Chapter VIII
“I marvel how mine eye, ranging the Night,From its big circling ever absentlyReturns, thou large low Star, to fix on thee.`Maria!’ Star? No star: a Light, a Light!Wouldst leap ashore, Heart? Yonder burns—a Light.Pedro Gutierrez, wake! come up to me.I prithee stand and gaze about the sea:What seest? `Admiral, like as land—a Light!’Well! Sanchez of Segovia, come and try:What seest? `Admiral, naught but sea and sky!’Well! But *I* saw It. Wait! the Pinta’s gun!Why, look, ’tis dawn, the land is clear: ’tis done!Two dawns do break at once from Time’s full hand—God’s, East—mine, West: good friends, behold my Land!”
Master, Master! faster flyNow the hurrying seasons by;Now the Sea of Darkness wideRolls in light from side to side;Mark, slow drifting to the WestDown the trough and up the crest,Yonder piteous heartsease petalMany-motioned rise and settle—Petal cast a-sea from landBy the awkward-fingered HandThat, mistaking Nature’s course,Tears the love it fain would force—Petal calm of heartsease flowerSmiling sweet on tempest sour,Smiling where by crest and troughHeartache Winds at heartsease scoff,Breathing mild perfumes of prayer‘Twixt the scolding sea and air.
Mayflower, piteous Heartsease Petal!Suavely down the sea-troughs settle,Gravely breathe perfumes of prayer‘Twixt the scolding sea and air,Bravely up the sea-hills rise—Sea-hills slant thee toward the skies.Master, hold disaster offFrom the crest and from the trough;Heartsease, on the heartache seaGod, thy God, will pilot thee.
Mayflower, Ship of Faith’s best Hope!Thou art sure if all men grope;Mayflower, Ship of Hope’s best Faith!All is true the great God saith;Mayflower, Ship of Charity!Love is Lord of land and sea.Oh, with love and love’s best careThy large godly freightage bear—Godly Hearts that, Grails of gold,Still the blood of Faith do hold.
Now bold Massachusetts clearCuts the rounding of the sphere.`Out the anchor, sail no more,Lay us by the Future’s shore—Not the shore we sought, ’tis true,But the time is come to do.Leap, dear Standish, leap and wade;Bradford, Hopkins, Tilley, wade:Leap and wade ashore and kneel—God be praised that steered the keel!Home is good and soft is rest,Even in this jagged West:Freedom lives, and Right shall stand;Blood of Faith is in the land.’
Then in what time the primal icy yearsScraped slowly o’er the Puritans’ hopes and fears,Like as great glaciers built of frozen tears,The Voice from far within the secret skySaid, `Blood of Faith ye have? So; let us try.’And presentlyThe anxious-masted ships that westward fare,Cargo’d with trouble and a-list with care,Their outraged decks hot back to England bear,Then come again with stowage of worse weight,Battle, and tyrannous Tax, and Wrong, and Hate,And all bad items of Death’s perilous freight.
O’er Cambridge set the yeomen’s mark:Climb, patriot, through the April dark.O lanthorn! kindle fast thy light,Thou budding star in the April night,For never a star more news hath told,Or later flame in heaven shall hold.Ay, lanthorn on the North Church tower,When that thy church hath had her hour,Still from the top of Reverence highShalt thou illume Fame’s ampler sky;For, statured large o’er town and tree,Time’s tallest Figure stands by thee,And, dim as now thy wick may shineThe Future lights his lamp at thine.
Now haste thee while the way is clear,Paul Revere!Haste, Dawes! but haste thou not, O Sun!To Lexington.
Then Devens looked and saw the light:He got him forth into the night,And watched alone on the river-shore,And marked the British ferrying o’er.
John Parker! rub thine eyes and yawn:But one o’clock and yet ’tis Dawn!Quick, rub thine eyes and draw thy hose:The Morning comes ere darkness goes.Have forth and call the yeomen out,For somewhere, somewhere close aboutFull soon a Thing must come to beThine honest eyes shall stare to see—Full soon before thy patriot eyesFreedom from out of a Wound shall rise.
Then haste ye, Prescott and Revere!Bring all the men of Lincoln here;Let Chelmsford, Littleton, Carlisle,Let Acton, Bedford, hither file—Oh hither file, and plainly seeOut of a wound leap Liberty.
Say, Woodman April! all in green,Say, Robin April! hast thou seenIn all thy travel round the earthEver a morn of calmer birth?But Morning’s eye alone sereneCan gaze across yon village-greenTo where the trooping British runThrough Lexington.
Good men in fustian, stand ye still;The men in red come o’er the hill.`Lay down your arms, damned Rebels!’ cryThe men in red full haughtily.But never a grounding gun is heard;The men in fustian stand unstirred;Dead calm, save maybe a wise bluebirdPuts in his little heavenly word.O men in red! if ye but knewThe half as much as bluebirds do,Now in this little tender calmEach hand would out, and every palmWith patriot palm strike brotherhood’s strokeOr ere these lines of battle broke.
