Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant Part 41

Softly breathes the west-wind beside the ruddy forest, Taking leaf by leaf from the branches where he flies.

Sweetly streams the suns.h.i.+ne, this third day of November, Through the golden haze of the quiet autumn skies.

Tenderly the season has spared the gra.s.sy meadows, Spared the potted flowers that the old world gave the new.

Spared the autumn-rose and the garden's group of pansies, Late-blown dandelions and periwinkles blue.

On my cornice linger the ripe black grapes ungathered; Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee, Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them Drops the heavy fruit of the tall black-walnut tree.

Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson, Yet our full-leaved willows are in their freshest green.

Such a kindly autumn, so mercifully dealing With the growths of summer, I never yet have seen.

Like this kindly season may life's decline come o'er me; Past is manhood's summer, the frosty months are here; Yet be genial airs and a pleasant suns.h.i.+ne left me, Leaf, and fruit, and blossom, to mark the closing year!

Dreary is the time when the flowers of earth are withered; Dreary is the time when the woodland leaves are cast-- When, upon the hillside, all hardened into iron, Howling, like a wolf, flies the famished northern blast.

Dreary are the years when the eye can look no longer With delight on Nature, or hope on human kind; Oh, may those that whiten my temples, as they pa.s.s me, Leave the heart unfrozen, and spare the cheerful mind!

THE MOTHER'S HYMN.

Lord, who ordainest for mankind Benignant toils and tender cares!

We thank Thee for the ties that bind The mother to the child she bears.

We thank Thee for the hopes that rise, Within her heart, as, day by day, The dawning soul, from those young eyes, Looks, with a clearer, steadier ray.

And grateful for the blessing given With that dear infant on her knee, She trains the eye to look to heaven, The voice to lisp a prayer to Thee.

Such thanks the blessed Mary gave, When, from her lap, the Holy Child, Sent from on high to seek and save The lost of earth, looked up and smiled.

All-Gracious! grant, to those that bear A mother's charge, the strength and light To lead the steps that own their care In ways of Love, and Truth, and Right.

SELLA.

Hear now a legend of the days of old-- The days when there were goodly marvels yet, When man to man gave willing faith, and loved A tale the better that 'twas wild and strange.

Beside a pleasant dwelling ran a brook Scudding along a narrow channel, paved With green and yellow pebbles; yet full clear Its waters were, and colorless and cool, As fresh from granite rocks. A maiden oft Stood at the open window, leaning out, And listening to the sound the water made, A sweet, eternal murmur, still the same, And not the same; and oft, as spring came on, She gathered violets from its fresh moist bank, To place within her bower, and when the herbs Of summer drooped beneath the mid-day sun, She sat within the shade of a great rock, Dreamily listening to the streamlet's song.

Ripe were the maiden's years; her stature showed Womanly beauty, and her clear, calm eye Was bright with venturous spirit, yet her face Was pa.s.sionless, like those by sculptor graved For niches in a temple. Lovers oft Had wooed her, but she only laughed at love, And wondered at the silly things they said.

'Twas her delight to wander where wild-vines O'erhang the river's brim, to climb the path Of woodland streamlet to its mountain-springs, To sit by gleaming wells and mark below The image of the rushes on its edge, And, deep beyond, the trailing clouds that slid Across the fair blue s.p.a.ce. No little fount Stole forth from hanging rock, or in the side Of hollow dell, or under roots of oak; No rill came trickling, with a stripe of green, Down the bare hill, that to this maiden's eye Was not familiar. Often did the banks Of river or of sylvan lakelet hear The dip of oars with which the maiden rowed Her shallop, pus.h.i.+ng ever from the prow A crowd of long, light ripples toward the sh.o.r.e.

Two brothers had the maiden, and she thought, Within herself: "I would I were like them; For then I might go forth alone, to trace The mighty rivers downward to the sea, And upward to the brooks that, through the year, Prattle to the cool valleys. I would know What races drink their waters; how their chiefs Bear rule, and how men wors.h.i.+p there, and how They build, and to what quaint device they frame, Where sea and river meet, their stately s.h.i.+ps; What flowers are in their gardens, and what trees Bear fruit within their orchards; in what garb Their bowmen meet on holidays, and how Their maidens bind the waist and braid the hair.

Here, on these hills, my father's house o'erlooks Broad pastures grazed by flocks and herds, but there I hear they sprinkle the great plains with corn And watch its springing up, and when the green Is changed to gold, they cut the stems and bring The harvest in, and give the nations bread.

