By Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836 - 1907)

An Ode

On the Unveiling of the Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, May Thirty-first, 1897

I     NOT with slow, funereal sound     Come we to this sacred ground; Not with wailing fife and solemn muffled drum,     Bringing a cypress wreath       To lay, with bended knee,     On the cold brows of Death—       Not so, dear God, we come,     But with the trumpets’ blare And shot-torn battle-banners flung to air,         As for a victory!   Hark to the measured tread of martial feet, The music and the murmurs of the street!     No bugle breathes this day     Disaster and retreat!—     Hark, how the iron lips     Of the great battle-ships Salute the City from her azure Bay!   II Time was—time was, ah, unforgotten years!— We paid our hero tribute of our tears.         But now let go All sounds and signs and formulas of woe:   ’T is Life, not Death, we celebrate;   To Life, not Death, we dedicate This storied bronze, whereon is wrought The lithe immortal figure of our thought,   To show forever to men’s eyes,   Our children’s children’s children’s eyes,         How once he stood         In that heroic mood,     He and his dusky braves     So fain of glorious graves!—     One instant stood, and then Drave through that cloud of purple steel and flame, Which wrapt him, held him, gave him not again, But in its trampled ashes left to Fame         An everlasting name!   III       That was indeed to live—       At one bold swoop to wrest       From darkling death the best       That death to life can give.       He fell as Roland fell       That day at Roncevaux, With foot upon the ramparts of the foe!       A pæan, not a knell,       For heroes dying so!       No need for sorrow here,       No room for sigh or tear, Save such rich tears as happy eyelids know.       See where he rides, our Knight!       Within his eyes the light Of battle, and youth’s gold about his brow; Our Paladin, our Soldier of the Cross,       Not weighing gain with loss—       World-loser, that won all       Obeying duty’s call!       Not his, at peril’s frown,       A pulse of quicker beat;       Not his to hesitate       And parley hold with Fate,       But proudly to fling down       His gauntlet at her feet. O soul of loyal valor and white truth,       Here, by this iron gate, Thy serried ranks about thee as of yore,       Stand thou for evermore       In thy undying youth!       The tender heart, the eagle eye!       Oh, unto him belong       The homages of Song;       Our praises and the praise       Of coming days       To him belong— To him, to him, the dead that shall not die!

A Petition

TO spring belongs the violet, and the blown Spice of the roses let the summer own. Grant me this favor, Muse—all else withhold— That I may not write verse when I am old.   And yet I pray you, Muse, delay the time! Be not too ready to deny me rhyme; And when the hour strikes, as it must, dear Muse, I beg you very gently break the news.

Appreciation

TO the sea-shell’s spiral round ’T is your heart that brings the sound: The soft sea-murmurs that you hear Within, are captured from your ear.   You do poets and their song A grievous wrong, If your own soul does not bring To their high imagining As much beauty as they sing.

A Shadow of the Night

CLOSE on the edge of a midsummer dawn In troubled dreams I went from land to land, Each seven-colored like the rainbow’s arc, Regions where never fancy’s foot had trod Till then; yet all the strangeness seemed not strange, At which I wondered, reasoning in my dream With two-fold sense, well knowing that I slept. At last I came to this our cloud-hung earth, And somewhere by the seashore was a grave, A woman’s grave, new-made, and heaped with flowers; And near it stood an ancient holy man That fain would comfort me, who sorrowed not For this unknown dead woman at my feet. But I, because his sacred office held My reverence, listened; and ’t was thus he spake: “When next thou comest thou shalt find her still In all the rare perfection that she was. Thou shalt have gentle greeting of thy love! Her eyelids will have turned to violets, Her bosom to white lilies, and her breath To roses. What is lovely never dies, But passes into other loveliness, Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower, or wingëd air. If this befalls our poor unworthy flesh, Think thee what destiny awaits the soul! What glorious vesture it shall wear at last!” While yet he spoke, seashore and grave and priest Vanished, and faintly from a neighboring spire Fell five slow solemn strokes upon my ear. Then I awoke with a keen pain at heart, A sense of swift unutterable loss, And through the darkness reached my hand to touch Her cheek, soft pillowed on one restful palm— To be quite sure!

