Poems by William Dean Howells Part 9

BY THE SEA.

I walked with her I love by the sea, The deep came up with its chanting waves, Making a music so great and free That the will and the faith, which were dead in me, Awoke and rose from their graves.

Chanting, and with a regal sweep Of their 'broidered garments up and down The strand, came the mighty waves of the deep, Dragging the wave-worn drift from its sleep Along the sea-sands bare and brown.

"O my soul, make the song of the sea!" I cried.

"How it comes, with its stately tread, And its dreadful voice, and the splendid pride Of its regal garments flowing wide Over the land!" to my soul I said.

My soul was still; the deep went down.

"What hast thou, my soul," I cried, "In thy song?" "The sea-sands bare and brown, With broken sh.e.l.ls and sea-weed strown, And stranded drift," my soul replied.

SAINT CHRISTOPHER.

In the narrow Venetian street, On the wall above the garden gate (Within, the breath of the rose is sweet, And the nightingale sings there, soon and late),

Stands Saint Christopher, carven in stone, With the little child in his huge caress, And the arms of the baby Jesus thrown About his gigantic tenderness;

And over the wall a wandering growth Of darkest and greenest ivy clings, And climbs around them, and holds them both In its netted clasp of knots and rings,

Clothing the saint from foot to beard In glittering leaves that whisper and dance To the child, on his mighty arm upreared, With a l.u.s.ty summer exuberance.

To the child on his arm the faithful saint Looks up with a broad and tranquil joy; His brows and his heavy beard aslant Under the dimpled chin of the boy,

Who plays with the world upon his palm, And bends his smiling looks divine On the face of the giant mild and calm, And the glittering frolic of the vine.

He smiles on either with equal grace,-- On the simple ivy's unconscious life, And the soul in the giant's lifted face, Strong from the peril of the strife:

For both are his own,--the innocence That climbs from the heart of earth to heaven, And the virtue that gently rises thence Through trial sent and victory given.

Grow, ivy, up to his countenance, But it cannot smile on my life as on thine; Look, Saint, with thy trustful, fearless glance, Where I dare not lift these eyes of mine.

Venice, 1863.

ELEGY ON JOHN BUTLER HOWELLS,

Who died, "with the first song of the birds," Wednesday morning, April 27, 1864.

I.

In the early morning when I wake At the hour that is sacred for his sake,

And hear the happy birds of spring In the garden under my window sing,

And through my window the daybreak blows The sweetness of the lily and rose,

A dormant anguish wakes with day, And my heart is smitten with strange dismay:

Distance wider than thine, O sea, Darkens between my brother and me!

II.

A sc.r.a.p of print, a few brief lines, The fatal word that swims and s.h.i.+nes

On my tears, with a meaning new and dread, Make faltering reason know him dead,

And I would that my heart might feel it too, And unto its own regret be true;

For this is the hardest of all to bear, That his life was so generous and fair,

So full of love, so full of hope, Broadening out with ample scope,

And so far from death, that his dying seems The idle agony of dreams

To my heart, that feels him living yet,-- And I forget, and I forget.

III.

He was almost grown a man when he pa.s.sed Away, but when I kissed him last

He was still a child, and I had crept Up to the little room where he slept,

And thought to kiss him good-by in his sleep; But he was awake to make me weep

With terrible homesickness, before My wayward feet had pa.s.sed the door.

Round about me clung his embrace, And he pressed against my face his face,

As if some prescience whispered him then That it never, never should be again.

IV.

Out of far-off days of boyhood dim, When he was a babe and I played with him,

I remember his looks and all his ways; And how he grew through childhood's grace,

To the hopes, and strifes, and sports, and joys, And innocent vanity of boys;

I hear his whistle at the door, His careless step upon the floor,

His song, his jest, his laughter yet,-- And I forget, and I forget.