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SONNETS
AND
CANZONETS.
BY
A. BRONSON ALCOTT.
"Love can sun thb realms of light."
SckUUr.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1882.
Copyright, 1882,
By A. Bronson Alcott.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.
CONTENTS,
\
INTRODUCTION.
PAGR
To A. Bronson Alcott, a Letter by F. B. Sanborn 5-10
An Essay on the Sonnet "~35
Sonnets of Illustration 21-35
I. Love in Spring 21
II. The Maiden in April 22
III. The Estrangement 23
IV. Love in Time 24
V. To those of Noble Heart 24
VI. The Ocean a blessed God 27
VII. The Nightingale 28
VIII. The Fair Saint 29
IX. Love a Poor Palmer 30
X. Love against Love 31
XI. Death 32
XII. Ah, Sweet Content! 34
XIII. The Poet's Immortality 34
M713147
IV CONTENTS.
PART FIRST.
PAGB
Proem 39
Domestic Sonnets and Canzonets 41-89
PART SECOND.
Sonnets op Character 94-145
A Prophetic Ode 146-149
TO
A. BRONSON ALCOTT,
UPON READING HIS OCTOGENARIAN POEMS.
r I ^HE period to which the scholar of two and
eighty years belongs, is seldom that of his
youngest readers: it is more likely to be the
epoch of his own golden youth, when his masters
were before his eyes, and his companions were
the books and the friends of his heart. Thus the
aged Landor could not bring his thoughts down
from the grand forms of Greek and Roman litera-
ture to which they were early accustomed; he
had swerved now and then from that loyalty in
middle life, impressed and acted upon as he was
by the great political events of the Napoleonic
6 A. BRONSON ALCOTT.
era, — but he returned to the epigram and the
idyl in the "white winter of his age," and the
voices of the present and of the future appealed
to him in vain. In the old Goethe there was
something more prophetic and august; he .came
nearer to his contemporaries, and prepared the
way for a recognition of his greatness by the gene-
ration which saw the grave close over him. In
this, that strange but loyal disciple of his, the
Scotch Carlyle, rendered matchless service to his
master; yet he, too, in his unhappy old age,
could only at intervals, and by gleams of inspira-
tion, — as at the Edinburgh University Festival, —
come into communication with the young spirits
about him. To you, dear Friend and Master, be-
longs the rare good fortune (good genius rather)
that has brought you in these late days, into closer
fellowship than of yore with the active and forth-
looking spirit of the time. In youth and middle
life you were in advance of your period, which
A. BRONSON ALCOTT. 7
has only now overtaken you when it must, by the
ordinance of Nature, so soon bid you farewell, as
you go forward to new prospects, in fairer worlds
than ours.
It is this union of youth and age, of the past
and the present — yes, and the future also — that
I have admired in these artless poems, over which
we have spent together so many agreeable hours.
Fallen upon an age in literature when the poetic
form is everywhere found, but the discerning and
inventive spirit of Poesy seems almost lost, I
have marked with delight in these octogenarian
verses, flowing so naturally from your pen, the
very contradiction of this poetic custom of the
period. Your want of familiarity with the ac-
customed movement of verse in our time, brings
into more distinct notice the genuine poetical
motions of your genius. Having been admitted
to the laboratory, and privileged to witness the
action and reaction of your thought, as it crystal-
8 A. BRONSON ALCOTT.
lized into song, I perceived, for the first time,
how high sentiment, by which you have from
youth been inspired, may become the habitual
movement of the mind, at an age when so many,
if they live at all in spirit, are but nursing the
selfish and distorted fancies of morose singularity.
To you the world has been a brotherhood of noble
souls, — too few, as we thought, for your compan-
ionship, — but which you have enlarged by the
admission to one rank of those who have gone,
and of us who remain to love you and listen to
your oracles. The men and the charming women
who recognized your voice when it was that of
one crying in the wilderness — "Prepare ye the
way of our Lord," are joined, in your commemo-
rative sonnets, with those who hearken to its
later accents, proclaiming the same acceptable
year of the Lord.
It is the privilege of poets — immemorial and
native to the clan — that they should share the
A. BRONSON ALCOTT. g
immortality they confer. This right you may
vindicate for your own. The honors you pay,
in resounding verse, to Channing, to Emerson, to
Margaret Fuller, to Hawthorne, Thoreau, and the
rest of the company with whom you trod these
groves, and honored these altars of the Spirit un-
named, return in their echoes to yourself. They
had their special genius, and you yours no less,
though it found not the same expression with
theirs. We please our love with the thought that,
in these sonnets and canzonets of affection, you
have celebrated yourself with them ; that the swift
insight, the ennobling passion for truth and virtue,
the high resolve, the austere self-sacrifice, the
gentle submission to a will eternally right, in which
these friends, so variously gifted, found a common
tie, — all these are yours also, — and may they
be ours ! The monuments and trophies of genius
are perishable, but the soul's impression abides
forever, forma mentis ceterna. To that imperish-
IO A. BRONSON ALCOTT.
able, ever-beauteous, self-renouncing, loyal, and
steadfast Spirit of the Universe which we learned
to worship in our youth, and which has never for-
saken our age and bereavement, may these offer-
ings, and all that we are, be consecrated now and
forever !
F. B. SANBORN.
Concord, January i, 1882.
AN ESSAY
ON THE
SONNET AND THE CANZONET.
THE
SONNET AND THE CANZONET.
-»o»-
" OCORN not the sonnet," said Wordsworth,
and then gave us at least fifty noble
reasons why we should not, — for so many at
least of his innumerable sonnets are above lan-
guor and indifference, and all of them above
contempt. Milton was more self-restrained than
Wordsworth, and wrote fewer sonnets, every one
•
of which is a treasure, either for beauty of verse,
nobility of thought, happy portraiture of persons,
or quaint and savage humor, — like that on " Te-
trachordon," and the elongated sonnet in which
14
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET.
he denounces the Presbyterians, and tells them
to their face, "New Presbyter is but old Priest
writ large." Shakespeare unlocked his heart with
sonnets in another key than Milton's, — less con-
formed to the model of the Italian sonnet, but
more in keeping with English verse, of which
Shakespeare had the entire range. His sonnets
are but quatrains following each other by threes,
with a resounding couplet binding them together
in one sheaf, and his example has made this form
of the sonnet legitimate for all who write Eng-
lish verse, — no matter what the studious or the
pedantic may say. Surrey also, who first used
the sonnet in English, wrote it in this free man-
ner of Shakespeare, as well as in the somewhat
stricter form that Sidney employed, and it is only
of late years that they have tried to shut us up
to one definite and unchanging sequence and
interplay of rhyme. Mr. Alcott in these new
sonnets, the ripe fruit of an aged tree, has used
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET
IS
the freedom that nature gave him, and years
allow: he has written with little uniformity in
the order and number of his rhymes, but with
much regard to the spirit of the sonnet as a
high form of verse. I fancy that Dante (who may
be called the father of the sonnet, though not
the first to write it) chose this graceful and
courteous verse, because it is so well suited to
themes of love and friendship. When he would
express sorrow or anger, or light and jesting
humor, he had recourse to the canzonet, the
terza ritna, or what he called the ballad, — some-
thing quite unlike what we know by that name.
Mr. Alcott has followed in the same general
course; his sonnets are one thing, his canzonets
another: though the difference in feeling, which
prompts him to use one form rather than the
other, cannot always be definitely expressed. It
is felt rather than seen, and seen rather by the
effect of the finished poem than by the light of
any rule or formal definition.
id THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET
Definiteness, in fact, must not be looked for in
these poems; nor is it the characteristic of the
highest poetry in any language. Verse may be
powerful and suggestive, or even clear in the sense
of producing a distinct impression on the mind,
without being definite, and responding to all the
claims of analysis. I take it that few readers will
fail to see the central thought, or the vivid portrai-
ture in each of these sonnets and canzonets ; but
fewer still will be able to explain precisely, even to
their own minds, what each suggestive phrase and
period includes and excludes in its meaning. For
this fine vagueness of utterance, the sonnet has
always given poets a fair field, and our present
author has not gone beyond his due privilege in this
respect, though he has availed himself of it more
frequently than many would have done. The mot-
toes and citations accompanying each sonnet may
help the reader to a meaning that does not at once
flash in his eyes. But he must not expect to con-
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET
17
quer these verses at a single reading. The thought
of years, the labor of months, has been given to the
writing of them ; and the reader ought not to com-
plain if he take as much time to comprehend them
as the author took to write them. They are worth
the pains of reading many times over, and even of
learning them by heart, for which their compendi-
ous form well fits them.