Guilielmus Rex

THE FOLK who lived in Shakespeare’s day And saw that gentle figure pass By London Bridge, his frequent way— They little knew what man he was.   The pointed beard, the courteous mien, The equal port to high and low, All this they saw or might have seen— But not the light behind the brow!   The doublet ’s modest gray or brown, The slender sword-hilt’s plain device, What sign had these for prince or clown? Few turned, or none, to scan him twice.   Yet ’t was the king of England’s kings! The rest with all their pomps and trains Are mouldered, half-remembered things— ’T is he alone that lives and reigns!

Heredity

A SOLDIER of the Cromwell stamp, With sword and psalm-book by his side, At home alike in church and camp: Austere he lived, and smileless died.   But she, a creature soft and fine— From Spain, some say, some say from France; Within her veins leapt blood like wine— She led her Roundhead lord a dance!   In Grantham church they lie asleep; Just where, the verger may not know. Strange that two hundred years should keep The old ancestral fires aglow!   In me these two have met again; To each my nature owes a part: To one, the cool and reasoning brain; To one, the quick, unreasoning heart.

Identity

SOMEWHERE—in desolate wind-swept space—   In Twilight-land—in No-man’s-land— Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,   And bade each other stand.   “And who are you?” cried one a-gape,   Shuddering in the gloaming light. “I know not,” said the second Shape,   “I only died last night!”

Memory

MY mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings, And yet recalls the very hour— ’T was noon by yonder village tower, And on the last blue noon in May— The wind came briskly up this way, Crisping the brook beside the road; Then, pausing here, set down its load Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly Two petals from that wild-rose tree.

Palabras Cariñosas

GOOD-NIGHT! I have to say good-night To such a host of peerless things! Good-night unto the slender hand All queenly with its weight of rings; Good-night to fond, uplifted eyes, Good-night to chestnut braids of hair, Good-night unto the perfect mouth, And all the sweetness nestled there—   The snowy hand detains me, then   I ’ll have to say Good-night again!   But there will come a time, my love, When, if I read our stars aright, I shall not linger by this porch With my farewells. Till then, good-night! You wish the time were now? And I. You do not blush to wish it so? You would have blushed yourself to death To own so much a year ago—   What, both these snowy hands! ah, then   I ’ll have to say Good-night again!

Prescience

THE NEW moon hung in the sky,   The sun was low in the west, And my betrothed and I   In the churchyard paused to rest—     Happy maiden and lover,     Dreaming the old dream over: The light winds wandered by,   And robins chirped from the nest.   And, lo! in the meadow-sweet   Was the grave of a little child, With a crumbling stone at the feet,   And the ivy running wild—     Tangled ivy and clover     Folding it over and over: Close to my sweetheart’s feet   Was the little mound up-piled.   Stricken with nameless fears,   She shrank and clung to me, And her eyes were filled with tears   For a sorrow I did not see:     Lightly the winds were blowing,     Softly her tears were flowing— Tears for the unknown years   And a sorrow that was to be!

Quatrains

MASKS BLACK Tragedy lets slip her grim disguise And shows you laughing lips and roguish eyes; But when, unmasked, gay Comedy appears, How wan her cheeks are, and what heavy tears!   MEMORIES TWO things there are with Memory will abide, Whatever else befall, while life flows by: That soft cold hand-touch at the altar side; The thrill that shook you at your child’s first cry.   CIRCUMSTANCE     LINKED to a clod, harassed, and sad With sordid cares, she knew not life was sweet Who should have moved in marble halls, and had     Kings and crown-princes at her feet.   ON READING —— GREAT thoughts in crude, unshapely verse set forth Lose half their preciousness, and ever must. Unless the diamond with its own rich dust Be cut and polished, it seems little worth.   QUITS IF my best wines mislike thy taste, And my best service win thy frown, Then tarry not, I bid thee haste; There ’s many another Inn in town.

Sargent’s Portrait of Edwin Booth at “The Players”

THAT face which no man ever saw And from his memory banished quite, With eyes in which are Hamlet ’s awe And Cardinal Richelieu’s subtle light Looks from this frame. A master’s hand Has set the master-player here, In the fair temple that he planned Not for himself. To us most dear This image of him! “It was thus He looked; such pallor touched his cheek; With that same grace he greeted us— Nay, ’t is the man, could it but speak!” Sad words that shall be said some day— Far fall the day! O cruel Time, Whose breath sweeps mortal things away, Spare long this image of his prime, That others standing in the place Where, save as ghosts, we come no more, May know what sweet majestic face The gentle Prince of Players wore!

