In the fervour and passion of prayer; And he gathers the prayers as he stands, It is but a legend, I know, A fable, a phantom, a show, Of the ancient Rabbinical lore; Yet the old medieval tradition, The beautiful, strange superstition, But haunts me and holds me the more. All throbbing and panting with stars, DAYBREAK. A WIND came up out of the sea, CATAWBA WINE. THIS Song of mine To be sung by the glowing embers When the rain begins To darken the drear Novembers. It is not a song Of the Scuppernong, From warm Carolinian valleys, And the Muscadel That bask in our garden alleys. Nor the red Mustang, O'er the waves of the Colorado, Of whose purple blood Has a dash of Spanish bravado. For richest and best Is the wine of the West, Fills all the room And as hollow trees Are the haunts of bees, For ever going and coming; Is all alive With a swarming and buzzing and humming. Very good in its way Is the Verzenay, Or the Sillery soft and creamy; But Catawba wine Has a taste more divine, More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy. There grows no vine By the haunted Rhine, Nor on island or cape, As grows by the Beautiful River. Drugged is their juice For foreign use, When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic, To rack our brains With the fever-pains That have driven the Old World frantic. To the sewers and sinks And after them tumble the mixer; Or at best but a Devil's Elixir. While pure as a spring Is the wine I sing, And to praise it, one needs but name it; Has need of no sign, No tavern-bush to proclaim it. And this Song of the Vine, The winds and the birds shall deliver To the Queen of the West, In her garlands dressed, On the banks of the Beautiful River. EPIMETHEUS, OR THE POET'S AFTERTHOUGHT. HAVE I dreamed? or was it real, What I saw as in a vision, When to marches hymeneal, In the land of the ideal, Moved my thought o'er fields Elysian? As with magic circles, bound me? Ah! how cold are their caresses! Pallid cheeks and haggard bosoms! O my songs! whose winsome measures Like the wild birds singing o'er us Jarring discord, wild confusion, Not with steeper fall nor faster, From the sun's serene dominions, Not through brighter realms nor vaster, In swift ruin and disaster Icarus fell with shattered pinions! Sweet Pandora! dear Pandora! If to win thee is to hate thee? Him of hope thou ne'er bereavest. Struggling souls by thee are strengthened, Clouds of fear asunder rifted, Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted, O my Sibyl! my deceiver! For thou makest each mystery clearer, When thou fillest my heart with fever! Muse of all the Gifts and Graces! Though the fields around us wither, There are ampler realms and spaces, THE FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF AGASSIZ. May 28, 1857. It was fifty years ago, In the pleasant month of May, In the beautiful Pays de Vaud, A child in its cradle lay. And Nature, the old nurse, took Thy Father has written for thee." 66 Come, wander with me," she said, And read what is still unread She would sing a more wonderful song, Though at times his heart beats wild And the rush of mountain streams And the mother at home says, "Hark! It is growing late and dark, And my boy does not return!" FLIGHT THE SECOND. THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. BETWEEN the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour. I hear in the chamber above me The sound of a door that is opened, From my study I see in the lamplight, A whisper, and then a silence: Yet I know by their merry eyes They are plotting and planning together To take me by surprise. A sudden rush from the stairway, A sudden raid from the hall! By three doors left unguarded They enter my castle wall! |