It may be complained that these sonnets lack
variety. This is indeed a fault into which sonnet-
eers often fall, — our best collection of American
sonnets hitherto — those of Jones Very — being
open to this censure. It will be found, perhaps,
that the sameness of rhyme and thought is often
but an appearance, — the delicate shade of meaning
being expressed, in a vocabulary of no large extent,
by a rare process of combining and collocating
words. Certain phrases recur, too, because the
thought necessarily recurs, — as when the oratory
of Phillips and of Parker, as of others, is character-
!8 THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET
ized by the general term, eloquence. In the poverty
of our language, there is no other term to use, while
the qualifying words and their connection suffi-
ciently distinguish between one person and another.
The critical are referred to Homer, who never fails
to repeat the same word, or the same verse, when
it comes in his way to do so.
But to return to the sonnet itself. Landor, to
whom as to Thoreau, Milton was the greatest Eng-
lish poet, thought that the blind Puritan had made
good his offence against the Psalms of David, by
the sonnet on the slaughtered saints of Piedmont.
" Milton, " he says, " was never half so wicked a
regicide as when he lifted up his hand and smote
King David. He has atoned for it, however, by
composing a magnificent psalm of his own, in the
form of a sonnet. There are others in Milton com-
parable to it, but none elsewhere." And then the
wilful critic goes on to say, putting his words into
the mouth of Porson : " In the poems of Shake-
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET.
19
speare, which are printed as sonnets, there is some-
times a singular strength and intensity of thought,
with little of that imagination which was afterward
to raise him highest in the universe of poetry.
Even the interest we take in the private life of this
miraculous man, cannot keep the volume in our
hands long together. We acknowledge great power,
but we experience great weariness. Were I a poet,
I would much rather have written the 'Allegro/
or the 'Penseroso* than all those." Monstrous as
this comment seems to us, there is a certain truth
in it, the sonnet in large quantities always producing
weariness ; for which reason, as I suppose, Dante
interspersed his love sonnets in the "Vita Nuova"
and the " Convito," with canzonets and ballads.
His commentaries — often of a singular elo-
quence — also serve as a relief to the formal verse,
as his melodious Tuscan lines do to the formality
of his poetical metaphysics. A person, says Lan-
dor, " lately tried to persuade me that he is never so
20 THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET.
highly poetical, as when he is deeply metaphysical.
He then quoted fourteen German poets of the first
order, and expressed his compassion for iEschylus
and Homer." Dante's metaphysics were of a
higher cast, and so interfused with love and fair
ladies, that they only weary us with a certain per-
plexity as to where are the limits of courtship and
of logic. Mr. Alcott also is quaintly metaphysical
in Dante's fashion; like the sad old Florentine,
but with a more cheerful spirit, he addresses him-
self
"To every captive soul and gentle heart,"
(A ciascun alma presa e gentil core,)
and would fain inquire of those who go on a pil-
grimage of Love (O voi che per la via d' Amor
passate) and of the fair ladies who have learned
love at first hand (Donne che avete intelletto
d' amore). His doctrine is that of the wise man
whom Dante quotes and approves in the "Vita
Nuova," —
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET. 2 I
"One and the same are love and the gentle heart."
(Amor e' 1 cor gentil sono una cosa.)
Other Americans have written sonnets in this
ancient faith, — as he, who thus (in that happy
season so aptly described by Mr. Alcott, as
"Youth's glad morning when the rising East
Glows golden with assurance of success,
And life itself *s a rare continual feast,
Enjoyed the more if meditated less,")
addressed his own cor gentil: —
"My heart, forthlooking in the purple day,
Tell me what sweetest image thou may'st see,
Fit to be type of thy dear love and thee?
Lo ! here where sunshine keeps the wind away,
Grow two young violets, — humble lovers they, —
With drooping face to face, and breath to breath,
They look and kiss and love and laugh at death : —
Yon bluebird singing on the scarlet spray
22 THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET
Of the bloomed maple in the blithe spring air,
While his mate answers from the wood of pines,
And all day long their music ne'er declines;
For love their labor is, and love their care.
* These pass with day and spring ; ' the true heart saith, —
'Forever thou wilt love, and she be fair.'"
In the same Italian vein, another and better
poet, but with less warmth, touches the same
theme, —
"Thou art like that which is most sweet and fair,
A gentle morning in the youth of spring,
When the few early birds begin to sing
Within the delicate depths of the fine air.
Yet shouldst thou these dear beauties much impair,
Since thou art better than is everything
Which or the woods or skies or green fields bring,
And finer thoughts hast thou than they can wear.
In the proud sweetness of thy grace I see
What lies within, — a pure and steadfast mind,
Which its own mistress is of sanctity,
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET 23
And to all gentleness hath been refined.
So that thy least breath falleth upon me
As the soft breathing of midsummer wind."
In the changes of time and the fitful mood of
the poet, sadness succeeds to this assured joy,
and he sings, —
"The day has past, I never may return;
Twelve circling years have run since first I came
And kindled the pure truth of friendship's flame;
Alone remain these ashes in the urn —
Vainly for light the taper may I turn, —
Thy hand is closed, as for these years, the same,
And for the substance naught is but the name.
No more a hope, no more a ray to burn.
But once more in the pauses of thy joy,
Remember him who sought thee in his youth,
And with the old reliance of the boy
Asked for thy treasures in the guise of truth."
Here is another voice, chanting in another
strain, —
24
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET.
"Thy beauty fades, and with it, too, my love,
For 'twas the selfsame stalk that bore the flower;
Soft fell the rain, and, breaking from above,
The sun looked out upon our nuptial hour;
And I had thought forever by thy side
With bursting buds of hope in youth to dwell ;
But one by one Time strewed thy petals wide,
And every hope's wan look a grief can tell;
For I had thoughtless lived beneath his sway,
Who like a tyrant dealeth with us all, —
Crowning each rose, though rooted in decay,
With charms that shall the spirit's love enthral,
And, for a season, turn the soul's pure eyes
From virtue's bloom that time and death defies."
Out of this valley of sadness the spirit rises on
bolder wing, as the melancholy mood passes
away, —
" Hearts of eternity, hearts of the deep !
Proclaim from land to sea your mighty fate ;
How that for you no living comes too late,
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET. 25
How ye cannot in Theban labyrinth creep,
How ye great harvests from small surface reap,
Shout, excellent band, in grand primeval strain,
Like midnight winds that foam along the main, —
And do all things rather than pause to weep.
A human heart knows naught of littleness,
Suspects no man, compares with no one's ways,
Hath in one hour most glorious length of days,
A recompense, a joy, a loveliness ;
Like eaglet keen, shoots into azure far,
And always dwelling nigh is the remotest star."
Here, as Landor said, " is a sonnet, and the
sonnet admits not that approach to the prosaic
which is allowable in the ballad." For this rea-
son Mr. Alcott, who began his poetical autobi-
ography, when he was eighty years old, in a
ballad measure, has now passed into the majesty
of the sonnet, as he has come to those passages
of life which will not admit prosaic treatment.
Moderately used, and not worked to death, as
2 6 THE- SONNET AND THE CANZONET.
Wordsworth employed it, the sonnet is a great
uplifter of poesy. It calls to the reader, as the
early Christian litanies did to the worshipper,
Sursum corda y Raise your thoughts! The can-
zonet lets us down again into the pathetic, the
humorous, or the fanciful, — though in this vol-
ume the canzonet generally betokens sadness. It
may easily become an ode, as in the verses on
Garfield: indeed the ode may be considered as
an extended canzonet, or the canzonet as a brief
ode. It is the sonnet that chiefly concerns us
now, and that form of the sonnet which deals
with love; since the germ of this book was a
romance of love, seeking to express itself in the
uplifting strain and tender cadence of successive
sonnets; which lead us though green pastures and
beside the still waters, and then to the shore of
the resounding sea, — itself worthy of a sonnet
which I have somewhere heard : —
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET
27
" Ah mournful Sea ! Yet to our eyes he wore
The placid look of some great god at rest ;
With azure arms he clasped the embracing shore,
While gently heaved the billows of his breast ;
We scarce his voice could hear, and then it seemed
The happy murmur of a lover true,
Who, in the sweetness of his sleep, hath dreamed
Of kisses falling on his lips like dew.
