The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell | Page 9

moanest tost with sealike longings,
Who dimly
hearest voices call on thee,
Whose soul is overfilled with mighty
throngings
Of love, and fear, and glorious agony.
Thou of the
toil-strung hands and iron sinews
And soul by Mother Earth with
freedom fed, 90
In whom the hero-spirit yet continues,
The old free
nature is not chained or dead,
Arouse! let thy soul break in
music-thunder,
Let loose the ocean that is in thee pent,
Pour forth
thy hope, thy fear, thy love, thy wonder,
And tell the age what all its
signs have meant.
Where'er thy wildered crowd of brethren jostles,

Where'er there lingers but a shadow of wrong,
There still is need of
martyrs and apostles,
There still are texts for never-dying song: 100

From age to age man's still aspiring spirit
Finds wider scope and
sees with clearer eyes,
And thou in larger measure dost inherit

What made thy great forerunners free and wise.
Sit thou enthronèd
where the Poet's mountain
Above the thunder lifts its silent peak,

And roll thy songs down like a gathering fountain,
They all may
drink and find the rest they seek.
Sing! there shall silence grow in
earth and heaven,
A silence of deep awe and wondering; 110
For,
listening gladly, bend the angels, even,
To hear a mortal like an angel
sing.
III
Among the toil-worn poor my soul is seeking
For who shall bring the
Maker's name to light,
To be the voice of that almighty speaking

Which every age demands to do it right.
Proprieties our silken bards

environ;
He who would be the tongue of this wide land
Must string
his harp with chords of sturdy iron
And strike it with a
toil-imbrownèd hand; 120
One who hath dwelt with Nature well
attended,
Who hath learnt wisdom from her mystic books,
Whose
soul with all her countless lives hath blended,
So that all beauty awes
us in his looks:
Who not with body's waste his soul hath pampered,

Who as the clear northwestern wind is free,
Who walks with Form's
observances unhampered,
And follows the One Will obediently;

Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy summit,
Control a lovely
prospect every way; 130
Who doth not sound God's sea with earthly
plummet,
And find a bottom still of worthless clay;
Who heeds not
how the lower gusts are working,
Knowing that one sure wind blows
on above,
And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurking,
One
God-built shrine of reverence and love;
Who sees all stars that wheel
their shining marches
Around the centre fixed of Destiny,
Where
the encircling soul serene o'erarches
The moving globe of being like a
sky; 140
Who feels that God and Heaven's great deeps are nearer

Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh,
Who doth not hold his
soul's own freedom dearer
Than that of all his brethren, low or high;

Who to the Right can feel himself the truer
For being gently patient
with the wrong,
Who sees a brother in the evildoer,
And finds in
Love the heart's-blood of his song;--
This, this is he for whom the
world is waiting
To sing the beatings of its mighty heart, 150
Too
long hath it been patient with the grating
Of scrannel-pipes, and heard
it misnamed Art.
To him the smiling soul of man shall listen,

Laying awhile its crown of thorns aside,
And once again in every eye
shall glisten
The glory of a nature satisfied.

His verse shall have a
great commanding motion,
Heaving and swelling with a melody

Learnt of the sky, the river, and the ocean,
And all the pure, majestic
things that be. 160
Awake, then, thou! we pine for thy great presence

To make us feel the soul once more sublime,
We are of far too
infinite an essence
To rest contented with the lies of Time.
Speak
out! and lo! a hush of deepest wonder
Shall sink o'er all this

many-voicèd scene,
As when a sudden burst of rattling thunder

Shatters the blueness of a sky serene.
THE FATHERLAND
Where is the true man's fatherland?
Is it where he by chance is born?

Doth not the yearning spirit scorn
In such scant borders to be
spanned?
Oh yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide
and free!
Is it alone where freedom is,
Where God is God and man is man?

Doth he not claim a broader span
For the soul's love of home than
this?
Oh yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and
free!
Where'er a human heart doth wear
Joy's myrtle-wreath or sorrow's
gyves,
Where'er a human spirit strives
After a life more true and
fair,
There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide
fatherland!
Where'er a single slave doth pine,
Where'er one man may help
another,--
Thank God for such a birthright, brother,--
That spot of
earth is thine and mine!
There is the true man's birthplace grand,

His is a world-wide fatherland!
THE FORLORN
The night is dark, the stinging sleet,
Swept by the bitter gusts of air,

Drives whistling down the lonely street,
And glazes on the
pavement bare.
The street-lamps flare and struggle dim
Through the gray sleet-clouds
as they pass,
Or, governed by a boisterous whim,
Drop down and
rustle on the glass.
One poor, heart-broken, outcast girl
Faces the east-wind's searching

flaws,
And, as about her heart they whirl,
Her tattered cloak more
tightly draws.
The flat brick walls look cold