Rose and Roof-Tree | Page 9

faint blood-stains on her hands?From the shifting sanguine strands.?Gently, sweetly she doth sorrow:?What has been must be to-morrow;?Meekly to her fate she bows.?Heavenly beauties still will rouse?Strife and savagery in men:?Shall the lucid heavens, then,?Lose their high serenity,?Sorrowing over what must be??If she taketh to her shame,?Lo, they give her not the blame,--?Priam's wisest counselors,?Aged men, not loving wars:?When she goes forth, clad in white,?Day-cloud touched by first moonlight,?With her fair hair, amber-hued?As vapor by the moon imbued?With burning brown, that round her clings,?See, she sudden silence brings?On the gloomy whisperers?Who would make the wrong all hers.
So, Helen, in thy silent room,?Labor at the storied loom;?(Thread, run on; and, shuttle, shake!)?Let thy aching sorrow make?Something strangely beautiful?Of this fabric, since the wool?Comes so tinted from the Fates,?Dyed with loves, hopes, fears, and hates.?Thou shalt work with subtle force?All thy deep shade of remorse?In the texture of the weft,?That no stain on thee be left;--?Ay, false queen, shalt fashion grief,?Grief and wrong, to soft relief.?Speed the garment! It may chance.?Long hereafter, meet the glance?Of ?none; when her lord,?Now thy Paris, shall go t'ward?Ida, at his last sad end,?Seeking her, his early friend,?Who alone can cure his ill?Of all who love him, if she will.?It were fitting she should see?In that hour thine artistry,?And her husband's speechless corse?In the garment of remorse!?But take heed that in thy work?Naught unbeautiful may lurk.?Ah, how little signifies?Unto thee what fortunes rise,?What others fall! Thou still shalt rule,?Still shalt work the colored crewl.?Though thy yearning woman's eyes?Burn with glorious agonies,?Pitying the waste and woe,?And the heroes falling low?In the war around thee, here,?Yet that exquisitest tear?'Twixt thy lids shall dearer be?Than life, to friend or enemy.
There are people on the earth?Doomed with doom of too great worth.?Look on Helen not with hate,?Therefore, but compassionate.?If she suffer not too much,?Seldom does she feel the touch?Of that fresh, auroral joy?Lighter spirits may decoy?To their pure and sunny lives.?Heavy honey 't is, she hives.?To her sweet but burdened soul?All that here she doth control--?What of bitter memories,?What of coming fate's surmise,?Paris' passion, distant din?Of the war now drifting in?To her quiet--idle seems;?Idle as the lazy gleams?Of some stilly water's reach,?Seen from where broad vine-leaves pleach?A heavy arch, and, looking through,?Far away the doubtful blue?Glimmers, on a drowsy day,?Crowded with the sun's rich gray,?As she stands within her room,?Weaving, weaving at the loom.
"O WHOLESOME DEATH."
O Wholesome Death, thy sombre funeral-car?Looms ever dimly on the lengthening way?Of life; while, lengthening still, in sad array,?My deeds in long procession go, that are?As mourners of the man they helped to mar.?I see it all in dreams, such as waylay?The wandering fancy when the solid day?Has fallen in smoldering ruins, and night's star,?Aloft there, with its steady point of light?Mastering the eye, has wrapped the brain in sleep.?Ah, when I die, and planets take their flight?Above my grave, still let my spirit keep?Sometimes its vigil of divine remorse,?'Midst pity, praise, or blame heaped o'er my corse!
BURIAL-SONG FOR SUMNER.
Now the last wreath of snow?That melts, in mist exhales?White aspiration, and our deep-voiced gales?In chorus chant the measured march of spring,
Whom griefs of life and death?Are burdening!?Slow, slow--?With half-held breath--?Tread slow, O mourners, that all men may know
What hero here lies low!
O music, sweep?From some deep cave, and bear?To us that gasp in this so meagre air
Sweet ministerings?And consolations of contorted sound,
With agonies profound?Of nobly warring and enduring chords
That lie, close-bound,?Unstirred as yet 'neath thy wide, wakening wings;?So that our hearts break not in broken words.
O music, that hast power?This darkness to devour?In vivid light; that from the dusk of grief?Canst cause to grow divergent flower and leaf,
And from death's darkest roots?Bring forth the fairest fruits;--?Come thou, to quicken this hour
Of loss, and keep?Thy spell on all, that none may dare to weep!
For he whom now we mourn,?As if from giants born,?Was strong in limb and strong in brain,?And nobly with a giant scorn
Withstood the direst pain?That healing science knows,?When, by the dastard blows?Of his brute enemy?Laid low, he sought to rise again
Through help of knife and fire,--?The awful enginery?Wherewith men dare aspire?To wrest from Death his victims. Yea,?Though he who healed him shrank and throbbed
With horror of the wound,?Brave Sumner gave no sound,?Nor flinched, nor sobbed,?But as though within the man?Instant premonition ran
Of his high fate,?Imperishable, sculptured state
Enthroned in death to hold,?He stood, a statued form?Of veiled and voiceless storm,?Inwardly quivering?Like the swift-smitten string?Of unheard music, yet?As massively and firmly set?As if he had been marble or wrought gold!
Built in so brave a shape,?How could he hope escape?The blundering people's wrath?
Who, seeing him strong,?Supposed it right to cast on him their wrong,
Since he could bear it all!?Lo, now, the sombre pall?Sweeps their dull errors from the path,
And leaves it free?For him, whose hushed heart no reproaches hath,
Unto his grave to fare,?In shrouded majesty!?His triumph fills