Far off, the blue and gleaming hills above,
The Sun looked through his veil of thinnest haze,
As coy Diana, blushing at her love,
Half hid with her own light her earnest gaze,
When on the shady Latmian slope she found
Fair-haired Endymion slumbering on the ground."
This is one picture in the kaleidoscope of Aphro-
dite, who was a sea-born goddess, and partial to
her native element. Yet it is not through the eye
alone that she ensnares us, but with the music of
birds, — and in poetry her own darling bird is not
the dove, but the nightingale, — a stranger to our
28 THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET.
orchards and forests, but familiar to the groves of
the Muse. A poet, by no means happy in his
love in after years, thus saluted this bird, with
music as sweet as her own, —
"O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray,
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart doth fill,
While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes, that close the eye of day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love ; O, if Jove's will
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate
Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh;
As thou from year to year hast sung too late
For my relief, yet hadst no reason why;
Whether the Muse, or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I."
This is plainly a fabricated song, not poured out
from the heart, though full of melodious fancy.
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET.
29
Morp natural and earnest is the tone in which our
poet soon after praises one who had passed un-
heeding by the bower of love, and devoted herself
to a life of piety and good deeds. We cannot
guess who she was, but such saints are seen in
every land and age.
" Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth
Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green,
And with those few art eminently seen
That labor up the hill of heavenly truth, —
The better part with Mary and -with Ruth,
Chosen thou hast; and they that overween,
And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen,
No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth.
Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends
To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light,
And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure
Thou, when the bridegroom with his feastful friends
Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night,
Hast gained thy entrance, virginwise and pure."
30
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET.
. It is a truth for the initiated that love begins
with worship, and favors piety in its first ap-
proaches ; and we need not wonder if the devout
poet in due time paid his amorous addresses to
this bride of the Spirit, whose lamp must have been
dim, indeed, if it did not reveal to her the lover
in disguise of the brother in Israel. A poet of our
day, in a sonnet somewhat faulty in form, but true
to the faith of your pilgrim-vow, ye happy palmers
of Love, —
" O voi che per la via d* Amor passate ! "
has written as follows : —
a
'As calmest waters mirror Heaven the best,
So best befit remembrances of thee
Calm holy hours from earthly passion free,
Sweet twilight musing, — Sabbaths in the breast.
No stooping thought, nor any grovelling care,
The sacred whiteness of that place shall stain,
Where, far from heartless joys and rites profane,
Memory has reared to thee an altar fair.
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET
31
Yet frequent visitors shall kiss the shrine,
And ever keep its vestal lamp alight;
All noble thoughts, all dreams divinely bright,
That waken or delight this soul of mine.'
So Love, meek pilgrim ! his young vows did pay,
With glowing eyes that must his lips gainsay."
A higher gospel is preached in the sonnet of
another American poet, who has written too few
verses, — or rather has published too few of the
many he has composed.
"As unto blooming roses, summer dews,
Or morning's amber to the tree-top choirs,
So to my bosom are the beams that use
To rain on me from eyes that Love inspires;
Your love, — vouchsafe it, royal-hearted Few, —
And I will set no common price thereon;
O, I will keep, as Heaven his holy blue,
Or Night her diamonds, that dear treasure won.
But aught of inward faith must I forego,
Or miss one drop from Truth's baptismal hand,
32
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET
Think poorer thoughts, pray cheaper prayers, and grow
Less worthy trust, to meet your hearts , demand:
Farewell! your wish I for your sake deny;
Rebel to love in truth to love am I."
A poet who has been more than once quoted in
this essay, saw no sharp hostility between Love
and Death, — those reputed foes, — but thus ad-
dressed the last earthly benefactor of mankind : —
" O Death ! thou art the palace of our hopes,
The storehouse of our joys, — great labor's end."
His friend, confronting the same inevitable guest,
questioned the dark angel, in these lines, that con-
form to the rule of the sonnet in spirit, if not in
rhyme : —
" What strange deep secret dost thou hold, O Death !
To hallow those thou claimest for thine own?
That which the open book could never teach,
The closed one whispers, as we stand alone
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET. 33
By one, how more alone than we ! — and strive
To comprehend the passion of that peace.
In vain our thoughts would wind within the heart,
The heart of this great mystery o£ release ! —
Baptism of Death — which steepest infant eyes
In grace of calm that saints might hope to wear,
Whose cold touch purifies the guilty brow,
And sets again the seal of childhood there —
Our line of life in vain would sound thy sea,
That which we seek to know, — we soon shall be."
Let me now close this garland of sonnets with
two choice flowers from that garden of Elizabeth
which no modern botanist and no anthologist of
ancient fame can equal in fragrance and amaran-
thine beauty. Both breathe the sweetness of Love,
— the first, from the "Parthenophe and Partheno-
phil " of Barnaby Barnes, with some flavor of dis-
content, — but the second, taken from the warm
hand of Shakespeare, is full of that noble confi-
dence, which he, of all poets, most naturally in-
spires.
34 THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET
" Ah, sweet Content ! where is thy mild abode ?
Is it with shepherds and light-hearted swains,
Which sing upon the downs and pipe abroad,
Tending their flocks and cattle on the plains?
Ah, sweet Content ! where dost thou safely rest ?
In heaven? with angels which the praises sing
Of Him that made and rules at his behest
The minds and hearts of every living thing?
Ah, sweet Content ! where does thy harbor hold ?
Is it in churches with religious men,
Which please the gods with prayers manifold,
And in their studies meditate it then?
Whether thou dost on heaven or earth appear,
Be where thou wilt, thou wilt not harbor here."
And now upon this delicious disconsolate stro-
phe, hear the brave turn and reply of Shakespeare's
antistrophe, — and take it for your consolation,
lovers and poets ! —
"Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
THE SONNET AND THE CANZONET
35
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a cdnfined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:
And thou in this shalt find thy monument, *
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent"
F. B. S.
February 6, 1882.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
" These quiet and green places, these mountains and valleys,
were created by Nature on purpose for loving hearts."
Meli's Canzonets.
"Be it that my unseasonable song
Come out of time, that fault is in the time;
And I must not do Virtue so much wrongs
As love her aught the worse for others' crime;
And yet I find some blessed spirits among
That cherish me, and like and grace my rhyme"
Daniel,
PROEM.
T 0NG left unwounded by the grisly foe,
Who sometime pierces all with fatal shaft,
Still on my cheek fresh youth did lively glow,
And at his threatening arrow gaily laught;
Came then my friendly scholar, and we quaffed
From learning's spring, its sparkling overflow;
All through the lingering evening's charmed hours,
Delightful fellowship in thought was ours:
If I from Poesy could not all abstain,
He my poor verses oft did quite undress,
New wrapt in words my thought's veiled naked-
ness,
Or kindly dipt my steed's luxuriant mane:
'Twas my delight his searching eye to meet,
In days of genial versing, memories sweet.
January i, 1882.
PART I.
" O Spring, thou youthful beauty of the year.
Mother of flowers, bringer of warbling quires,
Of all sweet new green things, and new desires"
Guarini's Pastor Fido.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS. 43
I.
Auspicious morn, com'st opportune, unbought?
Bring'st thou glad furtherance in thy rosy train?
Speed then, my chariot, following fast my thought,
And distance on thy track the lumbering wain,
O'er plain and hillock nearing her abode,
The goal of expectation, fortune's road, —
The maiden waits to greet with courtesy
Her bashful guest, while stranger yet is he:
From friendly circle at the city's Court
She's come to cull the flowers, to toy and play
With prattling childhood, love's delightful sport;
Its smile call forth, to scent the new-mown hay,
Enjoy the wholesome laughter, simple mien,
Of country people in this rural scene.
"So sweetly she bade me adieu,
I thought that she bade me return?
Shenstone.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
45
II.