And there they hew the quarry into shafts, And pile up glorious temples from the rock, And chisel the rude stones to shapes of men.

All this I pine to see, and would have seen, But that I am a woman, long ago."

Thus in her wanderings did the maiden dream, Until, at length, one morn in early spring, When all the glistening fields lay white with frost, She came half breathless where her mother sat: "See, mother dear," she said, "what I have found, Upon our rivulet's bank; two slippers, white As the midwinter snow, and spangled o'er With twinkling points, like stars, and on the edge My name is wrought in silver; read, I pray, Sella, the name thy mother, now in heaven, Gave at my birth; and sure, they fit my feet!"

"A dainty pair," the prudent matron said, "But thine they are not. We must lay them by For those whose careless hands have left them here; Or haply they were placed beside the brook To be a snare. I cannot see thy name Upon the border--only characters Of mystic look and dim are there, like signs Of some strange art; nay, daughter, wear them not."

Then Sella hung the slippers in the porch Of that broad rustic lodge, and all who pa.s.sed Admired their fair contexture, but none knew Who left them by the brook. And now, at length, May, with her flowers and singing birds, had gone, And on bright streams and into deep wells shone The high, midsummer sun. One day, at noon, Sella was missed from the accustomed meal.

They sought her in her favorite haunts, they looked By the great rock and far along the stream, And shouted in the sounding woods her name.

Night came, and forth the sorrowing household went With torches over the wide pasture-grounds, To pool and thicket, marsh and briery dell, And solitary valley far away.

The morning came, and Sella was not found.

The sun climbed high; they sought her still; the noon, The hot and silent noon, heard Sella's name, Uttered with a despairing cry, to wastes O'er which the eagle hovered. As the sun Stooped toward the amber west to bring the close Of that sad second day, and, with red eyes, The mother sat within her home alone, Sella was at her side. A shriek of joy Broke the sad silence; glad, warm tears were shed, And words of gladness uttered. "Oh, forgive,"

The maiden said, "that I could e'er forget Thy wishes for a moment. I just tried The slippers on, amazed to see them shaped So fairly to my feet, when, all at once, I felt my steps upborne and hurried on Almost as if with wings. A strange delight, Blent with a thrill of fear, o'ermastered me, And, ere I knew, my splas.h.i.+ng steps were set Within the rivulet's pebbly bed, and I Was rus.h.i.+ng down the current. By my side Tripped one as beautiful as ever looked From white clouds in a dream; and, as we ran, She talked with musical voice and sweetly laughed.

Gayly we leaped the crag and swam the pool, And swept with dimpling eddies round the rock, And glided between shady meadow-banks.

The streamlet, broadening as we went, became A swelling river, and we shot along By stately towns, and under leaning masts Of gallant barks, nor lingered by the sh.o.r.e Of blooming gardens; onward, onward still, The same strong impulse bore me, till, at last, We entered the great deep, and pa.s.sed below His billows, into boundless s.p.a.ces, lit With a green suns.h.i.+ne. Here were mighty groves Far down the ocean-valleys, and between Lay what might seem fair meadows, softly tinged With orange and with crimson. Here arose Tall stems, that, rooted in the depths below, Swung idly with the motions of the sea; And here were shrubberies in whose mazy screen The creatures of the deep made haunt. My friend Named the strange growths, the pretty coralline, The dulse with crimson leaves, and, streaming far, Sea-thong and sea-lace. Here the tangle spread Its broad, thick fronds, with pleasant bowers beneath; And oft we trod a waste of pearly sands, Spotted with rosy sh.e.l.ls, and thence looked in At caverns of the sea whose rock-roofed halls Lay in blue twilight. As we moved along, The dwellers of the deep, in mighty herds, Pa.s.sed by us, reverently they pa.s.sed us by, Long trains of dolphins rolling through the brine, Huge whales, that drew the waters after them, A torrent-stream, and hideous hammer-sharks, Chasing their prey. I shuddered as they came; Gently they turned aside and gave us room."

Hereat broke in the mother: "Sella dear, This is a dream, the idlest, vainest dream."

