Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives, When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives, Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain, But never will be sung to us again, Is thy remembrance.Now the hour of rest Hath come to thee.Sleep, darling; it is best.
ULTIMA THULE
DEDICATION
TO G.W.G.
With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas, We sailed for the Hesperides, The land where golden apples grow;But that, ah! that was long ago.
How far, since then, the ocean streams Have swept us from that land of dreams, That land of fiction and of truth, The lost Atlantis of our youth!
Whither, oh, whither? Are not these The tempest-haunted Hebrides, Where sea gulls scream, and breakers roar, And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?
Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!
Here in thy harbors for a while We lower our sails; a while we rest From the unending, endless quest.
POEMS
BAYARD TAYLOR
Dead he lay among his books!
The peace of God was in his looks.
As the statues in the gloom Watch o'er Maximilian's tomb,So those volumes from their shelves Watched him, silent as themselves.
Ah! his hand will nevermore Turn their storied pages o'er;Nevermore his lips repeat Songs of theirs, however sweet.
Let the lifeless body rest!
He is gone, who was its guest;
Gone, as travellers haste to leave An inn, nor tarry until eve.
Traveller! in what realms afar, In what planet, in what star,In what vast, aerial space, Shines the light upon thy face?
In what gardens of delight Rest thy weary feet to-night?
Poet! thou, whose latest verse Was a garland on thy hearse;Thou hast sung, with organ tone, In Deukalion's life, thine own;On the ruins of the Past Blooms the perfect flower at last.
Friend! but yesterday the bells Rang for thee their loud farewells;And to-day they toll for thee, Lying dead beyond the sea;Lying dead among thy books, The peace of God in all thy looks!
THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE
Is it so far from thee Thou canst no longer see, In the Chamber over the Gate, That old man desolate, Weeping and wailing sore For his son, who is no more?
O Absalom, my son!
Is it so long ago That cry of human woe From the walled city came, Calling on his dear name, That it has died away In the distance of to-day?
O Absalom, my son!
There is no far or near, There is neither there nor here, There is neither soon nor late, In that Chamber over the Gate, Nor any long ago To that cry of human woe, O Absalom, my son!
From the ages that are past The voice sounds like a blast, Over seas that wreck and drown, Over tumult of traffic and town;And from ages yet to be Come the echoes back to me, O Absalom, my son!
Somewhere at every hour The watchman on the tower Looks forth, and sees the fleet Approach of the hurrying feet Of messengers, that bear The tidings of despair.
O Absalom, my son!
He goes forth from the door Who shall return no more.
With him our joy departs;
The light goes out in our hearts;
In the Chamber over the Gate We sit disconsolate.
O Absalom, my son!
That 't is a common grief Bringeth but slight relief;Ours is the bitterest loss, Ours is the heaviest cross;And forever the cry will be "Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son!"FROM MY ARM-CHAIR
TO THE CHILDREN OF CAMBRIDGE
Who presented to me on my Seventy-second Birth-day, February 27, 1879, this Chair, made from the Wood of the Village Blacksmith's Chestnut Tree.
Am I a king, that I should call my own This splendid ebon throne?
Or by what reason, or what right divine, Can I proclaim it mine?
Only, perhaps, by right divine of song It may to me belong;Only because the spreading chestnut tree Of old was sung by me.
Well I remember it in all its prime, When in the summer-time The affluent foliage of its branches made A cavern of cool shade.
There, by the blacksmith's forge, beside the street, Its blossoms white and sweet Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive, And murmured like a hive.
And when the winds of autumn, with a shout, Tossed its great arms about, The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath, Dropped to the ground beneath.
And now some fragments of its branches bare, Shaped as a stately chair, Have by my hearthstone found a home at last, And whisper of the past.
The Danish king could not in all his pride Repel the ocean tide, But, seated in this chair, I can in rhyme Roll back the tide of Time.
I see again, as one in vision sees, The blossoms and the bees, And hear the children's voices shout and call, And the brown chestnuts fall.
I see the smithy with its fires aglow, I hear the bellows blow, And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat The iron white with heat!
And thus, dear children, have ye made for me This day a jubilee, And to my more than three-score years and ten Brought back my youth again.
The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, And in it are enshrined The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought The giver's loving thought.
Only your love and your remembrance could Give life to this dead wood, And make these branches, leafless now so long, Blossom again in song.
JUGURTHA
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
Cried the African monarch, the splendid, As down to his death in the hollow Dark dungeons of Rome he descended, Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended;How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended, As the vision, that lured him to follow, With the mist and the darkness blended, And the dream of his life was ended;How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
THE IRON PEN
Made from a fetter of Bonnivard, the Prisoner of Chillon; the handle of wood from the Frigate Constitution, and bound with a circlet of gold, inset with three precious stones from Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine.
I thought this Pen would arise From the casket where it lies--Of itself would arise and write My thanks and my surprise.