Wind-Clouds and Star-Drifts
III
The snows that glittered on the disk of MarsHave melted, and the planet’s fiery orbRolls in the crimson summer of its year;But what to me the summer or the snowOf worlds that throb with life in forms unknown,If life indeed be theirs; I heed not these.My heart is simply human; all my careFor them whose dust is fashioned like mine own;These ache with cold and hunger, live in pain,And shake with fear of worlds more full of woe;There may be others worthier of my love,But such I know not save through these I know.
There are two veils of language, hid beneathWhose sheltering folds, we dare to be ourselves;And not that other self which nods and smilesAnd babbles in our name; the one is Prayer,Lending its licensed freedom to the tongueThat tells our sorrows and our sins to Heaven;The other, Verse, that throws its spangled webAround our naked speech and makes it bold.I, whose best prayer is silence; sitting dumbIn the great temple where I nightly serveHim who is throned in light, have dared to claimThe poet’s franchise, though I may not hopeTo wear his garland; hear me while I tellMy story in such form as poets use,But breathed in fitful whispers, as the windSighs and then slumbers, wakes and sighs again.
Thou Vision, floating in the breathless airBetween me and the fairest of the stars,I tell my lonely thoughts as unto thee.Look not for marvels of the scholar’s penIn my rude measure; I can only showA slender-margined, unillumined page,And trust its meaning to the flattering eyeThat reads it in the gracious light of love.Ah, wouldst thou clothe thyself in breathing shapeAnd nestle at my side, my voice should lendWhate’er my verse may lack of tender rhythmTo make thee listen.
I have stood entrancedWhen, with her fingers wandering o’er the keys,The white enchantress with the golden hairBreathed all her soul through some unvalued rhyme;Some flower of song that long had lost its bloom;Lo! its dead summer kindled as she sang!The sweet contralto, like the ringdove’s coo,Thrilled it with brooding, fond, caressing tones,And the pale minstrel’s passion lived again,Tearful and trembling as a dewy roseThe wind has shaken till it fills the airWith light and fragrance. Such the wondrous charmA song can borrow when the bosom throbsThat lends it breath.
So from the poet’s lipsHis verse sounds doubly sweet, for none like himFeels every cadence of its wave-like flow;He lives the passion over, while he reads,That shook him as he sang his lofty strain,And pours his life through each resounding line,As ocean, when the stormy winds are hushed,Still rolls and thunders through his billowy caves.
Let me retrace the record of the yearsThat made me what I am. A man most wise,But overworn with toil and bent with age,Sought me to be his scholar,—me, run wildFrom books and teachers,—kindled in my soulThe love of knowledge; led me to his tower,Showed me the wonders of the midnight realmHis hollow sceptre ruled, or seemed to rule,Taught me the mighty secrets of the spheres,Trained me to find the glimmering specks of lightBeyond the unaided sense, and on my chartTo string them one by one, in order due,As on a rosary a saint his beads.
I was his only scholar; I becameThe echo to his thought; whate’er he knewWas mine for asking; so from year to yearWe wrought together, till there came a timeWhen I, the learner, was the master halfOf the twinned being in the dome-crowned tower.
Minds roll in paths like planets; they revolveThis in a larger, that a narrower ring,But round they come at last to that same phase,That self-same light and shade they showed before.I learned his annual and his monthly tale,His weekly axiom and his daily phrase,I felt them coming in the laden air,And watched them laboring up to vocal breath,Even as the first-born at his father’s boardKnows ere he speaks the too familiar jestIs on its way, by some mysterious signForewarned, the click before the striking bell.
He shrivelled as I spread my growing leaves,Till trust and reverence changed to pitying care;He lived for me in what he once had been,But I for him, a shadow, a defence,The guardian of his fame, his guide, his staff,Leaned on so long he fell if left alone.I was his eye, his ear, his cunning hand,Love was my spur and longing after fame,But his the goading thorn of sleepless ageThat sees its shortening span, its lengthening shades,That clutches what it may with eager grasp,And drops at last with empty, outstretched hands.