"Nay, mother, nay; behold this sea-green scarf, Woven of such threads as never human hand Twined from the distaff. She who led my way Through the great waters, bade me wear it home, A token that my tale is true. 'And keep,'

She said, 'the slippers thou hast found, for thou, When shod with them, shalt be like one of us, With power to walk at will the ocean-floor, Among its monstrous creatures, unafraid, And feel no longing for the air of heaven To fill thy lungs, and send the warm, red blood Along thy veins. But thou shalt pa.s.s the hours In dances with the sea-nymphs, or go forth, To look into the mysteries of the abyss Where never plummet reached. And thou shalt sleep Thy weariness away on downy banks Of sea-moss, where the pulses of the tide Shall gently lift thy hair, or thou shalt float On the soft currents that go forth and wind From isle to isle, and wander through the sea.'

"So spake my fellow-voyager, her words Sounding like wavelets on a summer sh.o.r.e, And then we stopped beside a hanging rock, With a smooth beach of white sands at its foot, Where three fair creatures like herself were set At their sea-banquet, crisp and juicy stalks, Culled from the ocean's meadows, and the sweet Midrib of pleasant leaves, and golden fruits Dropped from the trees that edge the southern isles, And gathered on the waves. Kindly they prayed That I would share their meal, and _I _partook With eager appet.i.te, for long had been My journey, and I left the spot refreshed.

"And then we wandered off amid the groves Of coral loftier than the growths of earth; The mightiest cedar lifts no trunk like theirs, So huge, so high toward heaven, nor overhangs Alleys and bowers so dim. We moved between Pinnacles of black rock, which, from beneath, Molten by inner fires, so said my guide, Gushed long ago into the hissing brine, That quenched and hardened them, and now they stand Motionless in the currents of the sea That part and flow around them. As we went, We looked into the hollows of the abyss, To which the never-resting waters sweep The skeletons of sharks, the long white spines Of narwhal and of dolphin, bones of men s.h.i.+pwrecked, and mighty ribs of foundered barks.

Down the blue pits we looked, and hastened on.

"But beautiful the fountains of the sea Sprang upward from its bed: the silvery jets Shot branching far into the azure brine, And where they mingled with it, the great deep Quivered and shook, as shakes the glimmering air Ahove a furnace. So we wandered through The mighty world of waters, till at length I wearied of its wonders, and my heart Began to yearn for my dear mountain-home.

I prayed my gentle guide to lead me back To the upper air. 'A glorious realm,' I said, 'Is this thou openest to me; but I stray Bewildered in its vastness; these strange sights And this strange light oppress me. I must see The faces that I love, or I shall die.'

"She took my hand, and, darting through the waves Brought me to where the stream, by which we came, Rushed into the main ocean. Then began A slower journey upward. Wearily We breasted the strong current, climbing through The rapids, tossing high their foam. The night Came down, and in the clear depth of a pool, Edged with o'erhanging rock, we took our rest Till morning; and I slept, and dreamed of home And thee. A pleasant sight the morning showed; The green fields of this upper world, the herds That grazed the bank, the light on the red clouds, The trees, with all their host of trembling leaves, Lifting and lowering to the restless wind Their branches. As I woke, I saw them all From the clear stream; yet strangely was my heart Parted between the watery world and this, And as we journeyed upward, oft I thought Of marvels I had seen, and stopped and turned, And lingered, till I thought of thee again; And then again I turned and clambered up The rivulet's murmuring path, until we came Beside the cottage-door. There tenderly My fair conductor kissed me, and I saw Her face no more. I took the slippers off.

Oh! with what deep delight my lungs drew in The air of heaven again, and with what joy I felt my blood bound with its former glow; And now I never leave thy side again!"

So spoke the maiden Sella, with large tears Standing in her mild eyes, and in the porch Replaced the slippers. Autumn came and went; The winter pa.s.sed; another summer warmed The quiet pools; another autumn tinged The grape with red, yet while it hung unplucked, The mother ere her time was carried forth To sleep among the solitary hills.

A long, still sadness settled on that home Among the mountains. The stern father there Wept with his children, and grew soft of heart, And Sella, and the brothers twain, and one Younger than they, a sister fair and shy, Strewed the new grave with flowers, and round it set Shrubs that all winter held their lively green.