Ah ! why so brief the visit, short his stay?
The acquaintance so surprising, and so sweet,
Stolen is my heart, 't is journeying far away,
With that shy stranger whom my voice did greet.
That hour so fertile of entrancing thought,
So rapt the conversation, and so free, —
My heart lost soundings, tenderly upcaught,
Driven by soft sails of love and ecstasy!
Was I then? was I? clasped in Love's embrace,
And touched with ardors of divinity?
Spake with my chosen lover face to face,
Espoused then truly? such my destiny?
I cannot tell; but own the pleasing theft,
That when the stranger went, I was of Love bereft.
" Though the bias of her nature was not to thought but
to sympathy \ yet was she so perfect in her own nature, as
to meet intellectual persons by the fulness of her hearty
warming them by her sentiments; believing, as she did,
that, by dealing nobly with all, all would show themselves
nobler
/
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
47
III.
NOT all the brilliant beauties I have seen,
Mid the gay splendors of some Southern hall,
In jewelled grandeur, or in plainest mien,
Did so my fancy and my heart enthral,
As doth this noble woman, Nature's queen!
Such hearty greeting from her lips did fall,
And I ennobled was through her esteem;
At once made sharer of her confidence,
As by enchantment of some rapturous dream;
With subtler vision gifted, finer sense,
She loosed my tongue's refraining diffidence,
And softer accents lent our varying theme:
So much my Lady others doth surpass,
I read them all through her transparent glass.
" They lave indeed who quake to say they love."
Sir Philip Sidney.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
49
IV.
The April rains are past, the frosts austere, —
The flowers are hungering for the genial sun,
The snow's dissolved, the merry birds are here,
And rural labors now are well begun.
Hither, from the disturbing, noisy Court
I've flown to this sequestered, quiet scene,
To meditate on Love and Love's disport
Mid these smooth pastures and the meadows
green.
Sure 'twere no fault of mine, no whispering sin,
If these coy leaves he sends me seem to speak
All that my heart, caressing, folds within;
Nor if I sought to smother, my flushed cheek
Would tell too plainly what I cannot hide,
Fond fancy disenchant nor set aside. .
"Love is the life of friendship, letters are
The life of love, the loadstones that by rare
Attraction make souls meet, and melt, and mix,
As when by fire exalted gold we fix"
Howel.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
51
V.
MOST precious leaves the mail delights to bring,
All loving parcels, neatly squared and sealed ;
Her buoyant fancy trims its glossy wing,
And flits courageous o'er Love's flowery field.
Sure 'tis a tender and a sparkling flame
That letters kindle and do sweetly feed;
Wilt fly, schoolmaster, for such noble game?
Maiden that doth all other maids exceed!
She writes with passion, and a nimble wit,
Void of all pedantry and vain pretence,
With native genius forcible and fit,
A flowing humor and surpassing sense:
Who gains her heart will win a precious prize,
And fortunate be in every lover's eyes.
" This place may seem for lovers 7 leisure made.
So close those elms inweave their lofty shade.
The twining woodbine, how it climbs to breathe
Refreshing sweets around us ; all beneath,
The ground with grass of cheerful green bespread,
Through which the springing flower uprears its head.
Lo, Jure are kingcups of a golden hue,
Medleyed with daisies white and endive blue,
And honeysuckles of a purple dye:
Confusion gay / bright waving to the eye."
Ambrose Phillips.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
53
VI.
TiS but a half-hour's walk the Mill-Dam o'er,
Past Punch Bowl Inn, where, by the turnpike's side,
The shaded pathway winding to the door,
The mansion rises in ancestral pride : —
Its shaven lawn, and blossoming orchard hoar,
And trellised vines, and hedges trim and neat,
Show plenty and refinement here abide, —
The generous gentleman's fair country-seat.
Now, whilst the full moon glances soft and bright
O'er Mall and Mill-Dam and suburban street,
Turn hitherward thine unaccustomed feet,
At afternoon, or evening, or late night;
A change of scene oft rare attraction lends
To new acquaintance, as to older friends.
" If I may trust the flattering truth of steep.
My dreams presage some joyful neivs at hand:
My bosom 9 s lord sits lightly in his throne,
And all this day an unaccustomed spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts"
Shakespeare.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
55
VII.
The morning 's clear, the sky without a frown,
The dew-bespangled pastures wet the shoe;
Sauntering full early toward the sleeping town,
We '11 take the dry, well-trodden avenue ;
On these crisp pathways, and familiar grounds
(Unless my flattering heart be over-bold),
While lingering purposely amid our rounds,
Some shady lane may love to hear all told.
One name has captured his too partial ear, —
(These kind, concealing bushes love invite
No tell-tales are, nor neighbors impolite;)
I '11 hear his suit devoid of blame or fear.
Impatiently the moment I await;
Who nothing ventures, stays disconsolate.
" Who knows thy destiny? when thou hast done,
Perchance her cabinet may harbor thee,
Whither all noble ambitious wits do run,
A nest almost as full of good as she.
Mark if to get thee she derskip the rest,
Mark if she read thee thrice, and kiss the name,
Mark if she do the same that they protest,
Mark if she mark whither her woman came"
Donne.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
57
VIII.
MEAN are all titles of nobility,
And kings poor spendthrifts, while I do compare
The wealth she daily lavishes on me
Of love, the noble kingdom that I share :
Is it the jealous year, for emphasis,
Sheds beauteous sunshine and refreshing dews?
My maiden's month doth softlier court and kiss,
Tint springtime's virgin cheek with rosier hues
Fly faster o'er my page, impassioned quill,
Signing this note of mine with tenderer touch !
Say I no measure find to mete my will,
Say that I love, but cannot tell how much;
Let time and trouble the full story tell:
I cannot love thee more, I know I love thee well.
" Let raptured fancy on that moment dwell
When thy dear vows in trembling accents fell.
When love acknowledged waked the tender sigh,
Swelled thy full breast, and filled the melting eye"
Langhorne.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
59
IX.
Now I no longer wait my love to tell,
As 'twere a weakness love should not commit;
E'en did avowal my fond hope dispel,
My passion would of weakness me acquit
Enamoured thus and holden by its spell,
Evasive words disloyal were, unfit
To emphasize the exquisite happiness
My boldest accents falteringly express;
Here, take my hand, and, life-long wedded, lead
Me by thy side; and, with my hand, my heart
Given thee long since in thought, given now in
deed;
My life, my love, shall play no faithless part.
Blest be that hour, when, meeting face to face,
Our vows are plighted, ours the dear embrace!
" Venus, thy eternal sway
All the race of men obey J
Euripides.
it
SONNETS AND CANZONETS, 6l
X.
Unconquerable and inviolate
Is Love; servant and sov'reign of man's wit:
Though the light-winged fancy changeful flit,
She rules unswervingly her fair estate,
O'erbears mischance and error, envy and hate;
High intellect, ambition, passion, pride,
Endowments that capricious Fortune brings,
By her disfranchisements are set aside;
The mistress she alike of slaves and kings,
Empress of Earth's dominions, far and wide,
Eldest of potentates, and latest born.
Of all in Heaven above or Earth below,
No being so illustrious or forlorn,
That to Love's sceptre doth not gladly bow.
1 Ye tradeful merchants / that with weary toil
Do seek most precious things to make your gain,
And both the Indies of their treasure spoil,
What needeth you to seek so far in vain ?
For, lo ! my love doth in herself contain
All this world 9 s riches that may far be found;
But that which fairest is, but few behold,
Her mind adorned with virtues manifold."
Spenser.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
63
XI.
ANCESTRAL tendencies far down descend;
They bless or blame for generations long;
They prick us forward toward our destined end,
Alike the weak, the sluggish, and the strong.
When her grave ancestor, of Winthrop's date,
Did with the rich mint-master's daughter join
In wedlock, he, sagacious magistrate,
Gained more in sterling worth than silver coin:
So, when King's Chapel saw, in gladsome May,
The mild schoolmaster lead his willing bride,
And the courtly warden give her hand away,
Mintage of like worth had no land beside.
True love alone nobility doth outvie,
And character's the sterling currency.
" How still the sea I behold, how calm the sky I
And how, in sportive chase, the swallows fly I
Sweet breathe the fields, and now a gentle breeze
Moves every leaf and trembles through the trees?