All this he dreamed not. He would sit him downThinking to work his problems as of old,And find the star he thought so plain a blur,The columned figures labyrinthine wildsWithout my comment, blind and senseless scrawlsThat vexed him with their riddles; he would striveAnd struggle for a while, and then his eyeWould lose its light, and over all his mindThe cold gray mist would settle; and erelongThe darkness fell, and I was left alone.
Alone! no climber of an Alpine cliff,No Arctic venturer on the waveless sea,Feels the dread stillness round him as it chillsThe heart of him who leaves the slumbering earthTo watch the silent worlds that crowd the sky.
Alone! And as the shepherd leaves his flockTo feed upon the hillside, he meanwhileFinds converse in the warblings of the pipeHimself has fashioned for his vacant hour,So have I grown companion to myself,And to the wandering spirits of the airThat smile and whisper round us in our dreams.Thus have I learned to search if I may knowThe whence and why of all beneath the starsAnd all beyond them, and to weigh my lifeAs in a balance, poising good and illAgainst each other,-asking of the PowerThat flung me forth among the whirling worlds,If I am heir to any inborn right,Or only as an atom of the dustThat every wind may blow where’er it will.
I am not humble; I was shown my place,Clad in such robes as Nature had at hand;Took what she gave, not chose; I know no shame,No fear for being simply what I am.I am not proud, I hold my every breathAt Nature’s mercy. I am as a babeBorne in a giant’s arms, he knows not where;Each several heart-beat, counted like the coinA miser reckons, is a special giftAs from an unseen hand; if that withholdIts bounty for a moment, I am leftA clod upon the earth to which I fall.
Something I find in me that well might claimThe love of beings in a sphere aboveThis doubtful twilight world of right and wrong;Something that shows me of the self-same clayThat creeps or swims or flies in humblest form.Had I been asked, before I left my bedOf shapeless dust, what clothing I would wear,I would have said, More angel and less worm;But for their sake who are even such as I,Of the same mingled blood, I would not chooseTo hate that meaner portion of myselfWhich makes me brother to the least of men.
I dare not be a coward with my lipsWho dare to question all things in my soul;Some men may find their wisdom on their knees,Some prone and grovelling in the dust like slaves;Let the meek glow-worm glisten in the dew;I ask to lift my taper to the skyAs they who hold their lamps above their heads,Trusting the larger currents up aloft,Rather than crossing eddies round their breast,Threatening with every puff the flickering blaze.
My life shall be a challenge, not a truce!This is my homage to the mightier powers,To ask my boldest question, undismayedBy muttered threats that some hysteric senseOf wrong or insult will convulse the throneWhere wisdom reigns supreme; and if I err,They all must err who have to feel their wayAs bats that fly at noon; for what are weBut creatures of the night, dragged forth by day,Who needs must stumble, and with stammering stepsSpell out their paths in syllables of pain?
Thou wilt not hold in scorn the child who daresLook up to Thee, the Father,—dares to askMore than Thy wisdom answers. From Thy handThe worlds were cast; yet every leaflet claimsFrom that same hand its little shining sphereOf star-lit dew; thine image, the great sun,Girt with his mantle of tempestuous flame,
Glares in mid-heaven; but to his noontide blazeThe slender violet lifts its lidless eye,And from his splendor steals its fairest hue,Its sweetest perfume from his scorching fire.
I may just as well stop here as anywhere, for there is more of the manuscript to come, and I can only give it in instalments.
The Young Astronomer had told me I might read any portions of his manuscript I saw fit to certain friends. I tried this last extract on the old Master.
It’s the same story we all have to tell,—said he, when I had done reading.—We are all asking questions nowadays. I should like to hear him read some of his verses himself, and I think some of the other boarders would like to. I wonder if he wouldn’t do it, if we asked him! Poets read their own compositions in a singsong sort of way; but they do seem to love ’em so, that I always enjoy it. It makes me laugh a little inwardly to see how they dandle their poetical babies, but I don’t let them know it. We must get up a select party of the boarders to hear him read. We’ll send him a regular invitation. I will put my name at the head of it, and you shall write it.
—That was neatly done. How I hate writing such things! But I suppose I must do it.