Time pa.s.sed; the grief with which their hearts were wrung Waned to a gentle sorrow. Sella, now, Was often absent from the patriarch's board; The slippers hung no longer in the porch; And sometimes after summer nights her couch Was found unpressed at dawn, and well they knew That she was wandering with the race who make Their dwelling in the waters. Oft her looks Fixed on blank s.p.a.ce, and oft the ill-suited word Told that her thoughts were far away. In vain Her brothers reasoned with her tenderly: "Oh leave not thus thy kindred!" so they prayed; "Dear Sella, now that she who gave us birth Is in her grave, oh go not hence, to seek Companions in that strange cold realm below, For which G.o.d made not us nor thee, but stay To be the grace and glory of our home."

She looked at them with those mild eyes and wept, But said no word in answer, nor refrained From those mysterious wanderings that filled Their loving hearts with a perpetual pain.

And now the younger sister, fair and shy, Had grown to early womanhood, and one Who loved her well had wooed her for his bride, And she had named the wedding-day. The herd Had given its fatlings for the marriage-feast; The roadside garden and the secret glen Were rifled of their sweetest flowers to twine The door-posts, and to lie among the locks Of maids, the wedding-guests, and from the boughs Of mountain-orchards had the fairest fruit Been plucked to glisten in the canisters.

Then, trooping over hill and valley, came Matron and maid, grave men and smiling youths, Like swallows gathering for their autumn flight, In costumes of that simpler age they came, That gave the limbs large play, and wrapped the form In easy folds, yet bright with glowing hues As suited holidays. All hastened on To that glad bridal. There already stood The priest prepared to say the spousal rite, And there the harpers in due order sat, And there the singers. Sella, midst them all, Moved strangely and serenely beautiful, With clear blue eyes, fair locks, and brow and cheek Colorless as the lily of the lakes, Yet moulded to such shape as artists give To beings of immortal youth. Her hands Had decked her sister for the bridal hour With chosen flowers, and lawn whose delicate threads Vied with the spider's spinning. There she stood With such a gentle pleasure in her looks As might beseem a river-nymph's soft eyes Gracing a bridal of the race whose flocks Were pastured on the borders of her stream.

She smiled, but from that calm sweet face the smile Was soon to pa.s.s away. That very morn The elder of the brothers, as he stood Upon the hillside, had beheld the maid, Emerging from the channel of the brook, With three fresh water-lilies in her hand, Wring dry her dripping locks, and in a cleft Of hanging rock, beside a screen of boughs, Bestow the spangled slippers. None before Had known where Sella hid them. Then she laid The light-brown tresses smooth, and in them twined The lily-buds, and hastily drew forth And threw across her shoulders a light robe Wrought for the bridal, and with bounding steps Ran toward the lodge. The youth beheld and marked The spot and slowly followed from afar.

Now had the marriage-rite been said; the bride Stood in the blush that from her burning cheek Glowed down the alabaster neck, as morn Crimsons the pearly heaven half-way to the west.

At once the harpers struck their chords; a gush Of music broke upon the air; the youths All started to the dance. Among them moved The queenly Sella with a grace that seemed Caught from the swaying of the summer sea.

The young drew forth the elders to the dance, Who joined it half abashed, but when they felt The joyous music tingling in their veins, They called for quaint old measures, which they trod As gayly as in youth, and far abroad Came through the open windows cheerful shouts And bursts of laughter. They who heard the sound Upon the mountain footpaths paused and said, "A merry wedding." Lovers stole away That sunny afternoon to bowers that edged The garden-walks, and what was whispered there The lovers of these later times can guess.

Meanwhile the brothers, when the merry din Was loudest, stole to where the slippers lay, And took them thence, and followed down the brook To where a little rapid rushed between Its borders of smooth rock, and dropped them in.

The rivulet, as they touched its face, flung up Its small bright waves like hands, and seemed to take The prize with eagerness and draw it down.

They, gleaming through the waters as they went, And striking with light sound the s.h.i.+ning stones, Slid down the stream. The brothers looked and watched, And listened with full beating hearts, till now The sight and sound had pa.s.sed, and silently And half repentant hastened to the lodge.

The sun was near his set; the music rang Within the dwelling still, but the mirth waned; For groups of guests were sauntering toward their homes Across the fields, and far, on hillside paths, Gleamed the white robes of maidens. Sella grew Weary of the long merriment; she thought Of her still haunts beneath the soundless sea, And all unseen withdrew and sought the cleft Where she had laid the slippers. They were gone!

She searched the brookside near, yet found them not.

Then her heart sank within her, and she ran Wildly from place to place, and once again She searched the secret cleft, and next she stooped And with spread palms felt carefully beneath The tufted herbs and bushes, and again, And yet again, she searched the rocky cleft.

