Poems – Page 16 – Poetry Out Loud

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.

Ah broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!–a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear?–weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read–the funeral song be sung!–
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young–
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

“Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
“And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her–that she died!
“How shall the ritual, then, be read?–the requiem how be sung
“By you–by yours, the evil eye,–by yours, the slanderous tongue
“That did to death the innocent that died, and died so young?”

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel so wrong!
The sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride–
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes–
The life still there, upon her hair–the death upon her eyes.

“Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
“But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!
“Let no bell toll!–lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
“Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth.
“To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven–
“From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven–
“From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.”

This evening, as the twilight fell,

My younger children watched for me;

Like cherubs in the window framed,

I saw the smiling group of three.

While round and round the house I trudged,

Intent to walk a weary mile,

Oft as I passed within their range,

The little things would beck and smile.

They watched me, as Astronomers

Whose business lies in heaven afar,

Await, beside the slanting glass,

The re-appearance of a star.

Not so, not so, my pretty ones,

Seek stars in yonder cloudless sky;

But mark no steadfast path for me,

A comet dire and strange am I.

Now to the inmost spheres of light

Lifted, my wondering soul dilates,

Now dropped in endless depth of night,

My hope God’s slow recall awaits.

Among the shining I have shone,

Among the blessing, have been blest,

Then wearying years have held me bound

Where darkness deadness gives, not rest.

Between extremes distraught and rent,

I question not the way I go;

Who made me, gave it me, I deem,

Thus to aspire, to languish so.

But Comets too have holy laws,

Their fiery sinews to restrain,

And from their outmost wanderings

Are drawn to heaven’s dear heart again.

And ye, beloved ones, when ye know

What wild, erratic natures are,

Pray that the laws of heavenly force

Would hold and guide the Mother star.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants a friend of sun and sky;
He plants the flag of breezes free;
   The shaft of beauty, towering high;
   He plants a home to heaven anigh;
      For song and mother-croon of bird
      In hushed and happy twilight heard—
The treble of heaven’s harmony—
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants cool shade and tender rain,
And seed and bud of days to be,
   And years that fade and flush again;
      He plants the glory of the plain;
      He plants the forest’s heritage;
      The harvest of a coming age;
The joy that unborn eyes shall see—
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants, in sap and leaf and wood,
In love of home and loyalty
   And far-cast thought of civic good—
   His blessings on the neighborhood,
      Who in the hollow of His hand
      Holds all the growth of all our land—
A nation’s growth from sea to sea
Stirs in his heart who plants a tree.

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

Where have you been the long day through,

Little brothers of mine?

For soon the world shall belong to you,

Yours to mar or to build anew—

Have you been to learn what the world shall do,

Little brothers going home?

We have been to learn through the weary day

Where the great looms echo and crash and sway—

The world has willed it, and we obey,

Elder brother.

What did you learn till set of sun,

Little brothers of mine,

Down where the great looms wove and spun,

You who are many where we are one

(We whose day is so nearly done),

Little brothers toiling home?

We have learned the things that the mill-folk said,

How Man is cruel and God is dead…

And how to spin with an even thread,

Elder brother.

What did you win with the thing they taught,

Little brothers of mine,

You whose sons shall have strength you brought,

Fashion their lives of the faith you bought,

Follow afar the ways you sought,

Little brothers stealing home?

Shattered body and stunted brain,

Hearts made hard with the need of gain,

These we won and must give again,

Elder brother.

How shall the world fare in your hand,

Little brothers of mine,

When you shall stand where now we stand?

Will you lift a light in the darkened land

Or fire its ways with a burning brand,

Little brothers creeping home?

What of the way the world shall fare?

What the world has given the world must bear…

We are tired—ah, tired—and we cannot care,

Elder brother!

You were too kind to come at all.

The door closed on you, and my hall

Shivered in sudden naked shame.

I whispered it was not to blame

And followed you within, to where

You were awaited by my chair.

It was so small, and you sat down

With a so gracious smile—a frown

Would have gone better with that wall;

You were too kind to smile at all.

You stretched a hand toward the grate;

Its welcome was inadequate.

You looked about you and pretended

The carpet and the picture blended.

I looked—and all my furnishings

Had turned their heads: the sorry things!

You said you felt at home—a lie

My misery was finished by.

Even your guilelessness was gall.

You were too kind to come at all.

My father is a quiet man
With sober, steady ways;
For simile, a folded fan;
His nights are like his days.

My mother’s life is puritan,
No hint of cavalier,
A pool so calm you’re sure it can
Have little depth to fear.

And yet my father’s eyes can boast
How full his life has been;
There haunts them yet the languid ghost
Of some still sacred sin.

And though my mother chants of God,
And of the mystic river,
I’ve seen a bit of checkered sod
Set all her flesh aquiver.

Why should he deem it pure mischance
A son of his is fain
To do a naked tribal dance
Each time he hears the rain?

Why should she think it devil’s art
That all my songs should be
Of love and lovers, broken heart,
And wild sweet agony?

Who plants a seed begets a bud,
Extract of that same root;
Why marvel at the hectic blood
That flushes this wild fruit?

Little scavenger away,

touch not the door,

beat not the portal down,

cross not the sill,

silent until

my song, bright and shrill,

breathes out its lay.

Little scavenger avaunt,

tempt me with jeer and taunt,

yet you will wait to-day;

for it were surely ill

to mock and shout and revel;

it were more fit to tell

with flutes and calathes,

your mother’s praise.

Lur’d by some Captain’s smooth address,

His scarlet coat and roguish face,

One Half-A-Joe on drum-head laid,

A tavern-treat—and reckoning paid;

See yonder simple lad consign’d

To slavery of the basest kind.

With only skill to drive a plough

a musquet he must handle now;

Must twirl there and twirl it there

Now on the ground, no in the air:

Its every motion by some rule

Of practice, taught in Frederick’s school, *

Must be directed—nicely true—

Or he be beaten black—and blue.

A sergeant, rais’d from cleaning shoes

May now this country lad abuse:—

On meager fare grown poor and lean,

He treats him like a mere machine,

Directs his look, directs his step,

And kicks him into decent shape,

From aukward habit frees the clown,

Erects his head—or knocks him down,

Last Friday week to Battery-Green

The sergeant came with this Machine—

One motion of the firelock miss’d—

The Tutor thump’d him with his fist:

I saw him lift his hickory cane,

I heard poor Jeffery’s head complain!—

Yet this—and more—’s forc’d to bear;

And this goes on from year to year,

’Till desperate grown at such a lot,

He drinks—deserts—and so is shot!

^{°The Prussian manual exercise.}