Classic Poem

TELL me, young Poet, is it sweeter
Up to the heads of streams to travel:
Or do you minstrels deem it meeter
Their downward flowing to unravel?

Poet. — From moorland well and heathy hollow
The seaward river thou must follow,
And trace it slowly till it bend
To lowlands round a mountain end;
Then through tame dell and cultured plain
Past tidewashed cities to the main.
There is a moral in its course,
Its tranquil depth and rocky force,
Its shining shallows, widening lakes,
And woody circuits that it takes.
Yet down the bank must thou descend,
The moral waits thee at the end;
For they, who downward rivers trace,
Look ocean ever in the face;
And man, as youth and age run o'er him,
Hath life behind and death before him.
The mountain-height where sunset's finger
Rejoiceth o'er dull glens to linger;
The winds that on the moorlands cross,
Sobbing above the barren moss;
The clouds that touch on rainy days,
Drooping to where the well-spring plays: —
All these are types of things that reach
The lonely mind that knows not speech,
Things that in vision hover by
The dreary soul of infancy,
When it lays out, unmarred and even,
Its little being bare to Heaven.

Then, nurtured in, the misty homes
Of mighty clouds, the current comes,
Stretching with many a rushy arm
By copsewood and infrequent farm;
And every furlong o'er some steep
The rainbow-belted waters leap,
The time ere tumbling rivers pass
To wind about in corn and grass,
A time of waste, as cold men deem,
When by its banks romancers dream.
And this is like the fair beginning
Of boyhood, troublesome and winning,
Where sunny tempers shine away
Converse ill-timed and weary play, —
A forward age of noisy beauty
Before the cloudy dawn of duty!
Mark when the water comes to hallow
Rich meadow-flat and barley fallow,
And chooses vales with poplar-trees,
And visits straggling villages,
Clips the broad green where children play,
And eats the churchyard earth away.
Yet, often leaving fruitful plain.
It seeks lone woody spots again,
Where every leaf in shadow sleeps
Unwaked upon the fishy deeps.
And so, when manhood doth begin
And toil breeds wealth, and wealth breeds sin,
How often is the full-grown being
To childish-looking places fleeing,
Sweet shelters, where from noontide beams,
Wise boyhood hides some dewy dreams;
For who can see rain-scented woods
Drying their branches in the sun,
But straightway to the heart whole floods
Of aimless, rhymeless lyrics run?
And fairy fish in silver mails,
Or girt with moonlight-colored scales,
Where under-water beds are bright,
Will glance and gleam and scatter light; —
Just like the thoughts that leap to life
In spirits parched with trade and strife,
When on the surface from below
Old childish wells break up and flow,
And cowslips mixed with may-flowers grow.

Then, where upon some inland bower,
Salt-tides encroach with brackish power,
'Tis like the taste that ill-health brings
From the broad grave's close-lying springs,
When age in times of failing breath
Doth freight itself with thoughts of death.
And river mouths have shapes so many,
Narrow and deep, or broad and fenny,
With rocky bar or easy gate
Or currents clashing in a strait,
That thou mayest well in these descry
The rude or gentle deaths men die.

Tell me, young Priest! will it be sweeter
The downward flowing to unravel,
Or must we Christians deem it meeter
Up to the heads of streams to travel?

Priest. — The poet hath blithe answer made;
My words must travel more in shade.
Where less of earth's wild show is given
There may perchance be more of Heaven.
Yet priests, like poets, have an eye
For radiant earth and changeful sky,
And mightier signs mayhap can trace
In river-nook and green-wood place.
The seasons with four currents flowing
Are all but symbols, coming, going,
Translucent shades for ever passing,
Disjointed parts of Eden glassing.
For it were strange absolving word
On sinning soul should so be heard,
Yet have no power to lift from earth
Green dazzle and bewildering mirth,
Till she gives up to flesh and spirit
The secret lore they both inherit,
When in the Font's rich-sparkling round
The Key with golden wards is found.

To moorland well and heathy hollow
The upward river thou must follow,
Nor stay one hour in tideways brown,
By granite quay and toiling town;
But, mounting on to cultured plain,
Reached by faint murmurs from the main,
Urge on, star-guided still by duty,
Through lands of rough sequestered beauty,
And rest on eagle-haunted fell
Where rings of hollow mosses swell,
And the young streamlets as they rise
Catch their first tint from mountain skies.
For they, who streams to fountains trace,
Look uplands ever in the face,
Leaving Death's type, the ocean gray,
Inaudible, and leagues away
And man, as youth and age run o'er him,
Hath death behind and life before him.
Thou cam'st from an eternal womb,
Timid and tongue-tied from the gloom;
Thou walkedst an eternal shore
And heard'st eternal waters roar,
And gather'dst shells which thou didst keep,
And bring with thee from yonder deep.
And thou thyself, like ocean shell,
Bearest within thee still a swell,
Which thy charmed hearing never may
In dryest inlands put away.

Ere from that ocean thou didst steer,
Where beauty walking leaned on fear,
Some branches of a mystic Tree
Were cast by prophets in the sea,
And Angels little cups did bring
Of cold sweet water from a spring,
And life went from the cups, and Breath
That breathed another face on death.
Then wert thou taught to hang and ride,
Like steadfast fish, against the tide.
Lifted by wind and lured by gleam
Upward to wrestle with the stream,
And with unearthly health to leap
Each cataract and frothy steep.
So mayest thou reach thy native fountains,
Withdrawn into the sleepless mountains,
Unstained in heats by lowing herd,
Unsipped by common hedgerow bird,
A well upon whose unmarred brink
Eagles alone are free to drink,
That they may thence their strength renew
For wheeling in the pathless blue, —
A Font where thou canst wash away
The dusty stains of summer day,
Where health and life still hover by,
And where alone 'tis safe to die.

Fair are the plains where corn-fields bend,
And flowers and grass in meadows blend,
And calm the smell at eventide
When breezes o'er the bean-field glide,
And rich and lulling airs are blent
At noon from languid clover sent, —
Sweet pauses that at times may hallow
The dreary ridge and dusky fallow.
Yet from these scenes of harmless wealth
Good men rise upward still for health,
And slower, for the stream is quickest,
They mount where copse and heath are thickest, —
The boyish time of rivers, where,
By heavy dews and keen fresh air,
Old Heaven with infant splendor seems
To pass once more into their dreams,
Late years when out of ancient truth
The Christian wins a second youth.
And Christian age full fain will press
To world-neglected dreariness,
Where barren hills with naked line,
Like sabre's dinted edges, shine,
And lucid shadows calmly brood
As spirits o'er the solitude;
And sight and sound have freedom given
That hath a very taste of heaven.

So, gentle questioner! mayst thou
Attain thy native mountain-brow,
And from its ether-cinctured height
Look into lands of promised light.
Then to the Font beneath descend,
And o'er its tranquil pulses bend,
Recovering from its dewy earth
What life hath marred of childhood's mirth.
When evening shadows round thee glide
Death will come calmly to thy side,
Sent, with light hand, low voice, to gather
The children back unto their Father.
With gentle sob drawn in once more
That spring upon another shore
Shall rise, as fresh as waters vernal,
With spirit-pulses, and eternal.
Come, upward walk to moorlands gray,
Where springs gush out from mountain root,
There let thy being sink away
Beneath the Font's stone-sculptured foot.
And, like waste water from its round,
Be poured on consecrated ground.