Phillips.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS, 65
XII.
HITHER, the gray and shapely church beside,
At sandy Hingham, by the sounding sea,
From the disturbing town escaped thus wide,
I'm come, from all encumbering care set free,
To raise the choral song, with friends discourse,
Roam the wide fields for flowers, or seaward sail,
Or to Cohasset's strand repair, where hoarse
Tumultuous surges chant their ceaseless tale;
Or poesy entertain, grave Wordsworth's lays,
Melodious musing childhood's glorious prime,
Shakespeare's warm sonnets or Venetian plays,
Or that sad wizard Mariner's marvellous Rime.
Here in these haunts, this lovers' company,
Sweet Love's symposium hold we happily.
"Books have always a secret influence on the under-
standing: we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas; he that
reads books of science, though without any desire for
improvement, will grow more knowing; he that enter-
tains himself with moral or religious treatises will
imperceptibly advance to goodness ; the ideas which are
often offered to the mind will at last find a lucky moment
when it is disposed to receive them."
Dr. Johnson.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
6 7
XIII.
My Lady reads, with judgment and good taste,
Books not too many, but the wisest, best,
Pregnant with sentiment sincere and chaste,
Rightly conceived were they and aptly dressed:
These wells of learning tastes she at the source, —
Johnson's poised periods, F&ielon's deep sense,
Taylor's mellifluous and sage discourse,
Majestic Milton's epic eloquence, —
Nor these alone her thoughts do all engage,
But classic authors of the modern time,
And the great masters of the ancient age,
In prose alike and of the lofty rhyme:
Montaigne and Cowper, Plutarch's gallery,
Blind Homer's Iliad and his Odyssey.
" Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make: I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival.
My head hath its coronal.
The fulness of your bliss I feel — I feel it all. 1 *
Wordsworth.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
69
XIV.
Not Wordsworth's genius, Pestalozzi's love,
The stream have sounded of clear infancy.
Baptismal waters from the Head above
These babes I foster daily are to me;
I dip my pitcher in these living springs
And draw, from depths below, sincerity;
Unsealed, mine eyes behold all outward things
Arrayed in splendors of divinity.
What mount of vision can with mine compare?
Not Roman Jove nor yet Olympian Zeus
Darted from loftier ether through bright air
One spark of holier fire for human use.
Glad tidings thence these angels downward bring,
As at their birth the heavenly choirs do sing.
"Fresh as the morning, earnest as the hour
That calls the noisy world to grateful sleep,
Our silent thought reveres the nameless power
That high seclusion round thy life doth keep?
Sanborn.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
n
XV.
DAUGHTER, beloved of all, thy tender eye,
Sweet disposition, and thy gentle voice,
Make every heart, full soon thy close ally,
Respect thy wishes, thine unspoken choice, —
Hastening, unbidden, therewith to comply;
They in thy cheerful countenance rejoice,
Kindness unfailing, and quick sympathy.
Peacemaker thou, with equanimity
And aspirations far above thy care,
Leavest no duty slighted or undone,
Living for thy dear kindred, always there,
Faithful as rising and as setting sun.
Can I of lovelier mansion be possest,
Than in thy heart to dwell a welcome guest?
" Stern daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty, if that name thou love,
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law.
When empty terrors overawe;
And calmest the weary strife of frail humanity /"
Wordsworth.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
n
XVI.
WHEN I remember with what buoyant heart,
Midst war 's alarms and woes of civil strife,
In youthful eagerness, thou didst depart,
At peril of thy safety, peace, and life,
To nurse the wounded soldier, swathe the dead —
How pierc&d soon by fever's poisoned dart,
And brought unconscious home, with wildered
head —
Thou, ever since, mid languor and dull pain,
To conquer fortune, cherish kindred dear,
Hast with grave studies vexed a sprightly brain,
In myriad households kindled love and cheer;
Ne'er from thyself by Fame's loud trump beguiled,
Sounding in this and the farther hemisphere: —
I press thee to my heart, as Duty's faithful child.
" In deepest passions of my grief-swoWn breast,
Sweet soul, this only comfort seizeth me.
That so few years should make thee so much blest.
And give such wings to reach eternity"
Brown's Shepherd's Pipe.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
n
XVII.
'TWAS not permitted thee the Fates to please,
And with survivors share our happier day;
For smitten early wast thou by disease,
Whilst with thy sisters thou didst smile and play.
Wasted by pains and lingering decay,
Life's glowing currents at the source did freeze;
Yet, ere the angel summoned thee away,
Above thy cheerful couch affection's ray
Did brightly shine, and all thy sufferings ease.
Dear child of grace ! so patient and so strong,
Bound to thy duty by quick sympathy,
They did our hearts irreparable wrong
To break the promise of thy infancy;
Ah me ! life is not life, deprived of thee.
" WUVt ne'er be morning? will that promised light
Ne'er break, and clear these clouds of night?
Sweet Phosphor, bring the day y
Whose conquering ray
May chase these fogs: sweet Phosphor, bring the day."
Quarles.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
77
XVIII.
LOVE'S MORROW.
I.
It was but yesterday
That all was bright and fair:
Came over the sea,
So merrily,
News from my darling there.
Now over the sea
Comes hither to me
Knell of despair, —
" No more, no longer there ! "
II.
Ah! gentle May,
Couldst thou not stay?
78
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
Why hurriedst thou so swift away?
No — not the same —
Nor can it be —
That lovely name —
Ever again what once it was to me.
It cannot, cannot be
That lovely name to me.
t
in.
I cannot think her dead,
So lately, sweetly wed;
She who had tasted bliss,
A mother's virgin kiss,
Rich gifts conferred to bless
With costliest happiness,
Nobility and grace
To ornament her place.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
IV.
Broken the golden band,
Severed the silken strand,
Ye sisters four!
Still to me two remain,
And two have gone before:
Our loss, her gain, —
And He who gave can all restore.
And yet — Oh! why,
My heart doth cry,
Why take her thus away?
v.
I wake in tears and sorrow:
Wearily I say,
"Come, come, fair morrow,
And chase my grief away ! "
Night-long I say,
79
80 SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
" Haste, haste, fair morrow,
And bear my grief away ! "
All night long,
My sad, sad song.
VI.
"Comes not the welcome morrow,"
My boding heart doth say;
Still grief from grief doth borrow;
"My child is far away."
Still as I pray
The deeper swells my sorrow.
Break, break! The risen day
Takes not my grief away.
VII.
Full well I know,
Joy's spring is fathomless, —
Its fountains overflow
To cheer and bless,
SONNETS AND CANZONETS. 8 1
And underneath our grief
Well forth and give relief.
Transported May!
Thou couldst not stay;
Who gave, took thee away.
Come, child, and whisper peace to me,
Say, must I wait, or come to thee?
I list to hear
Thy message clear.
VIII.
" Cease, cease, new grief to borrow ! "
Last night I heard her say;
"For sorrow hath no morrow,
T is born of yesterday.
Translated thou shalt be,
My cloudless daylight see,
And bathe, as I, in fairest morrows endlessly."
" Shall not from these remains,
From this low mound, dear ashes of the dead,
The violet spring •?"
Persius.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS, 83
XIX.
O Death! thou utterest deeper speech,
A tenderer, truer tone,
Than all our languages can reach,
Though all were voiced in one.
Thy glance is deep, and, far beyond
All that our eyes do see,
Assures to fairest hopes and fond
Their immortality.
Sing, sing, the Immortals,
The Ancients of days,
Ever crowding the portals
Of Time's peopled ways ;
These Babes ever stealing
Into Eden's glad feeling,
The fore-world revealing^
God's face ne'er concealing.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS. 8$
XX.
Voyager across the seas,
In my arms thy form I press;
Come, my Baby, me to please,
Blue-eyed nurseling, motherless!
All is strange and beautiful,
Every sense finds glad surprise,
Life is lovely, wonderful,
Faces fair, and beaming eyes.
Safe, ye angels, keep this child,
Life-long guard her innocence,
Winsome ways, and temper mild;
Heaven, our home, be her defence!
it
O, how thy worth with manners may I sing y
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring f
And what is f t but mine own when I praise thee?"
Shakespeare.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
«7
XXI.
