Songs of Many Seasons (1862-74) | Page 3

cost the maiden her Norman name,?And under the folds that look so still?The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill??Should I be I, or would it be?One tenth another, to nine tenths me?
Soft is the breath of a maiden's YES?Not the light gossamer stirs with less;?But never a cable that holds so fast?Through all the battles of wave and blast,?And never an echo of speech or song?That lives in the babbling air so long!?There were tones in the voice that whispered then?You may hear to-day in a hundred men.
O lady and lover, how faint and far?Your images hover,-- and here we are,?Solid and stirring in flesh and bone,--?Edward's and Dorothy's--all their own,--?A goodly record for Time to show?Of a syllable spoken so long ago!--?Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive?For the tender whisper that bade me live?
It shall be a blessing, my little maid!?I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's blade,?And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame,?And gild with a rhyme your household name;?So you shall smile on us brave and bright?As first you greeted the morning's light,?And live untroubled by woes and fears?Through a second youth of a hundred years.
1871.
THE ORGAN-BLOWER
DEVOUTEST of My Sunday friends,?The patient Organ-blower bends;?I see his figure sink and rise,?(Forgive me, Heaven, my wandering eyes!)?A moment lost, the next half seen,?His head above the scanty screen,?Still measuring out his deep salaams?Through quavering hymns and panting psalms.
No priest that prays in gilded stole,?To save a rich man's mortgaged soul;?No sister, fresh from holy vows,?So humbly stoops, so meekly bows;?His large obeisance puts to shame?The proudest genuflecting dame,?Whose Easter bonnet low descends?With all the grace devotion lends.
O brother with the supple spine,?How much we owe those bows of thine?Without thine arm to lend the breeze,?How vain the finger on the keys!?Though all unmatched the player's skill,?Those thousand throats were dumb and still:?Another's art may shape the tone,?The breath that fills it is thine own.
Six days the silent Memnon waits?Behind his temple's folded gates;?But when the seventh day's sunshine falls?Through rainbowed windows on the walls,?He breathes, he sings, he shouts, he fills?The quivering air with rapturous thrills;?The roof resounds, the pillars shake,?And all the slumbering echoes wake!
The Preacher from the Bible-text?With weary words my soul has vexed?(Some stranger, fumbling far astray?To find the lesson for the day);?He tells us truths too plainly true,?And reads the service all askew,--?Why, why the--mischief--can't he look?Beforehand in the service-book?
But thou, with decent mien and face,?Art always ready in thy place;?Thy strenuous blast, whate'er the tune,?As steady as the strong monsoon;?Thy only dread a leathery creak,?Or small residual extra squeak,?To send along the shadowy aisles?A sunlit wave of dimpled smiles.
Not all the preaching, O my friend,?Comes from the church's pulpit end!?Not all that bend the knee and bow?Yield service half so true as thou!?One simple task performed aright,?With slender skill, but all thy might,?Where honest labor does its best,?And leaves the player all the rest.
This many-diapasoned maze,?Through which the breath of being strays,?Whose music makes our earth divine,?Has work for mortal hands like mine.?My duty lies before me. Lo,?The lever there! Take hold and blow?And He whose hand is on the keys?Will play the tune as He shall please.
1812.
AT THE PANTOMIME
THE house was crammed from roof to floor,?Heads piled on heads at every door;?Half dead with August's seething heat?I crowded on and found my seat,?My patience slightly out of joint,?My temper short of boiling-point,?Not quite at Hate mankind as such,?Nor yet at Love them overmuch.
Amidst the throng the pageant drew?Were gathered Hebrews not a few,?Black-bearded, swarthy,--at their side?Dark, jewelled women, orient-eyed:?If scarce a Christian hopes for grace?Who crowds one in his narrow place,?What will the savage victim do?Whose ribs are kneaded by a Jew?
Next on my left a breathing form?Wedged up against me, close and warm;?The beak that crowned the bistred face?Betrayed the mould of Abraham's race,--?That coal-black hair, that smoke-brown hue,--?Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew?I started, shuddering, to the right,?And squeezed--a second Israelite
Then woke the evil brood of rage?That slumber, tongueless, in their cage;?I stabbed in turn with silent oaths?The hook-nosed kite of carrion clothes,?The snaky usurer, him that crawls?And cheats beneath the golden balls,?Moses and Levi, all the horde,?Spawn of the race that slew its Lord.
Up came their murderous deeds of old,?The grisly story Chaucer told,?And many an ugly tale beside?Of children caught and crucified;?I heard the ducat-sweating thieves?Beneath the Ghetto's slouching eaves,?And, thrust beyond the tented green,?The lepers cry, "Unclean! Unclean!"
The show went on, but, ill at ease,?My sullen eye it could not please,?In vain my conscience whispered, "Shame!?Who but their Maker is to blame?"?I thought of Judas and his bribe,?And steeled my soul against their tribe?My neighbors stirred; I looked again?Full on the younger of the twain.
A fresh young cheek whose olive hue?The mantling blood shows faintly through;?Locks dark as midnight, that divide?And shade the neck on either side;?Soft,