Selections from American poetry Part 24

Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead I heard the squirrels leaping; The good dog listened while I read, And wagged his tail in keeping.

I watched him while in sportive mood I read "The Two Dogs" story, And half believed he understood The poet's allegory.

Sweet day, sweet songs!--The golden hours Grew brighter for that singing, From brook and bird and meadow flowers A dearer welcome bringing.

New light on home-seen Nature beamed, New glory over Woman; And daily life and duty seemed No longer poor and common.

I woke to find the simple truth Of fact and feeling better Than all the dreams that held my youth A still repining debtor:

That Nature gives her handmaid, Art, The themes of sweet discoursing; The tender idyls of the heart In every tongue rehearsing.

Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, Of loving knight and lady, When farmer boy and barefoot girl Were wandering there already?

I saw through all familiar things The romance underlying; The joys and griefs that plume the wings Of Fancy skyward flying.

I saw the same blithe day return, The same sweet fall of even, That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, And sank on crystal Devon.

I matched with Scotland's heathery hills The sweet-brier and the clover; With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, Their wood-hymns chanting over.

O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, I saw the Man uprising; No longer common or unclean The child of G.o.d's baptizing!

With clearer eyes I saw the worth Of life among the lowly; The Bible at his Cotter's hearth Had made my own more holy.

And if at times an evil strain, To lawless love appealing, Broke in upon the sweet refrain Of pure and healthful feeling,

It died upon the eye and ear, No inward answer gaining; No heart had I to see or hear The discord and the staining.

Let those who never erred forget His worth, in vain bewailings; Sweet Soul of Song!--I own my debt Uncancelled by his failings!

Lament who will the ribald line Which tells his lapse from duty, How kissed the maddening lips of wine Or wanton ones of beauty;

But think, while falls that shade between The erring one and Heaven, That he who loved like Magdalen, Like her may be forgiven.

Not his the song whose thunderous chime Eternal echoes render,-- The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, And Milton's starry splendor!

But who his human heart has laid To Nature's bosom nearer?

Who sweetened toil like him, or paid To love a tribute dearer?

Through all his tuneful art, how strong The human feeling gushes!

The very moonlight of his song Is warm with smiles and blushes!

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry; Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme, But spare his Highland Mary

THE HERO

"O Fox a knight like Bayard, Without reproach or fear; My light glove on his casque of steel, My love-knot on his spear!

"O for the white plume floating Sad Zutphen's field above, The lion heart in battle, The woman's heart in love!

"O that man once more were manly, Woman's pride, and not her scorn That once more the pale young mother Dared to boast 'a man is born'!

"But, now life's slumberous current No sun-bowed cascade wakes; No tall, heroic manhood The level dulness breaks.

"O for a knight like Bayard, Without reproach or fear!

My light glove on his casque of steel My love-knot on his spear!"

Then I said, my own heart throbbing To the time her proud pulse beat, "Life hath its regal natures yet,-- True, tender, brave, and sweet!

"Smile not, fair unbeliever!

One man, at least, I know, Who might wear the crest of Bayard Or Sydney's plume of snow.

"Once, when over purple mountains Died away the Grecian sun, And the far Cyllenian ranges Paled and darkened, one by one,--

"Fell the Turk, a bolt of thunder, Cleaving all the quiet sky, And against his sharp steel lightnings Stood the Suliote but to die.

"Woe for the weak and halting!

The crescent blazed behind A curving line of sabres Like fire before the wind!

"Last to fly, and first to rally, Rode he of whom I speak, When, groaning in his bridle path, Sank down like a wounded Greek.

"With the rich Albanian costume Wet with many a ghastly stain, Gazing on earth and sky as one Who might not gaze again!

"He looked forward to the mountains, Back on foes that never spare, Then flung him from his saddle, And place the stranger there.

"'Allah! hu!' Through flas.h.i.+ng sabres, Through a stormy hail of lead, The good Thessalian charger Up the slopes of olives sped.

"Hot spurred the turbaned riders; He almost felt their breath, Where a mountain stream rolled darkly down Between the hills and death.

"One brave and manful struggle,-- He gained the solid land, And the cover of the mountains, And the carbines of his band!"

"It was very great and n.o.ble,"

Said the moist-eyed listener then, "But one brave deed makes no hero; Tell me what he since hath been!"

"Still a brave and generous manhood, Still and honor without stain, In the prison of the Kaiser, By the barricades of Seine.

"But dream not helm and harness The sign of valor true; Peace bath higher tests of manhood Than battle ever knew.

"Wouldst know him now? Behold him, The Cadmus of the blind, Giving the dumb lip language, The idiot clay a mind.

"Walking his round of duty Serenely day by day, With the strong man's hand of labor And childhood's heart of play.

"True as the knights of story, Sir Lancelot and his peers, Brave in his calm endurance As they in tilt of spears.

"As waves in stillest waters, As stars in noonday skies, All that wakes to n.o.ble action In his noon of calmness lies.