Dear Heart ! if aught to human love I've owed
For noble furtherance of the good and fair;
Climbed I, by bold emprise, the dizzying stair
To excellence, and was by thee approved,
In memory cherished and the more beloved;
If fortune smiled, and late-won liberty, —
Twas thy kind favor all, thy generous legacy.
Nor didst thou spare thy large munificence
Me here to pleasure amply and maintain,
But conjured from suspicion and mischance,
Exile, misapprehension, cold disdain,
For my loved cloud-rapt dream, supremacy;
To bright reality transformed romance,
Crowning with smiles the hard-earned victory.
" The hills were reared, the valleys scooped in vain,
If Learning's altars vanish from the plain "
Channing.
SONNETS AND CANZONETS.
8 9
XXII.
Calm vale of comfort, peace, and industry,
Well doth thy name thy homebred traits ex-
press ! —
Considerate people, neighborly and free,
Proud of their monuments, their ancestry, •
Their circling river's quiet loveliness,
Their noble townsmen's fame and history.
Nor less I glory in each goodly trait,
Child of another creed, a stricter State;
I chose thee for my haunt in troublous time,
My home in days of late prosperity,
And laud thee now in this familiar rhyme;
Here on thy bosom the last summons wait
To scenes, if lovelier, still reflecting thee,
Resplendent both in hope and memory.
PART II.
SONNETS.
" In sundry moods, 't was pastime to be bound
Within the sonnet's scanty plot of ground."
Wordsworth.
"/ like that friendship which, by soft gentle pauses,
steals upon the affections and grows mellow with time,
by reciprocal offices and trials of love; that friendship is
like to last long, and never shrink in the wetting"
Howel.
SONNETS.
95
L
In Youth's glad morning, when the rising East
Glows golden with assurance of success,
And life itself 's a rare continual feast,
Enjoyed the more if meditated less,
'T is then that friendship's pleasures chiefly bless,
As if without beginning, — ne'er to end, —
So rich the season and so dear the friend,
When thou and I went wandering hand in hand ;
Mine wert thou in our years of earliest prime,
Studious at home, or to the southern land
Adventuring bold; again in later time,
Thy kindly service, always at command
Of calm discretion, and abounding sense,
Prompted and showed the path to excellence.
"Power above powers! O heavenly eloquence /
That, with the strong rein of commanding words,
Dost manage, guide, and master the eminence
Of maris affections more than all their swords;
Shall we not offer to thy excellence
The richest treasure that our wit affords 1
Or should we careless come behind the rest
In power of words that go before in worth ;
When all that ever hotter spirits exprest
Comes bettered by the patience of the North ? "
Daniel.
SONNETS.
97
II.
My thought revives at utterance of thy name, —
Doth high behavior, sweet discourse recall,
Lit with emotion's quick and quenchless flame,
Imagination interfused through all;
Then peals thy voice melodious on mine ear,
As when grave anthems thou didst well recite, —
Laodamia's vision sad and dear,
Or " Thanatopsis," or " Hail, Holy Light ! "
Thou true Professor, gifted to dispense
New pathos e'en to Channing's eloquence ;
If mother tongue they fail to speak or write,
Nor Greek nor Latin draw thy pupils thence;
Such culture, taught by the far Northern sea,
This scholar brings, New England, home to thee.
"Ascending soul, sing Paan"
Oracle.
SONNETS.
99
III.
Christian beloved ! devoid of art and wile, —
Who lovest thy Lord so well, with heart so true,
That neither mist nor mote of worldly guile
May clog thy vision, nor confuse the view
Of that transcendent and commanding style
Of god-like manhood ; which had dazed long while
Each purblind brother's idol-loving eye.
Sense overpowering doth the soul belie:
Thou the soul's errand and due place dost see,
Its heavenly features to thy ken disclose,
As when in Nazareth thy Lord uprose,
The Father's image in Humanity.
A holy service thine, interpreter
Of Lazarus rising from the sepulchre.
" 77te virtuous mind that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion. Conscience"
Milton.
4
SONNETS. I0I
IV.
Channing! my Mentor whilst my thought was
young,
And I the votary of fair liberty, —
How hung I then upon thy glowing tongue,
And thought of love and truth as one with thee !
Thou wast the inspirer of a nobler life,
When I with error waged unequal strife,
And from its coils thy teaching set me free.
Be ye, his followers, to his leading true,
Nor privilege covet, nor the wider sway;
But hold right onward in his loftier way,
As best becomes, and is his rightful due.
If * learning 's yours, — gifts God doth least es-
teem, —
Beyond all gifts was his transcendent view;
O realize his Pentecostal dream!
" Without oblivion there is no remembrance possible.
When both oblivion and memory are wise, then the
general soul is clear, melodious, and true"
Carlyle.
SONNETS,
I03
V.
DAUGHTER of Memory ! who her watch doth keep
O'er dark Oblivion's land of shade and dream,
Peers down into the realm of ancient Sleep,
Where Thought uprises with a sudden gleam
And lights the devious path 'twixt Be and Seem ;
Mythologist! that dost thy legend steep
Plenteously with opiate and anodyne,
Inweaving fact with fable, line with line,
Entangling anecdote and episode,
Mindful of all that all men meant or said, —
We follow, pleased, thy labyrinthine road,
By Ariadne's skein and lesson led:
For thou hast wrought so excellently well,
Thou drop'st more casual truth than sages tell.
ti
Not on the store of sprightly wine,
Nor plenty of delicious meats,
Though gracious Nature did design
To court us with perpetual treats ;
'Tis not on these we for content depend,
So much as on the shadow of a friend"
Menander.
SONNETS.
I05
VI.
Misfortune to have lived not knowing thee!
Twere not high living, nor to noblest end,
Who, dwelling near, learned not sincerity,
Rich friendship's ornament that still doth lend
To life its consequence and propriety.
Thy fellowship was my culture, noble friend:
By the hand thou took'st me, and did'st condescend
To bring me straightway into thy fair guild;
And life-long hath it been high compliment
By that to have been known, and thy friend styled,
Given to rare thought and to good learning bent ;
Whilst in my straits an angel on me smiled.
Permit me, then, thus honored, still to be
A scholar in thy university.
" He shall not seek to weave,
In weak, unhappy times,
Efficacious rhymes ;
Wait his returning strength.
Bird, that from the nadir's floor
To the zenith's top can soar,
The soaring orbit of the Muse exceeds that
journeys length"
SONNETS.
IO7
VII.
Hierophant, and lyrist of the soul!
Clear insight thine of universal mind ;
While from its crypts the nascent Powers unrol,
And represent to consciousness the Whole.
Each in its order seeks its natural kind,
These latent or apparent, stir or sleep,
Watchful o'er widening fields of airy space,
Or slumbering sightless in the briny deep ; —
Thou, far above their shows, servant of Grace,
Tread'st the bright way from SPIRIT down to
Sense,
Interpreting all symbols to thy race, —
Commanding vistas of the fair Immense,
And glimpses upward far, where, sons of Heaven,
Sit in Pantheon throned the Sacred Seven.
" The princely mind, that can
Teach man to keep a God in man, —
And when wise poets would search out to see
Good men, behold them all in thee/ 99
i* 1
it
SONNETS.
109
VIII.
Pleased, I recall those hours, so fair and free,
When all the long forenoons we two did toss
From lip to lip, in lively colloquy,
Plato, Plotinus, or famed schoolman's gloss,
Disporting in rapt thought and ecstasy.
Then by the tilting rail Millbrook we cross,
And sally through the fields to Walden wave,
Plunging within the cove, or swimming o'er;
Through woodpaths wending, he with gesture quick
Rhymes deftly in mid-air with circling stick,
Skims the smooth pebbles from the leafy shore,
Or deeper ripples raises as we lave;
Nor slumb'rous pillow touches at late night,
Till converse with the stars his eyes invite.
ts Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep ;
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light.
Goddess excellently bright.
"Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever,
Thou who mak 9 st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright**
Ben Jonson.
SONtfETS. XII
IX.
Dear Lady! oft I meditate on thee,
Noblest companion and fit peer of him
Whom envious years, in high prosperity,
Could blemish least, nor aught the lustre dim
Of that fair-fashioned native piety
Embosomed in the soul that smiles on Fate,
And held by him and thee inviolate, —
Fountain of youth, still sparkling o'er the brim.