Sonnets

ENAMOURED ARCHITECT OF AIRY RHYME ENAMOURED architect of airy rhyme, Build as thou wilt; heed not what each man says: Good souls, but innocent of dreamers’ ways, Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time; Others, beholding how thy turrets climb ’Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all thy days; But most beware of those who come to praise. O Wondersmith, O worker in sublime And heaven-sent dreams, let art be all in all; Build as thou wilt, unspoiled by praise or blame, Build as thou wilt, and as thy light is given: Then, if at last the airy structure fall, Dissolve, and vanish—take thyself no shame. They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.   REMINISCENCE THOUGH I am native to this frozen zone That half the twelvemonth torpid lies, or dead; Though the cold azure arching overhead And the Atlantic’s never-ending moan Are mine by heritage, I must have known Life otherwhere in epochs long since fled; For in my veins some Orient blood is red, And through my thought are lotus blossoms blown. I do remember … it was just at dusk, Near a walled garden at the river’s turn (A thousand summers seem but yesterday!), A Nubian girl, more sweet than Khoorja musk, Came to the water-tank to fill her urn, And, with the urn, she bore my heart away!   OUTWARD BOUND I LEAVE behind me the elm-shadowed square And carven portals of the silent street, And wander on with listless, vagrant feet Through seaward-leading alleys, till the air Smells of the sea, and straightway then the care Slips from my heart, and life once more is sweet. At the lane’s ending lie the white-winged fleet. O restless Fancy, whither wouldst thou fare? Here are brave pinions that shall take thee far— Gaunt hulks of Norway; ships of red Ceylon; Slim-masted lovers of the blue Azores! ’T is but an instant hence to Zanzibar, Or to the regions of the Midnight Sun; Ionian isles are thine, and all the fairy shores!   ANDROMEDA THE SMOOTH-WORN coin and threadbare classic phrase Of Grecian myths that did beguile my youth, Beguile me not as in the olden days: I think more grief and beauty dwell with truth. Andromeda, in fetters by the sea, Star-pale with anguish till young Perseus came, Less moves me with her suffering than she, The slim girl figure fettered to dark shame, That nightly haunts the park, there, like a shade, Trailing her wretchedness from street to street. See where she passes—neither wife nor maid; How all mere fiction crumbles at her feet! Here is woe’s self, and not the mask of woe: A legend’s shadow shall not move you so!   THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY FOREVER am I conscious, moving here, That should I step a little space aside I pass the boundary of some glorified Invisible domain—it lies so near! Yet nothing know we of that dim frontier Which each must cross, whatever fate betide, To reach the heavenly cities where abide (Thus Sorrow whispers) those that were most dear, Now all transfigured in celestial light! Shall we indeed behold them, thine and mine, Whose going hence made black the noonday sun?— Strange is it that across the narrow night They fling us not some token, or make sign That all beyond is not Oblivion.   SLEEP WHEN to soft sleep we give ourselves away, And in a dream as in a fairy bark Drift on and on through the enchanted dark To purple daybreak—little thought we pay To that sweet bitter world we know by day. We are clean quit of it, as is a lark So high in heaven no human eye can mark The thin swift pinion cleaving through the gray. Till we awake ill fate can do no ill, The resting heart shall not take up again The heavy load that yet must make it bleed; For this brief space the loud world’s voice is still, No faintest echo of it brings us pain. How will it be when we shall sleep indeed?

Tennyson

SHAKESPEARE and Milton—what third blazoned name   Shall lips of after-ages link to these?   His who, beside the wild encircling sea Was England’s voice, her voice with one acclaim, For threescore years; whose word of praise was fame,   Whose scorn gave pause to man’s iniquities.   What strain was his in that Crimean war?   A bugle-call in battle; a low breath,   Plaintive and sweet, above the fields of death! So year by year the music rolled afar, From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandahar,   Bearing the laurel or the cypress wreath.   Others shall have their little space of time,   Their proper niche and bust, then fade away   Into the darkness, poets of a day; But thou, O builder of enduring rhyme, Thou shalt not pass! Thy fame in every clime   On earth shall live where Saxon speech has sway.   Waft me this verse across the winter sea,   Through light and dark, through mist and blinding sleet,   O winter winds, and lay it at his feet; Though the poor gift betray my poverty, At his feet lay it: it may chance that he   Will find no gift, where reverence is, unmeet.

