Part II
I
It is not winter yet, but that sweet timeIn autumn when the first cool days are past;A week ago, the leaves were hoar with rime,And some have dropped before the North wind’s blast;But the mild hours are back, and at mid-noon,The day hath all the genial warmth of June.
II
What slender form lies stretched along the mound?Can it be his, the Wanderer’s, with that browGray in its prime, those eyes that wander roundListlessly, with a jaded glance that nowSeems to see nothing where it rests, and thenPores on each trivial object in its ken?
III
See how a gentle maid’s wan fingers claspThe last fond love-notes of some faithless hand;Thus, with a transient interest, his weak graspHolds a few leaves as when of old he scannedThe meaning in their gold and crimson streaks;But the sweet dream has vanished! hush! he speaks!
IV
“Once more, once more, after long pain and toil,And yet not long, if I should count by years,I breathe my native air, and tread the soilI trod in childhood; if I shed no tears,No happy tears, ‘t is that their fount is dry,And joy that cannot weep must sigh, must sigh.
V
“These leaves, my boyish books in days of yore,When, as the weeks sped by, I seemed to standEver upon the brink of some wild lore—These leaves shall make my bed, and—for the handOf God is on me, chilling brain and breath—I shall not ask a softer couch in death.
VI
“Here was it that I saw, or dreamed I saw,I know not which, that shape of love and light.Spirit of Song! have I not owned thy law?Have I not taught, or striven to teach the right,And kept my heart as clean, my life as sweet,As mortals may, when mortals mortals meet?
VII
“Thou know’st how I went forth, my youthful breastOn fire with thee, amid the paths of men;Once in my wanderings, my lone footsteps pressedA mountain forest; in a sombre glen,Down which its thundrous boom a cataract flung,A little bird, unheeded, built and sung.
VIII
“So fell my voice amid the whirl and rushOf human passions; if unto my artSorrow hath sometimes owed a gentler gush,I know it not; if any Poet-heartHath kindled at my songs its light divine,I know it not; no ray came back to mine.
IX
“Alone in crowds, once more I sought to makeOf senseless things my friends; the clouds that burnAbove the sunset, and the flowers that shakeTheir odors in the wind—these would not turnTheir faces from me; far from cities, IForgot the scornful world that passed me by.
X
“Yet even the world’s cold slights I might have borne,Nor fled, though sorrowing; but I shrank at lastWhen one sweet face, too sweet, I thought, for scorn,Looked scornfully upon me; then I passedFrom all that youth had dreamed or manhood planned,Into the self that none would understand.
XI
“She was—I never wronged her womanhoodBy crowning it with praises not her own—She was all earth’s, and earth’s, too, in that moodWhen she brings forth her fairest; I atoneNow, in this fading brow and failing frame,That such a soul such soul as mine could tame.
XII
“Clay to its kindred clay! I loved, in sooth,Too deeply and too purely to be blest;With something more of lust and less of truthShe would have sunk all blushes on my breast;And—but I must not blame her—in my earDeath whispers! and the end, thank God! draws near!”
XIII
Hist! on the perfect silence of the placeComes and dies off a sound like far-off rainWith voices mingled; on the Poet’s faceA shadow, where no shadow should have lain,Falls the next moment: nothing meets his sight,Yet something moves betwixt him and the light.
XIV
And a voice murmurs, “Wonder not, but hear!ME to behold again thou need’st not seek;Yet by the dim-felt influence on the air,And by the mystic shadow on thy cheek,Know, though thou mayst not touch with fleshly hands,The genius of thy life beside thee stands!
XV
“Unto no fault, O weary-hearted one!Unto no fault of man’s thou ow’st thy fate;All human hearts that beat this earth upon,All human thoughts and human passions waitUpon the genuine bard, to him belong,And help in their own way the Poet’s song.
XVI
“How blame the world? for the world hast thou wrought?Or wast thou but as one who aims to flingThe weight of some unutterable thoughtDown like a burden? what from questioningToo subtly thy own spirit, and to speechBut half subduing themes beyond the reach
XVII
“Of mortal reason; what from living muchIn that dark world of shadows, where the soulWanders bewildered, striving still to clutchYet never clutching once, a shadowy goal,Which always flies, and while it flies seems near,Thy songs were riddles hard to mortal ear.
XVIII
“This was the hidden selfishness that marredThy teachings ever; this the false key-noteThat on such souls as might have loved thee jarredLike an unearthly language; thou didst floatOn a strange water; those who stood on landGazed, but they could not leave their beaten strand.
XIX
“Your elements were different, and apart—The world’s and thine—and even in those intenseAnd watchful broodings o’er thy inmost heart,It was thy own peculiar differenceThat thou didst seek; nor didst thou care to findAught that would bring thee nearer to thy kind.
XX
“Not thus the Poet, who in blood and brainWould represent his race and speak for all,Weaves the bright woof of that impassioned strainWhich drapes, as if for some high festivalOf pure delights—whence few of human birthMay rightly be shut out—the common earth.
XXI
“As the same law that moulds a planet, roundsA drop of dew, so the great Poet spheresWorlds in himself; no selfish limit boundsA sympathy that folds all characters,All ranks, all passions, and all life almostIn its wide circle. Like some noble host,
XXII
“He spreads the riches of his soul, and bidsPartake who will. Age has its saws of truth,And love is for the maiden’s drooping lids,And words of passion for the earnest youth;Wisdom for all; and when it seeks relief,Tears, and their solace for the heart of grief.
XXIII
“Nor less on him than thee the mysteriesWithin him and about him ever weigh—The meanings in the stars, and in the breeze,All the weird wonders of the common day,Truths that the merest point removes from reach,And thoughts that pause upon the brink of speech;
XXIV
“But on the surface of his song these lieAs shadows, not as darkness; and alway,Even though it breathe the secrets of the sky,There is a human purpose in the lay;Thus some tall fir that whispers to the starsShields at its base a cotter’s lattice-bars.
XXV
“Even such my Poet! for thou still art mine!Thou mightst have been, and now have calmly died,A priest, and not a victim at the shrine;Alas! yet was it all thy fault? I chide,Perchance, myself within thee, and the fateTo which thy power was solely consecrate.
XXVI
“Thy life hath not been wholly without use,Albeit that use is partly hidden now;In thy unmingled scorn of any truceWith this world’s specious falsehoods, often thouHast uttered, through some all unworldly song,Truths that for man might else have slumbered long.
XXVII
“And these not always vainly on the crowdHave fallen; some are cherished now, and some,In mystic phrases wrapped as in a shroud,Wait the diviner, who as yet is dumbUpon the breast of God—the gate of birthClosed on a dreamless ignorance of earth.
XXVIII
“And therefore, though thy name shall pass away,Even as a cloud that hath wept all its showers,Yet as that cloud shall live again one dayIn the glad grass, and in the happy flowers,So in thy thoughts, though clothed in sweeter rhymes,Thy life shall bear its flowers in future times.”