Then I recall thy salient quick wit,
Its arrowy quiver and its supple bow, —
Huntress of wrong ! right well thy arrows hit,
Though from the wound thou see'st the red drops
flow:
I much admire that dexterous archery,
And pray that sinners may thy target be.
<(
Upon the nineteenth day of the first month, they keep
a solemn festival to Hermes, wherein they eat honey and
figs, and withal, say these words, 'Truth is a sweet
thing ; ' and that amulet or charm which they fable to
hang about her is, when interpreted in our language,
' A true voice.' "
Plutarch.
SONNETS. nj
X.
THOU, Sibyl rapt! whose sympathetic soul
Infused the myst'ries thy tongue failed to tell ;
Though from thy lips the marvellous accents fell,
And weird wise meanings o'er the senses stole,
Through those rare cadences, with winsome spell ;
Yet, even in such refrainings of thy voice,
There struggled up a wailing undertone,
That spoke thee victim of the Sisters' choice, —
Charming all others, dwelling still alone.
They left thee thus disconsolate to roam,
And scorned thy dear, devoted life to spare.
Around the storm-tost vessel sinking there
The wild waves chant thy dirge and welcome home ;
Survives alone thy sex's valiant plea,
And the great heart that loved the brave and free.
" One knocked at the Beloved's door, and a Voice asked
from within, Who is there ? And he answered. It is L
Then the Voice said, This house will not hold me and thee,
and the door was not opened. Then went the Lover into
the desert, and fasted and prayed in solitude. And after a
year he returned, and knocked again at the door. And
again the Voice asked, Who is there ? and he said, It is
Thyself And the door was opened to him."
Persian Poet.
SONNETS.
"5
XI.
PRIEST of the gladsome tidings, old and new,
To whom by nature fell, as the most fit,
The saintly Channing's mantle; brave and true,
Thou heedst thy calling, and dost well acquit
Thyself of the high mission. Thy sage wit
(O brother in the Lord, and well approved
To lead men heavenward to the Father's throne,
And Son's that sits at His right hand beloved !)
Hath ministered to every clime and zone
Washed by Pacific or Atlantic sea,
With chainless flow 'neath Heaven's unbounded
cope.
Son of the Church, saint of thy century !
Undoubting faith is thine, and fadeless hope,
And ardent, all-embracing charity.
" Philosophy does not look into pedigrees. She did not
receive Plato as noble, but she made him such"
Seneca.
SONNETS.
117
XII.
Interpreter of the Pure Reason's laws,
And all the obligations Thought doth owe
These high ambassadors of her great cause;
Philosopher! whose rare discernments show
Apt mastery of her surpassing skill,
And why each thought and thing is inly so
Conceived and fashioned in the plastic Will;
Thou Reason's canons dost so well maintain,
With such adhesive and sincere regard,
That every deviator seeks in vain
To escape thy apprehension; evil-starred,
With Dante's sophisters they writhe in pain.
Then from thy judgment-seat, dismissed with ruth,
Thou lead'st the stumblers in the way of truth.
" Hast thou named all the birds without a gun f
Loved the wild rose and left it on its stalk ?
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse 1
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust 1
And loved so well a high behavior,
In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained.
Nobility more nobly to repay ?
Oh, be my friend, and teach me to be thine/"
Emerson.
SONNETS.
119
XIII.
Who nearer Nature's life would truly come
Must nearest come to him of whom I speak ;
He all kinds knew, — the vocal and the dumb;
Masterful in genius was he, and unique,
Patient, sagacious, tender, frolicsome.
This Concord Pan would oft his whistle take,
And forth from wood and fen, field, hill, and lake,
Trooping around him, in their several guise,
The shy inhabitants their haunts forsake:
Then he, like Esop, man would satirize,
Hold up the image wild to clearest view
Of undiscerning manhood's puzzled eyes,
And mocking say, "Lo! mirrors here for you:
Be true as these, if ye would be more wise."
u The happy man who lived content
With his own town and continent,
Whose chiding stream its banks did curb
As ocean circumscribes its orb,
Round which, when he his walks did take,
Thought he performed far more than Drake:
For other lands he took less thought,
Than this his Muse and landscape brought"
Evelyn.
i
i
SONNETS. I2 i
XIV.
MUCH do they wrong our Henry, wise and kind,
Morose who name thee, cynical to men,
Forsaking manners civil and refined
To build thyself in Walden woods a den, —
Then flout society, flatter the rude hind.
We better knew thee, loyal citizen 1
Thou, friendship's all-adventuring pioneer,
Civility itself didst civilize :
Whilst braggart boors, wavering 'twixt rage and
fear,
Slave hearths lay waste, and Indian huts surprise,
And swift the Martyr's gibbet would uprear:
Thou hail'dst him great whose valorous emprise
Orion's blazing belt dimmed in the sky, —
Then bowed thy unrepining head to die.
" Happy art thou whom God doth bless
With the full choice of thine own happiness ;
And happier yet, because thotfrt blest
With prudence how to choose the best:
In books and gardens thou hast placed aright —
Things well which thou dost understand,
And both dost make with thy laborious hand-
Thy noble, innocent delight.
Methinks I see great Diocletian walk
In the Salonian garden's noble shade,
Which by his own imperial hands was made;
I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk
With the ambassadors, who come in vain
To entice him to a throne again.* 1
Cowley's Ode to Evelyn.
SONNETS.
123
XV.
Whilst from the cloistered schools rushed forth
in view
The eager Bachelors, on lucre bent,
Or life voluptuous ; even the studious few,
Oblivious mostly, if they ever knew
What Nature mirrored and fair learning meant;
Thou, better taught, on worthier aims intent,
Short distance from the Pilgrims' sea-washed street
Thine orchard planted; grove and garden there,
And sheltering coppice hide thy mansion neat,
By winding alley reached, and gay parterre;
Where cordial welcome chosen friends shall meet,
From courteous host and graceful lady fair;
Then thy choice fruits we taste, thy wisdom hived,
England's rare Evelyn in thee revived.
" Thou art not gone, being gone, — where'er thou art,
Thou leav'st in him thy watchful eyes, in him thy lov-
ing heart"
Donne.
SONNETS.
125
XVI.
BRIGHT visions of my sprightlier youthful days,
With sunny gleams of answering friendliness,
Thou brought'st me, maiden, in delightful ways,
In conversation, letters, frank address;
And these attractions did me so possess,
The moments all were thine, and thou in sight
By day's engagements, and in dreams by night.
Wished I the spell dissolved, or ever less?
Ne'er may advancing years remove one tint
From memory's tablet of that happy time ;
And if thus tamely that romance I hint,
Forgive my poor endeavor in this rhyme,
Nor warrant give me now, my cherished friend,
To add the more, lest I the more offend.
*Aorr]p irpiv yxcv eXafurc? cvi £axH<riv cak>?,
Nvv Sc Oavihv Aa/Lwreis TSaircpos cv ^i/icpot?*
" 7>&0tf aw* morning star among the living
Ere thy fair light had fled;
Now, being gone, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New lustre to the dead."
Plato.
SONNETS.
127
XVII.
SWEET saint ! whose rising dawned upon the sight
Like fair Aurora chasing mists away;
Our ocean billows, and thy western height
Gave back reflections of the tender ray,
Sparkling and smiling as night turned to day : —
Ah! whither vanished that celestial light?
Suns rise and set, Monadnoc's amethyst
Year-long above the sullen cloud appears,
Daily the waves our summer strand have kissed,
But thou returnest not with days and years:
Or is it thine, yon clear and beckoning star,
Seen o'er the hills that guarded once thy home ?
Dost guide thy friend's free steps that widely roam
Toward that far country where his wishes are?
" Thus sing I to cragg*d clifts and hills.
To sighing winds, to murmuring rills,
To wasteful woods, to empty groves,
Such things as my dear mind most loves."
Henry More.
SONNETS.
129
XVIII.
Adventurous mariner! in whose gray skiff,
Dashing disastrous o'er the fretful wave,
The steersman, subject to each breeze's whiff,
Or blast capricious that o'er seas doth rave,
Scarce turns his rudder from the fatal cliff, —
Scorning his craft or e'en himself to save.