"Who could have taken them?" That question cleared The mystery. She remembered suddenly That when the dance was in its gayest whirl, Her brothers were not seen, and when, at length, They reappeared, the elder joined the sports With shouts of boisterous mirth, and from her eye The younger shrank in silence. "Now, I know The guilty ones," she said, and left the spot, And stood before the youths with such a look Of anguish and reproach that well they knew Her thought, and almost wished the deed undone.

Frankly they owned the charge: "And pardon us; We did it all in love; we could not bear That the cold world of waters and the strange Beings that dwell within it should beguile Our sister from us." Then they told her all; How they had seen her stealthily bestow The slippers in the cleft, and how by stealth They took them thence and bore them down the brook, And dropped them in, and how the eager waves Gathered and drew them down; but at that word The maiden shrieked--a broken-hearted shriek-- And all who heard it shuddered and turned pale At the despairing cry, and "They are gone,"

She said, "gone--gone forever! Cruel ones!

'Tis you who shut me out eternally From that serener world which I had learned To love so well. Why took ye not my life?

Ye cannot know what ye have done!" She spake And hurried to her chamber, and the guests Who yet had lingered silently withdrew.

The brothers followed to the maiden's bower, But with a calm demeanor, as they came, She met them at the door. "The wrong is great,"

She said, "that ye have done me, but no power Have ye to make it less, nor yet to soothe My sorrow; I shall bear it as I may, The better for the hours that I have pa.s.sed In the calm region of the middle sea.

Go, then. I need you not." They, overawed, Withdrew from that grave presence. Then her tears Broke forth a flood, as when the August cloud, Darkening beside the mountain, suddenly Melts into streams of rain. That weary night She paced her chamber, murmuring as she walked, "O peaceful region of the middle sea!

O azure bowers and grots, in which I loved To roam and rest! Am I to long for you, And think how strangely beautiful ye are, Yet never see you more? And dearer yet, Ye gentle ones in whose sweet company I trod the sh.e.l.ly pavements of the deep, And swam its currents, creatures with calm eyes Looking the tenderest love, and voices soft As ripple of light waves along the sh.o.r.e, Uttering the tenderest words! Oh! ne'er again Shall I, in your mild aspects, read the peace That dwells within, and vainly shall I pine To hear your sweet low voices. Haply now Ye miss me in your deep-sea home, and think Of me with pity, as of one condemned To haunt this upper world, with its harsh sounds And glaring lights, its withering heats, its frosts, Cruel and killing, its delirious strifes, And all its feverish pa.s.sions, till I die."

So mourned she the long night, and when the morn Brightened the mountains, from her lattice looked The maiden on a world that was to her A desolate and dreary waste. That day She pa.s.sed in wandering by the brook that oft Had been her pathway to the sea, and still Seemed, with its cheerful murmur, to invite Her footsteps thither. "Well mayst thou rejoice, Fortunate stream!" she said, "and dance along Thy bed, and make thy course one ceaseless strain Of music, for thou journeyest toward the deep, To which I shall return no more." The night Brought her to her lone chamber, and she knelt And prayed, with many tears, to Him whose hand Touches the wounded heart and it is healed.

With prayer there came new thoughts and new desires.

She asked for patience and a deeper love For those with whom her lot was henceforth cast, And that in acts of mercy she might lose The sense of her own sorrow. When she rose A weight was lifted from her heart. She sought Her couch, and slept a long and peaceful sleep.

At morn she woke to a new life. Her days Henceforth were given to quiet tasks of good In the great world. Men hearkened to her words, And wondered at their wisdom and obeyed, And saw how beautiful the law of love Can make the cares and toils of daily life.

Still did she love to haunt the springs and brooks As in her cheerful childhood, and she taught The skill to pierce the soil and meet the veins Of clear cold water winding underneath, And call them forth to daylight. From afar She bade men bring the rivers on long rows Of pillared arches to the sultry town, And on the hot air of the summer fling The spray of das.h.i.+ng fountains. To relieve Their weary hands, she showed them how to tame The rus.h.i.+ng stream, and make him drive the wheel That whirls the humming millstone and that wields The ponderous sledge. The waters of the cloud, That drench the hillside in the time of rains, Were gathered, at her bidding, into pools, And in the months of drought led forth again, In glimmering rivulets, to refresh the vales, Till the sky darkened with returning showers.