Poems from The Teacups | Page 7

and fixed his dwelling here.?Choose which you will of all the tales that pile?Their mingling fables on the tree-crowned isle.?Who wrote this modest version I suppose?That truthful Teacup, our Dictator, knows;?Made up of various legends, it would seem,?The sailor's yarn, the crazy poet's dream.?Such tales as this, by simple souls received,?At first are stared at and at last believed;?From threads like this the grave historians try?To weave their webs, and never know they lie.?Hear, then, the fables that have gathered round?The lonely home an exiled stranger found.
THE EXILE'S SECRET
YE that have faced the billows and the spray?Of good St. Botolph's island-studded bay,?As from the gliding bark your eye has scanned?The beaconed rocks, the wave-girt hills of sand,?Have ye not marked one elm-o'ershadowed isle,?Round as the dimple chased in beauty's smile,--?A stain of verdure on an azure field,?Set like a jewel in a battered shield??Fixed in the narrow gorge of Ocean's path,?Peaceful it meets him in his hour of wrath;?When the mailed Titan, scourged by hissing gales,?Writhes in his glistening coat of clashing scales,?The storm-beat island spreads its tranquil green,?Calm as an emerald on an angry queen.?So fair when distant should be fairer near;?A boat shall waft us from the outstretched pier.?The breeze blows fresh; we reach the island's edge,?Our shallop rustling through the yielding sedge.?No welcome greets us on the desert isle;?Those elms, far-shadowing, hide no stately pile?Yet these green ridges mark an ancient road;?And to! the traces of a fair abode;?The long gray line that marks a garden-wall,?And heaps of fallen beams,--fire-branded all.
Who sees unmoved, a ruin at his feet,?The lowliest home where human hearts have beat??Its hearthstone, shaded with the bistre stain?A century's showery torrents wash in vain;?Its starving orchard, where the thistle blows?And mossy trunks still mark the broken rows;?Its chimney-loving poplar, oftenest seen?Next an old roof, or where a roof has been;?Its knot-grass, plantain,--all the social weeds,?Man's mute companions, following where he leads;?Its dwarfed, pale flowers, that show their straggling heads, Sown by the wind from grass-choked garden-beds;?Its woodbine, creeping where it used to climb;?Its roses, breathing of the olden time;?All the poor shows the curious idler sees,?As life's thin shadows waste by slow degrees,?Till naught remains, the saddening tale to tell,?Save home's last wrecks,--the cellar and the well?
And whose the home that strews in black decay?The one green-glowing island of the bay??Some dark-browed pirate's, jealous of the fate?That seized the strangled wretch of "Nix's Mate"??Some forger's, skulking in a borrowed name,?Whom Tyburn's dangling halter yet may claim??Some wan-eyed exile's, wealth and sorrow's heir,?Who sought a lone retreat for tears and prayer??Some brooding poet's, sure of deathless fame,?Had not his epic perished in the flame??Or some gray wooer's, whom a girlish frown?Chased from his solid friends and sober town??Or some plain tradesman's, fond of shade and ease,?Who sought them both beneath these quiet trees??Why question mutes no question can unlock,?Dumb as the legend on the Dighton rock??One thing at least these ruined heaps declare,--?They were a shelter once; a man lived there.
But where the charred and crumbling records fail,?Some breathing lips may piece the half-told tale;?No man may live with neighbors such as these,?Though girt with walls of rock and angry seas,?And shield his home, his children, or his wife,?His ways, his means, his vote, his creed, his life,?From the dread sovereignty of Ears and Eyes?And the small member that beneath them lies.?They told strange things of that mysterious man;?Believe who will, deny them such as can;?Why should we fret if every passing sail?Had its old seaman talking on the rail??The deep-sunk schooner stuffed with Eastern lime,?Slow wedging on, as if the waves were slime;?The knife-edged clipper with her ruffled spars,?The pawing steamer with her inane of stars,?The bull-browed galliot butting through the stream,?The wide-sailed yacht that slipped along her beam,?The deck-piled sloops, the pinched chebacco-boats,?The frigate, black with thunder-freighted throats,?All had their talk about the lonely man;?And thus, in varying phrase, the story ran.?His name had cost him little care to seek,?Plain, honest, brief, a decent name to speak,?Common, not vulgar, just the kind that slips?With least suggestion from a stranger's lips.?His birthplace England, as his speech might show,?Or his hale cheek, that wore the red-streak's glow;?His mouth sharp-moulded; in its mirth or scorn?There came a flash as from the milky corn,?When from the ear you rip the rustling sheath,?And the white ridges show their even teeth.?His stature moderate, but his strength confessed,?In spite of broadcloth, by his ample breast;?Full-armed, thick-handed; one that had been strong,?And might be dangerous still, if things went wrong.?He lived at ease beneath his elm-trees' shade,?Did naught for gain, yet all his debts were paid;?Rich, so 't was thought, but careful of his store;?Had all he needed, claimed to have no more.
But some that lingered round the isle at night?Spoke of strange stealthy doings in their sight;?Of creeping lonely visits