Ye Powers of air, that shift the seaman's grave,
Adjust the tackle of his right intent,
And bring him safely to the port he meant!
Long musing there on that divinity
Who to his hazard had assistance lent,
He verses cons, oft taken by surprise
In diverse meanings, and shrewd subtlety,
That pass quaint Donne, and even Shakespeare
wise.
" But else, in deep of night, when drowsiness
Hath locked up mortal sense, then listen I
To the celestial Syrens' harmony
That sit upon the nine infolded spheres,
And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
And turn the adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of gods and men is wound"
Milton.
SONNETS.
131
XIX.
ROMANCER, far more coy than that coy sex!
Perchance some stroke of magic thee befell,
Ere thy baronial keep the Muse did vex,
Nor grant deliverance from enchanted spell,
But tease thee all the while and sore perplex,
Till thou that wizard tale shouldst fairly tell,
Better than poets in thy own clear prose.
Painter of sin in its deep scarlet dyes,
Thy doomsday pencil Justice doth expose,
Hearing and judging at the dread assize;
New England's guilt blazoning before all eyes,
No other chronicler than thee she chose.
Magician deathless! dost thou vigil keep,
Whilst 'neath our pines thou feignest deathlike
sleep?
" There is a Roman splendor in her smile,
A tenderness that owes its depth to toil;
Well may she leave the soft voluptuous wik y
That forms the woman of a softer soil;
She does pour forth herself a fragrant oily
Upon the dark asperities of Fate y
And make a garden else all desolate"
Ellery Channing.
SONNETS.
133
XX.
Still held in sweet remembrance thou, my friend,
As when I knew thee in thy maiden prime;
Though later years to ripening graces lend
The graver traits, whilst we together climb
The pathway upward to those loftier heights,
'Bove clouded prospects and familiar sights.
Thy gracious worth shines brightly in mine eyes,
Thy warm heart's labors, thy large liberal brain,
Ennobling studies, and broad charities,
Thou woman worthy of the coming age !
Whilst household duties thou dost well sustain,
Yet ampler service for thy sex presage;
Can aught from Memory's record e'er erase
Thy cordial manners, and resplendent face?
" So have I seen in fair Castile,
The youth in glittering squadrons start,
Sudden the flying jennet wheel,
And hurl the unexpected dart"
Scott.
SONNETS.
135
XXI.
*
POET of the Pulpit, whose full-chorded lyre
Startles the churches from their slumbers late,
Discoursing music, mixed with lofty ire,
At wrangling factions in the restless state,
Till tingles with thy note each listening ear, —
Then household charities by the friendly fire
Of home, soothe all to fellowship And good cheer.
No sin escapes thy fervent eloquence,
Yet, touching with compassion the true word,
Thou leavest the trembling culprit's dark offence
To the mediation of his gracious Lord.
To noble thought and deep dost thou dispense
Due meed of praise, strict in thy just award.
Can other pulpits with this preacher cope?
I glory in thy genius, and take hope!
"Many are the friends of the golden tongue"
Welsh Triad.
/
SONNETS. I3 jr
XXII.
People's Attorney, servant of the Right !
Pleader for all shades of the solar ray,
Complexions dusky, yellow, red, or white;
Who, in thy country's and thy time's despite,
Hast only questioned, What will Duty say?
And followed swiftly in her narrow way:
Tipped is thy tongue with golden eloquence,
All honeyed accents fall from off thy lips, —
Each eager listener his full measure sips,
Yet runs to waste the sparkling opulence, —
The scorn of bigots, and the worldling's flout
If Time long held thy merit in suspense,
Hastening repentant now, with pen devout,
Impartial History dare not leave thee out.
" Who faithful in insane sedition keeps.
With silver and with ruddy gold may vie"
TYRTiEUS.
SONNETS,
139
XXIII.
T WAS when the land was struggling to break free
From Slavery's fetter and provincial ban,
Whilst a great people dreaded liberty, —
That the dire conflict of thine age began.
Thy voice rang clear o'er selfish sect and clan;
Nor politician's, priest's, nor tradesman's plea
Did aught avail to quench, but more to fan
The flame that must consume all slavery, —
The serf then franchised and proclaimed a man.
Long wast thou heard amid the scoff and scorn
Of voices potent in thy city dear;
Steadfast didst face the storm, with heart of cheer,
And prove thyself the freeman nobly born,
Preacher of righteousness, of saints the peer.
(t
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise or blame, nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble."
Milton.
SONNETS.
141
XXIV.
BOLD Saint, thou firm believer in the Cross,
Again made glorious by self-sacrifice, —
Love's free atonement given without love's loss, —
That martyrdom to thee was lighter pain,
Since thus a race its liberties should gain;
Flash its sure consequence in Slavery's eyes
When, 'scaping sabre's clash and battle's smoke,
She felt the justice of thy master-stroke:
Peaceful prosperity around us lies,
Freedom with loyalty thy valor gave;
Whilst thou, no felon doomed, for gallows fit,
O Patriot true! O Christian meek and brave!
Throned in the martyrs' seat henceforth shalt sit ;
Prophet of God ! Messias of the Slave !
it
O my brethren / I have told
Most bitter truths but without bitterness,
Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed;
For never can true courage dwell with them
Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look
At their own vices."
Coleridge.
SONNETS.
143
XXV.
Nobly censorious of our transient age,
Hating oppressors in thy love of man,
Thou didst stride forward on the public stage
With the bold liberators to the van,
Scourging delinquents with a lofty rage.
Iconoclast, who 'gainst foul idols ran,
Tumbling false gods from their wide-worshipped
shrine,
To throne therein the human and divine.
Charged was thy soul with vehement eloquence,
Strenuous with ample reason's manly art;
Thy prayers were fervent, void of all pretence,
Wrath yielded place to pity in thy heart;
Eagerly of all learning mad'st thou spoil,
Before thy lamp, extinguished, spent its oil.
" There *s not a breathing of the common jwind
That will forget thee : thou hast great allies ;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies ',
And love, and man's unconquerable mind"
Wordsworth.
SONNETS.
145
/
XXVI.
Freedom's first champion in our fettered land!
Nor politician nor base citizen
Could gibbet thee, nor silence, nor withstand.
Thy trenchant and emancipating pen
The patriot Lincoln snatched with steady hand,
Writing his name and thine on parchment white,
Midst war's resistless and ensanguined flood;
Then held that proclamation high in sight
Before his fratricidal countrymen, —
"Freedom henceforth throughout the land for
all," —
And sealed the instrument with his own blood,
Bowing his mighty strength for slavery's fall;
Whilst thou, stanch friend of largest liberty,
Survived, — its ruin and our peace to see.
"£ venni dal martirio a questa pace"
Dante.
"Ah, me! how dark the discipline of pain,
Were not the suffering followed by the sense
Of infinite rest and infinite release I
This is our consolation ; and again
A great soul cries to us in our suspense:
i I came from martyrdom unto this peace.' "
Longfellow.
SONNETS.
147
XXVII.
O Thou, my country, ope thine eyes
Toward what the Future holds for thee!
See the brave stripling rise
From lowliest hut and poverty,
From stair to stair;
Nor hardly fix his footsteps there,
Ere he another round
Doth upward bound;
Still, step by step, to higher stair
Forward he leaps,
Broader his vision sweeps,
Till he the loftiest summit gain, —
A people's hope to further and maintain.
148
SONNETS.
II.
But lo! as oft befalls the great,
The wise and good,
There for a moment poised he stood, -
Then passed beyond the gazing crowd
Within the folded cloud.
Wasted by weary pains,
His pale remains
Now lie in state,
Swathed in his bloody shroud;
Peoples and kingdoms bathed in tears.
Hear'st thou the welcome greet his ears,
As he his holier throne doth take?
This brave of fifty manly years,
Dies he not now for thy dear sake?
SONNETS.
149
III.
O follow, thou, his leading far,
Be thou thyself the morning star,
Beaming thy glories round the world,
His name emblazoned on thy flag unfurled!
What speak the myriad bells,
Tolling this day their mournful knells?
"Ne'er may our weight be swung,
Never our iron tongue
Slavery's base might extol
In town or capitol;
But o'er a people brave and free
Ring out in happier symphony
Garfield and Liberty ! "
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