Thalia

A Middle-Aged Lyrical Poet Is Supposed to Be Taking Leave of the Muse of Comedy

I SAY it under the rose—   Oh, thanks!—yes, under the laurel, We part lovers, not foes;   We are not going to quarrel.   We have too long been friends   On foot and in gilded coaches, Now that the whole thing ends,   To spoil our kiss with reproaches.   I leave you; my soul is wrung;   I pause, look back from the portal— Ah, I no more am young,   And you, child, you are immortal!   Mine is the glacier’s way,   Yours is the blossom’s weather— When were December and May   Known to be happy together?   Before my kisses grow tame,   Before my moodiness grieve you, While yet my heart is flame,   And I all lover, I leave you.   So, in the coming time,   When you count the rich years over, Think of me in my prime,   And not as a white-haired lover,   Fretful, pierced with regret,   The wraith of a dead Desire, Thrumming a cracked spinet   By a slowly dying fire.   When, at last, I am cold—   Years hence, if the gods so will it— Say, “He was true as gold,”   And wear a rose in your fillet!   Others, tender as I,   Will come and sue for caresses, Woo you, win you, and die—   Mind you, a rose in your tresses!   Some Melpomene woo,   Some hold Clio the nearest; You, sweet Comedy,—you   Were ever sweetest and dearest!   Nay, it is time to go.   When writing your tragic sister Say to that child of woe   How sorry I was I missed her.   Really, I cannot stay,   Though “parting is such sweet sorrow” … Perhaps I will, on my way   Down-town, look in to-morrow!

To Hafiz

THOUGH gifts like thine the fates gave not to me, One thing, O Hafiz, we both hold in fee— Nay, it holds us; for when the June wind blows We both are slaves and lovers to the rose. In vain the pale Circassian lily shows Her face at her green lattice, and in vain The violet beckons, with unveilëd face— The bosom’s white, the lip’s light purple stain, These touch our liking, yet no passion stir. But when the rose comes, Hafiz—in that place Where she stands smiling, we kneel down to her!

Unguarded Gates

WIDE open and unguarded stand our gates, Named of the four winds, North, South, East, and West; Portals that lead to an enchanted land Of cities, forests, fields of living gold, Vast prairies, lordly summits touched with snow, Majestic rivers sweeping proudly past The Arab’s date-palm and the Norseman’s pine— A realm wherein are fruits of every zone, Airs of all climes, for, lo! throughout the year The red rose blossoms somewhere—a rich land, A later Eden planted in the wilds, With not an inch of earth within its bound But if a slave’s foot press it sets him free. Here, it is written, Toil shall have its wage, And Honor honor, and the humblest man Stand level with the highest in the law. Of such a land have men in dungeons dreamed, And with the vision brightening in their eyes Gone smiling to the fagot and the sword.     Wide open and unguarded stand our gates, And through them presses a wild motley throng— Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes, Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho, Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav, Flying the Old World’s poverty and scorn; These bringing with them unknown gods and rites,— Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws. In street and alley what strange tongues are loud, Accents of menace alien to our air, Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew!     O Liberty, white Goddess! is it well To leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast Fold Sorrow’s children, soothe the hurts of fate, Lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel Stay those who to thy sacred portals come To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a care Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn And trampled in the dust. For so of old The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome, And where the temples of the Cæsars stood The lean wolf unmolested made her lair.

When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan

WHEN the Sultan Shah-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan, Even before he gets so far As the place where the clustered palm-trees are, At the last of the thirty palace-gates, The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom, Orders a feast in his favorite room— Glittering squares of colored ice, Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice, Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates, Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces, Limes, and citrons, and apricots, And wines that are known to Eastern princes; And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots Of spicëd meats and costliest fish And all that the curious palate could wish, Pass in and out of the cedarn doors; Scattered over mosaic floors Are anemones, myrtles, and violets, And a musical fountain throws its jets Of a hundred colors into the air. The dusk Sultana loosens her hair, And stains with the henna-plant the tips Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips Till they bloom again; but, alas, that rose Not for the Sultan buds and blows, Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman When he goes to the city Ispahan.     Then at a wave of her sunny hand The dancing-girls of Samarcand Glide in like shapes from fairy-land, Making a sudden mist in air Of fleecy veils and floating hair And white arms lifted. Orient blood Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes. And there, in this Eastern Paradise, Filled with the breath of sandal-wood, And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh, Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan, Sipping the wines of Astrakhan; And her Arab lover sits with her. That ’s when the Sultan Shah-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan.     Now, when I see an extra light, Flaming, flickering on the night From my neighbor’s casement opposite, I know as well as I know to pray, I know as well as a tongue can say, That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman Has gone to the city Ispahan.

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