“ That was in love. But he—he drowned himself.
Why do men do so?
JERRY. Drowned himself? And when?
THE BOY. I don't know. Long ago; it's like a dream
To me. I was not born then. Deacon Snow
Has told me something of it. Mother cries
Even now, beside his grave. Poor uncle!
JERRY. His grave! (That could not be, then.) Yet if it should be, How can I think Grace cried—
THE BOY. How did you know
My mother's name was Grace?
JERRY. I am confused
By what you say. But is your mother's name
Grace? How! Grace, too? ”

“ Beneath it Walt and Jessamine were wed;
Beneath it many a year she lieth dead!
And the moon hangs low in the elm.
Here stands the great tree still. But age has crept
Through every coil, while Walt each night has kept
The tryst alone. Hark! with what windy might
The boughs chant o'er her grave their burial-rite! ”

“ And straightway soars anew with blithe endeavor.
The sun may kindle it with healthful fire;
Upon it falls the cloud-gray's leaden load;
At night the stars shall haunt the whirling spire:
Yet these have but a transient garb bestowed.
So her glad life, whate'er the hours impart,
Plays still 'twixt heaven's cope and her own clear heart. ”

“ Yet all these pass, and as some blithe bird, winging,
Leaves a heart-ache for his singing,
A frustrate passion haunts me evermore
For that which closest dwells to beauty's core.
O Love, canst thou this heart of hope restore? ”

“ The dead brought back to life. And with him came
The prodigal, repenting.
So, thenceforth,
A spirit of peace within the household dwelt.
In Jerry a swift-sent age these years had brought,
To soften him, wrought with all the woe at home
Such open, gracious dignity, that all
For cheer and guidance learned to look to him.
But chiefly th' younger Reuben sought his aid,
And he with homely wisdom shaped the lad
To a life's loving duty. Yet not long,
Alas! the kind sea-farer with them stayed. ”

“ The rest, a busy legion, o'er the grass
Kneeling, must rifle the meadow of its fruit.
O laughing Fate! O treachery of truth
To royal hopes youth bows before! That day,
Ev'n there where life in such glad measure beat
Its round, with winds and waters, tunefully,
And birds made music in the matted wood,
The shaft of death reached Jerry's heart: he saw
The sweet conspiracy of those two lives,
In looks and gestures read his doom, and heard
Their laughter ring to the grave all mirth of his.
So Reuben's life in full leaf stood, its fruit
Hidden in a green expectancy ”

“ For Reuben, too, had turned his eye on Grace,
And she with favoring face the suit had met,
Known in the village; this dream-fettered youth
Perceiving not what passed, until too late.
One holiday the young folks all had gone
Strawberrying, with the village Sabbath-school;
Reuben and Grace and Jerry, Ruth, Rob Snow,
And all their friends, youth-mates that buoyantly
Bore out 'gainst Time's armadas, like a fleet
Of fair ships, sunlit, braced by buffeting winds,
Indomitably brave ”

“ While Jerry felt the winter's whitening blight,
As when that frosty fern-work and those palms
Of visionary leaf, and trailing vines,
Quaint-chased by night-winds on the pane, melt off,
And naked earth, stone-stiff, with bristling trees,
Stares in the winter sunlight coldly through. ”

“ The poet ever upward climbs.
DEDICATION. I need give my verse no hint as to whom it sings for. The rose, knowing her own right, makes servitors of the light-rays to carry her color. So every line here shall in some sense breathe of thee, and in its very face bear record of her whom, however unworthily, it seeks to serve and honor. ”

“ Through a bare hollow flashing, spurted, purled,
And shot away, yet stayed—a light and grace
Unconscious and unceasing. And thick pines,
Hard by, drew darkly far away their dim
And sheltering, cool arcades. So all dismount,
And fields and forest gladden with their shout ”

“ The sunshine of thine eyes,
(Oh still, celestial beam!)
Whatever it touches it fills
With the life of its lambent gleam.
The sunshine of thine eyes,
Oh let it fall on me!
Though I be but a mote of the air,
I could turn to gold for thee! ”

“ For Nature left on thee a touch of all
The moods that come to gladden or to grieve
The heart of Time, with purpose to relieve
From lagging sameness. So do these forestall
In thee such o'erheaped sweetnesses as pall
Too swiftly, and the taster tasteless leave.
Scenes that I love to me always remain
Beautiful, whether under summer's sun
Beheld, or, storm-dark, stricken across with rain.
So, through all humors, thou 'rt the same sweet one:
Doubt not I love thee well in each, who see
Thy constant change is changeful constancy.
V. NEW WORLDS. With my beloved I lingered late one night. ”

“ Before proud Grace's father, and of friends
Heard comment and congratulation given.
Then with Rob Snow he hurried to the beach,
To a rough heap of stones they two had reared
In boyhood. There the two held sad debate
Of life's swift losses, Bob inspiriting still,
Jerry rejecting hope, ev'n though his friend,
Self-wounding (for he loved Ruth Hungerford) ,
Told how the wheelwright's daughter longed for him,
And yet might make him glad, though Grace was lost.
The season deepened, and in Jerry's heart
Ripened a thought charged with grave consequence. ”

“ Of serpents, and sound to the heart!
Modest, and mighty, and tender,
Man of an iron mold,
Learned or unlearned, our defender,
American-souled!
THE SILENT TIDE A tangled orchard round the farm-house spreads,
Wherein it stands home-like, but desolate,
'Midst crowded and uneven-statured sheds,
Alike by rain and sunshine sadly stained.
A quiet country-road before the door
Runs, gathering close its ruts to scale the hill—
A sudden bluff on the New Hampshire coast,
That rises rough against the sea, and hangs
Crested above the bowlder-sprinkled beach. ”