O men in red! if ye but knewThe least of the all that bluebirds do,Now in this little godly calmYon voice might sing the Future’s Psalm—The Psalm of Love with the brotherly eyesWho pardons and is very wise—Yon voice that shouts, high-hoarse with ire,`Fire!’The red-coats fire, the homespuns fall:The homespuns’ anxious voices call,`Brother, art hurt?’ and `Where hit, John?’And, `Wipe this blood,’ and `Men, come on,’And, `Neighbor, do but lift my head,’And `Who is wounded? Who is dead?’`Seven are killed.’ `My God! my God!’`Seven lie dead on the village sod.Two Harringtons, Parker, Hadley, Brown,Monroe and Porter,—these are down.’`Nay, look! Stout Harrington not yet dead!’He crooks his elbow, lifts his head.He lies at the step of his own house-door;He crawls and makes a path of gore.The wife from the window hath seen, and rushed;He hath reached the step, but the blood hath gushed;He hath crawled to the step of his own house-door,But his head hath dropped: he will crawl no more.Clasp, Wife, and kiss, and lift the head:Harrington lies at his doorstep dead.
But, O ye Six that round him layAnd bloodied up that April day!As Harrington fell, ye likewise fell—At the door of the House wherein ye dwell;As Harrington came, ye likewise cameAnd died at the door of your House of Fame.
Go by, old Field of Freedom’s hopes and fears;Go by, old Field of Brothers’ hate and tears:Behold! yon home of Brothers’ Love appearsSet in the burnished silver of July,On Schuylkill wrought as in old broideryClasped hands upon a shining baldric lie,New Hampshire, Georgia, and the mighty tenThat lie between, have heard the huge-nibbed penOf Jefferson tell the rights of man to men.They sit in the reverend Hall: `Shall we declare?’Floats round about the anxious-quivering air‘Twixt narrow Schuylkill and broad Delaware.Already, Land! thou HAST declared: ’tis done.Ran ever clearer speech than that did runWhen the sweet Seven died at Lexington?Canst legibler write than Concord’s large-stroked Act,Or when at Bunker Hill the clubbed guns cracked?Hast ink more true than blood, or pen than fact?Nay, as the poet mad with heavenly firesFlings men his song white-hot, then back retires,Cools heart, broods o’er the song again, inquires,`Why did I this, why that?’ and slowly drawsFrom Art’s unconscious act Art’s conscious laws;So, Freedom, writ, declares her writing’s cause.All question vain, all chill foreboding vain.Adams, ablaze with faith, is hot and fain;And he, straight-fibred Soul of mighty grain,Deep-rooted Washington, afire, serene—Tall Bush that burns, yet keeps its substance green—Sends daily word, of import calm yet keen,Warm from the front of battle, till the fireWraps opposition in and flames yet higher,And Doubt’s thin tissues flash where Hope’s aspire;And, `Ay, declare,’ and ever strenuous `Ay’Falls from the Twelve, and Time and Nature cryConsent with kindred burnings of July;And delegate Dead from each past age and race,Viewless to man, in large procession paceDownward athwart each set and steadfast face,Responding `Ay’ in many tongues; and lo!Manhood and Faith and Self and Love and WoeAnd Art and Brotherhood and Learning goRearward the files of dead, and softly sayTheir saintly `Ay’, and softly pass awayBy airy exits of that ample day.Now fall the chill reactionary snowsOf man’s defect, and every wind that blowsKeeps back the Spring of Freedom’s perfect Rose.Now naked feet with crimson fleck the ways,And Heaven is stained with flags that mutinies raise,And Arnold-spotted move the creeping days.Long do the eyes that look from Heaven seeTime smoke, as in the spring the mulberry tree,With buds of battles opening fitfully,Till Yorktown’s winking vapors slowly fade,And Time’s full top casts down a pleasant shadeWhere Freedom lies unarmed and unafraid.
Master, ever faster flyNow the vivid seasons by;Now the glittering Western landTwins the day-lit Eastern Strand;Now white Freedom’s sea-bird wingRoams the Sea of Everything;Now the freemen to and froBind the tyrant sand and snow,Snatching Death’s hot bolt ere hurled,Flash new Life about the world,Sun the secrets of the hills,Shame the gods’ slow-grinding mills,Prison Yesterday in Print,Read To-morrow’s weather-hint,Haste before the halting Time,Try new virtue and new crime,Mould new faiths, devise new creeds,Run each road that frontward leads,Driven by an Onward-ache,Scorning souls that circles make.Now, O Sin! O Love’s lost Shame!Burns the land with redder flame:North in line and South in lineYell the charge and spring the mine.Heartstrong South would have his way,Headstrong North hath said him nay:O strong Heart, strong Brain, beware!Hear a Song from out the air: