Classic Poem

A load of weariness!
And shall I drag it hence? I loathe the thought.
Must I destroy a life in order to save mine?
I'm almost at the cave (not home) at last.
There breathes no home to me o'er life's lone wave.
The door half open; so there 's some within.
And she comes forth, — a female, verily.
Now I can scan her, — wondrously antique,
Stooping and scant of weight, and with a staff
Attuning her frail postures. I 'll touch her quietly,
And then conduct her in the den again.
Her voice:
" I am your debtor. 'T is your home;
I tried your deerskin couch. Surely, I found
Sweet visions there of sleep. Early the morn
I loitered out, plucking strong roots and herbs
Spiced for decoction and for sovereign cures, —
Things that amuse these woods, and whiteoak bark, —
That , is a powerful remedy. I tottered on,
Till overhead the vagrant, laughing sun
Had spilled his aureate license o'er the vault,
(In age the sun-god smites my wrinkled brow,)
And far I lingered still. I dearly love
The woods, and sometimes tell them at the Farm
That I could nothing better ask of life,
Than, as a wanderer, down the woods to roam.
The spicy odors would appease my sense,
And by their keen promotion fill my thoughts
With a more sinewy aspect. Light my feet
Then danced along the bed of time-strewn leaves,
The forest loom twines in perennial carpet.
I might seem young those days. The crafty air
Would hazard with my bones, and risk his suit
On the persuasion of my new-laid youth.
Friend, I surmise that here you dwell too blest,
Glad 'mid the soft seclusion of the trees.
And you maintain traditional respect,
Coined for high places and for whirling streams, —
The death-shroud of the rainbow, where he paints
Devices o'er his tombstone manifold.
At early sunrise you must love to kneel
And lift the prayer: " Oh, God of love! of life!"
But what a fount of loveliness is this,
Each morn surrendered to uncounted bliss;
Record of perfect tones that thrill the air
With their warm, flashing cymbal-dance of hope.
Chasten this heart. I kneel. Take, take my life,
And bathe it in thy peace, the silent sun
So softly pours across yon mountain's breast,
And, like a lawn of pure diaphanous good,
Embalm it with thy mercy!

" A hermit here,
Or fasting penitent, might fitly dwell,
And greet the heavenly carols in the sigh
Of the soft-falling echo from the brook,
That murmurs moisture to the grateful trees.
Our thoughts are sweet in solitude,
And most at eve. There is a twilight faith
Would steal the foulest wrong, and bear it cleansed
Into the Invisible Presence; stanch the curse,
And with the floating glow that stills the west
In its cuphonious cradle of the spheres,
Touched in the love of all things, purge the soul
Of every dark emotion. Life brings care.
We love, we are deceived, — most in ourselves.
Our plans deceive us, — they were too ill laid.
The dread omniscient wand that opes the tomb,
Touches her forehead, and the loved one falls.
(Heaven was not heaven before.) I think that pain
Bears, like a vase of beauty carved with skill
In high-born figures of Palladian art,
A homely storax that embalms our stars.
Come weal or woe, come fame or ignominy,
Weaving our colors, dark or bright the thread,
There is a base within us, something given,
More than all things without, may sear or stain.
If this be not called Heaven, I deem it called
By its inferior title, as it rates
The low inhabitant of sin and shame,
With true Olympian wealth, banishes care,
Makes desolation friendly, knits the skein
Of our all-ravelled hangings, smooth and soft, —
I must away! I scent the evening air! "
What, gone?
Such words of life fled off her liquid tongue, —
I could nor speak nor think. I 'll note her trace.
'T was there she meant to go. I see her not.
No one! I heard a voice! What 's here? this veil,
She left a veil upon the stones, of gauze,
And now it floats, and on the hem letters:
" Fly, youth, fly! " Now the firelight touches it, —
It brightens fast. A speechless form arises, —
My mother! Then 't was she who raised my dream.
Mother, long lost, forgive thy erring son!
If in that awful realm the spirit hold
Communion with the past, or mortal thought,
Feel for thy son, thy wretched, homeless son.
Doomed to unsated penance for his sins.
Feel with the mercy which thou hadst on earth
For all his failings! Raise him to thyself!
She fades, the spirit's risen, the veil is air,
" Fly, youth, fly! " The same as Meister's warning.
It is too late for flight; the wind is loud,
I hear the forest creaking in its shroud.
The shadow of the torrent drowns the glen!
And, then, that fisherman?
Could he have been a spy shot from the town
To watch my movements? For he asked me thrice
As to my privilege in the idle woods,
And how I dragged the leaden hours along,
He spake of Nature, — said there was to him,
Bating humanity, a hollow there.
I felt his thought, I marvel at his words, —
The same old things I said this many a year.
I judge he was the shadow of myself,
Fretted to space on weary monologue.
I kept his words: " Here, in this sylvan shade,
Alone, always alone, dim as my thoughts, —
Wondering at that which cheifly went before,
Wondering at that which mostly is to come, —
I find myself attempting at the bud
The inner life of Nature, — what men call
By that insidious title. Without man,
Or human life to cheer me in the dark,

That thing called Nature (if it be a thing)
Shrinks into paint. All is so shallow there,
These bankrupt days of time, loose as a fly;
Rather than beg my dole from Nature's dish,
Procrastinated on her solitudes,
Pray let me die a thousand deaths of pain.
How credulous was my youth, when feeling danced
Elastic in my veins, and I prepared
To hymn the deep oblivion of the groves,
Of Nature, — whate'er its name, — the somewhat there,
The promise and design I cannot steal.
Struck in confusion from the light of sense,
I call myself a man, and am the puppet
Of a cheating show. "
My brain is turning!
My reason lowers! That spectre of the stream,
And those poor children's voices that I hear,
And that pale girl, with her soft, flossy hair,
A soft, pink blush across her waxen cheeks,
Who spoke for them: " Father! We love you still!
Oh! do not curse us, your poor children still,
Though in the forest, in an outlaw's cave,
You dimly dwell, and nevermore our eyes
Shall see your mournful form, drenched in your tears,
And nevermore our tender hands shall part
Your griefs away, and bring your joys to view.
Father! though we are parted for this life,
And only in the grave can ever meet,
We love you still! Our hearts are quite the same,
Still yours, and all that makes our hearts is yours.
And she, our mother, resolute and pure,
Ne'er ceased to cherish you, nor ceased to love.

And we shall come to you once more in life,
Once ere you go from hence. Once more to hear
Our childish voices, as you used before
These days of parting fell upon our love. "
Was that a song?
Or the light, infant lisping of the year,
Rocked in the leafy garniture of spring?
There seems a searching inquest at the heart
Of this sad panorama. At the door
He lingers still, that fisherman I mean.
He speaks again: " Come! Come and fly with me!
This mausoleum of the mind is death.
Come! let us fly and touch the dreams of France,
Where gay Garonne pours forth her lively dance,
And dare the meadows that destroy old Rome,
Admire the Stone-pines leaning o'er her hills;
And bright Cycladean suns, all wine and figs,
Shall steep our noontide fancies for their hour.
Such closeness in this cave I cannot breathe, —
All spectres haunting here, and this most dull,
And gray predicament of thought. " Then ceased.
I voyaged once, — he must have tracked my road.
I read or dreamed that sometimes ere men die,
There comes a figure like themselves, and blabs
Of things they did, or suffered, in their lives, —
To that intent the shadow speaks. That sigh, —
The owl again is humming from his tower,
Ancient and dark upon the tall pine's dome,
His gossip since some months; and this last sprite;
And that cold Hecuba who twitched the herb;
There are strange things in life. I never guessed
I should become the property of ghosts,
Chime with the scanty brethren of the tomb,
And take moralities from their weak eyes.
How loud the rapid roars; the wind has veered,
Raised off the generous sea; the salt-fed breeze
Loans its luxuriance to our bankrupt main.
I see the bay softly with islands rimmed,
The dark old fort, the wave with vessels white;
That wind is but the shadow of my thoughts!