hoary Indian hills,
Not by this gracious Midland sea
Whose floor to-night sweet moonshine fills,
Should our graves be!
Some sage, to whom the world was dead,
And men were specks, and life a play;
Who made the roots of trees his bed,
And once a day
With staff and gourd his way did bend
To villages and homes of man,
For food to keep him till he end
His mortal span,
And the pure goal of Being reach;
Grey-headed, wrinkled, clad in white,
Without companion, without speech,
By day and night
Pondering God’s mysteries untold,
And tranquil as the glacier snows—
He by those Indian mountains old
Might well repose!
Some grey crusading knight austere
Who bore Saint Louis company
And came home hurt to death, and here
Landed to die;
Some youthful troubadour whose tongue
Fill’d Europe once with his love-pain,
Who here outwearied had sunk, and sung
His dying strain;
Some girl who here from castle-bower,
With furtive step and cheek of flame,
’Twixt myrtle-hedges all in flower
By moonlight came
To meet her pirate-lover’s ship,
And from the wave-kiss’d marble stair
Beckon’d him on, with quivering lip
And unbound hair,
And lived some moons in happy trance,
Then learnt his death and pined away—
Such by these waters of romance
’Twas meet to lay!
But you—a grave for knight or sage,
Romantic, solitary, still,
O spent ones of a work-day age!
Befits you ill.
So sang I; but the midnight breeze
Down to the brimm’d moon-charmèd main,
Comes softly through the olive-trees,
And checks my strain.
I think of her, whose gentle tongue
All plaint in her own cause controll’d;
Of thee I think, my brother! young
In heart, high-soul’d;
That comely face, that cluster’d brow,
That cordial hand, that bearing free,
I see them still, I see them now,
Shall always see!
And what but gentleness untired,
And what but noble feeling warm,
Wherever shown, howe’er inspired,
Is grace, is charm?
What else is all these waters are,
What else is steep’d in lucid sheen,
What else is bright, what else is fair,
What else serene?
Mild o’er her grave, ye mountains, shine!
Gently by his, ye waters, glide!
To that in you which is divine
They were allied.
Saint Brandan
Saint Brandan sails the northern main;
The brotherhoods of saints are glad.
He greets them once, he sails again;
So late!—such storms!—The Saint is mad!
He heard, across the howling seas,
Chime convent bells on wintry nights,
He saw on spray-swept Hebrides
Twinkle the monastery-lights;
But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer’d;
And now no bells, no convents more!
The hurtling Polar lights are near’d,
The sea without a human shore.
At last—(it was the Christmas night;
Stars shone after a day of storm)—
He sees float past an iceberg white,
And on it—Christ!—a living form!
That furtive mien, that scowling eye,
Of hair that red and tufted fell—
It is—Oh, where shall Brandan fly?—
The traitor Judas, out of hell!
Palsied with terror, Brandan sate;
The moon was bright, the iceberg near.
He hears a voice sigh humbly: “Wait!
By high permission I am here.
“One moment wait, thou holy man!
On earth my crime, my death, they knew;
My name is under all men’s ban;
Ah, tell them of my respite too!
“Tell them, one blessed Christmas night—
(It was the first after I came,
Breathing self-murder, frenzy, spite,
To rue my guilt in endless flame)—
“I felt, as I in torment lay
’Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power,
An angel touch mine arm, and say:
Go hence and cool thyself an hour!
“ ‘Ah, whence this mercy, Lord?’ I said.
The Leper recollect
, said he,
Who ask’d the passers-by for aid,
In Joppa, and thy charity.
“Then I remember’d how I went,
In Joppa, through the public street,
One morn, when the sirocco spent
Its storms of dust, with burning heat;
“And in the street a leper sate,
Shivering with fever, naked, old;
Sand raked his sores from heel to pate,
The hot wind fever’d him five-fold.
“He gazed upon me as I pass’d,
And murmur’d: Help me, or I die!
—
To the poor wretch my cloak I cast,
Saw him look eased, and hurried by.
“Oh, Brandan, think what grace divine,
What blessing must true goodness shower,
If semblance of it faint, like mine,
Hath such inestimable power!
“Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I
Did that chance act of good, that one!
Then went my way to kill and lie—
Forgot my good as soon as done.
“That germ of kindness, in the womb
Of mercy caught, did not expire;
Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom,
And friends me in the pit of fire.
“Once every year, when carols wake,
On earth, the Christmas-night’s repose,
Arising from the sinners’ lake,
I journey to these healing snows.
“I stanch with ice my burning breast,
With silence balm my whirling brain.
O Brandan! to this hour of rest
That Joppan leper’s ease was pain.”—
Tears started to Saint Brandan’s eyes;
He bow’d his head; he breathed a prayer.
When he look’d up—tenantless lies
The iceberg in the frosty air!
Heine’s Grave
“Henri Heine”—’tis here!
That black tombstone, the name
Carved there—no more! and the smooth,
Swarded alleys, the limes
Touch’d with yellow by hot
Summer, but under them still,
In September’s bright afternoon,
Shadow, and verdure, and cool!
Trim Montmartre! the faint
Murmur of Paris outside;
Crisp everlasting-flowers,
Yellow and black, on the graves.
Half blind, palsied, in pain,
Hither to come, from the streets’
Uproar, surely not loath
Wast thou, Heine!—to lie
Quiet! to ask for closed
Shutters, and darken’d room,
And cool drinks, and an eased
Posture, and opium, no more!
Hither to come, and to sleep
Under the wings of Renown.
Ah! not little, when pain
Is most quelling, and man
Easily quell’d, and the fine
Temper of genius alive
Quickest to ill, is the praise
Not to have yielded to pain!
No small boast, for a weak
Son of mankind, to the earth
Pinn’d by the thunder, to rear
His bolt-scathed front to the stars;
And, undaunted, retort
’Gainst thick-crashing, insane,
Tyrannous tempests of bale,
Arrowy lightnings of soul!
Hark! through the alley resounds
Mocking laughter! A film
Creeps o’er the sunshine; a breeze
Ruffles the warm afternoon,
Saddens my soul with its chill.
Gibing of spirits in scorn
Shakes every leaf of the grove,
Mars the benignant repose
Of this amiable home of the dead.
Bitter spirits! ye claim
Heine?—Alas, he is yours!
Only a moment I long’d
Here in the quiet to snatch
From such mates the outworn
Poet, and steep him in calm.
Only a moment! I knew
Whose he was who is here
Buried, I knew he was yours!
Ah, I knew that I saw
Here no sepulchre built
In the laurell’d rock, o’er the blue
Naples bay, for a sweet
Tender Virgil! no tomb
On Ravenna sands, in the shade
Of Ravenna pines, for a high
Austere
